Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(33)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Artemis shook her head, amused at the thought of her cousin using dukes as her errand boys. “Then if there’s nothing else, shall we go down?”

“Yes.” Penelope gave a last careful pat to her hair. “Oh, wait. There was something…” She began rummaging in the mess of jewelry, fans, gloves, and other debris that in the short time they’d been at Pelham House had taken up residence on the vanity. “Here ’tis. I knew I forgot something. This arrived for you this morning by special rider ’round about eight. Ridiculous. Who sends notes so early?”

She held out a rather tattered letter.

Artemis took it, prying off the seal with her thumbnail. There was no use chiding Penelope about the lateness in delivering the letter. Her cousin was perennially absentminded—especially in matters not her own. Hastily, she scanned the cheap paper, words suddenly jumping out at her as she realized that the letter was from the guard at Bedlam that she’d bribed long ago to send word if anything terrible ever happened.

Your brother… dying… come soon.

Dying.

No, this couldn’t be true. Not when she’d finally found a way to get him out.

But she couldn’t take that risk.

Dying.

“Penelope.” Artemis carefully folded the letter, creasing it between her fingertips. Her hands were trembling. “Penelope, I must return to London.”

“What?” Penelope was peering at her nose in the mirror now. She dabbed on a bit of rice powder. “Don’t be silly. We’ve another week and a half at the house party.”

“Apollo is ill. Or”—Artemis drew in a shuddering breath—“he’s been beaten again. I must go to him.”

Penelope sighed deeply, in the same manner as she would if she’d been presented with a new gown and found the lace edging the sleeves not quite up to what she’d expected. “Now, Artemis, dear. I’ve told you again and again that you must learn to forget your… brother.” She shuddered delicately as if even the mere word somehow acknowledged the relationship more than she wished. “He’s quite beyond your help. It’s Christian, I know, to wish to give comfort to him, but I ask you: can one comfort a beast maddened by disease?”

“Apollo is not diseased, nor is he a beast,” Artemis said in a tight voice. Penelope’s lady’s maids were still in the bedroom. They acted as if they had no ears, but Artemis knew full well that servants could hear. She would not succumb to humiliation. Apollo needed her. “He was accused falsely.”

“You know that’s not true, darling,” Penelope said in what really was an attempt to be gentle, Artemis was sure. Unfortunately it only made her want to scream at her cousin. “Papa did all he could for your brother—and you, for that matter. Really, this harping on about that poor, insane thing isn’t very grateful of you. I do think you can do better.”

Artemis wanted to stomp out of the room. To fling Penelope’s rote words back in her face and finally—finally—have done with all this artifice.

But that, in the end, would not serve Apollo.

She still needed her uncle’s help. If she left now, abandoned Penelope and the Earl of Brightmore’s protection, then she might reach Apollo, but she’d have no way of getting him out of Bedlam. Only a powerful man could do that.

Perhaps, in fact, only the Duke of Wakefield.

Yes. That was what she must do. Stay here at the house party—though it near killed her not to fly to Apollo’s side—and make the duke help her. Help Apollo. If she had to, she’d scream the Ghost of St. Giles’s secret identity from the rooftops.

She truly had nothing to lose now.

THAT AFTERNOON MAXIMUS took luncheon with his guests. He sat at the head of the long mahogany table in the great hall at Pelham House and wished for perhaps the first time in his life that one did not have to dine in order of precedence. For what gave dukes the right to sit at the upper end, also decreed that lowly lady’s companions were seated so far away at the bottom of the table that one might as well send a carrier pigeon if one wanted to communicate with said lowly lady’s companion. Not that he did, of course. Whatever had caused the hectic flush in Miss Greaves’s cheeks, the almost manic gesturing, the nearly desperate light in her fine gray eyes… all of that was of no concern to him.

Or shouldn’t be in any case, for he found himself quite unable to keep his attention on his table companion’s chatter.

Not that it was easy at any time to understand Lady Penelope.

That lady fluttered her eyelashes as she said, “And as I told Miss Alvers, one might suggest chocolate after four of the clock, but to actually drink it—and with pickled cucumbers, no less!—can never be correct. Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”

“I haven’t formed an opinion about chocolate, before or after four of the clock,” Maximus replied drily.

“Hadn’t you, Wakefield?” Scarborough, sitting to his left, looked shocked. “I find that deplorable, though no offense is meant—”

“And none taken,” Maximus murmured as he took a sip of his wine.

“But all persons of manners must have an opinion on chocolate,” the older man continued, “and indeed other beverages, and when they ought to be taken, how, and with what other suitable foodstuffs. Lady Penelope shows great sensitivity to have such a pretty turn of mind on the matter.”

Maximus arched a brow at his rival. Really, the man had certainly won this round by the simple expedient of having been able to articulate such nonsense with a perfectly straight face. What was more—he checked Lady Penelope’s expression closely, sighing silently when he found the expected—the lady had swallowed the sweetly wrapped offal, hook, line, and sinker. Maximus discreetly tipped his wineglass to the older man.

Scarborough winked back.

But Lady Penelope was already leaning forward, nearly dipping her abundant cleavage in her fish, to say earnestly to Scarborough, “I’m so thankful you agree, Your Grace. You would not credit it, but Artemis just last week said she didn’t care one way or the other if her tea was taken with blue figured china or red!”

Scarborough inhaled sharply. “You don’t say!”

“Indeed.” Lady Penelope sat back, having delivered this terrible breach of etiquette. “I have both, naturally, but wouldn’t dream of serving anything but coffee in the red, although sometimes”—she peeked coquettishly at Scarborough through her eyebrows—“sometimes I do serve chocolate in the blue.”