Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(52)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Lady Penelope has lent her to me,” Phoebe said as she felt for a chair and lowered herself into the seat. “We’ve been shopping.”

Hero rolled her eyes at Artemis. “She didn’t take you to that terrible tobacconist, did she?”

“Well…” Artemis tried to think of how to answer.

“It’s not terrible,” Phoebe said, rescuing her. “Besides, how else am I to surprise Maximus with snuff?”

“Maximus has quite enough snuff as it is,” Lady Hero said as two girls began placing tea things on the little table between them. “And I can’t help but think ’tisn’t quite respectable for an unmarried lady to be seen in such an establishment.”

Phoebe’s brows drew together ominously. “That’s the very shop you buy Lord Griffin’s snuff at.”

Hero looked smug. “And I’m no longer a maiden.”

“Shall I pour?” Artemis hastily cut in.

“Please,” Lady Hero said, distracted. “Oh, there are fairy cakes. I always like fairy cakes.”

“I did get something for you as well,” Phoebe said and fished the little bumblebee notebook from her pocket.

“Oh, Phoebe, you are a dear!” Lady Hero’s face shone with genuine delight.

Artemis felt a twinge of sadness. Of course the notebook wasn’t for Phoebe herself—she wasn’t sure the girl could see to read or write anymore. She looked down, careful to steady her hand as she poured. It wouldn’t do to spill the hot tea.

“It looks just like the one Mother used to have,” Hero murmured, still examining the notebook.

“Really?” Phoebe leaned forward.

“Mmm.” Her elder sister looked up. “Do you remember? I showed you it when you were in the schoolroom. Mother used it to remember names. She was dreadful at it, you know, and she hated to admit it, so she always had the notebook and a small pencil with her…” For a moment Lady Hero’s voice trailed away, and she stared into space as if looking at something far distant from the cozy teahouse. “She forgot it that night, for I found it in her rooms months later.” Lady Hero frowned at the small notebook. “It must’ve vexed her—they’d gone to the theater, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Artemis said, though she wasn’t sure Lady Hero had been speaking to her. “I thought they were killed in St. Giles.”

“They were,” Lady Hero murmured, tucking the little notebook away before accepting a dish of tea. “But why they were there no one knows. St. Giles is quite the opposite direction home from the theater they’d attended. What’s more, they were on foot. The carriage was left streets away. Why they left the carriage and why they headed into St. Giles is a mystery.”

Artemis knit her brows as she poured a second dish. “Doesn’t the duke know why they went that way on foot?”

Lady Hero glanced at Phoebe before staring into her tea. “I don’t know if he can remember.”

“What?” Phoebe looked up.

Lady Hero shrugged. “Maximus doesn’t like to talk about it—you know that—but over the years I’ve gleaned bits and pieces here and there. As far as I can tell, he won’t talk about anything that happened that night after the last act of the play.”

For a moment they were silent as Artemis poured herself the last dish of tea.

“He saw them killed, I have no doubt,” Lady Hero whispered. “When the coachman and footmen found them, Maximus was lying over their dead bodies.”

Artemis blinked at the terrible image and carefully set down her teacup. “I didn’t know he was wounded.”

Lady Hero looked up, her eyes weary with an old sorrow. “He wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Unaccountably, Artemis’s eyes blurred. The thought of Maximus, so strong, so sure, broken as a boy and huddling over the bodies of his parents… it was simply too awful to contemplate.

“I wish I could’ve known them.” Phoebe broke the silence. “And Maximus, too, before… Well, he must’ve been different.”

Lady Hero smiled, as if at a fond memory. “I remember he had a terrible temper and was quite spoiled. Maximus once threw a plate of roasted pigeons at a footman because he had wanted beefsteak for his dinner. The plate hit the footman’s face—his name was Jack—and broke his nose. I don’t think Maximus had meant to hurt the footman—he simply hadn’t thought before he acted—but Father was furious. He made Maximus apologize to poor Jack, and Maximus wasn’t allowed to ride his horse for an entire month.”

Phoebe wrinkled her brows in thought. “I can believe the temper—Maximus is quite frightening when he loses his calm—but I can’t even imagine him acting that impulsively. He must’ve been very different as a boy.”

“He was different before Mother and Father were killed,” Lady Hero said pensively. “Afterward he was so quiet—even when he started speaking again.”

“Strange how people can change,” Phoebe said. “It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.” Lady Hero shrugged. “I personally find it stranger how often people don’t change—no matter what happens around them.”

Artemis lifted her brows. “Have you a particular person in mind?”

Lady Hero sniffed. “Certain males can become quite ridiculously protective. Can you imagine? Griffin thought I should stay abed today just because I felt a little ill this morning. You would think he’d never seen…”

Lady Hero swallowed the rest of her sentence, but she seemed unable to stop her hand drifting to her middle.

Artemis raised her eyebrows.

“Never seen what?” Phoebe asked.

“Well…” Lady Hero actually blushed.

Artemis cleared her throat, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I may be wrong, but I believe you are about to become an aunt, Phoebe. Again.”

A good deal of squealing ensued.

Artemis signaled the maid for another pot of tea.

When Phoebe had at last quieted and Artemis had poured everyone a fresh dish of tea, Lady Hero sat back. “It’s just that he becomes so brooding.”

Artemis mentally thought that Lord Griffin—a rakish man who often had a grin on his face—could never touch the brooding of Hero’s brother, but she forbore pointing this out.

Phoebe piped up. “Your confinement with sweet William went well. Surely he’ll remember that?”