Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(75)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“I need to see what Alderney has come about,” he murmured to her. “I won’t be a moment. Stay here until I return.”

She merely closed her eyes, but he took that as assent, quickly dressing and running down the stairs.

Alderney was bent nearly in half, examining a curio on an Italian marble table, but he straightened with a jerk when Maximus entered the sitting room.

“Oh! Ah, good morning, Your Grace.”

“Good morning.” Maximus gestured to a settee. “Will you sit?”

Alderney lowered himself to the settee and sat fidgeting for a moment.

Maximus raised an eyebrow impatiently. “You wanted to see me?”

“Oh! Oh, yes,” Alderney said as if startled out of a reverie. “I thought it best to come and tell you at once because you seemed to think it so important before.”

Here he stopped and blinked expectantly at Maximus.

“Tell me what?”

“That I’d remembered,” Alderney replied. “Who gave me that pendant you showed me. Well, he didn’t really give it, now did he? More like I won it from him. You see, he said that the tabby cat that came ’round the kitchens of our house would have three kittens and I said rubbish, there were at least six in there, and when the cat finally let us see her kittens—wary little thing she was, she’d hidden them under the porch—it turned out that I was quite right, there were six and so he had to give me the pendant.”

Alderney took a deep breath at the end of this recitation and beamed.

Maximus inhaled very carefully. “Who gave you the pendant?”

Alderney blinked as if surprised that Maximus hadn’t worked it out for himself. “Why, William Illingsworth, of course. Now, where he’d gotten it, I haven’t a clue. Came back from the hols with the thing and was showing all the boys and the next night after I got it off Illingsworth, well, then I went to play a game of dice with several of the boys and that’s when I lost it to Kilbourne.” Alderney looked sad. “Poor Kilbourne. I quite liked him at school, don’t you know, though we called him Greaves back then as his father was still alive and he hadn’t yet inherited the courtesy title.”

Maximus stared. “Illingsworth.”

“Yes,” Alderney said brightly. “It only came to me last night because my wife said that the ginger cat our children keep in the nursery is expecting, and then naturally I thought of that wager I made with Illingsworth.”

“Do you know where William Illingsworth is now?” Maximus said without much hope of a positive answer.

“Right now, no.” Alderney shook his head gravely. “But if you go ’round to his house his servants might have an idea.”

“His house,” Maximus repeated.

“Why, yes,” Alderney replied. “Lives over on Havers Square. Not the nicest address, but then he lives off a limited income. His pater was something of a gambler.”

“Thank you,” Maximus said, rising at once.

“What? What?” Alderney looked startled.

“My butler will see you out. I’ve an appointment.”

Maximus barely waited until the man had left the room before bounding back up the stairs. There was still time. If he could just make her listen to him…

He opened the door to his bedroom and saw at once that he’d run out of time after all.

Artemis was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

The burning coal in Lin’s hands turned into her own dear brother, Tam. He jumped from the phantom horse he rode and as his feet touched the earth he once more was mortal.

Tam grinned up at Lin. “Sister! You’ve saved me, but now you, too, must leave the wild hunt in order to live once again.”

Lin looked from her brother’s joyful face to that of the Herla King, but he avoided her gaze, his eyes already set on a ghostly horizon, resigned to his eternal chase.…

—from The Legend of the Herla King

Artemis slipped out the back door of Wakefield House, what few belongings she had clutched in a pathetic soft bag in her hands. She hesitated, panic beating at her breast. She had to leave—leave right now while she could, when Maximus wasn’t before her, tempting her with everything she hoped for and could never have—but she had no idea where to go. It didn’t seem right to seek Penelope out—not after what she’d done with Maximus. And she certainly couldn’t ask Lady Hero or Lady Phoebe.

The door opened behind her and she braced herself. Not again. Oh, dear God, she wasn’t sure she could go through this all over again with Maximus. She felt as if a part of her soul had been torn out, the wound bleeding, slow and steadily, somewhere internally.

But the voice that addressed her was feminine.

“My dear.”

She turned to see Miss Picklewood regarding her with deep compassion. “Can I be of help?”

And for the first time in her life Artemis Greaves burst into tears.

MAXIMUS STRODE FROM the front of his house and called for a horse. This was all he had left, it seemed: revenge. Well if that was so, then he intended to complete his task quickly and with the most amount of blood possible.

In minutes he was trotting down the street.

Havers Square was indeed not in a very fashionable area of London. The house itself was an old half-timbered affair, though not nearly as broken down as something found in St. Giles. Maximus dismounted and gave a small boy a shilling to watch his horse. Illingsworth apparently rented only the top two floors of the house, and luckily he was at home. Maximus was shown up the stairs and into a cramped sitting room by an elderly maid who simply left him there without a word.

Maximus turned, inspecting his surroundings. The room had been furnished with a mishmash of furniture, some of which had been expensive at one time. The dirty grate wasn’t lit, probably as a cost-saving measure, and the two framed engravings upon the wall were cheap.

The door to the sitting room opened.

Maximus turned to see a man in a frayed green banyan, stained on the front with something that might be egg yolk. He wore a soft cap on his head and was unshaven, a patchy ginger beard straggling up a thin face with cheekbones so sharp it looked like the skin of his face was pulled too tight over them.

“Yes?” Illingsworth asked warily.

Maximus held out his hand. “I’m Wakefield. I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?”

Illingsworth stared at his hand, perplexed, before taking it. His palm was damp.

“Yes?” he repeated.

Evidently his host wasn’t going to offer him a seat.