Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(82)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

She pursed her lips.

“Yes,” he insisted, turning her until she faced him. “Nothing is too good for the mother of my child.” Her cheeks deepened to rose and she bit her lip, though that didn’t stop the smile she was trying to stifle. “You’re sure now, aren’t you? That’s what this morning was about?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I’m certain.”

The grin she gave him was brighter than the sun. It echoed the swell of happiness in his heart as he bent to capture her lips with his.

Together they turned to go into the house in search of fish pie and gooseberry jam.

Epilogue

“Wait!” Faith cried. “Where are you going?”

“To meet the Devil,” the Hellequin said.

“Then I shall come with you,” she replied.

He looked at her, and for a moment Faith thought she saw an emotion in his eyes: sorrow. Then he held out his hand to her.

Faith took his hand and he pulled her in one movement onto the back of the big black horse. She wrapped her arms around his middle and for a very long time they rode in silence through the Plain of Madness.

At last a towering stone arch appeared before them, jagged and black.

“Is this Hell?” Faith whispered.

“Yes,” the Hellequin said, “this is the mouth of Hell. Remember: whatever the Devil says to you, he has no power over you, for you live and breathe. He rules only the dead.”

Faith nodded and gripped the Hellequin tighter. The Hellequin rode the big black horse through the Mouth of Hell and into utter darkness. Faith looked about her, but she could see nothing and hear nothing. It was a place so hollow and bleak and cold that had she been alone, she might’ve simply shriveled up and lost herself. But Faith still held the Hellequin, and as she laid her cheek against his broad back, she heard the steady thump of his heart. A thing in the shape of a man appeared before them, and though he was pale and thin and not particularly tall, the utter void of humanity in his eyes made Faith shudder and look away.

Even so, the Hellequin took her hand and dismounted, leading her to stand with him before the thing.

“You’ve let loose the soul I sent you to collect,” the Devil said, for of course it was he.

The Hellequin bowed his head.

“You know,” the Devil said quietly, “what forfeit you must pay.”

Faith’s heart squeezed. “What is he talking about?” she asked the Hellequin. “What is the forfeit?”

“My soul,” the Hellequin replied. “The Devil demands a soul and since I lost one, I must pay him back with my own.” “No!” cried Faith.

The Devil’s thin, cold lips curved as if he were amused. “The living are so passionate. Shall I chain you to a red-hot rock and roast your flesh for a hundred years, girl?”

Faith lifted her chin, and though it made her tremble to do so, she met the Devil’s pitiless gaze. “I live. You have no power over me.”

“Ah. The Hellequin has been speaking out of turn, I see.” The Devil shrugged. “Begone from my domain, then, human.”

“I shall go,” Faith said, “but not without the Hellequin.” The Devil threw back his head and laughed—a sound like a blade drawn along a whetstone. “Silly girl. The Hellequin is not human and hasn’t been for a thousand years.”

“He drinks like a human,” Faith said.

The Devil’s eyes narrowed.

“He eats and he sleeps like a human as well,” she continued bravely, hope rising in her chest. “How is he not a human?”

“He does not draw breath like a human,” the Devil snapped.

Faith’s eyes widened and she saw that she had lost, for the Hellequin had never drawn breath the entire time she’d ridden with him.

Faith turned to the Hellequin, her eyes swimming in tears, and stood upon tiptoe to place her palms on either side of his black face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

And she laid her mouth on his and with a kiss blew air from her lungs into his.

The Devil shrieked in rage and around Faith and the Hellequin a roaring wind began to spin. The wind rose, spinning higher and faster until all Faith could do was close her eyes and cling to the Hellequin.

Then the wind was gone and she opened her eyes to find that it was night and they both stood on the crossroads where her beloved had breathed his last breath. The Hellequin was making an odd rasping sound. He clutched his side and fell to his knees.

Faith knelt beside him, alarmed. “What is wrong?” “Nothing,” he said. “It hurts to draw breath after a millennia of stillness.”

He threw back his head and laughed—and unlike the Devil his laughter sounded warm and alive.

The Hellequin drew Faith into his arms. “Dearest, you have given me food, drink, and sleep. You have made my heart beat and breathed life into my dead lungs. You have outwitted the Devil and saved me from Hell, a thing I have never seen before. I am not a good man like your beloved, but if you will take me as husband, I will spend the rest of my mortal life learning how to make you love me.” Faith smiled. “I love you already, for you would have given your own immortal soul simply to free my beloved’s—and to please me.”

And she pulled his head down and gave him the first of many kisses as a mortal man.

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

THREE MONTHS LATER…

As Lady Penelope Chadwicke’s companion, Artemis had witnessed many ill-advised ideas. There had been the time Penelope had decided to take over the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children—and had been pelted with cherry pits. Once Penelope had tried to start a fashionable craze by using a live swan as an accessory—who knew how irritable swans were? Then there had been the debacle involving the shepherdess costume and the sheep. A year later the scent of wet wool still made Artemis flinch.

But—hissing swans notwithstanding—Penelope’s ideas weren’t usually dangerous.

This one, however, might very well get them killed.

“We’re in St. Giles and it’s dark,” Artemis pointed out with what she hoped was a persuasive tone. The street they were on was deserted, the tall houses on either side looming in a rather sinister manner. “I do think that fulfills the letter of your wager with Lord Featherstone, don’t you? Why don’t we go home and have some of those lovely lemon curd tarts that Cook made this morning?”

“Oh, Artemis,” Penelope said with that disparaging tone that Artemis had really come to loathe, “the problem with you is that you have no sense of adventure. Lord Featherstone won’t hand over his jeweled snuffbox unless I buy one of those awful tin cups of gin at precisely midnight and drink it in St. Giles, and so I shall!”