Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(8)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Oh. Well, that’s good then.” And nodding to herself, Penelope accepted Lord Featherstone’s arm and proceeded into the town house.

They were greeted by liveried footmen, taking and storing their wraps before they mounted the grand staircase to the upper floor and Lord d’Arque’s ballroom. The room was like a fairyland. The pink-and-white marble floor shone under their feet. Overhead, crystal chandeliers sparkled with thousands of candles. Hothouse carnations in every shade of pink, white, and crimson overflowed from huge vases, perfuming the air with the sharp scent of cloves. A group of musicians at one end of the ballroom played a languid melody. And the guests were arrayed in every color of the rainbow, moving gracefully, as if to an unspoken dance, like a cohort of ethereal fairy folk.

Artemis wrinkled her nose ruefully at her plain gown. It was brown, and if the other guests were fairies, then she supposed she must be a dark little troll. Her gown had been made the first year that she’d come to live with Penelope and the earl, and she’d worn it ever since to all the balls she attended with Penelope. After all, she was merely the companion. She was there to fade into the background, which she did with admirable skill, even if she did say so herself.

“That went well,” Penelope said brightly.

Artemis blinked, wondering if she’d missed something. They’d lost Lord Featherstone and the crowd was thickening around them. “I’m sorry?”

“Wakefield.” Penelope waved open her elaborately painted fan as if her companion could somehow read her mind and thus complete the thought.

“Our meeting with the duke went well?” Artemis supplied doubtfully. Surely not.

“Oh, indeed.” Penelope snapped closed her fan and tapped Artemis on the shoulder. “He’s jealous.”

Artemis gazed at her beautiful cousin. There were several adjectives she might use to describe the duke’s frame of mind when he’d left them: scornful, dismissive, superior, arrogant… actually, now that she thought of it, she was fairly sure she could come up with dozens of adjectives, and yet jealous wasn’t one of them.

Artemis cleared her throat carefully. “I’m not sure—”

“Ah, Lady Penelope!” A gentleman with a bit of a tummy straining the buttons of his elegant suit stepped deliberately in front of them. “You are as lovely as a summer rose.”

Penelope’s mouth pursed at this rather pedestrian compliment. “I thank you, Your Grace.”

“Not at all, not at all.” The Duke of Scarborough turned to Artemis and winked. “And I trust that you’re in the best of health, Miss Greaves.”

“Indeed, Your Grace.” Artemis smiled as she bobbed a curtsy.

The duke was of average height but had a slight stoop that made him seem shorter. He wore a snowy wig, a lovely champagne-colored suit, and diamond buckles on his shoes—which, rumor had it, he could well afford. Gossip also said that he was on the hunt for a new wife, since the duchess had passed away several years previously. Unfortunately, while Penelope could probably forgive the man his stoop and little belly, she was not so sanguine about his age, for the Duke of Scarborough, unlike the Duke of Wakefield, was well past his sixtieth year.

“I am on my way to meet a friend,” Penelope clipped out, trying to dodge the man.

But the duke was the veteran of many a ball. He moved with admirable deftness for his age, somehow catching Penelope’s hand and hooking it through his elbow. “Then I shall have the pleasure of escorting you there.”

“Oh, but I’m quite thirsty,” Penelope parried. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to fetch me a cup of punch, Your Grace?”

“I’d be most delighted, my lady,” the duke said, and Artemis thought she saw a twinkle in his eye, “but I’m sure your companion wouldn’t mind the chore. Would you, Miss Greaves?”

“Certainly not,” Artemis murmured.

Penelope might be her mistress, but she rather had a fondness for the elderly duke—even if he didn’t have a prayer of winning Penelope. She turned sedately, but fast enough to pretend not to hear her cousin’s sputter. The refreshments room was on the other side of the ballroom, and her progress was slow, for the middle of the floor was taken up by dancers.

Yet, her lips were still curved faintly when she heard an ominously rumbling voice. “Miss Greaves. Might I have a word?”

Naturally, she thought as she looked up into the Duke of Wakefield’s cold seal-brown eyes.

“I’M SURPRISED YOU know my name,” Miss Artemis Greaves said.

She wasn’t a woman he would notice under normal circumstances. Maximus gazed down at the upturned face of Miss Greaves and reflected that she was one of the innumerable female shades: companions, maiden aunts, poor relations. The ones who hung back. The ones who drifted quietly in the shadows. Every man of means had them, for it was the duty of a gentleman to take care of females such as she. See to it that they were clothed and housed and fed and, if possible, that they were happy or at least content with their lot in life. Beyond that, nothing, for these types of females didn’t impact on masculine issues. They didn’t marry and they didn’t bear children. Practically speaking they had no sex at all. There was no reason to notice a woman like her.

And yet he had.

Even before last night he’d been aware of Miss Greaves trailing her cousin, always in concealing colors—brown or gray—like a sparrow in the wake of a parrot. She hardly spoke—at least within his hearing—and had mastered the art of quiet watchfulness. She made no move to draw any attention to herself at all.

Until last night.

She’d dared to move to draw a knife on him in the worst part of London, had stared him in the eye without any fear at all, and it was as if she stepped into the light. Suddenly her form was clear, standing out from the crowd around them. He saw her. Saw the calm, oval face and the entirely ordinary feminine features—ordinary save for the large, rather fine dark gray eyes. Her brown hair was pulled into a neat knot at her nape, her long, pale fingers laced calmly at her waist.

He saw her and the realization was vaguely disturbing.

She raised delicate eyebrows. “Your Grace?”

He’d been staring too long, lost in his own musings. The thought irritated him and thus his voice was overharsh. “What were you thinking, letting Lady Penelope venture into St. Giles at night?”

Many ladies of his acquaintance would’ve burst into tears at such an abrupt accusation.