Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(22)

He cleared his throat. What had possessed him to tell her that? “Mother always said that this was the Moon Maiden’s tower.”

She looked at him with those bold gray eyes. “Well, there must be a story in that.”

He shrugged. “She used to tell it to me when I was very young. Something about a sorcerer who fell in love with the Moon Maiden. He built a tower to try and be closer to her and walled himself inside.”

She stared at him for a moment as if waiting for something. “And?”

He glanced at her, puzzled. “And, what?”

She widened her eyes. “How does the story end? Did the sorcerer win his Moon Maiden?”

“Of course not,” he said irritably. “She lived on the moon and was quite unattainable. I suppose he must’ve starved or pined away or fallen off the wall at some point.”

She sighed. “That’s the least romantic story I’ve ever heard.”

“Well it wasn’t my favorite,” he said, sounding defensive to even his own ears. “I liked the ones about giant killers much better.”

“Hmm,” she answered noncommittally. “Can one go inside?”

Instead of answering he strode to the arched entryway, a bit hidden by briars. Ruthlessly, he pulled them aside, ignoring the scrapes on his fingers, then gestured for her to walk in ahead.

She glanced at his hands, but made no comment as she passed him.

There was a spiral staircase immediately inside, and he watched as she lifted her skirts to climb it. A bare ankle flashed and then the dogs pushed past him to follow her eagerly.

He followed her as well, but naturally not as eagerly as the dogs. At least that was what he told himself.

The staircase opened onto a small stone platform. He made the last step and joined her by the low wall, which was crenellated like a medieval castle’s battlements.

She braced her hands straight-armed on the wall and leaned over to look. The folly wasn’t high—no more than a single story—yet one had a nice view of the pond and the surrounding woods. Belle reared up on her hind legs beside her to look as well, while Percy whined and paced, unable to see. A gentle breeze teased a few strands of hair at Miss Greaves’s temple, and he couldn’t help but think she looked like a ship’s figurehead—proud and somewhat wild and ready for adventure.

What an extraordinarily foolish thought.

“It’s quite silly, isn’t it?” she said after a moment, almost as if speaking to herself.

He shrugged. “A folly.”

She cocked her head, looking at him. “Was your father a man given to amusements?”

He remembered the strong hands, the kind but somber eyes. “No, not much.”

She nodded. “Then he loved your mother quite a lot, didn’t he?”

He caught his breath at her words, the loss as bleak and frozen as if it’d happened yesterday. “Yes.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Lucky” wasn’t an attribute most people assigned to him. “Why?”

She closed her eyes and tilted her face to the sun. “My father was mad.”

He looked at her sharply. Craven had made his report last night. The late Viscount Kilbourne had been estranged from his own father, the Earl of Ashridge, and the rest of his family, and had been known for making wild, unfortunate investments—and, at his worst, raving in public.

He supposed the normal thing to do would be to offer some word of sympathy, but he’d long ago used up all his tolerance for polite, meaningless phrases. Besides. She’d been brave enough to forgo the usual false comfort when he’d told her of his own loss. It seemed only just to offer her the same dignity.

Still, he couldn’t help a small frown as he thought of her as a small girl, living with an unpredictable sire. “Were you frightened?”

She glanced at him curiously. “No. One always thinks one’s upbringing—one’s family—is perfectly normal, don’t you think?”

He’d never considered the matter: dukes weren’t, generally speaking, considered normal. “In what way?”

She shrugged, her faced tilted toward the sun again. “One’s own family and situation are all one knows as a child. Therefore they are, by default, normal. I thought everyone had a papa who sometimes stayed awake all night writing philosophical papers, only to burn them all in a rage in the morning. It was only when I was old enough to notice that other fathers didn’t act like my own that I realized the truth.”

He swallowed, oddly perturbed by her recitation. “And your mother?”

“My mother was an invalid,” she said, her voice precise, unemotional. “I rarely remember them in the same room together.”

“You have a brother,” he replied, testing.

Her brow clouded. “Yes. My twin, Apollo. He’s in Bedlam.” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide open and sharp. “But then you already know that. My brother is notorious and you’re the type of man to find out all he can about a prospective wife.”

There was no reason to feel shame so he neither denied nor confirmed that he’d had her investigated along with her cousin. He simply held her gaze, waiting.

She sighed, turning away from the wall. “Lady Penelope will want me soon.”

He followed her down the short staircase, watching her level shoulders, the vulnerable angle of her nape as she bent her head to watch her steps, the companionable bump of Percy against her skirts. It would be the height of idiocy for the Duke of Wakefield to pursue the cousin of the woman he wanted as wife. And yet, for the first time in his life, Maximus wanted to let the man rule him instead of the title.