Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(32)

The slight gasp that came from behind them most definitely sounded like a choked-off laugh this time.

“Oh, I’m sure His Grace has other, more cerebral skills,” came Miss Greaves’s voice in suspiciously dulcet tones.

Lady Penelope looked as if she were deciphering the word cerebral.

“I spend a great deal of time in Parliament,” he replied in what even to his own ears sounded like a damnably pompous tone. “I’m glad to see that you’ve regained your voice, Miss Greaves.”

“I never lost it, I do assure you, Your Grace,” Miss Greaves responded sweetly. “But are we to understand that you don’t practice fencing at all? If so, your performance yesterday—at least at the beginning of your duel with the Duke of Scarborough—must be a veritable miracle. I vow, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you fought with a sword nearly every night.”

He turned slowly on her. What was she about now?

Miss Greaves met his gaze, her own face serene, but there was a wicked gleam at the back of her eyes that made a chill run up his spine.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Artemis,” Lady Penelope said plaintively after a rather awkward beat.

“May I help you don your arm guard, Lady Penelope?” Scarborough asked behind Maximus.

Maximus cursed under his breath. He hadn’t noticed the ass sidling over.

Miss Greaves tutted. “I’m quite shocked by such language from a distinguished parliamentarian, Your Grace.”

“I’m sure that you are anything but shocked, Miss Greaves,” he snapped without thinking.

The corner of her lush mouth quirked in her not-smile, and he had a black urge to take her hand and pull her into the copse. To plunder that enticing mouth until she either smiled frankly or cried aloud in pleasure.

He blinked the erotic image away. What was he thinking? This was the gray little companion of the woman he meant to marry—and a blackmailer to boot. He shouldn’t be feeling anything for her save revulsion.

But revulsion was not the word that came to mind when she leaned a little closer, ridiculously attractive in her dowdy brown frock, and whispered, “You’d better move quickly, Your Grace, or Scarborough will snatch Lady Penelope out from under your nose. He is the more dashing duelist, after all.”

And she sauntered over to stand by Phoebe before he could make a suitable retort.

Maximus scowled and glanced at the ladies readying to shoot. Scarborough had somehow managed to position himself behind Lady Penelope, and with both arms wrapped about her, was tying on her arm guard. Maximus wanted to roll his eyes. Really, why fight for a lady so silly as to fall for such an obvious ploy?

Because it was for the dukedom.

He squared his shoulders and marched toward the couple. “If I might?” Ignoring both Scarborough’s frown and Lady Penelope’s sly smile, he swiftly and competently tied the arm guard on her arm. Stepping back, he couldn’t help but glance to where Miss Greaves and Phoebe stood.

Miss Greaves gave a mocking salute.

He scowled and turned back to make sure his other guests were prepared to shoot.

“We gentlemen assume the role of audience today,” Scarborough said jovially as they stepped aside.

Maximus drifted toward Phoebe and Miss Greaves as Lady Noakes took up her bow.

“Hiding in the back row, Your Grace?” Miss Greaves murmured as he drew near.

Lady Noakes shot her arrow.

“Oh, dear,” Miss Greaves said.

“It went wide, didn’t it?” Phoebe said.

“Nearly hit Johnny,” Maximus said grimly.

“Your footman jumped rather nimbly,” Miss Greaves mused. “Almost as if he’d been given lessons by the Ghost of St. Giles.”

Maximus shot a narrow-eyed look at her.

She smiled—really smiled, teeth and all—back. And despite the circumstances—her blackmail, the people all around them, his anger—he caught his breath in admiration. When Miss Greaves smiled her entire face lit and became utterly beautiful.

Maximus looked away, swallowing.

Phoebe giggled. “I can see why you sought refuge back here with us, dear brother. Self-preservation is the better part of valor, I think.”

They watched in silence as both Mrs. Jellett and Lady Oddershaw shot rather wildly, though Mrs. Jellett’s arrow found the target through some fluke of the wind that seemed to surprise even her.

Maximus cleared his throat, loath to admit either his own cowardliness or his guests’ lack of talent with a bow and arrow. “Lady Penelope has a fine form.” The lady was angling herself as she drew her string back.

“Oh, indeed,” Miss Greaves said earnestly. “She practices on her form quite often.”

They watched in silence as Lady Penelope’s arrow hit the rim of the target and bounced off.

“Her aim is another matter, of course,” Miss Greaves murmured.

Maximus winced as Johnny crept cautiously into the field to retrieve the arrows shot so far. The footman was a braver man than he.

“She’s going for another shot,” Scarborough said, and indeed Lady Penelope had assumed her archer’s stance again. She made a very fine figure, he noticed dispassionately: the cherry-red ribbons twined in her ebony locks fluttered in the wind, and her profile was almost Grecian.