Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(55)

She watched his chest rise and fall and remembered and reflected. All her life things had been taken from her: Apollo, Thomas’s affection, Mama and Papa, her home, her future. No one had ever asked her opinion, garnered her thoughts on what she wanted or needed. Things had been done to her, but she’d never had the chance to do things. Like a doll on a shelf, she’d been moved about, manipulated, flung aside.

Except she wasn’t a doll.

What she might’ve once had: a home, husband, and family of her own was gone now. She would never have them. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t decide to have something else.

That she couldn’t live her life as best she could. As best she wanted.

She could either spend the rest of her life being manipulated and quietly mourning what she’d lost, or she could create a new life. A new reality.

The candles had burned low when Craven opened the door to the chamber again. “Miss? It’s late. I can sit with Lord Kilbourne for the night while you go to bed.”

“Thank you.” She rose, stiff from sitting on the cold stone floor, and looked at the man. “You’ll let me know if he changes?”

“Yes, I will,” he said, and his voice was kind.

Artemis touched Apollo’s cheek and then turned to make her way up the stairs.

Up out of stagnation and despair.

Chapter Eleven

For one hundred years King Herla led his wild hunt, and all those who had the misfortune to see the shadowy riders in the moonlit sky crossed themselves and muttered a prayer, for death often followed such a sighting. On one night of the year, and one night only, King Herla and his hunt became corporeal: the night of the autumn harvest when the moon was full. On that night everyone who could hid in terror, because King Herla sometimes caught up mortals into his wild hunt, dooming them for eternity.

It was on such a night that King Herla captured a young man. His name was Tam.…

—from The Legend of the Herla King

Maximus was just sealing a letter in his sitting room when he heard the door to his bedroom open. Craven had already gone down to tend to Kilbourne, and the other servants had strict instructions not to bother him between the hours of ten at night and six in the morning. Maximus rose and crossed to look in his bedroom.

Artemis stood by his bed, her beautiful dark gray eyes calmly inspecting it.

Something within his veins began to heat. “These are my private rooms,” he said as he strolled toward her.

“I know.” She watched him without any fear. “I’ve come to give you back your ring.”

She unwrapped the fichu from about her neck, revealing the plain square neckline of her dress and the chain that disappeared into the valley between her breasts. Dipping a finger into the shadowy recess, she pulled out the chain and drew it off over her head. He just caught sight of something else on the chain—something green—and then she took the ring off before tucking the chain into a pocket and giving the ring to him. He stepped closer to her and took the ring between his fingers. It was warm from her body heat, as if she’d brought the ancient metal to life. Holding her gaze, he screwed the ring onto his left little finger. As he stared into her eyes she seemed to stop breathing and the color rose, delicately pink, in her cheeks, giving the illusion of vulnerability. Something in him wanted to seize her and lick the tenderness from her sweet skin.

He swallowed. “Why are you here?”

She shrugged one delicate shoulder. “I told you: to bring you your ring.”

“You come to a bachelor’s rooms—bedroom—well after dark all by yourself to give him a trinket you could just as easily hand him in the morning.” His voice was mocking. He wanted to break her suddenly. To make her feel the rage he did at the situation they had been placed in. Were it not for her history—and his—he might’ve courted this woman. Might’ve made her his wife. “Have you no care for your reputation?”

She stepped toward him until she was so close he fancied he breathed the same air as she and when she tilted her face up to look at him he saw that she wasn’t nearly as calm as he’d imagined.

“No,” she murmured, her voice a siren’s song, “none at all.”

“Then I’ll be damned if I will,” he muttered and kissed her.

THERE. THERE IT was again: that whirlpool pulling her in, sweeping away all the doubts and fears and sorrow, all her thoughts. Leaving in their place only feeling, pure and searing. He licked into her mouth with a hot, conquering tongue. Artemis stood on tiptoe, trying to get closer to him, spreading her fingers wide against the silk of his banyan. If she could, she would’ve crawled right into him, made a home for herself in his broad, strong chest, and never emerged again.

This man, she wanted this man, despite his wretched title, his money, his land, his history, and all his myriad obligations. Maximus. Just Maximus. She’d take him bare naked if she could—and be the gladder for it.

The man without the trappings was what she craved, but since his trappings came with him, she’d take them perforce as well.

He pulled back, his chest heaving, and looked at her angrily. “Don’t start something you mean to stop.”

She met his gaze squarely. “I don’t mean to stop.”

His eyes narrowed. “I cannot give you marriage.”

She’d known. She’d never thought he could—she would’ve sworn so had she been asked a minute earlier—but his blunt words were an arrow of pain piercing her heart nonetheless. She bared her teeth in a smile. “Have I asked you to?”