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

“I thought Penelope went to balls almost every night of the week?”

A corner of Artemis’s mouth quirked. “Sometimes it seems like it.”

He bit into the tart, nearly moaning over the crisp-sweet apple. “Then why the excitement over d’Arque’s ball? Has she set her cap at him?”

“Oh, no.” Artemis shook her head ruefully. “A viscount would never do. She has plans for the Duke of Wakefield, and rumor has it he may attend tonight.”

“Does she?” Apollo glanced at his sister. If their cousin finally settled on a gentleman to marry, then Artemis might very well be out of a home. And he could do absolutely nothing about it. His jaw tensed and he reined in the urge to bellow his frustration. He took another deep breath and drank from the flask of beer she’d brought him. The warm, sour taste of hops settled him for a moment. “Then I wish her well in the endeavor, though perhaps I should be commiserating with His Grace—Lord knows I wouldn’t want our cousin’s sights on me.”

“Apollo,” she chided softly. “Penelope is a lovely girl, you know that.”

“Is she?” he teased. “Known for her philanthropy and good works?”

“Well, she is a member of the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children,” his sister said primly. She plucked a piece of straw and twisted it between her fingers.

“And she once wanted to put all the little boys at the orphanage in yellow coats, you told me.”

Artemis winced. “She does try, really she does.”

He took pity on his sister and rescued her from her doomed defense of their mercenary cousin. “If you believe so, then I’m sure ’tis true.” He eyed the way she was bending the piece of straw into angular shapes between her fingers. “Is there something else about tonight’s ball that you’re not telling me?”

She looked up in surprise. “No, of course not.”

He tilted his chin at the mangled straw in her hands. “Then what is disturbing you?”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose at the bit of straw and threw it away. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just that last night…” One hand crept up to touch the fichu that covered the center of her chest.

“Artemis.” The frustration was nearly overwhelming. Were he free he could question her, find out from servants or friends what was the matter, pursue and make right whatever troubled her.

In here he could but wait and hope that she would tell him the truth of what her life was like outside.

She looked up. “Do you remember that necklace you gave me on our fifteenth birthday?”

He remembered the little green stone well enough. To a young boy’s eyes it had looked like a real emerald and he’d been more than proud to give such a wonderful present to his sister. But that wasn’t what they’d been talking about. “You’re trying to change the subject.”

Her lips pursed in a rare expression of irritation. “No, I’m not. Apollo—”

“What happened?”

She huffed out a breath of air. “Penelope and I went to St. Giles.”

“What?” St. Giles was a veritable stew of lowlifes. Anything could happen to a gently reared lady in such a place. “God, Artemis! Are you all right? Were you accosted? What—”

She was already shaking her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Don’t.” His head jerked back as if the blow had been physical. “Don’t keep things from me.”

“Oh.” Her expression was immediately contrite. “No, my dear, I shan’t keep anything from you. We were in St. Giles because Penelope had made a very silly wager, but I took the dagger you gave me—you remember the one?”

He nodded, keeping his anguish under wraps. When he’d gone away to school at the age of eleven, he’d thought the dagger a clever gift. After all, he’d been leaving his twin sister in the care of their half-mad father and a mother bedridden by illness.

But what had seemed a decently sized dagger to a boy was to a man a too-small weapon. Apollo shuddered at the thought of his sister trying to defend herself—in St. Giles—with that little dagger.

“Hush now,” she said, bringing his attention back to the present with a squeeze of her fingers. “I admit we were accosted, but it ended all right. We were saved by the Ghost of St. Giles, of all men.”

Obviously she thought this bit of information reassuring. Apollo closed his eyes. ’Twas said the Ghost of St. Giles murdered and raped and worse. He didn’t believe the tales, if for no other reason than that no one man—even a mad one—could’ve done all that he was accused of. Still. The Ghost wasn’t exactly a harmless kitten.

Apollo opened his eyes and took both his sister’s hands in his. “Promise me you won’t follow Penelope into another of her insane schemes.”

“I…” she looked away. “You know I’m her companion, Apollo. I must do as she wishes.”

“She’s liable to break you like a pretty China shepherdess and then throw you away to find a new plaything.”

Artemis looked shocked. “She’d never—”

“Please, my darling girl,” he said, his voice hoarse, “Please.”