Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(61)

“Stop!” Artemis tore herself from his hand and hurried to her brother. “Apollo, you must stop.”

Kilbourne grimaced horribly, his hand clutching his throat.

“Let me see.” Artemis placed her small hand on his great paw. “Craven, would you be so kind as to bring us some water, wine, and a few cloths?”

“Right away, ma’am.” The valet turned.

“Bring foolscap and a pencil as well,” Maximus said.

Craven hurried from the room.

“Darling,” she crooned to the monster, and Maximus couldn’t stop the stab of jealousy, even if it was her brother. “You must let me have a look.”

The great paw dropped.

Artemis drew in a sharp breath.

Even from his stance behind her, Maximus could see the black bruise stamped upon Kilbourne’s throat.

It was in the shape of a boot.

She turned to look at Maximus, her beautiful gray eyes stricken.

He took her hand again, this time to comfort rather than to restrain. Kilbourne watched with narrowed eyes as his sister curled her fingers about Maximus’s hand. For a madman he seemed uncommonly aware.

Artemis turned to help her brother to lie down upon the cot. He might’ve regained consciousness, but he obviously was still injured. She smoothed the blanket over his chest and murmured softly to him as they waited interminably for Craven’s return.

It seemed like hours later when Craven reentered the cellar, bearing the requested items.

Artemis immediately took one of the cloths the valet held and dipped it in the jug of water he’d brought. She wrung out the cloth and laid it on her brother’s throat, her movements exquisitely gentle.

Maximus waited until she was done before handing the pencil and paper to Kilbourne.

The man looked at him, then propped himself on one elbow to scratch out words on the paper.

Maximus bent to read the bold, scrawled hand:

When can I leave?

APOLLO WAS ALIVE. That was the main thing, Artemis reminded herself late that afternoon as she trailed Phoebe from shop to shop. Even if he still—distressingly—couldn’t talk, even if Maximus seemed to think her darling brother mad—despite her protests and Apollo’s own quite sane manner this morning—at least he was safe.

Everything else could be managed as long as he was alive and safe. Apollo would heal and speak again, and she would somehow persuade Maximus of what an idiot he was being.

Apollo would be all right.

“Artemis, come see.”

She brought herself back to the present at Phoebe’s eager urging. Shopping with Phoebe was nothing like shopping with Penelope. Penelope shopped like a general planning a major campaign: she had objectives, strategies for assault and retreats—though she hardly ever retreated—and the ruthless eye of a woman ready to slaughter her enemy—in this case the shopkeepers of Bond Street. Despite Penelope’s great wealth, she seemed to consider it her duty to bargain down the price on everything she bought.

Artemis had once witnessed a shopkeeper acquire a tic under his eye after two hours of waiting upon Lady Penelope Chadwicke.

In contrast, Phoebe shopped like a honeybee in a field of wildflowers: erratically and with no clear purpose in mind. So far they’d stopped at a stationer’s, where Phoebe had flitted from bound books to blank sheets of foolscap, caressing the papers and bindings with sensitive fingers. She’d finally alighted on a darling little blank notebook bound in dyed green calfskin and embossed in gold bumblebees—rather fitting, that. Afterward they’d wandered into a perfume shop, where Phoebe had sniffed delicately at a bottle and sneezed for the next ten minutes, complaining under her breath about the overuse of ambergris. That had been a relatively short stop. Phoebe had tried another few bottles and then left, whispering that the proprietor hadn’t the proper nose for perfumes.

Now they stood in a tobacconist’s as Phoebe poked into different jars. Behind the jars of finely ground tobacco were twists of leaf tobacco for smoking.

Artemis wrinkled her nose—she’d never particularly cared for the aroma of tobacco smoke. “Does your brother imbibe from a pipe?”

“Oh, Maximus never smokes a pipe,” Phoebe said absently. “Claims it makes his throat dry.”

Artemis blinked. “Who are you buying the tobacco for, then?”

“No one,” Phoebe said dreamily, inhaling. “Did you know that even the unscented tobacco has different, distinct odors?”

“Erm, no.” Artemis hesitantly peered over the smaller woman’s shoulders. Although she could see a slight variation in the color of the tobacco powder in the rows of open jars, they all looked virtually the same to her.

The proprietor of the shop, a man with a long, sloping face and a belly to match, beamed. “My lady has a wonderful sense for the leaves.”

Phoebe’s cheeks pinkened. “You flatter me.”

“Not at all,” the man said. “Would you like to sample the snuff? I just received a new shipment from Amsterdam. Would you believe it’s scented with lavender?”

“No!” Apparently lavender was an unusual scent. Phoebe looked quite excited.

Half an hour later they exited the shop with Phoebe clutching a small pouch of the precious snuff. Artemis eyed it doubtfully. Many fashionable ladies took snuff, but Phoebe seemed a little young for such a sophisticated hobby.