Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(63)

“I didn’t know,” Artemis said, though she wasn’t sure Lady Hero had been speaking to her. “I thought they were killed in St. Giles.”

“They were,” Lady Hero murmured, tucking the little notebook away before accepting a dish of tea. “But why they were there no one knows. St. Giles is quite the opposite direction home from the theater they’d attended. What’s more, they were on foot. The carriage was left streets away. Why they left the carriage and why they headed into St. Giles is a mystery.”

Artemis knit her brows as she poured a second dish. “Doesn’t the duke know why they went that way on foot?”

Lady Hero glanced at Phoebe before staring into her tea. “I don’t know if he can remember.”

“What?” Phoebe looked up.

Lady Hero shrugged. “Maximus doesn’t like to talk about it—you know that—but over the years I’ve gleaned bits and pieces here and there. As far as I can tell, he won’t talk about anything that happened that night after the last act of the play.”

For a moment they were silent as Artemis poured herself the last dish of tea.

“He saw them killed, I have no doubt,” Lady Hero whispered. “When the coachman and footmen found them, Maximus was lying over their dead bodies.”

Artemis blinked at the terrible image and carefully set down her teacup. “I didn’t know he was wounded.”

Lady Hero looked up, her eyes weary with an old sorrow. “He wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Unaccountably, Artemis’s eyes blurred. The thought of Maximus, so strong, so sure, broken as a boy and huddling over the bodies of his parents… it was simply too awful to contemplate.

“I wish I could’ve known them.” Phoebe broke the silence. “And Maximus, too, before… Well, he must’ve been different.”

Lady Hero smiled, as if at a fond memory. “I remember he had a terrible temper and was quite spoiled. Maximus once threw a plate of roasted pigeons at a footman because he had wanted beefsteak for his dinner. The plate hit the footman’s face—his name was Jack—and broke his nose. I don’t think Maximus had meant to hurt the footman—he simply hadn’t thought before he acted—but Father was furious. He made Maximus apologize to poor Jack, and Maximus wasn’t allowed to ride his horse for an entire month.”

Phoebe wrinkled her brows in thought. “I can believe the temper—Maximus is quite frightening when he loses his calm—but I can’t even imagine him acting that impulsively. He must’ve been very different as a boy.”

“He was different before Mother and Father were killed,” Lady Hero said pensively. “Afterward he was so quiet—even when he started speaking again.”

“Strange how people can change,” Phoebe said. “It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.” Lady Hero shrugged. “I personally find it stranger how often people don’t change—no matter what happens around them.”

Artemis lifted her brows. “Have you a particular person in mind?”

Lady Hero sniffed. “Certain males can become quite ridiculously protective. Can you imagine? Griffin thought I should stay abed today just because I felt a little ill this morning. You would think he’d never seen…”

Lady Hero swallowed the rest of her sentence, but she seemed unable to stop her hand drifting to her middle.

Artemis raised her eyebrows.

“Never seen what?” Phoebe asked.

“Well…” Lady Hero actually blushed.

Artemis cleared her throat, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I may be wrong, but I believe you are about to become an aunt, Phoebe. Again.”

A good deal of squealing ensued.

Artemis signaled the maid for another pot of tea.

When Phoebe had at last quieted and Artemis had poured everyone a fresh dish of tea, Lady Hero sat back. “It’s just that he becomes so brooding.”

Artemis mentally thought that Lord Griffin—a rakish man who often had a grin on his face—could never touch the brooding of Hero’s brother, but she forbore pointing this out.

Phoebe piped up. “Your confinement with sweet William went well. Surely he’ll remember that?”

“I think he may have some type of wasting brain disease,” Lady Hero said darkly. “He’s been hovering.”

Phoebe bit her lip as if quelling her amusement at her brother-in-law’s worry over his wife’s condition. “Well, in any case, this explains why you were so insistent that we visit the modiste this afternoon.”

Lady Hero immediately brightened. “Yes, I ordered a dress before I knew and that will have to be altered, but besides that I’ve seen some lovely new gowns from Paris especially for ladies in an interesting way. And of course we’ll have to get something for Miss Greaves.”

Artemis blinked, nearly dropping her dish of tea. “What?”

Phoebe nodded, looking unsurprised by her sister’s non sequitur. “Maximus already instructed me this morning to make sure she had at least three new gowns as well as everything else she might need.”

“But…” A lady could never accept a gift of clothing from a gentleman. Even with her spotty education and upbringing, that one rule had been drummed into her. Only a mistress accepted such financial obligation from a gentleman.