Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(66)

He tumbled to the ground, heavy hooves flying close to his head. Instinctively, he ducked and rolled as the sound of hoofbeats retreated.

For a moment he lay against a wall gulping air.

“You let him get away.” The voice was Trevillion’s and slightly out of breath.

Maximus looked up with a glare. “Not on purpose, I assure you.”

The dragoon captain grunted, looking tired. He was leading his horse, having entered the alley from a very narrow lane.

Maximus rose, glancing from the narrow lane to Trevillion’s rangy mare. “I’m surprise you didn’t get stuck in there.”

The other man raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I think Cowslip’s surprised, too.” He gave the mare an affectionate pat on the neck.

Maximus blinked. “Cowslip?”

Trevillion glared. “I didn’t name her.”

Maximus grunted noncommittally. He supposed he hadn’t any leg to stand on, considering the names his sister had given his dogs. He bent to examine the ground close to the wall of the opposite building.

“What are you looking for?”

“He dropped his dagger. Ah.” Maximus bent and picked up the knife with satisfaction, stepping closer to the dragoon and the better moonlight.

The dagger was a two-edged blade, a simple, narrow triangle, with hardly any guard and a leather-wrapped handle. Maximus turned it in his hands, peering for any sort of mark without result.

“May I?”

Maximus looked up to see the dragoon captain holding out his hand. His hesitation was only a split second long, but he saw Trevillion’s knowing glance anyway.

Maximus handed over the dagger.

The dragoon examined it and then sighed. “Common enough. It could belong to almost anyone.”

“Almost?”

A corner of Trevillion’s thin lips cocked up. “He’s an aristocrat. I’d bet Cowslip on it.”

Maximus slowly nodded. Trevillion was an intelligent officer, but then he’d always known that.

“Did you get a look at his face?” the captain asked, handing him back the dagger.

Maximus grimaced. “No. Slippery as an eel. He made sure I couldn’t catch hold of that scarf.”

“Outwrestled by a man older than you?”

Maximus glanced up sharply.

Trevillion shrugged at his look. “He had a small bit of paunch about his middle and he sat his saddle a bit stiffly. He’s athletic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were older than forty.” He considered a moment as if thinking over what he remembered of the highwayman, then nodded to himself. “He might even be older than that. I’ve seen men on the far side of seventy riding to the hounds without problem.”

“I think you’re right,” Maximus said.

“Was there anything else you noticed about Old Scratch?”

Maximus thought about that glint of green at the highwayman’s throat and decided to keep that hint to himself. “No. What do you know of the man?”

“Old Scratch is without fear—or morals, as far as I can see.” Trevillion looked grim. “He not only robs both rich and poor, he doesn’t hesitate to harm or even murder his victims.”

“How broad is the area he frequents?”

“Only St. Giles,” Trevillion said promptly. “Perhaps because he meets little resistance or because the people here are more vulnerable and not as protected.”

Maximus grunted, staring at the knife in his hands. A highwayman who hunted only in St. Giles and said he’d not been back for many years. Could he be the man who’d murdered his parents so long ago?

“I have to return to my men.” Trevillion placed his boot in Cowslip’s stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle.

Maximus nodded, tucking the highwayman’s dagger into his boot, and turned.

“Ghost.”

He stopped and looked at the captain.

The other man’s face gave nothing away. “Thank you.”

IF ONLY APOLLO could talk. Artemis frowned as she crept down the darkened hall that night, Bon Bon trotting at her heels. It was past midnight, so everyone ought to have been asleep in Wakefield House—well, everyone save Craven, who she’d left guarding her brother. The valet never seemed to sleep. One presumed he must be fulfilling his duties to Maximus, yet he somehow managed to care for Apollo as well.

Artemis shook her head. Craven was a capable nurse—though she didn’t like to think how he’d come by his experience—yet Apollo still couldn’t speak. Otherwise her brother seemed to be getting better, but every time he tried to utter a word, his throat only produced strangled sounds. Sounds that quite obviously caused him a great deal of pain. She just wished he could tell her he was better in his own words instead of scrawled handwriting.

Then she might believe him.

The corridor outside Maximus’s door was deserted. Still she looked nervously around before she tapped at the door. She might have decided to embrace her path as a fallen woman, but it seemed it was hard to quell the fears of a lifetime.

Artemis waited, shifting from one foot to another, disappointment seeping through her breast as the door remained silently closed. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to see her again. Perhaps he’d thought it only a one-time event. Perhaps he was bored with her now.

Well. She wasn’t yet finished with him.