Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(72)

The door had hardly closed behind her lovely bottom when the valet turned slowly to Maximus and pinned him with a gaze that would’ve done justice to the King in one of his fouler moods. “Pardon me, Your Grace, but I hope you’ll not mind if I speak bluntly—”

“Would it matter?” Maximus muttered under his breath, wishing he’d at least had his morning cup of tea before his own valet raked him over the coals.

Craven didn’t bother acknowledging the interruption. “I wonder if you’ve quite lost your bloody mind?”

Maximus began soaping his face in a rather vicious manner. “If I wanted your opinion, I would’ve—”

“Much as it pains me to speak to you in this manner,” Craven said, “I feel I must. Your Grace.”

Maximus snapped his mouth shut and snatched up his razor, making sure his hand was steady before setting the blade to his jaw. He could feel Craven behind him and he knew without turning that the valet would be standing at attention, shoulders back, head held high.

“A gentleman does not ravish a lady,” Craven said. “A lady, moreover, living under his own roof and therefore in his protection.”

Maximus banged the razor against the wash basin, feeling irritated at both Craven and himself. “I’ve never ravished a woman in my life.”

“What else to call the seduction of an unmarried lady of gentle birth?”

It was a well-aimed volley and Maximus felt the hit. She’d already told him that she’d been hurt previously by her ass of a fiancé—was he, in the end, any better? No, of course not. At least that doctor’s son hadn’t gone so far as to seduce her.

As Maximus had.

Was he hurting her, his goddess? Did she hide a heart bruised from his careless actions? The mere thought made him want to punch walls. No one should hurt her so, least of all him. Craven was right: he was a cad and a rogue, and if he were any sort of gentleman at all, he’d give her up. Break off the thing and set her free.

And yet he wouldn’t. Quite simply, he could not bear to let her go.

He took a deep breath and said tightly, “Craven, what is between Miss Greaves and myself is of no concern of yours.”

“Isn’t it?” The other man’s voice had an edge Maximus had rarely heard in it before. “If not my business, then whose? Do you listen to your sisters, Miss Picklewood, the men you call friends in Parliament?”

Maximus turned slowly to look at the valet. No one spoke to him thus.

Craven’s face was sagging and he looked every inch of his years. “You are a law unto yourself, Your Grace. You always have been. It’s what helped you to survive the tragedy. It’s what made you a great man in Parliament. But it also means that when you are wrong there is no one to make you pause.”

Maximus’s eyes narrowed. “And why should I pause?”

“Because you know what you have done—what you are doing—is not right.”

“It was she who came to my bed, not the other way ’round,” Maximus muttered, feeling heat flush his neck even as he gave the feeble excuse.

“A gentleman has full control over his urges—all his urges,” Craven said with just a hint of sarcasm. “Would you blame the lady for your own fault?”

“I blame no one.” Maximus turned back to his dresser, unable to meet his valet’s eyes. He scraped the stubble from his right cheek.

“And yet you should.”

“Craven.”

Craven’s voice sounded old. “Tell me you mean to marry the lady and I’ll gladly celebrate.”

Maximus froze. What he wanted and what was best for the dukedom was entirely separate. “You know I cannot. I plan to marry Lady Penelope Chadwicke.”

“And you know, Your Grace, that Lady Penelope is a frivolous fool not worth half of you. Not worth half of Miss Greaves, for that matter.”

“Have care,” Maximus said, frost dripping from his lips. “You malign my future duchess.”

“You haven’t asked her.”

“Yet.”

Craven held out pleading hands. “Why not make this right? Why not marry the lady you’ve already bedded?”

“Because, as you well know, her family is diseased with madness.”

“So are half the aristocratic families of England.” Craven snorted. “More than half if we count the Scots. Lady Penelope herself is related to Miss Greaves and her family. By your estimation she is not fit to be your duchess, either.”

Maximus gritted his teeth and breathed out slowly. Craven had been there at his christening. Had taught him how to shave. Had stood behind him when he’d laid his mother and father in a cold crypt. Craven wasn’t just a servant to him.

Which was why Maximus made sure to keep his voice level as he discussed something so utterly private with the man. “Lady Penelope doesn’t have a brother who is a murderous madman. To take Miss Greaves as my duchess would taint the dukedom. I owe it to my forebears, to my father—”

“Your father would never have made you marry Lady Penelope!” Craven cried.

“Which is why I shall marry her,” Maximus whispered.

Craven simply looked at him. It was the same look he’d given Maximus when he’d snapped at one of his sisters as a youth, when Maximus had drunk too much wine for the first time, when he’d refused to speak for that fortnight after his parents’ death. It was the look that said, This is not behavior becoming of the Duke of Wakefield.