Duke of Midnight (Maiden Lane #6)(74)

“I suppose he thought it a good deed.”

He arched an incredulous eyebrow before writing, I’ve lost my voice, not my power of reason.

“Well, of course not.”

But he kept writing. I don’t like such closeness with a duke.

She lifted her chin. “Would you have me only associate with earls and viscounts, then?”

He bumped her shoulder with his, and wrote, Very funny. You know what I mean.

He was the dearest person in the world to her, and she hated to lie to him. Still, the truth would do nothing but anger him. “Don’t worry about me, darling. A duke would never be interested in a lady’s companion. You know Lady Phoebe is my friend. I’m here to act as her companion while her cousin, Miss Picklewood, is away. Nothing more.”

He stared at her suspiciously until she pointed out that his tea would grow cold if he didn’t finish his breakfast. After that they sat together in companionable silence as she watched him eat.

But she couldn’t shake her own words, for without meaning to she’d spoken the truth: a duke truly didn’t have any reason to consort with her. Maximus had never said anything about making their arrangement more permanent. What if he only wished to bed her for a few nights and nothing more? What would she do then? What they’d done made it impossible for her to live again as Penelope’s companion—even if her cousin never found out the truth. Artemis simply couldn’t deceive Penelope in such an awful manner.

Her actions had laid waste to her former life.

MAXIMUS FELT HIS heart beat faster that night as he made his way through the shadows of London dressed as the Ghost of St. Giles. It was as if he could no longer keep a raging beast inside. Nearly twenty years—more than half his life—he’d spent in this hunt. He’d not married, not sought out friendship or lovers. All his time, all his thought, all his soul was bent on one thing:

Avenging his parents. Finding their killer. Making the world somehow right again.

And tonight, now, he was as close as he’d ever been to failure.

It began to rain as if the heavens themselves wept at his weakness.

He paused, tilting his face to the night sky, feeling the drops run cold down his face. How long? Lord, how long must he search? Was Craven right? Had he done penance enough or would he forever toil?

A shout came from nearby, and without turning he ran into the night. The cobblestones were slippery beneath his boots, and his short cape whipped away behind him as if mocking his attempt at flight. The rain was relentless, but that didn’t stop the denizens of London from coming out. He passed two dandies mincing their way along, holding their cloaks over their heads. Maximus merely ducked to the side when one pointed and yelled. A horse shied as he passed, as if the animal knew the blackness blown over his soul.

More people up ahead. He’d come out too early.

Maximus darted to the right and grasped a pillar supporting an overhanging second story. He pulled himself up only to find himself face-to-face with a fair-haired child in a nightgown at the window. He paused, startled, as the child stuck a finger in her mouth and simply stared, then he began climbing again. The tiled roof was slippery, but he hoisted himself up and over the edge and began running. The rain beat down, soaking his tunic, making the shingles slippery, turning the world into a house of mourning.

Below, the people streamed through the rain, miserable and wet, while above he leaped from rooftop to rooftop, soaring through the air, risking with each jump a fatal fall to the ground.

He neared St. Giles. He knew because he could smell it: the stink of the channel, the rot of bodies living on nothing but despair and gin—always gin. He fancied he could smell the stench of the liquor itself, foul and burning, with the sweet note of juniper. Gin pervaded this entire area, drowning it in disease and death.

The thought made him want to vomit.

He stalked the night, running through the rain, haunting the rooftops of St. Giles for minutes, days, a lifetime, perhaps even forgetting what he’d come here for.

Until he found it—or rather him.

Below, in a yard so small it had no name, he saw the highwayman called Old Scratch. The man was mounted and had a whimpering youth cornered, his pistol aimed at the boy’s head.

Maximus acted on instinct and entirely without plan. He half-slid, half-climbed down the side of the building, dropping between the boy and Old Scratch.

Without hesitation Old Scratch turned his pistol on Maximus and fired.

Or tried to.

Maximus grinned, rain sliding into his mouth. “Your powder’s wet.”

The boy scrambled to his feet and fled.

Old Scratch tilted his head. “So ’tis.”

His voice was muffled by the wet scarf bound around the lower half of his face. He seemed entirely unafraid.

Maximus stepped closer and, though the light was dim, he finally got a clear look at the emerald pinned at the other man’s throat. Saw it and recognized it.

He stilled, his nostrils flaring. Finally. Dear God, finally.

His gaze flicked up to the obscured eyes of the man on the horse. “You have something that’s mine.”

“Do I?”

“That,” Maximus said, pointing with his chin. “That emerald belonged to my mother. The last of two. Do you have the other one still as well?”

Whatever he’d expected from Old Scratch, it wasn’t the reaction he got: the man threw back his head and bellowed with laughter, the sound echoing off the tilting brick walls that surrounded them. “Oh, Your Grace, I should’ve recognized you. But then, you’re not the sniveling boy you were nineteen years ago, are you?”