Duke of Midnight

“Oh, I think I’ll manage,” he said.

His nose caught the aroma of the chicken and his mouth began to water helplessly. There’d been a time when he’d never thought much about his next meal—beyond wishing vaguely that cherry pie might be served every day. It wasn’t that their family had been rich—far from it, in fact—but they’d never lacked for food. Bread and cheese and joints of roast and buttered peas and peaches stewed in honey and wine. Fish pie and those little muffins his mother had sometimes made. Dear God, the first slurp of oxtail soup, the bits of meat so tender they melted on his tongue. Juicy oranges, roasted walnuts, gingered carrots, and that sweet made from sugared rose petals. Sometimes he spent days simply thinking about food—no matter how much he tried to drive the thoughts from his mind.

He’d never again take food for granted.

Apollo looked away, trying to distract himself as she took out the chicken. He would put it off as long as possible, the inevitable descent into becoming a ravening, mindless animal.

He shifted awkwardly, the chains clinking. They gave him straw for both settee and dainty bed, and if he rummaged a bit he might find some cleanish spot for his sister to sit on. Such were the only comforts he could offer a guest to his cell.

“There’s cheese and half an apple tart I wheedled from Penelope’s cook.” Artemis’s expression was gentle and a little worried, as if she knew how close he was to falling on her present and swallowing it all in one maddened gulp.

“Sit here,” he said gruffly.

She sank gracefully, her legs folded to the side as if they were on some pastoral picnic rather than a stinking madhouse. “Here.”

She’d placed a chicken leg and a slab of the tart on a clean cloth and held it out to him. He took the treasure carefully, trying to breathe through his mouth without seeming to. He clenched his jaw and inhaled slowly, staring at the food. Self-control was the only thing he had left.

“Please, Apollo, eat.” Her whisper was almost pained, and he reminded himself that he was not the only one being punished for one night of youthful folly.

He’d destroyed his sister that night as well.

So he raised the leg of chicken to his lips and took one delicate bite, placing it back on the cloth, chewing carefully, keeping the madness at bay. The taste was wonderful, filling his mouth, making him want to howl with eager hunger.

He swallowed, lowering the cloth with its contents to his lap. He was a gentleman, not an animal. “How is my cousin?”

If Artemis were less a lady she would’ve rolled her eyes. “She’s up in the boughs this morning over a ball we’re attending tonight at Viscount d’Arque’s town house. Do you remember him?”

Apollo took another bite. He’d never moved in the most elite circles—hadn’t the money for that—but the name tweaked a memory.

“Tall, dark fellow with a bit of a manner? Witty and knows it?” And a devil with the ladies, he thought but did not say aloud to his sister.

She nodded. “That’s him. He lives with his grandmother, Lady Whimple, which seems a little odd, considering his reputation. The ball I’m sure is completely planned by her, but it’s usually in his name.”

“I thought Penelope went to balls almost every night of the week?”

A corner of Artemis’s mouth quirked. “Sometimes it seems like it.”

He bit into the tart, nearly moaning over the crisp-sweet apple. “Then why the excitement over d’Arque’s ball? Has she set her cap at him?”

“Oh, no.” Artemis shook her head ruefully. “A viscount would never do. She has plans for the Duke of Wakefield, and rumor has it he may attend tonight.”

“Does she?” Apollo glanced at his sister. If their cousin finally settled on a gentleman to marry, then Artemis might very well be out of a home. And he could do absolutely nothing about it. His jaw tensed and he reined in the urge to bellow his frustration. He took another deep breath and drank from the flask of beer she’d brought him. The warm, sour taste of hops settled him for a moment. “Then I wish her well in the endeavor, though perhaps I should be commiserating with His Grace—Lord knows I wouldn’t want our cousin’s sights on me.”

“Apollo,” she chided softly. “Penelope is a lovely girl, you know that.”

“Is she?” he teased. “Known for her philanthropy and good works?”

“Well, she is a member of the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children,” his sister said primly. She plucked a piece of straw and twisted it between her fingers.

“And she once wanted to put all the little boys at the orphanage in yellow coats, you told me.”

Artemis winced. “She does try, really she does.”

He took pity on his sister and rescued her from her doomed defense of their mercenary cousin. “If you believe so, then I’m sure ’tis true.” He eyed the way she was bending the piece of straw into angular shapes between her fingers. “Is there something else about tonight’s ball that you’re not telling me?”

She looked up in surprise. “No, of course not.”

He tilted his chin at the mangled straw in her hands. “Then what is disturbing you?”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose at the bit of straw and threw it away. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just that last night…” One hand crept up to touch the fichu that covered the center of her chest.

“Artemis.” The frustration was nearly overwhelming. Were he free he could question her, find out from servants or friends what was the matter, pursue and make right whatever troubled her.

In here he could but wait and hope that she would tell him the truth of what her life was like outside.

She looked up. “Do you remember that necklace you gave me on our fifteenth birthday?”

He remembered the little green stone well enough. To a young boy’s eyes it had looked like a real emerald and he’d been more than proud to give such a wonderful present to his sister. But that wasn’t what they’d been talking about. “You’re trying to change the subject.”

Her lips pursed in a rare expression of irritation. “No, I’m not. Apollo—”

“What happened?”

She huffed out a breath of air. “Penelope and I went to St. Giles.”

“What?” St. Giles was a veritable stew of lowlifes. Anything could happen to a gently reared lady in such a place. “God, Artemis! Are you all right? Were you accosted? What—”

She was already shaking her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Don’t.” His head jerked back as if the blow had been physical. “Don’t keep things from me.”

“Oh.” Her expression was immediately contrite. “No, my dear, I shan’t keep anything from you. We were in St. Giles because Penelope had made a very silly wager, but I took the dagger you gave me—you remember the one?”

He nodded, keeping his anguish under wraps. When he’d gone away to school at the age of eleven, he’d thought the dagger a clever gift. After all, he’d been leaving his twin sister in the care of their half-mad father and a mother bedridden by illness.

But what had seemed a decently sized dagger to a boy was to a man a too-small weapon. Apollo shuddered at the thought of his sister trying to defend herself—in St. Giles—with that little dagger.

“Hush now,” she said, bringing his attention back to the present with a squeeze of her fingers. “I admit we were accosted, but it ended all right. We were saved by the Ghost of St. Giles, of all men.”

Obviously she thought this bit of information reassuring. Apollo closed his eyes. ’Twas said the Ghost of St. Giles murdered and raped and worse. He didn’t believe the tales, if for no other reason than that no one man—even a mad one—could’ve done all that he was accused of. Still. The Ghost wasn’t exactly a harmless kitten.

Apollo opened his eyes and took both his sister’s hands in his. “Promise me you won’t follow Penelope into another of her insane schemes.”

“I…” she looked away. “You know I’m her companion, Apollo. I must do as she wishes.”

“She’s liable to break you like a pretty China shepherdess and then throw you away to find a new plaything.”

Artemis looked shocked. “She’d never—”

“Please, my darling girl,” he said, his voice hoarse, “Please.”

“I’ll do my best,” she whispered, cupping her hand against his cheek. “For you.”

He nodded, for he had no choice but to be content with that promise. And yet he couldn’t help but wonder.

When he was gone, who would worry over Artemis?

Chapter Two

Long, long ago when Britain was young, there lived the best of rulers. His name was King Herla. His mien was wise and brave, his arm was strong and swift, and he loved nothing better than to go a-hunting in the dark, wild wood.…

—from The Legend of the Herla King

The Earl of Brightmore was many things, Artemis thought that night: a respected peer, a man very aware of his wealth, and—in his best moments—a Christian capable of adhering to the letter, if not the spirit, of compassion, but what he was not was an attentive father.

“Papa, I told you yesterday at luncheon that I was to attend the Viscount of d’Arque’s ball this eve,” Penelope said as her lady’s maid, Blackbourne, fussed with the bow of her half cloak. They were in the grand entrance hall to Brightmore House waiting for the carriage to pull around from the mews.

“Thought you were there last night,” the earl said vaguely. He was a big man with bulbous blue eyes and a commanding nose that rather overtook his chin. He’d just arrived home with his secretary—a withered little man with a frightening head for numbers—and was doffing his tricorne and cape.

“No, darling,” Penelope said, rolling her eyes. “Last night I was dining with Lady Waters at her house.”

Artemis felt like rolling her eyes but refrained, because of course last night they’d been busy being nearly killed in St. Giles and hadn’t been anywhere near Lady Waters’s dining room. Actually, she rather thought Lady Waters might not even be in town at the moment. Penelope lied with a breathtaking virtuosity.

“Eh,” the earl grunted. “Well, you look exquisite, Penny.”

Penelope beamed and twirled to show off her new gown, a brocaded satin primrose gown overembroidered with bunches of flowers in blue, red, and green. The gown had taken a month to put together and cost more than what ninety percent of Londoners made in a year.

“And you, too, of course, Artemis,” the earl said absently. “Quite lovely indeed.”

Artemis curtsied. “Thank you, Uncle.”

For a moment Artemis was struck by how very different this life was from the one she’d known growing up. They’d lived in the country, then, just she, Apollo, Papa, and Mama. Papa had been estranged from his own father, and their household was meager. There had been no parties, let alone balls. Strange to think that she’d become used to attending grand soirees—that she was actually bored by the prospect of yet another one.

Artemis smiled wryly to herself. She was grateful to the earl—who was really a distant cousin, not her uncle. She’d never met either him or Penelope while Papa and Mama still lived, and yet he’d taken her into his house when she’d become a social pariah. Between her lack of dowry and the stigma of familial madness, she had no hope of marrying and having a household of her own. Still, she couldn’t quite forget that the earl had refused—absolutely and without opportunity for appeal—to help Apollo as well. The most he’d done was make sure that Apollo was hastily committed to Bedlam instead of going to trial. That had been an easy enough job for the Earl of Brightmore: no one wanted an aristocrat hanged for murder. The elite of society wouldn’t stand for such a thing—even if the aristocrat in question had never moved much in society.