He took a small dagger from his boot and set it on the dresser.
Her eyebrows rose. “Do you always carry that?”
“No.” He hesitated. “It’s a souvenir from tonight.”
Had he fought then? Rescued some other poor woman attacked in St. Giles?
Had he killed tonight?
She examined his expression, but she found him impossible to read at the moment. His face was closed as tight as a locked room.
The waistcoat came off next and was thrown carelessly over a chair opposite to where Artemis sat. She wondered if he usually had Craven help him undress—most aristocrats did, but then he seemed very comfortable in his movements. She remained silent and at last he glanced over at her.
He sighed. “I was hunting a particular footpad—the one who killed my parents. I thought I might’ve finally found him…” He trailed off, shaking his head bitterly. “But I failed. I failed as I have every other night I’ve hunted. I wasn’t even able to get close enough to see if it was the right man.”
Artemis watched as he stripped his shirt off with a violent movement, revealing those broad shoulders. How many nights had he returned to his house alone, having lost what had seemed a promising trail to his parents’ murderer?
He picked up a pitcher of water from his dressing table and poured into a wash basin. “No words of sympathy?”
She watched him splash water on his face and neck. “Would anything I say make a difference?”
He froze, water dripping from his chin as he leaned over the basin, his back still toward her. “What do you mean?”
She shivered and tucked her feet into the chair beside her, pulling the edge of her wrap over her bare ankles. “You’ve hunted for years now, in secret and alone. Done so without praise or censure. You are a force unto yourself, Your Grace. I doubt anything I said or do would move you.”
He shifted finally, swiveling his head to look at her over his shoulder. “Don’t call me that.”
“What?”
“Your Grace.”
His reply made her want to cry, and she didn’t know why. He was… something to her now, but it was all so complicated, made more so by his title and all it entailed. If only he’d been a pleasantly poor man—a solicitor or merchant. Penelope wouldn’t have been interested in him then. Artemis wouldn’t bear the guilt that she was hurting her dear cousin. They could’ve married and she would tend his house and cook their meals. It would’ve been so much more simpler.
And then, too, she would’ve had him all to herself.
He turned back to the dresser without a word, picked up a flannel cloth, and rubbed it with soap. He raised one arm, the muscles flexing on his back in a rather spectacular show, and washed himself along that side and under his arm.
He dipped the cloth into the basin and repeated the performance on the right side as well before finally glancing over at her just as she shivered again.
Maximus scowled and dropped the cloth into the water. He stoked the fire, making it flame high. Then he strode to his wardrobe and plucked out a lap rug, came to her, and arranged the plush folds over her legs.
“You should’ve told me you were cold.” His hands were infinitely gentle.
“Your water is cold,” she murmured. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
He shrugged. “I find it bracing.”
“Then bring your cloth here.”
He looked at her curiously, but did as she bade.
She took the wet cloth from him. “Turn around and kneel.”
He arched one brow, and she remembered that she was ordering a duke to kneel before her. But he wasn’t just that anymore, was he? He was Maximus now.
Maximus, her lover.
He turned and lowered himself. The fire burnished his broad back, highlighting muscle and sinew.
Slowly she drew the wet cloth between his shoulder blades.
He bowed his head and arched his back.
She took the hint and rubbed the cloth gently over the damp hair at the top of his neck before drawing the cloth down his spine.
He drew in a breath. “I was fourteen when they died.”
She hesitated only a fraction of a second before she smoothed the cloth back up his spine.
“I…” His shoulders moved restlessly. “I didn’t know what to do. How to find their killer. I was angry.”
She thought about a boy deprived of his parents in such a shocking way. “Angry” was probably a great understatement.
“I spent the next two months doing what I had to. I was the duke.” His shoulders bunched and flexed. “But every night I thought about my parents—and what I would do to their murderer when I found him. I was fairly tall for my age—nearly six feet tall—and I thought I could defend myself. I started going into St. Giles at night.”
Artemis shuddered at the thought of any boy—for a fourteen-year-old youth was still a boy to her mind—going into St. Giles after dark, no matter how tall he might be.
“I had a fencing master and I considered myself quite good,” Maximus continued. “Still, it wasn’t enough. I was badly beaten and robbed by a footpad one night. I got two black eyes. Craven was quite angry.”
“You had Craven even then?”
He nodded. “Craven had been my father’s valet. I suspect he made inquiries. The next day as I lay in bed, I had a caller.”
She drew the cloth gently over his shoulders. “Who?”
“His name was Sir Stanley Gilpin. He was a business partner and friend of my father’s—not a particularly close one, actually, as I found out later.”
“Why did he visit?” She’d finished washing his back, but she was loath to stop touching him. Gingerly she stroked a bare finger over the bunched muscle at his neck. It was so hard.
“That’s what I wondered,” he said, swiveling his head a bit. She couldn’t tell if he disliked her touch or not, but he didn’t protest, so she laid her hand against his skin, feeling the heat. “I’d never met him before. That first day he stayed an hour, talking about Father and other, more inconsequential things.”
“First day?” she questioned softly, daring to place both hands on his back. “He came back?”
“Oh, yes.” He bowed his head and arched his back into her hands, like a giant cat urging her to stroke. “He came back every day for the week that I was abed. And then at the end of that week he told me he could train me so that I wouldn’t be beaten the next time I went to St. Giles to look for my parents’ murderer.”
Her hands stilled for a moment as she heard his words. On the one hand, she was glad someone had cared enough—been strong enough—to train him so he wouldn’t be hurt. On the other, he’d been only fourteen.
Fourteen and already preparing for a life of hunting.
It seemed wrong somehow.
He pushed back against her hands in silent command, so she began rubbing over his shoulder blades, feeling the thick flesh bound over strong bone.
He sighed and his shoulders seemed to relax a bit. “I went with him and found that he had a sort of training place—a big room in his house where there were sawdust dummies and swords. He showed me how to use the swords not as a gentleman, but as the footpads might. He taught me not to fight fair, but to fight to win.”
“How long?” she asked, her voice choked.
“What?” He started to look over his shoulder, but she dug her thumbs into the ropes of muscle on either side of his spine. Instead he groaned and let his head fall.
“How long did you train like this with Sir Stanley?” she whispered.
“Four years,” his voice was almost absent. “Mostly by myself.”
“Mostly?”
He shrugged. “At the beginning, when I first came, there was another boy, a sort of ward of Sir Stanley’s. Actually I suppose he was a young man—he must’ve been eighteen at the time. I remember that he fought ferociously—when he wasn’t reading—and he had a dry sense of humor. I rather liked him.”
Maximus’s admissi
on was almost whispered to himself. Artemis felt tears prick at her eyelids. Had he had any friends of his own age after his parents’ death—or had he spent all his time training for revenge? “What happened to him?”
Maximus was silent so long she thought he might not answer, but then he rolled one shoulder. “Went off to university. I remember I got a package from him once—a book. Moll Flanders. It’s rather risqué. I think I still have it around here somewhere. Later, after I’d left, Sir Stanley trained a third boy. I’ve met him once or twice. I suppose we three were sort of Sir Stanley’s legacy. Strange. I haven’t spoken to either about that time—about any of it—in years.” He sounded troubled.
She swung her legs down from the chair and settled them on either side of his shoulders, spread wide, so that she might more comfortably rub his arms. They were so strong—simply corded with muscle—and yet he was only a man. Didn’t all men need companionship? Friendship?
Love?
His head lolled against her right thigh, a heavy weight that made her aware that she wore only a chemise and wrap. For many moments they were quiet together as she stroked his arms and back and the fire crackled.
She was rubbing her thumbs in circles on the ball of his shoulder joints when she asked, “When did you become the Ghost?”
She thought he might refuse to talk more, but he answered readily enough, “When I was eighteen. Sir Stanley and I rather fought about it. I wanted to go into St. Giles by myself earlier, but he hadn’t wanted me to. By eighteen, though, I made my own decisions.”
She knit her brows. There was something she was missing. To go into St. Giles was one thing…
“Why did you wear a harlequin’s costume?”
He chuckled, tilting his head back so he could see her eyes. “That was Sir Stanley’s idea. He had rather an odd sense of humor, and he was quite excited by the theater. He had a costume made for me and said that a man in a mask can hide not only his identity, but the identity of his family. He can move about like a ghost.”
She brought her hands up on either side of his lean, upside-down face. “But what a strange idea.”
He shrugged. “I’ve sometimes wondered if Sir Stanley hadn’t been the Ghost of St. Giles in his youth. The legend is older than my tenure.”
“Your tenure?”
“The boys who sparred with me. They were Ghosts as well. All three of us, at different times, and sometimes at the same time.”
“Were?” She swallowed. “Are they dead?”
“No,” he said lazily. “Merely retired. I’m the only Ghost of St. Giles remaining.”
“Mmm.” He sounded so lonely. She bent over him, nearly near enough to kiss. “Maximus?”
His eyes were watching her lips. “Yes?”
“Why were you in St. Giles when your parents died?”
There was a second when she knew she’d pried too far. When his gaze froze and his sable eyes iced over.
Then he was pulling her head down. “I don’t remember,” he murmured against her lips just before he kissed her.
Chapter Fourteen
For a year Lin rode pillion behind King Herla in his awful wild hunt. The phantom horse between her legs labored and strained but did not make a sound. She saw King Herla bring down great stags and mighty boars, but he never once celebrated his success. Only sometimes, after she had bagged a hare or small hart, did he turn his head and she felt the weight of his gaze upon her. Then she would see that he watched her, his pale eyes cold and bleak and so very, very lonely.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
It was odd kissing a man upside down—odd, but also oddly erotic. Artemis could feel Maximus’s lips slanted across hers, the shadow of his beard on his chin scratching faintly against her nose. In this position, their lips didn’t quite fit together properly, so to compensate she had to open her mouth wide, as did he. It wasn’t elegant, this strange twisting of tongues, this driven mingling of mouths. This was passion made elemental, even though there was no hurry at all.
She felt his hand reach up, grasping her head to hold her in place for the ravishment of her mouth. He broke away for a second and she saw a flash of determined sable eyes, then he twisted his torso to face her. He leaned into her widespread legs and wrapped one arm about her waist as the other brought her face back to his. She thought she heard him murmur, “Diana,” and then he was kissing her again.
Slowly, thoroughly.
She let her lips fall apart on a gasp and felt the sure thrust of his tongue into her mouth. He didn’t hurry, as if he had all the time in the world to hold her thus and explore her inner depths. She made a sound, a sort of low groan that in any other circumstances would’ve caused her embarrassment, but she was so drugged, so heady with the wine of his kiss, that she didn’t even think about it. Nothing existed but his mouth, his lips, the thick intrusion of his tongue. She couldn’t imagine wanting anything else ever.
But he broke from her, withdrawing his tongue, his lips, though she whimpered and made an aborted move to follow him.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her like a predator. Calculating, waiting.
He held her gaze, and she saw a faint smirk curl one corner of his mouth. The rug was suddenly gone from her lap, and then she felt the slide of her skirts up her legs.
“Do you remember that morning?” he asked, his voice impossibly deep. “You emerged from the pond like a goddess triumphant. You’d flaunted your ankles the day before”—he brushed warm fingers over her left ankle, making her shiver—“but that morning I saw the tender curve of your inner thigh, the sweet bend of your knee, the shy sweep of your calf. You revealed them as coyly as a siren singing a man to his ecstatic death—and you didn’t even know it, did you? By the time you reached the shore I was hard as iron.”
She blushed at his words, remembering that morning. She had no idea she’d affected him so. To think that they’d talked calmly and all the time his penis had been engorged with want for her.
The very thought made her wet.
Her gaze darted down to his hands on her thighs and then back up to meet those knowing, watchful eyes. He smiled as if he could hear her thoughts. He was bunching the skirts of her wrap and thin chemise in his big fists, slowly drawing the fabric up, revealing her legs—and if she didn’t protest, much more.
And this time she knew exactly what the sight of her legs did to him.
He silently cocked an eyebrow in challenge.
But if he was a predator, all masculine danger, then she was his rightful mate. She’d roamed the forest alone as a child. Had swum the pond, stalked squirrels, climbed trees like a wanton. Deep inside, hidden by the bland costume of a lady’s companion, she was just as dangerous as he.
Just as daring.
So she let her own mouth curl as she leaned back in the chair. If he expected maidenly fear or outrage from her, he’d be disappointed.
She wasn’t a maiden anymore.
His eyes lit with almost boyish mischief, his usually stern mouth curling further, and he inclined his head, just slightly, as if in approval.
And then he pushed her skirts up over her hips in one movement, baring everything below her waist to his gaze.
She swallowed a gasp. He wouldn’t frighten her into crying off.
He held her gaze, not even looking at what was spread just below his chin, as he turned his body completely, slowly thrusting his long legs under the chair so he sat on the floor facing her, her lap like a feast before him. His thumbs rubbed slow circles on her hipbones as if to gentle her or maybe to keep her relaxed. Although if that were his purpose, it wasn’t working. She still held his gaze in defiance, but her breath was quickening as if she were climbing a staircase.
Abruptly he looked down.
He stilled, simply staring at her. He made no movement, but there was a wild possessiveness in his eyes that made something inside her stretch and purr in response. He wanted her. Wanted this part of her. She was suddenly jealous of any oth
er woman he’d ever looked at like this. He hadn’t the right—they hadn’t the right. This look, his expression, this moment was only between them and no one else.
They were a universe of two.
It was almost unbearably intimate, but she made herself watch as he spread wide his fingers and drew his hands down over her hipbones, over that tender spot where thigh met hip, until his forefingers brushed her curling hair. His thumbs continued down under her leg until he held each of her upper thighs in his hands. He pushed, slowly, inevitably, making her widen her legs further, helping her to hook one leg over the arm of the chair, until she lay open before him, a lewd offering.
He bowed before her then, like a priest worshipping at an altar, and she watched, her breath catching and breaking in her lungs, as he licked her.
The touch of his hot, moist tongue against her there was so exquisite that she trembled and shut her eyes. It was the most amazing feeling, both terrible and right, and she knew that she would never be the same after this moment. Here, now, he was tearing down the walls of her facade, crumbling the stone, dissolving the mortar. Laying bare the woman within, and the most frightening thing was she wasn’t completely sure who that woman was.
She’d never met her.
He spread her folds with his thumbs and licked into her crevasse, and she arched her neck and groaned. Loudly. Deeply. Without any way to stop the sound.
She felt him open his mouth against her flesh as if he would inhale her, and her heart beat so fast she thought she might die. He laid the flat of his tongue against her nub and pressed and kissed and sucked, and she swore her heart stopped beating completely. It was like a seizure, like a spasm of the soul. Her body quaked, and she caught his head between her palms to hold him there against her. Her hips moved gently, beneath his mouth, rising and falling to meet his relentless kiss. She threw her head back, her back arching, as he flicked his tongue against her, fast and hard and obscene, wet noises filling the room. She didn’t know if she would survive if he went on, but she knew she would die if he stopped.
And when the culmination hit her, she rose. Like an eagle spreading her wings, catching a hot, percussive wave from an explosion below.
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