“I stole things. Very expensive things.” Her brow furrowed. “I told you I was a thief.”
“Yes, but I assumed ‘thief’ was another word for…”
“Prostitute?”
He scratched his jaw. “I believe my wisest course of action would be to remain silent at this juncture in time.”
“I believe you’re right.” Amused instead of angry, she wandered down to the stream and bent forward to trail her fingers through the cool water. Straightening, she peered back at him, her smile slowly fading. “You can see, then, why we will never suit. I’m a disgraced lady who ran away from home to become a thief, and you’re…you’re a duke. A duke who needs a proper duchess.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe that is what I need. But what I want is you, Artemis.”
She hugged her arms to her chest. “You don’t even know me.”
With a soft chuckle, he approached the stream and wrapped his hands around her slender shoulders. “I know that you’ve a better aim with a knife than anyone I have ever met. I know that you’re fiercely independent and I’d never want to do anything to change that. I know that I prefer you in trousers instead of dresses. And I know that you do want to kiss me, even though you’d rather stab me in the neck than admit it.”
Even though she understood such things to be impossible, Artemis could have sworn she felt her heart skip a beat. “Maybe not the neck,” she managed. “But probably the leg.”
“Let’s save the bloodshed for later, shall we?” His eyes darkening, Warwick slid his palms down her arms, just as she’d imagined he would, and settled them possessively on the jut of her hips. “For now, I’d like that kiss.”
Grabbing onto the lapels of his coat to anchor herself to his sturdy frame, Artemis gave her betrothed exactly what they both so desperately craved.
Chapter Twelve
Artemis didn’t know how long she and Warwick kissed in the grove beside the waterfall that wasn’t a waterfall. Time was irrelevant.
Seconds, minutes, hours?
Sounds dimmed, colors faded, and scents blurred until the only thing left in focus was the weight of Warwick’s mouth as he intensified the kiss, the taste of his tongue as it stole between her lips, the tingling sensation his fingers invoked as they swept up her ribcage to cup her breasts.
Days, weeks, months?
She returned his kiss with a passion that equaled his own, nails digging into his neck as she pressed herself against his chest and the heat that had been slowly growing between them these past few days exploded in a fiery storm of flames and fireworks.
Years, decades, centuries?
On a gasp, Artemis found herself being lowered to the ground. Grass tickled her cheek and leaves crunched beneath her shoulder blades as they used the new angle of their position to explore each other’s bodies in any manner of ways.
With every touch, every kiss, every delicate glide of Warwick’s hand against her flesh, she found herself falling deeper and deeper. Spinning down, down, down into an abyss of satisfied lust and answered longing as waves of pleasure lapped lazily overhead. Until finally, with a tortured groan that she felt all the way in the depths of her soul, Warwick threw himself off her.
After taking a second to tug her waistcoat into place and shove her shirttails into the waistband of her breeches, Artemis joining him in staring at the clouds as her heartbeat gradually returned to its normal rhythm and the humming in her veins began to abate.
“Well,” she said, sliding him a sideways glance. The duke laid sprawled comfortably on his back, arms behind his head and one knee bent, as if he was accustomed to ravishing young maidens in meadows and was unbothered by the passion they’d shared. Only the rapid beat of his pulse on the side of his throat betrayed he wasn’t nearly as unaffected as his expression would lend her to believe. “That was worth the time of travel, at least.”
“Then you still mean to leave when the seven days have expired.” Sharply delivered, it was a statement, not a question.
One that she did not bother to refute.
“I’ve enjoyed myself more than I thought I would.” Sometime during the midst of their embrace her hair had come undone. Bringing it over her shoulder, she began to comb out the knots with her fingers. “You’re not nearly as arrogant and unbearable as you used to be.”
“Is that supposed to be some sort of consolation?” A dark, rakish tendril fell across Warwick’s brow as he lifted himself up on his elbow to stare at her incredulously. “A compliment to soothe my ego before you plunge a blade into my heart?”
“No one is plunging a blade into your heart,” she scoffed.
“And what would you call still walking away after what we just shared?”
“Being practical,” she said, ignoring the sudden tightening in her stomach.
“Ah, yes,” Warwick sneered as he sat up. “Because abandoning your family and becoming a bloody thief was just so damned practical.”
“I didn’t abandon my family!” she denied hotly. “They left me long before I ran from them. I stopped being their daughter as soon as I came of age and became a–a product, something to be sold to the highest bidder.” Slamming her palms into the ground, she ripped out handfuls of grass by the roots as she sprang to her feet. “And just because that highest bidder happened to be you doesn’t mean you can control me!”
“If you’d been paying any attention since you arrived, you’d see that I’ve done anything but try to control you.” Standing, Warwick’s eyes flashed a deep, dangerous shade of gray as he towered above her. “Your freedom is your own, and becoming my duchess wouldn’t change that.”
Hair whipping across her face, she shook her head at him in disbelief. “Becoming your duchess would change everything! I don’t want to pretend I’m someone I’m not. And if I married you, that’s what I would be forced to do every single day for the rest of my life. Maybe if you weren’t a duke–”
“If I wasn’t a duke?” he prompted when she stopped herself short.
A muscle quivered in her jaw as she turned her chin to the side and glared at the stream. “It doesn’t matter. You are who you are. I am who I am. Nothing will change that.”
On a vicious oath, Warwick grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a quick, painless shake. “We can change that, Artemis. We can. If we tried.”
“I suppose this is us trying?” she said with a caustic laugh. “We cannot go five minutes without attacking each other. What a marriage that would make. Us yelling from opposite ends of the parlor as Grieves sends me disapproving looks from the corner of the room and our guests sip their tea.”
“We wouldn’t argue like this all of the time.”
She snorted. “Just most of the time, then.”
“We challenge each other, Artemis.” He squeezed her arms. “That isn’t a bad thing. In fact, that is why I–” He cut himself off.
“Why you what?” she asked suspiciously.
He hadn’t been about to say what she thought he was going to say, had he?
Nonsense, she told herself.
And even if he did say that he loved her…what would it change?
Nothing.
But maybe…just maybe…it would change everything.
A vein pulsing in his temple, Warwick released her and threw his hands out. “I don’t know what else to say or do to convince you that I wouldn’t try to control you, Artemis. That I accept you exactly as you are, trousers and all. That as my duchess you could do whatever you damned well pleased, and hang anyone who says otherwise.”
For a moment, she wavered.
For a moment, she thought of their kiss.
For a moment, she thought of how he made her feel.
Angry, yes. No one had the ability to enrage her more than Warwick. He’d been doing it since they first met, and she imagined that if they stayed together he’d only grow more infuriating with age. But perhaps Warwick was right. Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. To challenge. To be challenged. One thing was for
certain: they’d never be bored.
They could even be content.
The two of them.
Together.
“I…” A boulder lodged itself in her throat. “I cannot.”
Shoving past him, Artemis untied her mare and vaulted into the saddle. Collecting the reins, she spun Mae in a circle before she applied her heels and did what she did best…
She ran.
Warwick let her go. What other choice did he have? Chase after her into the underbrush? No, better to give them both the space they needed to calm down and clear their heads. He’d catch up with her later, at the manor. When that panicked glint of fear had faded from her eyes and she was ready to have a reasonable discussion.
Except she never returned to the manor.
Not that night, and not the next morning.
By the afternoon, he was forced to face the fact that his fiancée had escaped him again…and this time she’d stolen his damn horse.
Chapter Thirteen
“Someone’s at the door again.” Nudging Lucas awake, Percy rolled out of bed and swung a robe over her shoulders.
Sitting upright, Lucas caught a glimpse of his beloved as she dashed out of their bedchamber. A glance out the window ascertained it was still well before dawn, the sky a black canvas of ink with nary a spill of pink or gold. Grumbling under his breath, he dragged on a pair of breeches and a shirt and followed in Percy’s footsteps. If Artemis Bishop had come calling in the middle of the night again–
“Artemis!” he heard Percy exclaim. “What are you doing here? I thought you were with the duke.”
Bloody hell.
Yawning, Lucas turned around and went back to bed.
Downstairs, Artemis was already pacing the foyer. She’d ridden straight through the day and into the night, the journey from Warwick Park to London taking twice as long as usual because she’d stopped several times so as not to exhaust the sweet-tempered Mae.
The mare was now resting comfortably.
Artemis much less so.
“I left,” she told Percy, fingers knotting together as the lump in her throat grew even larger. It felt as if someone had their hands wrapped around her neck, and in some ways she supposed they did. Except they were her own hands, and they’d been slowly tightening ever since she ran from Warwick.
“Did he hurt you? Here, come into the parlor. I’ll ready us some tea.” Slipping away into the kitchen, Percy returned several minutes later with a porcelain teapot in one hand and two teacups in the other. After motioning for Artemis to sit in the middle of a peach colored chaise lounge, she filled both their cups and then took a seat in a smaller matching chair.
“Warwick…Warwick didn’t hurt me.” Artemis wrapped her hands around the teacup, absorbing its warmth as she struggled to make sense of her tangled web of emotions.
“Then what happened?” Percy asked, her voice filled with gentle concern.
“I think…I think I made a mistake.” When her eyes filled with tears and the lump in her throat became too large to withstand, Artemis dropped her head and burst into tears.
“There now.” In an instant, Percy was kneeling beside her. “It’s all right,” she soothed. “It’s going to be all right. Nothing is ever so broken that it cannot be fixed. Why, just look at me.”
With a watery smile, Artemis managed to lift her chin. “Yes, but you’re strong.”
“And you’re not?” Percy said, arching a brow.
“I don’t want to be. Not all the time.” On a deep, shuddering breath she leaned back in the chaise lounge and rubbed the wetness from her cheeks with the heels of her palms.
“Here,” said Percy, pushing something soft into her hand. “Use this.”
Bringing the lace handkerchief up to her face, Artemis blew loudly into it. “Thank you. I–I don’t know what came over me. I haven’t cried like that since my first night in Seven Dials.”
“Then you were long overdue.” Picking herself up off the ground, Percy sat down beside Artemis and wound a supportive arm around her waist. “Did you and Warwick have a row? By my count, you’ve returned a few days early. Which means you forfeited the thousand pounds, and I’ve never known you to willingly give up money before.”
“I couldn’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I did…” She pressed her lips together. Shook her head. “If I did, I was going to fall in love with him. It was only a matter of time.”
“Oh, Art,” Percy sighed. “That’s a reason to stay, not run away.”
“For most people, maybe. But not me.” Plucking at a loose button on her waistcoat, Artemis surged to her feet. “No, I have to be different,” she said bitterly. “And difficult. And demanding. To be honest, I don’t know why Warwick would ever want to marry me.”
“Maybe that’s the problem, then.” Percy leaned forward. “If you don’t love yourself, how can you accept that Warwick does? That I do? That Calliope and Helena do as well?”
“I…” When more tears threatened, Artemis closed her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You are different, and difficult, and demanding. But we love you because of those traits, not in spite of them. If a thief can fall in love with a duchess, what’s to prevent a duke from falling in love with a thief?”
What indeed.
“Except I ran from him. Again.” She rubbed the side of her temple where a dull ache had settled. “And I stole his horse.”
Percy’s eyes widened. “You stole his horse?”
“In my defense, I’d just been kissed senseless and wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Hmmm. Well then, I suppose there’s only one thing left.”
“And what is that?” Artemis asked tiredly. To her mind, there was nothing she could do to remedy what she’d already done.
Percy’s smile was sly, and a touch mischievous. “Give the duke his horse back.”
Not wanting to ask Mae to endure another rigorous trip so soon after the last one, Artemis decided to wait until Warwick returned to London. With parliament taking up session in the next week, she knew his arrival was imminent. What she didn’t know was what she was going to say to him. Or what he had to say to her.
She really ought to begin preparing.
But first, she had someone else to visit.
Molly was with a client, forcing Artemis to wait downstairs for nearly an hour before she was admitted into her old employer’s private chambers.
“You look like shite,” Molly commented as she met her protégé’s gaze in the dressing mirror.
“Good to see you, too.” Perching on the edge of a bench (she didn’t dare approach the bed), Artemis crossed her legs at the knee and took a deep breath. “Why did you abandon me when I needed you the most?”
Dabbing a brush into a glass jar filled with red ochre, Molly began to carefully apply a thin layer of rouge to her cheeks. “I wasn’t aware I had abandoned you.”
“You did.” Unable to keep the bewildered hurt from her tone, Artemis leaned into it instead. “When Warwick found me, and I needed a place to stay, you sent me away.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “How cruel of me, to refuse to hide you from your own fiancé, a handsome, wealthy duke. Surely poets shall compose sonnets of my barbaric act for years to come.”
When she put it like that…
“I do not see a ring on your hand,” said Molly.
Self-consciously, the fingers on Artemis’s left hand curled inward. “No. Warwick and I did not marry. But I did travel to his estate.”
“And?” Moving on from the rouge, Molly picked up a piece of charcoal, whittled down to a sharp point, and began to darken her lash line.
“And…it didn’t end well,” Artemis admitted. “I…I left. Abruptly.”
“Leaving does seem to be your forte.”
“I want him back, if he’ll have me.”
“You’ll never be happy as a duchess,” Molly said, not unkindly.
“No,” she acknowledged.
“Probably not. But I hope to be happy as a wife with the man I’ve fallen in love with.”
“Love?” Molly lowered the charcoal. “Now that’s a word I never imagined I’d hear the Siren of Seven Dials say out loud.”
“Neither did I.” Artemis paused. “Do you…do you think I’m making a mistake?”
“Have you come here for my advice, or my blessing?”
“A bit of both, I guess.”
“Then my advice is this.” Swiveling on her stool, Molly regarded Artemis with a patient, motherly smile. “Life is hard. Don’t run from the things and the people that will make it easier. As for my blessing…you’ve always had it. And even when you’re a fancy high flying duchess with no time for those of us in Seven Dials, I’ll always have my door open to you.”
When her eyes stung, Artemis waved a hand vigorously in front of her face.
What was wrong with her?
“You’re far kinder than you ever let on, Molly.”
The prostitute wrinkled her nose. “Not so loudly, my dear. Now off with you. I’ve another client in an hour, and I still haven’t picked out my wig.”
Artemis bit her lip. “Before I go, there’s one more small thing…”
“My lady.” Visibly taken aback, Mr. Grieves jumped out of the way as Artemis shoved herself through the door and into the front foyer of Warwick Park. “I–I was not told to expect you. And you’re wearing a dress.”
Feeling absolutely ridiculous, Artemis glanced down at the gown Molly had selected for her.
Comprised of varying shades of violet, it hugged her shoulders and torso before falling way from her hips in a spill of light, gossamer skirts overlaid with tulle. One of Molly’s doves had somehow managed to tame her hair into a coiffure with loose curls that framed her cheekbones and accentuated the slender line of her neck. A touch of kohl to the underside of her lashes brought out the blue in her eyes, and a dash of rouge gave her countenance a warm glow.
When she’d stared at her reflection in the mirror, Artemis had hardly recognized herself.
Seducing the Siren of Seven Dials (Secret Wallflower Society Book 4) Page 8