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Phoebe looked startled, then thoughtful. “Not a light pink?”
“Definitely not.” Lady Hero shook her head decisively. “Mind, I saw a lovely cream with red, pink, and dark green embroidered flowers we might look at, but no pastel colors overall. Her own coloring is too delicate. Light shades would simply wash her out. Dark and really rather dramatic, I think.”
Both ladies swiveled to examine her, and Artemis suddenly realized what a lump of dough might feel like under the scrutiny of a master baker. She knew from this morning that though Phoebe had trouble discerning shapes, she had no trouble with colors if the object were large enough.
“I see what you mean,” Phoebe said, squinting.
For just a second, Lady Hero’s face revealed a deep sadness, then she straightened with determination. “Yes, well, I do think we ought to get started, then.”
Nodding, Phoebe sipped the last of her tea and set her teacup down.
Artemis watched the ladies as they rose. They thought they were simply giving her a present as friends, but the money for the dresses would come from Maximus, that much was clear.
She’d slept with Maximus.
Her mind caught on the thought, here in this respectable tea shop. She’d run her hands over his bare back, wound her legs over his hips, and clenched deep inside when he’d thrust his penis into her.
He was her lover.
To take a gift from him now was to make her no better than a bought woman. A bought woman was the lowest of the low. Little more than a whore. For a moment the breath stopped in her throat in panic. She’d become everything she’d been warned against. Everything she’d struggled not to be in the last four years. She’d succumbed both to her own weakness and the perils of her position.
She’d fallen.
And then she drew breath again, almost in a gasp. Because there was something liberating in reaching the depths. It was a strange place, true, new and foreign, the way murky with hidden perils, but she found she could breathe here. They’d been wrong all along, all those who’d warned her of this place. She could live here well enough.
Perhaps even flourish.
Artemis lifted her chin and rose from her seat, meeting the curious stares of her friends. “Yes, please, I would like a new dress. Or even three.”
Chapter Thirteen
On the night of the next autumn harvest, Lin ventured out into the dark bramble wood. She stood in a clearing, shivering, and waited until the moon rose, huge and round, in the sky. She heard a rushing, like a thousand voices sighing in lament, and when next she looked, there were ghostly riders urging their silent mounts through the clouds. Leading them was a giant of a man, intent, strong, his crown a silvery glow in the moonlight. She just had time to catch the flash of his pale eyes before the Herla King reached down with one great hand and took her.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
The full moon lounged in the black velvet sky as Maximus crept into St. Giles that night disguised as the Ghost. He glanced up and watched as she draped herself in the wisps of white clouds, mysterious and coy and everything he could never have.
He snorted derisively to himself and stole into a dark alley, ears and eyes alert to danger. What kind of fool longed for the moon? The kind that forgot his duty, his obligations, the things that he must do if he were to continue to call himself a man.
o;Miss Greaves!” Lady Hero Reading looked up at their approach. “What a lovely surprise. I hadn’t known you’d be accompanying Phoebe here today.”
“Lady Penelope has lent her to me,” Phoebe said as she felt for a chair and lowered herself into the seat. “We’ve been shopping.”
Hero rolled her eyes at Artemis. “She didn’t take you to that terrible tobacconist, did she?”
“Well…” Artemis tried to think of how to answer.
“It’s not terrible,” Phoebe said, rescuing her. “Besides, how else am I to surprise Maximus with snuff?”
“Maximus has quite enough snuff as it is,” Lady Hero said as two girls began placing tea things on the little table between them. “And I can’t help but think ’tisn’t quite respectable for an unmarried lady to be seen in such an establishment.”
Phoebe’s brows drew together ominously. “That’s the very shop you buy Lord Griffin’s snuff at.”
Hero looked smug. “And I’m no longer a maiden.”
“Shall I pour?” Artemis hastily cut in.
“Please,” Lady Hero said, distracted. “Oh, there are fairy cakes. I always like fairy cakes.”
