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A corner of Trevillion’s thin lips cocked up. “He’s an aristocrat. I’d bet Cowslip on it.”
Maximus slowly nodded. Trevillion was an intelligent officer, but then he’d always known that.
“Did you get a look at his face?” the captain asked, handing him back the dagger.
Maximus grimaced. “No. Slippery as an eel. He made sure I couldn’t catch hold of that scarf.”
“Outwrestled by a man older than you?”
Maximus glanced up sharply.
Trevillion shrugged at his look. “He had a small bit of paunch about his middle and he sat his saddle a bit stiffly. He’s athletic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were older than forty.” He considered a moment as if thinking over what he remembered of the highwayman, then nodded to himself. “He might even be older than that. I’ve seen men on the far side of seventy riding to the hounds without problem.”
“I think you’re right,” Maximus said.
“Was there anything else you noticed about Old Scratch?”
Maximus thought about that glint of green at the highwayman’s throat and decided to keep that hint to himself. “No. What do you know of the man?”
“Old Scratch is without fear—or morals, as far as I can see.” Trevillion looked grim. “He not only robs both rich and poor, he doesn’t hesitate to harm or even murder his victims.”
“How broad is the area he frequents?”
“Only St. Giles,” Trevillion said promptly. “Perhaps because he meets little resistance or because the people here are more vulnerable and not as protected.”
Maximus grunted, staring at the knife in his hands. A highwayman who hunted only in St. Giles and said he’d not been back for many years. Could he be the man who’d murdered his parents so long ago?
“I have to return to my men.” Trevillion placed his boot in Cowslip’s stirrup and swung himself up into the saddle.
Maximus nodded, tucking the highwayman’s dagger into his boot, and turned.
“Ghost.”
He stopped and looked at the captain.
The other man’s face gave nothing away. “Thank you.”
IF ONLY APOLLO could talk. Artemis frowned as she crept down the darkened hall that night, Bon Bon trotting at her heels. It was past midnight, so everyone ought to have been asleep in Wakefield House—well, everyone save Craven, who she’d left guarding her brother. The valet never seemed to sleep. One presumed he must be fulfilling his duties to Maximus, yet he somehow managed to care for Apollo as well.
Artemis shook her head. Craven was a capable nurse—though she didn’t like to think how he’d come by his experience—yet Apollo still couldn’t speak. Otherwise her brother seemed to be getting better, but every time he tried to utter a word, his throat only produced strangled sounds. Sounds that quite obviously caused him a great deal of pain. She just wished he could tell her he was better in his own words instead of scrawled handwriting.
Then she might believe him.
The corridor outside Maximus’s door was deserted. Still she looked nervously around before she tapped at the door. She might have decided to embrace her path as a fallen woman, but it seemed it was hard to quell the fears of a lifetime.
ot just a man, but the Duke of Wakefield. Romantic fools didn’t qualify for the job.
Better to concern himself with the present. Which was why he was haunting St. Giles tonight. It had been far too long since he’d seen to his duty: the hunt for the man who had killed his parents. Night after night, year after year, he’d stalked these stinking alleys, hoping to find some trail, some clue to the identity of the footpad who had robbed and killed them. The man was probably dead by now, yet Maximus couldn’t give up the chase.
It was the least he could do for the parents he’d failed so fatally.
Maximus froze as the scent of gin hit his nostrils. He’d emerged from the alley. A man lay in the channel of the larger street the alley emptied into. Broken barrels gushed the nauseous liquid as the man groaned next to his weary nag, an overturned cart still hitched to the horse.
Maximus’s lip curled. A gin seller—or perhaps even a distiller. He started forward, pushing down the roiling of his stomach at the stench of gin, when he saw the second man. He sat a great black horse just inside an alley kitty-corner to Maximus’s own, which was why Maximus hadn’t seen him at once. His coat was a dark blue, gilt or silver buttons glinting in the dark, and in both hands he held pistols. As Maximus emerged, his head turned, and Maximus could see he wore a black cloth over the lower part of his face, his tricorne hiding the upper part.
The highwayman cocked his head, and somehow Maximus knew he was grinning beneath the black cloth. “The Ghost of St. Giles, as I live and breathe. I’m surprised we haven’t met before, sir.” He shrugged indolently. “But then I suppose I’ve only just returned to these parts. No matter—even if I’ve been gone for decades, you should know I still rule this patch of London.”
“And who might you be?” Maximus kept his voice to a whispered rasp—as did the highwayman.
