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“Yes?” The older lady looked at her with bright blue eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard how you came to live with the duke and Lady Phoebe?”
“Oh, that’s simple enough, my dear,” Miss Picklewood said. “It was after the death of both of their parents.”
“Yes?” Artemis frowned at her lap. “I didn’t remember that.”
“Well, it was before your time, wasn’t it? Seventeen twenty-one, it was. Poor Hero had just turned eight and Phoebe was only a babe, not quite a year. When I heard—I was staying with an aunt of mine—I knew I had to go. Who else would look after those children? Neither the duke nor poor, dear Mary—Maximus’s mother, you know—had living siblings. No, I came down at once and found the house in chaos. The servants were all in shock, the men of business were nattering on about the lands and money and succession and not noticing that the boy had hardly risen from his bed. I took charge of the girls and helped Maximus as best I could. He was stubborn even then, I’m afraid. After a while he said he was the duke now and didn’t need a nanny or even a governess. Quite rude, but then he’d lost his parents. Awful shock.”
“Hmm.” Artemis looked over to where the duke was standing near Penelope, his eyes half hooded and impossible to read. “I suppose that explains quite a bit.”
“Oh, yes,” Miss Picklewood said, following her gaze. “It does indeed.”
They sat for a moment in silence before Miss Picklewood roused herself. “So you see, it can be quite a good life, nonetheless.”
Artemis blinked, not following her companion’s train of thought. “I’m sorry?”
“Being a lady dependent on the kindness of relatives,” Miss Picklewood said gently and quite devastatingly. “We might not have children of our own blood, but if one is lucky one can find others to help through life.” She patted Artemis’s knee. “It’ll all come right in the end.”
Artemis held very still because she had a quite mad urge to tear sweet Miss Picklewood’s hand from her leg. To stand up and scream. To run through the ballroom, out the front door, and keep running until she felt cool grass beneath her feet again.
This couldn’t be her life. It simply couldn’t be.
She did none of that, of course. Instead she nodded pleasantly and asked Miss Picklewood if she’d like another glass of punch.
Chapter Three
Now one hot day whilst hunting, King Herla came upon a clearing with a cool, deep pool. He dismounted and knelt to drink from the pool, and as he did so he saw reflected in the water a strange little man riding on a billy goat.
“Good day to you, King of the Britons,” called the little man.
“And who might you be?” asked King Herla.
“Why, I am King of the Dwarfs,” said the dwarf, “and would like to make you a bargain.”…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
Artemis drifted up into consciousness from a dream of a dappled forest and lay remembering. It had been cool and quiet, the moss and damp leaves under her bare feet muffling her footfalls. A hound or maybe several padded behind her, keeping her company. She’d come on a clearing through the trees, and anticipation had made her breath catch. Something was there, some creature that really shouldn’t have been in any English forest, and she wanted to see—
Someone was in her room.
Artemis froze, listening. Her room at Brightmore House was at the back of the house, small, but comfortable. In the morning a maid came to light the fire, but otherwise no one disturbed her here. Whoever was in her room was not the maid.
Perhaps she’d imagined it. The dream had been quite visceral.
She opened her eyes. Faint moonlight from the one window showed her the familiar shadows of her room: the chair by her bed, the old dresser by the window, the small mantelpiece—
One of the shadows detached itself from beside the mantel. The shadow coalesced into a figure, large and looming, his head distorted by a floppy hat and the outsized nose on his mask. The Ghost of St. Giles.
He was rumored to rape and ravage, but bizarrely, she felt no fear. Instead a strange elation filled her. Perhaps she was still enthralled by her dream.
Still, best to make sure.
“Have you come to kidnap me?” Her voice emerged a whisper, though she hadn’t consciously thought to lower it. “If so, I hope you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me put on a wrap first.”
He snorted and moved to her dresser. “Why are your rooms apart from the family?” He, too, whispered.
He hadn’t spoken in St. Giles, and she really hadn’t expected him to answer. Curiosity made her stir from her nest of covers, sitting up.
