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“It’s the way of the world, isn’t it? My position makes me vulnerable. Those that are strong will always go after those they think are weak.” She shrugged. “But it isn’t often, and in any case I’ve been able to fend for myself.”
“You aren’t weak.” It was a statement, final and without doubt.
She found his conviction flattering. “Most would think me so.”
“Most would be wrong.”
They stared at each other and she had the idea that they were both somehow taking stock of the other. She certainly was. He wasn’t what she would have expected, had she bothered to think about what to expect from a masked harlequin. He seemed to be truly listening to her, and that hadn’t happened to her in a very long time. Well, except with the Duke of Wakefield last night, she silently amended.
The Ghost had understood her truth in a shockingly short period of time.
Then there was his anger—the underlying pulse of suppressed rage that seemed to vibrate through him. She could feel it, almost a living thing, pressing against her.
“What are you looking for?” she asked abruptly. “It’s rather rude for a gentleman to enter a lady’s room without permission.”
“I’m not a gentleman.”
“Really? I thought otherwise.”
She’d spoken without thinking and immediately regretted it. He was beside the bed in an instant, large, male, and dangerous, and she remembered at this inopportune moment what the creature had been in that clearing in her dream: a tiger. In an English forest. She almost laughed at the absurdity.
She was forced to tilt her head up to see him, baring her neck, which was never a good idea when in the presence of a predator.
He bent over her, deliberately planting his fists on the bed on either side of her hips, caging her in. She swallowed, feeling the heat of his body. She could smell him: leather and male sweat, and it should have repelled her.
Except it did the opposite.
He thrust his masked face into hers, so close she could see the glint of his eyes behind it. “You have something that belongs to me.”
She held very still, breathing in his exhalations, sharing the same air as he, like a very dear enemy.
His face dipped toward hers, angling, and her eyelids fell. For a very brief moment, she thought she felt the brush of something warm across her lips.
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside her room. The maid was coming.
She opened her eyes and he was simply gone.
A moment later Sally the upstairs maid came in the room with her coal shuttle and brushes. Sally started when she noticed Artemis still sitting up in bed. “Oh, miss, you’re up early. Shall I send for some tea?”
Artemis shook her head, inhaling. “Thank you, no. I’ll go down for some in a bit. We came in late last night.”
“That you did.” Sally clattered at the hearth. “Blackbourne says as her ladyship didn’t get in until past two in the morn. In a right mood she is, too, for having to wait up so late. Oh, and how did the window get left open?” Sally jumped up and crossed to the window, slamming it shut. “Brrr! ’Tis too early for such a draft.”
Artemis’s eyebrows rose. Her room was on the third floor and there was no convenient trellis or vine on the wall outside. She hoped the silly man wasn’t lying dead in the garden.
“Will that be all, miss?”
A fire was crackling on her hearth and Sally was already by the door, pail in hand.
“Yes, thank you.”
Artemis waited until the maid had closed the door behind her before drawing the thin chain around her neck out from under her chemise. She wore it always because she didn’t know what else to do with what hung on it: a delicate pendant with a glittering green stone. Once she had thought the stone was paste, a pretty ornament Apollo had given her on their fifteenth birthday. Four months ago she’d tried to pawn it for more money to help Apollo—and found out the horrible truth: the stone was an emerald set in gold, which made it a treasure too dear, for ironically she couldn’t sell such a fine piece without awkward questions about its provenance. Questions she simply couldn’t answer. She had no idea where or how Apollo could’ve gotten such an expensive piece of jewelry.
She’d worn the emerald pendant for months now—too afraid to leave the damnably expensive thing alone in her bedroom—but yesterday she’d added something else to the chain.
Artemis fingered the Ghost’s signet ring, the red stone warm under her thumb. She should’ve given it back. It obviously was important to him. Yet something had made her want to conceal it and keep it a little longer. She examined the ring again. The stone had once had a crest or other insignia carved into it, but it was so battered by age that only vague lines remained, impossible to decipher. The gold, too, had the matte patina of age, the band worn thin on the underside. The ring, and thus the family it belonged to, was very old indeed.
Artemis frowned. How had the Ghost known she had his ring? She hadn’t told anyone besides Wakefield, not even Penelope. For one wild moment she imagined the Duke of Wakefield donning the motley of a harlequin.
