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The first notes rang out.
The masculine voice was low but clear, capturing the senses, running along the back of her neck like a caress, making her shiver in delight. Artemis very much feared she was gaping. The Duke of Wakefield had a voice to make angels—or devils—weep. It wasn’t the type of male voice currently admired—for the high, unnatural voice of the musico was the rage of London at the moment—but his was the sort of voice that would always seduce the ear. Sure and strong, with a vibrating masculinity on the low notes. She could sit and listen to a voice like this for hours.
The Duke of Wakefield seemed unaware of the stir his singing made in his guests. He leaned casually over Phoebe as he read the music he held in one hand, the other placed affectionately on her shoulder. And when they negotiated a particularly intricate passage together, he caught the grin Phoebe threw at him and smiled in return. Naturally, unself-consciously.
Almost joyfully.
If he’d never been the Duke of Wakefield, was this how he would have been? A strong man without coldness or the driving need to dominate and control? Loving and happy?
The thought of such a man was strangely alluring, but even as she considered this phantom being, she caught the duke’s gaze and knew: it was the man as he was now—flawed as he was now—that she longed for. She wanted to clash with his dominating nature, wanted to run with him in the forest, wanted to challenge him, mentally and physically, to games of their own making.
And the coldness?
Staring into his autocratic eyes, Artemis wished with all her heart. If she could, she’d take his coldness and make it her own.
Transform it into a heat to engulf them both.
APOLLO LAY IN his filthy straw and listened to the boot heels of the approaching guards. It was too late for them to be making the rounds. The inmates of this dismal place had already been served a delicate meal of moldy bread and brackish water. The lights had been dimmed. There was no earthly reason for the guards to be here save in the name of mischief.
He sighed, his chains clinking as he shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. A new inmate had been brought in yesterday, a young woman, he thought. Due to the construction of the cells, he couldn’t see any of his neighbors, except for the cell across the way from his own. That was occupied by a man whose diseased skin bore a striking resemblance to lichen on a rock.
Last night the new female inmate had sung well into the wee hours, the words of her song quite vulgar, yet her voice had been beautiful and somehow lost. Whether she was truly mad or simply the victim of relatives or a husband grown tired of her, he had no idea.
Not that it mattered here.
Light glowed in the corridor and the boot heels stopped.
“Ave ye something for me, pretty?” It was Ridley, a man both muscled and mean.
“Give us a kiss, then.” And that was Leech, Ridley’s favored henchman.
The woman moaned, low and hurt. Whatever they intended for her was probably quite grim. A chain rattled, as if she were trying to scurry out of their reach.
“Oi!” Apollo shouted. “Oi, Ridley!”
“Shut it, Kilbourne,” the guard yelled. He sounded distracted.
ad his attention.
“That’s quite brave of you, Your Grace,” Artemis said, raising her voice as she turned to the Duke of Scarborough, “offering to fight the Ghost of St. Giles. For I noted at the time that the Ghost was a rather large man. Why, he was almost exactly the same height as—” She glanced about the assembled party as if searching for a gentleman of suitable height. When her eyes landed on Wakefield, he already had a wry expression. “Why, our host, the Duke of Wakefield, in fact.”
There was a fraught pause as Artemis held Wakefield’s narrowed gaze, before it was broken rather prosaically by Penelope. “Don’t be silly, Artemis. The Ghost was at least a foot taller than His Grace. Although I’m quite sure the Duke of Scarborough would have been able to defeat him.”
The last was a lie so obvious that Artemis didn’t even bother rolling her eyes.
“Certainly, His Grace would’ve been of better help than my brother,” Phoebe said, uncaring of her treachery.
“Phoebe,” Wakefield growled low in warning.
“Yes, brother dear?” Phoebe turned her blithely bright face to the duke, who was lurking like a tiger with indigestion in the corner. “You must admit that you did not show well with Scarborough yesterday.”
“His Grace, the Duke of Scarborough, obviously has many more years than I practicing his fencing.” Wakefield bowed to the other duke so gracefully that Artemis wondered if he’d really meant the insult to Scarborough’s age. “And you, brat, should show more respect to your elders.”
The teasing tone caught Artemis off guard. He truly did care for his sister, she reminded herself. He might be overprotective, but he loved Phoebe. The thought unsettled her. She was blackmailing this man. She didn’t want to think about the softer, more human parts of him.
She girded her loins and readied another salvo. “Did you really find the Ghost so monstrously tall? Truly, I thought he had the height and the physical bearing of His Grace. Indeed, were the duke a better swordsman, it might’ve been he we met in St. Giles.”
“But whyever would His Grace traipse about St. Giles?” Penelope asked in honest confusion. “Only ruffians and the poor go there.”
