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Artemis glanced down to maneuver around a crumbling stone with its base obscured by weeds, which was why she didn’t see him until it was too late.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Wakefield growled in her ear. He clamped his hand on her upper arm.
Wisely, she kept silent.
He drew her toward where part of the wall still stood. They were at the back of the group and thus few noticed them. Miss Picklewood raised her head, a bit like a guard dog with its hackles high, but Wakefield shot her a rather filthy look.
And then they were out of sight of the others.
But the duke didn’t stop. He hustled her through the ruins and into the stand of trees that edged one side of the abbey. Only when they were sheltered by the cool branches of the great trees, did he stop.
“What”—he turned and seized both her arms—“has gotten into you?”
“He’s dying,” she whispered furiously, trembling within his grasp. “I didn’t receive the letter until almost noon—because Penelope didn’t think it important enough to give it to me earlier. Apollo is lying in that hellhole dying.”
His jaw set as he searched her face. “I can have a carriage readied for you to return to London within the hour. If the roads are—”
She slapped him, quick and hard.
His head turned slightly with the blow, but other than that his only reaction was the narrowing of his eyes.
Her chest was heaving as if she were running. “No! You must go to London. You must get him out. You must save my brother because if you don’t, I swear upon everything I hold holy that I’ll ruin both you and your illustrious name. I’ll—”
“Little bitch,” he breathed, his face turned fiery red, and he slammed his mouth against hers.
There was no softness in him. He claimed her lips like a marauder: hard and angry. If she’d once thought him cold as ice, well, that ice was burned away now by the fire of his rage. He shoved his tongue into her mouth, his breath a hot exhalation against her cheek. He tasted of wine and power, and something within her trembled in answer. His chest was pressed to her, and each frantic breath she took shoved her breasts into his waistcoat. He wasn’t gentle and he wasn’t at all romantic, and despite that she almost lost her way. Almost found herself wandering in the wildness of his lips. In the passion of his anger. She almost forgot everything.
She remembered the brother who needed her just in time.
She pulled back, gasping, trying to find words as his hands tightened, preventing her from escaping entirely.
He ducked his head to look her in the eye. “I don’t have to do anything you order me to do, Miss Greaves. I am a duke, not your personal lapdog.”
“And here, now, I am Artemis, not Miss Greaves,” she blazed. “You’ll do as I say because if you don’t I’ll make sure you’re the laughingstock of London. That you’re banished from England forever.”
His eyes flared wide with anger, and for a moment she was sure he was going to strike her down. He shook her roughly instead, sending her fichu slithering to the ground.
“Stop demanding. Stop trying to be something you’re not.”
The pain bloomed in her breast, so sharp, so cold, that for a wild moment she thought he’d stabbed her with a dagger rather than words.
He yanked her close, his mouth against her exposed neck. She could feel the scrape of his teeth, sharp with warning.
Artemis let her head fall back, her eyes closed, her lips suddenly trembling. Apollo dying. “Please. Please, Maximus. I’ll refrain from provoking you anymore. I’ll stay in the shadows with my stockings and shoes on and never swim in your pond again, never disturb you again, only please do this one thing, I beg you. Save my brother.”
His lips left her throat. She could hear Scarborough’s voice somewhere back at the ruins, still telling his silly children’s stories. She could hear a bird trilling a series of high, bouncing notes, suddenly cut off. She could hear the rustling of the eternal trees. But she couldn’t hear him.
Perhaps he wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps he was merely a figment of her imagination.
She opened her eyes in panic.
He was staring at her with a face entirely expressionless, as if made from cold stone. Nothing showed at lips or brow or cheek. Nowhere save in his eyes. Those burned with an impassioned fire, reckless and deep, and her breath caught at the sight as she waited for her—and her brother’s—fate.
A GODDESS SHOULD never have to beg. It was the one thought, clear and simple, that ran through Maximus’s mind. Everything else—his rank, the party, their conflict, seemed to fall away from that one truth. She should never have to beg.
He still tasted her mouth on his tongue, still wanted to crush her breasts against his chest and bend her until she bared her throat to him, but he made himself let her go.
“Very well.”
