He’d never considered the matter: dukes weren’t, generally speaking, considered normal. “In what way?”
She shrugged, her faced tilted toward the sun again. “One’s own family and situation are all one knows as a child. Therefore they are, by default, normal. I thought everyone had a papa who sometimes stayed awake all night writing philosophical papers, only to burn them all in a rage in the morning. It was only when I was old enough to notice that other fathers didn’t act like my own that I realized the truth.”
He swallowed, oddly perturbed by her recitation. “And your mother?”
“My mother was an invalid,” she said, her voice precise, unemotional. “I rarely remember them in the same room together.”
“You have a brother,” he replied, testing.
Her brow clouded. “Yes. My twin, Apollo. He’s in Bedlam.” She turned to look at him, her eyes wide open and sharp. “But then you already know that. My brother is notorious and you’re the type of man to find out all he can about a prospective wife.”
There was no reason to feel shame so he neither denied nor confirmed that he’d had her investigated along with her cousin. He simply held her gaze, waiting.
She sighed, turning away from the wall. “Lady Penelope will want me soon.”
He followed her down the short staircase, watching her level shoulders, the vulnerable angle of her nape as she bent her head to watch her steps, the companionable bump of Percy against her skirts. It would be the height of idiocy for the Duke of Wakefield to pursue the cousin of the woman he wanted as wife. And yet, for the first time in his life, Maximus wanted to let the man rule him instead of the title.
Chapter Five
King Herla was married a fortnight later, and a grand affair it was indeed. One hundred trumpets blared the news from the castle rooftops, a parade of dancing lasses led the procession, and the feast that followed became one of legend. Princes and kings journeyed from all corners of the earth to witness the nuptials, yet none compared to the Dwarf King. He arrived with his retinue, all dressed in fairy finery, riding on goats, and bearing a great golden horn filled with rubies and emeralds as a wedding gift.…
—from The Legend of the Herla King
Artemis had long ago come to terms with her life and her fate. She was an acolyte, a handmaiden subject to the whims of her cousin. Her life was not her own. What might have been—what she had once dreamed of so long ago, late at night in a young girl’s bed—would never be.
That was simply how it was.
So there was no percentage in watching that afternoon as the Duke of Wakefield tucked Penelope’s hand into the bend of his elbow and led her from the dining room where they’d all just partaken of luncheon. His head was bent solicitously toward Penelope’s, dark to dark. They made a lovely couple. Artemis couldn’t help wondering if, when they were married, he’d ever let his wife know that he liked to walk his woods as the dawn lit the sky. Would he tell her the silly story about the Moon Maiden’s tower?
She looked at her hands, twisted together at her waist. Petty, jealous feelings weren’t for women such as she.
“I’m so glad you came!” Lady Phoebe Batten interrupted her thoughts by linking arms and said in a lower voice, “Maximus’s guests are so very ancient.”
Artemis glanced down at the other woman as they strolled from the dining room. Phoebe wore her light brown hair pulled back from her softly rounded face and the sky blue of her gown set off her pink cheeks and large brown eyes. Had Phoebe been allowed a coming out, Artemis had no doubt she would’ve been one of the most popular of the young ladies in society—not for her looks, but rather for her kind disposition. It was quite impossible not to love Phoebe Batten.
But Phoebe had an unbreakable fate just as Artemis did: her near blindness had kept her from the usual balls, soirees, and courting a lady of her rank and privilege should’ve had by right.
Sometimes Artemis wondered if Phoebe was as sanguine about her situation as she was with hers.
“Penelope is closer in age to you than me,” she pointed out as they neared the doors to the south terrace. Most of the guests had decided to stroll the garden after luncheon. “Watch the step here.”
Phoebe nodded in thanks, carefully placing her slipper-clad foot on the marble step. “Well, but Penelope hardly counts, does she?”
Artemis threw her companion a quick, amused glance. She wasn’t used to Penelope being the one disregarded between the two of them. “What do you mean?”
Phoebe squeezed her arm and lifted her face to the bright sunshine outside. “She’s nice enough, but she has no interest in me.”
“That’s not true,” Artemis said in shock.
Phoebe gave her a world-weary look that certainly did not belong on her girlish face. “She pays attention to me only when it occurs to her that it might help her campaign for Maximus.”
There wasn’t much to say about that since it was uncomfortably true. “Then she’s more foolish than I thought her.”
Phoebe grinned. “And that’s why I’m so glad you’re here.”
Artemis felt her lips lift. “Here are the steps down to the garden.”
“Mmm. I can smell the roses.”
Phoebe turned her head toward a trellised rose a few yards away. Unlike the rest of the primly pristine garden, the rose was rather wild and weedy looking, more suited to a cottage garden than a formal one. There was no reason for it to be here… except for the near-blind girl beside her, happily scenting the air.
“Can you see anything?” Artemis asked low.
The question was so intimate it verged on the rude, but Phoebe merely tilted her head. “I can see the blue sky and the green of the garden. I can see the shape of the rose bushes over there—but the individual flowers are lost to me.” She turned to Artemis. “I’m much better in bright light. For instance, I can see that you’re frowning at me right now.”
Artemis hastily put a more pleasant expression on her face. “I’m glad. I’d thought that you’d lost more.”
“Indoors and at night I have,” Phoebe replied matter-of-factly.
Artemis hummed to show that she’d heard. They started down one of the graveled garden paths. She’d bypassed the garden in favor of the woods this morning. Now she found it pleasant to meander in the afternoon sunshine—though of course she was properly gloved and bonneted.
A peal of laughter turned heads.