Читать книгу To Deceive a Duke - Amanda McCabe - Страница 7

Queen of fragrant Eleusis,

Giver of earth’s good gifts,

Give me your grace, O Demeter.

You, too, Persephone, fairest,

Maiden of all lovely, I offer

Song for your favor.

Clio Chase glanced back over her shoulder as she tiptoed along the narrow corridor of Acropolis House, the labyrinthine London home of the Duke of Averton. No one followed her. Probably they did not even notice her absence from the ballroom, not in such a crush as the Duke’s Grecian masked ball.

Perfect.

It was silent here, unlike the roar of music and shallow conversation. So quiet it was almost like a cave, lit only by a few lamps built to resemble flickering torches. The shifting light touched the dark panelled walls, the low, carved ceiling and the gilt-framed paintings, making them glitter and waver as if alive.

She paused to slip off her heeled green satin shoes, hurrying on stocking feet to the end of the corridor where there was a small, winding staircase, a miniature of the grand one soaring up from the foyer. She held up the heavy green-and-gold silk skirts of her Medusa costume as she hurried up the steps. The Duke was being very cagey about the statue’s whereabouts tonight. But his servants were not all so secretive. Clio had been able to persuade a footman to tell her where Artemis, the Alabaster Goddess, waited.

At the top of the stairs ran a gallery, almost the entire length of the front of the house. Its bank of windows, uncovered, looked out at the front garden and the street beyond, the open gates that still admitted latecomers to the ball.

The gallery was dotted with more lamps, most of them unlit. No doubt waiting for the ‘grand reveal’ of the statue after supper, when they would spring to life as if by magic. Right now the light was dim, falling only in shimmering, narrow bars on some of the treasures displayed there, leaving others in darkness.

Clio found herself holding her breath as she crept along the gallery, peering right and left at all the wonders jumbled together. Her father and his friends were all great collectors and loved to show off their prizes, so she had grown up surrounded by beautiful antiquities. But this—this was something else entirely. A cabinet of curiosities such as she had never seen before.

The gallery almost resembled a warehouse, it was so thick with objects. Ancient stone kouros, stiff and precise, their empty eyes staring back at her. Bronze warriors, marble gods; cases full of Etruscan gold jewellery, lapis scarabs, jewelled perfume bottles. Steles propped against the walls. Shelves of vases, kraters and amphorae. All jumbled together, just to serve one man’s vanity, his lust for collecting.

Clio frowned as she thought of Averton. So handsome that half the women in town were in love with him—but so mysterious. That strange light in his green eyes when he looked at her…

She shook her head, the satin snakes of her headdress trembling. She couldn’t think about him now. She had a task to do.

At the end of the gallery, alone in a pool of candlelight, was an object covered in a sheet of black satin. Only a bit of the separate coral-coloured marble base was visible. Clio approached it carefully, half-expecting some sort of trap, some alarm. All was silent, except for the whining hum of the wind past the windows. She reached out and carefully lifted the sheet, peering beneath.

‘Oh.’ She sighed. It was really her. The Alabaster Goddess. Artemis in all her solitary glory.

The statue was not large. It was easily dwarfed by many of the more elaborate creations in the gallery. But she was so perfectly beautiful, so graceful and elegant, that Clio could understand why she had become such a sensation. Why ladies wanted ‘Artemis’ coiffures and ‘Artemis’ sandals.

Why the Duke hid her away.

Carved of an alabaster so white it seemed to glisten, almost silver, like a first snowfall, she stood poised with her bow raised, a lost arrow set to fly. Her pleated tunic flowed over the curves of her slender body as if caught in a breeze, ending at mid-thigh to reveal strong legs, tensed to run. Her sandals, those ribbon-laced shoes every lady copied this Season, still bore bits of gold leaf, as did the bandeau that held back her curled hair. A crescent moon was attached to the band, proclaiming her to be truly the Goddess of the Moon. Her gaze was focused intently on her prey; she cared nothing for mortal adulation.

Clio stared up at her, enthralled, as she imagined the Delian temple where this goddess once resided, where she once received her worship from true acolytes. Not just ton ladies and their ‘Artemis’ shoes.

‘How beautiful you are,’ she whispered. ‘And how sad.’

Much like the Duke himself.

She reached out to gently touch Artemis’s foot in a gesture of silent sympathy. As she did, she noticed that the goddess stood on a wooden base, a thick block with a thin crack running along its centre. She leaned closer, trying to see if that crack was a fault or deliberate. It seemed such a strange perch for a beautiful goddess.

‘Ah, Miss Chase. Clio. I see you have discovered the whereabouts of my treasure,’ a voice said quietly.

Clio ducked away from Artemis, spinning around to find the Duke himself standing halfway along the gallery. Watching her intently.

Even in the dim light, his eyes gleamed like the snakes in her headdress. He smiled at her gently, deceptively, shrugging the leopard pelt of his Dionysus costume back from his shoulders. He moved closer, light and silent, as if he was a leopard himself.

‘She is beautiful, is she not?’ he said, still so quiet. ‘I knew you would be drawn to her, as I was. She is quite—irresistible, in her mystery and solitude.’

Clio edged back against the goddess. She had indeed found Artemis irresistible. So much so that she had let her guard down, and that was not like her. As the Duke came closer, she reached behind her, her fingers just touching Artemis’s cold sandal. She slid her touch down, finding that crack in the wooden base. She curled her hand around it, as if Artemis could protect her from Averton, from the dark confusion she always felt when he was near.

Just as it was now. He drew ever closer, slow but inescapable, like a leopard in the jungle. He watched her carefully, as if he expected her to bolt like a frightened gazelle. As if he could see all the secrets of her heart.

Clio stiffened her shoulders, tightening her fingers around the base. Suddenly, that silence she had craved in the crowded ballroom seemed oppressive. All the jumbled treasures of the room loomed higher, narrowing on just Artemis and her white glow.

It was like this whenever they met, she and Averton. He impeded her work as the Lily Thief, her mission. Yet they were bound together by invisible, unbreakable cords. They could not stay away from each other.

She would not give him the satisfaction of running now. Not yet.

He finally reached her side, and Clio held her breath. He touched the hem of Artemis’s tunic, his jewelled fingers just inches from Clio’s green silk sleeve. She could feel the warmth of his skin, the bright light of his gaze on her.

That tension between them grew, stretched taut until Clio thought she would scream with it.

‘I cannot let you take her, Clio,’ he said. So gentle. So implacable.

Clio tried to laugh. ‘Oh? Do you think I could just tuck her under my skirt and spirit her out of here? Past all your guards?’

His gaze flickered almost imperceptibly over her green silk skirts. ‘I would not be surprised at anything you did.’

‘I would like to give her a finer home than this,’ Clio said. ‘But I am not such a fool as to try such a thing.’

‘Not tonight, anyway.’

‘As you say.’

His touch slid from Artemis’s stone tunic to Clio’s draped sleeve. Their skin did not even brush, but Clio felt the spark of his caress none the less. She swayed towards him as if spellbound. The crowded ball, the vast city outside—it all vanished. There was only him. Them, together.

And that scared her as nothing else ever had.

‘I know what you’re up to, Clio Chase,’ he murmured, deep and seductive as a lover. ‘And I cannot let you continue. For your own sake.’

Clio reared back from his sorcerer’s caress, the lure of his voice. ‘My sake? Oh, no, your Grace. Everything you do is surely for yourself alone.’

His hand tightened on her arm, not letting her go. ‘There are things you do not know.’

‘About you?’

‘Me—and what is happening here. With the Alabaster Goddess.’

‘I fear I know more about you than I wish to!’ Clio cried. ‘About your greed, your—’

‘Clio!’ He gave her a little shake, pulling her closer to him. So close there was not even a whisper between them.

He played the indolent, careless duke so well, but Clio could feel the iron strength of him next to her. The shift of his muscles. She wanted closer, ever closer.

And that frightened her even more.

‘Why do you never listen to me?’ he growled, his eyes like emerald embers burning into her.

‘Because you never talk to me,’ she whispered. ‘Not really.’

‘How can I talk to someone who so mistrusts me?’ His touch convulsed on her arms, crushing the silk. ‘Oh, Clio. What are you doing to me?’

His lips touched hers, a kiss that was utterly irresistible, like a summer thunderstorm. She tasted her own anger, her own frustration in that kiss, the desperate need of an impossible attraction.

Suddenly, the kiss, the nearness of him, her own heightened emotions—it was all too much. Something snapped inside her, and she had to escape. She pushed the Alabaster Goddess towards him, intending only to put a barrier between them. To remind them who, what, they really were.

Instead, Artemis’s marble elbow connected sharply with his head. Both he and the statue crashed to the floor in a tangle of marble, leopard skin and drops of blood.

Clio gasped to see the red gash on his brow, his closed eyes. ‘Edward!’ she cried, dropping to her knees beside him.

She reached for his wrist, feeling the pulse beating there with a surge of absurd relief. She had not killed him.

Not yet.

‘Stay here,’ she whispered. ‘I must fetch help!’

With that, she dashed away, past all the antiquities, the shadows, not sure what she ran toward—or away from.

She did not even notice the scrap of green silk caught in his hand…