The smoke was thickening at a frightening pace. Artemis found herself coughing as she pulled Phoebe in the direction of the door she’d seen. A loud crackling came from the direction of the stage, followed closely by a shrill scream. Artemis found the door and shoved.
It stayed obstinately shut.
“It’s locked,” she shouted at Phoebe as she felt around the edge of the door. “Help me find the bolt.”
Tears caused by the smoke were streaming down her face, blinding her, and she felt the beginnings of panic. If they couldn’t get the door open…
Her fingers brushed metal. Quickly she shoved back the bolt and stumbled with Phoebe into the fresh air.
She turned, looking back, and froze.
“What is it?” Phoebe cried.
“The entire gardens are alight,” Artemis whispered, awed.
Flames leaped from the top of the theater, even as the garden guests, actors, footmen, and servants streamed from the building. A bucket brigade had formed under the command of a man with a mane of tawny hair, but Artemis could see that it was already a lost cause. The flames had leaped to the artfully planted trees and shrubs and were racing through the open gallery where the musicians usually performed. Soon everything would be aflame.
“Come on,” Artemis shouted. “We have to get to the docks!”
“But Hero!” Phoebe pulled back. “And Cousin Bathilda.”
“The gentlemen were with them,” Artemis said, praying she was correct. “They’ll get your sister and cousin and everyone else to safety.”
She began pushing her way through the brush, for the paths were full of streaming people. Her beautiful new hunter-green dress was streaked with soot and torn by branches, but that hardly mattered.
“Ah, Lady Phoebe,” a voice drawled, strangely calm.
Artemis looked up to see Lord Noakes standing in their way. He held a pistol in one hand and the other…
The other was covered in blood.
“Are you hurt, my lord?” Artemis asked stupidly, for she knew at once that something entirely different was amiss.
“Oh, not I,” Lord Noakes said cheerfully. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to step aside, for I have need of Lady Phoebe. I’d like to leave England and I think it prudent to bring Wakefield’s sister should he try to detain me.”
If she let Phoebe be hurt, Maximus would never forgive her. She’d never forgive herself.
“My lord,” Artemis said carefully, backing a step to shield Phoebe, “Lady Phoebe has twisted her ankle and can hardly walk. I’m sure you’ll understand that she can’t come with you.”
“D’you know I can’t tell if you’re lying or not,” Lord Noakes said conversationally. A male shout came from their left. Lord Noakes’s eyes hardened. “But I suppose it hardly matters whether I take Wakefield’s sister or his whore. You’ll do just as well.”
Artemis had started to push Phoebe back as she ducked away from the madman but Lord Noakes was very fast for a man his age. He caught her wrist and yanked her against him, his grip as hard as steel.
She struggled but Lord Noakes pointed the pistol at Phoebe. “Stop that or I’ll shoot her.”
Artemis immediately stilled.
“Artemis!” Phoebe shouted, standing arms outstretched. Her face was white and Artemis knew she would be completely blind in the dark.
“Go toward the voices, darling,” Artemis said, but before she could say anything more she was pulled roughly through the bushes.
He set a fast pace, nearly running toward the docks. They emerged to find a scene of chaos. Gentlemen and ladies were standing on the dock, screaming for the boats, some piling into already full barges. Footmen ran back and forth, while others were clearly still trying to keep up the futile bucket brigade to put out the fire. Artemis saw Hero, Miss Picklewood, and Isabel, and breathed a sigh of relief that they had escaped.
Lord Noakes shoved to the front of the docks and pointed his pistol to a gentleman about to hand a lady into a boat. “Move aside.”
“Are you insane?” sputtered the gentleman.
Lord Noakes grinned. “Probably.”
The gentleman’s eyes widened as his lady shrieked.
“Get in,” Lord Noakes ordered Artemis.
Gingerly she got into the boat. The boatman was watching, wide-eyed.
Lord Noakes descended and pointed his pistol at Artemis’s head. “Head for Wapping,” he told the boatman.
They were pulling into the river when a shout came from the dock. Maximus was there and by his side was Phoebe. Artemis smiled, her sight blurring. At least Phoebe was safe.
Maximus shouted obscenities at a boatman. She’d never seen him so angry. He had a pistol pointed at the boat they were in, but since Lord Noakes had made sure to sit Artemis in front of him, Maximus couldn’t fire without fear of hitting her.
“Do you think it’s driving him mad?” Lord Noakes asked with clear amusement. “To’ve spent his entire adult life hunting me, to come so close to catching me, and then to see me simply sail away?” He chuckled in her ear. “I should’ve killed him that night along with the duchess and duke, but he was hiding, see. Like a little rabbit. The great Duke of Wakefield. Oh, you needn’t shiver, my dear.” He stroked a hand over her arm because she had indeed shuddered. “There’s no need to be afraid, for I doubt I’ll hurt you. Much.”
“You,” Artemis said very quietly through gritted teeth, “are a loathsome man who will never be even one-hundredth the man Maximus is, and besides that, you don’t know me at all.”
And so saying she dived over the side of the boat and into the black waters of the Thames.
THE MOMENT ARTEMIS’S body disappeared under the murky waters of the Thames all thought stopped for Maximus. He was aware in a dim sort of way of shouts, of the fire still raging behind him, of his sisters screaming, and the boat carrying Noakes away, but that was all at the back of his mind.
He dropped the pistol he held. He reached into his coat pocket for the dagger he’d taken off Old Scratch and placed it between his teeth. He tore off his coat and shoes.
Then he dived into the Thames.
A small, calm voice at the back of his brain was counting off the seconds since she’d disappeared, was pointing out that she hadn’t resurfaced, and was calculating how fast the river was moving.
He struck out, heading to a spot a little downstream from where she’d gone in.
A shot rang out, followed closely by another.
He dove into darkness.
At arm’s length he couldn’t see his hand. He felt about frantically. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
His lungs began spasming.
He kicked to the surface and drew his lips back from his teeth clenched around the dagger to gasp.
He dived again.
Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
His eyes stung.
He tasted death on his tongue.
She couldn’t end like this. He wouldn’t allow it.
He went deeper.
Nothing.
His chest was screaming.
He saw no point in rising to the surface.
He looked up a last time and saw a white hand.
One beautiful white hand.
He clutched at her and pulled until she was in his arms and they began sinking under the weight of her sodden skirts. He took the knife from his mouth and inserted it under the neckline at the back of her dress, yanking out hard. The thin silk split under his knife all the way to the waist. He slit the sleeves and tore them from her lifeless arms, before dragging the dress over her hips. Then he kicked hard, and as they rose, she slipped free from the garment, like a selkie shedding its skin.
They rocketed to the surface.
He broke the water, gasping, and looked at Artemis. Her face was white, her lips blue, and her hair trailed lifelessly in the water. She looked dead.
Arms suddenly seized him and he nearly fought them off before he realized that it was Winter Makepeace and Godric St. John hauling him into a boat.
“Take her first,” Maximus managed.
The men pulled Artemis into the boat without a word and Maximus clambered in after, falling gracelessly to the bottom of the boat. He immediately took her in his arms and cut off her stays. She didn’t move.
He shook her. “Artemis.”
Her head flopped back and forth limply.
Makepeace laid a hand on his arm. “Your Grace.”
He ignored the other man. “Diana.”
“Your Grace, I’m sorry—”
He swung back his arm and slapped her face, the sound echoing across the water.
She choked.
Immediately he flipped her so that her face was over the gunwale of the boat. She coughed and a great stream of dirty water fountained out of her mouth. He’d never seen such a wonderful sight in his life. When she’d stopped coughing, he hauled her back into his arms. St. John took off his coat and handed it over.
Maximus gently pulled it over her shoulders, wrapping his arms around her. He was never going to let her go after this. “What in bloody hell were you thinking?”
Makepeace cocked an eyebrow, but Maximus ignored it. He never, ever wanted to go through such agony again. He glared sternly down at the woman in his arms.
“I was thinking,” she rasped, “that you couldn’t get a clear shot with me in the way.”
He tucked her head under his chin, running his palm over her wet hair. “And so you decided to sacrifice yourself? Madam, I had not taken you for a halfwit.”
“I can swim.”
“Not in water-logged skirts.”
She frowned impatiently. “Did you shoot him?”
“I had much more important matters to consider,” Maximus snapped.
At that she tilted back her head and glared at him. “You’ve been hunting him for nearly two decades. What could possibly be more important than killing your parents’ murderer?”
He scowled at her. “You, you maddening woman. Whatever possessed you to…” Just the memory of watching her dive into the Thames made his throat close up. When he spoke again, his voice was rough. “Do not think to ever do that to me again, Diana. Had you not lived I would’ve joined you at the bottom of the Thames. I cannot survive without you.”
She blinked and her militant expression softened. “Oh, Maximus.” She laid her palm against his cheek.
And there in that wretched boat, dripping and shivering, with black smoke darkening the sky and ashes floating on the wind, Maximus thought that he’d never been so happy.
“I’ll find him again someday,” he murmured into her hair. “But once lost to me, I cannot find life without you, my Diana. Please, my love. Don’t ever leave me. I promise, on my mother’s grave, that I’ll never cleave to another but you.”
“I won’t leave,” she whispered back, her sweet gray eyes glowing, “though it is a pity you missed your chance with Lord Noakes.”
Makepeace cleared his throat. “As to that…”
“I shot him,” St. John muttered almost apologetically.
Maximus looked at him in astonishment.
St. John shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do, what with that gun to Miss Greaves’s head business and his subsequently shouting after she’d gone in that he’d started the fire and wasn’t sorry. Oh, and also, he shot at you, Wakefield, when you were in the water. Didn’t seem very gentlemanly, and although he wasn’t a very good shot, there was always the possibility that he wouldn’t miss with a second one. He was aiming another pistol when I shot him.”
“It was a good action.” Makepeace nodded. “And a good shot. Must’ve been near seventy feet.”
“Closer to fifty, I think,” St. John corrected modestly.
“Even so.”
“But…” Both men looked over inquiringly when Maximus spoke. “But I never asked you to help me with Noakes.”