Just like he always did.
***
Artemis found Phoebe in her room, seated at her dressing table with Hetty at her feet, helping her to remove a stylish pair of blue leather half-boots.
As soon as Phoebe saw Artemis’s face, she ordered her maid to leave. “What is it?” she asked, her tone flat with bored weariness.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. I don’t have the patience.” Artemis shut the door to stop the lady’s maid eavesdropping. “You must not see that man,” she said in her best schoolteacher’s voice. “He’s not what he seems.”
Phoebe gave a derisive snort. “Just like your duke?”
“Phoebe.” Artemis narrowed her gaze. “I mean it. He’s dangerous.”
Her sister shot her a skeptical look as she removed the hat pin from the flimsy confection of lace and feathers that was perched upon her elegantly arranged curls. “And how would you know? Unless you’re relying on secondhand intelligence from your highly questionable fiancé. I have it on good authority that anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt.”
Artemis studied the flowers in the Axminster carpet at her feet. She couldn’t tell Phoebe everything, not about all of the things she’d done with Gascoyne in the name of love. A love that proved false. It was far too humiliating “Please,” she entreated. “Just trust me. Iknow.”
Phoebe sniffed and turned away, loosening the lace cuffs on her gown. “I’m afraid that’s not good enough, dear sister.”
Artemis swallowed, her mouth dry. “We… Ten years ago, during my debut, we…he and I…we shared… We were intimate…”
In the mirror, Artemis saw Phoebe roll her eyes. “Guy told me that you would say some sort of rubbish just like this. He said that even back then you were jealous of his budding relationship with Evangeline Gibbs. That at every you turn, you sought to sabotage—”
Artemis thumped the door so hard it rattled. “He’s lying,” she cried. “That’s not the case at all. I wasn’t jealous of Evangeline then, and I’m not jealous of you now. He promised me the world, then broke my heart, Phoebe.”
Her sister studied her, her look long and assessing. “Well, even if he did,” she said after a fraught pause, “that doesn’t mean he will break mine. He’s charming and amusing and—”
“And a cad and a bounder and an untrustworthy, manipulative snake. Please, you must end this courtship or affair or whatever you want to call it. At once.”
Phoebe lifted her chin. “I cannot. I will not. I have no reason at all to distrust him. You, on the other hand, have a fiancé who’s been dripping poison in your ear about Lord Gascoyne. Your Dastardly Duke is the one you should be wary of.”
Artemis ground her back teeth together. How could her sister be so blind? Or was she like poor Celeste, starved for affection and jumping at the first man who came her way, even if he was wicked to the core? “I’ll go to Aunt Roberta.”
Phoebe released a bored sigh. “She already knows about Lord Gascoyne. And she approves.”
What?A cold, sick feeling settled in the pit of Artemis’s stomach. “You must be joking,” she whispered.
“I’m not.” Phoebe began to pull the pins from her hair, tossing them onto the dressing table, willy-nilly. “Go and ask her if you don’t believe me.”
Artemis did and it proved to be true. Aunt Robertadidknow that Lord Gascoyne was courting Phoebe, and she’d given her consent.
Artemis stood in the middle of the drawing room rug, her heart pounding erratically. Her stomach churned with nausea. “Aunt Roberta, you must listen to me. Lord Gascoyne… His intentions cannot be honorable. He’s not to be trusted.”
Aunt Roberta fed a sweetmeat to her terrier Bertie. “Phoebe warned me that you would take this tack. And so did Lord Gascoyne himself. Your duke has turned you against the man.”
Somehow Artemis tamped down the urge to take Aunt Roberta’s prized collection of Ming vases off the mantelpiece and hurl them, one by one, onto the porcelain tiles of the hearth. Lord Gascoyne had clearly been busy “dripping poison” in everyone else’s ears. “That’s not true. He was the one… When I had my debut…” Artemis paused to gather the scattered, tumbling pieces of her thoughts. “All those times that I stole away with someone during my debut—the times you recently said youknewabout—it was with him. Lord Gascoyne. He promised me love and hinted he was going to propose whenever we—” She bit her lip as a scalding blush flooded her cheeks. “Suffice it to say, he lied. About everything. And I’m worried he’s going to take advantage of Phoebe and ruin her just because he can.”
Aunt Roberta sniffed. “I have not one iota of sympathy for you, my gel. Why should he have bought the cow if said cow was intent on giving him all the milk he wanted for nothing? At least your sister isn’t so naive or foolish.”
“You have no way of knowing that. Lord Gascoyne is very convincing. And a master of seduction. Phoebe must be on her guard or else he’ll take away her innocence without a second thought.”
“Enough.” Aunt Roberta held up one ring-encrusted hand. “I don’t wish to hear any more. Phoebe and I met Lord Gascoyne at the Castledowns’ ball, and you cannot convince me that his intentions are nefarious. He has not put a foot wrong. You, on the other hand, continue to stumble though life, making poor choices and blundering from one disaster to another, most of them of your own making. So you’ll understand why your opinion matters not one jot to me.”
“And vice versa,” returned Artemis. “You’ll be pleased to know that I will be gone from this house for the next week. I’ll be spending time at Ashburn Abbey, the Duke of Dartmoor’s house in Devonshire. And your chaperonage will not be required.”
There, make of that what you will.
Artemis turned on her heel and stalked away. She had packing to do, and she wasn’t going to waste another breath on trying to convince her aunt or her foolish sister that Lord Gascoyne was the worst kind of blackhearted blackguard.
It seemed they were going to have to learn that themselves, the hard way.