Darling Beast (Maiden Lane) (10 page)

“I guard Lady Phoebe,” the other man said simply.

He bent and, one at a time, picked up his pistols and placed them once more in the holsters on his chest.
If his bearing weren’t so military, he’d look like a pirate
, Apollo thought in some amusement.

“Good day, my lord.” Trevillion nodded his head.
“Please do heed my warning. Should the King’s men find you before I can prove your innocence, I think you know well what would happen.”

He did: death. Or worse, Bedlam.

Apollo nodded stiffly in return.

He watched Trevillion make his way slowly down the path toward the Thames and then picked up his satchel, stowed his notebook, and turned in the opposite direction.

He was feeling light-headed now with an unpleasant tinge of nausea, no doubt the result of his head wound, but he simply couldn’t wait to discover if Miss Stump was all right.

Apollo picked up his pace, breaking into a jog along the path, trying to ignore how his movements worsened his headache. She’d looked at him with such wonder before, as if he might be something special, almost lovely. No one had ever looked at him in such a way, especially no woman.

When he burst into the theater at last, the first thing he saw was Miss Stump and the maid, Maude, bent over Indio. The boy was eating a biscuit smeared liberally with jam and seemed quite all right.

The second thing he saw was Miss Stump’s look as she straightened and turned to him.

Stark fear.

C
ALIBAN CAME CRASHING
through the theater door and Lily thought,
Thank God
—for he was at least alive—followed very quickly by
Dear God
, for his face was streaked with gore and his head was wrapped in a bloody rag. Also, and this was of course not
nearly
as important
as the fact that he was
hurt
, he’d somehow lost his shirt again, and his bare, muscled chest was rather distracting.

“Remember Kitty,” Maude hissed like some dolorous chorus at her shoulder, and Lily felt a very strong urge to slap her beloved nurse.

“Heat some water,” she snapped instead to the older woman.

Maude muttered to herself, but turned to the hearth.

“What’s wrong?” Indio said at the same time. “Why is Caliban all over blood? Did he kill that other man?”

He sounded elated rather than frightened, and Lily could only stare in horror at her son.

Caliban came closer, bloodied head and distracting chest and all, and knelt at Indio’s feet. He shook his head and took out his notebook from a battered cloth bag.
It was a misunderstanding between friends.

Lily read the notebook aloud and stared at him incredulously. Not even Daffodil was naïve enough to believe
that
explanation.

The mute swayed where he was squatting and she rushed forward to take his upper arm—his very
hard
upper arm—and help him into a chair. If he fainted on the floor, he’d have to lie there, for there was no way she and Maude could lift him.

“Is he gone?” she asked urgently. “That other man?”

Caliban nodded wearily.

She leaned closer and whispered, “Is he dead?”

His mouth twisted wryly at that, but he shook his head slowly. His eyes were beginning to droop and his skin, usually a lovely golden color, was going gray.

She hurried to the mantel and snatched down their one bottle of awful wine. In the state he was in, he was
unlikely to notice the quality—and in any case it was for medicinal purposes at the moment.

She poured him a glassful and pressed it into his hands. “Drink this.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Maude, the water?”

“ ’Tis only God can make water boil faster,” the maid muttered sourly.

“He’s hurt, Maude,” Lily chided and got to her feet. “Don’t move,” she said sternly to Caliban, for she wouldn’t put it past him to try to stand.

She crossed swiftly to her room. She had an old chemise tucked away and she scooped it up and brought it back into the main room.

Indio was now off his chair and peering into Caliban’s face while Daffodil licked the boy’s sticky fingers.

“Indio, don’t crowd him,” she said gently, and unwrapped the rag from Caliban’s head.

She had to lean close to do so and she could feel the heat radiating off him, smell his male musk. Her arm accidentally brushed his shoulder and that little contact made her shiver.

He sat docilely, letting her do as she would. The rag turned out to be the remains of his shirt, now entirely ruined, and she wondered if he had another. Maybe he’d have to go naked from the waist up, except for his waistcoat, as he labored about the garden. That would be a distracting sight: his huge arms flexing as he wielded a shovel or his savage hooked knife. She fancied she could charge ladies a shilling to come sit by the theater and sip tea as they watched him work—and wasn’t that a silly idea?

Frowning to bring her wayward thoughts under control,
she carefully pried the last of the shirt from his head. The blood had begun to dry, sticking the material to his hair and scalp. She winced as fresh scarlet stained the tawny strands.

“An’ here’s the water,” Maude said, bringing over the steaming kettle and setting it on a cloth on the floor. She bent to peer at Caliban’s head as Lily began delicately washing the clotted blood from his hair. A seeping furrow appeared, about three inches long, running along the top of his head, slightly right of center.

Maude grunted and straightened. “Creased from a bullet, he is.”

She went to the corner where she kept her trunk.

“Cor!” Indio exclaimed, and for once Lily didn’t correct his common expression.

She frowned over the bleeding wound. “Shall we have to stitch it closed?” she called to Maude.

“Nay, hinney. Not much point since it’s so shallow.” The maidservant returned with a rag. “Pour a bit of wine over this and press it to the wound.”

Lily raised her eyebrows doubtfully, but did as she was told.

As soon as the cloth met his head, Caliban’s eyes widened and he grunted in pain.

“It hurts him!” Lily took away the rag.

“Aye, but the wine’ll help it heal, too.” Maude put her hand over Lily’s and pressed the rag back. “Now hold it there.” She carefully poured a little more of the wine onto Caliban’s scalp, ignoring his wince.

Indio, watching closely from the side, giggled. “He looks silly. Now his hair is red and brown and black.”

Caliban’s mouth lifted in a wan smile.

Lily frowned, concerned. “How do you know about such things, Maude?”

“Been around theater folk a long, long time,” the maid replied. “A right quarrelsome bunch, they are. Patched up more’n my fair share of young men after an argument got out of hand.”

Indio seemed deeply interested in this bit of information. “Has Uncle Edwin ever been shot in the head?”

“ ’Fraid not, lad. Your uncle is good at wriggling out of such things—likes to keep his skin whole, he does.” Maude tapped Lily’s hand to get her to lift the cloth, and inspected the still-bleeding wound. She nodded her head. “We’ll use your old chemise to wrap this, hinney.”

They tore the chemise up and while Lily held a folded pad over the wound, Maude wrapped strips around Caliban’s head to hold it in place. By the time they were done, he looked as if he’d been shrouded for burial and Indio was in fits of laughter.

“He looks like an old man with a toothache!”

Daffodil yipped and jumped up to nip at her giggling young master, and even Maude broke into a reluctant smile.

The maid hastily repressed it, though. “I’ll have you know, young Indio, that this here is the finest of nursing work.”

“Yes, Maude,” Indio said, more soberly. “Will he be all right?”

“O’ course, lad,” Maude said stoutly. “Best your mother helps him to her bed, though, because he looks like he could do with a nice long sleep.” Her voice softened just a fraction. “Poor man probably hasn’t a decent
bed to sleep on, wherever he takes his rest. Come, you an’ I will start the supper.”

Indio leaped at that, always eager to be allowed to help in grown-up endeavors, and both maid and boy went to the fireplace, trailed by a curious Daffodil.

Lily looked into Caliban’s face. He had his eyes closed and was listing slightly in his chair. “Can you walk to the bed?”

He nodded and opened his eyes. They were duller than she was used to now. It reminded her uncomfortably of the time when she’d thought him mentally incompetent. How strange that idea seemed now.

“Can you stand?” she asked softly.

He answered by rising like a drunken behemoth and she hastily dipped a shoulder to bring it under his arm. It wasn’t that she could physically hold him up—he was much too big—but she helped guide him as he stumbled unsteadily toward her little bedroom.

Inside was her bed—a narrow, pathetic thing—and she helped him climb in, drawing the coverlet over his chest. He looked as if he lay in a child’s cot. His feet hung off the end and one arm dangled almost to the ground from the side.

Caliban seemed comfortable enough—his eyes already shut. Was he asleep? She bent over him, whispering urgently, “Caliban.”

He opened his eyes, and though the color hadn’t changed from ordinary brown, they were somehow more dear to her now.

“Who was that man?” she asked. “Why did he attack you?”

He shook his head and closed his eyes again. If he was
feigning sleep, he was better than many actors Lily had known.

She blew out a frustrated breath and went around to the foot of the bed. His gaiters and shoes were quite muddy and she wrinkled her nose in disgust, but got gamely to work. She unlaced his gaiters and then unbuckled his shoes, marveling at their size before setting them neatly beneath the bed. Then she found another blanket and pulled it over his upper half, for the one on the bed didn’t come close to his shoulders.

With a last look, Lily shut the bedroom door and went out into the main room.

Maude and Indio were by the hearth as Maude supervised the boy in stirring something in a bubbling pot.

She cast a look over her shoulder at Lily’s entrance. “There’s tea on the table, hinney. Take a seat and have a cup, but first you’ll want to scrub your hands. Go on, then.”

Lily nodded wearily and crossed to the outside door. It was oddly comforting to have Maude instructing her as the older woman had when she was a little girl. As Lily herself did now with Indio.

Outside, the sky had begun to gray and Lily blinked at the passage of time. She’d been so fearful for Indio, then so concerned about tending to Caliban, that she hadn’t noticed.

She went to the barrel of water they kept beside the door, removing the wooden cover and dipping out some water with which to scrub the blood and mud from her hands. She watched the pinkish water run into the dirt at her feet, making little runnels, and remembered another time she’d scrubbed blood from her hands. Kitty’s dear
face had been so swollen she couldn’t open her eyes, her mouth turned into an obscene, bloodied mass.

All because of a big, violent man.

Lily watched the last of the water run off and recalled Maude’s words—
Remember Kitty
—and wondered if she was making a very foolish—and perhaps fatal—mistake.

Apollo woke in the dark the next morning to two immediate realizations: one, he was in a bed—a real bed—for the first time since before Bedlam, and two, he hadn’t written and set out the day’s instructions for the gardeners. He groaned silently at the last thought. The fellows Asa had hired were a competent enough lot, but with no instruction they had a tendency to mill around without doing any useful work.

But the bed—the lovely, lovely bed—made it hard to feel put out by the matter. The bed wasn’t big, but it was soft and clean with a proper mattress—
not
stuffed with scratchy straw—and it was comfortable. He was tempted to go back to sleep.

Except the thought hit him of
whose
bed he must be in: Miss Stump’s.

He sat up, jostling his head, which promptly began to complain about the matter. The room was dark—it had no windows—but he knew from the internal clock his body had kept since he was a boy that it was morning, probably six or seven of the clock.

Where was Miss Stump?

Cautiously he lowered his foot to the floor and only then realized he was missing both shoes and gaiters. His brows shot up. Had elegant Miss Stump removed them? It took a few minutes of feeling about, but he eventually discovered his shoes under the bed and donned them.

He felt his way to the door and cracked it.

Immediately he was set upon by Daffodil, who appeared to be the only one of the household awake. She spun at his feet, yipping excitedly.

Apollo bent and picked up the little dog to keep her from waking everyone.

When he straightened he saw Indio, sitting up from a nest of blankets on the floor. He and his mother appeared to be bedded down together, while Maude was in the cot. Both women still slept.

Apollo had only a moment to sneak a glimpse of Miss Stump’s mahogany hair, down and spread like a silken skein over her pillow, before the boy yawned and rose. “Daff says she has to go out an’ so do I.”

Apollo looked with alarm at the wriggling dog in his arms.

The boy had worn his shirt to sleep in. He donned a pair of breeches and trotted over.

Apollo opened the outer door.

Outside, the morning had dawned sunny and glorious. He set Daffodil on the ground and she immediately squatted.

Indio was making his way around the back of the theater and Apollo followed him. The boy stopped at one of the few trees still living—a great gnarled oak—and began fumbling with the fall of his breeches.

He glanced up, grinning, as Apollo halted beside him. “I like to try an’ hit that knot.” He nodded at a knot in the tree, about three feet off the ground.

Apollo smirked back and unbuttoned his own breeches.

The two streams of urine hit the knot and steamed impressively against the morning cold of the tree trunk, Apollo’s lasting a bit longer than the boy’s.

“Cor!” Indio said as he shook off his little prick and began righting himself. “You’re dead good at that. Took me days to hit it the first time.”

Apollo tried not to let the compliment go to his head. Precision pissing was, after all, a sadly underrated skill among most of society.

“Indio!”

Miss Stump’s call echoed through the garden.

Indio’s eyes widened. “That’s my mama. She’ll be wanting us to come in for breakfast.”

Apollo followed the boy back around the theater to find Miss Stump standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over a wrap.

She raised a hand to her unbound hair when she caught sight of him. “Oh, Caliban. I didn’t know you were up yet. Good morning.”

He nodded, watching as she pushed her hair behind her ears. The sad female creatures of Bedlam had often had
their hair down, but theirs had been dirty and tangled, the result of unsound minds no longer caring about their toilet.

Miss Stump’s unbound hair was an intimate sight—a sight such as a lover or husband might be privy to. It shone, waist-length, heavy, and straight, and he fought the urge to take it between his fingers to test its weight and feel the silky texture.

Perhaps some of his desire revealed itself on his face because she stepped back into the theater, glancing nervously at him from the corners of her eyes. “Have you washed, Indio?”

“Nooo.” Indio drew out the reluctant syllable.

Apollo tapped him on the shoulder and nodded at the water barrel. No doubt he could do with a bath as well.

Miss Stump disappeared for a moment and then returned with several cloths. The boy stripped off his shirt, shivering in the morning air, his arms wrapped over his skinny chest.

Apollo smiled and uncovered the water barrel to dip a cloth in. He handed it to the boy before wetting his own washcloth. Normally he’d simply have sluiced himself with the water dipper, but he had a feeling Miss Stump would not appreciate his undoing all her hard work in dressing his wound.

So instead he washed his face and neck briskly, then poured fresh water over the cloth and wiped his arms, underarms, and chest. He pivoted as he did so and saw that Miss Stump stood in the doorway to the theater, watching him.

He met her eyes and became conscious for the first time that he was half naked and performing a private act
before her. Bedlam had stripped him of modesty. There the cells had never been entirely shut off, never entirely private. The most basic of human activities had, at times, been done before an audience of other inmates or uncaring guards. He might as well have been a horse in a stable—save that most horses were better treated than the patients at Bedlam.

But Miss Stump didn’t look at him as if he were an animal. She looked at him as a woman does a man she finds attractive.

Perhaps even arousing.

Her eyelids were half lowered, her cheeks flushed, and as he watched, her pink tongue ran slowly over her bottom lip.

He was aware suddenly of his nipples, pulled exquisitely tight on his chest, of his cock, pumping full of hot blood.

“Am I c-c-clean now, Mama?” Indio’s high voice chattered behind him.

“What?” Miss Stump blinked. “Oh! Erm, yes, quite clean, Indio. Come inside before you catch your death of cold.”

The boy darted past Apollo, his shirt clutched in his hand, and Daffodil, who had been milling about, sniffing at dead vegetation, barked and happily raced after.

Apollo followed more slowly, watching Miss Stump as he did. She was bustling about the room, settling her son at the table, instructing Maude, and then disappearing abruptly into the bedroom he’d taken last night.

When she reappeared, her hair was dressed—much to his regret—and she bore a thin blanket. “Caliban, would you like this until you can find another shirt?” She held
out the blanket and then her brows knit. “You
do
have another shirt, don’t you?”

He gave her a sardonic glance that made her blush and then nodded.

“I hope you like tea, because we don’t run to coffee,” Maude said, and banged a teapot down on the table.

That apparently was the signal to sit for breakfast, and so Apollo did.

The table held bread and butter and a plate of cold sliced meat. There wasn’t a lot of anything, and he was reminded of Makepeace’s words. Miss Stump was out of work.

Apollo was careful to take only one slice of bread and only a little meat. He knew what it was like to be without food. He’d often been weak with hunger in Bedlam, despite Artemis’s heroic attempts to keep him supplied with food. Hunger was an affliction worse than beatings. It made the mind narrow to only that one point: food and when one would next be able to eat. Damnable to reduce a man to the state of a starving dog.

Once he’d been lower than a starving dog, mindless with want.

So he was careful now to eat in slow, moderate bites, as a gentleman should, for he was, beneath everything else, a gentleman.

The tea was weak but hot and he drank two cups of it, watching Miss Stump nibble at her own bread. She caught his eye once and bit her lip, as if hiding a secret smile. All the while Indio chattered about everything from the sparrows he’d seen in the trees the day before to the dead snail Daffodil had attempted to eat the previous week.

But pleasant as the morning meal was, it wasn’t long
before Apollo recollected that he must be at work—and to do that, he’d have to fetch his only other shirt from the musician’s gallery.

He pulled out his notebook and, turning to a new page, wrote,
Thank you—for the meal, the physicking, and the bed—but I must be off to my labors.

Miss Stump blushed when she read it and gave it back. “We were glad to help.”

Indio, who had been watching the exchange, slumped in his chair. “Aww! Must Caliban go? I wanted to show him my new boat.”

“He’s a man grown, dearest, and must be about his job. But perhaps”—she cleared her throat, peeking at him beneath her lashes—“we could take Caliban a picnic luncheon?”

“Yes!” Indio was so excited he knelt up on his chair as he turned to Apollo. “Say yes, pleeeease?”

Apollo’s lips twitched as he inclined his head.

“Huzzah!” Indio cried, making Daffodil leap and twirl in excitement. “Huzzah!”

“Sit down afore you spill your tea, lad,” Maude said gruffly, but even she had a smile upon her face.

Apollo walked out into the garden feeling better than he had in months—even
with
the headache. He could hear chopping coming from somewhere in the garden, so at least
some
work was being done—whether it was the correct work might be another matter. He hurried to the musician’s gallery.

It was as he was buttoning his waistcoat—sadly he’d only the one, and that was now stained and slightly damp from lying on the ground all night—that he heard the distinctive sound of Makepeace’s voice raised in ire.

Hastily he finished his crude toilet and jogged in the direction of the yelling, which became comprehensible as he got nearer.

“If you think I’ll take on some wet-behind-the-ears, overeducated,
dilettante
architect to design and rebuild
my
bloody garden just because you met him at some aristocratic ball in Sweden—”

“Switzerland,” drawled an obnoxious, familiar voice.

“Bloody
Switzerland
,” Makepeace amended without even taking breath, “than you’ve lost your blasted ducal mind. This garden is going to be the most wondrous pleasure garden in all of London, which might as well be the
world
, and to do that we need an experienced,
working
architect, not some silly aristocrat who’s decided that he’d play with blocks and see if he could build something that wouldn’t fall down after three damned
minutes
.”

By the time Makepeace had come to the end of his loud and foul objections, Apollo had rounded a corner and caught sight of him.

Makepeace was standing in the middle of the ruined path that led to the dock, hair on end, hands on hips, glowering thunderously at the Duke of Montgomery, who didn’t seem to realize the mortal peril he was in.

Indeed, as Apollo came to a stop beside the two men, the duke flicked open a jeweled snuffbox and smiled slyly at him. “Why, Mr. Makepeace, I’m surprised you have such objections to the blood of my architect, considering you’re such good friends with Viscount Kilbourne.”

Apollo froze. They’d never made mention of his real name or rank in front of Montgomery. The man was supposed to have been out of the country for
years
until last summer. How in hell had he figured out who Apollo was?

His gaze met Makepeace’s and he saw equal baffled fury there.

Montgomery sneezed into an enormous lace-edged handkerchief. “Now then, gentlemen,” he said after he’d stowed both the snuffbox and the handkerchief in his pocket. “Let us begin this discussion again on a more congenial note, shall we?”

“What do you want, Montgomery?” Makepeace all but growled.

The duke shrugged delicately. “As I’ve said: to employ an architect of my own selection to design and build the theater and musician’s gallery and various other follies I might like in the garden. I shall, naturally, be paying him from my own pocket. Come now, it’s not as if you have a choice.”

At that, Makepeace
did
growl.

“Fascinating,” Montgomery drawled, cocking his head as he watched Makepeace simmer. Apollo wondered if the man had
any
sense of self-preservation. “But I shall take that as agreement.”

He turned and strolled leisurely away.

“We can’t trust him, ’Pollo,” Makepeace said, abruptly and low. “We couldn’t trust him before, but now he knows your
name
.”

And Apollo couldn’t help but agree.

“H
E
’
S JUST A
gardener,” Maude muttered later that day as she watched Lily dither over the picnic luncheon she was packing. “Well, that’s what he told you, anyway.”