Darling Beast (Maiden Lane) (12 page)

The entire thing had been brought down the Thames on a barge. Tree and machine had been especially ordered from a fellow garden architect whom Apollo had been corresponding with under the pseudonym Mr. Smith. He’d been quite specific in his order, including both diagrams and copious notes, and was pleased with the result before him: his oak lay like a colossus fallen, the roots spidering out from the earth-encased base.

Now all they had to do was get the tree in the ground without mishap.

Lily stood to one side with Indio and Daffodil capering at her feet. The gardeners had apparently become used to their presence in the garden, for there had been no questions when they’d stayed to watch.

Apollo almost literally twitched with the desire to direct the operation himself. Herring, the head gardener, was a good Yorkshireman, able to read and follow Apollo’s written instructions, but he was plodding and not much of a thinker. He had a hard time compensating when something didn’t go as planned.

And many things might not go as planned with the oak tree.

Two of the gardeners—dark-haired brothers from Ireland—steadied the cart while a third man—a short, wiry Londoner, new to Harte’s Folly just this week—led
the horses. Herring shouted orders while Apollo, ignominiously demoted to dullard while in the company of the other gardeners, stood by with a shovel.

“Hold it there!” Herring called, and studied the notes Apollo had left him the week before. “Says here that the master wants the cart pulled to near the hole, then the horses to be unhitched there.” He nodded to himself. “Makes sense, that.”

The horses were dutifully unhitched and Apollo, along with the Irish brothers, put his back into hauling the tree the remaining few feet over the hole. If he’d measured the hole correctly and his correspondent had followed his measurements, the wheels should be just wide enough to straddle it.

He watched as the cart trundled into place and felt a surge of satisfaction in a job well done.

“Pretty as a lamb at its ma’s tit, that,” Herring said admiringly, then seemed to remember Miss Stump. “If’n you’ll pardon an old countryman’s expression, ma’am.”

She waved cheerily. “Not at all, Mr. Herring.”

She exchanged an amused glance with Apollo and then he turned back to the work. The root ball now lay over the hole with the tree trunk extending to one side, parallel to the ground. Daffodil was nosing about the hole, as curious as usual, and Apollo gently toed her aside. Awful if the little dog should be stepped on as the men labored. All that was needed now was to haul the tree upright, cut its ropes and drop it—gently—into the waiting hole.

“Stand back, you,” Herring ordered Apollo. “Let the ones with some wits attach the ropes or we’ll have it all down around our ears and I don’t know what we’d do then.”

Apollo feigned patience, standing by as the other men tied the ropes. He winced as one of the Irish brothers drew a rope over-tight about the oak’s trunk and hoped the man hadn’t damaged the bark.

He took one of the ropes as one of the Irishmen and the small Londoner took the other.

“All together now,” Herring called. “And don’t be hasty. Slow and steady’ll get us there faster.”

At Herring’s signal, Apollo and the other two men pulled on their ropes, hand over hand, hauling the tree upright. The tongue and the bed of the cart pivoted as one on the two big wheels as the smaller wheel left the ground. Two ropes were needed for stability and to keep the tree from falling to one side or the other. Now that Apollo was actually pulling the oak tree upright he was beginning to think that three or even four ropes might have been better. Well, he’d experiment with the next tree they transplanted into the garden.

Sweat stung as it dripped into his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Daffodil was back, peering interestedly into the hole, but he couldn’t move to shoo her away. His muscles strained and he could hear the loud grunts of the other men. Slowly the tree rose, majestic and tall. It would be lovely at the side of the pond and in a hundred years, when it had spread its branches over the water, it would be magnificent.

He felt the sudden, sickening slackening of the rope first, followed closely by a hoarse shout from one of the gardeners on the other rope. That rope was whipping through the air, free of the men’s hands. Apollo looked up and saw the great oak shudder and then begin falling toward him.

At the same time, Indio darted between him and the cart as Daffodil slipped and slid helplessly into the tree hole.

The sound ripped from him, like a thing outside himself, a beast that’d been bound inside his gut and would no longer stand to be caged.

The shout burned as it roared through his throat.

“INDIO!”

Lily heard Indio’s name shouted and then all was drowned in the roar of the oak crashing down.

Down where Caliban had stood.

Down where Indio had darted.

The men were yelling. The horses bolted, dragging their harness behind, and where Apollo’s planting hole had been was only wreckage and a cloud of sooty dust.

She ran forward, pushing against smashed tree branches, fighting the man who tried to restrain her. He had to be in there somewhere, perhaps with only a broken limb or a bloodied back. Her lips were moving, muttering, as she bargained with whatever deity would listen. The tree was
big, the branches lying shattered and sticking up everywhere and in her way.

“Let me go!” she screamed at the arms holding her.

She couldn’t
see
them. Even in the mess of demolished branches, there should be some sign—Indio’s red coat or Caliban’s white shirt.

Then in the shouting she heard it: a yip.

“Quiet!” she called, and wonder of wonders, the men actually listened.

In the sudden silence Daffodil’s high, hysterical barking was quite clear—and coming from
inside
the hole.

“I’ll be,” Mr. Herring said, amazement in his voice.

She turned and looked. At first she saw only the mess of roots. There wasn’t space in there, surely, for a small dog, let alone a man and boy. But as she watched, a huge hand slapped down on the edge. She started for the hole even as Caliban emerged, head and broad shoulders blackened, clutching Indio to his chest like Hephaestus rising from his underworld forge.

She’d never seen such a wonderful sight.

He tossed a very dirty Daffodil over the edge of the hole. The little dog tumbled, righted herself, and shook vigorously, and then she ran to Lily, tail wagging as if nothing especially remarkable had happened.

Lily ignored the greyhound in favor of her son. Caliban had set him on the edge of the hole before heaving himself over.

“Mama,” Indio said, and then burst into tears.

She knelt in front of him, feeling his body with trembling hands. He had a bloody nose and a scrape on his chin. His hair was quite filthy with dirt, but otherwise he was sound.

She clutched him to her chest and looked over his little shoulder at Caliban. “Thank you. I don’t know how you did it, but thank you for saving my son.”

That seemed to bring Indio out of his shocked tears. “He caught me, Mama!” he said, looking at her with his mud-and-salt-streaked face. “Caliban caught me and pushed me an’ him in the hole and the oak tree comed down on us, but it didn’t really because the machine was on the outside, see?” And he pointed to where the tree had landed on top of the hole instead of in it.

Lily shuddered at the sight, for if one of the wheels of the machine had slid, the entire root ball would’ve fallen on them instead of merely tilting half in the hole. But she smiled for Indio.

“Yes, I see, but there mustn’t have been very much room down there.”

“No, there wasn’t,” Indio assured her earnestly. “And Caliban lay on top of me an’ Daff.” He leaned close to whisper in her ear. “He’s very heavy. Daff squeaked. I think she was nearly squashed.”

Lily laughed through her tears at this bit of information, for she understood as her son seemed not to that Caliban had covered Indio to protect him from the tree roots.

She glanced again at Caliban as she said, “You and Daffodil were very brave.”

“And the best part, Mama,” Indio said, tugging her hand to get her attention, “the
best
part is Caliban spoke. Did you hear him? He shouted my name!”

“What?” Lily stared at Indio’s filthy little face and then back up at Caliban. She absently noted that he had a bleeding scratch on his cheek. That shout right before the accident—had that been him?

Caliban looked away from her, his face pale, and she immediately wanted to get him alone so that she might find out if he could truly speak.

“I’m glad your boy’s safe, ma’am.” Mr. Herring’s words were kind but he was looking worriedly at the wreckage of the tree and machine.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be taking him back to the theater for a bath and to patch up his scratches. And I’ll do the same for… erm…” Good Lord, what did the other gardeners call Caliban? She gestured vaguely at him.

“What?” Mr. Herring glanced at her in alarm. “But I’ve already lost the new man—ran off who knows where. I’ll be needing Smith.”

Smith?
Lily drew herself up. “I’m afraid I must insist, Mr. Herring.”

“Oh, very well.” The head gardener waved her off wearily. “Probably won’t get much work done the rest of the day anyway. Don’t know what I’ll be tellin’ the master.”

“I have a feeling that won’t be a problem,” Lily muttered under her breath, ignoring Caliban’s warning glare. She turned to Indio. “Can you walk to the theater, love?”

The question seemed to prick her son’s male pride—a fickle, easily provoked thing—and he snapped back, “Of
course
, Mama.”

His hauteur was rather ruined, though, by the drooping of his shoulders. Now that the excitement was past it was evident that the accident had taken its toll upon Indio’s stamina. He yawned widely even as he stumbled down the path. In another few steps Caliban scooped him up without a word.

The thought made Lily eye the big man carrying her son on his shoulder. He could talk—or at least he had spoken.
One word, true, but surely where there was one there were more? Lily spent the rest of the walk to the theater with myriad questions swarming her brain.

Maude was away shopping for the afternoon, so the theater was empty when they arrived.

She waited until they were safely inside before turning to Caliban and demanding, “
Can
you talk?”

He opened his mouth and for a terrible moment nothing happened, but then sound emerged, creaking and halting. “I think… yes.” He swallowed and winced, as if the words physically hurt.

“Oh,” Lily whispered, pressing her fingertips to her trembling mouth. “Oh, I
am
glad.”

“Told you,” Indio said sleepily from Caliban’s shoulder.

“So you did,” Lily replied, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. She was turning into a veritable watering pot. She inhaled to steady herself. “I think you need a nap, little man.”

It was a measure of how exhausted Indio was that he didn’t even protest that he was now much too old for naps. Lily relaxed her cleanliness standards far enough to simply insist she wash his face for him before laying him down, already mostly asleep, in her own bed.

She gently shut the door to her bedroom and looked up to find Caliban reading her play in the outer room.

He set down the sheet he’d been holding and cleared his throat. “It… is… good.” He looked at her. “Very… good.”

His voice was naturally deep, but there was a strained, hoarse quality about it that suggested damage.

“Thank you.” She’d had compliments on her plays, but they’d always been filtered through Edwin. No one had
told her in person that they liked her writing. “It’s not done, of course, and I need to work quite hard on it if I’m to get it finished in time—I’ve only a week—but I think it might well be one of my better ones. That is, if I can do something about Pimberly. He’s rather priggish at the moment. But”—she reeled in her wandering words with a deep breath—“you don’t want to hear about—”

“I do,” he said, interrupting her.

“Oh.” She stared and then had to look down shyly—she was
never
shy! “That’s good. I mean… I’m glad, but you’ll be wanting to wash your face and see to your wounds right now, surely?”

He nodded, perhaps saving his voice, but he kept his gaze on her, watching her as she fetched water and cloths. She came to where he sat at the table and placed the basin there.

“May I?” she asked, surprised at how husky her voice was.

He nodded again, tilting his face up.

First she peeked beneath the bandage on his head. The wound was scabbing over and didn’t look damaged, so she replaced the bandage and left it as it was. In the silence she dipped a cloth in the water and wrung it out, then gently patted at his face. Up close she could see it was badly scraped in several places, and she thought of his bearing the brunt of that tree for her son.

She rewetted the cloth. “How is your back?”

“It’s… fine.”

She smoothed over his right cheekbone where the bloody cut was. “I’ll check it after I’ve washed your face.”

“There’s no… need.”

She smiled, sweet but insistent. His back would’ve
been the hardest hit when he’d covered Indio and Daffodil. “I want to.”

He made no reply to that, so she continued, gently wiping around his nose, over the broad brow, and up the craggy cheekbones. Not a handsome face. Not pretty or comely. But it was a good face, she thought. Certainly masculine.

Certainly one she was attracted to.

She paused, swallowing at the thought. She did not know this man. She knew
of
him—knew that he would without hesitation fling himself into a filthy hole to save her son, knew he was kind to silly dogs and quarrelsome old women, knew he could, with a single, certain look, make her insides heat and melt—but she did not know him.

She straightened, concentrating as she wetted the cloth again, watching her fingers wring brown water out. “How did you lose your voice, Caliban?”

When she turned back to him, his face was closed, his eyes shuttered.

“Please,” she whispered. She had to find out something—some small thing about him.

Maybe he understood her plea. Or perhaps he was so tired he could no longer fight her.

“It was a… beating,” he said, his voice croaking. He cleared his throat, but it sounded the same when next he spoke. “He… a man stood… on my neck.” He touched his hand to his Adam’s apple.

She stared. He was big and brave and she knew he could move swiftly. How could he have been bested in a fight? Unless…

“How many were there?” she whispered.

His eyes flicked to hers, sardonic acknowledgement in them. “Three.”

Even so… “Were you drunk or asleep?”

He shook his head. “I was…”

He looked away from her as if
ashamed
. Her eyes narrowed. What had happened to put that look on Caliban’s face?

He cleared his throat and tried again. “I… was… chained.”

Chained.
She blinked. The only persons she knew who might be chained were prisoners.

Suddenly she felt much better. A man might be imprisoned for many things—debt chief among them. Edwin had spent an uncomfortable month in Fleet Prison several years back.

She bent to wipe his chin, the cloth catching at stubble. “And you couldn’t speak after?”

“No.” He frowned. “I could… not…” He inhaled sharply as if in frustration. “I… was knocked out… they… the three of them…” He swallowed, grimacing, and she realized with sudden comprehension that there might be more to the story.

A big, powerful man chained, made helpless. She’d seen boys poke at a chained bear—a beast they’d run screaming from were it free to do as it would. Little boys—and weak men—fancied themselves brave in the face of such helplessness. It made them giddy with false power. And they were apt to wield that power in terrible and cruel ways.

Had such a thing been done to her Caliban?

The thought made her light-headed with rage.
No one
had the right to bolster his own feeble manhood by tearing down Caliban’s.

She took a deep breath, knowing that pity was the last thing he’d want. “I see,” she said, her voice level.

He shook his head, his mouth twisting. “It was… months… ago.”

And his simple bravery, his quiet pride, finally broke her. She let the cloth slip from her fingers and bent down to kiss him.

His reaction was immediate and decided. He wrapped his strong arms around her waist and pulled her into his lap, forcing her to straddle his legs. He cradled the back of her head in the spread of his fingers, angled his head for a better fit, and opened his mouth over hers.

And, oh, the man knew how to kiss.

His tongue licked into her mouth, tasting of wine and want, sure and in no hurry. He explored her thoroughly, sliding against her own tongue, taunting before withdrawing. He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, worrying gently, and chuckled low in his throat when she moaned and arched into him. Her skirts were caught between their bodies and naturally he still wore his breeches, but she could feel a hardness there—big and powerful. Her breasts ached against her bodice and she suddenly wished all their clothes vanished—that she could discover him for who he was.

She must’ve gone a little mad then, for she found her fingers threaded in his still dusty hair, tugging at it, demanding something that she couldn’t articulate.