Darling Beast (Maiden Lane) (23 page)

“Don’t be a fool,” she whispered urgently. “No man can withstand a bullet.”

His smile slipped from his face. “You’re right.” He kissed her forehead. “Now tell me why Ross is troubling you.”

She blinked at the sudden assault. “There’s nothing. I—”

“Lily.” He trailed his fingers along her hairline. “I care for you. I would protect you if I can. Please tell me.”

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. In a little while they would part and probably never see each other again. Did she really owe him anything when such was the situation?

But in this time—this stolen time
before
all that would come next—they were close. If things had been otherwise, she might’ve made this man her husband. Might’ve borne his children, kept his home, slept beside him night after night until they both had white hair.

Perhaps in this in-between time she did owe him the truth.

So she laid her head on his chest and listened to his reassuring heartbeat as she spoke.

“When I was little, living in various theaters with my mother, there was another girl my age. Her name was Kitty and she was my friend. Both her mother and her father were actors and I suppose we grew up together. Kitty had flaming red hair and blue eyes and when she laughed, her nose scrunched up so adorably. Once she was old enough she always played the heroine. She was funny and kind and I loved her. She was very fond of seedcake, I remember. Maude would sometimes smuggle a small cake in for us especial and we would have a tea party behind the stage as my mother and her parents worked in whatever play they were in at the time.”

Apollo stroked her hair, not commenting. She wondered if he had any idea what it was like to have a friend when one was as alone in the midst of many people as she’d been growing up. How very attached one could become to that person.

“When we were both seventeen,” Lily continued, “Kitty met a man—a man outside the theater and far from our world. An aristocrat.” She fingered one of the buttons on Apollo’s shirt, remembering. “He was handsome and rich, but most importantly, it seemed to us, was that he was so terribly taken with her. We were girls, of course, and even though we’d grown up in the theater, we knew very little of life. It never even occurred to me to be worried. I remember Maude making a comment once—that blue blood and common red blood don’t easily mix—but we disregarded her. It was so
romantic
, you understand. He would come and stand by the backstage door, once even in the rain. He said he loved her and we believed him. How could we not? Isn’t love standing in the rain and showering a girl with flowers and jewels?”

His arms came up to wrap around her as if she were a small child.

“Once…” She swallowed, steadying her voice. “Once I saw a greenish bruise upon her cheek before she covered it with paint and I thought it rather odd—it was such a strange place to be bruised. But Kitty said she bumped into the corner of a door in the dark and I
believed
her. Believed her without question. I never even thought to question that silly lie.”

Her voice had risen and he brushed her hair back from her face, laying his lips on her temple, still saying nothing.

“She married him, after more than a year of courting,
for he was that much infatuated—he actually
married
an actress despite his family’s opposition and his own lineage.”

Apollo stirred at her words as if to make comment, but she continued before he could.

“I didn’t see her then for nearly a year. She sent letters, writing about how happy she was and how her new husband didn’t like to share her, even with old friends, and I missed her dreadfully, but I was glad that she’d found her true love. She visited after many months and though she walked with a limp I thought nothing of it when she said she’d fallen in the street and twisted her ankle. But her accidents became more common as her visits grew less and less. When I met her, in the second year of her marriage, at a tea shop and saw, despite the paint she’d used, that her eye had actually been blackened…”

He kissed her, high on her temple, and whispered, “What happened?”

“I pleaded with her to leave him, of course. She had friends, many friends, in the theater. I told her we could hide her if need be, find work for her.”

“Did she?”

“No. She wouldn’t hear of leaving him. The maddening thing was despite his monstrous treatment of her, she still loved him. Kitty felt that he’d made a sacrifice for her by marrying her against his family’s wishes, and if he had a horrendous temper, then that was the price she must pay.”

His hand stilled on her hair and he said, very carefully and calmly, “There is never any excuse for a man to hit a woman—
any
woman—let alone one he professes to love.”

She was quiet a moment, just basking in his gentle strength.

Then she took a breath and continued. “The next time I saw her, she was expecting a child and she was so happy, Apollo. I began to think I’d been wrong. That her husband had realized how sweet Kitty was and had vowed to never hurt her again. That was what she told me, at least, and I wanted—
truly
—to believe her.”

He’d stiffened when she’d spoken of Kitty’s pregnancy and he made a sound like an exclamation hastily cut off.

“I was so naïve,” she whispered.

“You…” He stopped, his voice shaking. “You weren’t to blame, no matter what happened.”

She just shook her head. If she’d argued more strongly, appealed to Kitty’s instinctive motherly feelings… but she hadn’t.

She hadn’t.

Lily took his hand, squeezing it. “Kitty came to us one night, very late. She woke us—Edwin, Maude, and me—by pounding at the door. Mother had passed by this point, and Edwin was only staying with us in rather cramped rooms because he’d lost all his money at cards. Maude was the one who opened the door. When I heard her scream, I leaped from my bed. Kitty…” She bit her lip, breathing harshly, trying to fight down sobs.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, low. “You don’t have to tell me.”

She shook her head violently and gasped, “You won’t understand completely otherwise. She… she was all over blood. I don’t know how she’d managed to come to us, but she loved her baby very much.” She inhaled, choking on a sob. “Very much.”

“God,” he groaned, holding her, rocking her now. “Oh, my darling girl.”

“He’d beaten her quite badly. One eye was closed completely, the other swollen so much…” She caught her breath. “Even had she lived it would’ve scarred her. I’m not sure she ever would’ve been able to see again from the closed eye. Something was wrong with her cheek and her nose was flattened into her face. She had to breathe through her mouth, and Apollo, oh, Apollo, some of the blood came from inside her. She was bleeding. Her baby was coming.”

He pressed her face to his cheek and she realized it was damp. He was weeping for a woman he’d never known. Weeping for her pain.

“There wasn’t time to call a midwife. Maude… Maude was a wonder. She got Kitty on my bed and put clothes beneath her and she scolded Edwin until he pulled himself together enough to help. He shouldn’t’ve been there, of course, but I don’t think Kitty knew at the last. She fainted and Maude said… said…”

She covered her face with her hands then, the old, old grief and shock overcoming her. Kitty, poor Kitty. She’d been so pretty, so vivacious, and now all Lily could remember of her was a bloody, beaten face. It wasn’t fair. It simply wasn’t fair.

“Hush, my love, my love, hush,” Apollo murmured into her hair, rocking her like a babe.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her face with the heels of her hands. Her nose was running and her eyes were red, she knew. This wasn’t what he’d come for tonight, an ugly, weeping woman.

“Don’t,” he said sharply and she jerked and looked at
him for the first time in minutes. His eyes were bloodshot. “Don’t,” he said more gently. “Don’t apologize for what that monster did and how it hurt you.”

She nodded, catching her breath. “He was born only an hour or so after she arrived, just before dawn. So wrinkled and red and Kitty never saw him, she wasn’t breathing by the time he came into the world. I thought he wouldn’t last either, he was so small, but Maude knew what to do. She sent Edwin to find a wet nurse and bundled the baby with a hot brick on either side of him to warm him.” She smiled then, despite the painful memories, because he’d been her baby boy right from the first. “He never cried, do you know? He simply blinked and looked around with big dark-blue eyes. Of course later one eye changed to green, but when he was first born, they were both blue like the night sky, nearly black, and he had a little tuft of black curls on the top of his head, so adorable. Edwin said we should call him George, but I told him that was too common. I named him Indio.”

She looked up at him.

He stared back, steady and true. “Who was Kitty’s husband, Lily?”

“Lord Ross,” she replied, as easily as telling him the time of day, though she’d never told another soul the truth. “We knew at once that if he thought the baby had lived he would hurt it, for he’d told Kitty as he’d beaten her to death that he wanted a new wife. One who would give him heirs of a proper pedigree. So I left the city for a little while, playing in smaller towns, traveling about the country with Maude and the baby and a very young wet nurse. When I came back to London I simply said Indio was my own.”

“Ross doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know,” Lily agreed. “And he must never know. He has a new wife, two small boys, one of them his heir. I shudder to think what he’d do if he knew he already had an heir—one born of an actress with no family.”

Apollo slowly clenched his fists. “But for him to’ve beaten a woman to death—his
wife
—and face no punishment at all…” His face twisted. “It’s not
right
.”

She scrambled to her knees to face him, for she had to make him understand. “You mustn’t go after him, Apollo, and you mustn’t tell anyone. As long as he thinks the baby died with Kitty, he’s no real danger.”

His eyes snapped to hers, darkening. “Then why has he been watching you this entire party?”

She shook her head. “I saw Kitty at the last. He must realize whom she went to. I know what he did to her.”

“Then he sees you as a threat to his freedom.”

“I’m an actress—no one of consequence in his circles.”

“Did you not see the entire room stand to applaud you this morning?” He caught her hands, bringing them to his chest. “You might not think yourself important—and perhaps in strictly titled circles you are not—but in society as a whole? Before we knew you were a great playwright, you were lauded as a fine actress. Lily, he has good reason to fear you.”

“Even if you’re right, I don’t…” She closed her eyes, trying to gather the words. “I don’t want you telling anyone, Apollo. Indio has to be kept safe. He
has
to.”

“Hush,” he murmured, framing her face with his big hands. “I’ll not put you or Indio in any more danger, I promise.”

“Thank you.” She leaned forward to kiss him on the jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble beneath her lips. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry it ever happened to you,” he whispered, catching her chin and lifting her face to his. “No one should have to bear witness to the worst that men can do, and especially not you.”

Her lips curved in amusement. “Especially me? Why should I be sheltered in particular?”

“Because,” he said, pulling her into his lap, “you are my light and my laughter, and if you would let me, I would spend the rest of my life protecting you from everything that is ugly.”

“That can’t be done,” she whispered. “To live is to see both the beauty and the ugliness of life.”

“Perhaps not,” he said stubbornly, “but that wouldn’t stop me from trying. Every day I want to see your eyes alight with happiness.”

“Thank you,” she said, oddly touched by something that would never—
could
never—happen.

She kissed the corner of his mouth, and when he moved to more fully engage hers, she opened her lips beneath his, accepting his tongue in a long, languorous kiss.

“Help me,” she whispered, rising on her knees above him. She unhooked her bodice as he untied the tapes of her skirt, then together they unlaced her stays until he could draw them up over her head.

Another tug and her chemise followed.

She knelt, straddling his thighs, in only her stockings, gartered just above her knees. She placed her palms on his shoulders, looking down at him as he ran his rough fingertips up her legs to her hips.

“You’re lovely,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I thought that the first time I ever saw you in the garden, when you were clothed, but here, naked…” He swallowed, his eyes darkening as he watched his thumb trace a circle near her maiden hair. “You’re everything I never dared to dream of when I was in Bedlam.”

“Apollo,” she breathed, oddly touched. She stroked his hair, unable to keep from pulling the tie from it.

He smiled as if it were an old habit—a gesture between lovers who had known each other years instead of days.

Tears pricked at her eyes and she bent forward to hide them from him, cradling his face to her breasts.

He turned his head, mouthing at her nipple, and she arched her head back, trying to quell her sudden melancholy. Not now, not here. She didn’t want to ruin this by bringing the future in too soon.

But he must’ve sensed her mood. He lifted his head, trying to see her. “Lily?”

She scooted back, pushing him firmly against the pillows so that she might have access to his lap.

He wouldn’t be dissuaded, though, stubborn man. “Lily?”

“It’s nothing,” she muttered, working at the buttons on his falls. “I… I just want to forget.” She flicked her eyes to him, letting him see the mess she must’ve made of her face earlier. “Can you help me forget?”

She should’ve felt guilt for her prevarication, but she didn’t. She had the right to this little bit of joy, even if it only lasted hours.

So she pulled apart his breeches and reached in to untie his smallclothes. His penis rose, ruddy and proud, from a thatch of coarse hair. She stroked both hands through that
hair, scratching, watching smugly as his cock bobbed in reaction.