Darling Beast (Maiden Lane) (9 page)

“Bollocks,” she muttered to herself in her own voice.
“
Knave.
Knave. Knave.
Completely
the wrong word. Oh, of course!”

She bent to the paper and scribbled furiously for a few minutes, and then stood. All at once her demeanor changed. Her shoulders squared, she widened her stance, put her fists on her hips, and Lily Stump became a broad-shouldered man. “You’ll pay your chits, if you’re a gentleman at all, Wastrel.”

“Shall I, my lord?” Her voice was still low, but it had a sort of fey quality to it now, her head tipped coquettishly to the side. “Do you judge a gentleman by his
bits
, my lord?”

He realized suddenly that though she was playacting a
man
, she was doing it as a
woman
. No wonder she was known for her acting. She wore none of the trappings of the theater—neither wig nor costume nor paint on her face, and yet as she strutted around her writing log he knew immediately which character she played.

Apollo must’ve made some sound, for Miss Stump spun, staring in his direction with wide green eyes. “Who’s there?”

Damn.
He hadn’t meant to scare her. Apollo stepped from behind the tree.

“Oh.” She glanced around, her brows drawn together. “Is this your place? I can move elsewhere. I didn’t mean to disturb your work…”

He’d started shaking his head with her second sentence. She finally seemed to notice, winding down her protests until they trailed away into silence. For a moment they simply stood, staring at each other, alone in this ruined garden. A breeze rattled the thin branches of the bushes and blew a lock of her dark hair across her mouth to catch
in the seam of her plush lips. She pushed it behind her ear, her gaze still tangled with his.

He didn’t want her to leave, he knew it suddenly. He talked to Artemis, to Makepeace—and to no one else. There
was
no one else—save her, now. She’d found his secret, knew he wasn’t just a hulking mute, devoid of brain or soul. And more—she stirred something deep within him, something he’d thought had been beaten out of him in Bedlam.

Carefully he took a step back, hoping she’d understand that he was ceding the ground to her.

“Stop!”

They both started at her voice.

Miss Stump cleared her throat and said in a lower tone, “That is… I mean, if you’d like to stay and continue your work, I… I don’t mind.”

He nodded once and turned.

“Wait!” He heard her call from behind him, but there was no point in trying to explain when actions were simpler.

He jogged back to the tree he’d been trying to take down earlier and picked up his shovel and his satchel before returning.

Miss Stump was bent over her papers again, but he made sure to make enough noise that he wouldn’t startle her.

“Oh,” she said, straightening. “You’ve come back.”

Was that relief in her voice?

His mouth twisted wryly at himself. She was a lauded actress, vivacious, quick, and pretty. Even when he’d been able to speak, most of his feminine company had been bought. He wasn’t a comely man. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Yet she seemed happy that he’d returned, and that simple fact made his chest bloom with joy.

He dropped his satchel and took up the shovel, sticking it into the base of one of the dead bushes, striking at the root mass. The blade only went halfway into the soil, so he jumped with both feet on the shoulders of the blade, driving it the rest of the way down. He could feel as the blade sliced through the roots and he grunted with satisfaction. He’d spent part of the previous night sharpening the shovel to do just that. Gingerly he began prying with the handle—too hard a movement and he’d snap it, or worse, the iron blade itself. He’d already lost two shovels this spring.

“You don’t mind if I continue?” he heard Miss Stump ask. “It’s just that I need to finish writing this soon—
very
soon.”

He glanced up curiously at that, wondering at the worried line between her brows as she stared down at her manuscript. Makepeace had said she couldn’t get acting work at the moment. Perhaps this was her only means of making money.

He shook his head in reply.

“I’m only in the third act,” she said absently. “My heroine has gambled away all her brother’s money because, well, she’s dressed
as
her brother.”

She glanced up in time to catch his raised eyebrows.

“It’s a comedy called
A Wastrel Reform’d
.” She shrugged. “A complicated comedy because right now no one knows who anyone is. There’s twins—a brother and sister—named Wastrel, and the brother has convinced his sister—her Christian name is Cecily—to pretend to be
him
so that he might seduce Lady Pamela’s maid, and he’s engaged to her—Lady Pamela,
not
her maid.”

She took a breath and Apollo slowly smiled, because against all odds, he’d understood everything she’d just said.

Miss Stump grinned back. “It’s silly, I know, but that’s what comedy is, really—a lot of silly things happening, one after another.” She glanced down at her play, running her finger down the page. “So Cecily, dressed as Adam—that’s the brother—has lost terribly at a hand of cards to Lord Pimberly. Oh! That’s Fanny—the maid’s—father, and Lady Pamela’s scorned suitor. Although of course no one knows that Pimberly is Fanny’s father, otherwise she wouldn’t be a lady’s maid, now would she?”

Apollo leaned on his shovel and cocked an eyebrow.

“Kidnapped at birth, naturally,” she replied. “But fortunately she has quite a distinctive birthmark. Right here.” She tapped the upper slope of her right breast.

Apollo defied any man not to follow the direction of her finger. She had a lovely breast, gently swelling above the severe square neckline of her dress and modestly covered by a filmy fichu.

“Yes, well.” Her husky voice made him raise his gaze. Her cheeks had pinkened, but that might’ve been the wind. “In any case, I’m writing a scene between Cecily and Lord Pimberly in which Pimberly demands his money and Cecily doesn’t
have
it. And naturally he’s begun to realize he’s attracted to her at the same time.”

She cleared her throat.

He nodded, messing a bit with his shovel to look as if he were still working. Actually, he was beginning to fear that the blade was stuck in the roots.

Miss Stump glanced at her manuscript and slipped
back into what he now knew was Cecily—the sister dressed as her brother. “Do you judge a gentleman by his
bits
, my lord?”

She turned and placed her fists on her hips again, in the wide-legged stance. “Pardon me, but I said
chits
.”

Turn. Her hands dropped. “And yet, ’tis still your manly
bits
we discuss.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “No?”

He screwed his mouth to the side and reluctantly shook his head.

“Blast!” she exclaimed under her breath, bending to the paper. She scratched out something and then froze, obviously thinking.

He wasn’t even pretending to work anymore.

She gasped and then hunched over her manuscript, scribbling furiously before straightening, a gleam of triumph in her eye.

She tossed her head as Cecily. “Indeed, and would you know a
chit
should you see one?”

Now she was a baffled Pimberly. “Naturally.”

“Oh, my lord?” She turned her head and looked over her shoulder through lowered lashes at the imaginary Pimberly, all daring flirtation. “And how is that, may I ask?”

“How?”

“
How
does a gentleman of your unsurpassed perception differentiate a
chit
from a
bit
?”

And she batted her eyelashes.

The juxtaposition between the ribaldry of her words and the innocence of her expression was so silly, so utterly enchanting, that Apollo couldn’t help it: he threw back his head and laughed.

L
ILY STUMBLED AT
the sound, entirely forgetting both Cecily and pompous Pimberly, forgetting her play and everything else, really, and simply stared.

Caliban was laughing.

Deep and full, a masculine laugh, his shaggy head thrown back, eyes closed in mirth and crinkling at the corners, straight white teeth flashing. He wore a white shirt topped by a brown waistcoat missing two buttons. The sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows, revealing strong brown forearms lightly sprinkled with dark hair. His breeches were grayed black and over his worn shoes he wore stained buff gaiters. A red kerchief was tied loosely at his neck and he’d wrapped a wide leather belt around his waist to hold his pruning knife. She’d seen innumerable laborers in her lifetime, but she’d never really
looked
at them. Now she gazed her fill at Caliban and thought how terribly,
awfully
appealing he was: physically strong, yet able to critique her play, and with a sense of humor to boot. He was so much more than a simple laborer.

But that thought was followed quickly by another: if he could
laugh
, then why could he not
speak
? She felt rather stunned, watching the strong cords of his throat work as he laughed. It made no sense to her, for surely he was using his voice to laugh?

He opened his eyes, his laughter dying, as he met her gaze, and Lily realized that she’d stepped closer to him in her fascination. She stood almost touching him, his heat, his masculinity like a magnet to her. He dipped his head, watching her, traces of his amusement lingering on his face. She couldn’t help it: she reached out and touched his
face, her fingertips running lightly down his lean cheek, feeling the catch of invisible stubble. He was so hot, so
alive
. She stood on tiptoe, her hand slipping to the back of his neck, beneath the wild tumble of his brown hair, to pull his homely face down to hers. She just wanted to
see
, to capture some of that vitality and find out if it tasted as sharp as it looked.

She was so absorbed, in fact, that the male voice, when it came from behind her, nearly startled her out of her skin.

“I’ve come to bring you back.”

She jumped, whirling to see who had invaded their Eden, but she wasn’t as fast as Caliban.

He shoved her to the side—not gently—and charged the stranger. Caliban’s head was down, massive shoulders bunched like a bull’s. He caught the other man about the middle, his momentum sending both men skidding to the ground, the stranger on the bottom. Caliban growled, slamming his fist at the stranger. But the other man was swift, pulling his head to the side and avoiding what surely might’ve been a disabling blow.

The stranger was in his prime, dressed all in black, wearing his own dark hair pulled back into a braided queue. A tricorn hat had been knocked from his head and she saw that a walking stick had also fallen to the side.

“Stop!” she cried, but neither man paid her the least mind. “Stop!”

The stranger wrapped one leg over Caliban’s, heaving to displace him, but the mute must’ve outweighed him by a couple stone or more. Caliban, meanwhile, hit the man repeatedly in the side, each blow earning him a grunt of pain from his adversary.

Metal flashed between them, and Caliban reared back, grabbing for something. Oh, dear God, the other man had a pistol! Both men had a hand on it. They strained in ghastly embrace, each trying to turn the barrel to the other’s face. The stranger’s fist shot out and struck Caliban square in the jaw. His head whipped to the side with the blow, but he didn’t let go of the awful pistol. Lily wavered, afraid to venture nearer, afraid to leave the scene. She wanted to help, but couldn’t think how. If she tried to strike the other man, she’d merely interfere with Caliban—and any distraction could prove fatal.

A flash and a horrific
bang
.

Lily screamed, half-crouching in reaction, her hands over her ears.

She started forward, afraid she’d see blood—afraid to see Caliban’s dynamic face rendered slack by death—but the men were still struggling. Somehow the shot had missed them both.

“Mama?”

Indio’s voice was high and scared, his eyes fixed on the men wrestling on the ground. Lily thought her heart would beat right out of her breast. She flew to her son, catching him up in her arms even though she hadn’t carried Indio for years. She turned with him clutched to her chest, in time to see the stranger draw a
second
pistol. Caliban grabbed the other man’s wrist and glanced up, as if searching for her.

Their eyes met, and she didn’t know what he saw in hers, but his face was distorted in a scowl, his visage warlike and grim.

A man like this could kill
, she thought, somewhere in the back of her mind where she was still sane.
I should be afraid of a man like this.

Then he jerked his chin, sharply, and the message was clear: he wanted her and Indio gone.

A better woman might’ve stayed, might’ve argued or in some way helped him, but evidently she wasn’t that better woman.

Lily turned and fled, stumbling, sobbing, clutching Indio.

And as she did she heard the second shot.

Trevillion stared up into Kilbourne’s bloodied face and knew he was about to die of hubris.

The first pistol shot had missed Kilbourne completely, the second had bloodied his thick skull but hadn’t seemed to slow the man down at all. Maybe nothing would. Maybe Kilbourne was like some mindless beast, driven into a killing rage, unfeeling of any pain.

It was pure, stubborn hubris for a cripple to come after a fully capable man—especially a man as large and muscled as Kilbourne. Hubris to announce his presence to his quarry instead of disabling him first.

Hubris to think he was the man he’d been before the accident.

Trevillion continued to struggle, even though he’d discharged both pistols, his leg was screaming, and he had no hope of overpowering Kilbourne. He might be a prideful bastard, but he was a
stubborn
prideful bastard and if this was to be his last hour, then by damn, he’d go down fighting.

Kilbourne’s forearm was across his throat, pressing down, stealing the air from his lungs. In the giant’s other fist was a hideously curved knife. Trevillion expected to feel the hooked blade sinking into his skull at any moment.

Black spots floated in Trevillion’s vision and he wished viciously that he’d drawn both his pistols
before
he’d called to Kilbourne. He’d’ve at least had the chance to shoot when the big man charged. He’d worried about the woman getting caught by a shot, though…

His leg stopped hurting. That was worrying.

Blackness closed in, narrowing his vision.

Then suddenly light, air, and pain returned.

He rolled, coughing violently as his lungs drew air, his leg spasming torturously. Trevillion threw out his hand, grasping blindly for any sort of weapon. The pistols were already discharged, but if he could at least reach his walking stick, perhaps he could crack it over Kilbourne’s head.

He looked up.

Kilbourne was squatting nearby like some hulking native, his hands hanging between his knees, the hooked knife dangling from one. The left side of his face was painted red with blood and he looked a veritable savage.

Except for his eyes. He was simply watching Trevillion struggle—warily, to be sure, but in no way threateningly.

Trevillion narrowed his own eyes, glancing around. “You’re expecting someone to come to your aid.”

Kilbourne blinked and at last an expression showed in his blank face—sardonic humor. He shook his head.

“What then?” Trevillion had managed to prop himself on his elbows, but with his leg in such pain he wouldn’t be standing anytime in the next half hour. “What are you waiting for?”

Was the man a sadist to draw out death so?

Kilbourne shrugged and pushed his knife into his belt, then reached to the side for something, making Trevillion tense.

The other man handed him his stick.

Trevillion glanced incredulously between his walking stick and the murderer before snatching it out of the other’s hand. “Why don’t you answer me? Can’t you talk?”

Again the sardonic half-smile and Kilbourne simply shook his head.

Trevillion stared. He was on his back, unarmed except for a
walking stick
, and pathetically helpless, and Kilbourne had made no move against him.

Worse, he’d
helped
him.

Trevillion cocked his head, the thought arising, simple, organic, and patently true. “You never killed those men, did you?”

A
POLLO STARED AT
the man on the ground, ignoring the stinging of his scalp. He’d recognized him at once. Captain James Trevillion. He knew the soldier’s name now—he’d learned it years ago in Bedlam—but on the morning he’d been arrested, the other man had just been a dragoon in a red coat. The herald to his coming downfall.

Now Trevillion wore unrelieved black, wide belts crisscrossing his chest, the holsters empty. The other man’s pistols lay in the dirt. A pity. They were rather fine, decorated with silver repoussé caps on the grips.

This man had wanted to arrest him. To take him back to the hell that was Bedlam. He ought to kill the dragoon—or at the very least render him unable to ever come after him again. He’d known men who would do the same and never think on the matter after.

But Apollo was, for better or for worse, not one of those men. He’d had more than enough violence crammed down his throat in Bedlam. On the whole he preferred more civilized methods of solving dilemmas.

He opened his satchel, took out his notebook, and wrote,
I didn’t kill them.

Trevillion, from his position prone on the ground, craned his neck to read and huffed out a breath. “You certainly looked like you’d killed them that morning—you were covered in blood, clutching the knife, and not in your right mind.”

His words were accusatory, but his tone was curious.

Apollo began to feel a small, curling shoot of hope. He shrugged cautiously and wrote,
Drunk.

Trevillion’s right leg seemed to be bothering him, for he was kneading the calf muscle. “I’ve seen plenty of men after a night of drinking. Most have some kind of method to their madness. You didn’t make any sense at all.”

Apollo sighed. His scalp stung from the bullet crease, his head hurt, and the blood from the wound was beginning to soak into his shirt. But worse, he could still feel Miss Stump’s cool, slim fingers on his cheek. So close, so intimate. The other man had ruined that fragile moment.
She’d looked absolutely terrified when Apollo had warned her away with the boy. He wanted to find her and assure himself that she was safe and unafraid.

That her look of terror had been caused by the situation, not
him
.

Apollo almost rose and left Trevillion lying there in the mud. But the soldier
knew
him and had discovered him—somehow that must be dealt with.

And, too, Trevillion was the first in a very long time to actually listen to his side of events about that morning.

So instead of stomping off he picked up his notebook again and wrote carefully,
I remember sitting down with my friends, remember drinking the first bottle of wine… and nothing after.

While Trevillion read that, Apollo removed both waistcoat and shirt and wrapped his shirt around his bleeding head like a Turk.

The soldier looked up. “Drugged?”

Apollo tilted his head and shrugged, hopefully conveying,
Probably
. He’d had time to think the matter over in Bedlam—long, long years of regret and speculation. The idea that the wine had been drugged seemed more than obvious after the fact.

He stood and held out his hand to the other man.

Trevillion looked at his hand so long, Apollo nearly withdrew it.

The other man grimaced at last. “I suppose you could’ve killed me by now anyway.”

Apollo cocked an eyebrow at that, but heaved Trevillion up when he took his hand. The soldier’s body was stiff. He didn’t utter a sound, but it was quite apparent he was in pain.

Trevillion leaned on his cane, but Apollo kept his arm around the other’s shoulder—and since the soldier didn’t complain, it was evident his help was needed. Apollo guided him the few steps to the fallen tree Miss Stump had used as a writing desk. The soldier gingerly lowered himself, wincing as he did so, his right leg held rigid and straight before him.

Trevillion eyed him as Apollo squatted before him. “Why can’t you speak?”

He wrote one word in the notebook.
Bedlam.

The soldier frowned over that, his fingers tight on the notebook’s edges. He looked up, his eyes sharp. “If you didn’t kill those men, then someone else did—someone who never paid for his murders. I arrested the wrong man. I
condemned
the wrong man.”

Apollo simply looked at him, fighting to keep his lip from curling. Four years. Four years of starvation, beatings, and boredom, because some other man had killed his friends. Any regret seemed long past due.

All at once he opened the door and let them in from that black room at the back of his mind:

Hugh Maubry.

Joseph Tate.

William Smithers.

Maubry, with his intestines spilling on the tavern’s sawdust floor. Tate entirely intact, save for a wound high on his chest and three missing fingers. Smithers, his boyish face surprised, eyes open, throat cut.

He hadn’t known them particularly well. Maubry and Tate had been at school with him, Smithers had been some distant relation of Tate’s. They’d been jolly fellows, good for a night of drinking—before he’d woken to a nightmare.

Apollo blinked, pushing back the images, the terrible memories, and looked at Trevillion.

The soldier stared back, his spine straight, his expression grim and resolute. “This is an injustice that must be righted—that
I
must right. I’m going to help you find the real murderer.”

Apollo grinned—though not in mirth. He took up his pencil and wrote, his words so angry that the point gouged the paper in places:
How? I was in Bedlam four years and in that time no one doubted my guilt. You yourself thought me guilty when you attacked me just now. Where will you find the man or men who actually did the crime?

Trevillion read that and said drily, “In point of fact,
you
attacked
me
.”

Apollo snorted and waved aside the other’s reply.
Besides, won’t your superiors resent your time spent away from the dragoons?

The other man’s face went blank. “I am no longer a dragoon.”

Apollo stared at that. Even in his unrelieved black, Trevillion looked every inch the dragoon captain. He glanced at the leg and wondered when the injury had happened. In his hazy memory of that awful morning, he didn’t recollect the other man’s being so badly lamed. He had a feeling, though, that any questions would not be welcome.

Instead he wrote,
My point remains: how do you expect to find the murderer after so long?

The former soldier looked at him. “You must have some idea, some suspicion, about who could’ve killed your friends?”

Apollo’s eyes narrowed. He had, in fact, spent hours—days—meditating on this very subject. He wrote cautiously,
Our purses were taken
.

“A large amount?”

Apollo twisted his mouth.
Not on my part—I’d already paid for the room and wine. I doubt the others had more than a guinea or two between them. Tate had a rather fine gold watch, though—his late father’s. That was stolen.

“Not a large haul for three men dead,” Trevillion said softly.

Men have been killed for less.

“True,” the soldier replied, “but not usually so methodically.” He stared for a moment at nothing, absently rubbing his calf. Then his gaze sharpened. “Who were they, the men who were killed? I was told at the time, but I’ve forgotten since.”

Apollo listed the names.

Trevillion pursed his lips over the notebook. “How well did you know them?”

They were men I liked, men I drank with, but I was not especially close to any of them. Smithers I had only met that night.

And yet his boyish face was now imprinted on Apollo’s mind forever.

“Were they rich? Had they enemies?”

Apollo shrugged.
Maubry was the third son of a baron and doomed to the church. Tate was his uncle’s heir, I believe, and would’ve come into a comfortable sum—or so the rumors went at school. Whether they were correct or not, I cannot say. Smithers seemed to have no blunt at all, but he was dressed well enough, certainly. As to enemies, I do not know.

Trevillion read carefully before looking up, his eyes intent. “Had
you
enemies?”

He wrote with a wry twist to his mouth,
Until that night I would have said no.

Trevillion glanced at his words and nodded sharply. “Very well, then. I shall investigate the matter and return when I can to consult with you.”

The man got laboriously to his feet. Apollo moved to help him once and was met with a furious scowl.

He didn’t again.

When Trevillion was at last upright, his face was reddened and shone with sweat.

“Be careful, my lord,” the former soldier said, for the first time giving him the courtesy of his title. “If I could find you, others might do so as well.”

Apollo glared at him.
How did you find me?

“I followed your sister,” Trevillion said drily. “Her Grace is very discreet, very circumspect, but I noticed that she made regular errands. None at Wakefield House knew—or at least would
admit
to knowing—where she was going. I decided to follow her secretly, though it was some time before my employment would allow the opportunity. Today is my day off.”

Apollo raised his eyebrows. The former dragoon knew an awful lot about Wakefield House and its inhabitants. He wrote hastily,
How are you employed?