Darling Beast

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?

“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.

CALIBAN 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.

Chapter Seven