Darling Beast

Lily grimaced. She should’ve never let Indio out to play by himself, but it was hard to keep an active young boy inside. She started down one of the paths, slipping a bit in the mud, wishing she’d stopped to put on her pattens before coming outside. If she didn’t see her son soon, she’d ruin the frivolous embroidered slippers on her feet.

“Indio!”

She rounded what once had been a small thicket of trimmed trees. Now the blackened branches rattled in the wind. “Indio!”

A grunt came from the thicket.

Lily stopped dead.

There it was again—almost an explosive snort. The noise was too loud, too deep for Indio. It almost sounded like… a big animal.

She glanced quickly around, but she was completely alone. Should she return to the ruined theater for Maude? But Indio was out here!

Another grunt, this one louder. A rustle.

Something was breathing heavily in the bushes.

Good Lord. Lily bunched her skirts in her fists in case she had to leg it, and crept forward.

A groan and a low, rumbling sound.

Like growling.

She gulped and peeked around a burned trunk.

At first what she saw looked like an enormous, moving, mud-covered mound, and then it straightened, revealing an endlessly broad back, huge shoulders, and a shaggy head.

Lily couldn’t help it. She made a noise that was perilously close to a squeak.

The thing whirled—much faster than anything that big had a right to move—and a horrible, soot-stained face glared at her, one paw raised as if to strike her.

In it was a wickedly sharp, hooked knife.

Lily gulped. If she lived through the day she was going to have to apologize to Indio.

For there was a monster in the garden.

THE DAY HADN’T been going well to begin with, reflected Apollo Greaves, Viscount Kilbourne.

At a rough estimate, fully half the woody plantings in the pleasure garden were dead—and another quarter might as well be. The ornamental pond’s freshwater source had been blocked by the fire’s debris and now it sat stagnant. The gardeners Asa had hired for him were an unskilled lot. To top it off, the spring rains had turned what remained of Harte’s Folly into a muddy morass, making planting and earth moving impossible until the ground dried out.

And now there was a strange female in his garden.

Apollo stared into huge lichen-green eyes lined with lashes so dark and thick that they looked like smudged soot. The woman—girl? She wasn’t that tall, but a swift glance at her bodice assured him she was quite mature, thank you—was only a slim bit of a thing, dressed foolishly in a green velvet gown, richly over-embroidered in red and gold. She hadn’t even a bonnet on. Her dark hair slipped from a messy knot at the back of her neck, waving strands blowing against her pinkened cheeks. Actually, she was rather pretty in a gamine sort of way.

But that was beside the point.

Where in hell had she come from? As far as he knew, the only other people in the ruined pleasure garden were the brace of so-called gardeners presently working on the hedges behind the pond. He’d been taking out his frustration alone on the dead tree stump, trying to uproot the thing by hand since their only dray horse was at work with the other men, when he’d heard a feminine voice calling and she’d suddenly appeared.

The woman blinked and her gaze darted to his upraised arm.

Apollo’s own eyes followed and he winced. He’d instinctively raised his hand as he turned to her, and the pruning knife he held might be construed as threatening.

Hastily he lowered his arm. Which left him standing in his mud-stained shirt and waistcoat, sweaty and stinking, and feeling like a dumb ox next to her delicate femininity.

But apparently his action reassured her. She drew herself up—not that it made much difference to her height. “Who are you?”

Well, he’d like to ask the same of her but, alas, he really couldn’t, thanks to that last beating in Bedlam.

Belatedly he remembered that he was supposed to be a simple laborer. He tugged at a forelock and dropped his gaze—to elegantly embroidered slippers caked in mud.

Who was this woman?

“Tell me now,” she said rather imperiously, considering she was standing in three inches of mud. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

He glanced at her face—eyebrows arched, a plush rose lower lip caught between her teeth—and cast his eyes down again. He tapped his throat and shook his head. If she didn’t get that message she was a lot stupider than she looked.

“Oh,” he heard as he stared at her shoes. “Oh, I didn’t realize.” She had a husky voice, which gentled when he lowered his gaze. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can’t stay here, you must understand.”

Unseen, he rolled his eyes. What was she on about? He worked in the garden—surely she could see that. Who was she to order him out?

“You.” She drew the word out, enunciating it clearly, as if she thought him hard of hearing. Some thought that since he couldn’t speak he couldn’t hear, either. He caught himself beginning to scowl and smoothed out his features. “Cannot. Stay. Here.” A pause, and then, muttered, “Oh, for goodness’ sakes. I can’t even tell if he understands. I cannot believe Mr. Harte allowed…”

And it dawned on Apollo with a feeling of amused horror that his frustrating day had descended into the frankly ludicrous. This ridiculously clad woman thought him a lackwit.

One embroidered toe tapped in the mud. “Look at me, please.”

He raised his gaze slowly, careful to keep his face blank.

Her brows had drawn together over those big eyes, in an expression that no doubt she thought stern, but that was, in reality, rather adorable. Like a small girl chiding a kitten. A streak of anger surged through him. She shouldn’t be out by herself in the ruined garden. If he’d been another type of man—a brutal man, like the ones who’d run Bedlam—her dignity, perhaps even her life, might’ve been in danger. Didn’t she have a husband, a brother, a father to keep her safe? Who was letting this slip of a woman wander into danger by herself?

He realized that her expression had gentled at his continued silence.

“You can’t tell me, can you?” she asked softly.

He’d met pity in others since the loss of his voice. Usually it made him burn hot with rage and a sort of terrible despair—after nine months he wasn’t sure he’d ever regain the use of his voice. But her inquiry didn’t provoke his usual anger. Maybe it was her feminine charm—it’d been a while since any woman besides his sister had attempted to talk to him—or maybe it was simply her. This woman spoke with compassion, not contempt, and that made all the difference.

He shook his head, watching her, keeping his face dull and unresponsive.

She sighed and hugged herself, looking around. “What am I to do?” she muttered. “I can’t leave Indio out here by himself.”

Apollo struggled not to let surprise show on his face. Who or what was Indio?

“Go!” she said forcefully, suddenly enough that he blinked. She pointed a commanding finger behind him.

Apollo fought back a grin. She wasn’t giving up, was she? He slowly turned, looking in the direction she indicated, and then swiveled back even more slowly, letting his mouth hang half open.

“Oh!” Her little hands balled into fists as she cast her eyes heavenward. “This is maddening.”

She took two swift steps forward and placed her palms against his chest, pushing.

He allowed himself to sway an inch backward with her thrust before righting himself. She stilled, staring up at him. The top of her head barely came to his mid-chest. He could feel the brush of her breath on his lips. The warmth of her hands seemed to burn through the rough fabric of his waistcoat. This close her green eyes were enormous, and he could see shards of gold surrounding her pupils.

Her lips parted and his gaze dropped to her mouth.

“Mama!”

The hissed word made them both start.

Apollo swung around. A small boy was poised on the muddy path just outside the thicket. He had shoulder-length curly dark hair and wore a red coat and a fierce expression. Beside him was the silliest-looking dog Apollo had ever seen: a delicate little red greyhound, both ears flopped to the left, head erect on a narrow neck, pink tongue peeping from one side of its mouth. The dog’s entire demeanor could be labeled startled.

The dog froze at Apollo’s movement, then spun and raced off down the path.

The boy’s face crumpled at the desertion before he squared his little shoulders and glared at Apollo. “You get away from her!”

At last: her defender—although Apollo had been hoping for someone a bit more imposing.

“Indio.” The woman stepped away from Apollo hastily, brushing her skirts. “There you are. I’ve been calling for you.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.” Apollo noticed the child didn’t take his eyes from him—an attitude he approved of. “Daff an’ me were ’sploring.”

“Well, explore nearer the theater next time. I don’t want you meeting anyone who might be…” She trailed away, glancing nervously at Apollo. “Erm. Dangerous.”

Apollo widened his eyes, trying to look harmless—sadly, nearly impossible. He’d hit six feet at age fifteen and topped that by several inches in the fourteen years since. Add to that the width of his shoulders, his massive hands, and a face that his sister had once affectionately compared to a gargoyle’s, and trying to appear harmless became something of a lost cause.

His apprehension was borne out when the woman backed farther away from him and caught her young son’s hand. “Come. Let’s go find where Daffodil has run off to.”

“But, Mama,” the boy whispered loudly. “What about the monster?”

It didn’t take a genius to understand that the child was referring to him. Apollo nearly sighed.

“Don’t you worry,” the woman said firmly. “I’m going to talk to Mr. Harte as soon as I can about your monster. He’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

With a last nervous glance at him, she turned and led the boy away.

Apollo narrowed his eyes on her retreating back, slim and confident. Green Eyes was going to be in for a shock when she found out which of the two of them was tossed from the garden.

Chapter Two

The king had a great army and with it he marched across field and mountain, subjugating all the peoples he met until at last he came to an island that lay in an azure sea like a pearl in an oyster shell. This he conquered at once and, seeing how beautiful the island was, sent for his queen, and caused a golden castle to be built there for their home. But on the first night he slept in that place a black bull came to him in a dream…

—From The Minotaur

For a man who owned a pleasure garden, Asa Makepeace certainly didn’t live in luxury—if anything, he sailed perilously close to squalor.

Apollo finished climbing the three flights of rickety stairs to Makepeace’s rented rooms the next morning. Makepeace lived in Southwark, which was on the south bank of the River Thames, not terribly far from Harte’s Folly itself. The landing held two doors, one to the right, one to the left.

Apollo pounded on the right-hand door, then paused and placed his ear to it. He heard a faint rustling and then a groan. He reared back and thumped the wood again.

“D’you mind?” The left door popped open to reveal a shriveled elderly man, a soft red velvet cap on his head. “Some like to sleep of a morning!”

Apollo turned his shoulder, shielding his face behind his broad-brimmed hat, and waved an apologetic hand at the man.

The old man slammed his door shut just as Makepeace opened his own.

“What?” Makepeace stood in his doorway, swaying slightly as if in a breeze. “What?” His tawny hair stood out all around his head like a lion’s mane—assuming the lion had been in a recent cyclone—and his shirt was unbuttoned, baring a heavily furred barrel chest.