Darling Beast

They’d hardly begun on a rather watery beef broth when Mrs. Jellett, a lady of mature years in a frock of a startling yellow-green shade, leaned forward and said loudly, “Have you heard aught of your mad cousin, Mr. Greaves? I understand that he barely escaped capture by soldiers in the destroyed Harte’s Folly pleasure garden.”

Mr. William Greaves’s mouth thinned into nonexistence and anyone could see that he did not like the subject—which of course hardly dissuaded his guests.

“ ’Tis said he killed three men with an enormous knife.” Mrs. Warner shivered dramatically. “The very thought that a murderous madman is on the loose is enough to make one want to hide under the bed.”

“Or in the bed?” the duke murmured over his glass of wine.

“Are you offering bedchamber protection, Your Grace?” Lady Herrick asked lazily.

The duke bowed from the waist. “For you, madam, I would make the sacrifice.”

“Such bravery,” cried Moll from the other side of the duke. “I vow ’tis enough to send a lady into a paroxysm.”

That comment prompted a round of titters from the ladies.

Lily stared at her plate, trying not to feel any sympathy for Caliban—Apollo—but it was hard. The others talked about him as if he were a maddened beast to be shot on sight. Would she have felt that way if she’d only heard the stories and not known the man beforehand? Would she have condemned a stranger at once without benefit of trial?

Probably. Fear had a tendency to drive away the courtesy of civilization.

Mrs. Jellett was still curious about the original topic of conversation. She addressed George Greaves. “Tell me, Mr. Greaves, was your cousin always mad? Did he do anything bizarre or cruel as a boy?”

Mr. William Greaves spoke up from the head of the table, his voice grim. “I fear, madam, that that side of the family has always had strange turns. My brother, alas, was prone to overexcitement followed by melancholies from which he could hardly rouse himself. A pity”—he took a sip of his wine—“that as eldest the title naturally falls to his side.”

“ ’Twould be better,” his son joined in, “if our English great families could set aside the titles from those members who, because of some disease or defect of the brain, are rendered feeble or otherwise weaken the lineages of the aristocracy.”

“If that were done,” drawled the Duke of Montgomery, “half the titles of England would go obsolete due to brain weakness. I know my own grandfather fancied himself a cowherd at times.”

“Really, Your Grace?” John leaned forward to see down the table. “Not a shepherd or goatherd?”

“I’m told he was quite specific in his mania and only cows would do,” His Grace replied. “Of course there were those who said his affliction was the direct result of a certain type of disease, which I won’t mention in the present company as it is of an indelicate nature.”

“And yet you already have,” Miss Royle observed in her husky voice. “Mentioned it, that is, Your Grace.”

“Touché, ma’am,” the duke replied, a thread of irritation in his voice. “I hadn’t thought to encounter such pedantry amongst a lighthearted gathering.”

Miss Royle shrugged. “I don’t find madness amusing—whether caused by disease or birth.”

“My cousin doesn’t even have the excuse of disease, I’m afraid,” Mr. George Greaves said, abrupt and hard. “He was born with whatever ails him—and because of it, three good men are dead—his own friends, mind. I’m sorry that he was ever sent to Bedlam instead of being tried before the magistrates as he should’ve been.”

“But a titled gentleman, sir!” his father objected. “Surely such a thing would tear apart the very fabric of our great nation?”

“Then before the House of Lords, if it came to that,” his son replied. “Better a lord tried and found guilty of murder, than a madman loosed upon the countryside with the whispers that the only reason he is free is because of his rank. It sets the common people to thinking—and that is something none of us want.”

“Perhaps you are correct,” his father said slowly, obviously troubled by the argument.

“I know I am,” Mr. George Greaves returned. “Think what ignominy he has already brought our family. What more will he bring if he murders more innocents?”

For a moment the mood at the table turned somber at this image, but then the duke spoke up. “Surely no more ignominy than my own great-uncle brought upon my own house when he attempted to have, er, marital relations with a horse.”

That comment certainly lightened the conversation.

Lily glanced covertly at Apollo. He was eating his meal, his expression blank. How did he feel, hearing his father discussed so dismissively? His own history laid bare for others to titter over? This was his family, the one he’d said he was estranged from, and it was obvious not only that they believed him guilty of the crimes he’d been charged with, but that they would make every effort to have him imprisoned or hanged should they discover his ruse.

What in God’s name was he doing here?

She turned and found the duke eyeing her, and she remembered that she had a role to play tonight—and the duke, for once, might not be the most dangerous person at the table.

So she threw herself into the conversation, making sure never to glance in Apollo’s direction again. Whatever he was about, it was certainly no business of hers. How could it be, after all, when he was an aristocrat and she a mere actress?

When, hours later, she finally climbed the stairs to the room she shared with Moll, she was weary to the bone with trying to appear carefree and witty. Witty! There was a word she never wanted to hear again, she thought darkly as she made her way down the hallway. Wittiness was terribly exhausting.

It would be nice to let down her guard, alone with Moll.

But when she opened the door to their room she found herself very much mistaken. Moll was nowhere to be seen.

And Viscount Kilbourne lounged upon the bed.

Chapter Thirteen

The skeleton was small and sad, lying in a heap of frayed blue robes. Pink beads lay scattered over the remains. The girl driven into the labyrinth the year before had worn a necklace of pink beads. Ariadne knelt by the skeleton’s side and, saying an old prayer her mother had taught her, sprinkled dust on the remains. Then, rising, she continued deeper into the labyrinth…

—From The Minotaur

Lily stopped dead in the doorway to her room and then took a step back.

Apollo cocked his head. It’d been a very long day full of trepidation mixed with tediousness and he’d used up all his patience. “If you leave, I’ll follow you out and we’ll have this discussion in the hallway where everyone can hear.”

She scowled ferociously at him, but came all the way in the room and shut the door. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

“Yes,” he said patiently, “there is.”

She looked away and down for a second and then back at him. “Your voice is better.”

He inclined his head. “It’s been a fortnight.” His voice was still rusty and his throat ached on occasion, but he no longer had to take so long to speak. “Where is Indio?”

“I left him with Maude.” She wrapped her arms around her waist.

“In the garden?”

“No. They’re visiting Maude’s niece outside London while I’m here.” She looked at him pointedly. “Why are you here?”

He stretched and folded his arms beneath his head. “You walked away when I tried to talk to you during the party. I thought since you wouldn’t come to me…” He shrugged.

“Moll will be back soon.”

“No. I gave her enough coin to stay away for the night.”

Her eyes widened in outrage. “You can’t do that! Where will she stay? She’s been looking forward all day to a nice bed.”

“Well, I did offer her mine.”

“Humph.” She pursed her lips, still not mollified. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll not be staying the night in any case. Besides,” she hurried on before he could object, “you misunderstood my original question: why are you here at the house party?”

“To find the real murderer,” he said wearily. Frankly, after two weeks of the subject, he’d grown a little tired of it. He gestured to a chair. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“Because it would be quite improper,” she said, and he wondered if she actually thought that or was simply making up etiquette rules out of thin air. “How are you going to find a murderer at a house party?”

“We think it’s my uncle.” He looked at her appraisingly. “You must be tired.”

She lifted her chin. “We?”

“Montgomery, Trevillion, and Harte—Makepeace, that is.”

She stared at him in horror, letting her arms drop. “You’ve trusted the Duke of Montgomery with your secret? Have you gone completely mad?”

“No, I’m just very desperate. Besides, I never told it to him—he somehow figured it out on his own.” He took a breath. “Lily, I don’t want to talk of this right now. I want to…” He sat up and pushed his hands through his hair. “You know what I’m charged with?”

“If I hadn’t before this night, I would after that dinner,” she said tartly.

He stared at her, licking his lips. “You must know that I didn’t do it.”

She gave him her profile. “Must I?”

“Lily…”

“You left us without word.”

“They were watching the garden,” he replied, his voice steady. “I couldn’t get you a message without the soldiers realizing you knew me.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, and her face was harder than he’d ever seen it. “If you’d truly wanted to, you could have smuggled a message to Maude as she shopped or given it to one of the gardeners, or found a thousand other ways.”

He simply looked at her. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he could’ve gotten her word if he’d only tried hard enough. But he’d been busy with the plan, with the knowledge that until he could come to her a free man, he had nothing at all to offer her.

His very silence seemed to be some sort of answer to her. She lifted her chin proudly. “If we meant anything to you, you’d have gotten us word that you were alive.”

“You mean a great deal to me,” he said, low.

“Do we?” she asked, her mouth tight. “Truly? And yet you left us—me—without word or warning.”

“Lily…”

“I thought we were friends.”

He rose in one movement. “I thought we were more than friends.”

Her eyes widened and she backed up a step, seemingly without conscious thought, as he advanced on her, until her bottom hit the door.

He should be gentler, should approach her with caution. Even now she might be afraid of what had been said about him. But he was weary—so very, very weary—of things being taken from him.

He wasn’t going to lose her as well. Not if he could help it.

He halted inches from her. “Weren’t we, Lily? More than friends?”

Her lips parted as her breath quickened, but she showed no fear of him. “You know we were.”

“Then that hasn’t changed.”

She laughed, incredulous. “Are you insane?”

“That was the charge.”

“Don’t hide behind quips.” She shook her head impatiently. “Everything has changed. You… you’re an aristocrat. A viscount—someday a bloody earl. I’m the bastard daughter of a drunken actress and an illiterate porter.”