Darling Beast

“Oh, Apollo.” She hadn’t much family herself, but to be so harshly judged simply because one had found an interest in life? It seemed ridiculous.

He nuzzled her hair. “That day I was in London. I met up with three friends. We resolved to spend the night together—two were from school and I’d not seen them in some years. We reserved the back room of a tavern in Whitechapel and ordered wine and food.”

She stirred. “Why such an awful part of London?”

“We hadn’t much money, I’m afraid. The tavern was cheap.”

He stopped speaking, but she could feel his uneven breaths.

“What happened?”

He inhaled. “I don’t know. We shared a bottle—and after that all is blackness. I woke the next morning with my head pounding as if it would split. As soon as I moved I vomited. And then I saw my hands.”

“Apollo?” She tried to twist her face to see him, but he tightened his hold on her.

“I’d been drunk before,” he rasped. “But this was nothing like that. It was as if I were dreaming and couldn’t wake. My hands were covered in blood, I held a knife in my right hand, and there was screaming. I couldn’t stand—when I tried, I fell. And my friends…”

She squeezed his hands. She already knew what had happened to his friends. The scene of the murder had been recounted in countless newssheets—and whether the details had been correct hardly mattered at this moment. They’d been murdered.

Horribly slaughtered.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “so sorry.”

“The soldiers came,” he murmured, his voice flat now. Had he even heard her? “They took me away in chains—on my ankles, wrists, and neck, for they were afraid of me. I was taken to Newgate to await trial. I vomited again and again and was half out of my mind for several days. I don’t remember much of Newgate. But I remember Bedlam.”

She raised his hand, pressing her lips to his palm to keep from blurting that he didn’t have to tell her. For she was very much afraid that he did have to tell her—not for her, but for himself.

“It…” He panted for a second, then burst. “The smell. Like a stable, only the manure is from humans, not horses. They chained me there as well, for I raged, in fear and desperation, for the first days. Until I was too weakened by lack of food and water.”

She sobbed, turning swiftly. She could not bear to hear of this—such a strong, good man brought low. Chained like a beast by petty people who didn’t understand him. She knelt on the bed, wrapping her arms around his head, bringing it to her breast, and only then did she feel the wet trails of tears on his face.

He kissed her between her breasts, a sweet brush of his mouth. “Artemis came when she could. She brought me food and gave all her coin to my attendants—more jailers, in truth—to make sure they wouldn’t beat me to death while she wasn’t there. My father died a year before the murders and our mother passed away in the first month I was in Bedlam. No doubt my incarceration hastened her death. My sister, my brave, proud sister, was forced to become a companion to our cousin.”

His voice broke.

She smoothed her palms over his great head, running her fingers through his hair, trying to comfort though she knew she must be failing.

He turned his face, laying his cheek against her chest. “At least Artemis had a roof over her head and food aplenty. I lay awake for nights after I received word of our mother’s death, fearful that Artemis would be tossed into the streets. I could do nothing. Nothing. She was—is—my sister. I should’ve been able to protect her, to care for her and make sure she never had to worry, and yet I was helpless. Hardly a man at all.”

“Shh,” Lily murmured, pressing kisses against his hair. She could taste her own tears on her lips now. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Apollo—her Apollo—should’ve had to endure such inhumanity.

“The things they did there…” His voice was hoarse, broken. “There was a woman,” he whispered. “A poor mad thing, but she sang in such a lovely voice. One night the keepers came to do her harm and I called to them, mocking them, and they came to me instead.”

She stiffened, her throat clenching in fear. Oh, her brave Apollo! How noble and how foolish to draw the ire of his jailers.

“They beat me until I passed out,” he said. “That was when I lost my voice. Afterwards—after I was rescued by the Duke of Wakefield, after, when I lay abed, regaining my strength, though not my voice, I thought of her. I went back one night, but she was already gone. Some fever had taken her. Perhaps it was for the best.”

She looked down and saw that he’d closed his eyes, though his brow was knit fiercely.

“But I made sure that guard—the one who’d meant to harm her, the one who’d led my beating—could harm no one ever again. I dragged him from that place and gave him to a press-gang. Wherever he is now, he’s not around women. I never would’ve done that before. Bedlam changed me.”

They had taken away something very important from him when he’d been made helpless. It should’ve broken him, being forced into chains. Yet it hadn’t.

Even in her grief she was amazed.

She framed his face with her hands, tilting it up so she could look in his eyes. “You survived. You endured and survived.”

His lips curved bitterly. “I had no choice.”

She shook her head. “There’s always a choice. You could’ve given up, let them take your soul and mind, but you didn’t. You persevered. I think you are the bravest man I have ever met.”

“I think, then, that you’ve not met many men,” he whispered. His voice was light, but his face still held the years of tragedy.

“Hush.”

She kissed him, not as a lover, but almost platonically, to acknowledge all that he was. Her lips brushed his forehead, both cheeks, and finally his mouth. Softly. A benediction.

“Let us sleep,” she said, and helped him to lie down on the bed.

She arranged the covers over both of them and then laid her head upon his chest, listening to the beat of his heart: ba-thump ba-thump ba-thump.

And that was how she fell asleep.

APOLLO WOKE TO the realization that he’d overslept. When he’d worked in the garden, he’d awoken as the birds had heralded the rising sun. But here inside, in a soft bed with a softer, warm woman against his side, he found it harder to brush away the tendrils of sleep.

“What?” Lily mumbled as he gently removed her arm from his belly.

He’d like to linger longer. To kiss her awake and make love to her again, but it was only a matter of time before the servants descended on the room. Besides, the sooner he left, the less likely that he’d run into other guests.

So he dressed quickly as she sighed and rolled to burrow into the warm spot he’d left.

Apollo gathered his coat and gave a last glance around the room before bending to kiss her again on the lips.

Her brow wrinkled ferociously and she cracked her eyelids to mutter, “Is it?”

He smiled. Evidently she wasn’t an alert waker. “I’ll see you later.”

Her only reply was an unfeminine grunt as she pulled a pillow over her head.

The smile still lingered as he crept into the hall and gently shut the door behind him.

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look to his right. Had someone just disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor? Or had the movement been imagined?

Apollo narrowed his eyes, thinking, but in the end decided that even if he’d seen someone, most likely it had been a servant at this time of the morning.

He turned in the other direction—only to find the Duke of Montgomery watching him.

He prevented himself from starting only by sheer willpower. “I hadn’t thought you an early riser, Your Grace.”

Montgomery cocked his head. “What makes you think I’ve slept?”

Apollo examined the other man. He was perfectly groomed in a bloodred suit, pumps, and clocked hose. His golden hair had been swept back into an elegant tail, the ends curled. Or perhaps his hair curled naturally. In any case, Apollo felt like a rat next to a sleek greyhound.

Not that he cared in particular.

“Have you?” he asked curiously, approaching the other man. “Slept?”

A secret smile curled the duke’s lips. “I find sleep a bore—especially when I might spend the nocturnal hours in more… pleasurable pursuits.”

“I see.” Apollo fell into step with the other man. He had no idea where the duke was headed, but he himself was bent on the breakfast room in search of strong coffee.

God, he hoped his uncle provided coffee for his guests.

“Morning is the best time to discover the inhabitants of a house sneaking out of bedrooms not their own.” The duke gave him an entirely too-innocent look. “As you were doing just now from Miss Goodfellow’s room. I now understand your ire yesterday at the unexpected sight of her.”

Apollo glared. “I’ll thank you not to spread my connection to her about.”

“Why would I do that?” Montgomery looked honestly puzzled and Apollo repressed an urge to punch the man in the nose. “What good is knowledge if one shares it with everyone?”

Anything he answered would only provide fuel for Montgomery’s scheming, so Apollo changed the subject. “Have you discovered anything of interest in your sneaking about, Your Grace?”

“Sneaking sounds so very… bad.” Montgomery sniffed as they descended the stairs.

Apollo looked at him.

“Very well!” The duke threw up his hands. “Don’t lose your temper, I don’t know if I could withstand your hamlike fists. I’ve discovered that Mrs. Jellett has a rather handsome, rather young footman she brings everywhere, that Mr. William Greaves has a valet who spent most of his youth in Newgate, that Mr. and Mrs. Warner, despite their newly wedded bliss, keep separate bedrooms—although I’d suspected that already”—the smile he gave was rather nasty—“and that Lady Herrick has a birthmark in the shape of a butterfly on her left buttock. Oh, and that said birthmark turns an interesting shade of lavender when slapped.”

Apollo stopped in the hallway outside the breakfast room and simply stared at his companion.

“What?” Montgomery looked irritated. “I defy any man to not take the opportunity when presented to slap a lovely arse.”

Apollo sighed and continued walking. “Anything else?”

The duke frowned for a moment before supplying, “Miss Royle dislikes me exceedingly.”

Apollo arched an eyebrow. “I’d think any number of young ladies dislike you.”

“Yes, they do,” the duke replied carelessly. “That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is that I seem to care one way or the other. It’s rather fascinating, truth be told.”

Apollo rolled his eyes at the man’s vanity. “You’ve collected a quantity of knowledge, Your Grace, and none of it is in any way helpful to my case.”

“Ah, but one never knows,” the duke replied. “Knowledge has a strange way of becoming applicable at the oddest moments. It’s why I take care to gather any and all information, no matter how trivial it may seem at first. But never fear: we’ve only been at the house party for less than a day and I anticipate more discoveries today.”

Apollo’s eyes narrowed. “Why today?”

“Didn’t you know?” Montgomery had that look of amusement that Apollo was beginning to loathe. “Additional guests arrived late last night.”

And he threw open the door to the breakfast room, revealing Edwin Stump, his mouth full of toast.

But it wasn’t Edwin that Apollo stared at. There were two other people in the room—a rather plain but gentle-faced lady and, beside her, a big man with an olive complexion, a scowl twisting his features. He had one green eye and one blue.