Darling Beast

  But he must’ve heard the noise the soldiers were making by now, surely?

  After a few minutes there was a crash and a good deal of cursing from the soldiers who had gone into the unsafe area of the theater. They returned, quite sooty, looking sheepish, and with one of them limping.

  Lily smiled, trying to appear at ease and not as if she wanted to rid herself of the soldiers. “If that’s all, Sergeant, I must be getting my son’s breakfast.”

  “Thank you for your time, Miss Goodfellow,” he replied, “and if you should see a big fellow sneaking about the garden, you must notify the authorities at once.”

  “Oh, you can be assured I will,” she said, putting a tremor of fright into her voice. “But can you tell me what he’s wanted for?”

  “Why, murder, ma’am,” Sergeant Green replied with grim relish. “The Viscount Kilbourne escaped nine months ago from Bedlam, where he was committed for savagely and insanely murdering three of his friends for no reason at all.”

  Lily stared at him, shocked into silence. She couldn’t seem to even make her brain work.

  Sergeant Green seemed satisfied with her reaction. “Be careful, Miss Goodfellow, you and your boy and your maid. Kilbourne is no more than a beast. He’d as soon kill you as look at you.”

  With that he bowed and with his men tramped out of the theater.

  In the sudden silence Lily turned mutely to stare at Maude. “Oh, my God.”

  “BUT ’TIS ONLY nine of the clock,” the sleepy blond wench mumbled as Asa Makepeace bundled her out his door. A blue ribbon trailed forlornly from her half-done hair. “Thought we could at least ’ave a bit of a cuddle this morn afore I ’ad to go.”

  “And we will, love—next time,” Makepeace said, and then bent to whisper something no doubt salacious in her ear.

  Apollo made sure to turn his back, staring at a box of marzipan sweets carelessly left open on a pile of papers. They were shaped into oranges and lemons. He wanted not only to keep from hearing whatever it was Makepeace was whispering to his paramour, but also to prevent her from seeing his face.

  It’d taken him hours to get to Makepeace’s door. He’d had to first escape the soldiers and then make sure he wasn’t followed. After that he’d spent some time outside Makepeace’s building, watching and waiting to see if the soldiers would come there next. They hadn’t turned up, which could mean either that they simply hadn’t arrived yet or that they didn’t know his connection to Makepeace.

  In either case, he couldn’t stay here long.

  The door closed behind the girl and Makepeace turned to him, looking unusually serious. “Damn it, when the hell did you regain your voice?”

  “Only a few days ago,” Apollo said impatiently.

  “No one ever tells me anything,” Makepeace muttered, crossing to the fireplace.

  “My voice… isn’t why I’m here.”

  “Then what is?”

  “At least a dozen… soldiers in the garden.” Apollo paced as well as he could in the overcrowded room. “They knew who I was… and they knew where I slept.”

  “Someone betrayed you.” Makepeace stoked the fire and filled his kettle with water before hanging it from a hook he swung over the blaze. “Well, you can stay here until—”

  “That’s just it… I can’t.” Apollo noted absently that a mechanical hen had joined Makepeace’s collection. It had a key in its side to wind it. No doubt it would lay eggs or even little chicks when wound. God only knew where Makepeace had found it. “If they know… so much about me it’s only… a matter of time before they discover… my friendship with you and come here. I must flee the city.”

  And leave Lily behind. He stared blindly at the mechanical hen’s glass eye. Would he ever see her again? Her inquisitive lichen-green eyes, her lush pink mouth? Damn it, would she even want to see him when she found out why the soldiers were after him? He ran his hands through his hair in frustrated despair.

  “But the garden.” Makepeace sat heavily on a chair, unmindful of the books that slid to the floor as a result. “Damn it, ’Pollo, no one can design that garden the way you can. It’s you that has the vision. It’ll just be another boring line of box hedges in geometric patterns without you.”

  Apollo winced. “I can make you notes to… give to whomever you… hire to take over.” He slumped as well—on the only other available surface, which was the bed. The garden had been his delight. A place to make beautiful in his own design after four years of stagnation in Bedlam. This, too, he would have to abandon. And then another realization hit him. “I left my notebook. I only… had time to… take my shoes… and my knife.”

  “Goddamn it!”

  Apollo shrugged. “I have most of it… memorized anyway.” He sighed, letting his head drop back. He could recreate the plans, but that notebook held all the conversations and musings he’d had since he’d been freed. He felt its loss like a tangible wound.

  He closed his eyes in near-despair at another thought. “Lily’s in the garden. D’you think they’ll… harass her? The soldiers?”

  “Lily, is it?” The other man perked up like the idiot he was.

  “Makepeace,” Apollo growled.

  “No,” Makepeace sighed. “They have no reason to think that she even knows you—do they?”

  Apollo shrugged, feeling weary. “Her brother… was there yesterday. He was… quite foul to her and I… tossed him out.”

  “ ‘Tossed,’ ” Makepeace repeated carefully.

  “Not literally,” Apollo snapped, then had to concede, remembering Edwin landing on his rump in the dirt. “Well, in a way. But I didn’t hurt him… though he did make… several threats to me.”

  “And seems to’ve carried them out,” Makepeace replied drily. He jumped up as the kettle began to steam. “No one else knew you were in the garden, did they?”

  Apollo ticked them off on his fingers. “My sister… and thus His Grace the Ass… you, Montgomery, and James Trevillion.”

  Makepeace paused with the kettle in one hand and then swore and had to set it down when the hot handle apparently burned his fingers. “Who’s this Trevillion?”

  Apollo looked at him. “The man who… arrested me the morning of the… murders.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention him until now?” Makepeace’s eyes widened in outrage. “Good God, man, that’s your betrayer right there.”

  Apollo was already shaking his head. “No… he’d realized he made a… mistake in arresting me. He vowed to help… discover the real murderer.”

  “So he told you.” Makepeace furiously shook tea into a teapot from a tin without bothering to measure it. “How can you be such a fool?”

  “I’m not a fool,” Apollo growled.

  “He was merely placating you until he could inform the King’s men.”

  “I saw him just yesterday.”

  “And that makes my point!” Makepeace filled the teapot and banged down the kettle on the hob. A few drops of water splashed out and hit the hearth, sizzling as they evaporated. “He betrayed you, ’Pollo.”

  “No—”

  There was a knock on the door and they both fell silent. Apollo exchanged glances with Makepeace, and then took his hooked pruning knife from the belt at his waist.

  He wasn’t going back.

  He slid behind the door as Makepeace opened it.

  “Mr. Harte?” said a familiar voice, and Apollo peered around the door. Trevillion stood in the outer hall, alone and leaning on his cane.

  “Inside,” Apollo muttered, gesturing him in.

  “Are you insane?” Makepeace hissed as Trevillion limped in. “Who’s this?”

  “Trevillion, the man… I was telling you about.”

  Makepeace looked outraged. “This man betrayed you!”

  “I didn’t,” Trevillion replied with stiff dignity.

  “Indeed?” Makepeace thrust out his face, a sarcastic smile twisting his lips. “Then why, pray tell, are you here, only hours after ’Pollo had to fl
ee for his life from Harte’s Folly? How do you even know where I live when I’d never heard your name before this morning?”

  “ ’Tisn’t my fault you’re not well informed,” Trevillion replied, his upper lip curling.

  Apollo nearly banged his head against the wall. Naturally Trevillion would rather antagonize than explain. But with Trevillion’s next breath he was proven wrong.

  “As for your first question,” Trevillion continued, “I’m here because a man who was under my command four years ago, when I arrested Lord Kilbourne, came to me. He informed me that he’d heard there’d been a raid on Harte’s Folly this morning, but that Lord Kilbourne had escaped. I arrived at your door, hoping you would know of Lord Kilbourne’s whereabouts, and,” he said, casting a significant glance Apollo’s way, “as it turned out, you did.”

  “So you could arrest him anew!” Makepeace shouted.

  “Had I wanted him arrested, he’d be languishing behind bars now,” Trevillion replied, hard.

  Apollo stiffened at how easily Trevillion talked about putting him behind bars.

  The door to Makepeace’s rooms opened and the Duke of Montgomery strolled in as casually as if he were entering an afternoon musicale.

  “I say,” the duke drawled, “am I interrupting?”

  “No, but you’re barging in uninvited to my rooms,” Makepeace snapped.

  “It’s so tedious,” Montgomery sighed, “to have to wait for invitations and, I find, they often don’t come when you most want them to. Much easier to simply disregard formal invitations altogether. Good Lord, man,” he continued in the same bored tone, “haven’t you anywhere for guests to sit in this pigsty?”

  “Invited guests are welcome to sit on the bed.” Makepeace pointed. “Uninvited guests are welcome to—”

  “What are you… doing here, Your Grace?” Apollo asked hastily before Makepeace could finish his sentence—perhaps disastrously.

  Montgomery slowly pivoted to him. “You’ve regained the use of your voice, Lord Kilbourne.”

  Apollo impatiently inclined his head.

  “How very fascinating,” Montgomery said as if Apollo were an exotic animal he’d never seen before.

  “You’ve not answered… my question.”

  Montgomery spread his elegant hands wide. “I heard you were in trouble and naturally I came to help.”

  “You wanted to… help me,” Apollo said, flat.

  “You are, after all, the gardener with the grand scheme for my pleasure garden.” Montgomery cocked his head whimsically.

  “My pleasure garden,” Makepeace interjected.

  Montgomery cast him an amused glance, but addressed Apollo. “Helping you, I admit, helps me as well, but I see no problem with that.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Apollo muttered.

  “How did you know about Lord Kilbourne’s difficulties, may I inquire, Your Grace?” Trevillion asked quietly.

  “Oh,” Montgomery murmured, bending to peer at the mechanical hen, “one hears these things.”

  “Usually only if one has paid informants,” Trevillion said, very dry.

  “They do help.” Montgomery straightened and smiled sweetly. “Now, if we’re done with the pleasantries, I suggest we discuss how we’re going to prove Lord Kilbourne’s innocence so he can get back to work on Harte’s Folly. I really must insist my garden be open for business by next spring, and this… hiccup… threatens to put the whole thing back months.” He made a moue of discontent. “I really shan’t have it.”

  “My garden,” Makepeace muttered, but his heart was obviously no longer in it. He fetched the steaming teapot. “Right. Trevillion sit there”—he indicated his vacated chair—“you”—he pointed at the duke—“can sit on the bed or not at all. Now, who’s for tea?”

  And a few minutes later they all had steaming—if mismatched—cups of tea in what had to be the oddest tea party Apollo had ever attended.

  “Now then.” Makepeace slurped noisily at his teacup merely, Apollo suspected, to annoy the duke. He’d dumped half the contents of a rather fine gilded sugar bowl into his tea and it must have been like drinking treacle. “Let’s hear it. What’s your grand plan?”

  Montgomery sniffed cautiously at his tea and took a very small, very delicate sip. Immediately his eyebrows shot up and he hastily set the teacup down on a pile of books. “Obviously we must find and expose the real murderer.”

  “Obviously,” Makepeace drawled back.

  The duke ignored that. “Am I to assume from Captain Trevillion’s presence that you’ve already made some inquiries?”

  Apollo exchanged a glance with Trevillion and Apollo nodded.

  “Yes, Your Grace, I have done some investigation into the matter.” The captain cleared his throat. “It seems Lord Kilbourne’s uncle, William Greaves, is in some debt to his grandfather’s, the earl’s, estate.”

  Montgomery, who had been poking at his teacup, looked up at that. “Splendid! We have a viable candidate for a substitute murderer. Now to simply alert the authorities with a well-placed hint—”

  “A hint about what, exactly?” Makepeace exploded. “We don’t have a scrap of real evidence that ’Pollo’s uncle did anything.”

  “Oh, evidence is easily manufactured, I find,” the duke said carelessly as he dropped a marzipan orange into his tea. He watched it sink with interest.

  There was a short, appalled silence.

  The duke seemed to realize something was amiss. He glanced up, his blue eyes wide and innocent. “Problem?”

  Fortunately it was Trevillion who replied. “I’m afraid we can’t simply manufacture evidence, Your Grace,” he said calmly but firmly. “We must discover the evidence naturally.”

  “How tedious!” The duke actually pouted before assuming a rather alarmingly crafty expression. “It’ll take much less time my way, you comprehend.”

  “Oh for God’s sake!” Makepeace burst out and for a moment Apollo was afraid he’d have to physically restrain him. “You’re discussing falsifying evidence to hang a man.”

  “Don’t be a hypocrite, Mr. Harte,” the duke snapped. “You believe him just as guilty as I. You just want to salve your conscience by working for the evidence. The end result is the same, I assure you: an arrested man and Lord Kilbourne saved from Bedlam.”

  “Nevertheless,” Trevillion said. He didn’t raise his voice, but such was its command, the other two men looked to him. “We’ll do it our way. Your Grace.”

  For a moment the soldier and the aristocrat glared at each other.

  Then the duke suddenly knocked over his teacup, spilling the mess on a stack of papers. “Oh, very well,” he said, petulant, over the squawks of Makepeace. Apparently the papers were broadsheets he’d been meaning to read. “I suppose there’s no help for it. We’ll have to go to William Greaves’s country house outside Bath and hunt around like farmers’ wives after chicken eggs.”

  They all stared at him.

  “What now?”

  Trevillion cleared his throat, but Makepeace, perhaps because of his sodden broadsheets, beat him to it. “How do you propose we get into Greaves’s country house? Surely he’ll notice four men tramping through his rooms.”

  “I doubt it,” Montgomery purred, “since he’ll be holding a country party in a little over a fortnight’s time with an especial play as the centerpiece of the event. Naturally, I have been invited. I’ll simply arrive with my very good friend, Mr. Smith”—he sent a significant glance at Apollo—“and there you are.”

  “There we won’t be, because the first thing Greaves will do will be to have ’Pollo arrested,” Makepeace objected.

  “Actually,” Apollo interjected thoughtfully, “I’ve never met… the man.”

  Makepeace swung on him, looking betrayed. “What, never?”

  Apollo shrugged. “Perhaps… as a baby? I certainly have no… memory of him or the rest of his family. He probably’s never… seen me.” He looked over at Trevillion calmly sipping his tea. “Can Lady
Phoebe find… a way to get an invitation to… the house party?”

  “No,” the captain said with certainty. “Her brother does not want her to attend social events except those held by a family member. There are very few exceptions. However”—he looked considering—“I believe Wakefield has a house in Bath. It shouldn’t be too hard to suggest Lady Phoebe take the waters. And, since she enjoys the theater very much, she might be able to attend a private theatrical performance for one night. I shall look into the matter.”

  Montgomery clapped his hands. “Then it’s settled. As I see it, there’s but one thing to do in the intervening two weeks.”

  “And what is that?” Makepeace grated.

  The duke turned his bright-blue eyes on Apollo, making him exceptionally nervous. “Why, outfit Lord Kilbourne as the aristocrat he is.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ariadne followed the winding corridors of the labyrinth for days and nights. She ate the cheese and bread her mother had hidden in the folds of her robe and drank the dew that collected in the crevices of the stone at night. Sometimes she would hear an animal’s roar or what sounded like a man’s shout, but often she heard nothing at all except the scrape of her slippers on the hard earth of the labyrinth. And then, on the third day, she found the first skeleton…

  —From The Minotaur

  Two weeks later Lily looked up at the gray stone facade of William Greaves’s country house and thought she should be excited.

  It was the first opportunity in months and months for her to perform—and it would be in one of her own plays. By dint of nearly killing herself, she’d finished A Wastrel Reform’d on time and sent the manuscript by porter to Edwin, despite her misgivings. He’d already had a buyer, after all, and they both needed the money rather badly.

  She hadn’t been terribly surprised when the Duke of Montgomery had introduced her to the other players and she’d found out she was performing in the play she’d only just finished. William Greaves was the duke’s friend who’d commissioned A Wastrel Reform’d, and she had the lead as Cecily Wastrel. A plum breeches role—and she should know.