Darling Beast

  “ ’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 pl
an, 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.”

  He took her shoulders, barely refraining from shaking her. “I’m the same man I was when I labored in the garden. The same man you were so kind to when I was mute.”

  “No, you’re not!” Her breasts were heaving now with the force of her ire. “That man was of my world. He was simple and… and kind and he wasn’t a bloody aristocrat!”

  She balled her fist and hit his chest with the last word.

  “You don’t know,” he choked. “You don’t know who I am.”

  “Then tell me!”

  He stared into her eyes—those beautiful green eyes—and something seemed to break inside him.

  Four years of torment and loss.

  Four years of being told what he was and what he wasn’t.

  Four years of limbo. Of life suspended, lost, abandoned as he lay half dead in a stinking cell.

  He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t going to lose any more of life.

  “I’m everything you thought me,” he whispered, his voice broken. “The gardener and the aristocrat and the madman. I endured Bedlam and it was a crucible to my soul, burning what I was before and reshaping me. I wouldn’t have survived it had I not let myself be remolded.”

  He looked at her helplessly and she stared back, her eyes wet, her lips parted.

  He laid his forehead against hers. “In truth I don’t know what sort of man I am anymore, newly smelted, newly poured into some strange and original mold. I was still too hot to the touch for discovery. But I know this: whatever strange creature I have become, I am yours. Help me, Lily. Unmold me and take what form I am in your hands and blow the breath of life into me. Make me a living being again.”

  He had no more words to convince her, so he did what he’d wanted to do since he’d first seen her this evening: he slid his lips down to her mouth.

  THE KISS WAS so sweet, so tender, that for a moment Lily couldn’t think at all. All she could do was feel—the heat of his mouth, the puffs of his breaths on her cheek, the gentle touch of his palms on her face. He pushed his tongue into her mouth and she suckled it, wanting more.

  She stood on tiptoe and thrust her fingers into his hair, pulling off the wretched tie and freeing his wild locks—freeing Caliban from Lord Kilbourne.

  And then she remembered: no matter what he might call himself, she was still mad at him.

  She pulled back and murmured, “I’m still mad at you.”

  “Are you?” His wounded voice had descended into Stygian depths. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to her jaw.

  “Yes.” She yanked at his hair in emphasis.

  He grunted, but her grip didn’t prevent him from lowering his mouth to hers again. He nipped at her lips and then licked at them, softening the sting. “I’ll have to see what I can do to regain your good graces.”

  His hands left her arms and seized her waist instead, and before she could think, he was lifting her bodily, walking with her as if she were as light as a kitten. He pivoted and then she was falling onto the bed, with him right on top of her.

  He caught himself on his elbows before his entire weight could crush her, but she was still trapped, his legs and lower body pinning her to the soft mattress.

  “And how,” she asked with awful dignity, “do you suppose this will help your case?”

  “For one thing,” he replied, trailing his fingertips over her temples, “you can’t move.”

  She arched her brows.

  His lips curved as he plucked a pin from her coiffure. “It gives me time to argue, if nothing else.”

  She let her hands fall beside her head in mock surrender. “I’m listening.”

  “Will you agree that we found an uncommon accord in the garden?” She felt the loosening of her hair as he removed another pin.

  “I didn’t know who you were,” she objected.

  “Not what I asked.” He eyed her sternly. “Do you agree or not?”

  She blew out a frustrated breath. “I agree that I had an uncommon accord with the man I thought you were, but—”

  “Ah. Ah.” He stretched over her head to set the pins on a side table, then resumed his position atop her. “We both are in agreement that we shared an uncommon accord. The problem, as I see it, is that you are under the delusion that I am somehow not the same man as I was then. I may not know exactly what I have become since Bedlam, but I know this: whatever I was in the garden I am now, new clothes or no.”

  “You aren’t!” She parted her legs to give him more room, thinking she really oughtn’t to feel as comfortable as she did.

  “Am I not?” He thrust his fingertips into her hair, massaging her scalp. “In what way am I different?”

  Lily had to fight to keep her eyes open. The feel of his hands on her scalp after a day with her hair pulled tight was simply heaven. “Your name, for one.”

  “But what’s in a name, truly?” he murmured, dipping his head to trail his lips over the sensitive skin below her ear. “You called me Caliban, but had you called me Romeo, wouldn’t I still be the same man? My mother named me for a god renowned for male beauty, but does it make me any more handsome? My mirror tells me daily, no.”

  There was definitely something wrong with his reasoning and if she could only draw breath to think, she might figure it out.

  “Cheat,” she growled, her voice weaker than she liked.

  He pulled back enough for her to see the amused quirk of his lips. “Temptress.”

  He bent to lay his mouth on hers, thrusting his tongue lazily past her lips until she sucked on the thick length.

  “Are they any different?” he whispered against her mouth, “my kisses? Have they changed so much with my name?”

  She cracked her eyelids to look at him and murmur into the humid heat between them, “I can’t tell. Perhaps you should demonstrate again.”

  He licked at the corner of her mouth. “A scientific study, you mean?” His mouth trailed up her cheek, soft as a moth.

  “Quite,” she breathed.

  “As you wish.”

  He kissed her eyelids, a mere brush of lips, before seizing her mouth again, swallowing her moan. His hands moved until he’d intertwined his fingers with hers, still at either side of her head. She opened helplessly beneath the surge of his intent, accepting his tongue, his heavy desire. His chest crushed her breasts and she wanted all the material between them gone so that she could feel his skin against hers. She arched under him, attempting to get closer, wanting to rub her naked nipples
against him, but the stiff fabric of her stays prevented even the illusion of touch.

  She sank back, whimpering.

  He rose to his knees at the same time, eyeing her with an obnoxious twist of his lips that she’d have slapped away if she didn’t want him back so much.

  “The same?” he asked, and at least his voice shook just the tiniest bit. He wasn’t unaffected, either.

  She tilted her head against the coverlet, trying to catch her breath. “I suppose.”

  She’d tried to sound nonchalant, but by his sudden grin she knew she’d not been entirely successful.

  “I am the same man I was in the garden,” he said into the silence of the bedroom, his grin fading to something solemn, almost severe. “My limbs move as they did then, my lungs fill with air exactly the same, and my heart…” He paused as if to swallow, continuing lower, “My heart beats constant and true, and if you believe nothing else, Lily Stump, believe this: my heart has changed not at all since the garden.”

  She stared up at him. His words were beautiful, but she’d had nearly a lifetime’s distrust of the upper classes. Such a thing wasn’t vanquished in moments.

  He nodded at her silence as if she’d made a rebuttal—and then he shrugged off his coat. “Did you fear Caliban?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  He flipped open the buttons on his beautiful waistcoat. “Caliban and Apollo are the same.”

  “No,” she husked. “Caliban is dead.”

  “Do you truly believe that?” he asked nearly indulgently. “I am Caliban and I am Apollo. We are the same.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He stripped off his waistcoat.

  “There never was a Caliban to begin with.” She felt sad, as if she truly mourned for that gentle giant, that enigmatic mute man she’d apparently made up from whole cloth.

  He actually laughed, the cad. “Do you think I pretended to dig holes and hack down trees? I am Caliban and I am Apollo and I am Smith.” He pulled his shirt over his head, laying his chest bare. “Is this not the same body you saw emerge from the pond?”