Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(25)

“Shall I, my lord?” Her voice was still low, but it had a sort of fey quality to it now, her head tipped coquettishly to the side. “Do you judge a gentleman by his bits, my lord?”

He realized suddenly that though she was playacting a man, she was doing it as a woman. No wonder she was known for her acting. She wore none of the trappings of the theater—neither wig nor costume nor paint on her face, and yet as she strutted around her writing log he knew immediately which character she played.

Apollo must’ve made some sound, for Miss Stump spun, staring in his direction with wide green eyes. “Who’s there?”

Damn. He hadn’t meant to scare her. Apollo stepped from behind the tree.

“Oh.” She glanced around, her brows drawn together. “Is this your place? I can move elsewhere. I didn’t mean to disturb your work…”

He’d started shaking his head with her second sentence. She finally seemed to notice, winding down her protests until they trailed away into silence. For a moment they simply stood, staring at each other, alone in this ruined garden. A breeze rattled the thin branches of the bushes and blew a lock of her dark hair across her mouth to catch in the seam of her plush lips. She pushed it behind her ear, her gaze still tangled with his.

He didn’t want her to leave, he knew it suddenly. He talked to Artemis, to Makepeace—and to no one else. There was no one else—save her, now. She’d found his secret, knew he wasn’t just a hulking mute, devoid of brain or soul. And more—she stirred something deep within him, something he’d thought had been beaten out of him in Bedlam.

Carefully he took a step back, hoping she’d understand that he was ceding the ground to her.

“Stop!”

They both started at her voice.

Miss Stump cleared her throat and said in a lower tone, “That is… I mean, if you’d like to stay and continue your work, I… I don’t mind.”

He nodded once and turned.

“Wait!” He heard her call from behind him, but there was no point in trying to explain when actions were simpler.

He jogged back to the tree he’d been trying to take down earlier and picked up his shovel and his satchel before returning.

Miss Stump was bent over her papers again, but he made sure to make enough noise that he wouldn’t startle her.

“Oh,” she said, straightening. “You’ve come back.”

Was that relief in her voice?

His mouth twisted wryly at himself. She was a lauded actress, vivacious, quick, and pretty. Even when he’d been able to speak, most of his feminine company had been bought. He wasn’t a comely man. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Yet she seemed happy that he’d returned, and that simple fact made his chest bloom with joy.

He dropped his satchel and took up the shovel, sticking it into the base of one of the dead bushes, striking at the root mass. The blade only went halfway into the soil, so he jumped with both feet on the shoulders of the blade, driving it the rest of the way down. He could feel as the blade sliced through the roots and he grunted with satisfaction. He’d spent part of the previous night sharpening the shovel to do just that. Gingerly he began prying with the handle—too hard a movement and he’d snap it, or worse, the iron blade itself. He’d already lost two shovels this spring.

“You don’t mind if I continue?” he heard Miss Stump ask. “It’s just that I need to finish writing this soon—very soon.”

He glanced up curiously at that, wondering at the worried line between her brows as she stared down at her manuscript. Makepeace had said she couldn’t get acting work at the moment. Perhaps this was her only means of making money.

He shook his head in reply.

“I’m only in the third act,” she said absently. “My heroine has gambled away all her brother’s money because, well, she’s dressed as her brother.”

She glanced up in time to catch his raised eyebrows.

“It’s a comedy called A Wastrel Reform’d.” She shrugged. “A complicated comedy because right now no one knows who anyone is. There’s twins—a brother and sister—named Wastrel, and the brother has convinced his sister—her Christian name is Cecily—to pretend to be him so that he might seduce Lady Pamela’s maid, and he’s engaged to her—Lady Pamela, not her maid.”

She took a breath and Apollo slowly smiled, because against all odds, he’d understood everything she’d just said.

Miss Stump grinned back. “It’s silly, I know, but that’s what comedy is, really—a lot of silly things happening, one after another.” She glanced down at her play, running her finger down the page. “So Cecily, dressed as Adam—that’s the brother—has lost terribly at a hand of cards to Lord Pimberly. Oh! That’s Fanny—the maid’s—father, and Lady Pamela’s scorned suitor. Although of course no one knows that Pimberly is Fanny’s father, otherwise she wouldn’t be a lady’s maid, now would she?”

Apollo leaned on his shovel and cocked an eyebrow.

“Kidnapped at birth, naturally,” she replied. “But fortunately she has quite a distinctive birthmark. Right here.” She tapped the upper slope of her right breast.

Apollo defied any man not to follow the direction of her finger. She had a lovely breast, gently swelling above the severe square neckline of her dress and modestly covered by a filmy fichu.