Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(31)

“He looks like an old man with a toothache!”

Daffodil yipped and jumped up to nip at her giggling young master, and even Maude broke into a reluctant smile.

The maid hastily repressed it, though. “I’ll have you know, young Indio, that this here is the finest of nursing work.”

“Yes, Maude,” Indio said, more soberly. “Will he be all right?”

“O’ course, lad,” Maude said stoutly. “Best your mother helps him to her bed, though, because he looks like he could do with a nice long sleep.” Her voice softened just a fraction. “Poor man probably hasn’t a decent bed to sleep on, wherever he takes his rest. Come, you an’ I will start the supper.”

Indio leaped at that, always eager to be allowed to help in grown-up endeavors, and both maid and boy went to the fireplace, trailed by a curious Daffodil.

Lily looked into Caliban’s face. He had his eyes closed and was listing slightly in his chair. “Can you walk to the bed?”

He nodded and opened his eyes. They were duller than she was used to now. It reminded her uncomfortably of the time when she’d thought him mentally incompetent. How strange that idea seemed now.

“Can you stand?” she asked softly.

He answered by rising like a drunken behemoth and she hastily dipped a shoulder to bring it under his arm. It wasn’t that she could physically hold him up—he was much too big—but she helped guide him as he stumbled unsteadily toward her little bedroom.

Inside was her bed—a narrow, pathetic thing—and she helped him climb in, drawing the coverlet over his chest. He looked as if he lay in a child’s cot. His feet hung off the end and one arm dangled almost to the ground from the side.

Caliban seemed comfortable enough—his eyes already shut. Was he asleep? She bent over him, whispering urgently, “Caliban.”

He opened his eyes, and though the color hadn’t changed from ordinary brown, they were somehow more dear to her now.

“Who was that man?” she asked. “Why did he attack you?”

He shook his head and closed his eyes again. If he was feigning sleep, he was better than many actors Lily had known.

She blew out a frustrated breath and went around to the foot of the bed. His gaiters and shoes were quite muddy and she wrinkled her nose in disgust, but got gamely to work. She unlaced his gaiters and then unbuckled his shoes, marveling at their size before setting them neatly beneath the bed. Then she found another blanket and pulled it over his upper half, for the one on the bed didn’t come close to his shoulders.

With a last look, Lily shut the bedroom door and went out into the main room.

Maude and Indio were by the hearth as Maude supervised the boy in stirring something in a bubbling pot.

She cast a look over her shoulder at Lily’s entrance. “There’s tea on the table, hinney. Take a seat and have a cup, but first you’ll want to scrub your hands. Go on, then.”

Lily nodded wearily and crossed to the outside door. It was oddly comforting to have Maude instructing her as the older woman had when she was a little girl. As Lily herself did now with Indio.

Outside, the sky had begun to gray and Lily blinked at the passage of time. She’d been so fearful for Indio, then so concerned about tending to Caliban, that she hadn’t noticed.

She went to the barrel of water they kept beside the door, removing the wooden cover and dipping out some water with which to scrub the blood and mud from her hands. She watched the pinkish water run into the dirt at her feet, making little runnels, and remembered another time she’d scrubbed blood from her hands. Kitty’s dear face had been so swollen she couldn’t open her eyes, her mouth turned into an obscene, bloodied mass.

All because of a big, violent man.

Lily watched the last of the water run off and recalled Maude’s words—Remember Kitty—and wondered if she was making a very foolish—and perhaps fatal—mistake.

Chapter Seven

The king sat in his golden castle and brooded. He fathered no more children, and as he aged he grew bitter that others might have lovely offspring but he, the ruler of the island, had sired only a monster. So he made an awful commandment: every year the people must send into the labyrinth the most beautiful youth and the most beautiful maiden on the island as sacrifice to his terrible son…

—From The Minotaur

Apollo woke in the dark the next morning to two immediate realizations: one, he was in a bed—a real bed—for the first time since before Bedlam, and two, he hadn’t written and set out the day’s instructions for the gardeners. He groaned silently at the last thought. The fellows Asa had hired were a competent enough lot, but with no instruction they had a tendency to mill around without doing any useful work.

But the bed—the lovely, lovely bed—made it hard to feel put out by the matter. The bed wasn’t big, but it was soft and clean with a proper mattress—not stuffed with scratchy straw—and it was comfortable. He was tempted to go back to sleep.

Except the thought hit him of whose bed he must be in: Miss Stump’s.

He sat up, jostling his head, which promptly began to complain about the matter. The room was dark—it had no windows—but he knew from the internal clock his body had kept since he was a boy that it was morning, probably six or seven of the clock.

Where was Miss Stump?

Cautiously he lowered his foot to the floor and only then realized he was missing both shoes and gaiters. His brows shot up. Had elegant Miss Stump removed them? It took a few minutes of feeling about, but he eventually discovered his shoes under the bed and donned them.