Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(46)

“You know this… oaf?” The man spat the word at her, then threw back his head in cruel laughter. “I vow, Lil, your taste in bedmates has come down. ’Fore long you’ll be lifting your skirts for common porters, if this is the sort—”

The end of his vicious rant ended in a satisfying squawk as Apollo backhanded him. The other man staggered and fell on his arse.

“No, don’t hurt him!” Lily cried, and Apollo hated to think she cared for this man.

“I won’t,” he assured her in a level tone. He stared at the sputtering rogue for a moment and made up his mind. “But neither will I… stand by while he… abuses you.” So saying, he picked up the man and tossed him over his shoulder. “Wait here.”

The man made a sort of moan and Apollo hoped he wouldn’t toss his accounts down his back. He’d bathed and changed into a fairly clean shirt before coming to see Lily.

Pivoting, he marched toward the dock, the man still over his shoulder.

“Caliban!”

He ignored her calls. He didn’t really care who this ass was—as long as he was nowhere near Lily or Indio.

“Put—” The knave had to gasp for breath as Apollo leaped a fallen log, jostling the man’s stomach against his shoulder. When he could draw breath again he swore foully. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“No.”

“I’ll have your head.” The other man gulped and tried to kick.

So Apollo let the man roll off his shoulder and onto the ground. They were far enough away from the theater anyway by this point.

The villain stared up at him, pale with rage, his wig fallen to the side. His own hair was nearly black and cropped short. “I know people—people who can and will cut off your blasted cock.”

“I have no… doubt.” Threats were two a penny. Apollo straddled the prone dandy and leaned down into his face, intimidating him as he’d dared to do to Lily. “Don’t come… back until… you can talk… to her with a civil tongue.”

He nimbly avoided the kick aimed at his groin and left the knave there on the ground. Lily, after all, hadn’t sounded too pleased when he’d left.

Nor was she looking very happy when he got back. She was still in the clearing, pacing.

She whirled on him as soon as he appeared. “What did you do to him?”

He shrugged, watching her. “Dumped him… on the ground… like the rubbish… he is.” His throat ached, but he ignored it.

“Oh.” She seemed to deflate a bit at that, only to puff back up a second later. “Well, you shouldn’t have interfered. It wasn’t any of your business.”

This was not how he’d hoped to spend the afternoon.

“Perhaps… I wanted it to… be my business.” He approached her cautiously as he spoke.

“It’s just…” She waved one hand, obviously frustrated. “You just can’t. He’s…”

Apollo cocked his head. “Indio’s father?”

“What?” She turned and stared. “No! Whatever made you think that? Edwin’s my brother.”

“Ah.” The knot that had been pulled tight in his chest ever since she’d started defending the dandy loosened. Family was another matter. One couldn’t choose family. “Then he… should speak… to his sister more carefully.”

She screwed up her face rather adorably. “He’s not himself. He lost quite a bit of money and he’s anxious about it.”

He caught her hand and tugged gently as he turned down a path into the garden—away from where he’d left Edwin. “I see. And this is… your fault?”

“No, of course not.” She frowned, but let herself be led, so he counted that as a contest won. “It’s just that he makes money from my plays.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

“Well, they’re published under his name, you see,” she said, peering down at her steps. She didn’t seem to notice that he still had hold of her hand, and he felt no need to bring it to her attention. Her slender fingers were cool in his. “He’s… well, he’s better able to sell the plays than I.”

“Why?”

She kicked a stone in the path. “He has better acquaintances. Better friends.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “He just is better at it, is all.”

He was silent, but felt confused. How did “better friends” make it easier to publish a play?

“My father was a porter,” she finally muttered, sounding faintly ashamed. “A common porter. Apparently he often fetched things for the actors in the theater where my mother was appearing. Costumes and props and a cooked hen for dinner and whatever else needed moving or fetching from one place to another. Oh, you know what a porter is.”

He squeezed her hand gently instead of replying.

She broke off a twig from a tree as they passed. “Edwin’s father was a lord—well, a lord’s son, which, compared to a porter, is much the same thing. Mama said my father couldn’t even read his own name. But he was handsome, so there’s that, I suppose.”

“You…” His damnable throat tried to close, but he forced the words out. “You did not… know… your father?”