Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(49)

“But whyever did he change his name?”

“For the same… reason, I expect, that you”—he tapped a finger on her nose—“changed yours.”

She wrinkled her forehead. “Because Stump sounded like a dead tree and he needed a witty name for the stage?”

“Well, perhaps not… entirely the same reason,” he allowed. “I understand his family… doesn’t approve of the theater.”

“Oh, well, that makes sense,” she said, because it did. “Families are very odd things, after all.”

“Aren’t they indeed,” he breathed, and then he kissed her.

His mouth moved on hers with exquisite slowness, teasing her lips apart, sliding his tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. He caught her chin in the V between his thumb and fingers, holding her steady for his pleasure.

“Lily,” he breathed as he nipped at her mouth. “Lily.”

And her name, spoken in his broken voice—so sure, so tender, nonetheless—had never sounded so beautiful before.

She stood on tiptoe and twined her arms about his broad shoulders, trying to get closer, and felt a moment’s frustration that she couldn’t. A whimper escaped her and then he bent and simply grasped her around the waist. He lifted her easily, as if she were no more than Indio’s little wooden boat, and set her high against his chest so that she might tilt her head down to continue their kiss. Such casual strength should’ve frightened her. Should’ve made her pause and think.

But all it did was arouse her further.

Her bodice was crushed against his great chest, the slopes of her upper breasts pressed with each inhalation against the coarse cloth of his waistcoat, and she wanted… wanted something.

It’d been such a very long time since she’d been with a man. The emotions, the heat between them, made her breathless, and it was her own lack of control that finally sobered her.

“Wait,” she gasped, breaking away, pressing one palm to his chest. “I…”

He licked lazily at the corner of her mouth, not demanding, but seducing, which was, in this case, far more dangerous. She moaned a little and then got herself under control and pulled back.

“Put me down,” she said in her most haughty voice. Had she not been so very breathless, it would’ve come off rather well.

“You’re sure?” he drawled. There was a slash of color high on each of his craggy cheekbones and his eyes were lidded with sensuality.

Was she? “Quite,” she said, much more firmly than she actually felt.

He sighed heavily and let her slide—slowly—down his chest.

“Erm… thank you,” she said, trying and probably failing to regain some of her dignity. She brushed down her skirts, looking anywhere but at him. “We should return to the theater. I sent Maude and Indio out for meat pies for our supper and they should be back soon. You’re invited, of course.”

“I’m honored… to accept,” he said as formally as if she were the Queen.

She nodded and began to set off before she realized that they were in a part of the garden she’d never seen before. “Where are we?”

“The heart,” he said, his voice low and rasping. “The very… heart of my future garden… the center of the maze.”

She shivered at his words. This place didn’t look any different from anywhere else in the garden, but garden hearts, she supposed, like human hearts, could be disguised.

“I can’t see it,” she said.

He took a step toward her and turned her to face the same way as he, her back against his chest. “Here,” he said, wrapping his arms over her shoulders to hold her hands. “There’ll be a folly… of some sort right here… beneath our feet. A fountain or… waterfall or statue. Benches for lovers to sit and… kiss. The entrance will be over here”—he pointed to a space to the right—“and the maze… will wind all around us… like an embrace.”

Slowly he turned with her, tracing with his outstretched hand his imaginary maze.

“You have so much faith,” she whispered.

She felt him shrug behind her. “It’s there already… just waiting for the right person… to find it and bring it alive,” he said softly in her ear. “A maze… is eternal, you know, once discovered.”

She shivered at that and pulled away, turning to give him a bright smile. “Indio will be waiting impatiently for his supper.”

He nodded, but didn’t return her smile. “Of course.”

“I don’t understand how you can see so much in what is only destruction and debris now,” she commented as they turned back toward the theater. She was very careful to keep from brushing against him as they walked, for she was afraid that if they touched a spark might be lit. She felt as if a fine tension ran along her skin, making her nervously aware of his every movement.

He shrugged beside her. “I see it in my mind’s eye, complete… and wonderful. It’s only a matter of… planting and moving… to reveal what’s already there.” He glanced at her fondly. “Really, ’tisn’t such a mysterious thing.”

She had a certain suspicion that he was talking about something else as well.

He coughed rather harshly, and she looked at him quickly. “How is your throat?”