Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(50)

“Sore,” he replied. “But… that is to be expected… after so long unused.”

“I’m very glad you can speak again.”

He smiled at her finally and then they were at the theater.

Daffodil scampered to greet them, closely followed by Indio with the news that he and Maude had brought back two large pies and they must wash at once to have them while they were still hot.

Thus instructed, Lily and Caliban washed by the old water barrel.

“Mama,” Indio said as they sat, “the wherryman had only two teeth and he could spit ever so far.”

And he proceeded to tell them all about the wherryman’s unusual and rather disgusting skill.

Caliban expressed suitable interest in this dining conversation and Lily was content to watch the play between the two males. Even Maude unbent enough to give her opinion on long-distance spitting and the number of teeth one usually found in the average wherryman.

Lily almost forgot her nervous tension until after supper, when Maude was clearing the dishes with Indio’s help.

Caliban drew Lily out the theater door, quietly closing it behind them.

“See?” he said, pointing to the North Star. “In another year… or two, you’ll no longer… be able to glimpse… the stars from the garden. The lights… and fireworks will obscure them.”

“So I should treasure the wildness now?” she asked whimsically.

“Perhaps,” he said, drawing her close. “Or… just be glad that you… have this time, hard though… it seems at the moment. After all, most of London has not this… grand view… of the night sky. Only we two.”

“As if we have a world of our own.”

He smiled right before he kissed her, and she knew somehow he felt the same. They were a universe apart, Adam and Eve, in a garden that wasn’t quite Eden.

And then she thought no more for many long minutes as he leisurely kissed her, mouth opened wide over hers as if he would consume her, meld with her and make them one being under the starlit night sky.

When at last he drew back she felt a little dazed, almost off-balance, as if the world had tilted a bit on its axis.

“Tomorrow,” he said, walking backward into the dark. “Shall I… show you the secret island… in the pond?”

“If you must,” she said, the tremble in her voice betraying her discomposure.

The last thing she heard before he disappeared into the garden was the sound of his laughter.

IT WASN’T EVEN dawn when Apollo woke the next morning, but he knew it was already too late.

He could hear people in the garden.

“In th’ gallery, ’e said,” a male voice called.

A disturbed bird shrilled as it flew away.

Another man swore softly.

They were close—very close.

Apollo rolled from his pallet, glad that he’d slept in his clothes, and grabbed his shoes and his pruning knife. There was no door to the alcove in the musician’s gallery where he slept, only the tarp he’d hung over the corner. He slipped, barefoot, to the side, down the gallery.

Just as men appeared in the pink-gray light of morning in his garden. They were closing in on him.

Soldiers. They were soldiers. Red-coated, with bayonets fixed on their guns.

The breath caught in his throat. His right heel skidded on grit-strewn marble, and he beat back a sudden, cowardly wave of panic.

He whirled to his right only to find a soldier within arm’s distance, just a young boy beneath his tall cap, blue, blue eyes wide and frightened.

The soldier brought up his bayonet and Apollo swung his pruning knife in a vicious feint.

The boy soldier screamed, flailing as he scrambled away from the knife, his breath pluming white in the cold morning air.

“Oi!” someone shouted.

“Watch it!” cried another. “ ’E’s a murderer thrice over!”

No. No. No.

Not again. Never again. He’d slit his own throat before returning to Bedlam.

Apollo ran.

Through the beautiful morning light, through the blackened garden he’d hoped to redeem, with demons on his heels.

Not all were corporal.

Chapter Eleven

Ariadne stared thoughtfully after Theseus and then, unwinding the red thread from the queen’s spindle as she walked, turned left into the labyrinth.

It was a cold, silent place. The walls of the labyrinth were of ancient, worn stone, for ’twas said that it had stood since before men had discovered the island. No birds sang, nor wind blew there, as if all had been put to sleep under a spell…

—From The Minotaur

A pounding at the theater door startled Lily awake that morning. She sat up in bed, groggily looking around as Daff barked hysterically.

Shaking her head, she found her wrap and stumbled out of the bedroom, calling, “Who is it?”

She expected perhaps Edwin’s voice—although normally he never arose before noon—but it was another voice entirely that shouted back.

“Open in the name of the King!”

That made her halt abruptly, her eyes widening as she stared at her door.

The pounding came again, provoking Daffodil into a frenzy of yapping.

Lily threw a glance at Maude, who had risen as well and stood with her hand on Indio’s shoulder. Indio looked excited and a little frightened.