Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(58)

They’d hardly begun on a rather watery beef broth when Mrs. Jellett, a lady of mature years in a frock of a startling yellow-green shade, leaned forward and said loudly, “Have you heard aught of your mad cousin, Mr. Greaves? I understand that he barely escaped capture by soldiers in the destroyed Harte’s Folly pleasure garden.”

Mr. William Greaves’s mouth thinned into nonexistence and anyone could see that he did not like the subject—which of course hardly dissuaded his guests.

“ ’Tis said he killed three men with an enormous knife.” Mrs. Warner shivered dramatically. “The very thought that a murderous madman is on the loose is enough to make one want to hide under the bed.”

“Or in the bed?” the duke murmured over his glass of wine.

“Are you offering bedchamber protection, Your Grace?” Lady Herrick asked lazily.

The duke bowed from the waist. “For you, madam, I would make the sacrifice.”

“Such bravery,” cried Moll from the other side of the duke. “I vow ’tis enough to send a lady into a paroxysm.”

That comment prompted a round of titters from the ladies.

Lily stared at her plate, trying not to feel any sympathy for Caliban—Apollo—but it was hard. The others talked about him as if he were a maddened beast to be shot on sight. Would she have felt that way if she’d only heard the stories and not known the man beforehand? Would she have condemned a stranger at once without benefit of trial?

Probably. Fear had a tendency to drive away the courtesy of civilization.

Mrs. Jellett was still curious about the original topic of conversation. She addressed George Greaves. “Tell me, Mr. Greaves, was your cousin always mad? Did he do anything bizarre or cruel as a boy?”

Mr. William Greaves spoke up from the head of the table, his voice grim. “I fear, madam, that that side of the family has always had strange turns. My brother, alas, was prone to overexcitement followed by melancholies from which he could hardly rouse himself. A pity”—he took a sip of his wine—“that as eldest the title naturally falls to his side.”

“ ’Twould be better,” his son joined in, “if our English great families could set aside the titles from those members who, because of some disease or defect of the brain, are rendered feeble or otherwise weaken the lineages of the aristocracy.”

“If that were done,” drawled the Duke of Montgomery, “half the titles of England would go obsolete due to brain weakness. I know my own grandfather fancied himself a cowherd at times.”

“Really, Your Grace?” John leaned forward to see down the table. “Not a shepherd or goatherd?”

“I’m told he was quite specific in his mania and only cows would do,” His Grace replied. “Of course there were those who said his affliction was the direct result of a certain type of disease, which I won’t mention in the present company as it is of an indelicate nature.”

“And yet you already have,” Miss Royle observed in her husky voice. “Mentioned it, that is, Your Grace.”

“Touché, ma’am,” the duke replied, a thread of irritation in his voice. “I hadn’t thought to encounter such pedantry amongst a lighthearted gathering.”

Miss Royle shrugged. “I don’t find madness amusing—whether caused by disease or birth.”

“My cousin doesn’t even have the excuse of disease, I’m afraid,” Mr. George Greaves said, abrupt and hard. “He was born with whatever ails him—and because of it, three good men are dead—his own friends, mind. I’m sorry that he was ever sent to Bedlam instead of being tried before the magistrates as he should’ve been.”

“But a titled gentleman, sir!” his father objected. “Surely such a thing would tear apart the very fabric of our great nation?”

“Then before the House of Lords, if it came to that,” his son replied. “Better a lord tried and found guilty of murder, than a madman loosed upon the countryside with the whispers that the only reason he is free is because of his rank. It sets the common people to thinking—and that is something none of us want.”

“Perhaps you are correct,” his father said slowly, obviously troubled by the argument.

“I know I am,” Mr. George Greaves returned. “Think what ignominy he has already brought our family. What more will he bring if he murders more innocents?”

For a moment the mood at the table turned somber at this image, but then the duke spoke up. “Surely no more ignominy than my own great-uncle brought upon my own house when he attempted to have, er, marital relations with a horse.”

That comment certainly lightened the conversation.

Lily glanced covertly at Apollo. He was eating his meal, his expression blank. How did he feel, hearing his father discussed so dismissively? His own history laid bare for others to titter over? This was his family, the one he’d said he was estranged from, and it was obvious not only that they believed him guilty of the crimes he’d been charged with, but that they would make every effort to have him imprisoned or hanged should they discover his ruse.

What in God’s name was he doing here?

She turned and found the duke eyeing her, and she remembered that she had a role to play tonight—and the duke, for once, might not be the most dangerous person at the table.