Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(6)

Apollo glared.

Makepeace hastily held up his hands. “Although, of course, you have a significant investment in it.”

Apollo snorted at that. Damned right a significant investment—to wit: all the capital he’d been able to scrape together four and a half years ago. And since he’d spent most of the intervening time ensconced in Bedlam, he hadn’t been able to acquire any other capital or income. His investment in Harte’s Folly was it—his only nest egg and the reason he couldn’t simply flee London. Until Harte’s Folly was once again on its feet and earning, Apollo had no way of getting his money back.

Hence his decision to help by overseeing the landscaping of the ruined garden.

Makepeace let his hands drop and sighed. “But I can’t make Miss Stump leave the garden.”

Apollo didn’t bother writing this time. He just arched an incredulous eyebrow and cocked his head.

“She hasn’t anywhere else to stay.” Makepeace rolled off the bed, suddenly alert.

Apollo waited patiently. One good thing about being mute: silence had a tendency to make others talk.

Makepeace sniffed his underarm, grimaced, and then pulled off his shirt before he broke. “I might’ve stolen her away from Sherwood at the King’s Theatre, which for some reason Sherwood took personally, the ass. He’s made it impossible for her to get work anywhere in London. So when she came to me last week unable to pay the rent on her rooms…”

He shrugged and tossed the dirty shirt in a corner.

Apollo’s eyebrows snapped together and he wrote furiously. I can’t keep in hiding with strangers running about the garden.

Makepeace scoffed. “What about the gardeners we’ve hired? You haven’t made a fuss about them.”

Can’t help them—we need the gardeners. Besides. None of them are as intelligent as Mrs. Stump.

“Miss Stump—there’s no Mr. Stump, as far as I know.”

Apollo blinked, sidetracked, and cocked his head. The boy?

“Her son.” Makepeace reached for a miraculously full jug of water, which he poured into a chipped basin. “You know how theater folk are sometimes. Don’t be such a Puritan.”

So she wasn’t taken by another man. Not that it mattered—she thought him a literal idiot and he was in hiding from the King’s men after escaping Bedlam.

Apollo sighed and wrote, You need to find her other lodging.

Makepeace cocked his head to read the outthrust note, and dropped his mouth open like a gaffed carp. “Good God, what a wonderful idea, Kilbourne! I’ll just send her to my ancient family castle in Wales, shall I? It’s a bit rundown, but the seventy or so servants and acres and acres of land should more than make up for any inconvenience. Or maybe the château in the south of France would be more to her liking? I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself, what with my many, many—”

Apollo cut short this diatribe by shoving his friend’s head in the basin of water.

Makepeace came up roaring, shaking his head so vigorously that Apollo might as well have taken the dip himself.

“Ahem.”

Both men whirled at the gentle cough.

The aristocrat who stood just inside the door to Makepeace’s rooms wasn’t particularly tall—Asa had several inches on him and Apollo topped him by more than a head. The man was posed, one hip cocked gracefully, his hand languidly holding a gold-and-ebony cane. He was attired in a pink suit lavishly embroidered in bright blues, greens, gold, and black. Instead of the common white wig, he wore his golden hair unpowdered—though curled and carefully tied back with a black bow. Apollo had mentally named Valentine Napier, 7th Duke of Montgomery, a fop the first time he’d met him—the night Harte’s Folly had burned—and he’d had no cause to change that impression in the intervening months. He had, however, added an adjective: Montgomery was a dangerous fop.

“Gentlemen.” Montgomery’s upper lip twitched as if in amusement. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

He looked slyly between them, making Apollo stiffen.

“Only my morning toilet,” Makepeace said, ignoring the insinuation. He grabbed a cloth and vigorously rubbed his hair. “Feel free to go away and come back at a more convenient time, Your Grace.”

“Oh, but you’re such a busy man,” Montgomery murmured, poking with his gold-topped cane at a stack of papers piled on a chair. The papers slid off, landing with a dusty crash on the floor. A tiny smile flickered across Montgomery’s face and Apollo was reminded of a gray cat his mother had once kept when he was a boy. The creature had loved to stroll along the mantelpiece in his mother’s sitting room, delicately batting the ornaments off the shelf. The cat had watched each ornament smash on the hearth with detached interest before moving on to the next.

“Do have a seat,” Makepeace drawled. He pulled open a drawer in a chest and took out a shirt.

“Thank you,” Montgomery replied without any sign of embarrassment. He sat, crossed his legs, and flicked a minuscule piece of lint off the silk of his breeches. “I’ve come to see about my investment.”

Apollo frowned. He’d been against taking money from Montgomery from the start, but Makepeace had somehow talked him into it with his usual glib tongue. Apollo couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d made a pact with the Devil. Montgomery had been abroad for over ten years before his abrupt return to London and society. No one seemed to know much about the man—or what he’d been doing for those ten years—even if his title and family name were well known.