Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(65)

She raised his hand, pressing her lips to his palm to keep from blurting that he didn’t have to tell her. For she was very much afraid that he did have to tell her—not for her, but for himself.

“It…” He panted for a second, then burst. “The smell. Like a stable, only the manure is from humans, not horses. They chained me there as well, for I raged, in fear and desperation, for the first days. Until I was too weakened by lack of food and water.”

She sobbed, turning swiftly. She could not bear to hear of this—such a strong, good man brought low. Chained like a beast by petty people who didn’t understand him. She knelt on the bed, wrapping her arms around his head, bringing it to her breast, and only then did she feel the wet trails of tears on his face.

He kissed her between her breasts, a sweet brush of his mouth. “Artemis came when she could. She brought me food and gave all her coin to my attendants—more jailers, in truth—to make sure they wouldn’t beat me to death while she wasn’t there. My father died a year before the murders and our mother passed away in the first month I was in Bedlam. No doubt my incarceration hastened her death. My sister, my brave, proud sister, was forced to become a companion to our cousin.”

His voice broke.

She smoothed her palms over his great head, running her fingers through his hair, trying to comfort though she knew she must be failing.

He turned his face, laying his cheek against her chest. “At least Artemis had a roof over her head and food aplenty. I lay awake for nights after I received word of our mother’s death, fearful that Artemis would be tossed into the streets. I could do nothing. Nothing. She was—is—my sister. I should’ve been able to protect her, to care for her and make sure she never had to worry, and yet I was helpless. Hardly a man at all.”

“Shh,” Lily murmured, pressing kisses against his hair. She could taste her own tears on her lips now. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Apollo—her Apollo—should’ve had to endure such inhumanity.

“The things they did there…” His voice was hoarse, broken. “There was a woman,” he whispered. “A poor mad thing, but she sang in such a lovely voice. One night the keepers came to do her harm and I called to them, mocking them, and they came to me instead.”

She stiffened, her throat clenching in fear. Oh, her brave Apollo! How noble and how foolish to draw the ire of his jailers.

“They beat me until I passed out,” he said. “That was when I lost my voice. Afterwards—after I was rescued by the Duke of Wakefield, after, when I lay abed, regaining my strength, though not my voice, I thought of her. I went back one night, but she was already gone. Some fever had taken her. Perhaps it was for the best.”

She looked down and saw that he’d closed his eyes, though his brow was knit fiercely.

“But I made sure that guard—the one who’d meant to harm her, the one who’d led my beating—could harm no one ever again. I dragged him from that place and gave him to a press-gang. Wherever he is now, he’s not around women. I never would’ve done that before. Bedlam changed me.”

They had taken away something very important from him when he’d been made helpless. It should’ve broken him, being forced into chains. Yet it hadn’t.

Even in her grief she was amazed.

She framed his face with her hands, tilting it up so she could look in his eyes. “You survived. You endured and survived.”

His lips curved bitterly. “I had no choice.”

She shook her head. “There’s always a choice. You could’ve given up, let them take your soul and mind, but you didn’t. You persevered. I think you are the bravest man I have ever met.”

“I think, then, that you’ve not met many men,” he whispered. His voice was light, but his face still held the years of tragedy.

“Hush.”

She kissed him, not as a lover, but almost platonically, to acknowledge all that he was. Her lips brushed his forehead, both cheeks, and finally his mouth. Softly. A benediction.

“Let us sleep,” she said, and helped him to lie down on the bed.

She arranged the covers over both of them and then laid her head upon his chest, listening to the beat of his heart: ba-thump ba-thump ba-thump.

And that was how she fell asleep.

APOLLO WOKE TO the realization that he’d overslept. When he’d worked in the garden, he’d awoken as the birds had heralded the rising sun. But here inside, in a soft bed with a softer, warm woman against his side, he found it harder to brush away the tendrils of sleep.

“What?” Lily mumbled as he gently removed her arm from his belly.

He’d like to linger longer. To kiss her awake and make love to her again, but it was only a matter of time before the servants descended on the room. Besides, the sooner he left, the less likely that he’d run into other guests.

So he dressed quickly as she sighed and rolled to burrow into the warm spot he’d left.

Apollo gathered his coat and gave a last glance around the room before bending to kiss her again on the lips.

Her brow wrinkled ferociously and she cracked her eyelids to mutter, “Is it?”

He smiled. Evidently she wasn’t an alert waker. “I’ll see you later.”

Her only reply was an unfeminine grunt as she pulled a pillow over her head.