Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(83)

Indio.

“Have you met his wife?” he asked softly. “Daughter of a rather wealthy marquis. Ross was ecstatic to’ve caught such a wife. Mind, a large portion of her dowry is tied to her eldest son’s inheriting his name. He won’t be very pleased to find that his perfect little lordling has been displaced by a child got on an actress. God only knows what Ross would do if he found that his eldest son still lives. Really, I wouldn’t give tuppence for the boy’s life.”

She sat in silence, her world crashing down around her ears, because there wasn’t any choice, any hope for her and Apollo. Probably there never had been any hope. It’d been the dream of a silly girl, easily burned away with the rising of the sun.

He’d said he loved her. Something in her clenched, sharp and painful, as if she’d been cut deep inside and the blood were slowly leaking out where no one could see.

But that didn’t matter anymore.

She was a mother and Indio was her son.

She lifted her chin and looked George Greaves dead in the eye, and she was oddly proud that there was no tremor in her voice when she said, “What do you want me to do?”

Chapter Nineteen

Ariadne stayed by the monster’s side for days as he recovered from his injuries, and despite his fearsome aspect she found him gentle and kind. Around them the garden was lovely, but terribly silent. One day Theseus burst from the maze, dirtied and smeared with dried blood. “Get thee away from the beast!” he cried to Ariadne, brandishing his sword. “For I shall not be routed this time. I shall not rest until I have severed this terrible monster’s head from its body.”…

—From The Minotaur

It was near six of the clock the next evening when Lily cautiously approached the pond in Harte’s Folly. The sky was just beginning to take on a mauve cast as the sun floated low in the sky, and the birds had started their evening chorus. It was almost lovely, and for the first time she saw how the garden would look one day. Most of the dead trees and hedges had been cleared and in the few days she’d been away the remaining plants had burst into the light green of spring.

Of life.

Except she wasn’t walking to life. She marched to death with a gun at her back.

Behind her, George Greaves’s tread was heavy and ominous. He was probably stamping on the new grass she took care to avoid.

In the last day and a half he’d not left her side except when she’d had to relieve herself, and even then he’d stood close outside the shut door. If she’d disliked him before—and she had—she’d grown to loathe him in the last thirty-six hours. He was a truly disgusting man without, as far as she could see, any redeeming quality. He’d even refused to pay the wherryman a fair price when they’d made the garden docks.

A nasty, petty, small-minded man, but sadly a dangerous one as well.

She was going to betray her love to this man.

“Make no sound, now,” he murmured in a voice she’d come to despise. “We’ll wait for your lover and then you’ll be free to go.”

She doubted that, but she didn’t have much choice, either, so she kept walking until she saw the glint of blue water.

Lily stopped. “Here. This is where I agreed to meet him.”

“Truly?” George glanced around, his lips twisted in a sneer. “Well, I suppose mud must seem romantic to the insane—and their common lovers.”

She rolled her eyes, not bothering anymore to protest Apollo’s innocence. She’d begun to suspect that George knew full well that Apollo hadn’t killed his friends.

“Just stand where you are,” he instructed, backing behind some obscuring bushes. “And don’t turn to look at me. You give any hint that I’m here and I’ll shoot first him and then you, do you understand?”

She folded her arms. “Quite.”

There was a small silence in which she thought she heard the call of seagulls by the Thames.

“Where is your son?” he asked with horrible casualness. “You left him with a nursemaid, didn’t you?”

She didn’t bother replying. All this would be for naught if she simply gave away Indio’s location.

He chuckled softly at her silence. “We’ll discuss it later, you and I, never fear.”

Something seemed to move behind them and she turned her head to look.

All was quiet.

“A dog or some such,” George said, which was ridiculous. She would’ve known had a stray dog been living in the garden.

Then came the sure tread of a man who knew his way about the garden.

Lily straightened.

He was nearing.

Damn it, he was early.

George cocked his gun.

She swallowed, though she didn’t look at him. “I thought you meant to arrest him.”

“He’s a dangerous murderer,” he whispered back. “Better to be safe than sorry. Don’t worry. I’m a good shot. You won’t be hurt.”

Not externally, anyway, she thought, and took a step backward, toward him.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Stay where you are.”

She took another step closer to George, just as Apollo came into sight. He wore a plain brown suit and black tricorn and he looked like a man of middling means, perhaps a doctor or the owner of a shop or a head gardener. Someone from her own station in life.