Darling Beast

Page 22

“You write… the plays—very good plays, I’ll… warrant—and he trots off… and sells them. How… much does he… pocket for such… hard work?”
She stiffened and attempted to pull her fingers from his.
He didn’t let her.
She glared, her lichen-green eyes sparking. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
He stopped and faced her. They were nearly at the pond, at the site where his oak had toppled. He’d found the lead branch broken from the fall and ordered a new tree, but it had not yet arrived. “How much?”
She held his gaze defiantly for a moment more and he couldn’t help but admire the way the late-afternoon sun’s rays made a nimbus around her face of the fine hairs escaping her coiffure.
Her eyes dropped. “Twenty-five percent.”
“Twenty-five percent.” His voice was flat, but inside he was horrified. “Does he know… you don’t have… acting work?”
“Yes, he knows, that was partly what we argued about.” She’d raised their joined hands to her chest level and was examining his fingers, probably appalled at the ingrained dirt. “I told him that I wanted him to take only twenty percent. But Edwin isn’t always very practical when it comes to money, you see.”
Apollo would bet his right hand that Edwin could be entirely practical when it came to his own money. “How do you… even know he’s… giving you the proper… amount?”
She looked up, startled, from his hand. “Edwin wouldn’t lie to me. You must understand.” Now she was holding his hand between her own two. “He… well, Mama drank gin, you see, and by the time I was born she was no longer very much in demand, either in the theater or with men, and it was hard for her.” She ducked her head, studying his fingers, spreading them against her own, comparing their lengths. His hand dwarfed hers. “Very hard. And later there was Maude, but when I was very small, all I had was Mama and Edwin. He made sure I had a place to sleep—for often we moved, from theater to theater or even from one rental room to another. He made sure I had food and clothes and taught me to read and write.” She curled her fingers into the spaces between his, tightening them as if she wouldn’t ever let go. “I owe him… everything, really.”
“Perhaps you… do,” he said softly, for he knew what it was to be beholden to someone who is unable to fully reciprocate one’s devotion. “But do you… owe him Indio’s life… as well?”
She looked up at him, her brows knit. “What do you mean?”
“Indio needs… food and clothes and… a place to sleep, doesn’t he?”
She nodded.
“Naturally… he does,” Apollo said. “And how… is he to have… all those things and… more if you let… your brother leech… from you?”
“I just…” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to hurt him. I know Edwin is fickle and cruel at times, but he’s my brother. I love him.”
“How can you not?” he replied, and brought their twined hands to his lips, kissing each of her fingertips one by one.
When he raised his head she was watching him in wonder. “I don’t know you at all. First I thought you a simpleton. Then you couldn’t speak. And now you can, but you won’t.” She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips along his jaw, her touch soft and searching, more intimate than any kiss on the lips. “I don’t know you, but I want to. Can you let me in a little?”
He closed his eyes. This was playing with fire. “What do you wish to know?”
Chapter Ten
The youth’s name was Theseus. He and Ariadne were escorted to the labyrinth and pushed inside. Then Theseus turned to Ariadne. He was tall and fair but when he saw that she had brought the spindle into the labyrinth, he laughed in scorn. “You’ll have no use of that here. Better you follow behind me and let me kill the beast.” So saying, he took out a short sword he’d concealed in his robes and, turning right, disappeared into the labyrinth…
—From The Minotaur
What did she wish to know? That was easy: Lily wanted to know who Caliban truly was—a name, an identity, something to place him in the world in relation to her.
But he couldn’t answer that, she knew, so she started with a simpler inquiry.
“You seem to know about family.” The sun was beginning to set and even with the smell of burnt wood, the garden was a magical place. Birds had begun their evening song around them in the golden rays. “Do you have family?”
He nodded. “I have… a sister.”
She smiled up at him, into his muddy-brown eyes surrounded by such beautiful, lush lashes. She was relieved that he’d answered that much—hadn’t rejected her question out of hand. “Older or younger?”
A corner of his wide mouth cocked up. “The exact same… age as I.”
“A twin!” She grinned in delight. “What’s her name?”
He shook his head gently.
But she wasn’t so easily disappointed now that he’d let her in a little. “Very well. Do you like her?”
“Very much.” He paused as if searching for words. “She is… the dearest thing… to me… in the world.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, how sweet.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You make me… sound a little boy.”
“I don’t mean to,” she said earnestly. “I think one’s family, the people one keeps close to oneself, are very important. I don’t think I could like a man who didn’t value others.”
“And… do you like me?”
She wagged her finger at him. “I’m not so easily lured as all that. Now. Were you born in London?” She turned, swinging their hands as she meandered down one of the paths.
“No.”
She pouted. “In a city?”
“No.”
Her eyes widened in exasperation. “In England?”
“Yes, I am… an Englishman,” he said, and then relented. “I was… born in the country.”
“North or south?”
“South.”
“By the coast?”
“No.” He slid an amused glance her way. “There were… farmlands. And a pond… quite nearby. My… sister and I learned to… swim in it.”
“And you had a mother and a father.” She looked down at the charred path because most people did have both a mother and a father growing up—just not she, it seemed.
“Yes,” he answered gently, “though… they’re both dead now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Were you close?” she asked too fast, her words running together. “Did you have a happy childhood with a father who worked and brought home money and a mother who mended your socks?”
“Not… precisely,” he replied. “My childhood was happy… enough, but my mother… was often sickly and… my father…” He took a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. “My father was… mad.”
She stopped short—or tried to.
He tugged her hand to keep her strolling beside him. “It’s not… as terrible as it… sounds. He wasn’t violent… or awful to my sister… and me, or… even our mother. He was excitable. Sometimes… he would stay awake… for days on end, frantically planning… various schemes—though they all came… to naught. He’d hie away… from the house for a week… or more and we… were never sure where… he went. Just that when… he came home his pockets… would be empty and he’d… be exhausted. Then he would sleep… for a full day and perhaps spend… a fortnight abed… taking his meals there. And… then he’d… arise one day and… be off again.”
He shrugged. “I thought… when I was very small… that all boys had fathers like… mine.”
She was silent then, because there didn’t seem much to say. They walked in companionable silence as the sun began to paint the sky in shades of scarlet and bright yellow and orange.
“Is she alive still, your sister?” she at last asked, almost lazily.
“Oh, yes.”
“And you see her?” She darted a sideways glance, but he merely shook his head and smiled.
Damn. “Do you have other family, then? Aunts and uncles and, oh, cousins, I suppose? Is it a big family you’re from?”
“Not big… but I have some… relations,” he replied. “Though… I know none of them well. My… father’s madness drove… him apart from his own… father and the rest of the… family followed… suit, I suppose.” He shrugged. “I really… don’t know. I certainly… never saw them as a child.”
She nodded. “And now that you’re a man? Have you tried to talk to them?”
He squeezed her hand and then relaxed, so swiftly she couldn’t tell if the motion was in reaction to her question or not. “No.”
She heaved a great sigh and tried another tack. “How did you come to know Mr. Harte?”
He laughed at that. “I met May—Harte… in a tavern… when we were both barely… of age.”
She did stop then, and made him turn to face her. “What was that word you almost said? May? Is that his first name?”
He actually looked guilty at that. “He’ll… kill me.”
“What?”
“It’s a… great secret,” he warned.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
She thought he wouldn’t answer her. But he pulled her close and folded her hands on her breast, over her heart. “Do you promise… never, ever to tell?”
“Yes.”
He bent, putting his mouth to her ear, so close she could feel the brush of his lips. “Harte… isn’t his name. It’s… Asa Makepeace.”
She jerked back, mouth agape in shock. “What?”
He shrugged, looking amused. “It’s true.”
“But whyever did he change his name?”
“For the same… reason, I expect, that you”—he tapped a finger on her nose—“changed yours.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “Because Stump sounded like a dead tree and he needed a witty name for the stage?”
“Well, perhaps not… entirely the same reason,” he allowed. “I understand his family… doesn’t approve of the theater.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense,” she said, because it did. “Families are very odd things, after all.”
“Aren’t they indeed,” he breathed, and then he kissed her.
His mouth moved on hers with exquisite slowness, teasing her lips apart, sliding his tongue along the inside of her bottom lip. He caught her chin in the V between his thumb and fingers, holding her steady for his pleasure.
“Lily,” he breathed as he nipped at her mouth. “Lily.”
And her name, spoken in his broken voice—so sure, so tender, nonetheless—had never sounded so beautiful before.
She stood on tiptoe and twined her arms about his broad shoulders, trying to get closer, and felt a moment’s frustration that she couldn’t. A whimper escaped her and then he bent and simply grasped her around the waist. He lifted her easily, as if she were no more than Indio’s little wooden boat, and set her high against his chest so that she might tilt her head down to continue their kiss. Such casual strength should’ve frightened her. Should’ve made her pause and think.