Darling Beast

Page 3

At least he was wearing breeches.
Apollo pushed past his friend into the room—although not far. There simply wasn’t much space to move. The room was swarming, teeming, breeding with things: towers of stacked books stood on the floor, a table, and even the big four-poster bed in the corner, a life-size portrait of a bearded man leaned against one wall, next to a stuffed raven, which stood next to a teetering pile of chipped, dirty dishes, and next to that was a four-foot-tall model of a ship, rigging and all. Colorful costumes were piled haphazardly in one corner and papers were scattered messily on top of nearly everything.
Makepeace shut his door and a few sheets fluttered to the floor. “What time is it?”
Apollo pointed to a large pink china clock sitting on top of a stack of books on the table before looking closer and realizing the timepiece had stopped. Oh, for God’s sake. He chose a more direct way to show the time by dodging around the table, crossing to the only window, and yanking the heavy velvet curtains open.
A cloud of dust burst from the fabric, dancing prettily in the early morning sunlight streaming into the room.
“Ahhh!” Makepeace reacted as if skewered. He staggered and flung himself back on the bed. “Have you no mercy? It can’t be noon yet.”
Apollo sighed and crossed to his friend. He pushed one leg over ungently and perched on the side of the bed. Then he took out his ever-present notebook and a pencil stub.
He wrote, Who is the woman in the garden? and shoved the notebook in front of Makepeace’s eyes.
Makepeace went cross-eyed for a second before focusing on the writing. “What woman? You’re mad, man, there isn’t any woman in any garden unless you’re talking about Eve and that garden, which would make you Adam and that I’d pay to see, especially if you wore a girdle of oak leaves—”
During this ramble Apollo had taken back the notebook and written more. Now he showed it to the other man, cutting him off mid-rant: Green eyes, overdressed, pretty. Has a little boy named Indio.
“Oh, that woman,” Makepeace said without any show of embarrassment. “Lily Stump. Best comic actress in this generation—perhaps any generation, come to think of it. She’s impossibly good—it’s almost as if she casts a spell over the audience, well certainly the male members. Uses the name Robin Goodfellow on the stage. Wonderful thing, made-up names. Quite useful.”
Apollo gave him a jaundiced look at that. Asa Makepeace was more commonly known as Mr. Harte—though very few knew both of the man’s names. Makepeace had taken the false name when he’d first opened Harte’s Folly nearly ten years ago. Something to do with his family being a religious lot and disapproving of the stage and pleasure gardens in general. Makepeace had been vague about it the one time Apollo had quizzed him on the subject.
Apollo scribbled in the notebook again. Get her out of my garden.
Makepeace’s eyebrows shot up when he read the note. “You know, it’s actually my garden—”
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.
Such mystery gave Apollo an itch between the shoulder blades.
“Good,” Makepeace said loudly. “Everything’s going just dandy. Smith here has the landscaping well in hand.”
“Sssm-i-th,” Montgomery drew out the ridiculous name Makepeace had given Apollo, making the sound into a sibilant hiss. He turned to Apollo and smiled quite sweetly. “And I believe that Mr. Makepeace said that your first name is Samuel, is it not?”
“He prefers Sam,” Makepeace growled, tacking on a hasty “Your Grace.”
“Indeed.” Montgomery was still smiling, almost to himself. “Mr. Sam Smith. Any relation to the Horace Smiths of Oxfordshire?”
Apollo shook his head once.
“No? A pity. I have some interests there. But it is a very common name,” Montgomery murmured. “And what plans do you have for the garden, may I ask?”
Apollo flipped to the back of his notebook and showed it to the duke.
Montgomery leaned forward, examining with pursed lips the sketches Apollo had made.
“Very nice,” he said at last, and sat back. “I’ll drop by the garden later today to take a look, shall I?”
Apollo and Makepeace exchanged glances.
“No need for that, Your Grace,” Makepeace began for the both of them.
“I know there’s no need. Call it a whim. In any case, I shan’t be denied. Expect me, Mr. Smith.”
Apollo nodded grimly. He couldn’t put his finger on why it bothered him, but he didn’t like the idea of the duke sniffing about his garden.
Montgomery twirled his walking stick, watching the glint of light off the gold top. “I collect that we’ll soon be in need of an architect to design and rebuild the various buildings in the pleasure garden.”
“Sam’s just started work on the garden,” Makepeace said. “He’s got quite a lot to do—you’ve seen the state the place is in. There’s plenty of time to find an architect.”
“No,” Montgomery replied firmly, “there isn’t. Not if we’re to reopen the garden within the next year.”
“Within a year?” Makepeace squawked.
“Indeed.” Montgomery stood and ambled to the door. “Haven’t I told you? I’m afraid I’m quite an impatient man. If the garden isn’t ready for visitors—and the money they’ll spend—by April of next year, I’m afraid I shall need my capital repaid.” He pivoted at the door and shot them another of his cherubic smiles. “With interest.”
He closed the door gently behind him.
“Well, bollocks,” Makepeace said blankly.
Apollo couldn’t help but agree.
“IS WANTONISH A real word?” Lily asked Maude several days later.
She sat at the kitchen-cum-dining-room table while Maude hung their washing next to the fireplace.
“Wantonish,” Maude said, rolling the word around her mouth. She shook her head decisively as she twitched one of Indio’s shirts into place over the drying rack. “No, never heard of it.”
Damn! Lily pouted down at the play she was writing, A Wastrel Reform’d. Wantonish was such a wonderful W word—and she really needed more of those. “Well, does it matter if ’tisn’t a real word? William Shakespeare devised all sorts of new words, didn’t he?”