Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7) - Page 41

“Oh! Oh, I see.” She cocked her head, examining the diagram. “But what are these?” She pointed to a square and then a circle.

Follies—places for lovers to sit or amusements like the waterfall. Things to gaze upon and amaze the viewer.

“And these?” She traced the wavy lines.

He inhaled quickly, excited that she was interested, frustrated that he couldn’t just tell her.

Quickly he reached over and flipped through the pages of the notebook still in her hands. He found a blank one and ripped it out, then turned back to his diagram of the maze. He wrote swiftly on his knee, the pencil nearly poking through the paper in several places. The wavy lines are the parts of the hedge that I can salvage from the fire. The plants that are still living.

He showed her his words, waited while she read, her brows knit, and when she looked up, snatched the paper back before she could say anything.

The solid lines will be new plantings. The maze will be the centerpiece of the new garden. The pond on one side, the theater on another, so that from the theater one will look across the maze to the pond. There may be viewing places in the theater itself so that visitors may see the maze and those within it. It will be—

The pencil finally broke through the paper at this point. He balled his fist, frustrated, the words bottled up inside him.

Slim fingers covered his fist, cool and comforting.

He looked up.

“Beautiful,” she said. “It will be beautiful.”

His breath seemed to stop in his lungs. Her eyes were so big, so earnest, so completely captivated by his trifling drawings, his esoteric work. So few were interested in what he did—even Asa began to fidget after only minutes if Apollo tried to explain his plans for the garden.

Yet this gamine woman looked at him as if he were a sorcerer.

He wondered if she had any idea how seductive her very interest was.

She blinked and drew back as if conscious that she’d let too much show. “And amazing. And wonderful. I’ll look forward to wandering your maze, though I’m sure I’ll never figure it out—I’m terrible at puzzles. I’ll need to bring a guide, I think. Perhaps—”

The outer door opened at that point and Miss Stump jumped up from the settee. “Oh, Maude, wherever have you been?”

“Down to the dock to get those eels the wherryman promised me.” Maude set a basket—presumably containing the aforementioned eels—on the table. “Missed me, did you?” Her brows rose as she glanced at the notebook Apollo had reclaimed. “What’s that?”

Miss Stump sent him an ironic glance. “Caliban isn’t nearly as foolish as he was making us believe.”

“Then he can talk?”

Both women looked at him and Apollo could feel the heat burn his neck.

“No, he can’t.” Miss Stump cleared her throat. “Indio’s in his bath. I’d better see if he’s remembered to wash his ears—or if he’s flooded the floor again.”

She hurried into the back room.

Maude began unpacking her eels. “Brought back some water from the river to wash the dishes. It’s by the door, if’n you want to bring it in.”

Apollo pocketed his notebook and went to fetch the water. Had he known that they needed it, he’d have offered to go down to the river.

He set the bucket of water by the fireplace to warm, conscious that the old woman was watching him.

When he turned she pinned him with a gimlet gaze. “You’ve got a tongue and my Lily says as how you’re not stupid, so you mind telling me why you can’t speak?”

He opened his mouth—even after nine months it was an automatic reaction. After all, he’d spent eight and twenty years opening his mouth and having speech emerge—without thought or effort. Such a simple thing. A mundane, everyday thing, speech, the thing that set men apart from the animals.

Lost—perhaps forever—to him now.

So he opened his mouth and then didn’t know what to do, for he’d tried before, tried for days and weeks, and all that had occurred was a damnably sore throat. He thought of that day, of the boot shoved into his neck, of the Bedlam guard leering down at him as he threatened hell, and he could actually feel his throat closing, cutting off hope and humanity and the power of speech.

“Maude!” Miss Stump was there now and he had no idea what she saw on his face, but she was frowning fiercely—at the maidservant. “Stop badgering him, please. He can’t talk. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter why.”

Tags: Elizabeth Hoyt Maiden Lane Romance
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