Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7)

She frowned over his words as he dug into the wicker basket she’d brought with her: a new shirt—thank God—some socks and a hat and a smaller, cloth-wrapped parcel filled with lovely food.

After Bedlam, he’d never take any sort of food for granted again.

“Who’s Indio?” Artemis asked, quite reasonably, as he bit into an apple.

He held the apple between his teeth—ignoring his sister’s wrinkled nose—as he wrote: Small, very inquisitive boy with a dog, a nursemaid, and a curious mother.

Her eyebrows shot up as he crunched the apple. “They live here?”

He nodded.

“In the garden?” She glanced around at the charred, crumbling walls of the musician’s gallery. In front of the gallery was a row of marble pillars, which had once supported a roof over a covered walkway. The roof had caved in during the fire, leaving only the crumbling pillars. Apollo had plans for those pillars. With a little scouring, and a judicial blow from a mallet here and there, they would become very picturesque ruins. Right now, though, they were just gloomy, blackened fingers against the sky.

He’d commandeered one of the rooms behind the gallery, where once the musicians, dancers, and pantomime players had prepared for their performances. Here he’d propped a big, oiled tarp over one corner to keep out the rain and wind, and brought in a straw mattress and two chairs. Spartan accommodations, certainly, but there were no fleas or bedbugs, which made this heaven compared to Bedlam.

Apollo took back his notebook and scrawled: They live in the theater. She’s an actress—Robin Goodfellow. Harte has given her his permission to stay here for the nonce.

“You know Robin Goodfellow?” For a second Artemis’s ducal dignity fled her and she looked as awed as a small lass given a halfpenny sweet.

Apollo decided he needed to find out more about Miss Stump’s acting career. He nodded warily.

Artemis had already recovered her aplomb. “As I remember, Robin Goodfellow is quite young—not more than thirty years, certainly.”

He shrugged carelessly, but alas, his sister had known him for a very, very long time.

Artemis leaned forward, her interest definitely engaged. “She must be witty, too, to play all those lovely breeches roles—”

Breeches roles? Those tended to be risqué. Apollo frowned, but his sister was nattering on.

“I saw her in something last spring, here at Harte’s Folly with Cousin Penelope. What was it?” She knit her brow, thinking, then shook her head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. Have you talked to her?”

Apollo glanced pointedly at his notebook.

“You know what I mean.”

He skirted the truth: My circumstances don’t lend themselves to polite social calls.

Artemis’s mouth crimped. “Don’t be silly. You can’t continue to hide forever—”

He widened his eyes incredulously at her.

“Well, you can’t,” she insisted. “You must find a way to live your life, Apollo. If that means leaving London, leaving England, then so be it. This”—she gestured to the tarp and chairs and straw mattress—“this isn’t living. Not truly.”

He grabbed the notebook and scribbled furiously. What would you have me do? I need the money I invested in the garden.

“Borrow from Wakefield.”

He scoffed, turning his head aside. The last thing he wanted was to be in debt to his brother-in-law.

Artemis raised her voice stubbornly. “He’ll gladly lend you the money you need. Leave. Travel to the continent or the Colonies. The King’s men won’t pursue you so far, not if you take another name.”

He looked back at her and wrote angrily, You would have me abandon the name I have?

“If needs be, yes.” She was so brave, his sister, so determined. “I hadn’t wanted to mention this before, but I think I might’ve been followed.”

He looked at her in alarm. Followed here today?

“No.” She shook her head. “But on other days I’ve come to visit you. Once or twice I thought a man was following me.” She grimaced. “Never the same man, mind, so it may be I’ve entirely made the thing up.”