Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7)

“I’m only in the third act,” she said absently. “My heroine has gambled away all her brother’s money because, well, she’s dressed as her brother.”

She glanced up in time to catch his raised eyebrows.

“It’s a comedy called A Wastrel Reform’d.” She shrugged. “A complicated comedy because right now no one knows who anyone is. There’s twins—a brother and sister—named Wastrel, and the brother has convinced his sister—her Christian name is Cecily—to pretend to be him so that he might seduce Lady Pamela’s maid, and he’s engaged to her—Lady Pamela, not her maid.”

She took a breath and Apollo slowly smiled, because against all odds, he’d understood everything she’d just said.

Miss Stump grinned back. “It’s silly, I know, but that’s what comedy is, really—a lot of silly things happening, one after another.” She glanced down at her play, running her finger down the page. “So Cecily, dressed as Adam—that’s the brother—has lost terribly at a hand of cards to Lord Pimberly. Oh! That’s Fanny—the maid’s—father, and Lady Pamela’s scorned suitor. Although of course no one knows that Pimberly is Fanny’s father, otherwise she wouldn’t be a lady’s maid, now would she?”

Apollo leaned on his shovel and cocked an eyebrow.

“Kidnapped at birth, naturally,” she replied. “But fortunately she has quite a distinctive birthmark. Right here.” She tapped the upper slope of her right breast.

Apollo defied any man not to follow the direction of her finger. She had a lovely breast, gently swelling above the severe square neckline of her dress and modestly covered by a filmy fichu.

“Yes, well.” Her husky voice made him raise his gaze. Her cheeks had pinkened, but that might’ve been the wind. “In any case, I’m writing a scene between Cecily and Lord Pimberly in which Pimberly demands his money and Cecily doesn’t have it. And naturally he’s begun to realize he’s attracted to her at the same time.”

She cleared her throat.

He nodded, messing a bit with his shovel to look as if he were still working. Actually, he was beginning to fear that the blade was stuck in the roots.

Miss Stump glanced at her manuscript and slipped back into what he now knew was Cecily—the sister dressed as her brother. “Do you judge a gentleman by his bits, my lord?”

She turned and placed her fists on her hips again, in the wide-legged stance. “Pardon me, but I said chits.”

Turn. Her hands dropped. “And yet, ’tis still your manly bits we discuss.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “No?”

He screwed his mouth to the side and reluctantly shook his head.

“Blast!” she exclaimed under her breath, bending to the paper. She scratched out something and then froze, obviously thinking.

He wasn’t even pretending to work anymore.

She gasped and then hunched over her manuscript, scribbling furiously before straightening, a gleam of triumph in her eye.

She tossed her head as Cecily. “Indeed, and would you know a chit should you see one?”

Now she was a baffled Pimberly. “Naturally.”

“Oh, my lord?” She turned her head and looked over her shoulder through lowered lashes at the imaginary Pimberly, all daring flirtation. “And how is that, may I ask?”

“How?”

“How does a gentleman of your unsurpassed perception differentiate a chit from a bit?”

And she batted her eyelashes.

The juxtaposition between the ribaldry of her words and the innocence of her expression was so silly, so utterly enchanting, that Apollo couldn’t help it: he threw back his head and laughed.

LILY STUMBLED AT the sound, entirely forgetting both Cecily and pompous Pimberly, forgetting her play and everything else, really, and simply stared.

Caliban was laughing.

Deep and full, a masculine laugh, his shaggy head thrown back, eyes closed in mirth and crinkling at the corners, straight white teeth flashing. He wore a white shirt topped by a brown waistcoat missing two buttons. The sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows, revealing strong brown forearms lightly sprinkled with dark hair. His breeches were grayed black and over his worn shoes he wore stained buff gaiters. A red kerchief was tied loosely at his neck and he’d wrapped a wide leather belt around his waist to hold his pruning knife. She’d seen innumerable laborers in her lifetime, but she’d never really looked at them. Now she gazed her fill at Caliban and thought how terribly, awfully appealing he was: physically strong, yet able to critique her play, and with a sense of humor to boot. He was so much more than a simple laborer.

But that thought was followed quickly by another: if he could laugh, then why could he not speak? She felt rather stunned, watching the strong cords of his throat work as he laughed. It made no sense to her, for surely he was using his voice to laugh?

He opened his eyes, his laughter dying, as he met her gaze, and Lily realized that she’d stepped closer to him in her fascination. She stood almost touching him, his heat, his masculinity like a magnet to her. He dipped his head, watching her, traces of his amusement lingering on his face. She couldn’t help it: she reached out and touched his face, her fingertips running lightly down his lean cheek, feeling the catch of invisible stubble. He was so hot, so alive. She stood on tiptoe, her hand slipping to the back of his neck, beneath the wild tumble of his brown hair, to pull his homely face down to hers. She just wanted to see, to capture some of that vitality and find out if it tasted as sharp as it looked.