Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7)

She doubted that, but she didn’t have much choice, either, so she kept walking until she saw the glint of blue water.

Lily stopped. “Here. This is where I agreed to meet him.”

“Truly?” George glanced around, his lips twisted in a sneer. “Well, I suppose mud must seem romantic to the insane—and their common lovers.”

She rolled her eyes, not bothering anymore to protest Apollo’s innocence. She’d begun to suspect that George knew full well that Apollo hadn’t killed his friends.

“Just stand where you are,” he instructed, backing behind some obscuring bushes. “And don’t turn to look at me. You give any hint that I’m here and I’ll shoot first him and then you, do you understand?”

She folded her arms. “Quite.”

There was a small silence in which she thought she heard the call of seagulls by the Thames.

“Where is your son?” he asked with horrible casualness. “You left him with a nursemaid, didn’t you?”

She didn’t bother replying. All this would be for naught if she simply gave away Indio’s location.

He chuckled softly at her silence. “We’ll discuss it later, you and I, never fear.”

Something seemed to move behind them and she turned her head to look.

All was quiet.

“A dog or some such,” George said, which was ridiculous. She would’ve known had a stray dog been living in the garden.

Then came the sure tread of a man who knew his way about the garden.

Lily straightened.

He was nearing.

Damn it, he was early.

George cocked his gun.

She swallowed, though she didn’t look at him. “I thought you meant to arrest him.”

“He’s a dangerous murderer,” he whispered back. “Better to be safe than sorry. Don’t worry. I’m a good shot. You won’t be hurt.”

Not externally, anyway, she thought, and took a step backward, toward him.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Stay where you are.”

She took another step closer to George, just as Apollo came into sight. He wore a plain brown suit and black tricorn and he looked like a man of middling means, perhaps a doctor or the owner of a shop or a head gardener. Someone from her own station in life.

Someone she could love and live with until she and he grew old.

He looked up and smiled at her in that moment and she whirled and caught George’s pistol, pulling it down, away from her lover, her love, her life.

Pulling it toward her own breast.

The shot, when it came, was deafening.

APOLLO SAW LILY turn and wrestle with George Greaves.

Saw the spark and the plume of black smoke.

Saw her stagger back and fall, dead.