Lily trudged onward toward the pond. Funny how she’d learned to pray again when she’d become a mother so suddenly. For years she’d never thought of Providence. And then she’d found herself whispering beneath her breath at different, frightening points in Indio’s short life:
Let the fever break.
Don’t let the fall be fatal.
Thank you, thank you, for making the horse swerve aside.
Not the pox. Anything but the pox.
Oh, dear God, don’t let him be lost.
Not lost. Not my brave little man. My Indio.
Lily’s steps quickened until she found herself almost running through the charred brambles, the clutching branches. She’d never let him out again when she found him. She’d fall to her knees and hug him when she found him. She’d spank him and send him to bed without his supper when she found him.
She was panting as the path widened and she came to the clearing by the pond. She opened her mouth to call yet again.
But she was struck dumb instead.
He was there—Indio’s monster. He was in the pond, his back to her.
And he was quite nude.
Lily blinked, frozen in place. The garden was all of a sudden eerily still as the day made its last farewell. His massive shoulders were bunched, his head lowered as if he saw something in the water. Perhaps he was struck by his own reflection. Did he know himself when he saw that man beneath the water—or was he frightened at the sight? She felt a flash of pity. He could not help his own huge size—or the deformity of his brain. She ought to speak, ought to make her presence known, ought to…
All thought left her head as the giant plunged beneath the water.
Lily’s mouth half opened.
The setting sun broke through the cloud cover and bathed the pond in golden light, reflecting off the ripples left by his movement. He burst from the water. He was facing her now. The muscles bunched on his arms as he slicked his wet, shoulder-length hair back from his face. The mist swirled amber over the surface of the water, adorning his gleaming skin as if he were the tributary god of this ruined garden. Her pity evaporated, burned away by the sudden realization that she had it all wrong.
He was…
She swallowed.
Good Lord. He was magnificent.
The water trickled down his chest, trailing through a diamond of wet, dark hair between his beaded nipples, down over a shallow, perfectly formed navel, and into a dark line of wet hair that disappeared—rather disappointingly—into the concealing misted water.
She blinked and glanced up—only to find that the giant, the beast, the monster was looking directly back at her.
She ought to be ashamed. He was a mental defective and she was ogling him as if he were able to reciprocate any feeling she might have… except his expression didn’t seem stupid now. He almost looked amused by her stare.
Not defective at all.
And an awful, terrible, mortifying thing happened: she felt herself grow wet.
Just yesterday she’d had tea with the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. The Duke of Montgomery had aristocratic cheekbones, sapphire-blue eyes, and shining, golden hair—and he’d moved her not at all.
Yet this… beast before her, this man with his wild muddy-brown hair, his animallike shoulders, his big, knobby nose, his wide, crooked mouth and heavy brow. Him she found attractive.
Obviously she needed to take a new lover—and soon.
He began wading to the shore, his leaden expression returned. Had she imagined the look of intelligence, supplying one where none existed?
Lily squeaked as he neared, but sadly, did not turn her back.
She had a moral defect—a despicable personal flaw—for she simply could not look away. Her eyes dropped to the wet black tangle between his legs as he strode toward her, the water swirling about his muscled thighs. There was a hint of the flesh below, crude and male and—
“Mama!”
Lily jumped, whirling, her hand on her heart, which surely had stopped, poor, worn thing.
“Indio!” she gasped, rather breathlessly, for her wretched son had chosen this moment to emerge from the shrubbery. He was standing on the path she’d just come from, a leaf stuck in his curly black hair. Daffodil, looking even muddier than usual, capered up to her and planted filthy paws on her skirts.
“Mama, can Caliban come for supper?” Indio asked, his mismatched eyes wide and entirely too innocent.
“I… what?” Lily asked weakly.
“Caliban.” Indio gestured behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder to find—to her mingled relief and disappointment—that the man was slowly buttoning the falls of a ragged pair of breeches. The setting sun limned the wet slope of his shoulders, but his big fingers fumbled on the buttons. Whatever intelligence she’d imagined in his eyes was gone. But then it’d probably never been there in the first place.
She looked back at Indio, brow knitted. “Caliban? That’s Caliban?”
Her son nodded. “I named him just today.”
“You…” She shook her head. She’d found—shortly after Indio learned to talk—that letting him lead a discussion could result in a tangled web, incomprehensible to anyone over the age of seven. Sometimes one must simply cut through the tangle. “Indio, it’s suppertime and Maude is waiting for us. Let’s—”
“Please?” Indio came closer and took her hand, pulling her down to whisper in her ear, “He hasn’t anything to eat and he’s my friend.”
“I—” She looked helplessly back at Caliban.
He’d donned his shirt and was staring at her with his mouth half open. As she watched he scratched his… well, his male parts, quite obliviously, just as a half-wit might.
Her eyes narrowed. He’d not looked half-witted at all a minute ago. Perhaps she’d imagined it. Perhaps she’d wanted to condone her own baser impulses by giving the object of her thoughts reason that simply wasn’t there.
And perhaps she was dithering over the matter too much.
She glanced back at Indio’s pleading face and made her decision. She straightened and said loudly, “Of course, darling, let’s invite your friend to supper.”
A choking sound came from behind her, but when she turned, Caliban’s face was stupidly blank. He snorted, hawked, spat into the pond—ew!—and scrubbed his hand across his mouth.
She smiled widely. “Caliban? Would you like to eat? Eat?” She mimed lifting a spoon to her mouth and then chewing. “Eat. With. Us.” She pointed back along the path. “At the theater. We have good food!”