Miss Stump’s unbound hair was an intimate sight—a sight such as a lover or husband might be privy to. It shone, waist-length, heavy, and straight, and he fought the urge to take it between his fingers to test its weight and feel the silky texture.
Perhaps some of his desire revealed itself on his face because she stepped back into the theater, glancing nervously at him from the corners of her eyes. “Have you washed, Indio?”
“Nooo.” Indio drew out the reluctant syllable.
Apollo tapped him on the shoulder and nodded at the water barrel. No doubt he could do with a bath as well.
Miss Stump disappeared for a moment and then returned with several cloths. The boy stripped off his shirt, shivering in the morning air, his arms wrapped over his skinny chest.
Apollo smiled and uncovered the water barrel to dip a cloth in. He handed it to the boy before wetting his own washcloth. Normally he’d simply have sluiced himself with the water dipper, but he had a feeling Miss Stump would not appreciate his undoing all her hard work in dressing his wound.
So instead he washed his face and neck briskly, then poured fresh water over the cloth and wiped his arms, underarms, and chest. He pivoted as he did so and saw that Miss Stump stood in the doorway to the theater, watching him.
He met her eyes and became conscious for the first time that he was half naked and performing a private act before her. Bedlam had stripped him of modesty. There the cells had never been entirely shut off, never entirely private. The most basic of human activities had, at times, been done before an audience of other inmates or uncaring guards. He might as well have been a horse in a stable—save that most horses were better treated than the patients at Bedlam.
But Miss Stump didn’t look at him as if he were an animal. She looked at him as a woman does a man she finds attractive.
Perhaps even arousing.
Her eyelids were half lowered, her cheeks flushed, and as he watched, her pink tongue ran slowly over her bottom lip.
He was aware suddenly of his nipples, pulled exquisitely tight on his chest, of his cock, pumping full of hot blood.
“Am I c-c-clean now, Mama?” Indio’s high voice chattered behind him.
“What?” Miss Stump blinked. “Oh! Erm, yes, quite clean, Indio. Come inside before you catch your death of cold.”
The boy darted past Apollo, his shirt clutched in his hand, and Daffodil, who had been milling about, sniffing at dead vegetation, barked and happily raced after.
Apollo followed more slowly, watching Miss Stump as he did. She was bustling about the room, settling her son at the table, instructing Maude, and then disappearing abruptly into the bedroom he’d taken last night.
When she reappeared, her hair was dressed—much to his regret—and she bore a thin blanket. “Caliban, would you like this until you can find another shirt?” She held out the blanket and then her brows knit. “You do have another shirt, don’t you?”
He gave her a sardonic glance that made her blush and then nodded.
“I hope you like tea, because we don’t run to coffee,” Maude said, and banged a teapot down on the table.
That apparently was the signal to sit for breakfast, and so Apollo did.
The table held bread and butter and a plate of cold sliced meat. There wasn’t a lot of anything, and he was reminded of Makepeace’s words. Miss Stump was out of work.
Apollo was careful to take only one slice of bread and only a little meat. He knew what it was like to be without food. He’d often been weak with hunger in Bedlam, despite Artemis’s heroic attempts to keep him supplied with food. Hunger was an affliction worse than beatings. It made the mind narrow to only that one point: food and when one would next be able to eat. Damnable to reduce a man to the state of a starving dog.
Once he’d been lower than a starving dog, mindless with want.
So he was careful now to eat in slow, moderate bites, as a gentleman should, for he was, beneath everything else, a gentleman.
The tea was weak but hot and he drank two cups of it, watching Miss Stump nibble at her own bread. She caught his eye once and bit her lip, as if hiding a secret smile. All the while Indio chattered about everything from the sparrows he’d seen in the trees the day before to the dead snail Daffodil had attempted to eat the previous week.
But pleasant as the morning meal was, it wasn’t long before Apollo recollected that he must be at work—and to do that, he’d have to fetch his only other shirt from the musician’s gallery.
He pulled out his notebook and, turning to a new page, wrote, Thank you—for the meal, the physicking, and the bed—but I must be off to my labors.
Miss Stump blushed when she read it and gave it back. “We were glad to help.”
Indio, who had been watching the exchange, slumped in his chair. “Aww! Must Caliban go? I wanted to show him my new boat.”
“He’s a man grown, dearest, and must be about his job. But perhaps”—she cleared her throat, peeking at him beneath her lashes—“we could take Caliban a picnic luncheon?”
“Yes!” Indio was so excited he knelt up on his chair as he turned to Apollo. “Say yes, pleeeease?”
Apollo’s lips twitched as he inclined his head.
“Huzzah!” Indio cried, making Daffodil leap and twirl in excitement. “Huzzah!”
“Sit down afore you spill your tea, lad,” Maude said gruffly, but even she had a smile upon her face.
Apollo walked out into the garden feeling better than he had in months—even with the headache. He could hear chopping coming from somewhere in the garden, so at least some work was being done—whether it was the correct work might be another matter. He hurried to the musician’s gallery.
It was as he was buttoning his waistcoat—sadly he’d only the one, and that was now stained and slightly damp from lying on the ground all night—that he heard the distinctive sound of Makepeace’s voice raised in ire.
Hastily he finished his crude toilet and jogged in the direction of the yelling, which became comprehensible as he got nearer.
“If you think I’ll take on some wet-behind-the-ears, overeducated, dilettante architect to design and rebuild my bloody garden just because you met him at some aristocratic ball in Sweden—”
“Switzerland,” drawled an obnoxious, familiar voice.
“Bloody Switzerland,” Makepeace amended without even taking breath, “than you’ve lost your blasted ducal mind. This garden is going to be the most wondrous pleasure garden in all of London, which might as well be the world, and to do that we need an experienced, working architect, not some silly aristocrat who’s decided that he’d play with blocks and see if he could build something that wouldn’t fall down after three damned minutes.”