Good Lord. Lily bunched her skirts in her fists in case she had to leg it, and crept forward.
A groan and a low, rumbling sound.
Like growling.
She gulped and peeked around a burned trunk.
At first what she saw looked like an enormous, moving, mud-covered mound, and then it straightened, revealing an endlessly broad back, huge shoulders, and a shaggy head.
Lily couldn’t help it. She made a noise that was perilously close to a squeak.
The thing whirled—much faster than anything that big had a right to move—and a horrible, soot-stained face glared at her, one paw raised as if to strike her.
In it was a wickedly sharp, hooked knife.
Lily gulped. If she lived through the day she was going to have to apologize to Indio.
For there was a monster in the garden.
THE DAY HADN’T been going well to begin with, reflected Apollo Greaves, Viscount Kilbourne.
At a rough estimate, fully half the woody plantings in the pleasure garden were dead—and another quarter might as well be. The ornamental pond’s freshwater source had been blocked by the fire’s debris and now it sat stagnant. The gardeners Asa had hired for him were an unskilled lot. To top it off, the spring rains had turned what remained of Harte’s Folly into a muddy morass, making planting and earth moving impossible until the ground dried out.
And now there was a strange female in his garden.
Apollo stared into huge lichen-green eyes lined with lashes so dark and thick that they looked like smudged soot. The woman—girl? She wasn’t that tall, but a swift glance at her bodice assured him she was quite mature, thank you—was only a slim bit of a thing, dressed foolishly in a green velvet gown, richly over-embroidered in red and gold. She hadn’t even a bonnet on. Her dark hair slipped from a messy knot at the back of her neck, waving strands blowing against her pinkened cheeks. Actually, she was rather pretty in a gamine sort of way.
But that was beside the point.
Where in hell had she come from? As far as he knew, the only other people in the ruined pleasure garden were the brace of so-called gardeners presently working on the hedges behind the pond. He’d been taking out his frustration alone on the dead tree stump, trying to uproot the thing by hand since their only dray horse was at work with the other men, when he’d heard a feminine voice calling and she’d suddenly appeared.
The woman blinked and her gaze darted to his upraised arm.
Apollo’s own eyes followed and he winced. He’d instinctively raised his hand as he turned to her, and the pruning knife he held might be construed as threatening.
Hastily he lowered his arm. Which left him standing in his mud-stained shirt and waistcoat, sweaty and stinking, and feeling like a dumb ox next to her delicate femininity.
But apparently his action reassured her. She drew herself up—not that it made much difference to her height. “Who are you?”
Well, he’d like to ask the same of her but, alas, he really couldn’t, thanks to that last beating in Bedlam.
Belatedly he remembered that he was supposed to be a simple laborer. He tugged at a forelock and dropped his gaze—to elegantly embroidered slippers caked in mud.
Who was this woman?
“Tell me now,” she said rather imperiously, considering she was standing in three inches of mud. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
He glanced at her face—eyebrows arched, a plush rose lower lip caught between her teeth—and cast his eyes down again. He tapped his throat and shook his head. If she didn’t get that message she was a lot stupider than she looked.
“Oh,” he heard as he stared at her shoes. “Oh, I didn’t realize.” She had a husky voice, which gentled when he lowered his gaze. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can’t stay here, you must understand.”
Unseen, he rolled his eyes. What was she on about? He worked in the garden—surely she could see that. Who was she to order him out?
“You.” She drew the word out, enunciating it clearly, as if she thought him hard of hearing. Some thought that since he couldn’t speak he couldn’t hear, either. He caught himself beginning to scowl and smoothed out his features. “Cannot. Stay. Here.” A pause, and then, muttered, “Oh, for goodness’ sakes. I can’t even tell if he understands. I cannot believe Mr. Harte allowed…”
And it dawned on Apollo with a feeling of amused horror that his frustrating day had descended into the frankly ludicrous. This ridiculously clad woman thought him a lackwit.
One embroidered toe tapped in the mud. “Look at me, please.”
He raised his gaze slowly, careful to keep his face blank.
Her brows had drawn together over those big eyes, in an expression that no doubt she thought stern, but that was, in reality, rather adorable. Like a small girl chiding a kitten. A streak of anger surged through him. She shouldn’t be out by herself in the ruined garden. If he’d been another type of man—a brutal man, like the ones who’d run Bedlam—her dignity, perhaps even her life, might’ve been in danger. Didn’t she have a husband, a brother, a father to keep her safe? Who was letting this slip of a woman wander into danger by herself?
He realized that her expression had gentled at his continued silence.
“You can’t tell me, can you?” she asked softly.
He’d met pity in others since the loss of his voice. Usually it made him burn hot with rage and a sort of terrible despair—after nine months he wasn’t sure he’d ever regain the use of his voice. But her inquiry didn’t provoke his usual anger. Maybe it was her feminine charm—it’d been a while since any woman besides his sister had attempted to talk to him—or maybe it was simply her. This woman spoke with compassion, not contempt, and that made all the difference.
He shook his head, watching her, keeping his face dull and unresponsive.
She sighed and hugged herself, looking around. “What am I to do?” she muttered. “I can’t leave Indio out here by himself.”
Apollo struggled not to let surprise show on his face. Who or what was Indio?
“Go!” she said forcefully, suddenly enough that he blinked. She pointed a commanding finger behind him.
Apollo fought back a grin. She wasn’t giving up, was she? He slowly turned, looking in the direction she indicated, and then swiveled back even more slowly, letting his mouth hang half open.
“Oh!” Her little hands balled into fists as she cast her eyes heavenward. “This is maddening.”