Darling Beast (Maiden Lane #7)(69)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

A nasty, petty, small-minded man, but sadly a dangerous one as well.

She was going to betray her love to this man.

“Make no sound, now,” he murmured in a voice she’d come to despise. “We’ll wait for your lover and then you’ll be free to go.”

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.

Dead.

Strangely, he didn’t hear a thing.

George turned and saw him and raised the pistol, but he’d already used the one shot to kill Lily, his beloved Lily, so Apollo batted it aside. The pistol went spinning into the underbrush as Apollo raised his hand and plowed it into George’s face.

He didn’t hear that, either. Or feel it.

Just as well.

George went down and Apollo followed, beating into that face, because it was the last thing Lily had seen—the face of her killer—and he meant to destroy it.

Blood spattered and George opened his mouth, his teeth scarlet-stained. He might’ve been saying something, might’ve been begging, but since Apollo couldn’t hear, it didn’t matter.

Something crunched beneath his knuckles, and Apollo realized he was grinning, his lips pulled back from his bared teeth, turned into the monster Lily had first thought him.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

George spat blood and a bit of broken white that might’ve been a tooth and Apollo split his ear.

But the eyes were still there—the eyes that had looked on Lily’s death—and he aimed his fist toward them.

“Apollo.” The voice was Lily’s, but that couldn’t be, because… because…

Her hands, white and soft, wrapped about his bloodied knuckles and gently stopped him.

Sound suddenly rushed back in.

George was breathing with a harsh rasp, Apollo was making a noise like a sob, and Lily…

Dear God, Lily was saying his name.

He looked up and saw her face, blackened on one side with flecks of blood high on one cheek.

He let the front of George’s shirt go and his head thudded against the ground.

Apollo turned on his knees and cupped her sweet face with his unclean hands. “How?” he choked. “I saw you die. I saw you fall dead to the ground.”

“The pistol fired over my shoulder,” she whispered. “Apollo, what have you done to your poor hands?”

“God!” he cried, pulling her face down to his, kissing her nose and cheeks and eyelids, making sure she still lived and breathed. “Dear God, Lily, never do that to me again.”

“I won’t, love.” Tears were making muddy streaks through the gunpowder on her cheek. “Ow, that stings.”

Richard Perry, Baron Ross stepped out from the bushes. “Get away from her.”

“Sod off,” Apollo retorted, possibly because he was too tired to be surprised.

“Get away from her or I’ll shoot her.” Ross, of course, had not one but two pistols.

Reluctantly Apollo stood and took a step away from Lily. “We really must talk, darling, about the sort of riffraff you bring to secret meetings.”

“I didn’t know he was there,” Lily said grumpily.

“Did you really think my good friend George wouldn’t tell me about my son?” Ross said. “Jesus, he said this would be easy—capture you, Kilbourne, and get my son. Look at this mess now. Have you killed George?”

“Sadly, no,” Apollo replied without glancing at the man on the ground. He could hear his cousin’s harsh breathing. “Put the damned gun down.” He was becoming tired of people pointing guns at his Lily.

Ross ignored him, his gaze worryingly focused on Lily. “Where is he? Where is Indio?”

And before Apollo could think of what to do, Lily opened her mouth.

Chapter Twenty

Then the monster rose, his massive shoulders bunched, his hands fisted, his bull’s head lowered, the two curved horns pointed menacingly at Theseus. The lad didn’t hesitate. With a warlike cry he ran at the monster, his sword raised. The monster did not move until the last moment, and then with a brutally swift toss of his head he impaled the youth upon his horns…