Beauty Tempts the Beast (2 page)

The man buried inside the monster took over. His flesh throbbed, his lips burned with the need to kiss her. Somewhere, deep inside his chest, an ache swelled with a ferocious possessiveness. He could not let this girl go.

Could he possibly allow her to stay?

Ashworth thrust her hand from his face. “Enough. Why do you not recoil from me? Are you blind?”

Vivian bit her lip, then lowered her eyes so he could only see the black arc of lashes. “No,” she murmured. “I am not blind. Nor am I offended by a mark on one’s skin.”

“Then what does offend you?”

She turned away, then crossed her arms in a self-protective gesture. “A mark on one’s soul.”

So she revealed a part of her secret. Someone had hurt her, and therein the reason she ran. That’s why she agreed to marry him—Lord Ashworth, The Monster of Silverstone Manor.

Vivian listened as the wind screamed and rattled the windows. Only an arm’s length away, Lord Ashworth’s aroma swirled in her nose, a scent combined of brandy and faint sandalwood.

He did not recognize her. She didn’t think he would.

A chime struck from the mantel. It had reached the top of the hour. She had no place to go for supper, no tavern to return to. Every shilling she owned had been spent to bring her to this desolate house. Lord Ashworth could not make her leave.

Martin would kill her if he ever found her.

Hopefully, he would search for her in London. She’d left him a deliberate trail, told just the right people of her supposed plans. Even her mother, hidden away for her own safety, believed her daughter sought a new husband at the soirées of London. Some distant relation provided her with the perfect explanation for where she’d gone. By the time Martin found she’d never arrived, Vivian would be wed to Lord Ashworth. And wed him, she would.

“Are you cold?” Lord Ashworth’s deep voice whispered down her spine.

Vivian arranged a brave smile and forced herself to remember the man she met briefly so many years ago instead of the imposing figure of today. She turned to find him staring at her. “No, my lord, but I do beg you to uphold the bargain.”

A vein throbbed on his forehead. “It is my mother’s bargain,” he said through clenched teeth. “Tell me why it is that you want to wed me.”

A light gust of air swept through the room. The drafty chill seeped under her skin. “Tell me why you are afraid to wed.”

He laughed then spun away from her and weaved his way through the old furniture to the clattering window. His wide shoulders blocked the remaining daylight, leaving only a lone candelabrum to flicker its ghostly shadows on the walls. “Afraid? I am afraid of nothing. It is others who fear me.”

She did not believe him. Everyone had something to fear. “I do not fear you.”

“Perhaps you should.”

Had he truly changed so much from the hero she once knew? Had this scar transformed an angel into a devil? The cut alone was not the reason. Surface wounds were no indicator of the mortal underneath.

She’d learned that lesson well enough. Scars marked painful memories, but true evil lurked within the soul.

If Lord Ashworth had changed it was due the incident which gave him the scar, not the mark itself.

She moved closer to him, yet avoided his post by the window, sensing she’d be intruding. Instead, her fingers traced over the worn wood trim of a high-backed chair, disturbing a layer of dust. “Would you cause me pain?”

She knew pain, still felt it.

At her question, Lord Ashworth dropped his head. His shoulders sagged. “I have no desire to hurt you. But there are times…” He sighed. “I have been here so long.”

Wind swept up against the house again, dragging tree branches down the crumbling stones like a witch’s nails. Vivian shivered. She wasn’t accustomed to this bleak weather, yet it would not chase her away. This marriage would be her salvation.

“I am not afraid,” she told him. Dear God, she must make him believe that. She must believe it herself.

He pounded his fist on the window ledge then swung to face her. “You have no idea of this place…of me!”

“I will accept whatever comes my way.”

His eyes blazed. “Will you? Do you dare share my bed, dare live in a house with The Monster?”

“There are no such things as monsters,” she replied, and, yet, there were…only they disguised themselves as ordinary men. Lord Ashworth was not ordinary.

One long stride brought him before her. “You know nothing.” Then he swooped down and captured her face in his hands. Before she could blink, his lips possessed hers.

Vivian’s heart trembled. Brief memories tumbled in her brain. Memories of Martin’s crushing kisses and urgent ones from Thomas, the man she once hoped to marry.

But then she heard a cracked moan. Not a crushing attack on her mouth with either violence or lust, but a warm, velvety softness.

Lord Ashworth circled her tongue with his, his ragged breathing mimicked the frenzy of her pulse. He tasted of brandy, of dark nights, of loneliness. Her stomach pitched, as uncertainty battled with base curiosity.

He drew her in, inhaled her very being. She was swallowed in his warm breath, overtaken by his wet command. Her veins burned with a curious fire.

Suddenly, it was over. He flung her aside into a faded yellow chair and stared at her hungrily, his scar pulsing. “I do not deserve you.”

She struggled to catch her breath. She did not deserve a wealthy viscount. Misfits and wounded souls belonged together to keep the nightmares at bay.

He could not make her go, just as Martin could not make her stay. She’d already lost one chance at marriage to avoid a life of horror, she’d not lose another. Vivian sat up straight and smoothed out her skirt.

“Please, do not force me to leave.”

He shoved a hand through his pecan-colored hair and groaned aloud. “You have no idea what you ask of me.”

Vivian pressed on, biding her time. “If I must truly go, let it be tomorrow. I have no money to hire a coach, nor to stay at the tavern in the village. I can sleep here on the sofa. It matters not.”

“Nay.” His resigned voice set hope free in her heart. “There are beds aplenty here.”

“Thank you, my lord. I shall be out of your sight until morning then. Can you have a servant show me the way?”

“Are you hungry?”

Vivian stood. “Could I have food sent to my room, please?”

His gray eyes halted her. “Would you share my bed tonight?”

Her mouth dried. The taste of his kiss lingered on her lips, but she was not a fool. Lord Ashworth merely tested her resolve.

Although no longer a virgin, she’d never willingly brought herself to another man for his taking. To deny the viscount outright could send her back down his long drive. Vivian chose her words carefully.

“Have you agreed to our marriage?”

His lips thinned. “No. But I will agree to this. You can have the chamber next to mine tonight. If you wake in the morning without a visit from The Monster, then I will believe no demon lives here to assault you. I will then send for a special license.”

“You cannot scare me from here.” She lifted her chin.

Lord Ashworth straightened. The flickering candles cast harsh shadows along the length of his scar. A draft whispered about the room.

He held his hand out to her. “I will not be the one to frighten you away. The Monster will see that you do not stay.”

The Monster. He spoke as if it were a specter of demonic fright, not a man possessed by tragedy. “As I have said, I do not believe in such things.”

“After tonight you will.”

Pinkley rattled about the room, picking up strewn clothes. “You’ve no need to do that,” Ashworth told his butler.

“Eh? But ye ’ave no valet.” With a full head of white hair and a twisted back, the old man resembled a snow-topped ancient oak at a cliff’s edge.

Ashworth yanked a shirt from gnarled hands. “I’ve had no valet for nearly ten years. Nor do I care what state my room is in. Go.”

He opened his bedroom door to the hall. A swift river of air embraced Ashworth’s skin. Drafts multiplied in this house, seemingly with each cycle of the moon. They, like the sounds of the wind and shapes of the fog, kept him company within the disintegrating walls of Silverstone Manor.

Pinkley shuffled over with an armful of garments. “Will ye be needing anything else, mi’lord?

Mayhap yer nightly potion?”

Ashworth swallowed. His pulse echoed inside his skull, his mouth watered for the drink, but he could forego it tonight. There would be no need, not with someone else in the house.

Vivian.

Immediately, his blood pumped hot. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed the adjoining door.

Pinkley shook his head. “Shouldn’t be ’ere, mi’lord. She’s a stranger, that one. Not safe ’ere. Think of your—”

“Trust me. I think of no one else.”

The old man hobbled from the room while muttering to the pile of clothing in his hands.

Ashworth stared again at the wooden door. The keyhole gleamed with an unnatural light. It beckoned him…called to him. He could step through that door. He could claim a bride. He could find salvation.

Candles flickered, the light dimmed. Wetting his lips, he took a step closer. He could hear movement.

The scraping of a chair, the squeaking of floorboards.

Then, he heard humming. Vivian was singing. Here, in the most dreadful of decaying manors, the girl sang.

Like a common lecher, Ashworth lowered himself to one knee then peered through the keyhole. He caught a glimpse of her meandering by. Dressed in a white nightgown, Vivian paced about the large room, drawing a brush through her long, midnight hair.

He watched, mesmerized.

Wavering candles illuminated her body, displaying her curving shape through the thin cloth of the gown. Desire sharpened his sensations. His fingers itched, desperate to touch her. His tongue dampened, hungry for a taste. Hot and aching, his erection pressed too tight in his clothes.

He swallowed, then turned away. He would not harm her, at least not by design. If there were a God, The Monster would rest tonight. And finally, after seven years, Ashworth could have more than drafts and spiders to keep him company.

The stench of sewage and rotting food surrounded him. A woman’s screams blasted through the air.

Fury swirled inside of him, lifting him, charging him forward. Blood splattered, blanketing his hands, its sharp tang filling his nostrils. A roar echoed inside his brain until the window shattered. Then her screams were no more.

Ashworth sprang up from his pillow, sweat dripping down his temples. His heart clattered against his ribcage while a searing pain pierced the length of his scar and blurred his vision.

He’d been wrong after all. He couldn’t sleep without the nightmares. Even with a stranger’s presence, his past rose up to haunt him.

Naked, he slipped from the bed and opened his door to the hall. The welcome draft slid over his sweat-covered body, cooled his skin and quieted his raging pulse. There, on the floor, sat his glass of nightly potion. With a grateful sigh, Ashworth lifted it to his lips. The drink slid down his throat and warmed his belly.

He returned to his room. A glance at the side wall revealed a dark door. Her lights were out. Vivian slept.

He sank down into the worn sheets again. This time there would be no dreams.

Despite her conviction she’d not be frightened in this house, Vivian burrowed deeper into the musty-smelling bed. Its blood red curtains did little to soothe her soul.

She stared up at the rectangular cut of the window, where an infrequent crimson moon illuminated a spider and its web. Somewhere along the far wall a frayed tapestry fluttered. The drafts were so wretched in this house, they blew across the entire room. Vivian shivered.

Why was she in this dreadful place? How could it be that she’d found no other option?

She rolled away from the window and stared at her fading bruises. Dying embers from the fire flickered, bringing the dark marks on her upper arms to a ghastly life. Martin had promised her death if she were to leave him. From the forceful way in which he violated her body, she believed him.

Vivian could not stay there. Not once her father promised her to that demon. All hope for marrying the local man, whom she thought she was in love with, was lost.

She thought it divine intervention when she heard the rumor of a remote viscount needing a wife.

Once she learned who he was, she had her escape.

Vivian met Lord Ashworth by chance nearly ten years before, when he rescued her from a potentially dangerous man. Could he do it again?

But what of Silverstone Manor and the local villagers’ cautionary tales? Could the gentleman she once met have turned mad from isolation? Did ghosts and phantoms lurk in dark corners?

She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she did believe the danger awaiting her at home.

The tapestry fluttered again, then slammed against the wall.

Vivian sat up, but in the dark shadows of the room saw no creatures. The wind, the drafts and the poor upkeep of this house were conspiring to stir up terror. She’d not succumb to their taunts.

The warm shelter of the blankets pulled her downward. She pressed herself into the pillow and closed her eyes in the pursuit of slumber. She
would
wed Lord Ashworth. He would be her salvation. Monster or not.

Vivian could not awaken from her dream. The images held her spellbound, dragging her down like a heavy rock under water. In the shadowed darkness of her vision she couldn’t see the man who had come to claim her.

She lay naked in a field of flowers, a place she had never seen. A storm swirled far above, darkening the sky to purple. And yet she did not fear. Not even when the man—she assumed it was a man—leaned over her. His head moved to look over her body.

Then he reached a hesitant hand out to her. Unashamed, Vivian arched her back, lifting herself toward him, inviting him. A splintered moan echoed from his throat as long fingers reached from the shapeless overcoat. His hand brushed along her nipple once, then again. It hardened to a tight knot.