Lord Beast (5 page)

“I’m sorry,” Dani blurted.

“Whatever for?”

Dani studied her fingers that
were fiddling with the pages of her book. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I hope
you’re not expecting overly much from me. The earl said outright yesterday that
I am far from the women he usually associates with.”

Val snorted derisively at that.
“The women he usually associates with he hasn’t associated with in nearly five
years!” she scoffed, then smiled down at Dani. “Which is also precisely why
you’re just perfect for him. I’m sure of it.”

Dani sighed forlornly. “I don’t
want to disappoint you.”

Another affectionate and motherly
pat landed on her hand. “I’m sure you won’t, miss.”

After Val left, Dani didn’t feel
much like reading anymore. She mulled over the things she’d learned about the
earl and warm fingers began to unfurl over her heart. She shoved the feeling
aside. She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that she could hold any hope over
winning the earl’s heart. At a young age she had known that she was no beauty.
Her brown hair and plain looks were testament to ordinary and nondescript. Not
that she was shallow enough to believe that it was a person’s appearance that
made someone fall in love with them… but it helped! And judging by her
floundering failure during the Seasons, Danielle Carmichael was nothing
remarkable, nor could she ever be dubbed the belle of the ball, and even less
likely-
an Original
. Not even her wit- which she thought was quite
intelligent- or her kind personality could charm a man. But if she reflected on
her years in the Marriage Mart, her heart hadn’t been entirely set on it
either.

Her mother’s wavering fight with
depression had been her sole cause for concern during the last few years. Oh,
she knew that Elizabeth Carmichael was sick, that it would be only a matter of
time before she died, but that didn’t make it any less hurtful. She didn’t miss
her mother because she knew that she was happier now than she had been when she
was alive. What hurt was the knowledge that the person you loved most in the
world, and who was supposed to love you most, would rather end her own life
than endeavour to spend it with you.

“She’s sick?” Rhys raged,
incomprehensibly angry. “What do you mean, sick?”

Val smiled knowingly at Grayson,
who returned the look. “Bed- ridden, my lord,” she explained patiently. “She
can’t get out of bed.”

“I know what bed- ridden means,”
he snapped impatiently as he prowled the length of his study. “What’s the
matter with her?”

“She said it’s an old injury that
acts up from time to time,” Val said. “Her back, I believe.”

Rhys recalled the moment when she
flinched as her back jarred against the railing of the stairs. He groaned
hoarsely. “Christ.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord?”
Grayson intoned dryly.

“Did she seem alright?” he
snapped at the two of them although he had only sent Val to see her.

“She’s in perfect health,” Val
told him gaily. “Just a bit of pain in her back, is all. She assured me she’d
be better tomorrow.”

“You could always call upon her,
my lord,” Grayson told him wryly, “to see that she is well for yourself.”

“I ought to throttle you for your
impertinence, Grayson,” Rhys growled. He stopped his pacing and forced a glower
on his face that he knew the two servants would not be able to see. “I don’t
care about the silly chit. Why would I call upon her myself?”

Suddenly the two of them were
animated, shrugging and smiling and grumbling all at once. He didn’t like that
one bit at all.

“I must be paying you too much,”
he drawled caustically before stalking from the study and down the hall to the
master bedroom.

Sometime after midnight…

Her eyes, she thought,
felt abominably dry. Dani squinted at the writing that was becoming smaller
with each passing hour and the waning candlelight. Besides that, Keats was
decidedly harder to decipher as the hours of the night wore on. It would be for
the best if she set the volume aside and attempted to sleep, but she feared her
back would discomfort her. She sighed wearily and closed her book, staring
blankly at the small remainder of the candle placed next to her bed while she
decided what she should do. 

The silence of the
evening, accompanied by a barrage of throaty snores emanating from the bedroom
down the hall belonging to her guardians, allowed her to listen to the sounds
that usually echoed through the night. An owl hooted from the tree outside her
window and somewhere in the distance a dark barked incessantly, probably at its
own shadow. Suddenly, her ears pricked on a rustle and low curse from outside
her window.

An intruder!

Her heart nearly
jumped out her chest. What good she was against a burglar was probably minimal,
but at least she had the advantage of surprise on her side. She
knew
someone was trying to get into the cottage, specifically her window which was
on the upper floor. The thief did not know that she would be prepared for his
entrance. He probably had to scale the vine covered wall or the old oak tree to
the left of her window in order to get to her room. Conveniently, a long limb
extended just a few metres short of her room.

Trying to lurch
upright was too painful so she remained where she was and searched for some
sort of missile. The only objects heavy enough to hurl would be the pile of
books she had culminated during the day spread over her bed.

She clutched the
closest copy- Keats’s works- and armed herself, prepared to throw, when the
window swung open and a hand appeared at the top of the sill. Followed by
another, then a low growl as a form hefted the rest of his body over and into
her room.

Dani lobbed the book.

It collided with his
shoulder and the figure winced as Dani reached for another book, willing to
sacrifice another voluminous tome consisting of Chaucer’s poetry. “Thief!” she
screeched, hurling the book at his chest with as much strength as she could
muster from her disadvantageous position.

“Jesus, Danielle,
stop!
”

She gasped. It was
him
!

“Lord Ashcroft?” she
hissed, lowering her arm.

“Who bloody else?” he
growled, straightening his cloak and pulling it tight around his face.

“W-what are you doing
here?” she demanded, somewhat in shock and at a loss for words, even what to
do. Her numbed brain was slowly beginning to process the fact that for someone
who had managed to avoid scandal most of her life, she was just about to create
one.

“So it’s alright to
barge into my home in the middle of the night but I-”

“My lord, this is
highly inappropriate-”

“This whole bloody
acquaintanceship is inappropriate, Danielle! But you persisted regardless!”

That quieted her and
she stilled, watching him closely from where she lay on her side in the bed. He
was silhouetted against the window where light from the cloudless night sky
streamed in, big and foreboding and cloaked in shadows. The man emanated
masculine strength and ferociousness, coldly aloof and distant and constantly
shrouded in infernal darkness. A beast. Her eyes took in the length of him, the
incredible height of him, drifting down his broad, cloaked shoulders and
further until…
flowers?

“Are those for me?”
she squeaked, unable to believe her eyes or the sight presented to her. She
didn’t think she’d ever forget this moment- a tall, dark stranger looking
forbidden and dangerous and then a posy of colourful flowers held tightly in
one fist. Her heart lurched poignantly.

“Uh…”

“They are, aren’t
they?” she demanded, pointing at the arrangement in his hands.

He was silent for a
long moment, apparently studying the bouquet clamped in his fist. “Yes,” he
said finally, his voice reluctantly gravelly. “I, uh, picked them from the
garden. Your garden.”

She smothered a smile.
It was the thought that count, wasn’t it? “Thank you,” she murmured before
gesturing to a vanity on the other side of the room. “Would you mind putting
them in the vase over there for me?”

She couldn’t see
whether he nodded or not, but she sensed that he did as he stalked over to
where she indicated and stuffed the flowers into the small, white vase.

“It seemed like a good
idea at the time,” he muttered, turning back towards her. “You were supposed to
be asleep.”

Again she had to
stifle a smile. “I don’t sleep when my back is like this,” she explained to
him. “It’s a bit too painful.”

He considered this
thoughtfully, a heavy silence settling between them for a moment. “I’m sorry,”
he mumbled, as if the words were forced from his throat and he was unused to
uttering it.

“It’s not your fault,”
she brushed off his apology with a negligent wave of her hand.

“It is!”

“Don’t be ridicu-”

“I shouldn’t have
treated you so roughly yesterday!”

She studied him
quietly for a moment before raising herself on her elbow and patting the edge
of the bed with the fingers of her other hand. “Sit,” she ordered quietly as
she ignored the inner protestations of her conscience. Her aunt would be
mortified beyond belief if she happened to discover her in this most
compromising of positions. Yet here she was, gesturing for the man to join her
in bed. Her cheeks became hot at the thought.

He hesitated before
moving forward and perched stiffly where she indicated he should. The bed sunk
with his solid weight, causing her to involuntarily drift towards him.

“When I was eighteen,”
she began in a soft voice, “I was riding a horse… my horse, to be exact. A
docile mare, quite young and newly broken. Anyway, she threw me and I landed
awkwardly. The doctor said I came close to breaking my back or life-long
paralysis… either way, I should be grateful that it only aches from time to
time and not the other… the other way it could have been, I suppose.”

“Danielle…”

“It’s not your fault,”
she told him firmly. “I over exerted myself yesterday with all the walking I
did. I don’t usually do so much exercise-”

“Thank you.”

He was thanking her
for exonerating him from blame. He was being…
amiable
. Good God, when
had this turnabout come along?

“Why are you here?”
she blurted.

“I don’t know,” he
barked.

They sat in silence
for long moments, he staring into space and she staring at the imperceptible
shadows that surrounded his face. A sudden, forceful yearning clamped around
her heart. She
had
to see him. She couldn’t go through her life not
knowing what he looked like. It would consume her soul.

Several seconds passed
in charged quiet before he gestured to the lit candle by her bedside and the
books littered around her. “Do you always keep your ammunition close at hand?”

The man, she thought,
was full of surprises and she had to smother a laugh with her hand when she
realised that he was teasing her.

“I was reading before
you interrupted me,” she admitted.

“Ostensibly, I see,”
he drawled, emphasising the sheer amount of volumes littering the bed, the
floor, the table.

“Well, I get terribly
bored not being able to torment you,” she told him primly. “I can’t embroider
to save my life, nor paint, nor play, nor sew or knit, so that only leaves
reading for me to while away the time while I’m stuck in bed with nothing to
do.”

“Have you read all of
these?”

She glanced around.
“Some. But not all. Most of the time I’ll pick one up, read a few chapters, and
then lose interest so I move on to something else.”

“An annoying habit, to
be sure.”

“To whom?” she
demanded peevishly. Suddenly feeling at a disadvantage somewhat on her back,
she squirmed a bit so that she could prop her spine into a sitting position.

He noticed and
abruptly moved closer, his hand swiftly navigating themselves under her arms
and hefting her up against the headboard and several pillows.

“I’m not invalid, you
know.”

“You’re not?” he
remarked dryly.

“No.” She crossed her
arms over her breasts stubbornly. “I’ll be all better tomorrow and back to
torturing you at Falmouth.”

“The anticipation is
killing.”

“I don’t like your
tone, my lord.”

He chuckled- a husky,
warm and gravelly sound that made her skin very hot. “There is nothing wrong
with my tone,” he told her pointedly, “and please call me Rhys.”

“I don’t think that’s
proper,” she murmured.

“Nothing is proper
between us, Danielle. It hasn’t been since the moment you stepped foot in
Falmouth.”

Her eyes widened at
that and she peered into the darkness of his hood. “You’re right, of course,”
she agreed. “Although I’m still wondering why you’re here.”