Lord Beast (11 page)

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rhys told
him after a moment.

“Then what are your intentions
with her? She isn’t your normal taste.”

“I haven’t sampled my
normal
taste in over five years, Gabriel.”

“You know what I mean, Ashcroft.”

Rhys sighed. “I don’t
know
what my intentions are. I don’t know whether I should even have intentions
about her.”

At that, all the tension between
them shattered and Gabriel smiled wolfishly. “Good God, man, you’ve got a big
problem on your hands,” he laughed.

“You have no idea.”

“Once you’re married-”

“You’re mad. I can’t marry her.”

Gabriel frowned slightly. “Why
not?”

Rhys inwardly groaned. He hated
bringing up his scars. The topic of his deformities always made him
uncomfortable, wary, and uneasy. The only person to have ever seen them had
been Gabriel and his reaction fuelled his desire to remain unseen and hidden
away. “You
know
why,” he grated, gesturing at his mask briefly.

Gabriel looked confused for a
moment before realisation dawned on his face. “Of course!” he murmured.
“Completely forgot about those.” He grinned knowingly. “You’ll learn for
yourself but Danielle’s different. She’s not they type of girl to let a few
little scars bother her.”

“They aren’t little,” Rhys
grunted, annoyed.

“They are as big as
you
make them.”

“Ashcroft? As in
Rhys
Ashcroft?”

Gabriel turned to study his wife
from where he stood by the window in their private chambers, a glass of brandy
cradled in the palm of his hand. “How many other Ashcroft’s do you know?” he
asked dryly.

She scrunched her face up in
puzzled thought as she perched prettily on the edge of her stool in front of
her vanity, her back to him. Her raven-black hair coiled languorously over her
shoulders, touching her waist, as she ran a comb through its silken strands.
“Well,” she said slowly, “I think I once knew a Millicent…”

“Victoria.”

“No, no… she was an
Ashton
.”

“Were you even listening to me?”
he demanded, growing a bit exasperated at her ability to distract herself.

She pivoted on her stool to face
him and gave him a bright smile before pulling her hair over one shoulder and
beginning to braid it. “Of course I was. Rhys Ashcroft was at the masquerade tonight.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, still smiling.

He sighed. “And? What else?”

Victoria pursed her lips
thoughtfully. “I thought he was dead.”

“Vicky, I love you but you’re
incredibly annoying.”

Finishing her braid, she secured
the ends with a pink ribbon, her long tapered fingers working lithely, and gave
him a patient smile. “Very well. I
wasn’t
listening. What about Rhys
Ashcroft?”

Having known Victoria for most of
his life, Gabriel wasn’t surprised when his wife resumed being active
immediately after having voiced her last question. Victoria was such an
animated entity at
all
times. It was as if she simply couldn’t stand
letting her fingers lie idly. Even in sleep she tossed and turned to such an
extent that once or twice Gabriel had to sacrifice his spot for one on the rug
in front of the hearth. As he spoke, she began to fiddle with various
containers and ornaments on her vanity, closing lids, straightening, smelling,
until Gabriel wanted to tie her hands behind her back.

“Don’t you want to know why he
bothered to attend the masque tonight?” he enquired in a testing voice.

Victoria huffed impatiently,
distractedly opening a bottle of perfume and sniffing at the lid. “You’re going
to tell me whether I do or don’t,” she mumbled breathily. “I can’t see how this
pertains to me. After all, he was
your
friend.”

“Victoria, Rhys hasn’t made an
appearance in society for over five years. He hasn’t even bothered to
correspond with me in all that time.”

“So?”

“I was the closest thing to a
friend he ever had. I couldn’t even convince him to come to our wedding. Don’t
you think it odd that now, suddenly, he attended a ball where nearly the entire
ton was present?”

She gave him a caustic look. “I
wouldn’t know what to make of it, Gabriel,” she told him slowly and in a tone
that suggested she were talking to a very slow child who couldn’t figure out a
very simple mathematical problem. “Like I said, he’s
your
friend and you
should know why he was there. Not I.”

Gabriel had to bite down an oath.
“He was there for Danielle,” he blurted.

For the first time in her life,
Victoria was utterly still and utterly silent. After several moments, she
remained thus and Gabriel continued.

“I tried to tell you there but
you were so damned set on taking me apart for Desdemona Fitzgerald, I couldn’t
get a word in edgewise.”

Her aquamarine eyes were serious
when she turned to him again. “I remember him now,” she said at last. “My first
opera… you introduced us. He was with that… that
loose
woman.”

“Victoria, you can’t go around
chasing off Rhys Ashcroft’s ex-mistresses, too.”

A peeved expression crossed her
face. “By telling me this, did you think I would approve of the match?”

Sensing the tension emanating
from his wife, Gabriel pushed off the wall and came towards her. He set aside his
brandy and cocked a hip against her vanity. “You’re missing the point, darling.
Rhys
never
went out of his way for
any
woman. Ever.”

“That doesn’t make him any less
of a scoundrel!” she snapped.

Gabriel raised a brow at her.
“You used to think that I was a scoundrel,” he pointed out dryly.

At that, she crossed her arms
under her breasts and gave him a dirty look. “I still do.”

“You are over-reacting. In all
honesty, Danielle might be good for Rhys.”

At that she jolted to her feet
and began to pace the length of the chamber energetically. Gabriel knew her
stillness wouldn’t last long. “I know that
she
would be good for
him
,”
she ranted furiously. “Danielle could convert the Devil to Catholicism! What
concerns me is whether
he
is good for
her
! The things they say
about him-”

“You’re being unfair, Victoria.
If you will recall, both you and I had
things
said about us.”

She halted mid-stride. “I knew
that she had met someone but I had
no
idea… Oh, I must warn her!”

Gabriel stalked towards her and
wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him. “Victoria, stick
your nose out of it for a change,” he warned gently. “Let’s see what happens
first before you start with all your warnings. Believe me, this is not the Rhys
you saw all those years ago.”

She toyed absently with his loose
cravat and mumbled, “Fine. I won’t say anything unless Dani does. But just you
so know, I
don’t
like it. Not one bit.”

“I know.” He kissed the tip of
her nose. “But you’ll learn to live with it.”

Rhys didn’t return to Falmouth
immediately after the masque. Instead he located a bottle of strong spirits and
spent well over three hours atop a rock looking over the churning waters of the
ocean miles below him.

The cold wind was invitingly
refreshing as it served to clarify some of his more confusing thoughts as,
paradoxically, the liquor served to cloud them more.

Eventually he became so
inebriated and thoughtless he felt that the only way in which to untangle the
knot of feelings building within him was if he actually got to see the cause of
them. Later he would come to realise his actions as idiotic, but that didn’t
stop his drunken body from moving inexorably towards the little cottage atop
the hill in the quiet village of Falmouth.

Due to his dark attire and his
natural tendency to embrace the shadows, he was nigh invisible as he entered
the small, well-kempt garden. The smell of roses was pungent as he stood amid
the bushes, in the shadow of the huge oak, and stared up at her window. A small
light was coming from the depths of her room and much to his surprise she was
awake and in plain sight.

His heart lurched violently. She
leaned on the windowsill and was looking plaintively at the star-filled night
sky. Although most of her features were indistinguishable, Rhys sensed that her
mood was contemplative and melancholy. Her long dark hair cascaded around her
face, wisps caught and teased by the wind.

The sight of her made him
inexplicably euphoric. Even though he had seen her a few hours ago at the ball,
he found that in the subsequent hours that followed he had yearned to see her
again, to be in her presence, to see her smile and hear her voice, to
smell
her. They were dangerous, provoking feelings and he had no right to them or any
use for them. He’d never been compelled to feel affection for any other woman
before Danielle and he resented the fact that she could so easily evoke them in
him. It was irksome and irrational, everything Rhys was not.

What right did he have to imagine
a future with her? She was everything that was warm and lovely. As soon as she
saw the scars… his mind balked. He didn’t like to think about what would happen
when she saw them. He
couldn’t
think about what she would do when she
saw them.

Even if by some miracle she
wasn’t repulsed by his face, there was still the impact that he would have on
her life. He couldn’t go out in public the way he was. He couldn’t attend
parties or plays or even go for a ride. A girl like Danielle… well, she’d
expect a husband to be able to accompany her on various socialisations. He
couldn’t expect her to accept anything less. He couldn’t contain all that
warmth to himself. She was something to be shared with the world, not kept
hidden away in a cold castle with an equally cold man.

Despite all this, he couldn’t
bring himself to turn away from her until she finally went to bed.

The Hawthorne country estate was
massive.

It was a great, imposing stone
structure that loomed elegantly over a modest-sized body of water. The
manicured landscape was dotted with natural vegetation and forest, save for the
well-tended gardens surrounding the house.

Dani had never had the privilege
to visit something so immense before. She had been quite content with her life
of simple means and had never wanted for anything. The ducal estate she found
quite ostentatious and intimidating and she couldn’t quite come to imagine
herself ever feeling comfortable if she were to live in one.

“Do you visit here often?” she
asked Victoria who was viciously attacking a rose bush that was in dire need of
some pruning.

The other woman stopped abruptly,
dabbed some sweat from her brow and frowned thoughtfully at Dani. “No,” she
answered. “As you know, the ducal seat is in Surrey so Gabriel has to tend to
business there most of the time. And in London. I didn’t even know this place
existed until we were married.” She resumed her massacre.

Dani winced as a bright bloom
dropped to the grass, scattering a few petals. She picked it up gingerly,
careful to avoid the thorns, and admired its beauty. “Are you sure you know
what you are doing?” she asked wryly.

“No,” Victoria puffed, “but I
just couldn’t stand the look of them so unruly and right in front of the
entrance, too. Besides, the gardener is busy with the hedges today and didn’t
even want to hear me out about the roses…”

Dani could just imagine the poor
man’s horror when he returned later in the day to find his beautiful bushes
mangled by an over-energetic Lady.

“What did Gabriel have to say
about this?”

Vicky set the sharp tool she was
using aside and wiped her hands on the sides of her thighs, seemingly finished
with her task.

Thank God.

“He doesn’t know,” she replied
gaily. “He complains if I do anything remotely physical and unladylike. Gives
me quite the headache, that does, so I simply don’t tell him what I’m about to
do.”

“And here I thought marriage was
about openness and trust,” Dani murmured dryly.

Victoria gave her a dirty look.
“I’m going to pretend that you’re not criticising me and invite you inside for
tea.”

Smiling, Dani followed her friend
inside the impressive house and into one of the many drawing rooms. This one
was more of the feminine variety than the one she had been shown to that
morning. Light draping emitted a warm amount of sunlight into the large room
and provided a view of the blooming gardens outside. Due to the pink colouring
of the furniture, Dani found it hard to imagine Gabriel ever stepping foot in
here. Or Rhys for that matter.

Drat.

He never failed to be far from
her thoughts.