Lord Beast (17 page)

“The hood, Rhys,” she told him
dryly, staring at the offending cloak grumpily. “I’ll willingly, er… I’ll… I
will-”

“Succumb to me?” he provided, his
voice dripping with patient humour.

Her cheeks flamed. “Yes,” she
concurred, none to happily. “But only if you
burn
that cloak.”

“That’s just irrational,” Rhys
chuckled. “I’m not going to burn my cloak.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“How did you get that from what I
just said? The mind boggles.”

Dani looked at him challengingly.
“Why don’t you want to show me your face, Rhys?” she demanded in a stern voice.

“You won’t like what you see,” he
told her roughly, “trust me.”

She sighed impatiently. “I think
you’re scared that I
will
like what I see.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will.”

“Danielle, this is ridiculous.”

“I agree fervently.” She crossed
her arms over her chest and gave him a slightly stern, slightly petulant look.
“You think you know what I will think, but you’re wrong. You’re just afraid to
trust me, or anyone for that matter, and that’s the saddest thing of all.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead,
his response seemed to involve cramming little sandwiches into his mouth two at
a time. At least, she supposed, he didn’t seem inclined to shout at her
anymore. Dani could notch that up as a point for her.

“Fine, ignore me,” she told him
childishly, “but if you think that I’m going to let this go-”

He simply rose to his feet and
began to walk away, leaving Danielle sitting there with her mouth open. How
dare he?

She followed suit as quickly as
her back would allow her and skidded after him, dogging his heels. “You’re leaving?”
she asked him angrily. “Without a goodbye or a thank you, seeing as you ate
all
the sandwiches!”

“I am leaving,” he confirmed
succinctly.

They cleared the property of the
cottage and began to walk rather fast down the gravel road leading toward Falmouth
Castle, Dani one step behind him.

“Why? What’s the rush? Why won’t
you tell me why you won’t remove your cloak?”

He didn’t answer immediately but
continued to walk at a brisk pace. His strides were long and purposeful and
Dani found herself struggling to keep up. “Go home, Danielle,” he said at last.

It was not the response she was
looking for. “You are impossible!” she told him furiously. “Why won’t you tell
me?”

He stopped abruptly and turned to
her so suddenly she almost collided into his broad chest.

“And then what?” he asked
savagely. “What, Danielle? Do you expect me to show you?” Dani suspected he was
physically restraining himself from shaking her. “And then what if I do? You’re
compromised. We’ll have to marry-”

“No-”

“Yes, Danielle, we will.”

She glared up at him
thunderously, hurt and humiliated. “Is the thought of marrying me so
nauseating?” Dani hissed, infuriated.

“That’s not what I said,” he
barked. “It’s not about you!”

“I fail to see the problem then,”
she told him bitterly. “It’s all right, you know. I wouldn’t expect you to
marry me. I don’t expect you to. I’m perfectly happy to be a spinster for the
remainder of my life.”

“You’re feeling sorry for
yourself and I refuse to play along.”

She gave him a hurt look. “Am I
not allowed to feel sorry for myself?”

“It’s unbecoming.”

Dani balked. “What about you?”
she retaliated. “Isolating yourself from your friends just because of an
accident? You’ve been feeling sorry for yourself for five years!”

“For me it is acceptable,” he
said sharply. “You… God, I’m about to make an idiot of myself.”

“Go on.”

He sighed raggedly. “You needn’t
feel sorry for yourself,” he told her sourly. “As I have made it potently clear
today, I want you beyond all clear and rational reasoning.”

“Oh.”

“Be assured, it won’t happen
again.”

She felt crestfallen at his words
but at the same time a little euphoric. Hadn’t he just admitted to being unable
to think straight around her? That must be a good thing.

A breath of wind picked up and
cooled her skin, teasing the edges of his cloak promisingly. She suddenly
wished a large gust would blow it from his face but he seemed to have it so
secured and pulled so low, nothing could remove it but his own will. She would
just have to be patient. After all, he had visited her of his own prerogative
and had admitted on several occasions that he wanted her. It was a start and
Dani could accept it for what it was.

 Contemplatively, she turned her
head and stared at the looming spires of Falmouth. The castle seemed to be
glaring ominously at the churning mass of greyish ocean. Ensconced by a
protective ring of forest, Falmouth seemed isolated and formidable, its towers
stretching into the sky and the dark walls and crenelated parapets catching and
absorbing the sunlight as if thirsty for its warmth. Despite its hostility and
apparent undesirability, Dani was coming to love that castle. It represented
something deep and blooming and wonderful, warm inside where all contentment
hid, waiting to be released.

“When will I see you again?” she
asked him.

She felt him shrug from beside
her. “When do you want to see me?”

Dani turned to him hopefully.
“Tonight?”

“Danielle…”

An annoyed breath flew from her
lips and she plunked her hands on her waist. “Tomorrow, then?”

“I’ll send word.”

She gave him a grin.

“But I’m not making any
promises,” he added irritably.

“Good heavens, of course not,”
Dani said with mock gravity. “Then you might as well come out and say right to
my face that you actually
like
me.”

“Preposterous.”

“Oh, you say that now but I know
you do,” she teased.

“I
like
that dress,” he
growled, taking a step closer to her, “and the way it makes your-”

“-eyes stand out?” Dani finished
for him, her lips quivering with an effort to hide a smile. “Why, thank you for
saying so.”

“That’s not what I was going to
say.”

“Let’s pretend it was, shall we?”
She bit her bottom lip. “It’s so much more romantic that way.”

“We are not courting.”

Her eyes were innocently wide and
intuitive as she stared into his hood. “Of course not, my lord.”

On his return to Falmouth Castle,
Rhys had to practically wade through the enormous piles of correspondence and
invites that had been arriving in shiploads since yesterday. Grayson had taken
to discarding the envelopes and letters in the entranceway in blatant pursuit of
annoying his employer. He claimed it was easier just to leave them there as
they came rather than go through the pains of burning them or bothering to
bring them up to his study. Rhys knew better, though. It was the butler’s sole
purpose in life to make Rhys as ornery as could be.

“Lord Sinclair is here,” Grayson
told him as soon as he pushed his way through to the grand staircase. “He’s
enquiring about the liquor cabinet.”

“Did you inform him that my own
butler has turned mutinous?” Rhys grumbled acidly, kicking at a piece of
parchment that had stuck to his boot.

Grayson looked at him as if he
had no idea what Rhys was talking about.

“Where is he, Grayson?” Rhys
demanded.

“The study, my lord, trying to
pick the lock on the cabinet.”

Rhys didn’t bother thanking
Grayson. The less time one spent conversing with that man the better.

Gabriel had procured himself a
glass of brandy by the time Rhys arrived in the study and was thoroughly
absorbed in staring out a window that looked towards Dani’s cottage atop the
Falmouth village’s hill. It was probably the reason why he had spent so much
time in this particular room of late- the view.

“Making yourself at home, I see,”
Rhys said dryly, causing the other man to turn and plaster him with a dry
smile.

“Naturally,” Gabriel told him,
lifting his glass in a somewhat mocking salute. “Good stuff, this.”

“Dare I ask how the devil you
managed to pick that lock?” Rhys grumbled. “And why would you need to have ever
acquired such a skill?”

Gabriel grinned crookedly before
setting his glass of amber liquid down on Rhys’s desk. “Once had a mistress who
adopted the bothersome habit of barricading herself in her room when I didn’t
bring her flowers,” he explained. “After a few tries at the lock with a hair
pin, I got it right.”

Rhys snorted disparagingly. “I’m
surprised more women didn’t take her lead.”

“Strangely, the wife locks me out
whenever I
do
bring her flowers,” Gabriel said speculatively.

“Why?”

“She believes that I’ve done
something wrong.”

Rhys chuckled and reached for the
decanter of brandy Gabriel had pillaged from his cabinet. “What are you doing
here, Sinclair?”

“Can a friend not call on another
friend?”

Rhys let a thick silence settle
between them.

“Alright,” Gabriel admitted
cheerfully, “there is a greater purpose for my visit but I’m not sure you’re
going to like it.”

Rhys groaned. It had been a
trying day and now this. Dreading what was about to foul his already tapering
mood, Rhys said, “Christ. Get it over with then.”

Gabriel was grinning, however,
when he reached into the pocket of his immaculately tailored coat and extracted
an elaborate little box. This was placed heavily next to his glass of brandy on
the desk and Rhys stared at it as if it were a deadly serpent, poised for
attack.

“No,” he stated emphatically, “I
won’t have it. Take it away.”

“Just hear me out-”

“You have a lot of nerve-”

“For God’s sake,” Gabriel said
forcefully, his green eyes flashing with annoyance and impatience, “will you
listen to yourself? This,” he gestured to the box, “means nothing. Will you
stop being such a coward and just look at it?”

Rhys took a deep breath and
considered the box on his desk. His heart clenched in his chest and he forced
himself to act reasonably. It wasn’t as if Gabriel was forcing him down the
altar. No, that wasn’t the case at all. But it was a clear enough suggestion, a
shove in the direction Gabriel thought Rhys should take.

Using his silence as incentive,
Gabriel stepped forward and quickly flipped the neat golden latch on the box so
that it was unclasped. With a flick of his finger, the lid fell open. Centred
on a bed of smooth creamy velvet was a ring- an engagement ring- encrusted with
diamonds and sapphires of the finest cut.

“It belonged to my
great-grandmother,” Gabriel explained. “By the time it came to my mother’s
engagement, the old bat was half-mad and lost it. I gave Victoria my mother’s
ring and this… well, I didn’t want it to collect dust. We both decided that it
would be an honour if the ring remained in the Ashcroft family.”

“This is absurd,” Rhys rasped.
“Who is supposed to wear that?”

Gabriel gave him a very
condescending look. “You really have to ask that? I thought it would have been
evident by now.”

“Danielle?”

“
Not
that we have any
particular favourites for the bidding,” Gabriel said dryly, “but, yes, she is
the preferable candidate.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Rhys
interjected angrily. “Firstly, this is too much to accept-”

“Consider it a loan,” Gabriel
told him breezily. “Pay me for it if you like.”

Rhys gave him a dark look, even
though he knew Gabriel would not be able to detect it. “Secondly,” he
continued, “she would never accept.”

“Oh, I think she would.”

Ignoring that, Rhys finished with
his third and most important point. “Thirdly, I do
not
intend on
marrying the little chit.”

Gabriel cocked an annoyingly
arrogant brow. “Really? You’re certainly acting like you do.”

“What
exactly
do you
mean?” Rhys asked threateningly.

“You really expect me to believe
that you haven’t done anything to compromise that girl’s reputation?”

If there wasn’t a hood covering his
face, Gabriel would have witnessed the first ever blush to steal across Rhys
Ashcroft’s cheeks. For if anyone knew Rhys, it was Gabriel. They had drunk,
gambled and whored together when Rhys had first come to London, sculpting the
ultimate rakish reputations. It was no surprise that Gabriel had decided upon
the worst sort of conclusion from Rhys’s enamoured behaviour with Danielle.

“And if I haven’t?” Rhys
protested lamely, knowing full well that the liberties he had taken with
Danielle were inexcusable. Any other debutante at any other time and he would
have either been forced to marry her or face an irate father down the barrel of
a pistol at noon.