Lord Beast (18 page)

“We both know that you have,”
Gabriel told him caustically. “Even if you hadn’t, you should still consider
the possibility that Danielle would make you, well, happy. God knows this
castle could do with a woman’s touch.”

Rhys briefly and critically
examined the room around him. “There is nothing wrong with this place.”

“You only say that now because
you have not experienced what the presence of a woman can do to a place.”

“Do you realise how ridiculous
you sound?”

Gabriel’s smile was lop-sided
with introspection. “Perhaps,” he said wryly, “and I look forward to the day
that I can mock you for sounding similar.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time.”

“Maybe.” Gabriel shrugged, picked
up the box, and put if firmly in Rhys’s palm. “Think about it. That’s all I’m
saying. You might find you could come to like the idea.”

Rhys did think about it.

He thought about it all
God-damned night.

Danielle Carmichael had not been
far from his mind since the day she had stuck her snooping little foot in
Falmouth, but the thought of her recently had been even more invasive and
persistent. He hadn’t even bothered retiring for the evening, preferring the
view offered to him from the window of his study and the occasional glass of
port or brandy.

The box… the ring… Curse Gabriel
for giving it to him. Rhys was tortured with what if’s and maybe’s,
alternatives to the solitary world he had created for himself and had been
quite content with until… until Danielle. The thought that all this, all of
Danielle, might go away one day or change hadn’t yet occurred to him. If it did
all just disappear… well, he sensed that he would yearn for something. If he
were honest with himself, and he wasn’t quite yet ready to be, he would realise
that he didn’t want Danielle to go away, to disappear as if she had never
existed in his life in the first place. She was an amusing little morsel of warmth,
kindness, and levity and (oh, God) he
liked
her. He admired her
perseverance, her determination to thaw his heart, to make him laugh. He
admired her ability to stand her ground when most grown men would run for cover
at his palpable bursts of fury. He admired her wit, her candour…

Rhys groaned and dropped his head
into his hands, elbows propped against the surface of his desk. It was bad
enough he had to constantly curb the riotous way his body behaved at the sight
of her, but now that he actually found her personality appealing?

The thought caused a shudder to
unfold through his body.

It was madness. He had been
happy
…
well, maybe not happy, but at least content with his privacy at Falmouth. From
an early age, Rhys had learnt to place little dependency on the people close to
him. Having a father who abandoned both mother and child, and a mother who was
abusively cold and distant until the day she died, he adapted quickly to
thriving solely on his own independence. He was cruel and calculating,
insusceptible to human nuances that contributed to the wrong decisions made by
other men. At the same time he had learnt that one didn’t need love or
affection to survive, having received neither from either father or mother.

His was an unhappy childhood,
yes, but as soon as his mother died so did his obligations to her. Rhys had
effortlessly acquired a position as cabin boy on the
Buxom Duchess
and
found a deep-rooted admiration for the ocean. Here, he mastered the trade niche
with casual grace and artless efficiency. Brutally intelligent, he soon began
to pick up enough skill to form his own company and a steady, sizeable profit
began to fill his bank accounts. 

When his father died and he was
informed that he was to resume his duties as the earl of Falmouth, instead of
balking at the opportunity, Rhys embraced it. He used the title to procure
associations with the more notorious businessmen in London and further
increased the size of his profits. When he had inherited the title, his father
had squandered a small fortune on women and drink, leaving the Ashcroft name
penniless. Rhys willingly sold the many properties his father owned to his
debtors, keeping only Falmouth as he was told his father never had any interest
in the castle and that it overlooked the tumultuous ocean.  

Even his time in London had been
isolated, finding even less incentive to trust individuals than in his troubled
youth. The only person who he had allowed himself to trust had been Gabriel
Sinclair, but other than that he kept society at arm’s length. And after the
accident even Gabriel had not been able to plough through Rhys’s icy aloofness.
He had recoiled from society then, away from the speculation and the rumours,
and had preferred that people considered him deceased. Oh, he had been made
aware of the rumours, that his vanity and his conceited arrogance had been his
downfall in the end and that by cutting one, vindictive girl she had been
behind the cause of the carriage pitching into a ditch. He didn’t believe it as
he’d been carelessly reckless that evening, so sure in his pomposity that he
was untouchable, and had pushed the driver with all haste to his assignation.
They had hit an uneven rut in the road and the carriage had swerved, the wheel
and the axle breaking in the process. It was Fate that dealt him his scars, not
the conniving actions of a revengeful debutante and even if it was, there was
very little evidence to prove it. So he hadn’t dwelt on the possibilities,
didn’t care for the rumours, and simply adapted. Alone. What had been done was
unavoidable and he merely continued to survive, recluse as he was, locked away
in a solitary castle with only the walls and rib arches for company.

And now…
Danielle
.

He’d rejected woman for less- a
crooked tooth, a hair out of place, a short neck, abnormally long fingers, a
freckle
(now he
loved
freckles)- but he couldn’t seem to rid himself of this
urgent need for her.

Pointless as it was because once
she saw his face she would shy away from him forever, he could not seem to
resist the urge to close the distance between them whenever they were together,
to touch her and revel in her scent. It was pure and loathsome torture.

He
could
take the chance,
remove the cloak… but what then?

The
pity.

The
repugnance.

He couldn’t bear it. It would be
too much to endure, driving him mad- that ultimate rejection.

And if she didn’t?

If, by some inconceivable
possibility, she did not find him repulsive, did not pity him his scars, and,
miraculously, still feel inclined to want him, what then?

He would take her to bed.

He would have to marry her then.
Rhys was not so conceited and obnoxious to think that one could treat a girl
like Danielle Carmichael as such and
not
marry her.

Marrying her, he could take her
to bed as often as he liked.

Horrible thought, that. He would
have to drench himself in the frigid rain outside just to cure the
insurmountable bout of lust that rampaged through his body.

Danielle… in his bed… forever.
Mmm, he might just be able to adapt to the concept. So long as she were content
to stay there. No parties, no soirées, no garden luncheons… Rhys doubted very
much that she would be content with a boring, eventless life here at Falmouth.
A girl like Danielle couldn’t be kept locked in a castle. She needed to be
shared with the world, adored by everyone.

Still, all these thoughts were
just frivolous fantasies of the mind. Danielle would not see past his scars. It
would not even get as far as his bed. He was just torturing himself in thinking
so.

A niggling, despicable voice at
the back of his mind said,
But you could show her. Why not? You’ve got
nothing to lose.

Rhys snorted. His dignity was at
stake. That, and his pride. Emotional failure and turmoil were also on the
table and he’d probably need another five years away from humanity just to get
over the memory of the encounter.

But she might like what she sees.

Nobody liked what they saw.

His fingers flexed through his
hair, tautly pulling at his scalp, hoping the pain would detract from his more
bothersome thoughts.

It was that ring’s fault. It had
put nonsensical ideals into his mind. Rhys was unused to handling such fanciful
dilemmas. Being of the rational-minded variety, he preferred to attack a
problem with cold judiciousness and calculation, devising an unerringly concise
solution.

For this particular problem,
there was no unerringly concise solution.

It was the least rational Rhys
had ever been in his entire life.

“Coffee, my lord?”

Instinctively, Rhys rectified the
hood that had fallen back slightly when he had dropped his head into his hands
and snapped his head up at his butler’s entrance.

“What time is it?” he asked
suddenly, glancing out the windows and belatedly noting that the sky was
lightening somewhat despite the heavy-looking, dark clouds.

“Almost six. Have you failed to
find your way to the master bedroom again?” Grayson drawled sardonically.

Feeling very little desire to
argue with the man at this hour (besides the fact that it was he who was
carrying the service that bore the only source of fresh, hot coffee); Rhys
gestured for Grayson to serve the brew.

“No callers so far?” Rhys asked
dryly, eagerly awaiting the moment Grayson finished serving his coffee. The
butler was taking an agonizingly slow time to pour.

“They usually only start at about
eight.” The cup and saucer were set before Rhys, but not before Grayson had
thoroughly removed every speck of tiny lint from the surface where the crockery
would sit on the desk. “Are you taking today, my lord?”

“No,” he said sharply. “Can’t we
just put a sign on the door that tells people to go away
?”

“It would be much too
scandalous,” Grayson said, beginning to collect the debris that remained from
the night. Deliberately, and loudly, he set the decanter of brandy back inside
the liquor cabinet, as well as the bottle of port Rhys had opened, and relocked
it, pocketing the key. Rhys sighed despondently.

“Yes,” he said forlornly, “but so
much more convenient.”

“I will tell them what I told
them yesterday- that you are not taking.” Grayson considered Rhys from his
superior height and appeared to enjoy the advantage. “Is there anyone whom you
would like to see?”

Rhys thought about it for a
moment, the only name sticking out in his mind being Danielle. Oh, that’s
right. He was to send her word… “Miss Carmichael,” he said at length, sliding a
piece of paper towards him at the same time he picked out one of his pens,
quickly scribbling a brief note and handing it to Grayson. “Ensure that she
receives this.”

“You want me to walk all the way
to the cottage?” Grayson asked drolly.

“No, I want you to
run
.”

By the time Dani received the
note; she had already had breakfast and was courageously taking the required
time out of her day to embroider with her aunt. It was an atrocious piece of
work on her part and if she ventured to show Fiona, the other woman would
probably be ashamed of her. The rose that Dani had been working on for two
weeks vividly resembled some ill-grown weed with drops of blood interspersed
along one leaf. How on earth people managed to make their stitching so neat was
beyond her.

So when a servant brought the
note inside to them, Dani was immensely relieved to abandon the frame on the
cushion beside her and read the missive.

“Who’s it from?” Fiona asked,
head bent towards her
flawless
embroidery- a dove, no less.

Dani wouldn’t be surprised if
Fiona took it upon herself to recreate, using embroidery as her medium, the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

“The earl of Falmouth,” Dani
grinned, unable to help it if she sounded a bit dreamy.

Fiona snorted indelicately. “He’s
not the earl, Danielle. I told you he was a tramp, another one. Don’t be
deceived-”

“Aunt, he
is
the earl and
he’s invited me to the castle. May I go?”

 Fiona looked dubious and
perplexed. “Just who is going to chaperone you?” she asked.

“I can send word to Victoria and
she could meet me there. I know she’ll be available. Please, may I go?”

“You say he is indeed the earl?”

“Yes,
” Dani whined impatiently,
sending wide, imploring eyes in her aunt’s direction.

“Hmm.” The older woman pursed her
lips and frowned, considering the matter carefully. “If he is indeed the earl,
you are aware of the reputation that surrounds him?”

“Yes,” Dani whined again, “but
Victoria is
very
good-”

“Now, now, no need to work
yourself up about it. I’ll let you go today but I feel I must speak to your
uncle about it further. I trust nothing untoward has happened so far that may
cause… urm… alarm?”