Lord Beast (31 page)

Grayson, unbelievably, showed
George to Rhys’s study and ushered the man inside. He ambled slowly towards the
large, dark desk as he scrutinised all the various displays and shelves within
the study with an experienced eye. When George finally reached Rhys’s desk, he
sniffed the air thoughtfully before announcing, “You’re foxed.”

“You’re correct,” Rhys retorted,
finding his tongue decidedly thick nestled within his mouth. Definitely needed
some more brandy to loosen it up. He reached for the decanter and shook it in
George’s direction. “May I offer?”

There was a look of stern
disapproval on George’s countenance having been a man never to turn to an
alcoholic vice in all his life. It was there but an imperceptible moment before
it disappeared and he relented with a wave of his hand. “You’d best pour
yourself a glass,” he told Rhys, “you’re going to need it when you hear what
I’ve got to say.”

Rhys sloshed the amber liquid
into the tumbler on his desk, missing much of the glass, before asking, “You’ve
come to speak about Dani.”

“Yes,” George said slowly.

“You’ve come to tell me off.”

George gave him a dark glance.
“We can save that for later,” he told him sharply. “Rhys, it is not your
behaviour that brings me here today, which I am told has been quite deplorable
and worthy of some form of reprimand. Regardless, that is not my reason for
visiting.”

Rhys swallowed a hefty amount of
brandy and dropped the glass back onto the desk. “What exactly could be the
problem then?”

George sighed shakily, rubbing
the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb as if quelling the
stirrings of a headache. “There’s been an accident,” he began in a tense voice
but before he could continue, Rhys had bolted from his chair and slammed his
hands on the desk, all insobriety vanished from his demeanour.

“Danielle?” he growled harshly.

George paused and held out a hand
to calm the man who was now clearly beyond all rational comprehension. “Now,
bear in mind I haven’t seen her since-”

“
What happened?”

The raw agony in his voice caused
George to go suddenly quiet, knowing well the sound of anguish and guilt in a
man. He had, after all, been working with people who broke the law for most of
his life. He was able to detect when they were sincere, when they were not to
be trusted, and when they truly regretted an action that may have caused
another person harm, be it a murder or an accident. Rhys Ashcroft sounded like
that person.

“The carriage broke an axle,”
George explained. “Our only concern is her back-”

“
Where
?”

“The Sinclair’s but be
reasonable. I only received the missive a few-” George didn’t bother finishing
his sentence. Rhys was already out of the study.

Having never been privy to the
emotion of love before, the panic that Rhys felt when he had heard that Dani
had been injured had been suffocating, all-consuming, and incredibly painful,
so much so that the mere thought that she had died, that her laughter would
never reach his ears again or his eyes would never devour her beautiful smile,
clamped his heart with such intense agony he surely thought
he
would die
from it.

Like a man possessed, he rode
flat out towards Hawthorne and burst into the house wildly, causing several
footmen and maids to skittle nervously out of his path, thus providing him with
no informants to tell him about the whereabouts of his wife. “Gabriel!” Rhys
bellowed at the bottom of the stairs, hoping his voice would carry throughout
the house.

As soon as the words were out,
Gabriel appeared at the top of the stairs. “I say, a wild boar would make less-”

In three bounding leaps, Rhys had
climbed the stairs, grabbed the other man’s shoulders, and forcibly shook him.
“Where is she?” he ground out.

“Guest quarters,” Gabriel
provided, “but, Rhys-” His words died with a sigh as Rhys had already bolted
down the passage, not bothering to hear out the rest of Gabriel’s words.

He rounded a corner and spotted
Victoria coming out a room followed by a middle-aged man carrying a leather
case and Rhys’s mouth went dry.

Her eyes widened when she caught
sight of him. “That was fast,” she murmured, surprised.

“Dani,” was all he managed to
croak out.

“Resting,” the middle-aged man
said emphatically, setting his case down and rubbing his hands with a
handkerchief that he pulled out of the pocket of his trousers. “It is best that
she stays that way.”

“I am her husband-” Victoria
interrupted Rhys’s short speech with an indelicate little snort and when he
gave her a glower she covered her mouth and gave him a slight indication with
her hand that he should continue. “I am her husband,” he ground out, “I should
be granted access-”

“Lord Ashcroft,” the man said
patiently but sternly, “your wife has been through a tremendous amount of pain.
The impact sustained to her back could very well have paralysed her-”

“But she’s not?”

Rhys was suddenly on the
receiving end of a very caustic look. “No, she’s not, but she came damn close
to it, maybe even death. She must rest and for the next week she is not to move
from this room and that bed. I have given her a substantial dose of laudanum to
relieve some of the pain and she is in no state to communicate-”

“I must see her,” Rhys said
raggedly and something about his face made the physician hesitate. As if he
were gagging on the word, Rhys choked out, “Please.”

At that, the man’s shoulders drooped
and he gestured to the door behind him. “Very well, but I must implore you to
let her rest.”

Rhys nodded and quietly opened
the bedroom door, the sight he was presented with filling his body with dread.

She was lying on the bed, sheets
pulled up to her chin but, God, she was pale. Fear, guilt, anguish viciously
spiralled through his body and his heart beat with painful agony in his chest.
He had caused this. This was
his
fault…

Numbly, he dropped to his knees
at her bedside, studying her beloved face in an anguished haze and with an
achingly tender gesture, he stroked a lock of damp hair off her brow, worried
at how cold her skin felt to his fingertips.

“Dani,” he croaked, his throat
constricting painfully. Reaching under the sheets of the bed, he found her
clammy hand and laced his fingers through hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered
brokenly, then proceeded to murmur it about a dozen more times, bowing his head
so that his lips touched the cool skin of her brow. “I was such an ass. I’ll
make it up to you, I promise. If you just promise to be alright, I’ll promise
to spend the rest of our lives making you feel the most loved woman-”

“Mmm,” she muttered, a dreamy
smile on her lips. Rhys leaned back and saw that despite her barely audible sounds,
her eyes were closed. “That’ll be nice.”

“I’m so sorry, Dani.”

Her eyes fluttered open and
regarded him hazily, a foolish grin on her face. “Good,” she mumbled, “now tell
me you love me.”

He lowered his lips to her brow
again, smiling weakly, and whispered, “I love you. I love you so God-damned
much…”

A gentle snore was his response.

For two days Dani was only
vaguely aware of being in an agonizing amount of pain and that something was
very wrong with her back. Thankfully, due to the laudanum, she was only lucid
of this fact for fleeting moments between consciousness, so much so that she
had trouble distinguishing between her dreams or reality. She hoped they were
reality because then Rhys was actually at her side, kissing her face, holding
her hand, and murmuring things she couldn’t stand to think about just in case
it actually was her subconscious playing severely cruel tricks.

By the time she drifted fully
awake on the second day after the accident, the effects of the laudanum had
worn off enough to determine that this was
not
a dream and her back was
in excruciating pain, but at least her mind was multitudinously clearer.

Immediately, she identified the
man beside her and her heart began to flutter with hope that everything she had
thought was a dream was not, and that he had actually said those lovely,
wonderful words to her, over and over and over. Rhys was sprawled in a chair
that he’d pushed to the side of her bed, fast asleep. His head was turned to
the side and his wide chest rose and fell with even breaths. His face was pale
and drawn and even now, in sleep, there were lines of worry creasing his brow
and dark rings under his eyes.

Dani allowed herself to smile,
sure now that he wouldn’t be the idiot he had been and that he had been here
throughout, holding her hand and… Oh, how she wished she could wake him. Would
it be cruel if she threw a pillow at him? But then how would she explain
herself? Hmm. She doubted whether she could muster the strength to throw a
pillow at him anyway. Briefly, she considered sitting up but her back must have
read her thoughts and reminded her of the situation with a painful kick of
agony.

She sighed.

Rhys’s head snapped up, a wild
look in his amber eyes. “You’re awake,” he breathed, coming out of the chair
and sitting on the edge of her bed.

“It would seem so,” she returned
dryly, incoherently pleased when he reached for her hand.

“How are you feeling?”

“Painful, but I think... I think
I’ll be alright.”

His eyes searched her face
intently and a small smile twitched his lips. He raised his hand and touched a
part of her cheek that suddenly felt tight and tender. “You’re going to have a
scar there now,” he told her, softly drawing his finger along a region between
her ear and jaw. “A large splinter, I believe. It’s small, but still.”

“Hmm. I might have to borrow one
of your cloaks.”

He chuckled, bringing his lips
down on hers gently. “Impertinent wench.”

“Did you mean those things you
said?”

He gave her an innocently blank
look. “Impertinent wench? Why yes-”

“Rhys, that’s very cruel, you
know, teasing an invalid. It should be a crime.”

His shoulders shaking with
suppressed laughter, he brushed his lips against hers slowly, tenderly. “I
meant every last word, Danielle,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, for everything. I
was an ass, a complete-”

“Idiot,” she finished for him
earning her a peeved look.

“Yes. I was wrong. I was wrong
first by accusing you of those dreadful things. It was the doing of that
woman-”

She frowned, puzzled. “What
woman?”

“Pennyworth. Pennywill? I’m not
sure I can recall.”

“Patricia Pennyworth? What has
she to do with any of this?”

How Dani knew the woman was a
puzzle in itself and Rhys found himself pulling away from her slightly. “It
matters not. The woman said something that may have caused me to believe that
you would have deceived me into marrying you. It has little relevance now though.”

“That-” Angrily, she turned her
head and glared out the window on the other side of the room. “She is a
despicable woman. I had a bad feeling about her. Do you know, I’m beginning to
believe she didn’t want you to marry?”

“Is it important now? I was an idiot
to even consider her words, Dani.”

She smiled at him tentatively.
“You’re right. Patricia Pennyworth isn’t worth a moment more of our thoughts.
Now, what were you saying? I believe you were in the middle of a heartfelt
apology.”

God, he loved her. Despite all he
had put her through, all the pain and heartache, she could still tease him and
unconsciously let him know that she had already and wholly forgiven him, that
the past was just a plume of smoke disappearing into the sky and immersing
invisibly with the clouds. He realised now that none of it was important: not
the accident, not the scars nor the vindictiveness of the woman who had planted
the doubt in his mind. All that mattered was Dani and that she was his, in
every way possible, and she was willing to put aside everything he had done to
wrong her and start afresh. It was an incredibly revitalising feeling and he
had to smother the urge to wrap her in his arms and twirl her about the room.
“I thought I was protecting you from myself,” he continued, leaning close to
her again. “I thought I had hurt you, that I would keep on doing so. I didn’t
want to hurt you anymore. And then…”

She smiled against his lips. “Did
you realise that you’re the only one who could protect me, hmmm?”

“A little. Let’s just say that as
soon as you’re better, I’m chaining you to my side.”

“A very wise idea,” she grinned.
“In fact, possibly the cleverest thing to have been uttered from your lips.”

“What about my proposal?”

She looked thoughtful for a
moment. “Alright, that too.”

She lifted her mouth for his kiss
just as Victoria barged into the room. “Oh, don’t mean to disrupt but I heard
voices so I assumed you were awake,” she trilled happily, coming to stand at
the foot of the bed and holding something that looked disturbingly like a very
large corset. “I’m so glad you’re awake. Poor Rhys hasn’t moved from that chair
in three days.”