Lord Beast (32 page)

Rhys sighed and reluctantly sat
up and Dani feared that he might have been considering just ignoring Victoria
to continue with the kiss he had been just about to give her. “What,” Dani
asked, eyeing the uncomfortable device Victoria was holding, “is
that
?”

Vicky looked down at her hands,
beamed, and held the offending contraption up to Dani. “It’s a brace!” she
exclaimed happily. “Doctor Hodges designed it for you. It’s to help support
your back.”

“It looks like he just found an
old corset,” Dani mumbled grumpily.

“It’s not,” retorted Vicky and
turned to Rhys hopefully. “Does it look like a corset to you?”

Rhys merely threw her an
exceedingly caustic look and the other woman faltered, puckering her lips
sulkily. “Oh, you don’t have to look at me like
that
,” she whined
petulantly. “I’ll just leave you two alone then.” With deliberate slowness, she
exited the chamber.

Dani was giggling when Rhys lowered
his lips to hers and, tenderly, she raised her fingers to brush his unshaven
cheek. “I love you,” she laughed against his lips.

“I love you too, freckles.”

Six years later

“I’m being asphyxiated,” Dani
complained, marching stiffly into his room wearing only the corset and her
undergarments.

Rhys glanced up at his wife and
grinned. “I think it makes you look charming.”

She eyed him narrowly before
dipping her gaze to the child in his lap. “Why is our son wearing a cloak?” she
demanded.

Rhys shrugged innocently just as
Jason Ashcroft gave a gleeful gurgle of childish delight. “He insisted upon
it,” he explained. “I
tried
to tell him that it was ridiculous, that his
mother
would find it distasteful-”

Dani rolled her eyes to the
ceiling and held her arms out to Jason. “You’re a fool,” she told Rhys
teasingly, hefting the chubby seven month old into her arms and blowing a kiss
onto his cheek, simultaneously pushing the cloak from his face. Jason’s unruly
tuft of black hair curled atop his head as he grinned at his mother. “Don’t
give me that look,” she told the baby, smiling. “You’re just like your father
when you want something.”

Rhys stood up and pulled them
both to him, grinning down at her with a smile that matched the one his son
wore. “Like now?”

Dani laughed. “You’re both
impossible. Gabriel and Victoria will be here any minute and I haven’t even
dressed yet.”

“They can wait. Their tyrannical
brood will only insist on destroying one settee today, I hope.”

During the five years it took
Rhys and Dani to conceive, Gabriel and Victoria had produced four of their own
offspring, each more troublesome than the next. All of them were little terrors
and even the youngest one was showing signs of being an utter brat.

Jason, however, was magic. Rhys had
never thought he’d be deserving of so much happiness, but each day with Dani
had proven better than the last. She filled his life with laughter and love and
then, finally, a child of their own. Quickly, the effects of his accident
became insignificant in comparison to the happiness he found with her and his
actions all those years ago… well, they were just that- silly- and, in the end,
Pennyworth got her just desserts when Victoria Sinclair, bless her, got wind of
the woman’s menacing tendencies. The rumours that circulated illustratively
described the confrontation as explosive and cutting, and once cut by the
Duchess of Hawthorne, one would be ill-advised to step foot within society
again. It was speculated that Lady Pennyworth had fled to Scotland, both as a
self-imposed exile to escape the scorn of the society she had once been a part
of and her debtors.

But Dani had given him the best
thing of all- a son.

Oh, it had been a difficult
pregnancy because of her back and the midwife had feared for her survival,
restricting Dani’s movements to the bed during the last few months of it, but
they had emerged from the ordeal stronger and more in love.

At first Rhys had thought Dani
would not be content with him, that she would prefer a life of frivolity and
parties, but that was not the case. That’s not to say they never accepted
invites to luncheons or the occasional soirée. They did, whenever the mood took
Dani to socialise and Rhys would willingly comply and endure the tedious hours
while she glowed and laughed among her friends. Thankfully, this did not occur
as often as Rhys thought it might, mainly because Gabriel and Victoria had
decided to spend most of their time away from the Hawthorne ducal seat and
instead reside at their Cornwall country estate. There were also the countless
visits from Fiona and George to keep Dani busy although she had admitted
numerous times that the only person she needed to keep her happy was him.

She sighed and gave him a small
smile, stepping away from his embrace before planting a quick kiss on his
unshaven cheek. “Look after Jason while I get ready,” she said, handing him
their son who giggled when Rhys’s large hands wrapped around his torso. “And no
more cloaks.”

“I promise,” he grinned wickedly
as he watched his wife walk to the adjoining door. Well, when he said door, he
meant hole, as he had long ago removed the hinges, thus the door.

She paused and turned back to
give him a pointed look. “You do know that I love you, right?” she asked with a
little frown, hand braced on the frame.

Admiring her curves that she
presented to him, Rhys made an appreciative sound, something akin to a growl.

She suddenly grinned. “Good,
because I think I’m pregnant again.”

~The End~