Lord Beast (6 page)

He sighed resignedly.
“You’re not going to stop pestering me until I tell you, are you?”

She nodded
emphatically.

“If you must know, my
housekeeper said you were bedridden and it was your back that ailed you. I
couldn’t help remembering how you reacted yesterday-”

“So you came to see
how I was for yourself,” she finished for him with a smile, sensing that the
words were causing him an insurmountable wave of guilt again. “And you picked
some flowers for me on the way over.”

He cleared his throat.
“Yes, well…”

“It’s a very sweet
gesture,” she told him.

“Don’t get used to
it.”

“Oh, most assuredly
not!” She threw him a wry grin. “However would you live with yourself? Giving
flowers to young country misses. Lord knows you’d probably get a reputation and
then all the young country misses would expect it from you-”

He began to laugh
again. “Especially because all the young misses trespass on my property on a
nightly basis,” he said gruffly.

“I should like to
think that all of them were that innovative,” she said.

“No,” his voice soft
now, “only you.”

Her heart beat just a
little bit faster and her fingers tingled with anticipation. “Was that a compliment,
my lord?” she breathed, her voice catching somewhere in her thudding chest.

“Maybe. Perhaps not.”

“I think it was,” she
declared confidently. “I think you like me.”

He was on her in a
second, his hands pinning her arms into the pillows as he leaned in close, his
body’s warmth encompassing her own, infusing her with delirious, wonderful
heat. Her skin tingled at his closeness, seared her where their bodies touched.

She stared up at him
and she realised she could make out some of his features. The light cast by the
solitary candle in her room caught his strong chin and some of his mouth and,
God
,
what a chin and mouth they were! Strong, firm, and unforgiving contrasted with
sinful promise in a mouth like that. His chin was adorned with dark stubble as if
it hadn’t seen a blade in a long time and his mouth was wide and full, artfully
shaped but serious. And there was a lock of his hair resting against his neck;
it slipped forward with his movement, catching the light of the candle in its
inky strands. Black, she thought. He had black hair and mouth that was
deliciously kissable.

She only had a moment
to glimpse all this before his face turned away from the light as if he knew
that with too much exposure to that candle she’d be able to see him.

“There’s a vast
difference between like and
want
, Danielle,” he murmured seductively as
he pressed his lower body against her.

She gasped and
wriggled a little bit, although his touch was softer now, as if he were scared
of being too rough with her. “I don’t think that’s true,” she told him
waveringly.

“No?”

She shook her head.
“You said yourself I wasn’t your taste-”

He swore under his
breath. “Don’t belittle yourself, Danielle.”

She gave him a dry
look. “I know very well what I’m not. I know I’ll never be beautiful or thin or
have perfect skin-”

“Your skin is
perfect,” he growled and suddenly Rhys forgot what he found so imperfect about
her in the first place. She felt quite lovely beneath him and her hair was a
rich, lively brown- thick and wavy and luxurious. She smelled damned nice, too,
of lilies and honey and everything
perfect
. Her lips were small, but the
bottom one was full and pink and the top- a deliciously shaped cupid’s bow.

She gave him a
doubtful look, those gracefully dark brows drawing together gorgeously. “I have
freckles,” she grumbled.

“Mmmm,” he nearly
purred. “I’ve discovered that I like freckles.”

“You have?” she asked
sceptically.

“Indeed.” He felt
himself smiling as he leaned down, enveloping them both in the cape’s hood as
he kissed one of those said freckles that had situated itself close to her nose
just above her lip.

She trembled beneath
him and his body was hard, demanding. He’d been hard as soon as he’d climbed
through her window, to be exact.

“Why’d you do that?”
she whispered tremulously.

“I wanted to.”

“But you said-”

“The devil with what I
said,” he growled, leaning down to capture her lips but she began to squirm.

“No!” she cried, then
gasped as her struggles brought her pain. Rhys immediately released her and sat
back. She was lovely and the fact that she was in pain, pain that he couldn’t
fix, made him yearn to comfort her, to hold her until it resided no matter how
many days it took and these emotions astounded him. Frightened him? Angered
him. And now she was rejecting him? He was unused to rejection. In fact, he had
shielded himself against ever facing the possibility of rejection. She hadn’t
seen him. How could she reject him without having seen the scars?

“No,” she reiterated,
composing herself by straightening a crease in her demure white cotton night
gown. She raised cobalt blue eyes to him before continuing. “I meant what I
said, Rhys.” He shuddered involuntarily at the sound of his name on her lips.
“I’ll willingly kiss you but I want nothing between us.”

He grinned wolfishly although
he knew she was unaware of her secret innuendo. “That’s the idea behind it,” he
teased huskily.

She blushed. “I meant
your cloak.”

“I know what you
meant.”

She studied him
expectantly and Rhys was surprised to find himself considering her offer. She
couldn’t, after all, very well back down on her bargain. She’d said she’d kiss
him for the removal of his hood and once that was off, she would not be able to
renounce her word. She’d have to do it. But he’d bear witness to the emotions
on her face as he did so. He’d see the pity, the revulsion and then the
reluctance to kiss him. No, he couldn’t endure that. It was the cruellest sort
of torture.

He abruptly rose to
his feet. He’d been mad coming here. What was he thinking? The woman was
disrupting his carefully constructed equilibrium and he didn’t like where his
thoughts and feelings were being led.

“This is foolish,
Danielle,” he snarled harshly. “You can’t keep this up. You can’t taunt a man
like me and expect to come away unscathed. Stay away from me! Do you hear me?”
When she didn’t answer, he lunged for her, grabbed her shoulders and squeezed.
“Do you understand? I’m dangerous. I don’t need your permission to kiss you, to
want you. I could have you right now if I so desired it. And I
do
!
You’ve made me
burn
for you. Stay away from me, Danielle.”

“I won’t,” she
whispered, her earnest, young eyes boring into his hood.

He groaned. “Why?”

“You need me.”

Angry, resentful, he
pushed away from her and marched to the window from which he entered. “You play
this little game at your own risk,” he barked. “I’ll not be held responsible
for the consequences.”

“You received a letter.”

“I did?” Dani glanced at Aunt
Fiona who had just entered the sitting room with their morning post. A tea
service followed her in.

“Yes.” She handed her a white
envelope and Dani immediately recognised the handwriting from one of her
friends.

“Oh, it’s from Victoria
Sinclair.”

Fiona gave her a politely blank
stare before taking a seat opposite Dani, picking up her knitting. The loose
pile of stitching was looking suspiciously like a pair of orange stockings for
Uncle George.

Dani tore open the envelope and
pried the parchment from inside. Spreading it open on her lap, she began to
read.

My dearest Danielle

It feels like ages since I last
saw you but I’m glad to inform you that Gabriel is absolutely wonderful. I
honestly do not think he could make me any happier if he tried. As you well
know, I had my doubts at one stage but he has proven most suitable as a husband
and I can readily confirm that I am very deeply in love with him.

How are you faring in Cornwall?
I’m told the county is very beautiful and I shall endeavour to visit you
sometime soon in the future. Well, very soon to be precise.

A close acquaintance of Gabriel’s
is hosting a fall masque ball in the country for a select few of us. When I say
a select few, I mean close to the entire set of the ton. It’s to be quite the
thing, I’m sure, and seeing as it is in Truro, I was hoping that you’d
accompany us. Gabriel and I would be appropriate chaperones and I shall be
arriving in Cornwall within the next couple of days in order to prepare for the
event. I’m reserving your company for a shopping expedition at once as well as
numerous fittings for our costumes.

I’m so excited to see you and
very glad we have this excuse to spend some time together. Don’t even think
about replying in the negative, Dani, as I’ll simply drag you off. If you use
your poor old mother as an excuse not to go, that simply won’t wash. I’ve
devised a costume for you that will have enough black in it to suffice for your
mourning period.

Yours fondly,

Vicky.

Dani grinned.

“It seems I’m to attend a ball,”
she told her aunt, who glanced up from her knitting and pushed her spectacles
up her nose.

“A ball? Heavens, I don’t have to
attend, do I?” she asked.

“No that’s quite alright,” Dani
reassured her. “Victoria and Gabriel Sinclair will do the honours for you.”

“Oh, lovely. That’s alright
then.”

He was waiting for her.

For some reason, that made her
immensely pleased.

He was leaning against a tree a
few hundred metres away from Falmouth, his arms bunching and crossed over his
vast chest. His legs were intersected at the ankles and his cloak was black
and, as usual, hiding his face.

“Expecting someone?” she asked
with a smile as she came to a halt in front of him.

“Yes,” he drawled. “Perhaps you
know her. A stubborn, persistent girl with a gorgeous freckle next to her
nose.”

Unconsciously, Dani touched the
offending spot he mentioned then lowered her hand. “I don’t know her,” she told
him. “I do know a stubborn, persistent girl with unbecoming freckles on her
nose?”

He pushed off the tree. “There’s
nothing about you that’s unbecoming, Danielle.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” she
murmured impishly. “But we weren’t talking about me.”

He chuckled. “I thought you’d
like to see the gardens today,” he explained as he moved towards her and joined
her on the gravel road that led to Falmouth. “We have a maze.”

Her smile turned mischievous. “I
am
very
good at solving mazes,” she said slyly. “So good, in fact, that
no
one
can compare.”

He began to lead the way and she
fell in step beside him. “You’re challenging me?” Rhys drawled. “An imbecilic
notion considering the maze is on my property.”

“Ah, but you’ve never seen me in
action, my lord.”

“I’m eager to witness this
phenomenon.”

She gave him an accessing look,
wishing fervently she could see beyond the shadows of his face. There had to be
a way to tempt that blasted shroud away from his person. She tried using the
temptation of her body-
pah!
What temptation? She was as plain as could
be. She served as no or very little incentive to any man to remove any item of
clothing. Oh where had that thought come from? In her past life she must have
been a fallen woman. Why else was she enticing a man she couldn’t even see with
promised kisses and thinking about others taking their clothes off for her?
Fallen, indeed!

“Now you’re teasing me,” she
grumbled, peeved by both his stubbornness and rejection, and by her own hussy
thoughts.

“I’d never think of such a
thing.”

She snorted indelicately and
studied her toes as they walked. Their boots crunched against the gravel as
they wound towards Falmouth which loomed on the horizon.

“Well, not on any normal day,” he
amended, sensing her mood was on a downward slope. He reached for her arm and
slipped it into his, ignoring the startled yet immensely pleased look she sent
him. The feeling of her fingers against his forearm, for all the innocence of
the gesture, felt sinfully good. Any touch from her- her skin simply seared and
moulded to his.

“This isn’t a normal day?” she
asked curiously.

“Any day where you feature is
hardly normal,” he remarked ironically.

“You know,” she murmured slowly,
“I think I might just take that as a compliment.”

“You would.”