“Then what was?” she demanded haughtily.
“Er… old injury playing up. You know how it is.”
She gave him an incredibly caustic look. “When my back plays up I do not turn to liquor,” she told him tartly.
“You should. Marvellous stuff.”
She pursed her lips in disapproval but said nothing more on the topic, preferring to instead focus on pouring herself a new cup of tea. Her movements were graceful and sure and Rhys was grateful for the cover of the hood as he had not removed his eyes from her since he had entered. He was able to enjoy the sight of her at his leisure, admire the elegant column of her throat, the slimness of her shoulders and play of light against her flawless skin.
“I came to speak to you about some things this morning,” she told him primly. “I intended to yesterday, but clearly you were in no state to be reasonable.”
Ah, yes. He hazily recalled her presence, but the memory was blurry at best. God, had he made an idiot of himself? Or worse, had the cloak slipped off? No… surely not. She wouldn’t be sitting here if it had.
“Ah. Did you enjoy your masquerade?” he asked flatly, hoping to draw the topic away from his state of insobriety the previous evening.
She stared at him in an assessing manner for a moment. “That’s actually what I would like to speak to you about,” she said slowly, neutrally. God, her eyes were blue. “Would you by any chance know of a James Sutton?”
He nearly choked and had to hurriedly set aside his cup of coffee. “Who?” he coughed.
“James Sutton. I met him at the masquerade. Quite handsome. I figured you might know him and if you do you’d be able to provide information that pertains to him.”
“Like what?” Rhys asked warningly. What did the silly chit think she was playing at? The last thing he would do is give her incentive to court James Sutton. What a ridiculous notion.
“An address, for a start. Does he live in London?”
“For the love of-” he nearly exploded. “Danielle, I’ll not be part of this. It’s ludicrous.”
“Why ever not? The man clearly seemed to like me. My options are admittedly low these days and I’m not getting any younger. If I still intend to marry, then I’d best make the most of the opportunities presented to me.”
“James Sutton is not an opportunity.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I say, you sound as if you might be jealous. Do you know of him?”
“No,” he bit out. “I am not jealous!”
“Hmm.”
“James Sutton is a scoundrel, a cad, a rake. He is not suitable for you. In fact, you should have not even associated with him that night.”
“Liar!” she shouted, seeming to snap at last, and shot out of her seat, cutlery and crockery tinkling with the vehemence of her actions. “James Sutton is you! He’s you! You lied to me!”
Rhys was still, slowly and reasonably trying to think of a way to handle the situation.
Her anguished eyes bored into the darkness of his hood. “You deliberately set out to deceive me,” she continued in a bitter voice. “You knew you had hurt me. Did you think that coming as a stranger would make it any better for me? Did you?”
Her eyes looked suspiciously wet. Oh, God, she was going to cry. Please, please, don’t let her cry.
When he failed to respond, she pounded her small fists against the polished wood of the grand table, infuriated and anguished. “Answer me! I deserve an explanation, Rhys.”
He was no match against a set of brimming, sooty eyes as blue and as anguished as hers. “Dani,” he began hoarsely, “you must know that whatever is between us is sheer folly.”
“No, I don’t,” she told him harshly, those incredible eyes flashing. “Are you still going to deny that you didn’t send the roses or the note?”
“No.”
“Then why? Why send those things and then come to the masquerade if you don’t want anything to do with me? It is incessantly annoying, this game you’re playing, Rhys Ashcroft. It’s just not fair.”
“I know,” he said quietly, each tear-filled word jarring the core of his being with guilt. “I’m an ass.”
“What?” she gulped.
“God, Danielle, you can’t imagine what your presence does to me. You can’t possibly envision a life with me, can you? I-I thought I was doing what was best for you. I am doing what is best for you. You’d be miserable with me. But I couldn’t just let you go.”
She sat down abruptly and looked away, her eyes bleak. Not one tear had fallen from them, however.
“Why?” she asked suddenly, still refusing to look at him.
Rhys made a vague gesture with his hand, half-hearted and wan. “You’re… lovely,” he told her, lamely, echoing the words he had drunkenly uttered to her last night.
At that, she looked at him, incredulous. “No. Why wouldn’t I be able to envision a life with you? What are you afraid of?”
He sighed miserably. He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Having never had to explain himself to anyone- ever- Rhys was finding this soul-bearing debacle quite difficult. “You wouldn’t like what’s underneath this hood,” he said, his voice indifferent.
Silently, she scrutinized him. Unblinking, intensely, she just looked at him. The expression was new for him- he couldn’t read her, not one bit. Usually she was so spirited with her actions, even if her back restricted most of her, that she was emotionally-easy to read. Now, however, he couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was thinking.
Finally, she spoke. “And if I did?”
He shrugged. “It does not signify. I know you wouldn’t.”
“I liked James Sutton.”
“He wore a mask.”
She sighed forlornly. “You’re being silly. You can’t possibly know how I would react. Even so, you’ve preordained a reaction from me that simply wouldn’t exist.”
“Danielle, you’re testing my patience.”
“Just give me the chance to prove you wrong!” she cried furiously. “Of all the imbecilic, idiotic, moronic notions!” She paused mid-rant and glared at him, the tears back behind her eyes. “Will you at least give me a chance?”
He stiffened, heart thudding violently at her words. “What,” he asked carefully, “do you mean?”
“Let me become your friend,” she said, her voice catching. “I promise, I won’t demand anything from you. You can… you can keep that stupid hood on, I don’t care.”
A friend? He wouldn’t be able to live with it. It would be too painful, having her around constantly, knowing that she would be repulsed if she were to know the true him. His soul would wither and die, knowing that he could never have her in the most intimate of ways, knowing that she could never be his and only his, but having to endure her ‘friendship’ at the same time. It would be agony.
“Danielle-“
“Please,” she implored, those beguiling, wet eyes boring at his very soul.
He couldn’t deny her. It would kill him, but he couldn’t deny her anything. “Fine,” he rasped and a ball of teary, warm woman threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his neck like a vice and knocking the breath out of him.
He nearly tipped over backwards in his chair and Rhys had to firmly centre his equilibrium before he became aware of the soft, womanly curves in his arms and the sweet smell of honey and milk and flowers.
“Thank you,” she whispered throatily in his ear, the sound causing him to break out in flames.
A moment longer and he would have thrown her onto the breakfast table and had his wicked way with her amid the bacon, sausages and eggs.
He grabbed her waist and forcefully set her aside, not trusting himself to have her in his arms a moment longer. “Danielle, you can’t just do things like that,” he growled, a bit too harshly judging by the look on her crest-fallen face. Smothering the urge to run his hand threw his hair, he softened his tone. “I have conditions with this… uh… friendship. Firstly, no hugs.” She looked so distraught a
t that he wondered whether he should have said it in the first place. No, there needed to be distance between them if he were to get through this fiasco alive. “Secondly, you may only visit when a suitable chaperone is present- in this case, Val will have to do, or Grayson.” Her nose wrinkled with distaste, probably because she wasn’t too fond of his ill-tempered butler. “And visits will be construed under my directive.” She frowned and after a moment she reluctantly nodded.
“Anything else?” she enquired, cheerfully.
“Yes,” he said dryly, “if you could keep two meters of space between us at all times, that might be agreeable.”
“Why?” she asked, tilting her head to the side inquisitively.
“It would be improper for me to say aloud,” Rhys told her sardonically.
“Oh.” Dani blushed and studied her table setting for a moment. “I suppose that all sounds agreeable.”
“Good.”
Grayson entered stiffly and regarded them with a smug expression. “You have guests, my lord,” he intoned and Rhys swore he saw the man’s lip twitch. If he smiled…
“What?” Rhys mouthed, surprised and somewhat angered.
Dani shifted guiltily beside him. “Er… I took the liberty to invite some friends for breakfast,” she explained sheepishly, giving him a coy glance. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Inexplicably, his hangover quadrupled in strength, as did the urge to strangle both the little wench beside him and the obnoxious butler opposite him.
Chapter 13
Dani turned away from Rhys, sensing an imminent explosion of rage, and stood up. “Thank you, Grayson. Show them in,” she said in a calm voice.
“Danielle,” Rhys’s voice came from behind her in a seething hiss.
She ignored it and the sensation of doom befalling her… and she had come so far this morning, too!
“Danielle,” he said again in that same deadly voice, “would you care to explain yourself?”
“Not really,” she said with feigned carelessness.
She heard his chair scrape back slowly, threateningly, and he came up behind her. Too close. Too near. He wasn’t touching her but he might as well be. His anger and presence served only to set her on fire.
“I could kill you,” he grated out savagely between his teeth, inches from her ear.
“Rubbish. You’ll end up enjoying yourself. Lord knows what you’ll do with yourself when that happens.”
A strangled choking sound came from behind her. She wasn’t sure whether he was muffling a laugh or actually choking on his incensed rage.
Grayson re-entered and announced: “The Lord and Lady Hawthorne.”
Victoria skipped in beaming, leaving her husband to trail curiously in her wake. “Hello!” she practically yelled, throwing herself at Dani.
“Oh, God,” Rhys muttered under his breath, but loud enough so that Dani heard.
Prying herself away from Dani, Victoria stepped back and stared up at the dark stranger behind her. “Lord Ashcroft,” she said testily, “aren’t you going to welcome my husband and I into your lovely home?”
“No- ow!”
Dani smothered a satisfied smirk and removed her foot from his toes. If his face could be seen, she was sure he would be scowling.
“I mean,” he began again through gritted teeth, “of course. It is my immense pleasure.”
Dani rolled her eyes heavenward and linked her arm with Victoria’s, leading her to the other side of the table and murmuring just loud enough so that Rhys would hear, “Ignore him. He drank too much last night.”
“And just how would you know?” her friend demanded suspiciously.
“Believe me, you’d rather not know.” They both claimed a cup of tea and turned expectantly to the two men.
“Ashcroft,” Gabriel inclined his head, smiling crookedly, “believe me when I say I played no part in this.”
Rhys merely grunted. “You’ve always had a perverse fondness to see me suffer, Sinclair,” he accused dryly. “However, I’ll grant that this whole damned charade was Danielle’s doing.”
“Might do you some good to hone those social skills again,” Gabriel grinned before eyeing the fare spread out in delicious array on the table. “Speaking of which, I’m starved. Won’t you sit and partake so that we might as well?”
Rhys resumed his seat at the head of the table, Dani to his left, Gabriel and Victoria to his right.
The Falmouth dining hall had never borne witness to a breakfast quite like the one that morning. Laughter rang right up to the chandeliered ceiling and more noise among four people had never been made. Although Rhys had little to contribute to the conversations, Dani attempted to make him as involved as possible, with an encouraging smile, a coy glance or a direct question.
When the conservation had ceased somewhat due to a playful argument between husband and wife, Dani turned to Rhys. “I am sorry, you know,” she told him pointedly.
“No you’re not,” he grunted.
“Alright, I’m not.”
“At least you’re honest,” he grumbled.
Dani sipped her tea, raising her eyes at him from above the rim of her cup and mumbling, “That’s more than I can say for one person at this table.”
“Really?” he asked incredulously. “You’re going to start this now?”
She looked at the couple opposite who appeared to be so engrossed in each other that they had momentarily forgotten the existence of their host. “No,” Dani hedged slowly, “but maybe while you’re so distracted you could tell me more about you.” Her eyes swivelled back to him, boring into the depths of his hood where only an indiscernible jaw was partially visible.
“I should’ve known.”
“It’s not so bad, you know,” she prodded gaily. “All you have to do is tell me a bit about your background. Well, obviously your father was the old earl of Falmouth.”
He blasphemed savagely causing Dani to frown.
“Is that really necessary?” she reprimanded tartly.
“Now is not the time for this,” he grated, annoyed.
“Will there ever be a time?” she asked suspiciously.
“No.”
“Oh, stop being such a child!” Huffing, she crossed her arms and glared at him. “You can’t close yourself off from me forever.”
He didn’t say anything but rather swallowed a hefty amount of coffee and Dani suspected he might be wishing it were something stronger.
“I’ll keep prodding and prodding until you cave,” she promised eagerly, grinning predatorily at him.
He mumbled something inarticulate and although she couldn’t be certain, she thought it sounded like, “Persistent little hussy.”
Dani narrowed her eyes at him dangerously. “That better not be what it sounded like,” she scolded.
“If you like, I could repeat it for you.”
“You wouldn’t dare-”
“Persistent little-”
“Rhys!” Dani gasped at the same time Gabriel suddenly began to choke on his coffee while Victoria simultaneously chimed, “What the devil is going on?”
And then something happened that hadn’t in years. Rhys Ashcroft, Earl of Falmouth, laughed. A deep, throaty sound that moved her soul, the earl shook with rumbling good mirth.
“Good God, Sinclair,” he chuckled, “you’ve gone and married a harpy.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice- ouch!” Gabriel looked at his angry wife petulantly. “Bloody hell, woman. Why did you kick me?”
“Oh, I suppose you think I enjoy being called a harpy?” she asked snippily.
“Better than a hussy,” Dani muttered cantankerously, casting Rhys a dark look.
“I beg to differ,” Victoria argued.
Both women glared furiously at the respective men, adopting similar stances and identical expressions.
“I think,” Ashcroft muttered dryly to Rhys, “that the appropriate adjective to add here would be ‘blood-sucking’.”
“Blood-suc
king hussy?” Rhys asked, seemingly befuddled.
“Blood-sucking harpy.” That earned him a look that could smoulder rocks.
“I am going to ignore you both now,” Victoria told her husband snootily and swivelled towards Dani. “I think I saw some roses in the back in dire need of some pruning.”
Taking the hint, Dani rose to her feet, casting dark glances at the men when they rose with her, and followed Victoria out the dining room and into the immense, unkempt gardens of Falmouth Castle.
Immediately, the mood lightened and Vicky stared admiringly at the bushes and blooms around her. “This is the most amazing garden I have ever seen,” she said wonderingly.
“It’s not well-managed,” Dani pointed out, noting a particularly sad-looking hyacinth.
“But just imagine the possibilities,” Vicky breathed, doing a full turn-around and surveying the lawns from each angle. “There is so much potential. Oh, he should really hire a good grounds-keeper.”
“One step at a time,” Dani said more to herself than to Victoria.
The other woman glanced at her sharply. “Is that supposed to imply good or bad news? He was standing inappropriately close to you when we arrived.”
“Preparing to throttle me from behind, no doubt.” Dani smiled. “But yes, I suppose you could say good news. He’s agreed to allow me to befriend him.”
“Hmmf.” Victoria made a funny little moue with her lips. “Silly man. Silly cloak. Overall, he’s just silly.”
“Thank you,” Dani agreed amiably. “That’s exactly my sentiments.” But she had to be honest with herself. She thought she was lucky she even managed to get him to agree to that. Surely now that she had his friendship, it would only be a matter of time before she broke down his other barriers?
Vicky smiled at her. “You’ll get through to him,” she said encouragingly.
Dani, however, wasn’t as confident as her friend. The conditions he had set practically threw every attempt to entice him to something else out the window. She would have to be persistent despite the hurt it would cause and the emotional turmoil his rejection would inflict upon her.
Victoria, bless her, was studying Dani intently and saw the worry flash across her features. She reached out and affectionately squeezed her hand. “I’ll have a footman deliver something to the cottage tonight that might help you,” she said with a private smile.
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