Lord Beast

by Ashlyn Montgomery

  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?”

  Dani shook her head, warding off a blush with every ounce of her being. “No, of course not.”

  “Very well. So long as Victoria is there, it shouldn’t serve as a problem.”

  Fiona had scarcely completed her sentence before Danielle was back up the stairs and compiling a note to Victoria.

  When Dani walked down the long gravel drive that lead to the front gates of the castle, she noticed a luxurious-looking phaeton parked to one side. She decided that Rhys must be plagued with visitors again and continued to walk.

  Coming out from one of the outer courtyards was a woman Dani hadn’t met before, a thunderous expression on her face. Hoping to avoid any unpleasantness, she quickly scanned the wall for an alternative entrance but saw none. Sighing resolutely, Dani realised that she would have to cross paths with the other woman coming towards her.

  She was quite short but dressed finely in an expensive, olive green gown with a swooping neckline and strands of exorbitant pearls draped across her bosom. “Save yourself the time,” she practically snarled when she saw Dani, “he isn’t accepting today.”

  Ah, so that would be the cause of the vicious sneer on her face. She might be quite pleasant to look at it if she didn’t contort her face like that. “Oh,” Dani said. “Well, I’m sure with time he will warm up to the idea of visitors again. You surely understand that he hasn’t had them in a while.”

  “And you are?” this said with such an expression of disdain that Dani nearly took a step back.

  “Danielle Carmichael,” Dani told her, trying to smile but sensing the skin around her mouth barely managed to twitch into some semblance of one.

  The woman stared at Dani’s outstretched hand as if it were covered in slime or some other offending substance. After a moment, she accepted it and said, “Patricia Pennyworth.”

  “A pleasure,” Dani intoned, feeling that this encounter was anything but. “Have you travelled far?”

  Patricia folded her arms and glared at the high walls surrounding them in the courtyard. “From London. And you, Miss Carmichael, where are you from?”

  “Oh, just up the lane, actually,” Dani supplied, waving a hand ambiguously back up the drive. “I’ve been living in Falmouth for some time now.”

  Patricia’s head swivelled to her so fast that Dani feared for its stability upon her shoulders. “You have?” she repeated, her eyes narrowed intently on Dani’s face. “Do you know the earl… personally?”

  Feeling uncomfortable under such direct scrutiny, Dani wondered what this woman wanted with Rhys in the first place. She was certainly acting as if she had every right to be here. One of his past lover’s maybe? The thought filled her with vile, painful jealousy. “No,” Dani told her tautly. “We are acquaintances.”

  “Acquaintances?” Patricia laughed, a shrill sound with little mirth behind it. “Come now. We are both grown woman. You can tell me just how close the two of you are.”

  “I beg your pardon. I am not sure I understand your meaning. Lord Ashcroft is just an acquaintance.”

  Patricia’s eyes gleamed. She was, Dani realised, quite an intimidating woman for one that was so short. She was a full head shorter than Dani and probably somewhere in her late twenties. Although she wasn’t conventionally beautiful, Patricia wasn’t lacking in good traits. Albeit somewhat on the nondescript side, her eyes were quite pretty and framed with thick black lashes that fanned her cheeks. It was just a pity that the woman always wore a scowl to mar the good features so that one only really noticed the bad.

  “Have you seen him, then?” Patricia asked, almost eagerly, but Dani doubted she was the type of woman capable of that much sincerity. “Lord Ashcroft?”

  “Uh… no. You see he, uh, wears a cloak-”

  “So you have seen him!” Patricia interrupted. “You’ve seen him recently?”

  Dani stifled the urge to roll her eyes. This was growing tedious. “Look,” she said simply, “I have seen him, yes, but I haven’t seen seen him.”

  Patricia gave Dani a startled look.

  “He wears a hood,” she said flatly. “To cover his face.”

  “Oh!” Patricia grinned and Dani swore it was a little bit malicious. “I see. But you have seen him, in person, on occasion?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “So you must be the girl!”

  “Uh…”

  “The girl he went to the Worthwell affair for! The girl! The girl!”

  “How,” Dani began suspiciously, “do you know all that?”

  Patricia rolled her eyes impatiently. “It’s only been in every paper since the night,” she explained. “The only thing everybody doesn’t know was the identity of the girl.” Her dark eyes sized Dani up from head to toes, cynically and invading. Dani fought off the urge to cross her arms self-consciously. “I guess we do now. I must say, you are not his lordship’s usual tastes. His mistresses used to be far more beautiful-”

  “How dare you!” Dani gasped, outraged, and loathing the blush that inflamed her face and neck. “That is the most vicious thing anyone could ever say. I am not his mistress and you’d be wise not to convolute the gossip mills with such claptrap!”

  Without waiting for a response and realising that she had been unforgivably rude, Dani walked hastily to the entrance of the castle and was ushered inside by a harassed-looking Grayson, feeling Patricia’s eyes on her back the whole time.

  Chapter 17

  With a deep, calming breath, Dani attempted to eradicate the offending encounter from her mind but she couldn’t quite stop herself from feeling a little bit hurt. Nobody had ever accused her of something so scandalous. Throughout her life, she had been the pinnacle of wholesome goodness. Nobody would even dare to assume that plain and simple, woebegone wallflower, Danielle was somebody’s mistress. It was shocking. Shocking and absurd.

  Not that shocking, if she thought carefully about it. Hadn’t she on numerous occasions offered her body to Rhys? Not in so many words, but the intent was there nonetheless. She sighed. It was vexing. It didn’t help that the man had rejected her.

  She began to shrug out her dark coat and automatically handed it to Grayson who had been standing to one side while she did so. The butler looked at the garment before turning on his heel and walking away, leaving Dani gaping after him. Horrible man, that.

  Searching for a place to hang or store her coat and finding none, Dani settled on placing it neatly on a table close to the entrance’s double-oak doors. It had just crossed her mind about where she should start looking for Rhys, as his rude butler had failed to do just that, when the man in question appeared saunteri
ng down the stairs.

  “Danielle,” he said in greeting.

  When he was being pleasant, Rhys Ashcroft had a very nice-sounding voice- a deep, sensual baritone that could make the most experienced woman blush. Disappointingly, he wasn’t always pleasant and more often than not Dani was the cause of a snarl or a growl that was positively animalistic.

  Pinning a cheerful grin on her face, she pretended to survey his dark cloak from top to bottom. “That cloak is starting to look old,” she told him teasingly. “Perhaps you should burn it and get a new one.”

  “You’d like that,” he snorted dismissively.

  Her eyes lit up. “We can do it right now,” she said excitedly. “Show me to the nearest fire place.”

  “I have more cloaks, Danielle.”

  “Drat.”

  Rhys allowed himself a smile at her cheerfully petulant expression whereas a moment ago, when she had entered, he could have sworn she was about to burst into tears. The woman was a confusing mass of volatile and interchangeable emotions and he wondered what had caused the discomfort.

  “You looked distracted when you came in,” he broached suggestively.

  Dani pursed her lips and gave him an assessing look. Lord, she was adorable when she pretended to be stern, especially in a dress that fit her so snugly every sensuous curve of her was placed to their best advantage. Rhys was glad that she seemed to be phasing the black mourning colours out of her attire. Her dress today was broken with bits of white around the swooping, square neckline and thin strips along the bodice and hem. He could admire her with uninhibited audacity, thanks to the hood. It was a sight he adored, felt completely enamoured with, and very privileged that he had such liberties when admiring her.