Lord Beast

by Ashlyn Montgomery

  “I really don’t see how.”

  “Hmm. You might be right.” Vicky idly tapped her finger against her cheek as she thought about the matter silently. “So, no wedding night?”

  “None.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Victoria!”

  Vicky smiled at Dani, unaware or untroubled by her impatience. “I think,” she said happily, “that I might just know a way to help you.”

  “Really?” Dani leaned forward with anticipation, hoping and longing for her friend’s sure cure and fix for a troublesome marriage, knowing that if anybody knew what to do, then Victoria would be that person.

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Well? What is it?”

  Victoria, like Dani, swayed conspiratorially close to the other woman, a wicked glint gleaming in her eyes. “Do you really, really, want to know what you can do to win your husband’s affections?” she asked slyly.

  “Yes! Yes, I do! Oh, yes!”

  “Good, because I’m going to tell you what you have to do.”

  “Victoria, for God’s sake, what must I do?”

  A dark, elegantly shaped brow cocked above an extremely mischievous blue eye and Victoria grinned lazily. “Seduce him.”

  Dani reared back, shocked. That had been the last thing on her mind. It was inconceivable and unthinkable that she, plain and innocent Danielle, would endeavour to seduce her own husband. “Are you mad?” she exclaimed, loudly. “I can’t seduce him! That’s obscene.”

  Vicky frowned at her. “Are you actually sitting there and telling me that lying with your husband is obscene?”

  “No,” Dani huffed, “I’m telling you that seducing my husband is obscene.”

  Vicky snorted in disbelief and folded her arms. “You have much to learn,” she told her wryly. “Why, you cannot believe how much you can achieve by donning a pretty peignoir-”

  “That’s just great,” Dani sulked, “the man practically hates me because he thinks I’ve done something despicably dishonest and now you think it’s a good idea to use my body to get what I want? Oh, I can just imagine how that will work out!”

  Vicky sighed, slowly expelling a weary breath. “Look,” she began to explain patiently, “it’s not like that at all. The two of you should have had your wedding night the way I see it, and this silly little problem you are going through will be just that in a couple of days. I have never seen you as happy as you have been with Rhys and Gabriel has told me that Rhys is a changed man, a good man, because of you. I’m sure that he loves you. In fact, I’m quite positive he does.”

  “Hmmf.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that,” Vicky prodded. “Now, you see, from his point of view, you are the one denying him the privilege of sharing your bed. You are the one who doesn’t want him.”

  “That’s not true!”

  Vicky quieted her with a stern look. “I know it’s not, but he might not. I think you’ve got to make him realise that you do want him in every possible way you know how, that you want all of him, and you can prove it to him simply by going into to his chambers, wearing a pretty peignoir, and honestly telling him why you are there.”

  Amid a furious blush that scoured across Dani’s face, Gabriel chose that moment to enter the drawing room with all the nonchalant grace of a man completely at ease in his environment and home. “Lady Ashcroft,” he greeted Dani warmly, leaning down to impart a brotherly kiss on her cheek, “a pleasure as usual.”

  Both women stared up at him with wide, guilty eyes, saying nothing. When the silence continued, Gabriel shifted awkwardly on the balls of his feet before he remarked, “So, what have you ladies been talking about?”

  At once, they were animated, waving hands energetically and glancing at each other, announcing at the identical moment: “Pianoforte.”

  “Embroidery.”

  Silence reigned again.

  Gabriel gave his wife a very strange look. “Your sudden interest in music frightens me, darling,” he told her dryly, “as I am well aware due to your past attempts that your musical ear is the equivalent to that of partially deaf chimpanzee.”

  Vicky gasped indignantly. “That is a horrid thing to say!” she admonished, glaring at her husband. “Just for that, I think I shall endeavour to try my hand at the violin!”

  “Oh, God.”

  Dani smothered a smile.

  “I resent that,” Vicky was telling Gabriel. “Are you quite done here? I find your presence offending.”

  Leisurely, Gabriel snatched a couple of biscuits from the tray on the service. “Maybe I’ll stay,” he murmured thoughtfully, beginning to munch on the biscuits. “I say, this is a nice room for you ladies. Much brighter than my plaintive study.”

  “Why don’t you make a thorough comparison by returning there, then?”

  “Hmm.” Gabriel gave his wife a petulant glance before ambling idly towards the door. “I acknowledge your hint, madam. I can tell when I’m not wanted by my own wife.”

  Dani watched Gabriel leave the drawing room, a little envious of the ease his relationship with Victoria unfolded. They made it seem perfectly normal to be perfectly perfect all of the time, whereas Dani was finding it exceedingly difficult to remedy one problem with a solitary stubborn man who she found impossible to read and tedious to handle. If he wasn’t infuriated with her person, he was trying to seduce her, which brought to mind the next issue. She didn’t have the faintest clue about how to seduce a man.

  “So,” Vicky grinned happily at Dani, ensuring that her husband was well out of earshot before she continued to speak. “What do you think of my advice? Will you see if it has any effect?”

  Dani stifled the urge to roll her eyes. “Not that I am agreeing with it,” she told her friend dryly, “but even if I did think I could win him over through his own seduction, I wouldn’t have any idea how to do it.”

  Vicky pulled an odd, curious face. “What do you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t even begin to understand the fundamentals of seduction, Vicky,” Dani said, irked. “I wouldn’t even know how to start, having never been…um…”

  “Intimate with a man?” Vicky finished for her. She waved her hand about excitedly, grinning. “Oh, it’s no bother at all, Dani. You’ll see. Just think about what Rhys does when he, er… you know?” She made her eyes big and suggestive.

  “What?”

  “You know!”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “You are being deliberately coy,” Vicky told her off tartly and huffed a bereaved sigh. “Just think about what he did in the gallery that may have constituted to your, er, becoming somewhat overwhelmed.”

  “And compromised?”

  “Yes, and compromised.”

  Vicky gave her a pointed look, waiting expectantly for some sort of response. “You don’t really expect me to tell you what he does, do you?” Dani retorted caustically.

  “Oh, please! I shall simply die if you don’t!”

  “I most certainly will not!” Dani protested, a scouring heat enflaming her neck and face at the simple thought of sharing such intimate details with another person. It was inappropriate and scandalous and, damn, Victoria had sad eyes…

  “You will make my day!” she whined pitifully, holding Dani’s arm as if she could squeeze the information from the pores of her skin.

  “There is nothing in all of England that could make me divulge of that information,” she said firmly, jerking her arm away from her friend’s urging fingers.

  Vicky’s eyes glinted hopefully. “I’ll tell you what Gabriel does-”

  “Victoria, you are a ridiculous human being,” Dani sniffed. “And I really would not care to know just how Gabriel seduces you, thank you very much.”

  “Ah,” said an infinitely deep masculine voice from the doorway and both women watched in shock as Gabriel chose that precise moment to re-enter the drawing room. He threw his wife a wicked look. “Now that, Lady Ashcroft, is an astonishingly easy job to complete on my part. It does help, h
owever, if one does have a complacent wife on hand with which to seduce.”

  Before that day, Dani had thought it humanly impossible for Victoria Sinclair to be embarrassed by something or someone. It was, she noted with a wide smile, turning out to be good day.

  Chapter 25

  Squaring her shoulders as if she were about to face the marauding hordes of Genghis Khan, Dani inhaled resiliently, stretched out her fingers until the tips brushed the brass knob of the adjoining door, and then quickly snatched them back, shaking as if the handle had scorched her very skin. “Oh, God! Oh, God, oh, God!”

  “My lady?”

  Dani turned around in surprise and found the young maid, an armful of firewood cradled to her breast, staring at her with wide, anxious brown eyes.

  “Alice,” Dani breathed, rushing over to her in a flurry of flimsy lace and extending her arms out to the startled young woman, “let me help you with that!”

  “N-no,” the maid stuttered, nimbly lurching from Dani’s eager-to-assist hands. “I’m quite alright, my lady.”

  “No, truly, I insist. That’s a lot of wood, you know.”

  Beleaguered and probably fearful of losing her position if she displeased the lady, Alice relinquished the cumbersome pile of wood to her. Dani, now having received the logs, turned to the fireplace that was already brimming with fresh logs. “Uh…” Happily, she just dumped them on the rug next to the hearth, resulting in Alice’s flinch of despair. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” Dani asked the girl hopefully, wiping the splinters from her hands.

  Alice shook her head warily. “With all due respect, my lady, my chores are finished for the day,” she explained timidly. “I was just coming up here to deliver the logs and ask you if you would like anything else before you retire for the evening.”

  “Um… yes!” Dani affirmed cheerfully, throwing a triumphant finger in the air. She hurriedly guided Alice over to a chair near the hearth and forced the girl to sit down. “Tell me, Alice. Tell me everything about yourself.”

  The poor girl’s eyes darted longingly towards the exit of the chamber but, realising she was trapped, she answered, “L-like what, my lady?”

  “Well let’s see. Where are you from?” Dani pressed.

  “Dorset, my lady.” The beleaguered girl glanced longingly towards the door of the chambers.

  “And?”

  “And what, my lady?”

  “What’s it like? I want to know everything there is to know about Dorset and your life there! Do not leave out any details, Alice. I want to know about the rocks, the house you lived in, what type of tree grew outside. You could even tell me about what type of soil you have there in Devon!”

  “Dorset.”

  “Of course. That’s what I meant. Dorset.” Dani finished with an encouraging smile.

  Alice looked as if she might make a mad dash for the door, fearful of her lady’s sudden aversion to sanity.

  Dani sighed, realising that she had very little reason to bother the poor girl when clearly all she wanted to do was retire for the evening as well. “Oh, all right,” she said miserably. “You can go. I won’t hold it against you.”

  Alice shot out of her chair and scurried to the door, bobbing a hasty curtsy before bidding her mistress goodnight and closing the door softly behind her.

  Dani sighed plaintively, again. Knowing full well that she had been looking for a diversion, anything to prevent her from visiting her brooding husband in the room next to hers, she had badgered the poor girl into fearing her. Honestly, all the maid had to do was just open up to her a little. Was that so hard? If anyone had to ask the man next door, he would respond in the affirmative to that question.

  Moodily, Dani turned back to the door that adjoined their chambers, staring at it hard and willing it to open with her mind, and while she was at it to procure a pleasant, sensual husband who wanted nothing more than to sweep into the room and ravage her until she was half mad with senseless pleasure. Was that too much to ask?

  Folding her arms self-consciously over her breasts, Dani glared at the door. Clearly the force of her mind was failing her tonight. She harrumphed and began to tap her foot, wondering what she should do next. She could always just explode into his chambers, throw her arms wide and declare, “Take me now! I am yours!”

  Quick and painless, and to the point. Perhaps he would like that more than a slow and clumsy seduction she was sure to practise on him. Oh, it was vexing, this. She shouldn’t be so nervous, so anxious about the intimacies between man and woman at her age. By three and twenty, she should not still be a blushing young innocent, exactly what she felt like. Dani was no stranger to the happenings between man and wife after the wedding. Victoria had enlightened her to those details when it became clear that her mother could not and then there was the humiliating ‘talk’ Fiona had felt it vital to have with Dani the day before her wedding.

  Oh, that had been painful and Dani had to shut her eyes against the memory of her rotund little aunt talking to her excitedly and in vivid detail about all aspects of the human anatomy, throwing in multitudinous details about flowers and pollination for some reason.

  Lord.

  No wonder she was breaking out in hives at just the thought of traipsing into Rhys’s chamber dressed like… like some trussed up hussy, that’s what! The peignoir might as well be transparent it was so sheer with a swooping neckline that clung to her breasts, held closed by a modest little pink ribbon in the middle. Along the sides of the gown were revealing strips, baring her legs all the way past her thighs, stopping shortly before her hips. Dani had felt less exposed naked as surely this garment simply drew attention to parts of the anatomy she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, think about.

  A lot was relying on the peignoir she wore. Quite frankly, Dani had very little idea about just how she would proceed next if Rhys didn’t react to the garment clinging scandalously to every curve of her body. Needless to say, she had taken Victoria’s advice seriously and had decided to seduce her husband. How, she had not a clue, but she was willing to try, to hope, to find a way to improve the hopeless situation she found herself in.

  It had been a spur of the moment decision, deciding but a minute before she retired for the evening after yet another meal spent alone at the long, empty dining room table that she couldn’t endure a marriage such as the one she found herself in. Staring at Rhys’s empty, high-backed chair while she toyed with her peas with the prongs of her fork, Dani had realised that she was willing to sacrifice anything, anything, to revert matters to the way they had been when Rhys first proposed. And if that meant that she would have to relinquish some of her dignity in an indecent gown, then so be it. At least she could walk away from the situation, should it fail to rectify itself, knowing that she had exhausted every avenue open to her first.

  Her convictions solidified with those thoughts and she marched purposely towards the door, her fingers enclosing around the brass knob and determinedly beginning to twist. She caught the sound of the latch clicking out of place and lost her nerve, taking a step back.

  She couldn’t do it.

  No, she must!

  Unblinkingly, she grasped the handle, twisted, listened to the click, and abruptly let go. Oh, it was hopeless. She wasn’t brave enough for something like this. Victoria was the headstrong, reckless woman, not her! Dani had been perfectly content to go through her life unnoticed by people, especially men, shy in her ways but devoutly honest in all that she did. It was not her fault that she had to meet Rhys Ashcroft and fall in love with him.

  Spontaneously, she kicked the door then gasped with pain and at the stupidity of her action. Now Rhys would definitely find it curious all the scuffling and thudding coming from the other side of the door. Oh, humiliating that would be indeed, being discovered taking out one’s frustration on a hapless door! Dani grumbled something obscene, no doubt something she had picked up from Rhys as surely she would never have before uttered such profanity aloud.

  Rubbi
ng her poor toe, she came to the stout conclusion that she would have to open the door now and enter his chamber, foreseeing the culmination of her silly ploy to seduce him. If she didn’t, then he was bound to come in here anyway, wondering at the source of the noise that she was the cause of.

  Determined, petrified, she reached for the brass knob one last time, her fingers trembling as they stretched to brush against the shiny surface, just before the door was yanked open away from her.

  Rhys had been listening to the commotion next door for some time and it had damn near been torturing him half to death. For such a little thing, Danielle could make a gargantuan amount of noise. And then that lock would click and Rhys knew she had intended coming into his chambers before suddenly changing her mind. This happened five times. Five times! Just what exactly was so important to her that she couldn’t wait until morning to tell him?

  Then came the thud and Rhys knew he was going to go into her chambers and demand that she quit all the racket before he relocated her to the other end of the castle.

  It was hard enough having to reside so close to the woman. Lord, he wanted her. He wanted her with every breath, with every thought, and he hadn’t been able to get the thought out of his head that if he just asked for her forgiveness, she would be his. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust himself not to hurt her again, not to put her through the anguish he had deliberately caused.

  But the whole damn castle had begun to smell like her. Rhys would walk down the many passages and halls only to find a yearning so potent crash into him with very little indication of its source until he smelt the air. It was as if the castle was using her scent to torture him with her memory, making him fully aware of the woman who was now his wife, who now shared Falmouth with him, of the possibilities they could have…

  It was cruel.

  But when that crash against the door occurred, he knew he would have to put an end to whatever she was trying to accomplish simply because it was driving him mad.

  He yanked the door open and froze.

  Her hand poised in the air separating them, she stared at him in wide-eyed surprise, lips silently parted. His eyes immediately took in the rest of her and a furious, senseless lust made his limbs stiffen.