Rhys swallowed a hefty amount of brandy and dropped the glass back onto the desk. “What exactly could be the problem then?”
George sighed shakily, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb as if quelling the stirrings of a headache. “There’s been an accident,” he began in a tense voice but before he could continue, Rhys had bolted from his chair and slammed his hands on the desk, all insobriety vanished from his demeanour.
“Danielle?” he growled harshly.
George paused and held out a hand to calm the man who was now clearly beyond all rational comprehension. “Now, bear in mind I haven’t seen her since-”
“What happened?”
The raw agony in his voice caused George to go suddenly quiet, knowing well the sound of anguish and guilt in a man. He had, after all, been working with people who broke the law for most of his life. He was able to detect when they were sincere, when they were not to be trusted, and when they truly regretted an action that may have caused another person harm, be it a murder or an accident. Rhys Ashcroft sounded like that person.
“The carriage broke an axle,” George explained. “Our only concern is her back-”
“Where?”
“The Sinclair’s but be reasonable. I only received the missive a few-” George didn’t bother finishing his sentence. Rhys was already out of the study.
Chapter 27
Having never been privy to the emotion of love before, the panic that Rhys felt when he had heard that Dani had been injured had been suffocating, all-consuming, and incredibly painful, so much so that the mere thought that she had died, that her laughter would never reach his ears again or his eyes would never devour her beautiful smile, clamped his heart with such intense agony he surely thought he would die from it.
Like a man possessed, he rode flat out towards Hawthorne and burst into the house wildly, causing several footmen and maids to skittle nervously out of his path, thus providing him with no informants to tell him about the whereabouts of his wife. “Gabriel!” Rhys bellowed at the bottom of the stairs, hoping his voice would carry throughout the house.
As soon as the words were out, Gabriel appeared at the top of the stairs. “I say, a wild boar would make less-”
In three bounding leaps, Rhys had climbed the stairs, grabbed the other man’s shoulders, and forcibly shook him. “Where is she?” he ground out.
“Guest quarters,” Gabriel provided, “but, Rhys-” His words died with a sigh as Rhys had already bolted down the passage, not bothering to hear out the rest of Gabriel’s words.
He rounded a corner and spotted Victoria coming out a room followed by a middle-aged man carrying a leather case and Rhys’s mouth went dry.
Her eyes widened when she caught sight of him. “That was fast,” she murmured, surprised.
“Dani,” was all he managed to croak out.
“Resting,” the middle-aged man said emphatically, setting his case down and rubbing his hands with a handkerchief that he pulled out of the pocket of his trousers. “It is best that she stays that way.”
“I am her husband-” Victoria interrupted Rhys’s short speech with an indelicate little snort and when he gave her a glower she covered her mouth and gave him a slight indication with her hand that he should continue. “I am her husband,” he ground out, “I should be granted access-”
“Lord Ashcroft,” the man said patiently but sternly, “your wife has been through a tremendous amount of pain. The impact sustained to her back could very well have paralysed her-”
“But she’s not?”
Rhys was suddenly on the receiving end of a very caustic look. “No, she’s not, but she came damn close to it, maybe even death. She must rest and for the next week she is not to move from this room and that bed. I have given her a substantial dose of laudanum to relieve some of the pain and she is in no state to communicate-”
“I must see her,” Rhys said raggedly and something about his face made the physician hesitate. As if he were gagging on the word, Rhys choked out, “Please.”
At that, the man’s shoulders drooped and he gestured to the door behind him. “Very well, but I must implore you to let her rest.”
Rhys nodded and quietly opened the bedroom door, the sight he was presented with filling his body with dread.
She was lying on the bed, sheets pulled up to her chin but, God, she was pale. Fear, guilt, anguish viciously spiralled through his body and his heart beat with painful agony in his chest. He had caused this. This was his fault…
Numbly, he dropped to his knees at her bedside, studying her beloved face in an anguished haze and with an achingly tender gesture, he stroked a lock of damp hair off her brow, worried at how cold her skin felt to his fingertips.
“Dani,” he croaked, his throat constricting painfully. Reaching under the sheets of the bed, he found her clammy hand and laced his fingers through hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly, then proceeded to murmur it about a dozen more times, bowing his head so that his lips touched the cool skin of her brow. “I was such an ass. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. If you just promise to be alright, I’ll promise to spend the rest of our lives making you feel the most loved woman-”
“Mmm,” she muttered, a dreamy smile on her lips. Rhys leaned back and saw that despite her barely audible sounds, her eyes were closed. “That’ll be nice.”
“I’m so sorry, Dani.”
Her eyes fluttered open and regarded him hazily, a foolish grin on her face. “Good,” she mumbled, “now tell me you love me.”
He lowered his lips to her brow again, smiling weakly, and whispered, “I love you. I love you so God-damned much…”
A gentle snore was his response.
For two days Dani was only vaguely aware of being in an agonizing amount of pain and that something was very wrong with her back. Thankfully, due to the laudanum, she was only lucid of this fact for fleeting moments between consciousness, so much so that she had trouble distinguishing between her dreams or reality. She hoped they were reality because then Rhys was actually at her side, kissing her face, holding her hand, and murmuring things she couldn’t stand to think about just in case it actually was her subconscious playing severely cruel tricks.
By the time she drifted fully awake on the second day after the accident, the effects of the laudanum had worn off enough to determine that this was not a dream and her back was in excruciating pain, but at least her mind was multitudinously clearer.
Immediately, she identified the man beside her and her heart began to flutter with hope that everything she had thought was a dream was not, and that he had actually said those lovely, wonderful words to her, over and over and over. Rhys was sprawled in a chair that he’d pushed to the side of her bed, fast asleep. His head was turned to the side and his wide chest rose and fell with even breaths. His face was pale and drawn and even now, in sleep, there were lines of worry creasing his brow and dark rings under his eyes.
Dani allowed herself to smile, sure now that he wouldn’t be the idiot he had been and that he had been here throughout, holding her hand and… Oh, how she wished she could wake him. Would it be cruel if she threw a pillow at him? But then how would she explain herself? Hmm. She doubted whether she could muster the strength to throw a pillow at him anyway. Briefly, she considered sitting up but her back must have read her thoughts and reminded her of the situation with a painful kick of agony.
She sighed.
Rhys’s head snapped up, a wild look in his amber eyes. “You’re awake,” he breathed, coming out of the chair and sitting on the edge of her bed.
“It would seem so,” she returned dryly, incoherently pleased when he reached for her hand.
“How are you feeling?”
“Painful, but I think... I think I’ll be alright.”
His eyes searched her face intently and a small smile twitched his lips. He raised his hand and touched a part of her cheek that suddenly felt tight and tender. “You’re going to have
a scar there now,” he told her, softly drawing his finger along a region between her ear and jaw. “A large splinter, I believe. It’s small, but still.”
“Hmm. I might have to borrow one of your cloaks.”
He chuckled, bringing his lips down on hers gently. “Impertinent wench.”
“Did you mean those things you said?”
He gave her an innocently blank look. “Impertinent wench? Why yes-”
“Rhys, that’s very cruel, you know, teasing an invalid. It should be a crime.”
His shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, he brushed his lips against hers slowly, tenderly. “I meant every last word, Danielle,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, for everything. I was an ass, a complete-”
“Idiot,” she finished for him earning her a peeved look.
“Yes. I was wrong. I was wrong first by accusing you of those dreadful things. It was the doing of that woman-”
She frowned, puzzled. “What woman?”
“Pennyworth. Pennywill? I’m not sure I can recall.”
“Patricia Pennyworth? What has she to do with any of this?”
How Dani knew the woman was a puzzle in itself and Rhys found himself pulling away from her slightly. “It matters not. The woman said something that may have caused me to believe that you would have deceived me into marrying you. It has little relevance now though.”
“That-” Angrily, she turned her head and glared out the window on the other side of the room. “She is a despicable woman. I had a bad feeling about her. Do you know, I’m beginning to believe she didn’t want you to marry?”
“Is it important now? I was an idiot to even consider her words, Dani.”
She smiled at him tentatively. “You’re right. Patricia Pennyworth isn’t worth a moment more of our thoughts. Now, what were you saying? I believe you were in the middle of a heartfelt apology.”
God, he loved her. Despite all he had put her through, all the pain and heartache, she could still tease him and unconsciously let him know that she had already and wholly forgiven him, that the past was just a plume of smoke disappearing into the sky and immersing invisibly with the clouds. He realised now that none of it was important: not the accident, not the scars nor the vindictiveness of the woman who had planted the doubt in his mind. All that mattered was Dani and that she was his, in every way possible, and she was willing to put aside everything he had done to wrong her and start afresh. It was an incredibly revitalising feeling and he had to smother the urge to wrap her in his arms and twirl her about the room. “I thought I was protecting you from myself,” he continued, leaning close to her again. “I thought I had hurt you, that I would keep on doing so. I didn’t want to hurt you anymore. And then…”
She smiled against his lips. “Did you realise that you’re the only one who could protect me, hmmm?”
“A little. Let’s just say that as soon as you’re better, I’m chaining you to my side.”
“A very wise idea,” she grinned. “In fact, possibly the cleverest thing to have been uttered from your lips.”
“What about my proposal?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Alright, that too.”
She lifted her mouth for his kiss just as Victoria barged into the room. “Oh, don’t mean to disrupt but I heard voices so I assumed you were awake,” she trilled happily, coming to stand at the foot of the bed and holding something that looked disturbingly like a very large corset. “I’m so glad you’re awake. Poor Rhys hasn’t moved from that chair in three days.”
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.”
Epilogue
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. Th
ere 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~
Lord Beast Page 22