Lord Beast (14 page)

“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 at
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.

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.