Lord Beast (21 page)

Rhys turned to Victoria, who
looked on the verge of hysterics, and raised a brow. “Will you give us a
moment?”

Vicky sobered and hesitated.

“The damage is done,” Rhys
practically snarled. “Remove your person. I give you my word that I won’t
compromise her more than she already is.”

Loathing being spoken about as if
she wasn’t in the room, Dani watched her friend leave and quietly shut the door
behind her. She had to swallow her embarrassment, her hurt, before she looked
at Rhys again and the sight of his face sent agony riveting through her. Despite
how much she wanted to be his forever, she knew that he did not share her
sentiments. And she could not, would not, allow anyone to force him to marry
her.

“You don’t have to marry me,” she
murmured, feeling tears prick her eyes as she stared up at him widely.

Rhys smiled slightly and raised his
hand, gently brushing her cheek. “I do,” he said simply.

She crossed her arms
self-consciously and stared morosely at something over his shoulder, unshed
tears burning her eyes. “I know you don’t want to,” she told him brokenly. “I’m
not going to hold you to it. Victoria can’t make us.”

“Danielle,” he said firmly,
turning her face towards him with his hand, “the moment that cloak stopped
separating us, I was going to marry you.”

“But you said-”

“Sod what I said!” He sighed
roughly before tenderly kissing the tip of her nose. “The point is,” he
continued, leaning his forehead against hers so that their lips were inches
apart, “nothing and nobody can force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

Her lips wobbled into a teary,
reluctant smile. Drat, the man had her there. Even if he didn’t love her,
perhaps he
liked
her enough to be happy with her. That was more than
what most people had. It wasn’t uncommon to abhor one’s husband or one’s wife.
If Dani could sustain a friendship with Rhys, then they could possibly remain
happy. Maybe even one day he would come to love her.

One day.

 “Really?” The words didn’t have
much sound; she had mouthed them more than said them.

He nodded. “So, I suppose you
want a proper proposal?”

“That would be preferable.”

“Will you marry me, Miss
Carmichael?”

Dani leaned back, mock-affronted,
and feigned an outraged gasp. “No.”

“I beg your pardon?” An
inordinately arrogant brow rose above one, amber eye and Dani was lost. “I seem
to recall that you are not at liberty to refuse me.”

“You have misconstrued sources,
sir,” she remarked tartly, hands on hips. “I can refuse you all I like.”

“Dani-”

“I want roses!” she exclaimed
excitedly, throwing her hands in the air. “And romance! I’ve been waiting a
long
time for a man to propose to me and I’ll be… I’ll be-”

“Damned?”

She gave him a dark look for the
profanity before continuing: “…if it isn’t done properly.”

After that little performance, he
was grinning at her. “I suppose you want this miracle accomplished soon?”

She waved her index finger at
him. “Tonight!”

He grunted dismissively.
“Ridiculous-”

“Ah!” she interrupted him,
rocking on the balls of her feet. “If you want a bride, you’ll do as I say.”

“Impertinent little tart.”

Dani gave him a dirty look. “That
is
no
way to warrant an affirmation.”

He growled inarticulately,
swooping his arm around her back and yanking her against him, revelling in the
sound of her gasp. “Will
this
-” he bent his head, brushing his lips
against hers, “- warrant it?”

She trembled in his arms, loving
the way his hard body pressed intimately against hers and his lips… God, they
were sinister. She tried to shake her head but a small, embarrassingly
unintelligible whimper came from her lips instead.

“I’m sorry,” he teased, his
tongue flicking out and tickling her bottom lip, “I’m not sure I understand
what you’re trying to say.”

“Silly… man.”

“Mmm.” Teasingly, he pulled the
same lip he was tormenting through his teeth.

Dani thought she might die.

“Rhys,” she croaked, thankful
that he was supporting her around the waist as her knees had given way.
However, he had sufficiently managed to addle her brain and coherent thought
was simply impossible, especially the basic fundamentals of the English
language. “Victoria.”

“She can wait.”

Dani shook her head clumsily,
feeling strands of her hair whip in front of her face. It was that simple
action that snapped her from the delirious haze he had created as she mentally
pictured what she must look like. Her hair hung in disarray around her face,
shameful and wanton, because of his arduous caresses.

Abruptly, she stepped away from
him and shot him an annoyed glance as she attempted to rectify the damage done
to her coiffure.

“Damn,” Rhys grumbled, expelling
a heavy breath.

Noting a few of her pins had
fallen to the floor, Dani bent to pick them up. “I’ll await,” she told him
primly, with as much dignity as she could muster considering the appalling
state of her attire, “for your proposal tonight.”

Rhys gave her a wolfish grin.
“I’m sure you must be hungry,” he said suggestively.

Dani wasn’t sure she understood
the innuendo the tone of his voice hinted at, but she replied by saying,
“Famished, to be exact.”

From behind her, as she moved
towards the door where Victoria had no doubt been pressing an ear against, she
was sure she heard him sigh and mutter, “So I am,” and she knew then that they
weren’t talking about lunch.

Which just happened to be the
most scandalous of meals of she had ever attended.

Rhys was shameless, uncaring that
Victoria was seated opposite Danielle and to his right at the dining table. He
simply tormented her with a smouldering look or a casual glance, sending her
skin flaming into oblivion.

Dani wasn’t even sure what they
had eaten as Rhys continued to devour her with just a look, befuddling her mind
and sending her body into a quivering, disorientated puddle of desire. Victoria
prattled on incessantly about something, blithely unaware of what transpired
between the two people she was doing a poor job of chaperoning, while Rhys…
God. The man was incorrigible. His eyes, burning and hooded, were downcast and
a languorous smile curled the corners of his lips. When Dani realised that he
was staring blatantly at her breasts, she gasped and dropped her fork, sending
it clattering against the porcelain of her plate.

He looked positively starving, indolent
and wolfish.

How steam didn’t start
dissipating from her body, she didn’t know. But her fork clattered against her
plate and she was sure Victoria saw the total perturbation on her countenance
for she had stopped talking almost immediately and covered her mouth with a
napkin.

It was only when Victoria
escorted Dani home that she realised Rhys had not put his hood back on
throughout the entire ordeal. A small, tangible smile graced her lips and
remained like that for the remainder of the day, causing her aunt to assign her
strange looks from time to time.

10:32 pm

Dani tapped her foot impatiently.
Where was he?
Just what exactly was taking him so long? Obviously,
something terrible must have happened to delay the odious man. What other
excuse could he have to keep her waiting like this?

Then again, they hadn’t really
decided on a time, or a place for that matter. Dani had just assumed he would
propose to her
tonight
in
her
bedroom, doing that romantic thing
he did with the flowers and the window all those nights ago.

Hmmm.

She chewed on her thumb nail,
suddenly uncertain. Perhaps he assumed she would sneak out the cottage and
visit
him
at Falmouth. Oh, damn. Now she just wasn’t sure of anything
and the indecision would probably cause monumental confusion for both of them.
Perhaps
he
was waiting for
her
and thinking the exact same things
as
she
, possibly deciding to go to the cottage while she acted on moving
towards Falmouth.

Their paths would cross somewhere
in the night and they would both reach their respective destinations and
realise they had just missed each other.

Irksome, it was.

Dani heaved an impatient breath
and began to pace in front of the window, occasionally glaring at the
silhouette of Falmouth on the inky horizon.

She decided to wait rather than
act. Let him come to her.

11:05 pm

Where the devil was he?

Maybe he broke his leg. Oh, no.
The thought was too terrible to contemplate. Rhys was quite capable not to
engage in harmful behaviour on his way to her. He was, after all, quite
familiar with the route into the village. Not forgetting that he had visited
her several times before at the cottage. He surely must be capable enough not
to meet with accident by now.

A thunderous gargling sound came
from the room down the passage and Dani cringed. Even with their doors shut,
her aunt and uncle’s night time symphonies resembled the mauling sounds bears
made when they fought.

Hardly the ideal romantic setting
Dani had envisioned, but it would have to suffice.

For the third time within the
hour, she straightened the white linen on her bed and gave her pillows an extra
fluff for good measure. Everything had to be just perfect. She had even made
sure to pluck all the wilting blooms from the arrangement of roses on her
vanity to ensure that the array looked flawless.

Mmm. But where was her
perfect
groom-to-be?

11:44 pm

She was going to throttle him.

Midnight

Still no sign of Rhys.

Dani had even resorted to
squinting out into the darkness, attempting to make out even the smallest
movement or shadow that would serve to inform her that he hadn’t indeed
forgotten about his assignation.

Oh, how tedious, waiting for
one’s own proposal. Simply preposterous. She made a mental note to tell him off
most sternly about his tardiness. A gentleman should
never
keep a lady
on tenterhooks.

Hmmmf.

00:08 am

Dani cussed and kicked about the
room in a right tantrum.

00:12 am

Realising that her behaviour a
few minutes ago had been deplorable and that no lady should resort to explicit
displays of vehemence no matter the circumstance, she settled for sitting
stiffly on the stool of her vanity.

Calm, she resolved; she would
remain cool and collected and when Rhys revealed his odious head above the
windowsill, he would bear witness to a woman of poise and dignity, a woman that
would coldly and emotionlessly
refute
his proposal. Yes,
refute
!

He would have to beg her to
accept. She would remain impassionate to his pleas, teaching him a sore lesson
for keeping her waiting.

00:15 am

She kicked the stool of her
vanity with all the force she could muster.

A sharp pang of pain riveted
through her big toe and Dani grasped the foolishness of her actions a moment
too late.

She made another mental note to
herself:
never kick a wooden stool with only a slippered foot.

Huffing angrily, she limped over
to the bed and flopped down on the crisp sheets, ruining the neatness and not
caring a fig for it.

00:20 am

Dani leaned back against the
pillows. It was
not
like she was going to fall asleep. She was
not
.
But since she was waiting, she might as well be comfortable. After all, she had
to think of her back.

Bloody stupid man.

00:30 am

Her soft snores filled the room.

00:35 am

Rhys smothered a grunt as he
hauled himself into the room.

Flowers, indeed.

It was hard enough scaling a tree
and a wall without the hindrance of a sizeable bouquet of tulips. With each
jerk, the sodding flowers emitted a gust of pollen straight into his face,
momentarily blinding him and instilling the exigent desire to roar a sneeze.