Lord Beast Read online

  Lord Beast

  By Ashlyn Montgomery

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Historical elements may have been altered, changed or adapted for the author’s personal interpretation.

  Lord Beast

  Copyright © 2012 Ashlyn Montgomery

  All Rights Reserved.

  Table of Contents

  Lord Beast

  By Ashlyn Montgomery

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  London, 1819

  He shouldn’t have lost the bet.

  It should have been a relatively easy outcome to predict on his part. The odds certainly had not been in his favour yet he had accepted the terms regardless.

  A girl with a disturbingly pallid complexion caught his eye and threw him a simpering wave, thin lips pulled back in some sort of cadaverous attempt at a smile.

  Rhys Ashcroft barely stifled a shudder of revulsion.

  He shouldn’t have lost the bet that forced him to attend the Greenwood’s annual garden soirree.

  It simply didn’t wash.

  Stifling an unpleasant grimace as he sipped his warm lemonade from an odd-smelling cup, Rhys reflected that he could have predicted the outcomes of the bet had he but considered the obstacles before him. Truly, it should have been distinct from the outset that Lord Heatherington would be predisposed towards shelled green peas. After all, the man practically resembled a giant one.

  Alas, he had not thought the matter through and Heatherington had endured at least three hours of solely devouring peas before he had purged- a good two hours more than what Rhys had bet.

  He sighed, beleaguered, and watched with rising disdain as the Miss Pennyworth rumbled towards him from across the lawn, emaciated grin intact. Some distance behind her, Gabriel Sinclair, set to inherit a dukedom, tipped his cup in salute and hastily departed the scene, having ensured that the deed was set into action.

  The chit was nondescript and rather plump but in a manner that suggested she simply had too much skin for her bones. To Rhys’s mind, he was using nice adjectives to describe the girl. Miss Pennyworth was the reason why he avoided ton functions. He loathed the blasted things as much as he loathed head lice or poor bodily hygiene. He especially abhorred the women- conceited halfwits with weak chins. Compared to the women he usually associated with… well, they were not for ‘savoury’ little functions as this one. His mistress was a highly-acclaimed actress, sultry and exotic. Estelle was a glamorous beauty, envied by most of her own kind. When she wasn’t available to accommodate his needs, he had his pick of the more educated females of the fast set: wives and widows mostly. Women that were decidedly conniving and deceitful, utilizing their natural beauty in order to rise to a higher station and obtain exorbitant riches, were the sort he associated with.

  He preferred them. He knew how they operated, what they wanted, as they had clarified their needs succinctly and obviously. It was the simpering debutantes he could not stand, especially the plain and boring ones. What could be worse than having an ugly girl trying to marry you?

  He forced himself not to shudder as Miss Pennyworth stumbled to a halt in front of him, tipping her cup of lemonade down the front of her wobbling bosom in the process. She pretended to ignore the sticky substance congealing against her splotchy skin but Rhys could tell it made her uncomfortable by the scorching blush that crept up her rather stunted neck.

  “Lord Ashcroft,” she trilled, batting her lashes, “it is rare indeed to see you at one of these events.”

  “I lost a bet,” Rhys clipped.

  “Oh.” She beamed up at him. “How lucky for us that you did.”

  “Quite.”

  Undeterred by his aloofness, Miss Pennyworth batted her fan at her moon-like face. “Do you miss Ireland, my lord? I hear it is very beautiful.”

  “It is a harsh country,” Rhys grated, “but it could hardly compare to the British Empire.”

  She frowned up at him, lines drawing together between her eyes and crinkling her crooked nose. “I’m not sure I understand the implication, my lord.”

  No, you wouldn’t, Rhys thought bitterly, resenting the chit for bringing to the fore old memories he had hoped wouldn’t plague him as greatly as they were. “It matters not.”

  “I was very sad to hear of the earl’s passing last year,” she bumbled on, blithely unaware that Rhys’s countenance had turned positively lethal. “Do you miss your father?”

  “I never met him.”

  Miss Pennyworth straightened with affront at his tone, her brown eyes widening slightly with fright. “I’m sorry if I have offended you, my lord, but I was merely expressing my condolences for a good man.”

  “My father,” Rhys spat, “was not a good man.”

  Indeed, having been forced to marry Rhys’s mother after compromising her, the man left her pregnant and alone to fend for herself in Dublin. All her bitterness and resentment was shoved onto Rhys’s shoulders and his mere presence in her life was a constant reminder of the man who had abandoned her and ruined her. No love was lost between Katherine Ashcroft and her son.

  “Well, he must have been something to bring you into our lives,” Miss Pennyworth purred and discreetly shuffled closer to him. Rhys stifled the urge to turn and walk away from her. Gabriel would pay dearly for this, of that he would make sure. “Surely you do know that you would make quite the catch.”

  He was aware. He was so very aware of his appeal to the opposite sex and such awareness fuelled his own conceited arrogance. Rhys Ashcroft had been quite irresistible to the fairer sex from an early age. With dark good looks and a sinister smile filled with sensual promise, swarthy skin from being at sea most of his life and a body fashioned from hard labour, women simply fell at his feet. He had come to expect absolute exterior perfection from the women he took to his bed and because of his own beauty, he could expect to find someone accommodating whenever he deemed it so.

  Unfortunately for Miss Pennyworth, she was not perfection in Rhys Ashcroft’s eyes.

  “Miss Pennyworth,” he enunciated frigidly, fully intending to take his leave of the girl’s company before he lost his temper, “if you’ll excuse-”

  “Oh, but you mustn’t go!” she wailed beseechingly, clutching his forearm tightly. “I was hoping you’d escort me about the lawns, perhaps even explore the maze. My chaperone, Miss Roberts, is napping-”

  And it dawned on Rhys with nauseating clarity. The wretched little chit wanted him to compromise her, in the maze or wherever her sordid mind was wandering, so that he would be forced to offer for her.

  Only a fool would succumb to Miss Pennyworth’s observable little ploy.

  Only a blind fool, Rhys amended.

  Coldly, he jerked his arm from her grasp. “Miss Pennyworth,” he began frostily, “I suggest you cut your losses a
nd find someone more suited to your goals. Lord Phillips, I hear, is looking for a young bride and you might just fit the bid seeing as he is partly blind.”

  A change came over Miss Pennyworth. Her pasty face turned puce as it contorted and such venomous hatred blossomed in those conniving brown eyes that Rhys was slightly taken aback. She raised her pudgy hand and pointed a sausage-like finger at him condemningly. “I am a highly respected-”

  “I don’t care what you are,” Rhys intoned.

  Her tirade prematurely cut off, Pennyworth’s expression faltered. “You dare mock me?” she hissed. “I hold much influence over society. I could have you crushed should I but wish it! You’d be wise not to cut me, my lord!”

  Contemptuously, Rhys turned on his heel and left her standing there, slightly separated from the rest of the guests milling about on the manicured lawns, and he thought nothing more of Miss Pennyworth and her warning.

  The following night, on his way to an assignation with Estelle, a bolt in the wheel of his carriage came loose, pitching it into a ditch on the side of the road.

  Chapter 2

  Cornwall, 1824

  Danielle Carmichael’s back was aching.

  Heaving a bereaved sigh, she rolled to the other side of her bed, yanked a pillow from behind her head and shoved it between her knees.

  Somebody, she couldn’t remember who, had once told her that doing this would ease the pain in her lower spine. It did, but only marginally. If she was lucky, it would dim the pain enough for her to eventually fall asleep. If she were lucky, that is.

  Most nights she wasn’t and the pain was so acute she could not reside into slumber.

  However, tonight she felt that it might be one of those rare nights- her back gave an involuntary spasm of agony and Dani flinched. Maybe not.

  Curse the horse that had thrown her five years ago. Ever since the accident, her back had bequeathed her with painful protests every time she was in a horizontal position or whenever she sat down for too long. The doctor said she had come close to breaking it and that it would give her problems for the rest of her life. He did not, however, state that insomnia would be one of them.

  Sighing resolutely, Dani gingerly climbed from her bed, her back panging as she did so, and lit a candle on her bedside table. Maybe she could read herself to exhaustion. Most nights she would sit or stand by the large window of her room that stared out over the short expanse of countryside to the dark oblivion of the ocean’s horizon. If she listened carefully, she could hear the waves crashing against the vast, precarious cliffs of Cornwall’s coastline.

  Silently, she padded over to her window where a silvery blue stream of moonlight cascaded in through the open, heavy drapes. Folding her arms under her breasts, she leaned against the cool wall on one side and looked out at the dark view provided to her.

  She loved it here. The country was beautiful, yawningly stretching as far as the eye could see and there was just something about the ocean that moved her.

  Her aunt and uncle’s cottage was situated on the top of a hill in the small village of Falmouth which provided them an uninterrupted view of the landscape right down to the precipitous cliffs that dropped into the ocean. On a warm, cloudless day the ocean was a vivid blue or turquoise. On a more cloudy and unwelcoming day, the water could turn just as vehement.

  Although dark, Dani liked to picture the countryside just as it would be were the sun up. Rolling green hills descended towards the ocean, dotted with trees and little brown roads. And then, right on the edge, Falmouth Castle. An abandoned, monstrous creation of beauty and wonder, it looked over the ocean soberly, keeping a solemn, melancholy watch over the tumultuous waters. A gothic sentinel for passing ships…

  Dani studied its dark spires, admiring the sleek design and history of the monument. Oh, she would love to explore there one day. It was said to be abandoned but how anyone could leave such a wondrous home was beyond her. But if it were abandoned-

  Wait. Was that… a light? A small, orange rectangle suddenly appeared in one of the eastern spires of the castle. A light? Surely… that could only mean it wasn’t abandoned? Or somebody had taken vacancy there illegally- a vagrant.

  Well, Dani huffed, that certainly would not do. She’d not watch some loathsome person make such a beautiful monument derelict. Seeing that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep that night anyway and her aunt and uncle were soundly unconscious, Dani made a quick decision and hurriedly went to her wardrobe.

  It was easily an hour’s walk to the castle, half an hour if she walked fast, she reasoned as she pulled on a black day dress, the colour significant for the mourning period due to her deceased mother. God knew she couldn’t take a horse and a carriage absolutely played havoc on her spine, so she would have to walk. It wouldn’t be so bad if she kept to the roads and didn’t dally, which she never did. Danielle Carmichael didn’t have an idle bone in her body.

  Hastily, she threw on a cloak and her boots before quietly flying out of the cottage and heading towards the Falmouth Castle.

  The castle was even bigger up close than from her bedroom window.

  Dani’s head was thrown back as she stared up at the towers, the arches, the dark forbidding spires. It was breath-taking, awe-inspiring… never had she seen the likes before.

  She perched on the threshold of the great doors, debating whether the situation called for her to knock or not. If there was somebody here, she would surely be intruding. However, if he or she wasn’t meant to be here in the first place, then it was they who were the intruders, not she. Oh, blast. What a dilemma.

  Deciding on the safer option, Dani raised her fist, hesitated imperceptibly, and rapped sharply. She held her breath for several seconds in anticipation.

  Nothing.

  She tapped her foot impatiently.

  Deciding it wise to be prudish, she knocked again but harder.

  Several seconds passed but there was still no answer. Snorting in a manner that was decidedly unladylike, she pushed the heavy door open. It swung backwards with a mighty groan and emitted Dani into a dark hallway.

  She couldn’t make heads or tails of anything and squinted into the darkness for something that would provide a marginality of light. Searching for a foothold in the darkness, Dani reached her arms out and tried to locate the wall. Her fingers brushed against the cool stone and slid along until her shins bumped against something solid and unmoveable.

  Sighing at the futility of it all, the darkness so thick and cumbersome she couldn’t begin to guess where she was, she called out, “Hello?”

  No response.

  “Hello! I know somebody is here! I saw a light! Hello?”

  There was a crash from somewhere upstairs followed by a row of growled, inarticulate voices. A twinge of nervousness suddenly engulfed her. What if whoever was up there was a thief, not a vagrant? If that were so, then they would be undoubtedly dangerous and possibly annoyed at her unprecedented arrival.

  “If you are a thief, I should warn you that I am most certainly armed!” she squeaked, rather ineffectually as she clung to the wall like a frightened mouse.

  Oh, this was ridiculous. There was every possibility that they weren’t thieves, after all.

  “Well, alright, I’m not armed, but still!” she stammered loudly to the ceiling. “I can be quite dangerous when provoked!”

  As a threat, Dani realised she might be lacking. But what she lacked in force, she made up for in courage and, having no response from upstairs, she squared her shoulders and attempted to shove off the wall, praying that the looming shadows at the other end of the hall was indeed a staircase.

  Her suspicions were confirmed when an illuminated peel of orange light slithered against the wall at the top of the grand staircase, halting Dani in her tracks. Somebody was coming down!

  Her heart slammed to a standstill in her chest and she suddenly questioned the wisdom of her venturing out to an abandoned castle in the middle of the night. Lord, she could be an idiot someti
mes! Young ladies of good blood did not venture out to derelict castles in the middle of the night.

  Catching her breath, she watched the orange slither inflate and grow until a dark shadow propagated at the top of the staircase and slowly, purposefully, began to descend towards her.

  “Stop!” she yelped, very very afraid of this apparition.

  The shadow apparently didn’t think her words held any worth at all for it continued its descent, drawing inexorably closer to her person.

  It was then that Dani decided it best to flee. She jerked halfway around, her body tensed for flight, when a cold, gravelly voice lashed out at her: “Halt!”

  It was unerringly hoarse, like a growl, low and fierce and dripping with deadly authority. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to, disobey it.

  The shadow stopped at the bottom of the steps. He seemed to be wearing an engulfing black cloak so none of his features were distinctive except for a bare, thickly corded arm whose hand was clenched around a candlestick.

  “Who are you?” the apparition growled.

  Dani had two choices: she could act the coward or she could take a stand. Always one to cave to her stupidity, she chose the latter.

  “Who are you?” she returned, straightening her shoulders and facing him bravely.

  The shadow took a menacing step towards her. A mere metre separated them now and Dani squinted up into the darkness of his hood, unable to discern anything of his countenance.

  “You are trespassing,” he barked savagely. “Who are you and why are you here?”

  She did not cower but inside she was trembling. It was astounding that she did not turn and flee into the night he scared her so. The cloaked man seemed infinitely taller and bigger than her, more powerful and fiercer than the most dangerous of beasts.

  Feigning bravado, she folded her arms over her breasts and gave him a good glare. “For all I know, you are the one trespassing! Who are you and why are you here?”

  He closed the distance between them so suddenly she had no time to react. His other hand clamped around her upper arm with crushing force, extracting a gasp from her. “Do not make the mistake of angering me,” he hissed, his warm breath brushing against her cheeks. “I can lock you away and no one will find you again! State your business, girl!”