Page 6 of The Beast of Beswick
“My lady, this is highly irregular.” Culbert’s voice had notched an octave at the obvious break in decorum. “His Grace isbusy.”
“This cannot wait,” she said, impatience lacing her tone. “As I’ve already stated, it is a matter of some urgency, and I insist on seeing the duke at once. Surely he can put aside his work for a few moments.”
He did recall giving the order to Culbert not to be disturbed, and the man was a stickler for instructions. With a huff of vexation, Thane hauled his nude body out of the water and reached for a length of toweling just as a figure barged through the doors.
The room was partially illuminated by the light of the fireplaces behind him, so he could see the woman clearly, front-lit as she was. The fact that she was tall was his first impression, and then he saw her face, only to falter for breath. Her features were exquisite in their cameo-like symmetry—a perfect creamy oval with wide-set eyes, an elegant nose, and lush, unsmiling lips. She was Renaissance art in the flesh.
But even as Thane admired her, it wasn’t the kind of beauty that beckoned. Instead, it warned. Or perhaps it was her rigid posture taken with the dour set of that rosebud mouth and the sheets of ice in those eyes. Or the dark hair that was scraped off her forehead into a ruthless coiffure gathered at the nape of her neck. All those sharp angles and cold edges wouldn’t hesitate to decimate a man.
A vague sensation of wonder filled him. Whowasshe?
Her eyes found him then, and her mouth framed a smallOof surprise, a fiery blush heating her cheeks as she averted her gaze with a mortified squeak. Her face turned blotchy with a mix of horror and mortification, and Thane suppressed a flinch. He wrapped the drying cloth around his waist, angling the least offensive view of his wet, unclothed body toward her.
“I b-beg your pardon,” she stammered. “I did not realize. I thought this was the study or the library, not your…not your… Oh myGod.”
Thane supposed it was an honest mistake—after all, it was a converted ballroom on the ground floor, not his private apartments. And Culberthadsaid he was working, though probably not exactly in the context she had expected.
“Not God,” he murmured. “Just a duke, and an unholy one at that.”
As if a spell had been broken, she scrambled to withdraw and collided with a frantic Culbert on her heels. Her arms windmilled madly as she went hurtling in the opposite direction, thrown off-balance. And suddenly Thane found himself sprinting forward to catch her, his hands suddenly full of long-limbed, squirming woman. The only thing holding the thin toweling at his hips in place was the snug clasp of their two bodies.
“Easy,” he rasped, his palm easing down the slim curve of her back. “I’ve got you.”
She smelled like warm summer nights, her fragrance swamping him as it rose from her heated skin while she struggled to right herself. He’d gauged that she was tall from a distance, but she still didn’t come up to his chin. Then again, at six and a half feet, he knew most women wouldn’t.
Their bodies meshed together perfectly, her soft curves yielding to his hard planes. Unlike his brain that was slow to catch on, other parts of his body were taking acute notice of the small but pert breasts that were pressed to his torso and the mile-long, muslin-clad legs that slatted between his very bare thighs.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to hold a woman.
“Unhand me, please,” she said, her voice tight with alarm.
Thane realized that he was keeping her wedged up against him, though her face remained averted and eyes closed. With revulsion, probably. God, what had he been thinking? Not with his head, obviously. He released her so quickly that she took two wobbly steps back and rushed from the room without a backward glance.
“I tried to tell you, my lady,” Culbert admonished from the hallway. “Would you prefer to wait in His Grace’s study?”
“Perhaps I’ll come back another time.”
Thane paused and then popped his head around the door. Surprisingly, his usual annoyance at facing newcomers was absent. He put it down to curiosity. Hell, awomanhad sought him out. Voluntarily. And not just any woman…a lady of quality.
What could she possibly want with him?
“Surely if it’s so urgent, ourguestcan be persuaded to wait,” he called out to Culbert. “I will be there shortly.”
A quarter of an hour later, Thane was once more fit for polite company and fully clothed from top to bottom. He took a deep breath at the study door and slipped in. The room was shrouded in its usual shadow but for the light of the hearth and a single candelabra set far away from the desk. Culbert was present, offering the lady a cup of tea. She sat primly in one of the armchairs, her face angled toward the fire. In profile, her nose was a perfect slope, her chin pointed and determined, and a winged brow was pulled into a frown. Every contour of her body was composed into strict, unbending lines. Despite her loveliness, she did not emanate warmth…as if her exterior was made of stone instead of flesh.
Giving her his least damaged view, which wasn’t much, he swiftly moved past her to sit in the shadows behind his desk. He had an unfair advantage, he supposed, as the light from the candelabra lit her position, while his location remained in gloom.
“Lady Astrid Everleigh to see you, Your Grace,” Culbert announced, bowing, and then took his leave. Thane noticed that he left the door cracked slightly. The fusspot of a butler must have been a governess in a previous life.
He recognized the name, though the faces that came to mind did not include a woman of her age. “Are you related to Reginald Everleigh, the viscount?”
“My uncle, Your Grace. My father was the late viscount, Lord Randolph Everleigh,” she said in a crisp voice, that chin of hers thrusting forward like the point of a sword. “Though you and I are acquainted,” she went on. “We were introduced many years ago in London during my coming-out before…well, before.”
Thane’s thoughts snagged. She meant before the war. Before he’d obtained a hideous face and an even more hideous disposition. Well,moreof a hideous disposition. His good humor evaporated like a breath in the wind. “I don’t recall you,” he said ungraciously.
“I hardly supposed you would, Your Grace. I was the worst of the wallflowers.”
“Fishing for compliments, are we?” His tone was dry. “You won’t find them here, my lady. We are fresh out of flattery.”
