Page 74 of The Beast of Beswick
“Here,” she said after several heartbeats.
Inside, Thane was strangely glad. Strange, because in the past after sex, he never wanted to linger. Either he or the women left, depending on location. It was a physical release at best. But with Astrid, everything was different. He climbed back into bed and pulled the sheets over them. Thane gathered her close, pulling the back of her body into the front of his. She fit him perfectly, her rounded bottom nestling sweetly into the cradle of his hips.
After a beat, Astrid turned in his arms to face him. Though they could only see silhouettes in the shadows, Thane still tensed. As if she could sense his discomfort, she soothed him with a few caresses of her palm along the roughened skin of his right shoulder blade, and Thane was astounded at her discernment and care. After what she’d been through,shewas comfortinghim. His chest tightened painfully.
This rare, clever, passionate, brave woman.
She was everything.
Thane stilled, his heart stuttering and then resuming its steady cadence with startling clarity. The realization was a lightning shock to his system, as if he’d been dead and was suddenly,brilliantlybrought back to life. He curved himself around her, enfolding her with all his strength, telling her with his body what he could not say with his mouth.
What he could never say.
Chapter Twenty
“Astrid. Gracious, Astrid, are you well?”
At the sharp poke in her ribs, she blinked and startled, Aunt Mabel’s concerned face coming into focus. “Yes, yes, of course. I was lost in thought.”
Mabel shot her a shrewd look. “Daydreaming about a certain duke, perhaps?”
She felt her cheeks heat. “Thinking about Isobel, actually.”
It wasn’t exactly an untruth. Shehadbeen thinking about her sister, at least until thoughts of Beswick had crowded her brain. The wicked man had made her more than fashionably late after he’d removed every stitch of clothing that poor Alice had painstakingly laced and fastened for her outing to the theater. Buttons had been ripped and fabric torn in their haste to devour each other’s bodies, but Astrid hadn’t regretted a minute of it. Nor had he, clearly.
It was the reason she had missed most the first act of the play.
And it was probably the reason behind Mabel’s thoroughly gleeful smile.
Astrid shook her head. The only reason she’d come to the theater was because Isobel was in attendance. She was still struggling with her sister’s newfound independence and the fact that Isobel seemed to be thriving. Despite being in the earl’s private box with their aunt and uncle, Isobel had continued to seem cheerful and at ease, giving no indication that anything foul was underfoot.
She had met her uncle’s glance once, but he had inclined his head politely with no hint of rancor on his face, which made her even more convinced that he was up to no good. Her uncle had always viewed her as an obstacle when it came to Isobel, and offering his sheltered niece some independence had been a brilliant move. If the unthinkable happened, where Isobel somehow chose Beaumont of her own free will andwantedto marry the man, there would be little Astrid could do. Short of losing her sister forever.
“Shall we take a turn about the foyer, dear?” Mabel suggested as intermission began. “Lord, but I haven’t been to the theater in an age. It makes one work up quite a thirst!”
Astrid would wager that the duchess’s thirst was a result of the scandalously dressed actors carousing onstage. She’d been surprised that her uncle had allowed Isobel to attend this particular play, given its bawdy reputation, but with the man, everything was calculated. Perhaps a play like this would make Isobel feel more worldly. In other circumstances, Astrid would have appreciated the over-the-top humor, but she was too preoccupied by her uncle’s motives.
“Beswick should be here,” Mabel commented.
Astrid sent the duchess a dry look. “You know he would choose torture over appearing at any of these affairs.”
“He attended that masquerade,” the duchess said with a sly smile. “And don’t think I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, even for your supposed marriage in name only. He should be here at your side.”
Astrid’s cheeks were on fire. Dear God. Dideveryonein the house know?
“That will never happen,” she said. “The truth is, I am grateful for your company, Aunt Mabel, especially in the duke’s absence. It’s good to feel not so alone, so…exposed.”
What she meant was facing the wolves as the new Duchess of Beswick. After the masquerade, thetonhad been afire with the gossip that the reclusive duke had married. And Astrid came with her own fair share of scandal as well. Suffice it to say that the gossip was not exactly kind, not that it ever was.
Some of Astrid’s despair must have bled through, because the duchess cocked her head, a sliver of worry skating across her face. “How is he?”
It was a simply worded, if loaded, question. The truth was, Astrid didn’t know. Her husband had laughed at the drawings in the gossip rags, depicting him as a monstrous creature devouring his grasping, greedy opportunist of a bride with a fistful of money in her hand. The overt malice had horrified Astrid. The accompanying editorials weren’t any more flattering. Apparently, a beast of a duke and a shrew of a spinster were too good to pass up.
“How do you deal with this?” she’d asked Thane when yet another awful parody had hit newsstands.
“Ignore it,” he’d said. “They’ll move on to something else soon.”
But Astrid hadn’t missed the flicker of contempt that had couched his words.
