Page 31 of The Beast of Beswick
Despite not having seen Beswick for days following their interlude in his conservatory, for which she was thankful, he wasn’t ever far from her thoughts. Or dreams, clearly. But something had awakened in her at the duke’s touch. Something dark and demanding, as if the thread of sin that had shadowed her fall from grace had been resurrected.
Astrid kicked off the covers in a fit of frustrated pique, her damp skin cooling in the night air, and then realized that she wasn’t alone. There was a lump beside her in the bed. She nearly shrieked and then remembered that her sister had climbed into bed late last night with a nightmare of her own. Astrid doubted with a sour scowl that Isobel’s night terrors were of the erotic naked-duke variety.
“Are you well?” Isobel murmured, her voice thick with sleep, when Astrid sat up and eased herself to the side of the mattress.
“Yes, Izzy. Go back to sleep. It’s early yet, not even dawn.”
Through the upper window, the moon was still visible, the first hints of light now starting to speckle the inky skies to the east. Going for a walk or ride would be out of the question. It was still too dark. Perhaps some warmed milk would help. She yawned and stretched, feeling the contracted points of her nipples scrape against the soft lawn of her night rail. Her body tingled from top to bottom, the memory of her dream lover’s hands making her blush. A cold bath would be a better choice. An ice-cold dunk in the Arctic preferably.
“Where are you going?” Isobel whispered when Astrid stood with an aggravated groan.
“To fetch some milk from the kitchen,” Astrid said, pulling on her wrapper and tightening the sash about her waist.
If I don’tget hopelessly lost, that is.
She’d spent most of the last three days inundating herself with work and navigating the mazelike twists and turns of the abbey. It was getting easier but not by much. Counting the hallways under her breath, she made her silent way toward the servants’ staircase and narrow corridor, the light of her candle flickering on the walls. She didn’t want to think of what she and Isobel would do once the categorization was completed.
Though she enjoyed cataloging the priceless antiques, she knew the work was a temporary fix at best. And not if their uncle discovered them first. Patrick had learned that the Everleighs had hired Runners to find them, no doubt at the insistence of the Earl of Beaumont. Astrid shivered. If that were true, it wouldn’t take long for them to be found. Any of the servants at Everleigh House could have seen them packing their trunks or observed which direction the wagon had taken.
If push came to shove, they would have to leave England. Maybe they could go north into Scotland. They didn’t have much money, but perhaps Beswick might be persuaded to lend them the funds until she came into her inheritance. The idea wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility. It was clear that he didn’t lack for coin if he was playing cricket with priceless antique Ming dynasty dishware.
If he wasn’t amenable, she would find another way. Go to London and find a destitute lord for a husband, if she had to. And if that didn’t work, she could get a job in some remote village in Northern England. Perhaps Chetham’s Library in Manchester would not be opposed to a female librarian, though Astrid suspected that tiny male brains would explode in simultaneous solidarity should such a progressive thing come to pass.
Astrid came to a halt, peering down an unfamiliar hallway.
Where on earth are the dratted kitchens?
Good God, she was lost again. She glanced over her shoulder, noticing that the wall paneling had turned to beveled stone in the light of her candle. It’d been unnoticeable in the dark. She’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but she couldn’t think whether it’d been an extra staircase or one on the same floor.
“Better to go forward than back,” she murmured to herself and winced as the eerie echo of her voice came back to her. It would not do to think of ghosts while she was walking about alone in a deserted abbey in the middle of the night.
Shivering slightly, she hurried down the wide hallway and found herself in a gallery she recognized from the shields and weapons that adorned the walls. Beswick’s family had descended from generations of fierce Viking warriors. She could easily imagine the duke dressed head to toe in armor and wielding one of those broadswords or axes hung across those massive crests. His wide shoulders beneath her fingertips had been compact and hard with muscle.
Astrid slowed, studying the portraits of his ancestors in the next hall. Beswick favored them with his dark hair and burning golden eyes. She moved along the gallery until she came to the paintings of the family. A blond toddler in the arms of a beautiful blond woman stood next to a swarthy dark-haired man who bore a resemblance to the current duke. Beswick was nowhere in the portrait.
Several paintings later, she found him. This time, the blond boy was older, and the woman in the portrait was auburn-haired with a swaddled infant in her arms. The duke was the same, though his dark hair held a spate of gray at his temples. The next frame depicted the half brothers. The younger child beside him wore a sullen scowl on his face as if he wanted to be anywhere but there, standing still for a painter to immortalize him.
Astrid bit back a smile. The young Thane would have been about twelve or thirteen, but his square jaw was already pronounced and those uncommon amber eyes of his already burned with inner fire. A lock of burnished brown hair curled onto his forehead.
She lifted a hand to his youthful, unmarred face, her fingers tracing the rounded curve of his cheek. He looked nothing like the man now, of course. Beswick had been to hell and back—a journey that had taken more than its pound of flesh and left its imprint upon him. He was no less alive for it, though Astrid knew he carried more than his fair share of pain. But she mourned for the boy he’d been and for innocence lost.
Fate could be ruthless.
Astrid supposed she was the same. Her scars, however, were twisted ropes hidden on the inside of her body and encasing the organ currently beating in her chest, while his were on the outside, visible to all.
Would things have been different if Beswick hadn’t gone to war? His appearance wouldn’t have been altered, but would he have been a softer man? She couldn’t countenance it. He had too much strength. Too much innate dominance.
Wouldshehave been different if she hadn’t met Beaumont? Or would she have been happily married by now with a child or two of her own? Before her ruination, her bloodlines and her dowry would have ensured a suitable match.
In a perfect world, they could have both been happy.
But perfect worlds did not exist. They both had the marks—metaphorical and physical—to show for it.
Leaving the gallery behind, Astrid entered another corridor. This one she instantly recognized. It’d been the one she’d stalked down when she’d first met the Duke of Beswick. A very wet, very naked duke. She felt a shame-faced grin creep onto the corners of her lips—that particular combination of words didn’t seem to want to be erased from her lexicon.
Even though she could have easily found her way to the kitchens now that she knew where she was, her feet followed the path toward the bathing chamber. It was unlit, the air chill against her skin, but no less impressive. The water looked black, reflecting the darkness beyond the paned windows. She hadn’t had the time to appreciate the architecture before—she’d been too concerned with an eyeful of nude male musculature—but the space was truly magnificent.
Much like his conservatory.
