Page 142 of Her Beast

When she opened the door to the dressing room, she discovered it was empty.

This wasn’t Malcolm’s room, at all.

Julia frowned; he’d just brought her to another guest room, not even trusting her enough to bring her to his own chambers.

Suddenly, she needed to get out. Rather than head for the servant cord, she turned toward the door.

Half of her expected it to be locked, but it opened easily.

Julia hovered on the threshold, trying to recall what turns Malcolm had taken to get her there.

Honestly, she’d been far too agitated to pay attention. He might have brought her to the room by hot air balloon for all that she remembered.

Well, she had two options. Julia decided to go left.

The corridors were like those outside her chambers, so she wasn’t wandering one of hissecrethallways.

Julia listened at every door she passed and when she heard no sounds she peeked inside. Thus far she’d found two more bed chambers, a large, mostly empty room with several huge tables, shelves full of ledgers, and dozens of rolls of paper that turned out to be architectural plans, several linen closets, but not a living soul anywhere.

She was just dithering which way to go when she heard John’s voice coming from the corridor on the left.

Julia smiled; John would take her back to her chambers.

But a different voice came to her ears just as she approached the open door and Julia skidded to a halt.

“—no, I already told them to have it finished on the eighth or they wouldn’t get paid. They signed the contract—tell them to re-read it if they are confused as to the terms,” Malcolm said, his voice not loud, but stern.

“Yes, sir,” John answered.

“Next,” Malcolm said, sounding oddly breathless.

“I’ve received a second letter from Jean-Louis in Normandy about the—”

“Tell him not to use the Barton’s label on any of it. They’ve had terrible weather and the lavender will be sub-standard. Next.”

Julia crept up to the doorway and peeked around it.

John was standing a few feet inside, his arms filled with papers he was shuffling. Beyond him was a room unlike anything she’d ever seen. There were racks of cast iron things, thick canvas pads on the floor, leather bags hanging from the ceiling on heavy chains, and strange padded benches.

Right now, Malcolm was hanging from a metal bar that was embedded in two of the exposed wooden beams.

The reason his voice was breathy was because he was lifting his entire body with only his arms, raising himself up and touching his chin on the bar, lowering himself slowly, and doing it again.

And again.

He wore loose white cotton trousers and a smock-type shirt with short sleeves.

His left side was to her. Although he still wore his mask, his arm was bare up to his bulging biceps.

The skin on his arm was shiny and red and whorled, as if it had been melted, stirred, and allowed to settle. His elbow and parts of his forearm were covered with odd patchwork sections of lighter skin.

His hands were curled around the bar and there were just two fingers and a thumb on his left hand, the last two fingers were stumps.

The burns were terrible and Julia shuddered to think of the pain he must have suffered, but nothing about him revolted her.

Indeed, looking at his bare arm had quite the opposite effect. His bulging muscles were massive—perhaps as big around as her waist—and exquisitely defined beneath the shiny pink skin.

“Did you have any responses to the latest batch of telegrams,” John asked, shifting the armload of documents slightly as he stared up at his employer.

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