Chapter Two

“You need a wife.”

A priceless vase from the Ming dynasty, circa the fourteenth century, crashed into the three wicket stumps drawn along the back wall and splintered into a thousand shards, joining a brightly colored pile of its brethren at the base of a hand-painted mural in the gallery. Lord Thane Harte, the seventh Duke of Beswick, scowled as his valet cast a baleful eye at the ruins, a cricket bat dangling from one hand.

“Your father went through a great deal to collect those, Your Grace.”

“My father is dead,” the duke rumbled. “It’s a thing, Fletcher. Now, come on, one more and you’re out. Clench those judgmental arse cheeks and let’s go for the boundaries with the next ball.”

The man grimaced as he lifted the wooden bat with distaste. “Those are not balls, Your Grace. They are worth several thousand pounds.”

“Expensive and ugly. The devil knows why my father worshipped the absurd things. And for posterity’s sake, I need a wife like I need a gash in the head.” Another gash in the head, he amended silently.

“You need an heir, then.”

Thane scowled in annoyance, the battle scars on his skin pulling tight. What child would want or deserve a father with a ruined face like his? And what high-born lady would willingly consent to bed him in the first place? He was lucky his cock remained intact from the war and still functioned.

“I’d rather let this execrable line die out than subject a child to a brute for a father.”

“You’re not a brute, Your Grace.”

Thane clapped a dramatic hand to his chest. “Good God, man, do you even know me?”

“Beauty is only skin deep,” came the prompt reply.

Thane snorted, his irritation fading. “Did you come up with that clever gem on your own?”

“No, it’s from a poem.”

“I’ve told you time and time again, poetry will rot your brain.” He peered at his valet. “Unless they’re bawdy poems, of course. Those are allowed.”

“You have much to offer, Your Grace. If you would only try—”

“Fletcher,” Thane warned. “Your loyalty is appreciated, but this conversation grows tiresome.” The hint of menace in his tone made his valet pale. “Are you conceding defeat? Or shall I bowl you another?”

He hefted another vase in his hand with forced cheer. This one was painted with tiny blue and white flowers. It was so delicate that if he squeezed hard enough, it would shatter in his palm. Thane felt a sense of disgust as he studied the object. His father had revered the blasted things. He remembered the time he’d wandered into his father’s precious gallery as a child, only to cop a caning that had left his bottom raw for days. He’d broken one by accident some years later and had buried the pieces in the garden out of fear for what his father would do.

Thane walked back a half-dozen steps and took a running start before bowling the china arm-over-head toward Fletcher. He felt the pull of scar tissue all along his back and ribs. He was glad the gallery wasn’t mirrored, but it was nothing that Fletcher or the rest of his servants hadn’t seen. No one looked him in the eye anymore. No one, that is, except for his faithful butler and his longtime valet, who now grudgingly brought his cricket bat to the ready.

The vase flew with calculated precision toward his target. To Thane’s surprise, Fletcher swung with an aggrieved expression. The inestimable vase collided with the flat front of the bat and smashed to smithereens. Several of the footmen dodged flying porcelain missiles that sprayed the width of the room.

“Oh, well done, man,” Thane said. “Thought you’d lost your ballocks for a second there, caught up in bloody sentiment.”

“Your father would turn in his grave, Your Grace.”

A bitter sound passed his lips. “My father, God rest his porcelain-loving soul, is hopefully having apoplexy in his grave by now. Hence the point, Fletcher.”

The servant—though more family than servant, ergo his everlasting gall—slanted him an arch glance. “But as you said, Your Grace, your sire is dead. What purpose does this destruction serve? Consider donating some pieces to a gallery instead.”

Thane paused, his eyes narrowing. Trust Fletcher to try to ruin any attempt at joy. “I like cricket.”

“Your father’s collection was quite extensive and renowned. Or you could auction it. Lord Leopold—”

“Don’t.”

Fletcher persisted. “Lord Leopold,” he said more loudly, “had planned to hold a grand auction in honor of your father.”

The flare of pain caught him by surprise. It’d been four years since his brother’s death, and he still felt it keenly. Thane hadn’t wanted the ducal title. He didn’t have the temperament for it. It’d been Leo’s from the day he’d been born, and until the terrible fall from his horse that had snapped his spine, it’d been his.

Thane had wanted to live out his remaining days in solitude. Instead he’d returned to a coronet. To duty. To unwanted responsibility.

To acres and acres of fucking porcelain.

“Very well, then, donate the lot.”

“A-All of it?” Fletcher spluttered. “We would need an inventory at least.”

“Hire someone.” The suggestion curled his gut, and the thought of having someone new in his domain made him feel slightly ill. Most of his staff were trusted servants who had known him as a boy before the ravaged war hero. He did not take well to strangers. Or staring. The latter almost certainly went with the former.

“In Southend? Finding a credible historian with a knowledge of antique Chinese porcelain would be like finding a needle in a haystack. I’d have to send for someone in London, and that could take weeks.”

“Fletcher,” he growled. “I do not care. It was your suggestion. Handle it.”

The valet bowed. “Of course, Your Grace.”

Thane left the gallery and strode toward his study. He’d forgone his daily exercises this morning in favor of some extra sleep. Insomnia kept him awake most nights, along with the recurring nightmares of being cut to ribbons. Sometimes, the dreams were so real that he swore he could feel the blades tearing into his flesh and the hot burn of his separating skin as bayonets punctured and cleaved through it like parchment. He’d saved four of his men in his unit from the ambush, but nearly triple that number had died. All because of one man…one craven turncoat who had abandoned his post.

Thane could still hear their screams.

He stopped to swivel his body, stretching slowly. His entire upper half felt stiff and sore. He was paying the price for not doing his usual exercises, the stitched, cauterized patchwork of skin on his back tight and painful. Perhaps a swim would be in order before dinner. He’d converted one of the unused wings in the manse into a recovery and training facility of sorts, which included an entire room devoted to a heated bathing pool, inspired by the Roman and Turkish baths and some of the extraordinary architecture he’d seen while traveling the Continent.

But for now, he needed a stiff drink.

“Culbert,” he said, passing his faithful butler en route to his destination. “Instruct one of the footmen to fire the hearths in the bathing room. I want it good and warm. And I do not wish to be disturbed.”

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

Finally, he arrived at the study. He loved the solitude of Beswick Park, but the abbey was labyrinthine. After spending so many months in a one-room barrack, he’d needed a map to relearn his way around his childhood home. His study was dominated by a large desk, several comfortable armchairs, and it was dark with heavy velvet drapes covering the mullioned windows. Plush carpeting muted his footfalls as he walked over and sat in the chair behind the desk and poured himself two fingers of fine French brandy. The liquor spread like a warm glow through his muscles.

Thane studied the low fire burning in the grate. He shrugged out of his coat and rolled up the sleeve of his left arm. Shiny, unsightly scar tissue traversed the entire length of it. Most of his body had suffered the same fate, including his back, his legs, and three-quarters of his face. He kept his hair long, but the length did little to hide the stitched filigree of his skin. A beard might have helped, but not when it only grew on the lower, unmarred right side of his face.

Eight years ago, he’d had his choice of women. Now, he’d be lucky to pay someone to even look at him. Not that he was remotely interested in pursuing dalliances with the opposite sex. Or finding a wife. No, Fletcher had rocks in his brain if he thought that would ever happen.

Thane pulled the stack of ledgers toward him and glanced over the numbers for the estates. He hadn’t visited his tenants in years, though Fletcher said the land was turning a profit despite the handful of farmers who had left. Their departure was probably due to his black reputation, most of it deserved. He’d been a harsh man before the war, and now he was a hundred times worse. Ruthless to a fault. Hard. Intractable. Unforgiving. The list went on.

The rumors of the Beast of Beswick abounded, including the one that he’d committed patricide. And possible fratricide. It was true that his ailing father had died of a heart attack upon his return when he’d laid eyes upon his son’s gruesome visage. So, in actuality, he might have killed the man. A few unfortunate months later, his brother had died in a fall during a fox hunt. Once more blamed on Thane, though he’d been nowhere in close proximity to him at the time.

Leo had been engaged to a mutual childhood friend whose father had suggested aligning his daughter with the new Duke of Beswick. Lady Sarah Bolton had taken one look at him and walked out of the room. Contracts had been voided. Virgins un-sacrificed.

That’d been four years ago.

No wonder Fletcher was in a snit about him being unwed.

Tossing back the remaining brandy, Thane rose and limped to the bathing room. As he’d commanded, the massive fireplaces on either end of the chamber had been stoked and lit. A long rectangular bath lay at the center of the space, beneath which metal plumbing conducted heat from the hearths to the water and to the surrounding slate flooring. He’d designed it himself, and it had cost a bloody fortune. Then again, what was the use of being a rich nob if he couldn’t spend his hard-inherited money?

Thane wasted no time in divesting himself of all his clothing and wading in, feeling the warm water soothing his aching muscles. He twisted and stretched until his body felt loose, and then he simply floated, staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that spanned the length of one wall. Stars twinkled in the distance, swatches of the twilight sky blocked by darker bands of cloud cover. Sometimes, when the moon was full and riding high, it was a truly spectacular view. This was another of his favorite rooms at the abbey.

A commotion outside the door made him jolt out of his relaxation.

“No, no,” Culbert was practically screeching. “His Grace is not at home to callers, Fletcher. Good gracious, you imbecile, what on earth are you doing? He doesn’t want to be disturbed, I tell you. He’s…working.”

Thane wondered who it could be. The Marquess of Roth had developed an annoying habit of turning up in Southend to escape his fractious father. However, Winter hadn’t visited in some time, and Culbert wouldn’t be in a lather about him.

“You’re the imbecile because she followed you,” he heard Fletcher shoot back. “I told her to wait in the foyer.”

Thane blinked. She?

“Is the duke in there? I won’t be a minute.” The voice was decidedly feminine, sultry, and unfamiliar. Thane’s lower abdomen clenched at the sound.

“My lady, this is highly irregular.” Culbert’s voice had notched an octave at the obvious break in decorum. “His Grace is busy.”

“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. Who was she?

Her eyes found him then, and her mouth framed a small O of 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 my God.”

Thane supposed it was an honest mistake—after all, it was a converted ballroom on the ground floor, not his private apartments. And Culbert had said 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, a woman had 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, our guest can 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, more of 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.”

“Of course not. How rude of you to suggest such a thing.”

Oh, he was just getting started. Thane lifted a brow. “One could argue, my lady—it is my lady, isn’t it?—that it’s rude to call one’s host ‘rude,’ especially since you were the one to barge in uninvited in the first place. Or has well-bred, ladylike behavior changed so drastically in the years of my self-imposed isolation?”

His emphasis on “ladylike” was not lost as she sucked in an affronted breath, flags of color bursting in her cheeks.

“Then I apologize,” she ground out, her eyes fairly sparking with indignation that she struggled to control, though control it she did. “It was a matter of—”

“Some urgency, yes, I’m quite aware. Enlighten me, then, Lady Astringent.”

Her eyelashes descended, her cheeks hollowing with obvious frustration. “I do beg your pardon, Your Grace, but my name is Lady Astrid. Perhaps you misheard.”

“Beg away, my lady. I’m quite at my leisure.”

Pale eyes flashed. “You, Your Grace, are…are…”

“Abominable? Appalling? Atrocious?” he supplied.

“I was going to say insufferable, but clearly your intelligence is limited to only the first letter of the alphabet.”

A bark of laughter burst from him. It was as clear as day that beneath that stony exterior, his guest had quite a temper. It made him want to rile her all the more, to make those brewing passions ignite in her eyes, anything to disrupt her ironclad control.

“So, Lady Ass-trid, come to suss out the beast, have you?” he drawled. “Did you not get a good enough look earlier? Duke en déshabillé?”

Her lips pursed as if she’d sucked on a lemon, and he wondered briefly—albeit insanely—what those perfect pink arches would taste like. Whether her nipples were the same shade or darker.

“This conversation is unseemly, sir.”

If she only knew the true debauched slant of his thoughts.

“That’s an understatement.” Thane leaned back in his chair. “Shall we trade insults all night, or will you eventually tell me what you’ve come here for?”

The lady swallowed what looked like it could have been a blistering response and sealed her lips. She leaned forward to pick up a green-flowered dish from the mantel with deceptive calm. “This is beautiful,” she said. “Fifteenth century Chinese?”

He arched a split brow. “Yes. My father collected the silly things.”

“Hardly silly, Your Grace.”

She examined the dish in her delicate, long-fingered hands. Thane was momentarily fascinated. Those delicate hands were at odds with the rest of her sharp angles and acerbic voice. For an instant, he wanted to be that bowl, being caressed by her palms. He imagined what those long, elegant fingers would feel like circling his hardened length, and his entire body throbbed with a surge of instant need. Lust roared through him.

Holy Christ.

Thane set the heel of his palm on the placket of his trousers hidden beneath his desk, willing the stiffness beneath it to dissipate as his gaze narrowed on the woman still inspecting the antique across the desk’s mahogany surface. With the plain clothing and her no-nonsense coiffure, she reminded him of a governess. Thane half expected to see a ruler in her hands, ready to crack down on his knuckles for any hint of misbehavior. She was not the sort of woman who heated his blood…and yet his blood was on fire.

Reverently, she placed the dish gently back in its place, her hands falling to her lap, thankfully out of sight, and found his silhouette with her eyes.

They were light, he guessed, but their exact color eluded him. Pale gray or green, perhaps. He didn’t recall meeting her, but before the war, he’d been surrounded by dozens of stunning fresh-faced debutantes and had been just as determined to avoid them all. He wouldn’t have forgotten her, though. She was lovely…until she opened her mouth. A stunning rose, sheathed in bloodthirsty thorns.

“What is it you want, Lady Astrid?” Distracted by the fire in his veins, his voice was gruffer than he’d intended. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Spit it out.”

Her delicate brows crashed together, but she cleared her throat, once more fighting for calm. Thane felt a smile creeping along his lips. “I have a proposition for you, Your Grace.”

“Proposition?”

“A business proposition,” she clarified, gesticulating in midair. Those graceful fingers fluttered, and his entire body hummed in response. “While I was waiting for you to…er…get dressed, I noticed some of the broken porcelain, and Mr. Fletcher mentioned earlier that you might be looking for someone to help you categorize your late father’s collection.”

He was still caught up in indecent proposals, her flirting fingers, and thinking with his rock-hard lower regions. “And?”

“And I can help. I’m familiar with the period as well as the worth of some of the pieces.”

Her matter-of-fact words pierced through his haze of desire. Thane’s sex-starved body spun between lust and confusion. He blinked. He wanted to fuck her voluptuous hands, suck her lips from pink to berry, and she wanted to take inventory of his father’s blasted antiques?

His dry mouth could form only one word. “What?”

“I can catalog the pieces for you,” she said patiently. “I’m familiar with the period and the history.”

“You’re a bluestocking?”

Those distracting pink lips puckered into a little moue of displeasure. “I prefer ‘scholar.’”

“Why?”

“Because ‘bluestocking’ is derogatory,” she said with a frown.

He gave a huff of mirth. The second time he’d laughed in ten minutes. It had to be a record. No doubt the eavesdropping Fletcher would toss it in his face later. Thane shook off the odd feeling. Somehow, instead of unsettling her, he’d only managed to unsettle himself.

A growling sound left his throat. “Why are you here? You barge in uninvited, see some smashed bowls, and decide to seek employment? Don’t insult my intelligence. State your business so we can both get on with our lives.”

There was no response to his sudden hostility. Rather, her eyes narrowed as she peered into the dimness, her pupils adjusting to the flickering light. It pricked him, the intensity he saw there, as if she were trying to figure out a puzzle. Trying to evaluate him like one did with a feral animal, waiting to see if it would bite. He wanted to snarl back at her, to get her to retreat. Run. Leave.

“Very well,” she said, her jaw firming with blunt resolve. “I need you, Your Grace.”

Surely he hadn’t heard that correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

A sardonic eyebrow lifted at his use of the word “beg,” but she clasped her hands together and sat up straight. “Specifically, the protection of your name in exchange for my assistance with your collection, other household matters, and of course, my…er…self, as well, in the production of heirs.”

“Heirs,” he echoed. He had no idea how they’d gone from porcelain to procreation.

She let out a breath. “Use of my body, Your Grace. As the daughter of a viscount, my bloodlines and background are quite…acceptable, I’m sure.” He didn’t miss the minute hesitation or the fact that her captive fingers were clutched so tightly that they were white. Likely, the prospect revolted her. “This will be an arrangement that will benefit us both.”

If Thane thought with the head in his pants, his agreement would be instantaneous. But his brain was quite good when he did decide to use it. And now that her outrageously erotic hands didn’t distract him, he paused to gather his scattered thoughts.

“Are you proposing marriage, Lady Astrid?” he asked. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that the gentleman is supposed to ask?”

“I prefer to take matters into my own hands when necessary, but let’s not be mistaken—this is purely a business proposition, Your Grace,” she stated, her composed expression back in place. “One to our mutual advantage.”

He couldn’t help it. He guffawed, the ugly sound like a choked gaggle of cawing crows. The lady recoiled, her eyes widening further when he rose, uncurling his large frame from the chair. He prowled soundlessly toward her, watching her carefully all the while until he stood directly in front of her. He turned toward the light and heard her indrawn gasp.

Thane didn’t release her eyes, reflective like translucent quartz in the firelight, taking in the transition from shock to fright to horror to pity. The darkness curled around him, took his cold, bitter heart into its fist. He felt nothing in the face of her emotions.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hold your naïveté against you,” he murmured. “You are free to leave, my lady, and we can pretend this unfortunate…situation never happened.”

To Thane’s eternal shock, she rose and moved to stand right in front of him, those pearlescent eyes now giving away nothing. Her breasts were nearly touching his chest, and Thane caught his breath at her nearness, scenting the barest sliver of fear. Her shoulders trembled, and her stern lips, so dangerously close, quivered at the corners. Her distress was a palpable thing, like a hare cornered by a wolf, though the hare tipped its head bravely.

“You need a wife, Your Grace.”

Thane had to admire her courage. “As you need a husband?”

“Not just any husband.” She swallowed hard, her slender throat working. “I need the Beast of Beswick.”