Lord Beast

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Dani closed the voluminous tome of Wordsworth with a little sigh, the poems achingly striking a chord that mirrored the truer feelings of her own heart.

She shifted her position on the blanket, attempting to find a more accommodating locus for her back, and found her dress pulling tautly around her hips. Her old dresses never used to do that. She stared down at the dark fabric contorted around her thighs and arched upwards, arranging the material so that it didn't lie so tightly. The few dresses Victoria had 'loaned' her that she had managed to alter still did not fit her correctly. They hugged her torso just a little bit too tightly and were still too long for her. But she appreciated her friend's generosity all the same. Dani had never owned anything exorbitant, her dresses being especially old hand-me-downs that her mother used to wear when she was younger. They were faded and drab and had stretched and torn in all the wrong places so Dani practically leapt at the opportunity to wear something as glamorous as what Victoria wore.

The material was of a higher quality, the design superior and the item had obviously been at the height of fashion, if not now then definitely last season.

Dani wasn't sure. She hadn't paid much attention to clothing when she realised that she had no point for it. Why long for something you would probably never attain? So she made do, like she always did, and altered her drab gowns where she could- adding a shiny ribbon there or a piece of lace here. She felt more in control of her life when she made important and positive decisions rather than choosing the alternative.

Like her mother.

Ugh and she had resolved to be happy today.

Dani shook her head and forced a smile on her face even though there was nobody outside to witness it. Her aunt was inside the drawing room, snoring away, having unwittingly fallen asleep doing her embroidery for the day.

And Rhys, the silly man, hadn't bothered to contact her for over a day and that just irked her. Under his directive indeed! Had that just been a ploy to prevent her from visiting? She resolved to give him one day only before she took it upon her shoulders to visit him again. Stupid man.

Dani stretched the muscles in her straining back thoughtfully, her arms stretched up towards the lowest branch of the oak outside her window. Rose bushes were beginning to bloom around her, surrounding the small grassy patch she had chosen to sprawl on. A blanket and a few cushions lay under her, the cushions to ease the pain off her back.

A few quiet birds made their presence known in the tree above her and the sun was bright and warm, intercepted by a few lonely clouds that hinted at rain perhaps later that night. It was, she mused, a perfect day. A pity that the only thing missing from it was the appearance of a darkly mysterious cloaked man she was having the hardest time getting to like her.

She grumbled something inarticulate and reached for her book again, locating easily the page she had left off, and resumed her reading. It was easy to lose herself in the stanzas of Wordsworth and she found herself engrossed to the extent that she lost track of time.

"Not another weapon you intend using on me, I hope?"

Startled, her eyes snapped to the direction of his voice and she involuntarily dropped the book. From her contorted position on the ground, he practically towered over her from the other side of the oak. "Rhys!" Dani exclaimed, shifting to a sitting position on her elbows. Somehow, she had managed to sidle down on the blanket until she was lying flat on her back. "What are you doing here?"

She couldn't see anything past that hood but she could feel his gaze on her nonetheless. "What are you wearing?" he rasped, harshly.

His hands, she noted, were fisted at his sides as if he were physically restraining himself from something. An imperceptibly hot shiver went through her.