She squeezed her sister’s hand. “Since we’re already here, how about we have an ice? I suppose it will be fine for a few minutes if we try not to draw attention to ourselves.”
“Oh, thank you, Astrid!” Isobel shrieked, flinging her arms about her again. “I promise I will be as insignificant as a beetle!”
They rode in and stopped for a cream ice before dismounting in front of Howell’s Emporium, the village shop that carried everything from fabric to bonnets to fans and various other items. After instructing the groom to wait with the horses, she and Agatha followed Isobel into the shop. It would be too much of a miracle to hope that Howell’s was empty, but Astrid was counting on one thing…that her uncle had not made a public declaration that his nieces had run away, out of sheer embarrassment on his part. And fueled by greed, of course. No, he would try to find them quietly with some acceptable excuse as to their absence. So far they hadn’t encountered more than a handful of villagers. Perhaps they would continue to be lucky.
“Why, Lady Astrid,” a nasally voice called out.
Or not, Astrid thought as her heart sank when she turned to greet Mrs. Purley, the worst gossipmonger in Southend.
The woman raised an eyebrow. “I thought your uncle said you and Lady Isobel were visiting your late mother’s relatives in Colchester.”
And there it was—the “excuse.” Astrid shrugged noncommittally.
Mrs. Purley frowned. “Though I do recall your mother being an only child.”
“Distant relatives.”
The feeling of panic started to spread as she noticed Isobel in conversation with Mrs. Purley’s spinster daughter, who had almost as big a mouth as her mother’s. She hadn’t strictly told Isobel not to say anything, but slips could be made, especially when someone wanted to be nosy. Murmuring her apologies to Mrs. Purley, she hurried over to where Isobel stood.
“I would love to go to Lady Ashley’s ball,” her sister was saying. “However, I do not think we will be attending.”
Lady Ashley was a widowed marchioness and the reigning ton matriarch of Southend. They had been invited to previous balls in the past, but Isobel had been much too young to attend. And in Astrid’s case, well, there was no real reason for a committed spinster to socialize.
“But everyone is invited,” Miss Purley said, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. “You simply must come, Lady Isobel. I’ve heard the Earl of Beaumont is in residence. Isn’t that exciting?”
Astrid frowned, nerves taking flight in her belly at the mere mention of the man and Isobel in the same sentence. She moved to her sister’s side. “Come now, Isobel. We’re late, remember?”
Isobel nodded with a quick goodbye to Miss Purley, and Astrid breathed a sigh of relief that her sister had caught on. She wanted to get back to Beswick Park before too many people, namely the Purleys, could gossip about their presence. They’d risked too much already.
As she stepped out of Howell’s, blinking in the sunlight, she could hear the murmur of voices before her vision narrowed on a small crowd surrounding a particularly flashy carriage. With distinctive red trim. At once, her stomach took a painful nosedive to her feet.
Oh God, is the earl here?
“Quickly, Isobel,” Astrid said, turning on her heel to seek out her sister, only to stare into the grim countenance of Lord Beaumont.
“And where, pray tell, have the two of you been?” he asked, a gloved hand catching her elbow. “You’ve driven your aunt and uncle and me nearly mad with worry.”
“But, Lord Beaumont, surely you know that we’ve been visiting relatives in Colchester,” Astrid said in as innocent a voice as she could manage, but every muscle in her body was screaming with fear. They were in grave danger. If the earl decided to take them into his coach, as she fully expected him to do, no one would do anything to stop him. He was a peer. Nobody, not even villagers who had known them for years, would oppose the nobility.
His eyes narrowed. “Have you?”
“Isn’t that what my aunt and uncle told everyone?”
Astrid’s desperate gaze spanned the street, searching for their mounts, but the horses were nowhere in sight. Where was that dashed groom? How had Beaumont known? He must have had someone on watch in the village. Of course he would have. She should have known he wouldn’t give up so easily.
“Get in the coach.” His command was loaded with soft menace.
“We have our own means of travel, my lord,” Astrid said. “We shouldn’t like to inconvenience you. I’m afraid we really must decline.”
His voice lowered to a hiss. “I said get in that coach.”
Isobel let out an exhale that sounded like a sob, and Astrid’s heart slammed against her rib cage. Could they make a run for it? Not hampered by skirts and improper footwear, they couldn’t. And she didn’t know where the bloody groom had run off to!
Astrid squared her shoulders. “No.”
His mouth tightened with displeasure, and his fingers pinched the tender flesh above her elbow, and she braced herself for public humiliation, but not before the sound of thundering hooves entered the square. People screamed and leaped out of the way as a curricle careened to a stop within inches of Beaumont’s coach, driven by none other than the Beast of Beswick himself.
Sans hat, sans cravat. And utterly magnificent. Astrid had never felt so deliriously happy to see anyone in all her life.
“I believe, Cain, the lady said no,” he said in that smoky snarl of his as he dismounted.
The earl’s lip curled, revulsion flashing in his eyes, his hand falling away. “This is none of your affair, Beswick. And it’s Lord Beaumont now.”
“You’ll always be a dunghill of a deserter to me.”
Beaumont sputtered. “I-I was honorably discharged.”
“You and I both know the truth, Cain, and you can’t hide from it forever.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Beswick’s response was silky. “Do you feel threatened?”
Astrid goggled from one man to the other, but by then, the whispers in the crowd had become roars. Someone screamed, and a child started to wail. The duke was inscrutable, ignoring the chaos around him, his stony expression making his patchwork face seem even more gruesome in the full light of day.
“In any case, this is my affair, you see,” Beswick went on. “Two females who clearly do not want to accompany you will always be of concern to a gentleman.”
“You’re no gentleman,” Beaumont snarled. “And I am escorting them home.”
The duke’s smile was a showing of teeth, no more. “According to Debrett’s, I outrank you.” Beswick’s amber eyes turned to Astrid, and she fought not to throw herself into his arms as though he was some dark avenging angel come to the rescue. “Do you wish to accompany Lord Beaumont?”
To Astrid’s surprise, it was Isobel who answered. “No, Your Grace. We do not.”
Beaumont scowled. “They are no one to you, Beswick.”
“Ah, but you are mistaken,” the duke drawled with an exaggerated flourish. “She is my future wife.”
…
The declaration had left Thane’s mouth before he knew he meant to say it. But it was either that or beat that craven peacock to a bloody pulp. The sight of the earl’s hand restraining Astrid had made him want to commit murder without a second thought.
“Your future wife?” Beaumont scoffed. “Isobel is betrothed to me.”
“No, not Lady Isobel. Lady Astrid.”
Thane heard Astrid’s soft inhalation but didn’t take his eyes from the earl. Astrid was smart enough…she would take his meaning. However, he wouldn’t put it past the man to snatch Isobel and shove her into the conveyance, exposing her to public ruination.
“You wish to marry that dried-up old spinster?” Beaumont laughed, lifting an eyebrow. “I didn’t think used goods were your style, Be
swick.”
The chatter soared around them, and Astrid went crimson with shame. While the beast inside him growled on her behalf, Thane kept it under control. This wasn’t a battlefield. This was the Southend village square—the home of his ancestral seat. Beaumont was baiting him, wanting him to disgrace himself, but Thane hadn’t come through hell and survived only to be goaded into stupidity.
He gave no indication of the rage ballooning inside him. “Careful, Beaumont. That’s my fiancée you’re speaking of, so watch your tongue.”
“Then, you’re more of a fool than I gave you credit for.” Beaumont’s eyes shone with malice, lips folding into a sneer. “Enjoy her. Unfortunately, I found her to be quite frigid.”
Astrid gasped. “I never touched you, you lying cretin.”
That time, it was only by a supreme effort of will that Thane kept his body from surging forward. His gaze panned from Astrid’s heated face to Beaumont’s smug expression, but he was careful to give no reaction. No doubt, the earl wanted him to react physically so that he could have him thrown into gaol.
“You should get back into your coach, Beaumont,” he said in a low voice. “Or I will have my seconds call on you forthwith, if that is your wish.”
The man had the good sense to blanch. “This isn’t over.”
“Come near either of them again, and you will face me at dawn.”
After a seething Beaumont departed in his coach, for the first time since he arrived, Thane took in the stares of the villagers around him. He sensed the fear and the loathing, heard the dread in their voices, understood their horror. He hadn’t shown his face in public in years, after all. He was both man and myth. Both legend and the ugly, glaring truth.
And he’d forgotten his bloody hat.
The furor rose in crescendo, and he felt the world start to crowd him. The voices rose and rose, and the countenances of the villagers whirled, their faces merging. His head felt hot, and the earth started to spin.
“Breathe,” a low voice said, slim gloved fingers weaving with his larger ones and squeezing. “I’m here.”
“Astrid.”
Her palm was like an anchor, tethering him back to reason. Like a cloud fragmenting, his senses cleared, just from her palliative grip.
“Help Isobel and Agatha up.” She nodded to the waiting curricle, her voice low. “I’ve got this.”
“You can handle the team?” he rasped.
She shot him a jaunty grin and winked. “I made our coachman teach me.”
He shot her a dry look. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Don’t trust me, Duke?”
“You’d be surprised to know how much I do trust you.”
When they were all settled, he climbed up beside her. She rode for home much more sedately than the life-threatening pace he’d taken getting to the village, after the groom he’d tasked with keeping an eye on the ladies returned with the news that the earl had been spotted.
Naturally, she managed the horses with a deft, expert touch. But despite his admiration, by the time they took the turn at the start of his estate, Thane’s earlier annoyance returned in full force. Things could have gone far worse if he had been a minute or two later. He kept his mounting irritation in check until they pulled into the courtyard at Beswick Park, but as soon as they stopped, his control broke.
“What were you thinking?” he thundered, handing her down from the driver’s perch and keeping her hand caught in his as he practically dragged her inside.
Her beautiful ice-blue eyes widened. “I—”
“It wasn’t Astrid’s fault,” Isobel cried, hurrying behind them, their maid on their heels. “It was mine, Your Grace. I wanted to go to the village. She tried to warn me, and I wouldn’t listen. Please don’t be angry with her.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Then, why are you manhandling me?” Astrid asked. He released her like she was a hot stone, and she stumbled backward, nearly crashing into her sister.
“In my study,” Thane ordered, throttling his ire. “Both of you. Now.”
He didn’t look to see if they followed but went straight past his desk to pour himself a liberal glass of brandy. When the door closed behind him, he turned to see Astrid standing there alone. That is for the best, he thought. Isobel would probably burst into a puddle of tears for the blistering he had planned.
Thane opened his mouth, but Astrid lifted a palm. “Thank you,” she said. “That must have been hard for you.”
He blinked. Did she not realize how close they had come to being at Beaumont’s utter mercy? “Hard for me?”
“Being out in public.”
“I didn’t think of it until there at the end.” He raked a hand through his hopelessly tangled hair. “Astrid, do you have any idea the danger you were in?”
“You prevented that,” she said softly.
“This time,” he said. “But Edmund Cain is not a man to be deterred, and now that he knows you are here, things could get worse. Much worse.”
“I know.” Astrid approached where he stood, her scent curling around him, and Thane went stock-still as she lifted the snifter from his hand and took a long draught before handing it back to him. He stared at it and then her in dumbfounded silence.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked, her voice husky from the bite of the brandy. “Or was matrimony only a ploy to discourage the earl? It seemed like you were already acquainted. How do you know him?”
“He was in my regiment.” Thane did not want to talk about Cain and dredge up those memories. “And marriage is the only safe course now,” he went on. “If your uncle comes looking for you—and he will—without a husband’s name behind you, you have no power.”
“And you wish to give me yours?”
“I wish for you to be safe.”
She canted her head at him, her eyes unguarded and full of emotion. “Why do you care? When you didn’t before?”
Thane gulped the rest of the cognac, focusing on the hot burn in his stomach instead of the insistent burn elsewhere. “You work for me. Without you, the stupid auction will never happen.”
“Is the auction the only reason?”
“What other reason would there be?” he shot back, needlessly vexed. “That you and your sister stormed into my perfectly ordered life and left nothing but mayhem in your wake? That I happened to enjoy my existence as it was before you decided to employ a woman-shaped hammer to it?” He stood, breathing heavily, unwilling to meet her eyes because he had no doubt she would see right through his bluster, right through his lies. “I care now because I can’t in good conscience turn a blind eye. My mother would roll over in her grave.”
“How chivalrous of you, Your Grace.” Her tone implied the opposite. “One would think that you’d never rescued a damsel in distress.”
No one was worth rescuing before.
Thane sucked in a sharp breath. “Not to my knowledge, no. Women tend to be more trouble than they’re worth. Case in point. Which is why I’ve made it my business to stay away from your species.”
“We are the same species, Your Grace.” Her defenses were up, the vulnerability that had been in her eyes long gone. “I take it you mean my gender.”
That haughty pedantic tone of hers had returned, putting them both back on safe ground. Thane mourned it and celebrated it in the same breath. “Quite,” he agreed. “In any event, you strike me as a lady who is more than capable of rescuing herself, and I mean that as a compliment.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. In most cases, I aim to be. But you have my everlasting gratitude, and Isobel’s, for what you did today.”
Thane’s chest clenched at her words. For once, he was the hero instead of the villain of the story. He’d forgotten what it had felt like to be truly esteemed. For a moment, he found himself choked with emotion. “You’re welcome.”
“You are wrong about Beaumont. And don’t underestimate the power of greed.”
Astrid lifted an elegant shoulder. “My problem to handle.”
“And what of brigands and highwaymen en route? How do you propose to deal with them? To keep your sister safe?”
“We will have Patrick with us,” she said.
The groom who had been familiar with her. Thane felt an indescribable urge to flatten something. Preferably something Scottish. And large. With red hair.
“His family will offer us refuge,” Astrid said.
If Thane hadn’t been watching her so carefully, he would have missed the slight twinge of doubt that passed over her face. He’d bet his last farthing that she hadn’t approached the groom yet with her asinine plan. Fleeing to Scotland? They wouldn’t be able to lose the track of seasoned Runners, not in a carriage with two ladies, a maid, and a single groom for an escort. And Beaumont would have Isobel exactly where he wanted her—in a place celebrated for its elopements and anvil weddings. He felt his anger return as if it was attached to a pendulum.
Thane arched an eyebrow. “Have you told him of your plan yet?”
“No, but he’ll agree.”
Good Lord, but she was stubborn. Thane wanted to force her to listen, but intimidating her would never work. Her tenacity and pride rivaled his, and she would dig her heels in if she had to. He needed to change his tactics.
“I never took you for a coward,” he said.
“I beg your pardon,” she shot back. “How dare you? I’m no coward!”
Thane grinned. “And we’re back to you begging. I already like where this conversation is going.”
“Go to the devil.” She whirled on her heel, but he blocked her path easily, barring the door with one hand. “Let me out, Beswick.”
“I like it when you call me Thane.”
“And I’d like it if you dropped dead.”
He pressed his free hand to his heart with a mock sigh. “So bloodthirsty for such a puny female.”
Beast of Beswick Page 12
