Beautiful Beast (The Marriage Maker Book 36)

by Pearl Darling

  She didn’t attend the Wednesday class, or the Friday class. Instead, to her aunt’s delight, she threw herself into attending musicales and soirees. Fortunately, her aunt did not accompany her to the entertainments, as Mrs. Grundy stepped in to chaperone with alacrity.

  Amelia would have been appalled.

  On Friday night, she attended a ball. A small ball, but many members of the ton were there. Murmurs began as soon as she swept into the room. Ophelia hoped that her headpiece stayed in place for the duration of the night. She was clad head to toe in bright blue, a peacock among the white debutant fashion, with a golden ostrich feather curled around the crown of her head.

  As she had all week, she avoided the potted plants and inserted herself in the center of the throng, and with a well-aimed throw, lobbed her fan at the foot of a gentleman she had picked out earlier.

  She watched as he looked down with surprise, picked up the fan, then glanced around with a quizzical expression before his attention came to rest on her.

  “Ah! My fan! You found it!” she said with a tinkling laugh, walking toward him and extending her gloved hand. “Kind sir, I thank you.”

  The man’s eyes took on a familiar dazed look as he released the fan. “My pleasure, Miss—?”

  “Oh, they call me the Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold.”

  “What a fascinating name.” And unexpectedly, as had happened with all the others, the dazed look turned into interest. “Would you care for a dance?”

  “Why, of course!”

  And so it went on.

  Not one asked why she was called the Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold. Instead, most asked to know her name.

  Were there so many people out there that didn’t know who she was? Ophelia wondered as she glided around the room in the man’s arms. For two years, she had waited at the edges of the ballroom for someone to ask her to dance, sure that men avoided her because of her reputation.

  “What is your name?” the man asked on cue. She knew his. He was Lord Concard’s son, Benjamin. She’d seen him at every single ball.

  “Why sir, do you not know it already? I am the Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold.”

  “I must confess, my lady, that I have never seen you until this week. Everyone is speaking about the lady who has taken the ton by storm. That can’t be your real name, though I must confess, something about your introduction is familiar.”

  “I do so like to tease,” she quickly deflected the subject away from her name.

  “You’ve caused quite a stir amongst us men. I’m quite honored to be dancing with you.”

  A strong hand pulled her from Benjamin Concard’s shoulder and Ophelia stumbled to a whirling stop.

  “As well you should be. She’s mine.”

  She stared up at the man who haunted her dreams most nights.

  Lord Barden watched her closely, his angel face carved in lines of passion, his curls kissing his forehead.

  Ophelia shivered. Yes. This was excitement, indeed.

  Chapter Six

  Raphael barely glanced at the man who had been whirling Ophelia around for the last minute. His attention caught on the contrast of the blue dress against her fair skin.

  “Oh, good God.” The obnoxious man put out a hand before Raphael could lead Ophelia away. “The Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold and the Beast of Barden Hall! I knew there was something familiar about the name.”

  “I don’t want to know.” Raphael gritted his teeth and pulled Ophelia toward him. “Ophelia is mine.”

  Her lips parted. “So, you found out then?” Her sensuous smile sparked the luminescence of her eyes. Eyes of a thousand candles, just as he’d remembered from the Club. He’d painted all night afterwards, fired by an internal passion that he’d never known before.

  He nodded. “A friend told me.”

  “I was given to understand that no one knew my name.”

  Although Ophelia blinked, Raphael glimpsed the sudden sadness in her eyes. The urge to kiss and soothe away the unexpected pain was overwhelming and unfamiliar. “I found out.”

  Though it was Miles who had discovered her name. Raphael had threatened to expose the truth of the entire affair with Carina unless Miles found out for him. Unable to enter the Club, Miles had followed Ophelia’s carriage home and had questioned the surprisingly chatty chaperone, Mrs. Grundy, to find out her name. Though, perhaps Miles had worked his musician’s charm on the woman.

  He glanced over Ophelia’s smooth shoulders, marveling at how the golden feather set off the perfection of her form. It was yet another facet of her personality he had not seen.

  Curious faces met his at every turn. It was a waking nightmare of the time he’d forced Carina through the crowd at the Concard Ball.

  “Come with me to dance?” Surprised, he stopped speaking. He was unaccustomed to asking, more used to demanding, and yet he had immediately fallen at the first hurdle.

  “Yes,” Ophelia replied, giving him her hand once again.

  She followed his steps, light on her feet, as if this dance were her first. He was surprised at how willingly she moved with him, given the merry dance she’d led him. Her seemingly agile mind appeared to be able to decode how he operated, and then engage in Machiavellian designs to frustrate him at every turn. Even to the point of seeing through the Carina charade.

  “I want to paint you,” he said, giving into his base desires. “I want you in my drawing room at Barden Hall, lying on my velvet sofa in your blue dress. Bring your chaperone, if you must.”

  She shivered in his arms, but still she said nothing.

  “Will you do it?”

  He experienced a moment of elation when her head dipped briefly as they executed a circular step. The dance continued.

  “Can you feel them looking at us?” she asked, murmuring the words against his neck. The small hairs in the hollow of his collarbone ruffled with her breathing as he tucked her scandalously closer into his arms.

  “Yes. Let them,” he snapped. “They never have anything good to say.”

  “Like when you came in with the Prince Regent’s mistress, you mean? The only lady with whom you’ve not had an affair?”

  Raphael almost missed a step. She didn’t want to let the Carina affair go. Why did she believe in him when no one else did? What had she seen that none of the others had?

  He surprised himself by wanting to tell Ophelia about the Prince and his mistress, the urge pushing the words into his throat. But he had promised Miles. For God's sake, he had promised the future King.

  Never mind that Carina was already happy again.

  “I can’t speak about it now. Later, perhaps. Could you come to Barden Hall on Monday—please?” The delay would give him time to work out what to tell her.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Raphael smiled as a figurative iceberg of discontent broke free of its moorings in his brain and melted in a heady sunset. He covered his confusion with a brisk, “There has never been any of course about our—relationship.”

  She answered his smile with her own. “And there might not be any of course about it in the future.”

  Gods, she was killing him with her lack of commitment. What game did she play? She wasn’t even bothering to hide her intentions in the little looks that lovers gave. She was overt in her speech. You might think you have me, but you do not.

  Did she issue a challenge? What prize was to be won? Since the moment he’d met her, his life had been at once centered and yet off kilter. His habitual anger at the world had been overtaken by a breathless need to be near her person, to drink in her presence.

  The dance ended. They both landed lightly on their feet, facing each other, a matching smile on their lips. He could see other men starting to turn their way, angling for a dance. “Will you come with me?” Again, he asked, pleaded almost, something he’d vowed he’d never do. Angry at himself, he took her arm without asking and guided her through the crowd. She didn’t resist as he passed through the h
all and out onto a deserted terrace that overlooked a small garden. It wasn’t the kind of space that illicit lovers came to, there being no cover for their gentle amours, but it was empty, and, at last, they were alone.

  “I’ve just realized that I know nothing about you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.

  “There’s nothing to tell.” There really wasn’t. An adolescence spent with his mother at the other end of the British Isles, hiding from his father, followed by his painting apprenticeship in Edinburgh, only to return to London upon the death of his father.

  “At least tell me about your name. Your parents had marvelous prescience to name you after the painter—”

  He released her arm, took her small, smooth hand in his, and lead her to the balustrade that fronted the terraced garden. He turned, hitched himself onto the smooth stone, and with one small movement, pulled her up beside him.

  “Oh!” came her breathless, excited exclamation as she leant against him, her warm sides resting in his hands.

  For once, his hands didn’t itch to paint, but yearned to run up and down the silk of her body, to pull her close and pull her face toward his. But he resisted. Ophelia played her own game, and he would only win her if he played by at least some of her rules.

  “I was named after my father’s dog rather than the famed Italian painter.”

  She twisted under his hands as she turned toward him. “Oh Raphael!”

  It was the first time he’d heard his name on her lips. He swallowed as his throat dried with desire.

  “Surely, your mother must have had some say in your naming?”

  “Until I was ten, my mother never had a say in anything. My father regarded her as one of the servants. It was always he and I together.” He and his father going to the races, going to the park, going shooting for the first time, all the time his father railing at the way the world treated him and the Barden family. On his first shoot, his father had casually ripped the heads from the downed birds and daubed Raphael’s face in the blood. The insidious drip, drip, drip of his father’s discontent coated his insides as the blood coated his face. Something had surely stuck, for despite his distance from his father, Raphael had never been content with the world. He knew it in himself.

  In the dusky light, he felt rather than saw her hand reach to his face. She traced the angles of his cheekbones with a soft thumb. He had never before had a woman do that. He’d always thought his father right about women—that they had a need to be worshipped but gave nothing back. That was another thing the blasted man had passed on.

  Yet, here he had barely given, but already she seemed to understand him better than he understood himself.

  He caught her palm as it crossed his face and kissed it, drinking in the rosewater scent that floated up from her wrists. Her fingers curved around his cheek in reflex before she shifted sideways and her upper body curved in to him.

  He met her halfway. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t kiss her again, not until he had her in the confines of Barden Hall. But she’d reached under his skin and tugged at the beast within. Her lips, strong rather than soft this time, found his own in the velvet dark. For a man of the light who needed to see to paint, the sensation was almost overwhelming, for his feeling for her wasn’t just passion, he was beginning to realize. In such a short time, their connection had become something more, something that he was unable to quantify.

  They broke away breathless, his hand still resting on her side, his other pressing her hand where it rested on his cheek.

  “We should go in,” he said gruffly, desire gravelling his throat.

  He felt rather than saw her nod. Keeping both hands on her waist, he dropped from the low balustrade and swung her down, bringing her against his taut body. He almost groaned as she rested her head briefly on his chest.

  “Raph!” a musical voice broke the stillness.

  Raphael groaned. It was Miles. Of all the times to disrupt his life yet again—

  “Who is it?” Ophelia murmured.

  “A friend of mine.” Though barely.

  Miles’ large silhouette weaved in the doorway as he craned his head toward the darkness of the terrace. “Raph, are you there?”

  “I’m back here,” Raphael said, raising his voice. He watched the shadow stride across the terrace toward them.

  “I’ve just been inside,” Miles said conversationally. “Everyone’s talking about this Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Hall. Seems she’s come out of nowhere and caught the imagination of everyone at the party.”

  “Miles,” Raphael warned, but his friend, as ever, was more willing to talk than to listen.

  “Seems to me that she’s employing a little bit of the same sleight of hand as we did with you and Carina. I bet you she’s just a small, impoverished debutante that’s got bored and slipped her leash.”

  Ophelia stiffened beside him.

  “Ophelia, you must listen to me—”

  “They said that even you’d had a dance with her. Tell me, was she as willing as the others? Can’t wait to see her face when you cast her aside.”

  “Miles!” Finally, the urgency in his voice seemed to reach his friend.

  Ophelia hadn’t shrunk away as his friend’s words cut the night.

  “I am neither a debutante nor impoverished, Mr. Ingram.”

  Gods. She knew Miles’ name! Of course, she would. This lady noticed things.

  “As one who has spent years observing the ton, I might ask the same of you. After all, the silk of your waistcoats has run to a disturbing cotton over the last season, and your association with Lord Concard’s son might imply that the two of you are marooned in a similar boat of impecunity.”

  “Goddammit, who’s with you Raphael?” Miles’ voice trembled.

  Raphael worked hard to remember that this was the formidable courtier and rakehell who had masterminded the Prince Regent’s continued financial future. “Might I introduce—”

  “I am the Whelp of the Wolf of Weatherop Wold, Mr. Ingram. Otherwise known as Ophelia Weatherop.”

  “Merde,” Miles exhaled.

  “I speak French and would remind you, never mind who my father was, I am still a lady.”

  “Good God.”

  Poor Miles had been reduced from his normally verbose self to a series of stutters.

  “I think I had better leave you gentlemen to your tête-à-tête whilst I rejoin the party. It wouldn’t do for me to be seen alone with the Beast of Barden Hall, now, would it? Nor with the Incorrigible Ingram.”

  Miles was still stuttering as Ophelia walked away. Raphael listened to the sweep of her skirts as she crossed the patio toward the gallery door. Briefly, her form was silhouetted as she paused in the doorway, the light illuminating half her face, her headdress a blaze of glory, and then she was gone.

  “The Incorrigible Ingram! How could she do that?” Miles stuttered.

  Raphael grunted. “More to the point, what’s this about cotton waistcoats?”

  Miles’ coat tails rustled as he crossed his arms. “My father has cut me off until I find a wife.”

  “I didn’t think you had any trouble finding women.”

  “Ha! Women are easy to find. Wives that can match your lifestyle are very hard to search out, indeed.”

  Raphael paused, his friend’s words lingering in his head. He forced his focus back to the waistcoats. “How bad has it got?”

  “The wife search?”

  “The lack of funds.”

  “I let my valet go last week.”

  For the fastidious and well fashioned Miles, this was a blow, indeed. “You’d better watch out or Prinny will think you are starting a new trend.”

  “Since reuniting with Carina, the bloody man wouldn’t notice a rock striking his head.” Miles stayed silent for a moment. “Does she know the truth?”

  “Who?” Raphael knew exactly who Miles meant.

  “Your lady.”

  Raphael sighed and looked out across the garden. “She susp
ects something, but you told me I couldn’t tell anyone until it was safe.”

  Miles’ voice was curious, “Do you think she would care?”

  Raphael chewed his lip. “I—I don’t know.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ophelia floated through her aunt’s front door in the early hours of the morning, body singing. Her lips still felt the imprint of Raphael’s kiss. She could almost feel his arms resting on her hips.

  Her floating came to an abrupt halt as the slender form of Aunt Amelia emerged from the drawing room, still dressed, her hands smoothing over a newspaper that had been well handled.

  “Are you still going to that club on Charles Street?” Amelia didn’t wait for Ophelia’s reply. “You told me that you found an agreeable way to pass the time, and to meet other, like-minded people. Esme even told me that you had prospects!”

  Esme was Mrs. Grundy, the same Mrs. Grundy who was busy pulling her gloves off behind Ophelia. Ophelia opened her mouth, but, as usual, her aunt was in full flow.

  “Did you know that the Beast of Barden Hall has been going to this club? Your mother and I had such high hopes of you meeting someone suitable, but instead, it turns out you have been visiting a house of ill repute.”

  “It is not a house of ill repute.”

  “I had tea with Esme yesterday. I have already confronted her. She told me there was a nude model there!”

  Ophelia turned around, but Mrs. Grundy was still busy pulling at her gloves, concentrating unnaturally hard on the buttons at her wrist. “Lord Barden only brought her in for his art class—”

  Amelia threw up her hands. “You see what I’m saying? He’s a…a… Beast!”

  This Ophelia could not take. “He is as much a Beast as I am the Whelp of Weatherop Wold!”

  “Ophelia, he stole the King’s mistress!”

  “He didn’t do it, and even if he did, I wouldn’t care!”

  “Oh! I wash my hands of you. Just like your father, you are. You deserve your title. I told him not to do Lord Concard that favor and look where it got him—”

  “I beg your pardon?” Ophelia kept her voice low, which was the only way she knew to command her aunt’s attention. “Lord Concard? What favor?”