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.

"Do you like it?" Dani asked, tilting her chin onto her chest and surveying the length of her. Good God, she hadn't realised she was about to explode out her bodice. Hastily, she scrambled upright and hoped gravity would rectify a precarious situation.

"It's indecent," he barked.

She threw him a dirty look. "It is not. Stop being such a prude. This is the height of fashion."

"I don't care if it's the height of idiocy," he said savagely. "It's the height of torture, more like."

Dani stared quizzically at the dress she wore then back up at Rhys. "Don't be ridiculous. It's quite comfortable."

"Not," Rhys stated emphatically, "for you."

Still finding this just as confusing as the man before her, Dani thought better of pushing for answers she might not find savoury. "I suppose you want me to invite you in for tea?" she asked him.

Rhys appeared to take in the cosy setting she had established in the small garden.

"Where is your aunt?" he asked suddenly.

"Sleeping. I'm sure she will wake up at any moment."

"Good," he grunted.

Dani sighed. "Would you like to go inside for tea?" she asked, repeating herself.

"No, out here is fine."

Dani waited quietly for a moment, watching him intently as he just stood there looking at... her? Well, she hoped he was looking at her. "Would you like to sit?" she asked, gesturing to the wide blanket spread around her.

He hesitated a moment before following her indication, placing himself right on the tiny corner of the blanket. It was funny watching him endeavour to maintain a wide berth of space between them and at the same time try to contain his impressive size on the small edge he had allocated himself. Dani had to smother a smile.

"Danielle!" her aunt called, swinging open the window of the drawing room she had been in and popping her grey head out. "Why did you let me drift off like that? Have you been out here all day? Would- oh, hello. Is this proper?"

Fiona never had to act as chaperone until Dani entered her life, so proprieties were something new to her. "Don't worry, aunt," Dani reassured with a smile. "Lord Ashcroft has just joined me."

"Ashcroft, you say?" she said, drolly surprised as she pushed her spectacles up her nose and squinted at the man in question. Astonishingly, the old woman snorted with disbelief. "Pah. That's some tramp in a cloak. Be careful, gel. I'll send out refreshments then you send him on his way. And I'll leave the window open too, so don't get any of this nonsense into your head."

"A tramp?" Rhys echoed, amazed, as he watched her disappear again.

As hard as she tried, Dani could not contain the embarrassing little snort of mirth that escaped her. She looked at him with wide, gleeful eyes, her hands clapped over her mouth.

"Don't," Rhys warned.

Dani shook her head trying to tell him that she wouldn't ever dream of laughing at him, but fearful if she were to open her mouth she would do just that. It was hard to keep her composure in the presence of a man she could scarcely see yet was able to infer the palpable threat coming off him.

"Danielle," he said in a gravelly voice, "the last day has by far been the worst in my life. You would be trying my patience at your peril if you laughed."

The desire to know why his day was terrible trumped the overwhelming urge to burst into hysterics. "Why?" she managed to strangle from her throat, a smile in her voice. "Why was your day bad?"

"Apparently, I've somehow made a re-emergence into society."

Her eyes danced with laughter at his predicament. "Of course. And now everybody wants a piece of the Earl of Falmouth."

"Exactly."

"Poor thing. Such a hard life being so popular."

One of their few servants carried out a tray laden with tea and sandwiches and set it in the middle of the blanket.

"You're laughing at me again," he told her dryly, reaching for a small triangle.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Teasing you, maybe."

"For being popular? Sounds more like mocking."

She shrugged, the side of her mouth lifting in an ironic smile. "Perhaps you take for granted what it is like to have all of society at your feet." She noticed he had adopted possibly the most masculine reclining position she had ever borne witness to. Long, muscular legs stretched out along one edge of the blanket, booted feet crossed at the ankles. She watched, mesmerized, the flexing of his taut thighs through the fawn-coloured breeches he wore as he stretched for another triangle. Rhys lay back on his elbows, completely at ease, brimming with sensual magnetism that left her mouth dry and her skin burning.

"Perhaps that is the most ludicrous thing I have ever had the misfortune to hear," he returned, enunciating his sentence by what Dani thought was popping an entire triangle sandwich into his mouth.

"Are you telling me you don't enjoy the attention?"

"I deplore it."

"Really? How peculiar. Many would willingly sell their own mother for a taste of your infamy."

"They can keep their mothers and take the infamy for free."

Dani gave him a speculative look, curiosity gnawing at her from the inside out.

"You've got that look about you," Rhys warned over a mouthful of cucumber and bread. "Don't even think about it."

"What?" Dani protested innocently.

"That look. You're about to ask me something I'm not going to want to answer. Don't even-"

"Well, now that you mention it," she said over him, loudly and pointedly, "I do have a couple of questions." And so quickly he couldn't divulge an interruption: "Why the aversion? Why stay if you don't like it? What made you decide to stay at Falmouth?"

He was silent for a long moment. Dani raised questioning brows at him, urging him to answer with a look of hope and encouragement.

"I was just waiting for you to get your breath back," he said dryly.

"Are you going to answer me?" she demanded.

"Maybe."

He didn't say anything more.

Dani ground her teeth together. "Rhys!"

"Fine. If you must know, I would trade in all of this," he gestured vaguely with his hand, "for the simple life I used to have in Ireland."

"What kind of life was that?"

"A life devoid of an impertinent little debutante intent on murdering me with a barrage of questions."

That earned him a filthy look.

Rhys sighed. "I used to sail."

"You were a pirate?"

"Why the hell would you think that? Of course I wasn't a pirate, woman. I was setting up a merchant fleet and establishing links with the East when the missive about my... father reached me."

"You would certainly suit the role of a pirate," she informed him cheerfully. "But why did you stop doing what you loved?"

Rhys was not going to answer that question. The little minx was intent on baiting him today and she was, he reluctantly admitted, succeeding. He couldn't help it. That bloody dress. She practically poured from it. If she could see where his eyes continued to drift throughout their conversation, she would be affronted. Or would she?

"Who says I stopped?" he growled. Yes, he had stopped being personally involved in his business investments, but that didn't mean he had stopped profiting from them. Luckily, the fleet had been adequately established by the time of his father's death and Rhys was able to manage it flexibly from Falmouth and London respectively. When the accident occurred, he made sure capable men were placed in the higher management positions to ensure that he did not have to show his face. All business correspondence he took care of from the confines of Falmouth Castle. But he would not reveal all that to Dani, not on his life. He could just imagine her reaction to his explanation.

She would reprimand him for being afraid, for being a coward, that his features would scarcely impact a trading venture.

"You still sail, then?" she asked dubiously.

"No. But I can be a pirate."

She looked at him as if he were mad. And he felt, at that moment, that he was. "Rhys, what are you talking about?"

He rolled onto his side, extended his hand and closed his fingers around the warm, silken skin of her bare arm, gently but firmly yanking her closer to him. She fell forward onto her palms, her eyes startled. "I thought pirates claimed their hostages for their own," he told her huskily, "took whichever woman pleased them."

"Rhys," she squeaked.

"Yes?" he purred, leaning in close to her and revelling in her unique scent, the heat of her nearness. He wanted her closer; he wanted to be absorbed into her. He yearned to touch her, to taste her, to have her in the only way a man could have a woman. The need was so powerful, so overwhelming, he ached with it. With a growl of satisfaction, he jerked her towards him again and she almost toppled onto the tray of sandwiches, needing to brace one of her hands against his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she mumbled, her voice thick.

He looked at her, marvelling at the blueness of her eyes, the slumberous dilated look of a woman lost in a world of passion and need and desire. A pulse throbbed from the points their bodies touched, hot and demanding.

"What does it feel like?"

Those eyes... and that dress. What a little minx she was. She could drive a man wild with the look she had on now. Wild.

"But... The cloak..."

"You don't need to see me," he urged raggedly, his hand mindlessly stroking her arm in a repetitively deliriously rhythm.

A small, incoherent sound escaped her slightly parted mouth and she seemed to sway towards him. He could feel her about to relent, about to relinquish control of that wondrous body to him. Her eyes were half-shut already, unfocused and dazed with need, and the heat... Lord, she was on fire. He could devour her for days, sate himself over and over-

"Danielle!" Her Aunt Fiona hollered from within the cottage. "Have you gotten rid of the tramp yet?"