Her Dangerous Beast: A Royal Bodyguard Regency Romance (Rogue's Guild Book 2), page 1
HER DANGEROUS BEAST
ROGUE’S GUILD
BOOK TWO
SCARLETT SCOTT
Her Dangerous Beast
Rogue’s Guild Book Two
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2023 by Scarlett Scott
Published by Happily Ever After Books, LLC
Edited by Grace Bradley
Cover Design by EDH Professionals
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
For more information, contact author Scarlett Scott.
https://scarlettscottauthor.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Don’t miss Scarlett’s other romances!
About the Author
For my sister, with love
CHAPTER 1
Through the crack in the partially ajar door, Theo saw toes.
Bare, without the veil of stockings or slippers, illuminated by the fading glow of afternoon light and a brace of candles. Against his will, the lack of decorum intrigued him. He took a silent step closer and was rewarded by the sight of trim, well-turned ankles, crossed and peeping from beneath the hem of a pink-and-white gown. Reminding him he was a man for the first time in…
As long as he could recall.
He should turn around. Leave those beautiful ankles and toes to their solitude. Hunt House was vast, and he’d spent the last few hours acquainting himself with every corner, from top to bottom. And yet, he still had chambers to inspect.
But instead of leaving, Theo hovered at the threshold of the Duke of Ridgely’s salon, as if his boots were cemented to the hallway Axminster at his feet. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn he’d conjured this unexpected vision. But then he heard her talking to herself, mumbling something unintelligible, and he knew she was real.
Who was she?
Who would dare to wander about in her bare feet, inhabiting the duke’s divan, lighting his candles? She was not dressed in the familiar garb of a servant. There were only two other females in residence aside from the domestics. One was the duke’s ward, and the other his sister. Neither were women Theo ought to linger about, admiring. He was being paid handsomely to guard the duke’s London town house. Not to dally with his women.
Theo cleared his throat, making his presence known.
A feminine gasp sounded from within, and the toes and ankles disappeared.
Pity.
He’d rather been enjoying the view.
“Who is there?” demanded the owner of the ankles and toes.
The sharp, crisp, perfect elocution, even tinged with an edge of trepidation, was as pleasant as a warm caress. He had spent most of the years since his exile in London, and he had come to appreciate the English language in all its peculiar accents, so different from his native tongue. There was something about this voice, however, the odd mix of starch and huskiness it possessed, which settled over him. That voice was like sinking into a hot bath after a punishing day on horseback.
“One of the guards, madam,” he said cooly, tamping down his unwanted reaction.
Theo flattened his palm on the paneled door and pushed, allowing himself one step over the threshold. He was accustomed to London’s rules of polite society. It was unseemly for a man to linger alone with a lady to whom he hadn’t been introduced, but at the moment, he didn’t give a damn about convention. He was ever mindful of the reason for his presence here at Hunt House.
An assassin had attempted to murder the duke in his sleep in the early hours of the morning.
But the moment he saw her fully, his mind became empty as a night sky without stars. His reason for being here—hell, even his name—left him. For she was unspeakably lovely.
Standing by the divan she had so recently been occupying, she held a leather-bound folio before her as if it were a shield. She possessed a classical beauty reminiscent of the ancient goddesses captured in the marble sculptures of his homeland. Her golden hair was bright, the same color as the rolling wheatfields he remembered from his youth in Boritania.
“A guard?” the lady repeated, eyes wide, tone wary as her gaze darted about.
With some amusement, he wondered if she was searching for an object which might be used as a weapon against him. Some candlestick with which to bludgeon him.
“One of the guards hired by His Grace,” he added, for he did not know how much the duke had revealed to his womenfolk of the danger surrounding him.
Apparently not the necessity for hired protection, judging from her confusion.
Belatedly, Theo offered as elegant a bow as he could muster, given that he was carrying a small pistol, two knives, and ligatures. Reminders this was no social call; his days as a courtier had long since ended. He was a mercenary now, happy to live unfettered by the twin crushing weights of duty and obligation.
His own man. Free from the past in body, if not in mind.
“Why should Ridgely have hired guards?” she asked. “Does this have something to do with the housebreaker who fell down the stairs last night? And why would I not have been informed? I was told of no such amendment to the household, and I am His Grace’s sister.”
Ah, he had his answer about the mystery goddess’s identity. Not the duke’s ward, then. But the widowed marchioness, Lady Deering.
“I’m given to understand it’s a precaution,” Theo said. “As for the rest, I couldn’t say, my lady.”
Her eyes narrowed on him, and he felt the intensity of her stare to his marrow. They were blue, he realized. The deep, dark blue of the moonlit sea.
“What is your name, sir?” she asked next.
He remained as he was, grave and unsmiling. “They call me Beast.”
It was a name he’d earned, unlike Theodoric Augustus St. George, the hated appellation of his birth.
“Beast,” she repeated, her tone steeped in disbelief.
He inclined his head. “Yes, my lady. Beast.”
“I cannot fathom what Ridgely could have been thinking, inviting such a rogue into Hunt House.” Her voice possessed the chill of winter ice.
And she wasn’t wrong. He was a rogue.
“It would not be for me to guess at His Grace’s thoughts,” he said simply, humbly, mindful of the man he was now.
Even if there was something about Lady Deering’s hauteur that made him wish, for the briefest of fleeting moments, that he could tell her who he truly was. Or rather, who he had been, what seemed as far away as a lifetime ago now. But then he recalled all the reasons why he had left that world behind him, the dangers that were never far, and the instinct faded quickly.
“Why are you wandering about and entering rooms unannounced?” Lady Deering demanded to know.
Her suspicions almost amused him. But neither Beast nor Theo had ever had much use for levity.
“I was tasked with protecting Hunt House and its occupants,” he answered simply. “I cannot do so if I am not inspecting the chambers and familiarizing myself with the house’s plan.”
She was frowning, brow furrowed. “Where are you from, sir?”
He kept his expression carefully blank. “London.”
Her chin went up. “Before London. Your accent is unfamiliar to me.”
No one had remarked upon his accent in years. He’d thought he had lost all traces of his native language, for he had been raised to speak both English and Boritanian. That this woman detected suggestions of his past gave him pause.
“London,” he repeated anyway, undeterred.
She tilted her head, considering him in a way he did not like, a way that made him feel as if she saw into him, plumbing his very soul for his many dark secrets. “Why do you lie?”
Because he had to. Because lying about who he was had become as instinctive as breathing. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell her any of that.
Theo bowed again instead of answering her question. “I dare not linger any longer. If you will excuse me, my lady, I must continue with my task. I bid you good day.”
“You haven’t answered me,” she pointed out.
He had already pivoted and was making his retreat, holding his tongue. The truth would serve neither of them.
“Wait,” she called after him. “Don’t go just yet.”
And, fool that he was, he paused, casting a glance at her over his shoulder. The sunlight caught in her hair, granting her an ethereal glow, and he had never seen a woman more lovely or tempting than the Marchioness of Deering, barefoot at half past three in the afternoon. Theo had a sinking feeling within that of all the perils he would face in his role as Hunt House bodyguard, none would compare to the maddening heat unfurling within him now, the undeniable danger of desiring a woman who was forbidden to him.
He clenched his jaw against a rush of longing he had no right to entertain. “What is it, madam? I’ve a duty to attend.”
He’d had far more duties once. Vast duties to his kingdom, to his family, to his people. Enough to last an eternity. And he had shed them all when he had been banished from Boritanian soil. Despite the viciousness of that farewell and all that had come before it, he found himself thinking about it now, standing before a beautiful stranger. Hellfire, what was it about the woman before him that so stripped him of defense that she had his mind traveling back to those lost years? Had it been nothing more than the wheat-gold of her hair, reminding him of the rolling fields he had once known?
“What manner of name is Beast?” she asked, tilting her head, curiosity flickering in her glistening eyes.
She was bold, Lady Deering. He liked it. Something about her felt familiar. Called to him. Not just lust, but a need far stronger. Deeper. One a man felt to his marrow. There was a name for such a connection in his native tongue. He didn’t know an English equivalent. Perhaps there wasn’t one. It hardly mattered.
“It’s the name of a man who hasn’t much left to lose,” he answered honestly.
Anything of value he’d once possessed had been taken from him. He had coin now, earned rather than inherited.
Her brow was furrowed, her expression softening, a hint of shadows and sadness in her moonlit-sea eyes. “I understand what it is like to lose everything.”
What had the lovely goddess ensconced in this Mayfair manse lost?
He found himself wanting to know. Theo was strangely moved by her statement. By the melancholy she exuded. Part of him wanted to linger. To dare.
To touch.
He bowed instead. “I am sorry, my lady.”
And then, he took his leave, continuing on as he knew he must, belonging nowhere and to no one.
Heart pounding, Pamela watched the mysterious man called Beast disappear into the hall as soundlessly as he had first arrived. He had caught her in a state of dishabille, her feet bereft of slippers and stockings. It was an old habit, eschewing the trappings of full dress unless she left the house. One she should have stopped. It embarrassed her to have been caught thus, so devoid of her customary polish. But it gave her pause in a different way as well. She was gripping her sketching folio so tightly that her knuckles ached. And she was shaken by the unexpected intrusion. Shaken by the violent upheaval of the previous night.
But she was also shaken by the intruder himself.
Who was he?
Was he truly a guard as he had claimed?
What if he was another housebreaker? In the early hours of the morning, a man had slipped inside Hunt House with the intent to pilfer whilst the household had been asleep. Instead, he had met a grim end on the cantilevered stone staircase when her brother, the Duke of Ridgely, had given chase. The man had broken his neck.
A shiver passed down her spine, dread unfurling low in her belly. If this Beast were a miscreant come to prey upon the undeniable wealth Ridgely possessed, surely he would not have politely conducted conversation with her just now. Surely he would not have appeared by the light of day, as bold as any man who belonged within Hunt House’s immense walls.
She frowned. Unless he was posing as a guard so he might better familiarize himself with the house and avoid the unfortunate fate of the last housebreaker? If so, lulling her into a false sense of comfort would certainly behoove the man. Should she have screamed, the whole house would have come down upon them.
Misgiving blossomed, along with something else she didn’t like. Something she hated, in fact. Awareness of this stranger, this Beast, as a man. Pamela made haste to extinguish the candelabra before hurrying from the salon.
As she rushed back to her chamber and donned stockings and slippers, more questions arose. Would not Ridgely have informed her of such an addition as a guard? For the last four years, since her husband’s death had left her once more at the mercy of her family’s charity, Pamela had been overseeing the household at Hunt House. First for her father, and then, after his death and the deaths of her two older brothers Bartholomew and Matthew, for her brother Trevor, now Duke of Ridgely. Their mother preferred the country seat at Ridgely Hall, which was far from the gilded London monstrosity in which their father had often installed his mistresses. Surely someone—the housekeeper Mrs. Bell, the butler Ames, Ridgely himself—might have mentioned the presence of a man named Beast?
By the time Pamela finished dressing and left her chamber, she was determined that she must find Ridgely to confirm her suspicions. She felt sure she would have been told of this. She and her brother were close. They spoke daily. Ridgely was…vexing. But he didn’t keep secrets. Not like this one, a strange man prowling about.
No, the wickedly handsome intruder with the magnificent eyes and commanding air had been lying. There had been a few tense moments between them during which she had found herself beneath his thrall. Struck by his features, which seemed so very different than the gentlemen of her acquaintance. By the mysteries in his husky, slightly accented voice.
But now she had broken free of the spell. She was not a fool, and nor would she allow this Beast fellow to make her one. She reached her brother’s study and knocked at the door. No answer came from within, and a peek inside revealed it empty and cast in late-afternoon shadows. She was striding past the library when suspicious cries from within caught her attention and sent more worry crashing through her. They were feminine cries. Cries which sounded alarmingly like that of Ridgely’s ward, Lady Virtue Walcot.
If that miscreant Beast was within, harming Lady Virtue, Pamela would never forgive herself for tarrying long enough to don stockings and slippers. In a rush, she threw open the door, only to discover the man lying atop a familiar feminine form on the library’s Grecian couch was not Beast at all.
Rather, it was her own brother.
And he was…oh good heavens. A gasp tore from her. There was no reason for Ridgely to be so intimately entwined with his ward save one. Shock and outrage rose to prominence. Pamela crossed the threshold, feeling every bit the mother hen who had just caught a fox about to devour one of her innocent chicks.
“Ridgely, what have you done?” she demanded.
She had the presence of mind to discreetly close the library door to fend off prying ears and the wandering eyes of servants. Lady Virtue was attempting to find a husband, and any hint of scandal would prove ruinous for her. Ridgely knew this, and yet he had dared to conduct himself in such egregious fashion. Oh, she could box his ears for this.
“Christ, Pamela,” her brother muttered. “What are you doing in here?”
“Looking for you,” she snapped, furious with him for this outrageous display of lechery. “And not a moment too soon, judging from the look of it.”
Ridgely was rumpled and rakish, his cheekbones tinged red. Lady Virtue was flushed, her gown lifted to her waist, and Pamela hastily averted her eyes before she saw something she didn’t want to see.
“Hell,” her brother said, which was most certainly not an explanation or a defense of himself.
But then, how could he defend being atop his innocent ward with her skirts raised and his face buried in her bodice?
“Your language is as deplorable as your ability to control yourself, Ridgely,” she told him, hoping she had interrupted them before every boundary had been crossed.
