Elle hurried to her chambers, her fingers tingling from having etched upon her brain a depiction of one broad, muscled chest. Once within her room, she flattened her back against the door and inhaled deeply to steady her thrashing heartbeat.

She had dared to touch the Rossetti Beast. Never had she been bold enough to touch a man, much less one as menacing as him. Though she hadn't the slightest inclination as to how a man's body should be, let alone feel, she suspected that the men from her village paled in likeness to the male splendor that was Don Rossetti.

One touch and it had stoked a fire of intrigue in her, eclipsing her inherent fear of the man. Rossetti presented many dangers to her. His air of quiet rage alone should have staved off her mounting curiosity, and although he did frighten her, the untried feelings he roused within her were just as unfamiliar and alarming as the man that inspired them.

Some of the villagers would claim he was bereft of heart, but she could attest to its solid beat that drummed a lively rhythm beneath her fingers.

An enigma with all of his fortified walls of ice and resistance, she found herself wanting to chip away at those barricades.

Frowning, Elle pushed away from the door and navigated towards the window, seeking the filtering warmth of the sun. A soft knock, announcing Lucy's return, brought her up short and she turned away from the aperture to the sound of hinges giving way.

"I have brought you some tea, miss," Lucy called as the door widened with her entry. "Did you have a nice turn of the keep?"

Elle offered a genial smile, grateful for the maid's company. "Aye, Lucy, thank you."

The sound of delicate ceramic clattered atop a tray as the maid shuffled across the room to deposit her articles upon a smooth surface.

"Can I ask you something, Lucy?"

"Of course, Miss Duncan."

Clearing her throat, "I thought perhaps I would encounter other servants upon my walk... but there are hardly any. Why?"

There was more clattering, and she suspected Lucy had poured a cup of the hot brew as its comforting aroma wafted to her nose. "There are but a small handful of us employed here; me, Givens, Edmund, and the cook, the latter of whom you've not yet met. Lord Rossetti is a very private man that requires fairly little. We do what is instructed of us and make every effort to stay out of his way."

"Is he unkind to you and the others?"

"We mustn't speak of these things, miss." Lucy admonished, her voice betraying an inkling of unease. "'Tis ill-advised to speak as one thinks fit."

"Forgive me, if I'm being insensitive. I'm merely trying to understand him. Surely you of all people could attest to his character. Is he as cruel as the villagers say?"

Lucy fell quiet, and in that moment, Elle longed for her sight. What emotion passed over her expression? Was it fear? Was she wringing her hands in accordance to the discomfort that threaded her voice? Was Lord Rossetti truly such a horrifying man that he could reduce the maid to an unnerving silence?

"There is much darkness within these walls, so much so that it permits Lord Rossetti to walk freely without disguise." Lucy divulged in such a low tone that Elle strained to catch her muffled words. "I have never seen his face, only a mere glimpse of harsh lines and I dare not look closer, it would be unwise to gaze plainly upon him."

"Do you believe him to be a beast?"

"Please, Miss Duncan, I strongly urge against any further inquiries. Lord Rossetti would not be pleased should he happen upon us."

"Lucy," Elle said, her voice full of entreaty, "I am parted from everything that I know and hold dear, and I know not for how long. I am unfamiliar with the darkness here and it frightens me... he frightens me. Is their nothing you can tell me to assuage my thoughts?"

She felt the maid peering at her, perhaps weighing her next words with careful deliberation.

"There are many things that are said, terrible and disparaging things, some of which are exaggerated and some that I cannot attest to, but I am certain of this," she paused, and Elle imagined the maid giving a cautionary glance towards the door before adding softly, "In all of my twenty summers here, Lord Rossetti has never raised a hand to me or any other servant under his command – but I believe him to be troubled and riddled with woes, and that makes him an unstable man."

What did Lucy mean by unstable? That he was dangerous? Unpredictable? Volatile? That he could do harm? Elle didn't want to believe that, especially when he had, only moments ago, held her wrist so gently. He hadn't displayed any violent outbursts that would suggest he was of unsound mind – and yet, she recalled his ominous warnings to the villagers.

Do you think it wise to goad me? Do you think to draw your blades or mayhap instill propriety in me? Your efforts are in vain, but I implore you to try.

Though he hadn't blatantly threatened them, his implication had been clear. Did Lord Rossetti have a readiness for violence beneath a stony resolve? Would he harm another? Was it his appearance alone that warranted such a ghastly moniker? Or had he done something so heinous that he was beyond redemption?

"Lucy –"

"Please, miss," the maid pleaded with growing apprehension, "Can we speak of something else?"

Feeling suddenly contrite for having made Lucy uncomfortable, Elle at last, albeit reluctantly, abandoned her avid curiosity for her dark captor and opted to alleviate the maid. "What of the countryside? Is it as grand as some allege?"

"Oh, aye!" Lucy exclaimed with glee, seemingly delighted to have shifted to a lighter subject, "You must have Lord Rossetti take you about the lands. The air would do you some good, and the shores –"

Elle perked, her heart soaring against her chest with a flutter of excitement, "The shores?"

"Aye, miss," Lucy boasted. "Have you never been to the waterside?"

She gave a small shake of her head, "I have never traveled beyond my village."

"Mayhap I could convince Lord Rossetti to take you then?" Lucy suggested.

"You would do that for me?" Elle could barely contain her elation, but it was short-lived, for what if Lucy's request, on her behalf, angered Rossetti?

"If it would please you, I would gladly see to it."

"Mayhap I should –"

"'Tis no trouble at all. But I will do so only on one stipulation." She sensed Lucy's smile, felt it in the lightness of her words.

"Of course, anything," Elle answered eagerly, mirroring the smile she was certain Lucy brandished.

"If you would but drink your tea."

**********************

As Don stepped onto the balcony, he cast a heavy gaze to the fading horizon.

His chambers were nothing short of ancient stone walls that offered a gray atmosphere of despair, where even the sun failed to bathe his wing with warmth and light. Every day, for two decades, he was forced to contend with the pirouetting of every sunrise-to-sunset, but unlike the imminent rotation of time, he remained an unchanging fixture; bound by ageless chains to an eternal damnation. Never to grow older than his twenty-six summers; forced to watch one's lifespan flit him by, all the while, he persisted.

The days of pledged hearts and mirthful spirits were a thing of the past, drifting away in the dismal haze that had become his wretched, abiding existence.

A woman's face filtered into his thoughts; a vision of shimmering gold hair and bright cerulean eyes, visibly an angel, but that angelic visage had masked a remarkable evil.

Seraphine.

Teeth grinding with an ominous growl, he expelled the vision as hatred flooded his virulent heart. No sooner had he dismissed the woman from his reflections, that another readily surfaced, this one with hair as black as a starless night, with dark brown eyes, and skin as pale and lovely as a forbidden pearl.

The sudden image of Elle chased away any remnants of aversion. To his surprise, she was a comfort to his thoughts.

The innocent stroke of her fingers had engendered an astonishing wave of heat, extending beyond muscle and bone to the frigid anchor within his chest. Shocking him as the softest touch had breathed fire into his icy, unfeeling bones. It had been just a marginal stirring, but it was enough to leave him reeling and wanting to give chase to the sparks ignited from her gentle touch.

She had awakened a different kind of beast in him – a viable hunger that could never be reciprocated. For that is what Seraphine had intended when she wielded her damning words.

Why was Elle any different? Was it simply because of her blindness, her inability to see his face, that he could humor thoughts of touching a woman without the fear of revulsion and rejection?

A sharp rap struck his door, jarring him from his conflicted musings. With a glower, Don stalked to where the rapping continued and wrenched it open. "What is it?"
he demanded, the sound a deafening roar throughout the shadowed corridor.

"M-my lord –" Stammered the maid, paling as she took a startled step back, her eyes widening to large pools of green on his hooded face and then as if realizing the error of her ways, quickly averted them. "M-may I speak with you?"

Don scowled as he regarded the girl from beneath the brim of his hood. One would not suspect, what with a wealth of fiery red hair, that she would be as timid and docile as a mouse. He recalled her mother before her having that same wild, flame-colored hair, but unlike her daughter, she'd had a temper to match.

Ivy. The girl's mother had come from the south village, carrying a babe in her womb, fleeing heartache and seeking refuge in a place where none could be found. Just shortly after she'd given birth to her red-haired child, she too, alike so many others, had met a horrible death. Fortunately, his housekeeper at the time had taken it upon herself to care for the child as her own before succumbing to an illness years later. Lucy had been under his directive ever since.

Don hardened his heart against a stirring of empathy for the girl. Finding that the emotion did not sit well with him.

"If you must," he replied in a surly manner.

Lucy shifted uneasily on the soles of her feet, her eyes darting everywhere but at him, all the while twisting her hands in the fabric of her dull skirts.

"Out with it, girl," Don demanded, grounding his teeth in irritation.

"I-I thought mayhap, if the weather was permitting, that you could take Miss Duncan to the shores on the morrow?"

A hard knot lodged somewhere between his heart and chest bone.

Let your face bear testimony of your betrayal to me and the pain you have inflicted on my heart!

"Nay," Don snarled, rancor sharpening his tone.

"B-but my lord –" Lucy's earnest attempt to convince him otherwise took him by surprise and he hesitated in his effort to slam the door, "- I just thought, that mayhap, it would lift her spirits."

Jaw tightening, Don appraised the girl through narrowed eyes. His chambers, cast in heavy shadows, disguised his face, but he could gauge hers clearly. She had made a bold request, one well above her station. The maid had never challenged his authority before. It was... refreshing. Had the little nymph somehow bewitched Lucy to do her bidding? He had no desire to venture into the sun to a place that had an integral part in his pain. He'd grown accustomed to the darkness that was a blessed veil to the horrors of his face.

And yet, he found himself asking, "This would please her?"

With an eager nod of her fiery head, she exclaimed with a broadening smile, "Aye, my lord!"

The taut line of his jaw began to ache as he scraped his teeth together. His little nymph was heavy-hearted – as a captive should be. Why should he care as to how she fared? Her feelings were of little consequence to him. She was here for the sole purpose of fulfilling her father's debt. To prove a point. But her gentleness and innocence were an unexpected and invigorating remedy to his starving, tarnished soul, and the thought of her unhappy... disturbed him.

Bearing that in mind, he made a fleeting, conscientious decision that deviated from his norm. "Tomorrow then."

Don slammed the door shut and listened as the maid's steps receded from the other side, before shoving the hood from his face and raking a hand through his hair. He felt a sudden weight in the pit of his stomach as it churned with the unease in his heart. He had made a solemn vow long ago to never return to that oceanfront.

And just like that it was flippantly dismissed for one dark-eyed nymph.

************************

The next morning, having reconsidered his hasty decision, Don stalked to Elle's chambers with every intention of informing her as thus. His steps were propelled by his black mood and when he came to stand before her door, banged a fist roughly against its wooden frame.

She bid him entry and he shoved it open.

The sight of her stalled him in his boots. She braced before the window amid a beam of golden light, the morning sun emphasizing every beautiful, symmetrical line of her face as her eyes gazing of that velvet brown, hinted warmly at the amber accents hidden there.

His throat constricted with a sudden knot as his eyes surveyed the length of her.

She had donned a plain, cotton dress, the color a faded periwinkle blue with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Flat, brown shoes peeked from beneath the frayed hem of her skirts. Her hair was confined once again into a loose plait, minus a few errant strands framing her face as it trailed over her shoulder, falling to her waist.

Her attire was nothing short of drab consisting of the standard peasant garb that all village women clad themselves in. However, the bodice fit enticingly, accentuating the smallness of her waist and giving way to the flare of feminine hips that his hands suddenly itched to span. Though her dress was somewhat faded from wear, the soft blue was a beautiful contrast to her lovely black hair.

Jaw clenching, Don averted his gaze to her face and clenched his hands. "We will not be visiting the shores today," he immediately regretted the steely edge of his words as a shimmer of disappointment replaced the animated light in her eyes.

Her lashes lowered, casting shadows upon her cheeks and her shoulders sagged in that dull blue as she answered tentatively, "Oh, alright."

Her solemn expression laid bare her vanquished hopes. It shouldn't have moved him to compunction, but he found himself opening his mouth as if to offer an apology or explanation. Slamming his teeth together, he steeled his spine against those expressive eyes, committed to not softening his heart... but there was a traitorous part of him that refused to harden against her.

Don shouldn't care. He shouldn't give a damn about her happiness. She was an unwarranted distraction of light in his span of darkness – and as much as he hated to admit it, he wanted to bask in her.

You forget what you are. She forgets who you are.

A wry thought struck him, one that was far too persuading to ignore as a grin tugged at his mouth.

Don took a step around her, closing the space that divided the two of them as he came to stand over her. "I am a bargaining man," he said on a hoarse breath. "What would you offer the beast in exchange for a day at the shores?"

A breath hitched in Elle's throat; her body anchored by a surge of undulating heat and a shudder of alarm as the heady rush of his words quivered deliriously over her.

None of the boys from her village had ever shown her any consideration. They had always avoided her for fear that her blindness was somehow contractible. Her sisters had often conveyed the men who fancied them and praised their beauty. But never had they showed her the same regard.

Elle was keenly aware that Don Rossetti was anything like the boys from her village. A man of sheer size and muscle, he was hardened by the cruel and unkind world. He presented an immediate threat to her, and a part of her was frightened by that facet.

A few steps brought him closer and that sudden proximity seemed to pull at the air all around her, making her heart soar.

His nearness both concurrently iced and warmed her blood as the weight of his shadow settled around her, snatching wildly at her thundering heart. She felt his eyes moving over her and sheepishly wondered, did he find her comely? Would she want him to look at her like the boys who admired her sisters?

A still-small voice cautioned her against this intense, supposedly violent man but she seemed powerless in resisting the warring affect he had on her.

Elle opened her mouth but whatever she intended to say escaped her, those words thwarted by his compelling closeness. Should she be wary of his intentions? Alarmed by his powerful virility?

"Do I frighten you, nymph?" Rossetti asked in a deep-timbered voice that sent a maddening shudder down her spine.

Her teeth cut into her bottom lip as she deliberated a response. Was her fear of him that obvious? With that in mind, she blurted the first thing on her tongue. "You make me feel small."

Her nose tingled with the dark spices of his skin and a hint of soap, confirming just how little space separated them as the air thickened discernibly of one hot-blooded man as he answered with a trace of humor, "You are small, and I'm quite big."

********************

Perhaps it was the darkness in Don, the renowned title of being monstrous and having very little, that urged him closer and goaded him into doing something foolish.

He was discovering fast that Elle was a temptation he could not resist. His gaze caressed her face, roving over her parted mouth and the delightful pink that flushed her cheeks.

Through hooded eyes, he further assessed her. She was all midnight hair and moon-lit skin. How fanciful of him to think that they coincided nicely, and that she was a striking contrast to the woman who condemned him.

Seraphine had been conniving and manipulative. She had lacked compassion and gentleness. Elle's wide-eyed innocence was a significant diversity to the evil he once knew. She embraced the darkness that confined her, giving him a false sense of hope that perhaps all was not lost within the dark.

His eyes slid to her irresistible mouth and his stomach tightened at the thought of devouring its softness.

Surely, she knew how beautiful she was? How she affected him?

As if aware of his intense perusal, she nervously bit that bottom lip that he longed to claim for his own. The unassuming gesture grated precariously at his iron resolve as those dark lashes swept downward, shielding her lovely doe-eyes.

You make me feel small.

Her soft admission clearly ascertained her awareness of him. She knew that he could easily overpower her. He wanted her to be afraid of him, because he could never have her. It was selfish and cold on his part, he knew that, but it was better this way. And yet, the thought of her fearing him, was disquieting.

His combative thoughts were vexing, even more so was the desire to capture her mouth and sample a taste. It was hard-pressed on his conscience. It was a driving force that intensified with every second spent drawing in the scent of jasmine.

Favoring such lustful thoughts was unwise of him, for it had been a woman that had cast him to this wretched hell. And Seraphine had ensured that no other woman would ever covet him again. Elle could not see him for the beast that he was. If she had her sight she would repel him. She would shrink away in horror and disgust. She would loathe the sight of him.

And Don realized that he would much rather embrace his curse than face her revulsion.

Suddenly, Elle tilted her head and raised those soft eyes to him. It startled him for he almost believed her to have gained her sight, but the vacant stare confirmed her intact blindness.

What would he have done if she had obtained her vision? It was impossible, of course, but the notion surfaced, nonetheless.

Don should have left her then and returned to his chambers. But he seemed incapable of turning back, curious as to how far she was willing to go. His eyes traveled over her, admiring her high cheekbones, pert nose, and the tempting fullness of her mouth. "You have not answered my question."

She swallowed, drawing his hungry gaze to the base of her throat. "What would you require of me, my lord?"

He stiffened, every contour of his body going rigid as a flare of heat erupted low in his belly. Having underestimated her desire to visit the sea, he hadn't expected her wary reply.

Drinking in the braid that trailed her shoulder, Don was struck with an intense desire to see those black tresses unbound about her lovely face.

"Undo your hair."

A breath caught with surprise in Elle's lungs at his heated command. Had she heard him correctly?

Her heart fluttered wildly beneath the cotton of her dress, fearing it would burst at any given moment.

She felt him in every means possible and the darkness projected around him differed from the likes to which she was familiar. It had an underlying hand of evil. It followed him with every purposeful stride as if they were one and the same, as though latched to his soul. She felt the weight of its burden as if it were her own and it made her heart ache and fear this man imprisoned within its blackened vise.

Elle nearly jolted at the sudden brush of his hand on her shoulder as he touched her braid. She moistened her lips in a nervous gesture as the darkness all but shifted, centering on that hand that gripped her hair with inquisitive ease.

She should have retreated from his touch or uttered some kind of objection. She did neither. Standing still, scarcely drawing a breath, his fingers meticulously began to unravel the braid and in one fluid motion, her hair loosened, falling in thick waves about her face.

Once, she had inquired of her sister Elsa on the color of her hair.

'Tis as black as your sight, her sister had replied. Elsa hadn't meant any offense for she knew no other way to best describe its color. And now Elle found herself wondering, did Lord Rossetti find it beautiful? Did he think her beautiful?

Face reddening with a blush, she felt the exactness of his stare in the heavy silence replete with their mingled breaths.

Every part of her was attuned to his nearness and his intense scrutiny of her.

She then felt the faintest pull on her scalp, barely discernible but enough to advise her that he had captured a strand. Rossetti said nothing, simply holding dominion of that lone lock of hair.

Then his touch fell away. Demanding nothing more of her.

He took an abrupt step back, the heat of his body replaced with a sudden draft of cold air. "I'll have the maid bring your cloak," his voice grew rough with an unfathomable emotion before leaving her to question his sudden change in mood.