After Lord Rossetti took his leave, Lucy returned shortly after with the morning meal. Elle straightened by the window, anticipating the maid's usual manner of exuberance only to encounter a disconcerting silence as she shuffled quietly about the chambers.

            The maid's sudden change in demeanor was concerning. Elle had sensed Lord Rossetti's displeasure when the maid had inquired of her blindness. Had he done more than scold the girl? Surely he did not have the innate capacity to be a monster? Was he truly prone to such violence?

            Elle shuddered at the thought, her encounter with the Rossetti Beast from earlier having left her somewhat shaken. It had been ill-advised on her part to rival words with him. She knew little of Rossetti and what she knew had been derived from wild speculation. She didn't know what he was capable of, and if there was any truth to what was said of him, it would serve her best to not dismiss the suspicions of his character or rouse his anger.

            Yet, in spite of that, she could not deny that apart of her was profoundly drawn to the man behind the beastly title. He was every bit as frightening as he was intriguing and she often found herself wondering as to how he had become the Rossetti Beast.

            What afflictions tormented him to have wrought such an icy disposition? What if the villagers were mistaken? What if beneath that brooding, impervious veneer was a man terribly misunderstood? Mayhap he was capable of gentleness and simply yearned for acceptance? Had he merely accepted his fate based on the cruel perceptions of others? When last had he dared to laugh or smile? When last had he loved?

            All these thoughts racked her mind, but it was the last that took her most by surprise. Had Lord Rossetti loved at one time? And suddenly she couldn't seem to shake the feeling that perhaps he shielded a broken heart beneath that dark, gruff exterior.

            "Lord Rossetti said you are to eat, naught spared," Lucy advised gently, pulling Elle from her musings.

            As the aroma of what she surmised to be porridge carried to her nose, Elle's stomach growled to the presence of food.

            If you insist on not eating, then you'll discover fast why they call me a beast.

            Lord Rossetti's warning arose as a stoic reminder that only a fool would dare challenge his authority. A small voice within forewarned her to be heedful, but the separation from her family had formed an unsavory knot within her stomach, making even the feasible task of eating seem unbearable. And perhaps her act of defiance was frivolous, but she couldn't help but notice that a minuscule part of her was bitter and wanted to maintain some semblance of free will.

            "If it's okay, Lucy, I think I would rather take a turn of the keep."

            She heard the maid's discernible gasp and then, "But miss, your breakfast?"

            There was a noticeable thread of unease in Lucy's voice that betrayed her fear of Lord Rossetti's temper.

            Elle considered a few meager bites of the porridge to appease the maid, but the very thought had her stomach churning disagreeably, and ultimately her curiosity of the stronghold took precedence.

            She grasped her wooden staff firmly, raised her chin and answered respectively, "I'm sorry, Lucy, I'm afraid I'm just not hungry. I shall try to eat something later."

            "Certainly, miss."

            She sensed the maid's hesitation as though words of dispute hovered just beneath her palpable tone of concern. But Elle would not be swayed. She was eager to explore the confines of the keep – anything to distract her from the growing sadness that clutched at her heart.

            She started in the direction of the door, maneuvering her staff to guide her along the way when suddenly Lucy fell in beside her. "You don't mean to go alone, miss?" she asked with a trace of surprise and apprehension.

            Elle frowned, sensing that the maid feared for her wellbeing. What did Lucy fear most? That she would encounter their dark and daunting lordship? Or was it the haunting stronghold itself that roused the maid's trepidation?

            She forced a reassuring smile, although having developed a sudden unease herself.

            "Mayhap I could assist you?" the maid offered gently.

            Elle gave a firm shake of her head, although having considered it for a brief moment. "Nay, Lucy, I cannot keep you any longer than I already have." Nor did she wish to subject the maid to Lord Rossetti's temper as a result of her own doing. And with that, she continued toward the door and out into the corridor, heedless to any other objections.

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

           Elle didn't know where she ventured, but she moved leisurely in indefinite curiosity, trailing her fingers over the chipped stone of the corridor walls that aided her within the black tunnel that was her vision.

            The warmth of the sun caressed her face whenever she happened upon a window, but that transient heat was abruptly driven out by a draft of cold as if it dare not disperse any further from that great slit within the wall. It was unsettling. That unnerving chill was more than just the absence of warmth as it fastened over the ridges of her spine. To Elle, it implied that something darker was fashioned within its fractured stone: settled deep within its foundation that added some emphasis of fear to Lucy's disquieted concerns from earlier.

            She suppressed a shudder at the anxious feeling it roused, but in spite of it, was persuaded by a deep curiosity that encouraged her exploration. She discovered many empty rooms, which emitted a stagnant air of despondence, as if they had been unoccupied for some time. She could not distinguish much of their remnants apart from dust-riddled effects and a vast stillness of musty air.

           Elle resumed her exploring, passing one room to the next until she happened upon the last room at the end of one hall. She moved tentatively with her staff, examining each possession beneath splayed fingers. The furnishings of the room consisted mainly of a large oak desk, its surface smeared with a faint dusting that came away grainy beneath her hands. It was paired with an upholstered chair where filaments of cobwebs clung to its wooden frame, attesting to its desertion.

            Beneath inquisitive hands, she also uncovered, velvet folds of tapestry. They were draped and tightly drawn over the windows as though to prevent any bit of the outside world from penetrating past its sumptuous fabric.

            And lastly in her findings, Elle discovered that the walls were made up of musty shelves, each bowed beneath the weight of hundreds of battered, leather-bound volumes. As she trailed sensitive fingers over a column of books, speculating at their contents, it was then she felt that familiar prickling at the nape of her neck. Her heart seized with a surging of awareness as the air suddenly felt thicker, heavier with the arresting presence of masculine darkness.

             "Do you find Rossetti Keep to your liking?" he asked with a deceptive calm, the deep baritone of his voice betraying his sudden nearness. How did he always manage to slip beneath her awareness?

            He is of the darkness. A staged whisper at the back of her mind admonished.

            Elle turned to face the direction of his voice and raised her chin in hopes of appearing unaffected by his stimulating proximity, despite the fierce pounding of her heart. "It's beautiful."

            His boots brought him closer and every deliberate step snatched wildly at her heart with a ripple of exhilaration. "How do you know, when you cannot see it for what it is?"

            His gruff tone wasn't mocking in the slightest; in fact Elle sensed his curiosity next to the underlining question as to how she perceived Rossetti Keep.

            It was beautiful, in all its ruined stone adorned with what she imagined to be lovely, opulent fabrics and extravagant furnishings, but every bit of what she had discovered under her fingers had remained untouched and forgotten. The stillness and desertion of Rossetti Keep bespoke discernibly of no end abandonment, making it all the more haunting. There was nothing but the patter of ghostly servants, the occasional oak idling on rusted hinges and the wind howling against the imperfections of the outside stone. What about Lord Rossetti was so unbelievably terrible that he would favor loneliness compared to the company of others?

          "I see with my hands, my lord," Elle finally answered, feeling suddenly breathless braced against that masculine warmth.

           "How so?" his voice deepened with an unfathomable emotion.

           Elle could feel the gravity of his stare as she drew in a shaky breath to ask gingerly, "May I show you?" She shouldn't touch him. It was ill-suited. But she wasn't like everyone else. She didn't have the liberty of seeing others in their true shape and form. She had little choice but to rely entirely on her senses of touch and sound. If only she could decipher his thoughts, his expressions, but he was a mystery she couldn't perceive.

            He knew what she implied and when no reply came her heart jolted against her breast at the likelihood of touching a man. She took in a steadying breath, wondering if he had ever permitted another to touch him. She raised a trembling hand, her stomach fluttering madly as if butterflies raged within, but she hesitated, somewhat dissuaded by what she may depict beneath her fingers. Did he truly bear such a fearsome face? Was he really a beast like so many claimed and feared?

            Tentatively, she extended her palms and was taken aback by the magnificent expanse of chest that manifested beneath her unsteady hands. The only man she could ever compare him to, was her father, and what she encountered failed to match in comparison. A tremulous breath escaped her as she uncovered just how immense he truly was. Her hands met with shoulders so broad, so wide, she was certain they filled the breadth of every passageway. She held a breath as her hands spanned there width, moving to splay forearms so thick with muscle that one could easily mistake them for solid boughs. She stopped just short of his curled sleeves and withdrew her hands.

            She bit down on her bottom lip, contemplating her next move when he urged in a husky drawl, "Go on."

            With her heart in her throat, she reached up and her fingers grazed the protruding line of his collarbone, realizing her height fell just short of it. Her hands dipped further and discovered warm, naked skin exposed by a slit in his tunic. Her hands moved further south over the swell of his upper chest that was three times the size of her father's, compacted with hard, solid muscle. Below that, she found a variable amount of hard ridges and defined tendon that came together in steely perfection.

            He was tense beneath her gentle ministrations, save for the deep breaths that forced his chest to rise and fall. There was a friction to him that had her hesitating, but he had made no demands that she stop, and that somewhat emboldened her.

            Elle withdrew her hand and it hovered briefly between them, until finally she raised it higher.

            Her wrist was captured in a hard, unbreakable grip as he growled in a voice that was cold and exact, "Nay."

             She blanched beneath that menacing strength that could easily snap her wrist in two and stammered softly, "I-I'm sorry."

           When he didn't release her, her pulse spurred with a surging of alarm. Her thoughts from earlier arose quickly to mind, once again reminding her that she didn't know this man and what dangers he presented to her. Could he really be capable of violence and bloodshed? Had he slain hapless others with that callused hand?

           But the hand that gripped her wrist belonged to that of a man, not a beast. He loosened his grip, turning her wrist over with a gentleness that surprised her and began to caress that spot that quivered deliriously in response.

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

           She was frightened. Don felt it in the erratic pulse fluttering beneath his thumb. He was accustomed to fear, but her fear troubled him more than it should. Her alarm of him served as a reminder of whom and what he was and that women like Elle could never be his. And that thought roused the darker side of him. He should frighten her: douse that innocent curiosity that brought a trace of amber to her eyes.

           Elle was small and delicate, so easily breakable compared to a man of his size. Her touch had been a mere whisper against his skin, but it had stoked a profound and dangerous fire in him, stirring feelings he long thought eradicated by the deception of another, making him yearn for things he could never have.

           "Are you looking at me, my lord?" she asked softly.

        If she could see his eyes, the intensity there would frighten her.
        
         "Yes." He answered, his tone equal parts gentle and gruff.

           "Why?" she asked gently, her voice a sensuous lilt to his ears.

            He couldn't take his eyes from her. He had gone so long without the touch of a woman that having her here in his possession was hellfire on his willpower. It was like having one lone rose in a garden barren of other blossoms, only to forbid him from touching it. It was cruel and unfair.

           "I haven't the desire to look elsewhere," he answered, his voice deepening with unmasked desire.

           His fingers tightened almost possessively around her slender wrist, feeling its frailness within his hand as his eyes fixed on her alluring mouth. His gaze lingered, his thoughts turning with the intensity to taste those forbidden lips. Would she taste as sweet as she smelled? Would she fit perfectly to the contours of his body? He imagined spanning her waist with his hands and tracing his fingers over every beautiful, delicate feature.

           There was nothing preventing him from claiming her. She was no match compared to his strength. He could easily take what others believed him capable of doing. Only to do so would break the fragile grain of trust that glimmered in her eyes. She was courageous enough to touch him, and he was willing to take whatever he could get without severing that assurance, no matter how slim it may be.

            But he wanted more. He needed more. He wanted her to ... want him.

            Don glowered. Who was he kidding? This was some cruel twist of fate. His hopes were as unavailing as much as his darkness was absolute.

            Frighten her away, the beast in him urged, for nothing good could come of her curiosity of him, or his desire for her.

            And with that he released her, saying gravelly, "Do not mistake me as a kind or gentle man." saying almost ruthlessly, "You will find that I am neither."

                                                                                               **********