Rowan gestured with a flourish. “There. Look.”
Magnus stepped forward, and his gaze fell on the fireplace. There, hanging prominently above it, was the painting he had hidden in the storage. A portrait of himself, Evaline, and his father.
He froze.
Magnus’s chest tightened as his eyes swept over the painting, lingering on his father’s face. A sudden, hot surge of anger coiled in his stomach, and his jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Every calculated thought, every carefully measured composure he prided himself on, seemed to crumble as he stared at the familiar faces in the portrait. His fingers curled into fists at his sides, and for the first time in years, he felt a raw, unrestrained fury bubbling up. The rest of the room seemed to fade away, leaving only the painting and a storm of unspoken reckoning that threatened to consume him.
“Who did this?” he rasped, glaring at the painting.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Explain this to me, Mrs. Redmond. Now.”
The Duke’s voice was low, but the weight of it made the air grow heavy. He stood before the portrait, his hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes hard as steel.
Mrs. Redmond lowered her gaze at once, fingers twisting in her apron. “Your Grace…”
He cut her off. “Do not falter. Who placed this here?”
She swallowed. “It... it was not I, Your Grace. I only followed instructions.”
Magnus’s gaze narrowed. He took one measured step closer. “Whose instructions?”
Her breath hitched. She dared not look up. “Her Grace… the Duchess. She… she saw it when she was in the room where the old portraits are kept. She remarked that it was finely done, and she thought it might look… agreeable here.”
Magnus’s jaw tightened. His gaze swung back to the painting, his voice sharpened to a blade’s edge. “She found it. Of all the things she might have left untouched, she found this and touched it.”
Mrs. Redmond clutched her apron tighter, her voice barely above a whisper. “She meant no harm, Your Grace.”
“No harm?” He let out a short, mirthless laugh. His eyes lingered on the painted features, a shadow crossing his face. “It was put away for a reason. My reason, and no one—no one—was given leave to move it.”
Silence pressed in, broken only by the faint ticking of the clock on the mantel. Mrs. Redmond lowered her head further, as though hoping the floor might swallow her.
Magnus turned sharply back to her. “Did she ask how it came to be hidden there?”
Mrs. Redmond hesitated. “No, Your Grace. She only insisted that it should not be shut away.”
His lips thinned. “Enough,” he said. “Leave me.”
She dipped in a quick curtsey and hurried from the room, leaving him alone with the portrait he had sought so long to forget.
The door closed softly behind Mrs. Redmond, and silence settled once more. Magnus remained where he stood, staring at the portrait as though it mocked him with its sudden reappearance.
He had hidden it for a reason. Hidden her for a reason.
The delicate brushstrokes captured his sister’s smile with cruel precision, each line a needle pressing into the armor he had built around himself. He had thought the memories were buried, locked away with the dust and shadows of that forgotten room. Yet here she was, her eyes following him across the chamber, pulling with them the echo of a past he refused to let live.
It was not only her face that he did not like to see. It was his father’s, too. The sharp lines, the same proud tilt of the head. Different reasons, different wounds. Both unbearable. He had fought to forget. He had bled to forget. Now… one careless act had dragged it all back into the light.
He knew what would follow. He always did. When the past pressed in, when those faces stared at him unbidden, he became something else. Harder, darker, more merciless than even the ton whispered him to be. They called him ruthless. They were not wrong. But it was in these moments, with memory gnawing at the edges of his restraint, that the name fit like a second skin.
Magnus exhaled slowly, his jaw clenched, his hands curled into fists behind his back. He turned from the portrait at last, though the image lingered in his mind, relentless.
Enough. If Dorothy believed she might rearrange his house as though it were a doll’s plaything, she would learn her mistake swiftly. Some matters were trivial, but this... this trespass cut far deeper.
He strode from the study, his steps echoing down the corridor with the weight of suppressed ire. The servants who glanced at him shrank back against the walls, lowering their heads, pretending sudden fascination with their errands. He saw them, but he ignored them.
At the foot of the grand staircase, he paused only long enough to draw a steadying breath. Then he ascended, boots striking the polished wood, his gaze fixed forward. Dorothy’s chambers lay at the end of the west wing. The heavy silence of the corridor seemed to tighten as he approached, broken only by the soft thud of his own tread. He reached the door, lifted his hand, and rapped once before turning the handle.
