“Again, still not our business, Tommie,” Owen called back, though he had to admit he was tempted to ask.
As he walked through the corridors of the servants’ quarters and headed towards the main part of the house, Owen couldn’t help his thoughts going back to what Tommie had said about losing maids. Owen would have had to be a fool not to see the number of maids that had disappeared from this house over the last few years.
The pattern was always the same; they became deliriously happy, spending much more time above the stairs than normal, then lo and behold … they were encouraged to leave. Usually, they left at a time when their dresses and aprons were working hard to hide the swell of their stomachs.
God’s wounds, I hope it will not happen again.
The duke was married now. Surely such behaviour was in the past, wasn’t it?
When he reached the drawing room, he found the door open and stepped through. With the nights so dark at the moment, the space was lit by a few candles that left a myriad of shadows in the room. Owen realized he was hidden in one such shadow, allowing him to hide momentarily from the duchess. He found his feet coming to a stop, indulging in the stolen moment to observe her.
I could paint her. I know exactly how I would do it.
It was a secret passion of Owen’s, one he did not have time to indulge in often. He used to paint every day as a child, but the poor boy had to grow up sometime and realize the life of an artist was not for him. He had to work hard to earn his crust. Yet it didn’t stop his imagination from wandering at times like this.
The duchess sat on an ornate settee, but far from being reclined, she was sat forward, with her legs curled under her and her slipper shoes kicked off on the Persian rug. In the orange candlelight, he could see the way the golden curls hung teasingly across her cheekbones as she bent forward over her book, reading it intently.
There was such a delicacy to her features and figure that Owen could almost trace through the air where he would move the paintbrush. He would paint her with fairy wings too, sat on a log out in the wilderness, rather than trapped in this house.
Then he realized with horror how the painting could also look. This fairy could be painted in this house, but with her gossamer wings slightly torn and broken, stopping her from flying away. The mere thought made him ache.
What am I doing?The question burned within him, and he strode forward into the room again, the sharpness of his patent leather shoes on the floorboards making her jump.
“Oh!” she cried and clutched the book to her chest. He froze instantly, holding the tray up for her to see.
“My apologies, Your Grace; did I make you jump?”
“Y-yes,” she said breathlessly. Her eyes were a little afeared before she laughed. The sound so sudden that Owen found the corners of his lips turning up into a smile. He had rarely ever heard the duchess laugh. “What a fool you must think me.
A few minutes of reading this book, and I think awful things are hiding around every corner. Even in my own house.” She closedThe Castle of Otrantoon her lap and turned to set herself properly, putting on her shoes and sitting upright again.
As he walked towards her, he longed to tell her to sit as she had been before. She had looked infinitely more comfortable and far more beautiful sat with a smile playing on her lips.
“What is that?” she asked in surprise.
“A gift from our cook,” Owen said as he placed the tray down on a small mahogany trestle table, with the legs inlaid to look like vine leaves, and brought it in front of her.
“I have already eaten.”
“Barely.” Owen found the word slipping out of him before he could stop it, evidently surprising the duchess as much as it surprised him, for as he released the table, they looked at one another sharply.
He was about to apologize for speaking out of turn, so sure she would disapprove when she smiled again. She looked down at the chocolate cake, her cheeks blushing a delicious shade of pink.
“Ah, you noticed,” she said, reaching for the tray. Owen didn’t move straight away at first; he was too busy admiring what the blush had done to her cheeks.
Surely any man married to her would long to see how else they could make her blush. They would not spend their nights in town, looking for distraction!
“Try it,” Owen said softly, gesturing to the cake. As he stood straight, watching her lift the small silver dessert fork, he realized just how his opinion had changed of her since the day she had walked through the door before Christmas.
He had certainly been bemused by her beauty at first, but now, there was something else to it. Every time he looked at her, there was this yearning. As fast as he thought it could be desire, he would reprimand himself for it. What butler could desire his duchess? Yet there was more to it. He wanted to protect her.
I want to paint that fairy with her wings intact, not broken and fragile.
As she placed the fork in her mouth, those large green eyes widened even further, and she smiled instantly.
“Delicious!” she said with delight and took another bite. “Well, this is incredible. Do tell Tommie thank you for me.”
“I will, Your Grace.” He bowed and was about to leave as she picked up the plate when he found his feet falling still beneath him, and he looked back to her. He was thrilled to see her eating so well at last. Despite his words to Tommie, he found his own curiosity defying him. “I apologize, Your Grace, but I fear I am about to speak out of turn. You will be quite within your right to reprimand me for it.”
