Page 18 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

“No, but we can paint together,” she said hopefully. “Or ride. You love your horses.”

“I know, but I cannot do that forever,” Nicholas sighed. “I do not see why His Grace cannot let me just have some time with Hector. I am certain we can convince him, Mama.”

Penelope glanced down at her tea, wondering how to go about it, until an idea struck her.

“Then if it is a dog you wish to play with, how about I get you one of your own?”

Before she had even asked the question she had hoped would bring a smile to her son’s face, Nicholas was shaking his head.

“Hector is the only dog I want to play with.”

His face was flushed, a hot, angry red creeping up from his collar to his hairline. “There’s no one my age here.” He paced a short line near the table, his small fists clenched at his sides. “Painting and riding is nice, yes, but what about hunting? All the men do that! I want to hunt. I want to do manly things.”

Penelope’s chest tightened until it was difficult to draw air into her lungs.

Manly things.

Her mind flickered involuntarily to Malcolm. The corded, powerful muscle of his neck, the predatory grace of his long stride, and the silvered, jagged map of the scars that marked his skin. The thought of the Duke’s dark influence leaching into her son’s innocent spirit sent a sudden, cold chill through her blood.

“I am doing the best I can, darling,” Penelope said softly, standing. Her voice trembled, the sound of it fracturing in the sudden, oppressive quiet of the morning room. “I do not know how to help beyond what I have already said, but you must promise me that you will not go back to His Grace’s estate.”

Nicholas didn’t answer. He glared at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears of rage, his jaw set in a line of iron stubbornness. With a final, sharp intake of breath, he turned on his heel. He stormed out of the room, the heavy oak door slamming behind him with a force that rattled the teacups in their saucers.

Penelope sank back into her chair, the sudden silence of the house pressing down on her like a leaden weight.

She stared at the pathetic pile of toast crumbs on Nicholas’s plate, her stomach turning. She had tried to build a fortress of propriety and distance to keep him safe, but the walls were only making him claw to get out. Not only that, but she could not do all the things a boy should have been able to enjoy with a father.

He was right: she could not hunt, nor could she teach him how to shoot. There were too many things she could not do, and Charles’ comments rang in her ears.

Do you not think it is about time he looked up to me? He needs someone to show him how things are done. Surely you see that?

She pushed her plate away, the smell of the coddled eggs suddenly nauseating. She could not let Charles win, but the thought of her son spending his days so lonely was unbearable.

The gentle sound of the tea kettle whistling in the background felt like a distant, ghostly memory to Penelope.

She sat at the small round table in Amelia’s drawing room, her mind a thousand miles away, anchored in the dark woods of Brigrock Hall. The conversation swirled around her like a mountain mist, but it all felt as though it was happening to someone else, not her.

Amelia was speaking animatedly about the latest novel she’d finished, her voice rising and falling in excitement as her hands moved in small, fluttery gestures.

Across the table, Violet stirred her tea with a slow, rhythmic clink-clink against the porcelain, her hazel eyes fixed on Penelope with a bemused, searching look.

“I must say,” Amelia was saying, leaning forward until her lace collar nearly dipped into her cup, “the plot twist was utterly brilliant! Who would have thought the seemingly innocent heroine would become the villain?”

Penelope nodded absently, her fingers tracing the delicate, gilded rim of her teacup over and over. Her gaze was locked on the pale amber liquid, but she saw only Nicholas’s defiant face from breakfast.

Penelope saw the loneliness in his eyes. A hollow, dark thing she couldn’t fix with paints or stories like she’d once been able to.

“Penelope?” Violet’s voice cut through her thoughts, sharp and pointed as a needle. “You’ve been quiet. What do you think of the novel?”

Penelope blinked, her gaze flickering over to Violet. She forced a smile, the muscles in her cheeks feeling stiff and foreign. She tried to shake off the mental image of the Duke’s broad shoulders and menacing scar.

He would know how to do those manly things with Nicholas, she thought, but that didn’t entirely sit comfortably with her.

“Oh, yes,” she murmured, her voice sounding thin. “The… the heroine’s big reveal near the end at the… at the ball. Quite a turn of events there, was it not?”

Violet’s raised eyebrow told Penelope everything. Violet didn’t miss a single stumble, and she certainly hadn’t missed Penelope’s distracted manner.

“Really, Penelope,” Violet sighed, her voice teasing but laced with a sharp edge of concern. She set her spoon down. “You cannot even keep track of a novel’s plot? I dare say you are hardly yourself today.”