Page 44 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

“It is fine, Mr. Ashton, thank you.”

She didn’t care about the paint stain, nor her fallen brush—not when the Duke was standing there, commanding the room as though he himself owned it.

“As you wish, my lady.” Mr. Ashton straightened, bowed once, and withdrew.

The door clicked shut, the sound echoing through the studio like a gavel.

Penelope stood in the center of her sanctuary, the air thick and smelling of the paint chemicals.

She was wearing a pale linen dress, one with short sleeves, so she did not stain the cuffs, and could stay cool at the same time. The collar was open to catch the cross-breeze she’d hoped for. A smudge of gray paint marked the side of her right hand. She looked at the Duke of Brigrock, who was standing in the middle of her private world, his large frame making the high-ceilinged room feel suddenly, claustrophobically small.

She bent down, her linen skirts hissing against the floor, and retrieved the brush herself. Her movements were stiff, fueled by a surge of adrenaline.

She walked to the worktable, dropped the brush into a cleaning jar with a sharp clink of glass, and pulled a cloth from the hook. She kept her back to him, scrubbing at her hand for exactly the amount of time it took to steady her breathing without appearing to need the delay.

“Your Grace,” she said, her voice sounding far more composed than she felt. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer immediately. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant, rhythmic ticking of a clock and the rustle of the trees outside.

She finally turned. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the walls.

She had long since stopped seeing the studio as a gallery; to her, it was a workshop of unfinished thoughts and abandoned dreams. Now, she was forced to see it through his eyes.

Canvases were stacked four and five deep against the wainscoting like discarded memories. Sketches were pinned in chaotic, overlapping layers, a map of her mind’s restless wandering. Three paintings hung on the south wall, unframed and raw.

And then there were the lakes.

Three of them, hung near the window where the afternoon light hit the pigments most clearly. Deep, dark water. Reeds like spears. She had not taken them down because she had not yet admitted to herself why she had been unable to stop painting them since the day at the creek.

The Duke was absorbing it all with that unhurried, heavy attention he gave everything, his gaze lingering on the lake studies. At the corner of his mouth, a smile so faint it was barely a flicker, appeared. She had never seen such a thing on him.

“Your Grace,” she repeated, the sharpness of her tone intended to snap his eyes back to her. “I asked you a question. To what do I owe this visit?”

He looked at her then, and for a heartbeat, his gaze moved to the pale, exposed skin of her arms and the curve of her neck.

She had forgotten entirely about the dress.

The midday heat had made the studio stifling, and she had pulled on the lightest, most informal garment she owned, never expecting a visitor, let alone a man who made her skin feel too tight for her body.

The warmth that crawled up her throat was visceral, a heat that had nothing to do with the sun. She reached for the wool shawl folded over the back of her chair and pulled it around her shoulders, clutching the edges together over her chest as if it were armor.

The Duke looked at the shawl, his jaw tightening, then he cleared his throat. The softness in his expression vanished, replaced by a grim, professional clarity that felt like a shield of his own.

“I would like to offer to teach your son,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. “Riding. Archery. History, for that is most important, and chess, if he has the stomach for it.”

The shawl slipped from her numb fingers. She caught it just before it hit the smear of paint on the floor. “I beg your pardon?”

“Three times a week. At my estate. You would be present for the duration, as would members of my staff. I have already considered the logistics and the propriety.”

She stared at him, her indignation rising like a gale.

“I do not know what gives you the right to walk into my home and dictate my son’s education. I am not letting Nicholas anywhere near you. We have been through this, Your Grace. My answer remains the same.”

“Nicholas has been to my estate since the day you came to mine,” Malcolm said, his voice dropping an octave.

Every part of Penelope stilled, even as she tried to open her mouth, a denial already forming on her tongue, but he cut her off.

“Do not try to say otherwise, for I am sure you do not know for certain, while I do,” he said. “Your son has been slipping through the hedge to see Hector regardless of what either of us has decreed or ordered. He is going to keep coming, Lady Romwich. He is a boy of singular will, and he knows what he wants, and he is relentless in getting it. The only remaining debate now is whether he does it behind your back, with you wondering where he might be every time he is not in your sight, or with you standing ten feet away.”