Page 5 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

Heavens help me, she thought.

He was not what she’d pictured. She had assembled him from rumor: brutish, broken, wild with some private grief the ton couldn’t name.

She had not pictured this: his stillness, the way he filled the clearing without appearing to try. The way he looked at her as though she were the one who had wandered somewhere she didn’t belong.

Her pulse was a frantic drumming in her ears. She had every urge to snatch Nicholas and bolt into the darkness, but she forced her feet to stay planted. The tension between them was palpable, a live wire of heat that made the hair on her arms stand up.

She felt the sudden, unwanted awareness of him. The scent of rain, aged brandy, and something primally masculine.

“Do not threaten my son, Your Grace,” she finally said. “He has done no harm. He merely wanted to feed your dog, and while I understand the danger, he does not. Not always.”

“Exactly!” Nicholas looked up with wide, innocent eyes. “I have been feeding him for weeks and nobody saw me! Hector always waits for me.”

Penelope held on tight to Nicholas’s hand, aching at his simple innocence, the affection of a dog erasing the laws of the land for him. Still, she needed him to be careful. She glared at him. All those evenings she had thought him safely in the nursery, all those nights she had read by the fire believing the house was settled, he had been here. On this man’s land.

This man, this Duke with the jagged silver scar cutting across his rugged face, was the very definition of danger. She didn’t care about the rumors of his bravery in the Navy; she only saw a predator whose territory had been breached.

“Nicholas,” she said, her voice coming out sharper than intended, vibrating with the worry she couldn’t hide. “His Grace is right. You did trespass when you should have asked permission.”

Her gaze remained locked with the Duke’s.

There was a strange, heavy pause. He didn’t move, but his eyes bored into hers, calculating and analytical. Despite the intensity that made her knees want to tremble, she refused to look away. She drew herself up to her full height, her chin high.

The Duke shifted his stance, taking another slow step closer. Penelope instinctively took a small step back before she caught herself and stood her ground.

“I will have you off my land now, Lady Romwich,” he told her, his words biting. “I grow tired of this foolishness. It is clear your son is fond of my dog. But you…” He turned the full force of his blue-grey eyes on her, and Penelope’s stomach tightened in a way that had nothing to be with fear. “You should know better than to let him roam around my estate. A mother’s eye should be more vigilant.”

Penelope’s throat constricted.

She felt the heat of a blush crawling up her neck, born of both anger and the Duke’s searing proximity. She forced her spine to remain stiff. She did not trust him, not a man who lived in shadows, but she would not show him a single crack in her armor.

“I was unaware he was… visiting your dog,” she said, choosing her words with the care of a diplomat. “But I assure you, Your Grace, it shall not happen again.”

“Good. Ensure it will not.”

She stepped back, her fingers tightening around Nicholas’s arm, urging him away from the English setter’s final, eager nudge.

Just as she turned, the dog bounded forward again, his tail wagging with a frantic, rhythmic thud against the grass. He darted toward Nicholas, an eager whine vibrating in his chest.

Penelope’s heart lurched. Her grip on Nicholas tightened involuntarily as she pulled him back toward the boundary. “No,” she said, her voice breathless. “We are going home.”

The Duke let out a growl that was low, animalistic, and vibrated through the clearing. “Hector.”

The dog froze mid-bound, his muscles tensing instantly. With a firm, low-voiced command, the Duke ordered, “Heel—now.”

Hector reluctantly obeyed, his head dropping as he trotted back to the Duke’s side, though his sad eyes remained fixed on Nicholas. Penelope watched the massive animal pad away, her heart aching for her lonely son. But her fear of the master outweighed her pity for the child.

Her steps were hurried as she moved toward the darkness of the woods. There was no looking back. No reflecting on the way the Duke’s white shirt had clung to his muscular frame, or the way the flickering light had caught the silvered line of his scar.

Still, she could feel His Grace’s eyes fixed on her, as if making sure they truly left. She shivered, but pressed on, not stopping until she finally reached Romwich Hall once more.

Chapter Three

“We might be late already, Penelope.”

The garden party three days later was in full swing by the time Penelope arrived with her friend Violet Richards, the daughter of the Earl of Giltbury, alongside Penelope’s aunt Amelia Osmond, her mother’s young half-sister. Amelia was only two years older than Penelope herself.

It was Aunt Amelia who had worried over their late arrival, but Violet had immediately spotted Penelope and pulled them both over to the thick of the guests, immersing them.