Stolen by the Ruthless Duke (Stolen by the Duke #2)

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

“ I trust your time at Stormcliff Hall so far has been pleasant,” Mrs. Hesketh said to Ophelia several days after she had moved into the castle.

Breakfast had ended. Ophelia had dined alone, something she had become grateful for after the ridicule of her stepmother at Greatsby Hall during every mealtime—the incessant scrutiny and veiled insults about eating too much, about being too unladylike, about how she would never find a husband if she didn’t eat only half of her meal. Still, she had not stopped looking at the empty chair opposite her, thinking her husband ought to be there.

“It has been an adjustment,” Ophelia answered, carefully choosing her words. “I have a husband who haunts the hallways and avoids me, and I do not quite know what to do with myself, except to become better acquainted with the castle. I find that every time I turn a corner, I am lost once again.”

“It will take no time at all,” the housekeeper assured her. They walked further down the hallway.

“Although…” Ophelia thought for a moment. “When I arrived, I noticed a particular tower that overlooked the beach on the east side of the castle. Where might I find a door to look out from there?”

“Ah, that would be accessed from the old weapons room. Here, I shall show you.”

They veered left and walked down a seemingly endless hallway. Despite the coldness of the stone walls, the interior kept the place warm, and Ophelia was grateful for it.

The ceilings were low, and the hallways were long, and she felt dizzy. Every direction looked the same.

Mrs. Hesketh led her past the infinite doors until they came to one that was up another staircase, down a corridor, and up another staircase. The heavy door was locked, and Mrs. Hesketh turned a key in the lock and pushed hard.

The room was shrouded in darkness, but the light spilling in from the corridor through the now-open door allowed some illumination. On the right side of the room, a pile of old swords had rusted, and a rug had grown dusty with disuse. In the center of the room, a chalked-out square perplexed Ophelia. To the left was old weaponry and wrappings that confused her, too.

“The master’s training room,” Mrs. Hesketh said, noticing her confusion. “It was the old armory, but as you can see, it has not been used a great deal.”

“Training room?”

“His Grace is known to have boxed in his time,” the housekeeper told her.

Ophelia’s blood ran cold. “He fights?”

“In local tournaments, very occasionally, yes.”

That explains the broadness.

Her mind wandered back to the way his clothes clung to him, as if they could barely contain his big, strong body. A tower of a man, and at the same time, so unkempt, a force to be reckoned with.

Ophelia bit her lip as she wondered what his arms would feel like around her. How his big, strong hands would caress her skin.

She stepped further into the room, feeling slightly out of her own body, as she stepped beyond the chalked line.

“His sparring ring,” she guessed. Mrs. Hesketh nodded. “Does he win often?”

The housekeeper smiled, amused. “He is a champion of the ring in Stormcliff. They have given him a fighting name after the town, as if he is the storm upon these cliffs himself.”

Ophelia blinked. She was married to a champion fighter?

She suppressed the tremors and mustered a smile. “I see. He must… fight well.”

“He is very skilled, yes. Or so I’ve been told, as it’s not my place to visit the ring.”

Ophelia walked around the ring, and her thoughts drifted to her husband, to the tight-fitted jacket he had worn on their wedding day, and she could not stop herself from thinking of what might lie underneath, hidden from view by mere fabric.

Her face burned, and she was grateful for the drafty room.

Clearing her throat, she nodded, about to continue her tour. But her gaze snagged on a portrait half covered by a sheet, propped against the corner behind the pile of swords.

“What is this?” She walked over to it and tugged off the sheet.

The full painting depicted a man with hard gray eyes and hair that was stiffly and severely pushed back from his face, exposing sharp, almost twisted features. He looked angry.

“That is the late Duke of Stormcliff,” Mrs. Hesketh told her. “Lord Anthony Harding, His Grace’s uncle.”

The late Duke’s eyes held a heaviness that Ophelia could not understand, but she felt it deep within herself—as if he held a grudge against whoever looked at him. His lips pressed together in a firm line, and he was dressed all in black.

“Why is the portrait in here?”

Mrs. Hesketh’s face, lined with deep grooves from years of age and smiles, softened into a sad smile.

“The late Duke was not a happy man, as you may see. We have many portraits of the Stormcliff male heirs, and they do not smile, but there is something more to this portrait. I believe it shows the cruelty that he was capable of.”

“What sort of cruelty?”

“He was tyrannical. He ruled Stormcliff Hall with an iron fist—and a flesh one. I was only a maid at the time, but the housekeeper did what she could to keep us safe from him. His anger knew no bounds, but we never knew what caused it. His Grace, I am told, often tried to stand up to the late Duke—and not just verbally. That went on for nine years before the late Duke died.”

“How did he die?”

Mrs. Hesketh avoided her gaze, smiling tightly. “Well… the late Duke fell down the stairs and hit his head. He lost too much blood before anything could be done.”

Ophelia remembered faintly Lady Kirkland reading aloud one of her gossip sheets, which mentioned the late Duke’s death. It had been a brief mention, with no detail about a fall. The only thing the sheet had said was that the late Duke was found dead and her husband had been appointed the Duke of Stormcliff.

It was all too vague, and something told Ophelia things weren’t that simple.

“I see.” She turned her back on the painting. “Let us find that lookout point.”

Mrs. Hesketh hesitated, as though there was more she wanted to say, but then she nodded. “Very well. It is right through here.”

As Mrs. Hesketh unlocked the door on the far side of the wall, Ophelia glanced at the painting once more. Could the Duke not see that he had turned into a man he supposedly wanted to distance himself from?

Behind her, she heard the scuff of boots on stone, and she paused, looking over her shoulder.

The Duke stood at the other end of the corridor, his eyes fixed on her. She tensed up, waiting for his anger. Waiting to be told she was somewhere she was not supposed to be.

But he only walked onwards, and her heart sank unexpectedly. Somehow, his ignoring her was worse than his anger, for at least his anger meant that he saw her.

“Your Grace?” Mrs. Hesketh called.

Ophelia turned from the corridor and hurried to the lookout point, where she gasped at the sight of the cliffs stretching into the distance for miles on either side of her.

The sky was covered by thin, grey clouds, which darkened the waters below. The endless depths, an ever-stretching horizon, a soft yet chilling breeze… It all somehow made her breathe more easily than she ever had before.

Despite her strained relationship with her husband and adjusting to a new place, Ophelia felt somehow… light.

Still, she could not stop thinking about the Duke, who had been dubbed the storm of the cliffs themselves.

He had turned her world upside down already.

How much more of a storm would she weather as his wife?

“I am not a duchess. I am merely a ghost in this castle,” Ophelia hissed two mornings later as Hannah prepared her for breakfast. “I am treated like I do not exist, and that is worse than facing his wrath. Do you not agree? I am isolated!”

Hannah freed her hair from the braid she had worn to bed and began the task of making a new braid that would crown her head.

“Yet, I am relieved at the same time,” Ophelia confessed.

In the vanity mirror, she saw the dark circles growing beneath her eyes. As comfortable as she had become in the castle, she still could not resist the need to watch that connecting door at night. Every sense of hers was on high alert for the sound of a lock clicking.

“For if he is not there, then I do not have to endure his coldness. I had quite enough of that back in London.”

She shook her head, smoothing down her chemise.

“I ought to be grateful that he is not ranting and raving at me day and night, but he truly kept his word that we would live separately. I cannot help but wonder what his point was in even stopping my wedding to Lord Anworth.”

“Lord Anworth?” Hannah asked, tugging sharply on a strand of hair. “I am sorry, Your Grace.”

“It is quite all right.” Ophelia waved her hand. “You know of him?”

“Briefly,” Hannah told her. “I have heard of his cruelty, not only to his wives but also his staff. I had a friend who had worked in his countryside estate. She reported that even after a social season, wed to a young woman, he was not satisfied. His children are not much older than you, Your Grace, and all yearn for the day they get married. I should not speak out of turn if he was your fiancé, but… I dare say that even your life here is better.”

“Are the rumors about Lord Anworth true then?” Ophelia dared to ask.

“About the deaths of his wives?” Hannah winced. “I do not know for sure, and the master will not appreciate any speculation.”

“I am your mistress,” Ophelia reminded her. “You may speak freely.”

“I do not know for certain,” was all Hannah said.

Ophelia steeled herself. “And the rumors about His Grace?” she dared to ask. “And his… violence.”

Hannah paused, her fingers lost in Ophelia’s blonde curls, the braid momentarily forgotten. “I cannot say either,” she said. “I have not known His Grace nor the other servants for very long. I come from the North, where Stormcliff is not a well-known name.”

Ophelia frowned, her attention caught by the defensive note in Hannah’s voice. Did she know more than she was willing to let on?

But then a floorboard creaked outside of Ophelia’s room, right where the Duke’s bedroom was. She paused, even holding her breath.

“Your hair is very beautiful, Your Grace,” Hannah said, raising her voice, her eyes flicking to the door.

“Thank you,” Ophelia answered, keeping her voice firm. “I should hope my husband will one day compliment it over a shared breakfast.”

Her voice held a touch of sarcasm. She knew full well that would never happen, but she deserved it as a wife, regardless.

The floorboard creaked again, and she heard a sigh before the door closed with a loud slam. The footsteps were heavy and fast, fading quickly.

She let out a breath and placed her hands on the vanity’s surface. “I am sorry,” she murmured. “I should not ask such things.”

“It is all right, Your Grace. I only wish not to trouble you or myself with any consequences of speaking too freely.”

Ophelia nodded, and Hannah finished her braid in silence before stepping back to help her into her dress. Curtseying, the lady’s maid left.

The dress Ophelia had picked was pale green, decorated with delicate lilac petals, only a small pattern but repeated over the fabric. It was the perfect spring gown.

She sighed.

Relief at not enduring the Duke’s wrath and the forced isolation warred inside her chest until her chambers felt too stuffy. In the end, she pushed to her feet and left. She had seen much of the castle already, thanks to Mrs. Hesketh’s tours—the private gallery, the parlor, the library, and the Duke’s dining hall, which felt pitifully empty when she peered inside.

But she wished to feel the wind on her face, in her hair, so she ventured to the stone steps that she knew led to an exit that was further down the cliffs. It would lead her to the pathway that led right to a section of the beach.

With her thoughts set on her destination, Ophelia hurried through the castle, down the winding steps, before bursting out into the early morning.

As she walked, she kept her eyes on the water. The sea ahead of her was alive with the breeze, waves crashing over one another in a bid to reach the shore first. On either side, for miles, cliffs rose, stark sentinels against the rising sun.

She inhaled the sea air, the saltiness, and the freedom of the countryside, and sighed.

A ship made its slow sail across the sea far off into the distance, and Ophelia imagined herself on it for a moment.

A free lady who had not been forced into a marriage with a monster.

But then a figure surged out of the waves, in the distance, bursting upwards with all the power of an ancient god she had read about in mythology books.

Her mouth went dry when she realized that there was a bundle of clothes not far from where she stood.

A man walked out of the sea completely naked.

She squinted—it was the Duke. He must have left when she had heard him.

Perhaps it was not him at all and you are paranoid .

Even from a distance, she saw how his tanned skin glistened with the water sluicing off his body. His long black hair was soaked, but his arms, powerful and thick, rose. Fingers ran through the strands of hair, making his muscles ripple. His abdomen stretched as he walked confidently down the shore, the outline of muscles visible even from a distance. Strong thighs pushed him through the stubborn waves, and her gaze fell to the manhood nestled between them.

Ophelia’s face bloomed with a sudden, all-consuming heat. Bride or not, a young lady shouldn’t be quite so… so curious. So tempted.

A fire began to burn inside her, blossoming between her legs at the sight of him. He was…

He was devastatingly handsome.

And when she looked back at his face, she found those green eyes fixed on her as he approached the sand too quickly for comfort.

Ophelia gasped, drawing back, caught in her watching. She took another step back as the Duke continued stalking toward her as if she were the very prey he had come out of the water for.

Turning back to the castle, Ophelia fled.

“Heavens above,” she muttered to herself once she was back inside the walls.

The coolness of the stones doused the heat in her skin, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the Duke redressed and came to find her.

Perhaps he would not .

She smiled to herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything she had seen of him, and as she hurried through the castle, she could not keep the blush from rising to her cheeks.

Nor the constant image of his bare body from flooding her mind.