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

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

“ T he Duchess has made a request, Your Grace.”

Maxwell did not look at himself in the mirror, always too ashamed of the other men in his family that he resembled, but instead looked at his valet. “What sort of request?”

He had not seen hide nor hair of the Duchess since that moment on the beach, two days ago, and he was glad for it.

She had run off upon seeing him come out of the water, but despite the distance between them, he’d seen her redden like a ripe strawberry in summer.

It had made him feel something. Something akin to the heat of desire, stirring through him.

“When preparations were made for Her Grace’s arrival, Mrs. Hesketh enquired about her lady’s maid, only to find out that there wasn’t one who would accompany her to Stormcliff.”

Maxwell said nothing, impatiently waiting for his valet to continue dressing him for the evening.

“Well, she has spoken with George Valarie,” Victor continued, “and she has asked him to send someone back to London to look for Her Grace’s lady’s maid. Apparently, there was some sort of scandal, and her lady’s maid disappeared without a trace.”

“There is always a scandal,” Maxwell muttered. “What of the maid’s former mistress?”

“Lady Kirkland said only that the maid was dismissed for cause, Your Grace.” Victor stepped back, handing him a roll of hand wrappings. “Do you wish for us to continue our inquiries?”

“I am certain I can spare the staff,” Maxwell muttered. “I believe there might be a connection, especially if Lady Kirkland is keeping quiet. When the ladies of the ton are gossiping peacocks, there is much to be read from their silence.”

“I agree, Your Grace. I shall look into it. In the meantime, I wish you the best of luck tonight.”

Maxwell grimaced, nodding, before Victor bowed and left.

Victor never overstayed or forced the Duke to speak nonsensically beyond what was necessary to keep him updated on what was going on in the castle.

For a moment, Maxwell’s eyes strayed to the connecting door that led to the Duchess’s room. For countless nights now he had put his hand on the doorknob, tempted to turn it for no other reason than knowing that he could and that she might be on the other side.

Every night, he pulled back, the weight of his oath holding him back.

Still, it kept him awake most nights, as anger roiled through him at the situation—at his frustration that his new wife was peeling back layers of his castle that he had not expected her to be interested in.

She had found his old training room, hardly used now, and he had seen the uncovered portrait of his late uncle.

Ever since the old man’s death, Maxwell had not been able to look at himself in the mirror without seeing those features, all the same except for his eyes.

No, they were his father’s eyes.

His fists clenched as he pocketed his wrappings for that night’s boxing match. It had been a long time since he had fought in those few controlled ways he allowed himself. He needed an outlet, and fighting at the Cliff’s Edge had always given him that.

At the very least, fighting gave him a way out of his head, and he craved that freedom tonight.

He left his room but paused when he realized somebody else was already in the corridor. He turned, finding Ophelia up ahead, having left her own rooms.

She looked at him, her eyes roaming over the plain clothes he wore for his matches. Her cheeks turned pink, as though she was remembering their last encounter.

“Good evening,” the Duchess said.

Maxwell only inclined his head at her, saying nothing.

“You will not speak to me, still? I am your wife, Your Grace.”

“As I am well aware,” he muttered, walking past her.

“Am I truly to live in silence here?”

“From what I hear, you have spoken plenty to the staff. Do they not keep you well entertained?”

“My husband should keep me entertained. But how can I expect that from someone like you?” she countered, her voice steady, confident, as she caught up to him.

He admired that about her. She did not cower before him.

“Then I am afraid your parents filled your head with frivolous tales of fancy,” he told her, shaking his head. “Love and romance do not exist, Duchess. The sooner you realize that the more pleasant your time here will be, for you should not expect anything. Excuse me.”

Once again, he strode past her, and this time she let him.

Except he heard hurried footsteps. He did not turn to her, but she forced her way into his line of sight.

“I did not ask for love and romance from you, Your Grace. I merely ask for companionship. Is that such a ridiculous thing for a wife to ask?”

“I cannot give you that, Duchess,” he told her, his eyes meeting hers.

Something flickered in them, something broken and hurt, but he hardened his heart.

“Can you offer me nothing, Your Grace? Are you so devoid of emotion, of warmth that you merely live your life like a ghost? What kind of life is that, devoid of all feeling?”

The words hit him like a blow as if he was already in the ring.

“How I go about my life is none of your concern, wife,” Maxwell snarled.

“I am your wife. I am expected to care about you.”

He moved closer to her until her back hit the wall. “I do not need you to care about me.”

As he spoke, he felt his stomach churn, his oath coming back to haunt him once again.

He could not do it. He could not let her care. He did not deserve it.

Ophelia’s jaw clenched, the look in her eyes flickering between deep sadness and anger. “You do not know the true misery you have caused me. My gratitude towards you wears thin.”

“Then leave,” he threatened, his voice venomous. “Leave and do not return if that is what you wish. But I know what I chose, and I know why I chose such a thing.”

“Then enlighten me,” she challenged.

If she was hurt by his telling her to leave, she did not show it. No, that courage and strength kept her chin high and her stubbornness ablaze. She would not leave because she knew that meant he won, in a way.

Maxwell did not enlighten her. He simply walked away, trying to keep the flames of anger at bay before he struck a target he did not intend to.

He needed to lose himself in the pounding of flesh on flesh—against an opponent who struck him back.

Storming out of the castle, he rode hard on horseback to the Cliff’s Edge , where, when he entered, the crowd chanted his name. Not his true name—the one that rang with history and pressure and the weight of a dukedom that he was bound to honor, but the one his fists had earned.

In the boxing ring, Maxwell felt his rage come alive, raw and visceral. It surged through his veins with every strike, each punch a direct expression of the storm inside him. The hard, satisfying impact of his fists meeting resistance was a release, a fleeting moment where he could focus all his fury on something solid.

When he was in the water, that same fury spread out and dissolved into the relentless push of the current. There was no opponent to hit, no physical blow to land—just the cold, all-encompassing force of the sea battering back.

The fight was the same in both places—an unending struggle, an exhausting battle against forces that matched his inner chaos, allowing him no release, only the raw exertion of keeping his head above water.

Maxwell stepped into the ring, facing down a burly opponent.

“Come on, so-called Storm of the Cliff,” the other man spat.

Maxwell recognized him as a lord who had notoriously avoided paying rent. He had skipped town and was brought back by the authorities for a turn in a cell.

Maxwell would win, shamelessly.

He did not bother answering. He simply swung, and as his knuckles connected with Lord Colloway’s face, he let his anger out in a controlled blow.

For a moment, everything calmed down. He was Maxwell Harding—he was not his uncle, nor his father. He was his own man.

But then his wife’s words echoed in his mind.

This life is no better.

Maxwell did not hesitate.

He bore down on Lord Colloway with ruthless intent, punches raining down, uncontrollable, his anger filtering out through knuckles that split and became bloodied as they landed.

That night, he stood before the connecting door once again.

He had won four matches that night, his winnings growing heavier and heavier. Everybody in town bet on him, and had walked away victorious as well. He had tossed the winnings to Victor.

“You know what to do with it,” he’d muttered, before locking himself in his room.

Yet, he felt like a caged animal in his own home, constantly aware of what his wife wanted from him. The companionship, the typical marriage her father had likely told her stories of. She would not find that with him, but there was a new restlessness in his bones that would not abate.

“What have you done to me?” he growled, his eyes on the door as if he might face her without actually looking at her.

“I have done nothing.”

Her voice, almost muffled through the wood, startled him.

Was she on the other side?

He took a step closer, but he did not dare to open it.

After a moment, he moved away from the door but was stopped by her voice again.

“You did not come to consummate our marriage on our wedding night,” she said. “Why?”

He stilled, hands on his boots to undress himself in the late-night hour. He considered answering her.

He knew his reasons, deep down. He would not bed a woman who did not want it. His jaw tightened as he walked to his bed, ignoring her question.

Sleep did not find him easily once he was lying down. Instead, he stared at that door, wondering if his spirited wife would be bold enough to walk through it and demand answers from him.

She did not.

And soon, he heard the floorboards in her room creak as she retreated to her bed.

Maxwell stopped watching for her presence, but he could not calm down.

When he gave up on sleep, he retreated to the washroom, where he ground his teeth against the sting of his split knuckles and tended to the bruises on his face that would fade by the morning, inflicted by hands that did not know how to hit with enough force to put a man like him down.

The less my wife knows, the less she will ask. Then again, she might not care at all. She will likely just think you are a brute.

It was fine; he was content to let her believe that. Maxwell had stopped caring what others thought of him a long time ago. Having a wife now did not change that.

He returned to bed, hoping sleep would find him swiftly.

The following morning, Maxwell opened his door and lingered there.

He was a fool to do this, but he had taken to eavesdropping on Ophelia’s conversations with her lady’s maid. He cared little for his wife, but he cared about what she revealed in her conversations.

“I wish to do something today,” the Duchess told her lady’s maid as she likely got ready for the day.

Maxwell could hear the clink of a hairbrush, the gentle tinkle of jewelry, and the delicate swish of clothes.

“How about a turn around the garden, Your Grace?” the lady’s maid asked.

What happened to her previous lady’s maid?

He could not help but wonder—the butler had heard some servants gossiping about the Duchess being oddly intent on finding her previous lady’s maid.

Why does she want to find her ?

“It is a beautiful day,” the maid added.

“It is indeed, but I want to get out of these castle walls. I have been cooped up for more than a week now since my wedding, and I have not seen anything of the town, nor introduced myself as the Duchess. I would like to meet the people of my duchy.”

“I believe the people of Stormcliff would adore you, Your Grace.”

Maxwell rolled his eyes.

“Do you… Do you think that His Grace would accompany me if I sent word to him? He often leaves at dawn, does he not?”

There was something tentative in her words, as if she knew he was in his rooms the whole time.

“I do not wish to speak for him,” Hannah said. “But there is no harm in asking.”

An indelicate snort came from the room. “There is always harm with men like the Duke.”

Rage had long been buried inside Maxwell, and it reared its head now. He felt resentment as images of his father laughing at him every time he fell off his horse during his first riding lessons, or locking him inside his room until he was able to recite Shakespeare by heart, or punching him in the stomach each time he dared to stand up for himself?—

He flexed his knuckles, looking at the mottled bruises.

There is always harm.

He shook his head, regretting spying on her but unable to walk away now, for he would be heard.

Maxwell ground his teeth. He did not care what she thought of her life with him. That was not the point of what he had done for her. She told him that he would not understand what he’d ruined for her, but she had made no attempt to explain.

Maxwell turned around and ventured back into his room, realizing he had a book that he wanted to return to the library after some light reading when he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, and delayed leaving until Ophelia left.

He heard the murmur of their voices the deeper he went into his room, and when they fell silent, he assumed he could escape unnoticed.

But as soon as he strode out, his wife did the very same, and they walked alongside each other for a moment before realizing it.

“Good morning,” she said.

He only looked sideways at her. She kept pace with him.

“Why is your previous lady’s maid not with you?” he asked her outright. “I had Mrs. Hesketh enquire about her, but she was reported missing without a trace.”

“I…” His wife hesitated, slowing down. Maxwell did not.

He continued on his way, waiting for her to catch up or leave the conversation she initiated. Of course, she caught up.

She is a stubborn woman.

“She was let go by my stepmother.”

“Why?”

Ophelia bit her lip, and Maxwell stared down at her, finally drawing to a stop.

“You have asked one of my stewards to look for her in London. If you are sending my staff on errands, far away, then I wish to know why.”

“Why did you marry me?” she asked instead, surprising him.

“I could not let you marry Anworth.”

“Why?”

There was no answer. For if he told her about his promise, he would have to fulfill it. Both of its parts.

She squared her shoulders. “We all have things we are not ready to explain, it seems. My maid’s business is her own. It is between her and me.”

“Very well then. You may use my staff to locate your maid.”

Ophelia blinked. She hadn’t expected that.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

“I hope she… Whatever your reasons, I hope you find her,” he responded and turned to leave.

He continued walking down the corridor, only for his wife to blurt out, “I am visiting Stormcliff today. I… I want to walk on the cliffs and visit the town. It will look good for the Duke and Duchess of Stormcliff to meet with villagers together. Will you come with me?”

He thought of Freddie’s questions and teasing comments, and knew there were one or two farmers in town that would not hesitate to make jokes, even if it meant showing some disrespect.

Maxwell stiffened. “No.”

With that, he strode off, leaving her behind.