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

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

“ H as she been bothering you?” Maxwell asked as they danced at another ball.

This time, their host was Lady Grantwell, a newly married baroness who was eager to make a name for herself as a host who threw extravagantly outrageous balls.

“Lady Kirkland?” Ophelia asked.

Maxwell nodded his head.

“No. Well, yes. But it is nothing I cannot handle.”

“You must tell me next time. I found out from Freddie after you attended the Farrington dinner party.”

“It does not matter. I am familiar with my stepmother’s ways. I did tell you that marrying Lord Anworth was my ticket away from her, even if—” She broke off.

Even if I agreed to save Bridget.

“I know, I know,” Maxwell muttered.

Ophelia spun out and then stepped back into her husband.

His arms went around her protectively, and she wondered how she had gone from fearing his touch to feeling safer in his arms than among peers she had grown up around.

“It is another matter.”

“Do tell me.”

Ophelia played coy. “You may have your secrets, Maxwell, and I may have mine. Was that not our agreement?”

He tried to glower at her, but the expression quickly faltered.

Silence settled between them for a moment, filled with the pretty music that played. Ophelia stepped in time with him, being led by him.

Everywhere he touched, her body responded as if set on fire.

“You look beautiful,” he told her. “Blue is a good color on you.”

Ophelia bowed her head, smiling. “Thank you. I noticed you are wearing a darker shade of blue to match. Have you ever worn a lighter shade in your life?” Her voice held a teasing note.

“Once or twice, I am sure.” He laughed. “I simply like the dark colors. Lucy teases me endlessly about it.”

“She once made a remark on how you dress in dark colors because you see yourself as a storm cloud, come to exact vengeance in the ring.”

“Was she mocking me?”

Ophelia found herself laughing. “Yes, I believe she was.”

He sighed. “Of course, she was.”

“You excuse her for a lot of things that you would have been unhappy with had anybody else done them. It is pleasant to watch how you treat her.”

He only nodded.

After a moment, their dance ended, and Maxwell guided Ophelia off the dance floor with a hand on her lower back. She shivered at how the touch felt.

I am his and he wishes everyone to know it.

But her elation at how he claimed her slowly faded when she caught sight of her stepmother once again.

“It seems I have not been fortunate enough to escape her once again,” Ophelia muttered. “She has been pressing me for an invitation.”

“She has written to me,” Maxwell said. “She has requested to visit Stormcliff Hall. Very humbly.”

Ophelia pulled up short, hearing the sarcastic tone of her husband’s voice. She bit back a smile. “Did you respond?”

“I told her I was rather busy but I was certain she could visit soon. I do intend not to see that through, though.”

Ophelia nodded. “Thank you.”

A thought came to her mind—what had her stepmother done with her dowry that Maxwell had refused?

She had no time to ask or ponder further because her stepmother was there, her smile polite as always. “Ophelia, darling.”

“Lady Kirkland.” Ophelia curtsied.

“Your Grace, how lovely it is to finally meet you once again. Your presence has been missed at the parties as of late.”

“My work demands much of my attention,” Maxwell answered shortly.

“I have heard you are very dedicated to your tenants and the village of Stormcliff. The villagers sing your praises.”

Ophelia realized her stepmother would have done some asking around to reach those conclusions. Although her father had a country estate, it was not near Stormcliff Village enough that Lady Kirkland would simply stumble upon any villagers.

“It is a shame they do not sing your praises, Ophelia,” Lady Kirkland continued. “Is that because they have not met you properly, or is it because you are shirking your duties as a duchess?”

Ophelia opened her mouth to answer, but it was Maxwell who stepped forward.

“Lady Kirkland, you assume that the Duchess is shirking her duties, but what proof do you have beyond your closed-mindedness? She is a delightful woman who has often ventured into Stormcliff Village, been a patron of many businesses, and has participated in village celebrations. She has met with villagers—I have met with them following her visits, and they do indeed sing her praises.

“So, do not point fingers at my wife, or I shall have you escorted out of this estate. One word is all I need to convince our host that you are here with ill intentions. I can make tonight difficult for you, Lady Kirkland.”

Lady Kirkland gaped at him, her disbelief widening her eyes. “Your Grace, I?—”

“Do not address me,” Maxwell told her. “Address the Duchess of Stormcliff and apologize.”

Ophelia’s heart hammered. Surely her stepmother would not—surely?—

Lady Kirkland turned to her, curtseying low. “Your Grace, I am sorry.”

The apology came through gritted teeth, but she could not ignore the request of a duke.

Ophelia nodded at her stepmother. “I wish that you stop approaching me at such events, Lady Kirkland. If you attend only to antagonize me, then stop. I have left your home, I have relieved you of whatever burdens I put on you as your stepdaughter. Let us acknowledge one another from afar if we must at all.”

She did not wait for any response. She backed away but was quickly followed by Maxwell, who slid his fingers over her wrist, slowing her down.

“Walk with me in the gardens.”

Maxwell led Ophelia out into the gardens. He had barely been able to take his eyes off her all night, but watching her face crumple because of her stepmother’s comments had been too much. After she had mentioned that Lady Kirkland had been approaching her, making her uncomfortable, causing discomfort everywhere she went, Maxwell could not simply stand by and watch his wife be belittled.

“I see through her,” Maxwell told her once they were in the depths of the garden.

He led her beneath an archway made of hedges, getting them away from the prying, questioning eyes of the ton. Heavens knew he’d endured that enough.

“You do?” Ophelia asked.

He nodded. “She wields her beauty and charm like a weapon. She thinks others are under her spell—and they are , but I am not. I see past all of that.”

His wife’s eyes widened. Had anyone ever assured her of that? Had anyone ever stood by her and told her they understood that her stepmother was not the pristine, kind woman the ton thought she was?

“You are the first,” she whispered.

Maxwell brought her out of the hedge maze and led her over to a bench that overlooked a glistening lake.

The moonlight above glanced off the water. Together, they sat down, enough distance between them and the house that he could see how she visibly relaxed.

“You can speak freely here,” he assured her. “Nobody can hear you but me.”

She searched his face for a moment, likely looking for the trust she needed to be able to speak.

“I have not given you many reasons to trust me,” he said. “I understand that, and I understand I likely have not made you feel comfortable enough that you might consider me a confidante. But I hope you can speak to me about anything.”

“I can try,” she murmured.

In a moment of vulnerability, Maxwell reached out and took her hand in his. He wished to tear off her glove, to feel her skin against his.

“I…” Ophelia sighed. “My mother died when I was twelve years old. She was the best mother I could have ever asked for. My childhood was happy—it was full of laughter, always. There was not a day that passed where we did not laugh. My father, my mother, and I… we were very happy. It was their love that taught me to always dream of a love match—to accept nothing else.”

Maxwell’s stomach dropped, and he shook off any feelings of guilt over forcing her into marriage with him, but she did not note that theirs did not live up to her hopes.

“By day, my father taught me to dream, and by night, he read me Shakespeare. He told me that my name came from his favorite play. But then, my mother was taken from us by consumption, and my father fell into a spiraling grief. Somehow, even though he was often detached, he still considered me, in small ways. He still considered the family name.”

“Perhaps a little too much,” she sighed. “People began to gossip about how he was not handling his grief well. My father withdrew from Society, only to emerge weeks later with a new lady on his arm. Arabella Russell became my stepmother not even a year after my mother’s death. She despised me from the start. She was younger than my mother, and she bore my father a son quickly—James Russell, the current Marquess of Kirkland.”

“Lady Kirkland always watched me. She was never pleased. If she ever saw me shed a tear over my mother, she would berate me. I was told that my father had a new life, a new wife, and he was not to be brought back to a dark place by my displays of grief.”

In the dark night, Maxwell saw Ophelia’s eyes shining with tears that she did not let herself shed.

“You should have always been allowed to express your grief. Grief is personal, Ophelia, and one should choose how to deal with it,” he told her.

Ophelia nodded, wiping away her unshed tears. “She made me very aware that I was not welcome. James is adorable, but she foisted him on my father and made sure he did not always remember the daughter he had—the daughter about to debut.”

He remembered you, always .

Maxwell knew he needed to reveal to Ophelia the true reason he had married her.

He never stopped thinking of you. Your name was the last thing he spoke before his death. I knew your father, Ophelia.

He did not voice his thoughts, not yet. It was not the right time.

Instead, he stroked his thumb over her hand, and he hoped that his lack of words was enough if he could offer her these touches.

“I am sorry she ever treated you badly, Ophelia,” he said. “Your father was right. You deserved a home filled with love and warmth, and that should not have ended with your mother’s death. You still should have had that even with Lady Kirkland. I wish she had loved you as her own.”

“I grieved my mother deeply, but I tried to be kind to my stepmother. I tried to welcome her into my home. If my only crime was grieving too openly in front of her, then I do not think I could have ever won her favor.”

“She should never have stopped you. You had every right to grieve your mother.”

“I thought I was enduring it well. I was smiling, I was being polite. I was a good sister to James. My father was doing better. But then he was sent to war, where he died, and suddenly I was more alone than ever. Over the past year, everything got worse with Lady Kirkland. Without my father there to watch how she treated me, she had free rein to do whatever she pleased. Speak however she pleased. And there was nobody to keep her in check.”

Tell her you knew her father , Maxwell willed himself, but the space between them wasn’t physical. It was emotional, and he did not know if he could cross that distance.

“Your father’s second marriage was not kind to you,” he said, wanting to say more, do more.

Ophelia shook her head. “I withdrew from Society last year. I could not face the ton. The pitying looks they gave me, the gossip, the way they all supported my stepmother. They fawned over her, praised her. I could not stand it. My only solace was my lady’s maid, Bridget, but even she…” She paused, swallowing. “Even she is no longer around me.”

The lady’s maid she has been searching for .

“You are away from Lady Kirkland now,” he promised. “And seeing her at these events is not ideal, but remind yourself that you always get to leave at the end of the night. You never have to go back to a house she lives in.”

“It is funny. That is exactly what I remind myself of.”

Maxwell smiled at her, wondering at how rare it was that he smiled, but with Ophelia, it came much more naturally.

“Then keep doing that. And on the nights that you cannot, I will remind you instead.”

He leaned closer to her, lifting her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to it. His eyes remained fixed on her, taking in every inch of her beauty.

Beneath the moonlight, Ophelia came alive with that porcelain skin, those bright eyes, that shining hair.

Maxwell wanted that hair to be wrapped around his fingers. He wanted to see it spread across his pillow as her lips parted in pleasure, her eyes fluttering shut with desire.

“Ophelia,” he murmured, leaning in.

“Make me forget,” she whispered. “Help me forget every terrible thing she has said or done.”

He wished he could do it properly—in his bed, with his hands, his body, but all he could do was kiss her in such a public place. He wished to steal her away into the shadows, but his wife deserved better than to be pushed against a brick wall and taken in such a way for their first time.

He did not know when he had begun to care about such a thing. All he knew was that he did not want her to feel alone anymore. But how could he reduce that loneliness? Some days, he could not think straight for all the darkness that swirled in his mind, and the only way to clear it was in the boxing ring or a long, long ride along the cliffs.

Yet, his wife was here, and she gazed at him like he held the answers to everything she was not brave enough to ask.

“I will do everything in my power,” he said, “to make you forget.”

Maxwell could not resist her any longer. His wife was too beautiful, and his heart had begun to grow softer towards her. He leaned ever closer, his hand cupping her face. Her eyes searched his expression. What was she looking for? If she was looking for a hero, he was not it.

For now, I can pretend to be the husband, the love match she desired , he told himself, moments before he pressed his lips to hers.

He had barely tasted her when he heard a voice cry out his name from across the gardens.

“Maxwell!”