Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Octavia stalked carefully down the hallway.
Each door that she passed by, she gently tested the handle, finding every single one of them locked. She was partly relieved by this, as it meant that she would not be here long. Just as she was a little disappointed, as it meant that this journey might be for nothing.
It was when she reached the end of the hallway that Octavia came to an abrupt halt.
There stood a set of double doors. Intricately carved, grand in design, they were closed tight. She bit into her lower lip and looked back down the hallway, knowing the smart thing to do was to turn and head back now before any damage was done.
But this was Octavia; she rarely did the smart thing, and that niggling feeling that she needed to see what was beyond these doors pressed into her mind so that she could not ignore its call. For that reason, she slowly stalked forward and tested the doors’ handles.
The door clicked open, she gasped, and she pushed the doors apart.
Beyond the doorway stood a vast chamber. The curtains were drawn, dousing the room in darkness, and the musty smell that drifted from within told her that this was one room that was rarely entered, if at all. She adjusted her eyes to the light, and she knew right away where she was.
It was a bedchamber that she had found herself in.
It was opulent, richly decorated, the type that belonged to royalty and beyond anything that she might deem herself worthy to set foot inside.
But the furniture was covered in blankets, the bed’s mattress was bare, and dust sat thick everywhere she looked.
This can only be the bed chamber of the Duke’s deceased wife…
Octavia knew little about Aaron’s mother. She had died when Aaron was still a baby. There were no portraits of her anywhere in the house. Aaron never spoke of her, and the idea of the Duke mentioning her was laughable.
What Octavia did know only added credence to the awful rumors that swirled around the Duke; those that he seemed to covet as if he enjoyed the idea of people fearing him.
Some said that she had killed herself. Others said that the Duke had killed her. Whatever the cause, all agreed that it was the Duke’s fault… a chill ran up her spine at the thought.
I should go. No good can come from being here…
Even still, Octavia crept further into the room. She forgot completely about the two boys, just as she forgot that she was in a most dangerous place. All she could think about was the Duke himself, a man whom she hardly knew, but whom she wanted to know more.
But why was that? Yes, knowing him might help her with Aaron – that was what she told herself. It was also not the entire truth. As strange as it was to consider, Octavia felt that there was more to her relationship with the Duke than mere employee and employer.
He often tested her. He always pressured her. He liked to prove that he could control her. But when she pushed back, when she dared to deny him this control, she saw the other side to him… a side that he seemed afraid of, as if it shamed him.
Just as it shamed him, Octavia believed it was his true self…
Across the room, she spied a sheet hanging from the wall. It covered a portrait, and Octavia’s heart hammered as she considered what might be hidden underneath. Slowly, carefully, she moved toward it…
When she reached the sheet, she extended a shaking hand and gently pulled it away. A gasp escaped her lips.
The portrait was of a young woman, not much older than Octavia.
She had light brown hair, pasty skin, and a hollow face.
Her eyes were light blue, her lips were thin, and she wore a look of utmost sadness that was inescapable.
Not a beauty by any measure, there was something about her that Octavia could not look away from, the sense that the woman was silently begging for help…
help that she knew she would never find.
“Her name was Lillianne,” a deep voice spoke from behind Octavia. “She was Aaron’s mother.”
Octavia gasped and jumped on the spot as her heart shot through her mouth. She spun about, just as the Duke skulked deeper into the room.
He was covered in dark shadows, his posture was brooding, and she searched his face through the darkness, expecting to see anger burning behind his eyes. That was, after all, his typical state of being.
“Your Grace!” she stammered, frozen to the spot. “I… I did not mean… The boys… We were…” She could hardly speak.
For once, Octavia did not try to stand up for herself. She had broken his rule, and there was no good excuse. So, she braced for his fury, she prepared her apology, and she prayed that he might be gentle with her.
As the Duke walked further into the room, as soft light somehow found its way across his face, she saw something that she did not expect. It was not anger that in his visage. There was no fury in his stance. Rather, he looked sad… somehow broken, as if he ought to be ashamed by what she had found.
He said nothing as he approached her, his eyes moving from her terrified stance to the portrait that hung on the wall.
He is not here to reprimand me. Does he… does he want me to ask more?
“Tell me about her,” Octavia said softly and with great caution. “But only if you wish to.”
He chuckled bitterly. “What is there to tell? No doubt you have heard enough to make up your own mind.”
“I would rather hear it from you.”
The Duke considered her. Again, she expected him to snap out of his morosity and snarl.
She had only been working here for two weeks, and not once in that time had the Duke given any indication that he was one to open up.
He guarded himself and his secrets closely, obviously fearful of letting too much go.
In this instance, he did not seem nearly so guarded. There was sadness in his stance and behind his eyes, as if the walls he hid behind were crumbling in real time.
“She was kind,” he started as he tore his eyes away. “She was a gentle soul…” He turned and stalked across the room toward a couch that sat at the end of the bed. “Far too gentle for this world, and for me.” With a deep sigh, he sat on the couch.
“She looks as if she were,” Octavia said, not knowing what to say. “I am sure that you made her happy.”
His laughter was bitter. “Now that is a lie, Miss Finch.”
“I only meant –”
“I did not love her,” he spoke over her, his voice low. Sitting now, he sank onto the couch, his strict posture gone, his body defeated. “Nor did she love me. But that was not why we married…”
He did not look at Octavia. Rather, he hung his head as if with sadness. But his posture was not closed off, nor was it isolated, and Octavia sensed that he did not want her to leave him.
Slowly, she walked across the room, each step careful and when she reached the couch, Octavia took a chance and sat down.
The Duke acted as if he did not notice her, but that was a good sign. Again, the sense that he wanted her there.
“Why did you marry her?” Octavia asked softly. “If not for love?”
He laughed again. “The same reason everyone marries in this wretched ton…” He scoffed. “Expectation. I was young, freshly made a duke, and my duty was to marry and produce an heir. Is that not the point?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Lilliane’s father was a cruel man, but the weakest men often are.
When I first met her, I saw a woman who was…
” His expression hardened. “Who was as desperate as I. She needed a way out, I needed a wife, and we agreed to the marriage because we knew that it was the best of a bad option.” More bitter laughter.
“Would you believe that I thought I was saving her? That I was doing her a favor?”
Octavia said nothing.
The confession struck her as odd. For how dispassionate and detached the Duke pretended to be, that he might marry someone because he thought he was doing the right thing… again, I am reminded of the man I have seen in glimpses. Nowhere near as cruel and unkind as he pretends.
“What I did not know was how broken Lilliane was,” he continued as the silence stretched. “Or how she had suffered under her father. I thought she was just quiet, that she preferred her own company like me...” More bitter laughter. “How wrong I was.”
Again, Octavia said nothing. She let the moment sit between them, allowing the Duke to speak in his own time.
“It was shortly after Aaron was born that I found her in this room, by the window…” He nodded toward the window.
“It stood open, she sat on the windowsill, and when I came to find her…” He cleared his throat.
“She smiled at me for maybe the first time. It was that smile which told me that something was wrong.”
On instinct, Octavia shuffled closer to the Duke. He did not move away, so she took that as a sign and, not knowing if it was the right thing but believing it was, she reached out and she took his hand.
He did not start when her hand wrapped his. Rather, he accepted it, allowing her to squeeze it in support.
“She told me that this marriage was a prison… that by escaping her father, she had traded one cell for another. She spoke of freedom, that she would never have it unless she took matters into her own hands. She actually…” His voice cracked.
“She actually laughed, happy it sounded like, pleasure found in finally accepting her fate. I did not understand what she meant. I…” Again, his voice cracked.
“I told her she was a fool, that I had saved her. I truly believed it.”
Octavia held the Duke’s trembling hand as she looked at him, and his head was still bowed so that she could not see his eyes. Not that she needed to, because she heard the pain in his voice.
“That was when she threw herself from the window.”
Octavia gasped.