Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“You have barely spoken to me since the Fargreen’s ball.”
Isabella leaned against the doorway of Oscar’s study four days after the ball with her arms folded over her chest. It was not out of petulance, but rather a challenge. Her chin lifted right as Oscar looked up at her.
“I have been busy,” he told her. “As you can see.”
As hard as she tried not to, her eyes flicked to the desk where he had pleasured her. She looked away quickly when he followed her gaze. He cleared his throat.
“What is the matter?” he asked. “You must have disturbed me for a reason.”
Isabella scoffed. “Is this how we shall be?” Her hard voice covered up the hurt she had been feeling during his distance. “Close one moment, separated the next.”
“I am not so keenly aware of such things,” he said. “When I have to attend social events, I must find the time to catch up on work.”
Her eyes narrowed on him, not believing it was only that. “So, you are not avoiding me because we danced together?”
His shoulders tightened before he could compose himself quickly enough, and she knew she was right. Mary may have been right then, noting how he had looked at her as though he cared.
Was he scared to feel such a thing for the wife he had only ever intended to be transactional?
“I am your wife,” she reiterated. “I am not just an ornament to parade about at balls. I miss our conversations, however brief they may be. I miss… I simply miss your company.” Her lips stiffened, stubborn even as she was vulnerable, knowing he likely did not feel the same.
“I am always here,” he said. “You may seek me out.”
“Yet you look at me now as though I am the most interrupting thing,” she muttered. “And… what if I wish for you to seek me out, to know that I matter in your days? To have an inkling that you might crave conversation in this thick silence you somehow enjoy?”
He cocked his head at her, dropping the pen he had been writing with. “Isabella, you grew up in a very busy, full household. I did not. Silence is what I have known, and silence does not ask anything of me. I do enjoy your company, but I cannot ask you to sit in silence while I work.”
Her mouth quirked at his admission of enjoying her company. “Do tell me what it is that you enjoy about it.”
Oscar scowled at her, but there was no true malice behind it. Something passed over his face when he looked at her smile, and Isabella felt as though the rope she had snagged hold of in him, at getting him to talk, slipped right out of her hand.
She watched as his face darkened at a thought he did not, and would not, share.
“I have to get back to work.” His voice was rough, dismissive. But then, after a moment, he said, “You may sit in here if you wish, reading or embroidering, but I will not entertain your questions.”
Proud of herself, Isabella huffed. “On second thought, I might try your isolation and silence myself. I will be in the library if you wish to seek me out.”
With that, she whirled on her heel and left him in the study, feeling as though she had gained something.
As she left, she swore she heard an annoyed, low growl and the clatter of the pen.
Isabella only smiled to herself.
For a minute, her hurt had ebbed away, and she could be brave and confront him, but as soon as she shut herself in the library, it came back again.
The loneliness was heavy in her heart, and no matter how much she tried to focus only on the pages she read, her eyes kept lifting to the closed doors at every noise outside, hoping it was him, and hating that she hoped, and hoped, and hoped.
When she was brought her tea in the library, Isabella ate in silence, her eyes still fixed on the book she was reading. But as she finished, she heard a pained whine, followed by a yelp.
She was on her feet in a second, recognizing Morris’s noises.
Flinging the door open, she pushed out into the corridor. Her head whipped left just in time to see the bloodhound skid into the wall, skirting around the corner. But more worrying than his frantic energy was the smear of blood that followed him, smearing on the floor and the wall.
Isabella gasped. “Morris!” she shouted out, reaching even though he had already disappeared.
She could hear his claws scrabbling on the floor, his fear evident in the jerking movements.
She raced after him, trying to find more blood smears, but they soon disappeared when she got to the carpeted part of the hallway. Hurrying up the main staircase, she searched for more signs of damage or the rampant hound but found none.
“Morris!” she called out again.
Isabella veered off to pass by Oscar’s study, finding the door closed.
When she launched herself into the room, only emptiness greeted her. Not even the smell of recently melted ink to signal he may have been writing correspondence let her know if he had recently left the room. It was still, and she gasped in helplessness, turning to try to find Morris again.
She whirled around next, seeking out Mrs. Tisdale, who was in the kitchen overseeing that night’s dinner. When she saw Isabella, startled and frantic, her brows pinched.
“Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked.
“Mrs. Tisdale, have you seen Morris?”
“Not since he was playing outside, Your Grace. He seemed rather pleased. Is everything all right?”
Isabella paused, then shook her head. “Please, just… if you have seen the Duke, or Morris, do let me know immediately.”
Before Mrs. Tisdale could ask her more questions that would only slow her investigation, Isabella picked up her skirts and strengthened her efforts, but Morris was nowhere to be seen, and neither was his trail of blood.
What had injured and spooked him so greatly that he had not even stopped at her call? Morris was so used to her by now that he had grown almost as loyal to her as Oscar, even coming to her room at night sometimes.
Something had to be truly wrong, and that worried her.
With her heart pounding in her chest, she continued down the hallway, checking corners she had not really ventured around since her initial tour, and soon, she realized she had arrived in the northern wing.
She had dutifully stayed away ever since Mrs. Tisdale’s warning.
It had mostly been because she had been distracted by the master of the estate himself, but now she ventured further.
Glancing behind her, she approached the door that had once been padlocked.
Yet now it was unlocked, and she wondered if she could find Oscar in there.
He needed to know Morris was injured, and the sooner they found the bloodhound, the sooner they could tend to whatever wound had been inflicted upon him.
Pushing open the old, creaking door, devoid of its usual padlock, as if it had been forgotten about, but only beckoned her closer, the creak seemed to want to announce her arrival too loudly.
Isabella cocked her head at the lack of a padlock, knowing how intensely Mrs. Tisdale had insisted on this wing being off-limits.
Still, she slipped through quickly, too curious to keep questioning, and found herself inside a long hallway of the northern turret.
It was drafty and dusty. Motes danced through the air, and the gloom felt oppressive as she slowly stepped her way down the hallway.
The first door she came to was open, for why shut these doors when the main one was usually locked?
Peering inside, Isabella’s breath caught.
It was a gallery room, and portraits were filling the walls.
All the frames were as dusty as the hallway, and the scent of must hung in the air, making her cough.
Tilting her head back, Isabella looked up at the portraits. A line of men with the same green eyes as Oscar, unmistakably Dukes from the past, all stared down at her. Isabella felt the weight of all, and she wondered if she ought to leave.
But she had to find Morris, or at least confirm he wasn’t there. So, she moved deeper into the gallery. And she stopped still.
It was Oscar, only he was younger, painted in a Cambridge uniform. His face was bright, happy, and to see such an unburdened smile on the Duke’s face was disconcerting. His hair was shorter, not hanging in his face to cover up his scars, but styled neatly for his studies. Proper and uniformed.
But that was why: because he had no scars to cover up in this painting.
Isabella peered harder at the painting, trying to find the scar that split his face, trying to see if even his hands were marred by whatever had caused them, but he was unblemished. His green eyes were so full of life, and Isabella felt her breath catch.
“What stole your light, Oscar?” she whispered to the portrait.
Her eyes lifted to the blonde-haired woman in another family portrait.
Two parents stood behind Oscar, their hands on his shoulders.
Oscar was decorated with medals, and that surprised Isabella, for she had not known her husband had fought in any wars.
In this one, his face was scarred—and freshly so.
However, instead of pride being visible on the faces of his parents, there was barely concealed resentment. Isabella wondered if that noticeable reaction was why this particular picture was shut away.
But no, they all were.
Oscar did not have portraits of his family displayed anywhere else, and this place had been locked away for a reason.
His face was newly injured, angry and ragged, the stitches looking painful, and the light had long gone from Oscar’s eyes.
He was a war hero, Isabella thought, reaching out to touch his face in the portrait.
“What are you doing here?”
The roaring question had Isabella spinning to face behind her. She jumped back against the wall, knocking one of the frames. Her hand clasped her throat as she faced her husband, whose face was tight, his teeth bared.
He stormed toward her.
“Why are you in here?”