An Offer By the Beastly Duke (Hidden with the Duke #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“Has anyone seen Nicholas?” Lady Romwich’s shout of alarm rang through her countryside estate.

Her heels struck the corridor’s marble flooring as she checked every room she passed for her son. In her chest, her heart was a fevered pound with every empty space she found.

In the expanse of Romwich Hall, her son, Nicholas, was nowhere to be found. She tried to calm her breathing, but the air was dry and stagnant, and she couldn’t hear even the whisper of a maid’s duster or footsteps going from room to room as work was completed.

Penelope’s brows pinched, hair falling from its perfect style from dinner that evening. She had last seen Nicholas as they’d eaten, not since.

Her skirts swished against the floorboards as she continued on, passing the vacant library, the music room that hadn’t been used in far too long, and finally, the dining hall.

Think, Penelope, think, she told herself.

Pausing for a moment, taking in the scent of beeswax from the extinguished candles, and heavy mahogany furniture, she tried to recall what Nicholas had said over dinner. Heavens, her child spoke so much it was hard to keep up.

I think I would like to keep testing my aim, Nicholas had said. Penelope straightened, her fingers gripping the doorway of the eating hall. I am good enough with a bow and arrow, but I have seen the village boys toss stones in the creek. They are creating a dam!

Penelope had hummed distractedly—she was always distracted since moving to the countryside a couple of weeks prior—and had assumed he was merely voicing a thought.

Had he… meant that he wanted to go right away?

Her heart stuttered.

He’d said something else—something about the boys all being older than him, and he wanted to prove himself, especially as a newcomer to Brigrock, the lively village Penelope had moved to.

But the creek… that was near the—

“Heavens,” Penelope whispered, her heart thoroughly dropping to the floor. She hadn’t even told him no, had been too busy thinking about the invitation to a garden party due to happen in a couple days, but now…

Now she gripped the nearest windowsill, staring out in horror at the dark night outside.

Whirling around, she rushed back down the corridor. Nobody had answered her earlier cry of alarm, but she headed for the dining room.

She knew, if anything, her housekeeper, Mrs. Guildbury, would be ensuring all was in order after the day. Almost catching herself on the elbow within the doorway, Penelope found her housekeeper and tried to catch her breath.

“My son, Mrs. Guildbury,” she gasped out. Her fingers gripped the doorway. “Have you seen him since dinner?”

Immediately, the woman’s eyes widened. “I haven’t, my lady. The last I saw, he was finishing his dessert and asking me to pass on a compliment to the chef.” Despite her pinched, worried expression, Mrs. Guildbury smiled a little at Nicholas’ growing liveliness.

“Did you see what direction he went in after that?” Penelope pressed.

Mrs. Guildbury shook her head. “Regretfully, no, but I do know he often spends his evenings in the late Earl’s study. Either there or the gallery. You do know how he asks of his father.”

Penelope’s heart sank the way it always did when she thought of Nicholas’ inquisition over the father he had never truly known. She nodded. “I shall check the study,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I’ll have a look in the gallery,” Mrs. Guildbury said. “I will send Mr. Ashton to check anywhere else.”

Penelope nodded again, grateful for her housekeeper having the butler assist. She didn’t dare waste another moment before hurrying to the study. It had been perhaps two hours since dinner, and darkness had long blanketed the countryside.

Nicholas was seven years old, so young but with a mind that was growing more and more curious and wise. A mind that pulled him to any adventure and learning he could find.

If he thought his next lesson was at the creek then he would have sought it out without a second thought to how small he truly was in such a dark expanse of space.

Surely…

Surely he would have more sense than to wander off to the creek at such an hour. Hope rose in her that she had taught him enough caution, so she pushed open the study door.

Usually, whenever Nicholas spent time in there—which Penelope didn’t stop him from doing—he lit a candle and would practice writing to impress his tutor the following day.

But the study was empty, and no smells lingered from any occupancy.

“Nicholas,” she choked out desperately. “Where are you?”

She turned back on herself, but at the last moment, she caught eye of the painting of Brigrock on the wall, beautiful and endless with its ribbons of water cutting through fields and woodland.

Nicholas always gazed at it, and the longer Penelope did too, the longer she truly did fear that was where he had gone.

Returning to the hallway, she found Mrs. Guildbury already making her way to Penelope with a regretful shake of her head. Whirling around, the butler shook his head, too.

“He wasn’t in the parlor,” Mr. Ashton said. “Nor the dining room, just in case he’d wandered back. But I did see a stable hand still working outside. The light’s on out there, so I came to see if you—”

Penelope barely took a moment to thank him before running toward the nearest doorway into the garden. If Nicholas had gone outside, he might have been spotted by one of the stable hands.

“My lady?” The stable hand called out as she entered the stable in a rush of exertion. She didn’t even bother trying to compose her loose hair or calm her breathing. “My lady, is everything all right?”

“My son—I am looking for him,” she gasped out. “You have not seen him out here, have you?”

“I have.” The stable hand nodded into the darkness outside, eyes veering to the left, right to where the creek was. “I stopped to ask why he was unchaperoned, but he said you were right behind him. I was working, so I didn’t have a chance to see. My lady, I should have—”

“It is fine.” She waved off. “Thank you.”

She kept up her grateful smile for as long as she could until her back was turned because the creek… Penelope’s eyes widened as her blood ran cold with fear.

The creek bordered Romwich Hall with…

“With the Duke of Brigrock’s estate,” she whispered.

Her breath hitched, her throat feeling as though it was constricted by an invisible wire.

A burning flare of anger went through her. Anger and guilt that she hadn’t listened closer, that she hadn’t asked, nor entirely dissuaded him or even offered to go with him the following day.

She had lost her own son, and now he had been gone for two hours, and she had no idea if he was safe on the grounds of that estate. Clenching her skirts in her fingers, she bolted through her own gardens. The night air clawed at her hair that was falling free with every frantic step she took.

The darkness was imposing, impenetrable, and she could barely see her own fingers before her, let alone her son’s shadow, wherever he was hiding.

“Nicholas!” she called out, finding her way to the tree line. “Nicholas, please, if you can hear me, shout back to me!”

For several moments, she went quiet, her throat dry. She waited helplessly, not daring to make a single noise of her own. What if he was hurt? What if all he could make the sound of was a mere whimper and she wouldn’t hear it?

Tentatively, she stepped forward after only silence greeted her. Her stomach sank, her fingers clenching and unclenching with her fraying hope.

“Nicholas?” she called out again, eyes straining to see through the darkness. Penelope moved onward again until the bubbling creek sounded in the distance—until lights appeared through the trees.

The lights of the Duke of Brigrock’s house in the distance.

Please, she thought, please let him be safe but for everything Heavenly, please do not let him be in there.

She swallowed thickly, fear making her slow, as she kept her eyes trained on Brigrock Hall. It was far away enough that she had never needed to fear proximity, and she had never met the Duke himself.

Yet she had heard the stories. Penelope had paid enough mind to be aware of not crossing her renowned neighbor, but not enough to remember specifics.

All she knew was that he was feared and scorned in society—and her son might have been with him.

Nicholas was too young to understand that danger was much more than an exciting word, too young to know to be careful not to trespass where he didn’t belong. He weighed no more than a sheaf of wheat. Penelope trembled: he would be an easy target for the Duke.

She was already running before she’d made the decision to even move through the rest of the woodland barrier between the estates

The woods were a tangle of clutching briars. Penelope ignored the thorns that snagged her lace and tore at her skin, her focus locked on the flickering lights ahead. Her lungs burned with every stride, and the cool air seared her throat.

Keep moving. Don’t think. Find him and then think.

She repeated it like a liturgy, pushing through another briar that snatched at her hair. Another low branch caught the high of her cheekbone, but still, she did not stop, not when her son’s life could have been in danger.

The Duke’s castle rose to its full, intimidating splendor as she burst out of the trees, the bushes around it thick and unkempt, the candles in the windows low and almost ghostly.

Not a single shadow passed by, and too many shadows otherwise draped the estate. Penelope stood on the grounds, panting, as she scoured the darkness for an entrance.

But then what?

Nicholas’ escape was putting her in danger too, but Penelope had long sworn no length was too far to go to protect her child. Keeping to the shadows, Penelope hurried to the front door, but halfway down the grounds, she heard a rustle and a tiny giggle.

As she crept closer to the sound, from the scant light from the castle, Penelope caught a glimpse of her son’s dark brown hair, curled, just like her own. He was dashing through the hedges, dodging and ducking as though it was second nature.

He moved nimbly, avoiding any pools of light, before he disappeared. Penelope muffled her cry of alarm, even as relief flooded her. Yet, as relieved as she was, they were now both on the Duke’s grounds.

Unauthorized.

Trespassing.

“Nicholas,” she breathed. Her son didn’t reappear, though, so she started off in his direction. “Nicholas, come back here.” Her low but urgent voice sounded too loud in the darkness.

She whipped her head toward the entrance she spotted with her nearness to the castle, checking it wasn’t open—or opening.

Her heart hammered in her chest, reminding her that she had to get Nicholas and escape as soon as they could lest they were caught. But he’d disappeared through the bushes, and she pushed after him, emerging out of the other side onto another part of the castle’s grounds.

Framed like a painting in a clearing near a small stone cottage, her son was on his knees in the dirt, his face split by a wide, reckless grin.

A low, guttural growl vibrated through the air.

Penelope’s heart stopped. A massive English setter, white with chestnut mottling, stood inches from the boy’s face.

“Nicholas, move away. Slowly,” she whispered, her body tensing to spring.

“Look, Mama! He likes the chicken!” Nicholas held out a greasy scrap of poultry. They themselves had eaten it just that evening; he must have stolen the remainder.

The dog didn’t snap, though, even as Nicholas’ excited hands waved the food over its mouth. Its tail gave a singular, powerful thud against the ground.

“Go on, boy!” Nicholas encouraged, lowering the meat closer. Penelope clasped a hand over her mouth right as the dog’s mouth opened, exposing sharp canines. However, it delicately took the meat from the boy’s fingers before licking his cheek.

Penelope let out a shuddering breath, her knees nearly giving way.

Nicholas looked up and beamed at her. Actually beamed, as though she had arrived at a party he had been waiting for her to show up at—as though this was his secret, and he was delighted to share it with her.

“See, Mama?” Nicholas asked. “He is friendly! Friendly and my friend.” Her little boy frowned, pausing. “Though that might be because I bring him chicken.”

“And… and how often?” Penelope’s voice was faint, and she knew it was not the time for questions. They really had to go. Before Nicholas could answer, she muttered, “I thought you had disappeared to the creek. I was terribly worried, Nicholas. Come, we must leave at once before—”

“Before you are caught trespassing on a duke’s estate?” A voice asked from behind Nicholas.

Her heart in her throat, Penelope slowly looked to the cottage, the heavy oak door groaning open on rusted hinges.

A wall of heat spilled out, carrying the scent of cedar and aged brandy.

A man filled the frame. His shoulders were so broad they brushed both sides of the casing. He didn’t wear a coat; his white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, revealing a neck corded with hard muscle. Dark, brown hair curled around his collar, messy and slick with the night’s heat.

Blue-gray eyes stared out at her, narrowed and angry, but also perhaps mildly intrigued.

Behind him, candlelight flickered, haloing his wide frame and bare forearms from the sleeves that were rolled up.

But the illumination shined more light on his face. Penelope didn’t scream, but her grip on Nicholas tightened, already protectively ready to tug her son back.

The scar on his face was jagged, a silver lightning bolt that began near his temple and dragged down his cheek. It only just tugged at one of those hard eyes that never once looked away from her.

Penelope was standing across from the Duke of Brigrock.