Chapter 14 #2
Yet there she was, almost chest-to-chest with him.
When she did not speak soon enough, the Duke asked, “Has he been in danger with me?” Penelope swallowed, unsure of how to answer.
The Duke loomed closer. “Any time he has been in my company, has a hair on his head been harmed? Now that you know he has visited me, has he come home anything other than happy and full of questions?”
She searched for a yes. She searched her memory for a single bruise, a single tear, a single instance of the behavior the village whispered about.
She came up with nothing but a boy who had started coming home with grass stains on his knees and a new light in his eyes that she hadn’t known how to kindle.
That she had discovered kindling it could be cruel and repressive.
“No matter if he has been harmed or not, I do not trust you,” she said, her voice trembling despite the iron in her soul.
“I know.” He met her gaze without flinching, his expression immovable “Which is why you will be there. Every lesson. Every minute. If anything makes you or your son uncomfortable—a word, a look, a gesture—everything stops instantly. I do not need your trust, Lady Romwich. I need your presence.”
“Penelope,” she whispered, not quite aware of what she was offering up. But the thought of him kissing her, how his mouth had felt on hers, how he was now here, a man who rarely even showed up for ton events…
The allowance slipped out as she continued, “you may call me Penelope.”
The Duke stopped for a moment, gazing down at her. His jaw feathered, and she forced herself to keep looking at him.
“Then you may call me Malcolm, if we are to drop pleasantries.”
The room went silent, save for the distant, lazy hum of a bee against the windowpane.
Malcolm’s jaw moved, a muscle leaping in his cheek. Something behind his eyes settled, a mask dropping away to reveal a raw, hollowed-out truth.
“Your son deserves what I am offering, Penelope,” Malcolm murmured.
“He is lonely, and he craves more than what you can give, even if you would give him the world. There are things a mother cannot teach, nor do, and you must be tired of pretending to enjoy what he wants to do.” Penelope startled at that.
What had Nicholas said to Malcolm? More so, what had he seen in her to know she pretended most of the time for his sake?
At her silence, Malcolm spoke again.
“He is seven years old. He has the heart of a lion and no one to show him how to use it. He is a boy who looks for the truth in things. That should not be his permanent condition, to be left searching alone in the dark.”
Penelope looked at the floor, the linen of her shawl rough beneath her fingers. He was still speaking, his voice lower now, vibrating in the small space between them.
“You listen to what the ton says about me rather than what you have seen with your own two eyes. Tell me why.”
She looked up, her chin defiant. “You were seen striking Lord Garrick. They say you are a man of unbridled, senseless violence.”
“Garrick.” He spat the name with visceral contempt. “Yes, I struck him. I would strike him again tomorrow given a reason. He was speaking of a woman who was not there to defend herself. Vile, wretched things, Penelope. I disagreed with his assessment of her character.”
“I still do not trust you,” Penelope repeated. But the words had lost their weight. They sounded like a confession, a final, crumbling defense.
“You do not have to.” His voice was steady, a promise in the dark. “You will be there, and if you see something you do not like, you take your son and leave. I will not stop you.”
A long silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of the decision.
“And the other matter,” she said, her voice tight and small.
She couldn’t say it directly, but the memory of the lake, of his hands on her waist, of the heat that had nearly consumed her in the garden, filled the space until it was hard to breathe.
His jaw tightened, his eyes darkening.
“That was a mistake on my part. I am not asking you to revisit it. Set it aside, Penelope. This has nothing to do with that.”
She wanted to tell him that she was incapable of setting it aside. That being in a room with him made her forget her name, her social standing, and her grief.
She looked at the paintings of the lakes on her wall. The water looked cold.
“Tomorrow,” she said finally, the word feeling like a surrender and a beginning all at once. “After breakfast.”
Something in his face settled. “After breakfast,” he agreed.
He held her gaze for a moment longer than was strictly proper, then turned toward the door. He stopped.
His hand came up.
Penelope went rigid, her breath hitching in her chest as his fingers moved toward her face. She didn’t move; she couldn’t. The world narrowed down to the heat of him.
His thumb moved across her cheekbone. It was a light, deliberate stroke, warm and rough against her skin.
He pulled back and showed her his thumb. It was stained with a smear of grey-blue paint. The same smear she had forgotten to check for after she’d dropped her brush.
At the corner of his mouth, for the briefest of seconds, the shadow returned. Not quite a smile, but the promise of one. He dropped his hand.
He left.
Penelope stood in the silence of her studio, the shawl wrapped tight around her like a shroud.
She pressed two fingers to the spot on her cheek where his thumb had been. The skin there was burning, and she didn’t try to tell herself it was the heat of the afternoon.