The grunting belonged to the Duke. Was he exercising? Perhaps boxing? That would make the most sense. A picture of what she might find formed in Octavia’s head, and her hand shook as she slowly reached out and pushed the door open.
And then, when she found her answer, she gasped at what she saw.
It was a large, empty room. Along the walls were a series of paintings, their themes and depictions varying from portraits to landscapes to everything in between. Standing at the center of this room, his back to the doorway, was the Duke.
His clothing was simple, a little plain in fact, something a farmer might wear. His feet were bare. In his right hand, he held a painter’s brush, in his left was a pallet smeared with various colors of paint, and before him stood an easel with a large piece of canvas on display.
The Duke attacked the canvas as if he had a vendetta against it. He grunted and puffed as he painted. He cursed, he breathed heavily, he focused so squarely on the painting that Octavia could have snuck right up behind him and not have been noticed.
The Duke paints? Of all the things I might have imagined about him, this is so low on the list that even had I one million guesses, I would have never… who is this man?
She stood dumbstruck and in a state of awe.
Octavia felt as if she had stumbled upon something deeply personal, something that she was not meant to witness, and it felt wrong to sneak about and watch like this. She knew that she should leave, but she simply could not stop staring.
It was his intensity that drew her. How fixed he was on his painting. She could not see what it was, as his body blocked herline of sight, but it had his attention like nothing else; a most personal painting, certainly not for her eyes.
Slowly, knowing she had to leave before it was too late, Octavia took a steady step back…
The floorboard beneath her foot creaked loudly and cut through the silence like a shattered pane of glass. She gasped, the Duke’s hulking frame froze, and time slowed down…
That was until it sped right up again.
The Duke snarled, snatched at a sheet that hung from the easel, and flung it over the painting. Then he spun around, found her standing in the middle of the room watching, and the look in his dark eyes was one of sheer outrage, surprise, and betrayal.
“Miss Finch…” Despite his obvious fury, the Duke managed to temper it so that he did not shout; rather, he growled so that she felt it in her chest. “What are you doing here?”
“I –”
“Remind me, as you have clearly forgotten, what was the first rule that I gave you? A rule that you agreed to.” He continued to look right at her, the anger still burning in his eyes.
“I am aware of the rule.” Octavia swallowed as she attempted to stand up to the Duke. “But I felt that this –”
“So, you have broken it on purpose,” he spoke over her. “Do you not think the rules apply to you? How can I expect you to teach my son if you cannot follow even the most simple of directives?”
As he spoke, the Duke seemed to grow taller. Getting over his initial surprise, he took a step forward, squared his shoulders, and stood as if he meant for his frame to stretch across the entire room like a growing storm cloud.
Octavia hesitated. Her breath left her. Her body trembled. For all her talk of wanting to test the Duke’s limits, proving that she was not afraid of him, she suddenly became wholly aware of how little power she had here.
This was a bad idea, Octavia…
“Well?” he barked. “Speak! You did not come here to gawk.”
She thought to turn and run. She thought to hurry to her room, collect her things, find Henry, and flee for her life.
What stopped her from doing so was the dull flicker of a memory… many memories, in fact. As scary as the Duke was, he was not malevolent or evil, nor would he hurt her. Octavia had spent the last four years living on the street, looking real danger in the face every single day, and not once had she succumbed to her fear and allowed it to beat her.
He does not want to scare me. What he wants is to see if I have what it takes to stand up to him. Isn’t that how it was the lasttime? Constantly testing me, seeing how far he can push before I break.
Octavia squared her shoulders and fixed the Duke with a flat look. “There is no need to shout.”
“I was not –”
“I am aware of your rules,” she spoke over him, refusing to look away. “However, in this instance, I thought that it might be worth breaking them. Just this once. And, if you will stop trying to frighten me, I will happily tell you why.”
The Duke’s eyes widened with fury. A snarl found his lips. She did not back down, holding him in her flat and disinterested gaze, daring him to try shouting at her one more time…
As expected, this had the desired effect.