The fire left the Duke’s eyes. His anger faded. Now, when he looked at her, she saw something else reflected behind his dark eyes. Annoyance, sure. Surprise, that was there too. But he appeared curious also, perhaps even amused. She wondered how many people in the Duke’s life had dared to speak to him like this, knowing that would be a very short list indeed.
“Well?” he said darkly. “I suggest you speak quickly, if what you have to say is so important.”
“Very well.” She smiled with triumph. “It concerns Master Aaron. We have had only a few lessons together, and while they are coming along nicely – I was right, by the way, about including my brother in them.” She looked at him as if expecting praise.
“And?”
“It has helped,” she continued with bitterness. “I can see in real time how having another boy his age curbs Master Aaron’s more extreme tendencies. However, it is nowhere near enough. What your son requires most is affection and attention –”
“Is that not what I have hired you for?”
“Attention from his father,” she spoke up. “Everything that he does, how he misbehaves, is a direct result of his desperation for you to notice him. He is a child, he does not understand why his father ignores him, and he will only grow worse until something is done about it.”
Now, it was the Duke’s turn to look uncomfortable.
Octavia shouldn’t have been surprised. The Duke was obviously not very close with Aaron, but while his son’s desire to form this relationship was so obvious, she hadn’t been entirely certain how the Duke might feel about such things.
Well, I hadn’t been… until now.
He shrank back in a way that she would never have thought possible. His eyes dropped, looking to her feet as if in shame. The darkness around him was gone, no anger anywhere to speak of, and if Octavia did not know any better, she would have said that he was embarrassed.
“I think the two of you need to spend more time together,” she started carefully. “I think that if you and he –”
“I do not care what you think,” he snapped suddenly and forced his eyes back on her. “I hired you to teach my son, not to tell me how to raise him. Do your job, Miss Finch, that is all you should be focused on right now.”
With that said, the Duke fixed her with a final glare of warning and stormed across the room as if he meant to walk right through her and out the door.
“I did not mean anything by it,” she hurried to apologize. “I am only trying to help.”
He said nothing, stepping around her, his eyes fixed on the exit.
Octavia thought to let him go.
Her words had obviously affected him, taken personally so that even one as stubborn and headstrong as the Duke would rather ignore them and run. It told her that she was right, and not just about Aaron, but about the Duke also.
If he did not agree with me, he would not care what I had to say. But that he reacts with such vehemence and passion tells me that I have struck a little too close to a more personal issue…
Her mind raced as she tried to come up with a way to stop him before he fled. He agreed with her; she knew that he did, she just had to get him to stand still and listen to her for long enough so that he might see it.
She turned, her eyes fell on the covered painting, and that was when it struck her. Octavia’s eyes widened, the sense of danger in her plan rippled across her body, but that was how she knew that she was on the right path.
“What are you painting?” she said loudly, making sure the Duke heard her.
“What?” He was at the door, but he stopped and turned.
“Might I see it?” Without waiting for his approval, she strode across the room. “I don’t have much of an eye for art myself, but I would love to see –”
“Don’t!” he called out.
“Art is not meant to be hidden,” she said as she reached the painting. “It is to show off to the world. You should be proud.” She snatched at the sheet that covered the painting, she turned back, and was sure to look right at the Duke before throwing back the sheet.
“No!” he growled and charged across the room.
The floor shook as he raced, but she hardly noticed him coming.
The painting was unlike anything she might have expected someone as dark and foreboding as the Duke to paint. It was a landscape, one populated by lush grass and verdant trees and blue skies. On the horizon, she noticed, there were storm clouds gathering, but they sat in the distance, almost as if they were afraid to get too near to the sun and the beauty of the scene before them.
Octavia knew little of paintings and art, but even she could see just how magnificent this piece was. The use of color, the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and those clouds, and how lifelike it looked…who is this man?