Page 81 of Her Beast of a Duke
She squeezed his hand, happily walking alongside him back to the castle, with Morris still carrying the meat between his teeth.
Still slightly unable to believe she would be let in, once they arrived at the castle, she waited for Oscar to disappear. To make some excuse that meant they would not go to the north wing, but he didn’t let go of her hand and instead took her right to that padlocked door.
This time, his movements weren’t jerky, harsh things, but more practiced and slower, as if he needed to take his time. Isabella followed him inside, noticing how the layers of dust had been swept away. She glanced at him questioningly, and he smiled tightly, offering no explanation.
Has he done this with the intention of inviting me in here today?She wondered.
Firstly, they returned to the gallery, where he pointed out a portrait she had missed: Oscar and Edmund in their final year at Cambridge, the two of them grinning, arms around one another. It was a less practiced, poised portrait, and it showedlife, true life, rather than the stiffness of posing as a pretense like the ones Oscar had with his family.
“It was our gift to one another upon completing university,” he told her, as if he understood the difference in the art style. “We approached an amateur painter and paid handsomely tohave the relaxed portrait done. I have never shown anybody. My parents found it, though, and ordered me to hide it from sight. Heaven forbid their son smile for a reason that was not of their doing.”
“What were they like? Your parents.” Her eyes swept over the painting of a younger Oscar, the one where his parents each had a hand planted on his shoulders.
“My father was cruel, but he could turn a room from discontentment to gratitude. He knew how to play any social game, and he was very good at it. Yet, with the hand he shook in greeting, he could also belittle, and everybody wanted to be his associate.”
“He met my mother at her debutante ball. She was young and beautiful, with hair the color of the sun, and a smile that charmed every suitor she could ever want. Yet my father was revered, and she had her sights set on him from the moment they each entered the ballroom and encountered one another. Some say it was love at first sight. Perhaps it was at first, but they were both socially hungry and saw one another as a game piece to use.”
“They must have been the diamond couple of their generation,” Isabella mused.
Oscar nodded. “My mother was known for her beauty and was often asked to be painted. Ladies envied her, men wanted her, and my father soon grew tired of enduring her theatrical charm that she used to get her way. Despite being married, she stillflirted as if she were unwed. She was not unfaithful, but her behavior was decidedly seductive.”
“Did she love your father?”
“Maybe once. Behind closed doors, they were ghastly to one another. I do not know what their marriage was like before I was born, but I saw, as I grew up, that they despised one another. They would tear one another down. My father would accuse my mother of being a harlot; she would drink too much wine and vanish, and he would follow her. They would not return for days, and when they did, it was like they were a renewed, happy couple again. Only, days would follow, and they would return to their games of screaming obscenities and accusations at one another.”
“Heavens,” Isabella cursed. Her own parents could bicker, but nothing like the turmoil he spoke of. “That must have been difficult.”
He nodded. “I believe the worst was that because they hated one another so much, they turned their attentions to the next best thing. Me. I was their showpiece, as I told you last night. If I pleased them, I was granted affection. A good night’s kiss, a dinner as a family. If I displeased them, did not look handsome enough, or if I used one wrong word in a conversation with one of my mother’s friends, then I was resigned to my room with isolated dinners and would endure their silence for days.”
“Oscar,” Isabella whispered, her heart breaking, for now she could see why he did eat alone, why he had grown to prefer it.
It had meant he had been his true self, and even if it had been a punishment once, then it still would have meant he was not performing.
“Silence is a weapon, and they used it well,” he ground out. “My own silence is often out of protection or in foregoing the need for words. If I have ever punished you with it?—”
“Do not worry about such things,” Isabella said quickly, for she had felt punished by his silence at times, but to see the damage it caused him to think of, she knew it did not need to be confirmed. She leaned against his side. “You are speaking to me now, and even if after this you require silence or time alone, that is yours to request, too. All I ask is that I not be truly shut out again.”
He nodded once, and they went along the corridor of portraits. He enjoyed many of Rochdale Village itself, and he even offered her one to put up in the drawing room. She chose one of the small streams that ran beneath a stone bridge, the countryside rolling on either side in the distance.
After the gallery, he took her to another room. This one was smaller, draftier, reminding her of a medic’s healing room. An apothecary’s storeroom of sorts. Black wooden counters filled one side of the wall, while a shelving cabinet filled another, full of salves and bandages.
Suddenly, Isabella understood the wrappings on his forearms.
“I come here to tend to the scars,” he said. “The war was almost ten years ago, but taking care of my scars is a ritual of sorts.It reminds me of what I have survived. I’ve come to sleep here several times, so you were not disturbed by my nightmares. After the distress, doing this routine grounds me.”
Her eyes landed on his forearms as he took off his tailcoat and unbuttoned his sleeves to roll them up to his elbows.
She took his wrist in her hands. “Show me what to do.”
“You are certain?”
Isabella nodded. “You have taken care of me, so let me do the same for you. I shall even beg if you wish it.”
“Save your begging for something far more pleasurable,” he said, a slight smile appearing as he kissed her temple.
He turned toward the shelves and took down some bandages, a salve, and an ointment, and set them out on the counter for her.
“Salve first,” he told her, “and then the ointment. While that is still damp, you wrap the bandages around my forearms to help my skin from drying out and the scars from looking worse.”
