Page 28 of A Duke Under Her Spell
When they reached the top of the tower, they gazed out over the land they had traveled under searching for a sign upon the earth’s surface of what lie beneath but found none. “It is a marvel to be sure,” Oliver murmured, leaning against the tower’s stone crenellations. “You do not believe that the tunnel has anything to do with the legend of the treasure, do you?”
“It is unlikely in the extreme that there is any such treasure. It is simply an amusing tale told to children to scare them into behaving,” the Duke answered, shaking his head in amusement. “Though I have known many a man who believed it to be real.”
“It is intriguing to be sure,” Marybeth admitted.
“How did you follow after me, Your Grace?” Oliver asked, a confused look upon his face. “You were unable to fit within the space between the walls.”
“I tore another hole in the wall at the place where you fell through and then lowered myself down via a rope. Marybeth followed after me,” the Duke explained giving Marybeth a chastising look.
“I am surprised that Your Grace allowed such a thing,” Oliver noted, an amused light sparked in his eyes as if he knew the answer long before the Duke spoke it.
“I was given very little choice,” the Duke retorted with a raised brow in censure of her actions.
“I can imagine,” Oliver remarked winking at Marybeth.
“I had no way of knowing whether you were alive or dead. You could have been lying wounded and in need of my aid,” Marybeth explained her actions. “It was not my intent to be difficult, but I had to know of your wellbeing, Oliver. I do not know what I would do if anything had happened to you.”
“You would have carried on as always, my dear, but it pleases me to know that I would have been missed.” Oliver smiled, pulling Marybeth into another hug. The Duke stirred restlessly behind them, clearing his throat. Oliver chuckled, then released her. “It appears you have an admirer,” he whispered into her ear before letting her go.
Marybeth shook her head scrunching her face up at him in disbelief. Oliver grinned and nodded his head before turning back to the vista before them. Flustered, Marybeth moved forward to stand between the two men at the tower’s edge. It was a beautiful sight. The land sloped gently down toward the forest. The trees in all their green glory spread out before them for as far as the eye could see in either direction.
The castle’s grey exterior contrasted sharply amongst the green foliage. Marybeth was not sure how the castle had gotten its name as Blackleigh meant the black field, but she supposed that the clearing in the woods might have been considered such at one point in the castle’s early history. She wondered how much the landscape had changed over the centuries.
Standing at the top of the tower, the words to the legend whispered through her mind. She thought of how the woman from the story had thrown herself off of the top of one of the castle’s towers and she wondered if it had been the very one upon which they stood. She looked down to the ground below and shivered at the thought of the terror the woman must have felt to perform such a permanent act. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“You are thinking of the witch who killed herself in the legend, aren’t you?” Oliver asked from beside her.
Marybeth nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Yes, I am. Such a sad tale of greed, lust, and death.”
“It is for those very qualities that it is remembered. Happy tales seldom last the ages,” the Duke noted, gazing out across the trees to the rising sun just cresting the canopy.
“It is a shame, a terrible shame. What does it say about us as a people that we remember tragedy best?” Marybeth asked, not really expecting an answer but needing to put her feelings into words.
“Pain is memorable. It is instructive and acts as a preventative warning to us all,” the Duke answered, turning his head to study her face. “For some it is the only way they learn.”
“Not I,” she murmured shaking her head.
“Nor I,” the Duke admitted turning back to the horizon.
The three of them stood in silence for a time, watching the forest come to life. Squirrels darted in and out of trees. Birds flew through the air singing their songs. A fox darted across the clearing and disappeared once more into the trees. A stag called out somewhere in the distance. Marybeth sighed content in the world she was most familiar. “Do you miss it? The forest?” the Duke asked.
“Yes, very much. I know I have not been at Arkley Hall for very long, but the forest is my home. It is all I have ever known. It is where I was born and where my grandmother is buried.”
Oliver reached over and squeezed her hand in sympathy. Marybeth saw the Duke stir uncomfortably beside her upon seeing it and she wondered at his reaction.Surely, Oliver cannot be correct in thinking that the Duke admires me with any sort of romantic intent.
“See,” Oliver whispered from beside her releasing his hold on her hand. He smiled knowingly, pleased with his own deductive skills.
Marybeth shook her head in denial and turned away in an effort to ignore the look on her friend’s face.
The Duke and I are from very different worlds. I could no sooner give up the forest to go and live in a grand manor house than he could surrender his dukedom to live in a forest croft.
The Duke turned to descend the stairs. “Shall we?” he asked offering Marybeth his hand to steady her as they climbed back down into the castle’s interior.
“The legend speaks of the witch leaving a treasure below. Do you think it could have something to do with the tunnel?” Oliver asked. It was clear that he was interested in the idea of a great treasure lying in wait for someone to find, that someone preferably being him.
“I do not,” the Duke answered once more. “As I said before, it is naught but a story to scare children. A man could spend a lifetime chasing after a fairytale and it would all be a waste. Life is filled with enough excitement without adding fictional ghosts and witches.”
“You do not believe in witches, Your Grace?” Oliver asked.
