Page 115 of Her Beast of a Duke

Charles stood before them in the parlor of his townhouse, his eyes sweeping the line of footmen, the steward, Robert Cunningham, and his housekeeper, Mrs. Andrews.

Robert looked nervous, as did some of the footmen, but Mrs. Andrews kept her chin high. Not in defiance, but in business. She understood the severity of the situation.

“All I would like to know,” Charles said quietly, “is how the portrait was moved. Iexplicitlysaid that the portrait was not to be touched. It was a personal one, and now I have been humiliated before the ton. Furthermore, the lady in the portrait has been humiliated before the ton.”

He had spoken nothing of the woman he had dubbedAphrodite, the lady who had so much to say about his artwork. Nobodyknew that he wasthe infamous Christian Dawson, yet nobody knew either that Charles Thorne himself painted.

Nobody except Levi and the staff.

“I am sorry, Your Grace,” Robert offered. “I will get to the bottom of it immediately and make sure the issue is resolved. It is an incredible invasion of both parties’ privacy, and I am terribly ashamed it has happened under my watch. Your Grace, I am so?—”

“I do not need apologies.” Charles waved him off. “I need answers. I need an explanation.”

“I will dismiss who did this,” Robert swore.

Charles’s eyes cut to the footmen to see who reacted to the threat.

They all looked equally nervous, so that was no indicator.

He nodded once at Robert and then redirected his attention to the footmen. “Whoever did this must speak. Now.”

Framed against the sun-drenched window, the footmen’s faces only showed terror. Either they were all covering up for one, or none of them had anything to do with it, but didn’t want to look defiant.

“I will not take silence,” Charles warned, raising an eyebrow. How he kept his composure when he had been falling apart all day, he did not know. “Somebody ought to talk.”

Nobody spoke up, and his frustration grew, thinking of the moment everybody had gasped.

He started pacing the room, closing his eyes while his back was turned to them.

All the years he had spent restoring the Branmere name, only to be the one to bring shame and laughter upon it.

For peoplehadlaughed, more of a nervous kind, the sort where they did not know what to do with what they had seen.

But Charles had not laughed. He had been humiliated and furious.

“I am not leaving this parlor—nobodyis leaving this parlor—until the matter is resolved and the culprit uncovered.”

Again, only silence greeted him. Tamping down his frustration, he adjusted his shirt sleeves and regarded his servants once more.

“If nobody speaks up, then you will all face the consequences,” he warned, thinking it more likely that they were protecting one man than all being in on it. “I do hope you have all enjoyed the extra two weeks off during the off-season months, for it will not continue if nobody fesses up.”

Strangled groans rippled through the footmen.

“That goes for all the servants. If you do not wish your colleagues to carry the burden, then I suggest one of you steps forward. Somebody in this room has to know something. If that is not the case, then I clearly do not have the attentive servants I thought I had.”

He made sure to avoid looking at Mrs. Andrews or Robert, for he guessed they truly had been none the wiser. Only recently, he had hired more footmen, and he suspected one of them had something to do with it.

“The consequences will only get worse the longer you remain silent.”

For a moment, he thought he would not be heeded.

The old grandfather clock in the corner ticked away, and he gritted his teeth against thetick, tick, tick, as if he had to be aware of how much time he wasted.

Holding onto the last threads of his patience, Charles merely let his gaze travel over each of the footmen.

But then one of them shifted. One of the recent hires stepped forward, bowing his head. Sweat beaded on his forehead more than the others, and a deep flush spread across his face.

“I-I—Your Grace. I did—” He exhaled raggedly, his hands trembling at his sides. “I did it. It—It was me.”