Page 118 of Her Beast of a Duke

His daughter said nothing, but she looked down, chewing on her lower lip. The red ribbon at the back of her head had slipped down her tight curls. She got them from her mother, whereas Charles’s hair was black but straight.

“Did you do it, Phoebe?” he asked.

She was as silent as the footmen had been, but he saw her shifting. He saw how she lifted her thumb to her teeth and bit on it as if she had to busy her mouth not to admit her wrongdoing.

“Fine,” he sighed, pushing to his feet. “There will be no outing with Miss Ternan for a fortnight. You may forget the fair in Branmere Village, and there will be no sweets, either. It is a shame, for a new shop recently opened on the high street.”

Perhaps it was cruel to dangle the two things in front of her, but he couldn’t let her keep getting away with her pranks. Grounding her wasn’t a deterrent, ordering her to be watched did nothing, and shouting or silence did very little as well, except make her throw a tantrum.

She never showed remorse and simply did another thing the following day. It was an endless cycle of trying to predict what she would get up to next.

Phoebe’s head snapped up at the threat, and she opened her mouth, her nose scrunching up like it did when she was about to cry or whine.

For a minute, Charles’s frustration abated, but then he remembered the burn of humiliation. Not only for himself, but for the Aphrodite he had taken to bed on that forbidden night.

“Papa,” Phoebe whined. “Papa, I have been looking forward to the fair for so long! Miss Ternanpromised.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you played this foolish prank,” he chided, shaking his head. “I cannot let you go on not learning that sometimes your actions have bigger consequences than your governess squealing over an insect. This is bigger, Phoebe. Someone innocent will be—likely already has been—implicated. This time, you have gone too far.”

“But—”

Before she could begin howling in protest, voices from downstairs caught his attention.

Charles surged to his feet and marched to the door, ready to demand what was going on.

“I must see the Duke of Branmere at once!” a female voice shouted.

He frowned, glancing back at Phoebe.

“Stay in your room,” he ordered, and then rushed out of the room.

“Where is he?”

That voice… where did he know it from?

He hurried to the landing of the first floor and swung onto the main staircase.

From there, he saw a cloaked woman with her hood up, only a few strands of brown hair hanging around. It was the color of the chocolate his father had always snuck him after dinner as a boy.

She squared off against Mr. Willoby, the butler.

“What is the meaning of this?” Charles demanded, hurrying down the stairs.

The cloaked lady whirled around, her hood slipping down with how fast she moved.

He froze.

Aphrodite.

As his eyes locked onto hers, recognition flooded through him so abruptly that he halted right there on the stairs. His heart thundered in his ears.

“You.”

Her blue eyes, the color of far-off shores, widened.

“You.” She frowned, rearing back. “You? You are the Duke of Branmere?”

“And you are—” He paused. “I do not know who you are.”