Page 27 of Her Beast of a Duke

Yet the following day, right as he came back from assessing his racehorse, a storm brewed overhead. Before he was even dismounting Helion, his prized warhorse, the skies had opened up, letting out a sheet of rain.

Handing the reins to a waiting stable hand, Oscar nodded at his staff and jogged inside.

Immediately, he heard Isabella’s voice, pitched low, as if she was soothing something, or someone.

“It’s all right, boy,” she said quietly.

Keeping his steps quiet, Oscar followed her voice to the library. In there, he found Isabella cross-legged by the hearth, her hand rhythmically stroking over Morris’s silken head.

“It is only a little rain,” she said softly.

In response, the hound howled, nuzzling further into her palm.

“I know, I know,” she soothed. “I imagine it is not quite pleasant to be soaked, but I did tell you not to sneak out where I could not find you. Here, let me keep you dry.”

Oscar watched, hidden in the doorframe, as she tucked a blanket around his dog. His heart beat too hard in his chest, and he swallowed down the emotion that sought to overwhelm him. The sight should not have made him feel weak.

She continued stroking Morris tenderly, smiling down at him.

“See? Now, when your master comes back, he will find a happy, dry hound.”

In response, Morris yipped, curling up against her shins. Soon his breathing labored, and yet she didn’t stop her stroking.Under her breath, she began to hum. Morris gave a happy sigh, and his eyes closed in slumber.

Oscar’s foot scuffed the floorboards, and he reared back sharply, right as Isabella looked up.

“Your Grace?” she called out, but he was already walking away hastily, ignoring her call.

He did not need to keep witnessing such a tender moment. He did not need to see how well she treated his beloved dog, nor how Morris was taking so well to her.

He did not need to see it at all.

The morning air was balmy as Isabella walked through the gardens of Rochdale Castle, taking in the lilies, the bluebells, and the blooms of roses nestled in their bushes.

Surrounded by flowers, she was comforted. She and Sibyl had often sat out in Wickleby Hall’s gardens, smelling the fragrant scents, watching butterflies dancing around one another.

Her heart clenched with a deep ache she couldn’t ignore quickly enough, thinking of her younger sister.

I hope she is not enduring too much at the hands of our impatient parents, she wished.

The skirts of her dress brushed along the clean stone path as she wandered deeper, letting herself be comforted by the memories of her sisters. Alicia would always laugh at them, hanging out of her schoolroom window, complaining about her tutor, whom she insisted was short-minded. She would say that flowers are for women who wished to sit lazing the day away, surrounded by beauty, because they knew they belonged within the scene.

Alicia always wanted more than to be another pretty decoration, but Isabella herself had been groomed into making that her life’s purpose.

Sitting down on a swinging bench that rocked within a white-painted, wooden hut, she wondered if she indeed fit into this particular beautiful scene.

Was she another flower among them all? Was she the biggest, brightest one?

It was a shallow thought, but her husband had married her to save her, not because she was beautiful.

Isabella had always been told she would be wanted for her beauty. She had not quite imagined this would be the scenario she would find herself in.

The Duke had not asked her to be his bride because he admired her, yet she had become his wife. Even now, he largely ignored her. So, if the Duke did not want her as an ornament, then what did he expect from her?

As she relaxed back onto the bench, she was stopped by the sound of grunts coming from the thick of a grove of trees in the garden just up ahead. Curious, she stood back up and followed the path in that direction, pushing her way through the tree line.

Only, her breath caught as her eyes fell on what she found.

In the center of a clearing of trees, the Duke was braced by his palms, lifted up by his arms, his body a long, toned plank as he heaved himself up and down, using his shoulders and biceps to carry his body into pushing up and down. He did it with ease. There was no trembling of his limbs, no heaving breath, but he did let out another grunt as he tucked one arm behind his back, pushing up only with the other.