Page 87 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

The realization struck Malcolm deep in his chest, absolute and terrifyingly beautiful. He had spent years wandering an empty house of ghosts, believing himself incapable of protecting anything of worth. But looking at the two of them, he knew.

He would burn the entire world to ash before he let anyone touch them again.

An hour later, two local magistrates arrived at Brigrock Hall, accompanied by four armed constables.

Charles, dragged up from the lower rooms with a cloth held to his bloody, ruined jaw, attempted a display of aristocratic outrage first. When that failed under the cold glares of the law, he turned to frantic denial, and finally, to desperate, venomous threats.

None of his words survived contact with the sheer, oppressive reality of the room.

Malcolm stood silently, like an executioner, directly beside Penelope in the grand drawing room. The amber candlelight left nowhere to hide; the dark purple bruises were now darkening visibly along her delicate throat and her shoulder.

One of the veteran constables took a single look at her ripped silk sleeve, her split lip, and the clear finger marks on her neck before turning toward Charles with a look of open, unadulterated disgust.

Charles realized then, as the color drained from his face, that he had lost. Entirely.

“You cannot do this to a gentleman!” Charles spat, his voice cracking with humiliation as two constables seized his arms, forcing him toward the door. “She is a liar! She lured me there! She is a whore who sold herself to a madman!”

“Take the prisoner away,” the head magistrate ordered quietly, his tone laced with disgust.

Charles struggled once against the heavy iron cuffs, his face contorting into a pathetic mask. “This is not finished, Brigrock! I have connections in London! This is not finished!”

Malcolm finally spoke, his deep baritone cutting through the villain’s frantic shouting.

“Yes,” the Duke said, his dark eyes tracking Charles to the threshold. “It is.”

The constables dragged Charles out of the room, his boots scuffing loudly against the floorboards. Only after the heavy oak front doors of Brigrock Hall slammed shut behind them, signaling his permanent removal from their lives, did Penelope’s rigid shoulders finally sag.

The defiance vanished, leaving her exhausted. Malcolm caught her immediately, wrapping his powerful arms around her waist before her knees could buckle.

“I have you,” he murmured against her hair, his chest a solid wall against her cheek. “I have you, my love.”

This time, with the threat finally gone, Penelope buried her face deeply against his chest and began to shake, letting the tears fall freely into the wool of his coat.

Later that night, Nicholas refused to sleep alone in his own bedchamber. Malcolm didn’t blame the boy in the slightest; the trauma of the afternoon was too fresh, too heavy, for a seven-year-old mind to carry in the dark.

The boy sat squarely in the center of the Duke’s enormous four-poster bed in his white nightshirt, his small knees pulled to his chest, while Hector sprawled protectively across Malcolm’s feet at the edge of the mattress, his heavy tail thumping occasionally.

Penelope sat on the edge of the velvet coverlet, her trembling fingers gently brushing the dark waves of hair away from Nicholas’s forehead. “You frightened us very badly today, sweetling,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

Nicholas looked down at his lap, his expression turning miserable. “I tried not to leave you, Mama. I tried to hit him harder.”

“I know you did.”

“I did not want to run away like a coward.”

Malcolm sat down on the other side of the mattress, his massive frame sinking into the feathers. He looked at the boy with immense seriousness. “You obeyed your mother’s direct command, Nicholas.”

Nicholas looked down at his small hands, his bottom lip trembling. “But I left her alone with him. I ran away.”

“You saved her life.”

The boy’s head lifted sharply at that, his wide eyes searching the Duke’s face. Malcolm held his gaze with unyielding intensity.

“You ran exactly when she told you to. You kept your wits about you, you protected the hound, and you brought the only man who could clear that room. That is not cowardice, Nicholas. That is exactly what brave, smart soldiers do on a battlefield.”

Nicholas swallowed hard, a tiny spark of hope flaring in his eyes. “Really, Papa?”

“Really,” Malcolm rumbled gently. “I could not have done better myself.”