by Virna DePaul
Light through the ballroom’s stained glass windows slipped into the hallway as they approached. Molly bit her lip. She was yet again about to come face-to-face with the Duke.
“Oh, goody,” she mumbled.
“Speak clearly, child,” Isla corrected.
Okey dokey.
She was about to come face-to-face with the man she wanted to ride like a cowgirl on a bucking bronco.
Is that what the Duke’s mother desired to hear?
Last night, she’d dreamed about him in intricate detail. Of course, the details had all been of her own imagining, but as an artist, she was pretty certain she’d be spot-on in describing the exact shade of red his skin would flush after she raked her nails over his chest, or the exact shape of his ass, which she’d cling to as he fucked her hard and fast, or the exact decibel level with which she’d scream his name when she came.
She could recount those descriptions quite clearly for Isla but Molly was pretty sure the Duke’s mother wouldn’t appreciate it, so she kept her mouth shut.
She felt her cheeks warm as she heard the Duke’s voice conversing lowly with Mack.
“What was it you said, dear?” Isla asked in exasperation.
“I said, ‘I’m honored.’” Molly felt the butterflies in her stomach as they neared the ballroom doors. “I’m honored to be here, painting the Duke’s portrait.”
Isla pierced her with a look. “That’s what I thought you said.”
* * *
He wanted to fuck me, Molly thought.
I knew it. He knew it. Mack probably knew it.
Everyone knew it except maybe the Duke’s mother, who wouldn’t stop chattering. “We were so impressed, Miss Rose, that you studied art theory at Yale,” Isla said about halfway through the second portrait painting session.
Molly peered above her canvas, glaring at the Duke of Roxburghe.
Yale, not fucking Harvard.
But he didn’t so much as smirk at the knowledge that she’d failed his little test so spectacularly.
Because he wanted her, but he was doing everything he could do to hide that fact.
He sat as stiff as a board in his chair across the ballroom as Molly painted.
He couldn’t quite control his fingers though—they drummed restlessly against his knee: pinky, ring finger, middle finger, pointer finger, again and again.
It was driving her crazy. It was the only movement he would allow himself.
He would not fuck her. He would not kiss her. He would not even touch her. He kept himself wholly from her, for reasons she had yet to free from his guarded heart, but in the drum, drum, drum of his fingers, Molly could see that he wanted to.
His shoulders were as they should be: drawn back, straight, proper. His chin was held high, his hair arranged so every strand was in place, his feet flat and unmoving on the floor and not moving to sweep her into his arms and carry her away. As they should have been. Yes, everything about the Duke’s appearance, demeanor, and body language was exactly how his mother, sitting along the wall, should have expected it to be.
But his fingers could not be held still, they could not listen to the command of his self-control, they could not stop yearning to be closer and closer to her. Molly could feel it in the air: he wanted to shove aside the easel, point at the door and demand everyone leave, grip tightly the back of her neck and drag her close to him, explore past the waistband of her jeans to find her panties wet and her body ready, eager, willing.
But they wouldn’t, those restless fingers.
And that was what was driving Molly crazy.
It didn’t help that it was much harder than she’d thought it would be to play at being a world-famous artist again. Every time she moved her dirty hands to wipe them across her pants, she caught Isla’s curious glance and reached instead for the towel Mack provided. She held the palette carefully under her brush as she painted, to avoid dropping more paint on the white fur beneath her. Did any artist really paint over a white surface, let alone expensive white fur? That’s what old drop cloths were for, at least in a studio.
Then again, Molly was used to dragging her art supplies to Central Park and painting under a tree or squeezing into the broom closet she’d made into her ‘studio’ or lugging a stool down the subway stairs and painting the passersby.
“Is that your…tongue?” Isla asked after Molly had finally focused on the canvas instead of how she held her shoulders or chin or paintbrush.
“Oh, um, yes, sorry,” she answered.
So apparently professional artists weren’t even supposed to be human enough to stick out their tongues when they concentrated. Great. Just great.
“Professor Artullo sends you his highest regards,” Isla continued later. “Very impressive.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Molly said, studying the Duke’s trimmed beard.
Only thirty more minutes of this, and then she’d be able to disappear again. Done with the tension hanging between her and the Duke, who was thankfully oblivious to his mother as she flipped through her newspaper. She could also quit the game they were both silently playing. Every time Molly looked up she’d see the Duke’s eyes dart away from her and every time he caught her looking at him she’d do the same. It was like sexually-charged tag, where no one could touch anyone and no one admitted they were actually playing.
But the sound of the Duke’s groan the night before, when she’d been wrestling with that infernal sweater and she’d finally lifted her hands away from her breasts, still made her knees weak. It had been a sound of such desire, yes, but also of such restraint. So powerful and raw and primal, and yet so reined in, held back, caged up.
On a school trip to the Hoover Dam, Molly had wondered what it would be like to stand at the base of the dam’s massive wall as the concrete split and then crumbled, as the waters flooded over her.
She’d felt much the same then, the same shivers down her spine, the same heated rush through her veins, the same nervous, yet excited pounding of her heart, when she heard the groan from the Duke’s seductive lips. To feel that power unleashed. To be powerless to its all- consuming strength. To drown in his no-longer controllable passion.
Molly’s brush moved faster across the canvas as she reveled in the image. Her strokes became less refined, less precise and increasingly more wild, more violent. Her hand moved no longer under her own will, but under the need and desire that made her fingertips tingle. She painted the Duke as she knew him truly to be: a force that not even the strongest wall of concrete nor the largest well of self control could forever hold back. As the paint stained the canvas, she desired more than anything to be the first crack in the dam that echoed out for all to hear.
“Miss Rose?”
Dimly, Molly became aware of Isla peering over the top of her glasses, her eyes glancing between Molly and her son. “Callum, darling, you’re going for your school visit down in Kelso today, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Isla nodded. “Good, take Miss Rose with you.”
“What?!” Both Molly and the Duke exclaimed at the same time.
Molly had barely been able to contain herself with ten feet or so between them. How was she supposed to keep control of herself in a car with less than two feet between them?
Isla frowned suspiciously before folding her paper and setting it on the small table Mack had set up for her.
“Well why ever not? Callum, you’re going to promote the arts and we have with us an artist. I don’t see the problem.”
The Duke stared across the room at Molly, and Molly bit her lip before turning to Isla. Isla had no idea just how close her prim and proper, fine and fitting son was to pouncing from his throne upon the American who was not who she proclaimed to be. Isla had no idea she was only pushing him closer.
“Um, ma’am,” Molly tried to think of something to keep her from the Duke. “I’m not really great with children.” That was a lie, of course. She was great with kids.
Isla
didn’t even look up at her before shaking a dismissive hand her way. “Nonsense, you’re being modest. I saw your impressive volunteer record with the Boys and Girls Club in Boston.”
“Right.” Molly tapped her brush against the palette. Of course Priscilla Rose also volunteered for the common good. “I love children.”
“Excellent.”
“Mother,” the Duke tried, shifting in his chair for the first time since the session began. “Perhaps Miss Rose would like to rest from her travels.”
“She can rest after the school visit. Don’t be silly. She’s going, and I don’t want to discuss it further.”
From Isla’s tone, she meant it. He lapsed into tense silence. Molly returned to the portrait and resigned herself to one more afternoon with him before leaving. What could it hurt? As much as he wanted her, he had made it clear he wanted her gone, too.
After all, he’d had his chance the evening before. She had stood there, naked, save for some still damp underwear that clung to her hip bones, and he hadn’t even touched her. In her mind she had screamed for him to drop her sweater. If only he’d just skimmed his thumb over her nipple. Could he not have given her at least one passing kiss along the neck? Her body had been exposed for him to do any and all that he wanted and he hadn’t even ghosted his fingers along her side.
He’d left her to imagine all of that alone in that large canopy bed with only the comfort of her own fingers tucked into her underwear, circling desperately over her clit.
Somehow, Molly had made it through the night. After coming while biting her lip to not scream out, she’d managed to fall asleep and wake up the next morning quite ready to leave. She would just have to suffer through one more afternoon of his dark, lustful eyes and large, strong hands that would not touch her.
Mack poked his head inside the ballroom. “Car’s ready to go, sir.”
Quickly, before Isla could sneak a peek at the canvas, Molly pulled a sheet over it. She grabbed her bag to follow after the Duke. As they approached the front doors, she felt her phone buzz against her back.
“Miss Rose?” Mack asked, holding the front door open for her.
She fished the phone out of her bag and groaned when she saw the caller ID.
“I’ll be right there, Mack. It’s, um, my agent. Got to take it.”
Mack nodded, and she answered the call while ducking around the corner into the empty hall.
“Hello?”
“Molly, it’s Joey. Joey at Brooklyn Self-Storage on 19th and Elm?”
“Yeah, yeah, hi Joey.” Oh, she knew what this call was about.
“Great, yeah. I’m looking at your account for the deluxe storage unit, and it looks like you’re behind on your payment.”
When Molly’s mother had died from cancer two years ago, her father had fallen into a deep depression. He’d wanted everything that reminded him of his wife out of the house. He couldn’t bear to look at the art her mother had painted. Or the instruments he’d played that had made her smile and laugh and cry. He’d wanted it all gone. But Molly had refused to let him do it, and they’d gotten into some angry fights.
“You can’t just stop playing music,” she’d yelled. “That’s not what Mom would have wanted.”
“Mom’s not here, Molly!” he’d yelled back just as loud.
They’d both been breathing heavily with fists clenched and faces red. Her father had swiped his hand over his face and sighed. “She’s not here,” he’d whispered.
Then she’d heard his bedroom door click shut, and it was the last argument they had about it.
Just as he’d told her to do, she’d removed everything from their tiny apartment. Only she hadn’t told him she’d rented a storage unit. She hadn’t had any other choice. It now held all that was precious to them inside it, and someday she knew he’d want it back.
Before she’d left for Europe, she’d mailed a check not only for the current month’s rent, but for the subsequent month’s as well. Obviously she’d be gone and didn’t want to take the risk of not sending the next payment in, and that way she’d have plenty of time to earn her first paycheck at her new job before she had to pay the next monthly installment.
She told Joey exactly that.
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I don’t have any record of you having made those payments.”
“But I made them. I mailed the check to you before I left. It must have gotten lost.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t have the payments, and now you’re two months behind. Per the terms and conditions of your plan, if you’re behind on two months rent, we can seize the contents of your storage unit and sell it at auction.”
“No!” Molly exclaimed, thinking of her parent’s things going to strangers. “Please, you can’t do that. I’m in Europe, but I’ll be back next Wednesday, a week and a half from today, and I’ll pay.”
There was a pause on the line. “Well, I guess I could wait until then, but—”
She sagged against the castle wall. “Look what’s in that storage unit is more precious to me than anything else in the world, okay, Joey? Okay?” Molly hated that she was begging. But if she was going to beg for anything, it was this. “I’m starting a new job next Wednesday, all right? And I’m getting a signing bonus, and that money will go straight to Brooklyn Self-Storage on 19th and Elm. Please?”
Joey sighed.
“I’ll give you until next Wednesday,” he finally said, and she heard him typing on a keyboard. “But after that, you forfeit whatever is left in the storage unit. It’ll go to auction and I can’t do anything then. Got it?”
She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. “Got it. Thanks, Joey.”
“Take care, Molly.”
She opened her eyes and heaved herself up from the stone wall. Then she turned to find the Duke of Roxburghe standing silhouetted in the dark hallway.
“We really must be going.”
Irked, she shoved her phone in her bag and marched past him. “How long were you lurking there?”
“It’s my castle,” he responded, his shoes smacking on the marble behind her. “I do not lurk.”
She looked over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t overhear anything, if that is your concern, Miss Rose.”
“Good.”
In silence, they walked together down the stairs to the black luxury sedan waiting to drive them into the town of Kelso. Just as Molly was about to get in, the Duke asked a question that almost made her trip headfirst into the gravel.
“Was that your boyfriend?”
She stared at him with wide eyes. Then she circled around the back of the car to where Mack was holding open the door for her. She was still staring at the Duke as he climbed in next to her and shut the car door.
“And what if it was?” she asked finally, perturbed by his calm, blasé demeanor.
He shrugged. “Just curious.”
She was too embarrassed to tell him who it really had been, and that at the moment she couldn’t afford to wire the storage company the money for three months of storage, so she huffed and crossed her arms, feeling childish and petty, “Well, not that it’s any of your business, but yes that was my boyfriend.”
The car rolled along the gravel drive, away from Floors Castle. Next to her, the Duke scrolled casually on his phone, seemingly unperturbed.
“How tall are you?” Molly asked.
“Six-four or so.”
“My boyfriend is six-five or so.”
He didn’t respond. Her teeth ground.
“He’s very rich, you know. Very, very rich.”
He turned to her and gave her a smile. “Wonderful, Miss Rose.”
His attention returned to his phone, but Molly continued to frown at his perfect, handsome profile.
“What’s above a duke?” she asked.
“A prince,” he said, not looking at her.
“My boyfriend is a prince,” she said.
He clicked off his phone and leane
d his head back against the headrest before closing his eyes.
“I eagerly await my invitation for the wedding in the mail.”
Molly rolled her eyes and watched the emerald green hills roll by. She didn’t want to date a prince. Hell, she didn’t want to date a duke, either. Though it would be a refreshing change from the $150 scarf-wearing, Nietzsche-quoting, ‘next Picasso’ assholes she’d dated in New York City.
Really, she just wanted someone who was open. Someone who would strip everything away, all the pretense, the charades, the guards, and just be. Molly wanted someone who showed as much of their true self as the art she loved so much. She wanted a Michelangelo's David. Not a fucking filtered-to-hell Instagram shot.
She glanced over at the Duke. She thought she’d caught a glimpse of what she wanted in his eyes before. In the ballroom, on that first day. When he’d backed her into that tree. When he’d stared at her in front of the raging fire he’d built.
But she’d been wrong.
Every time, she’d been wrong.
Chapter Six
Callum
At Kelso Primary School, Callum paced the small cafeteria’s linoleum floors. Molly scuttled out of his stomping path for the fourth time.
“Could you please pace in a straight line, Your Grace?” she asked.
He stopped mid-step and gave her a disapproving stare. Not so much because of her cheeky comment, but because of the way she’d used his title. Of course, he’d told her to call him that, and it was the proper thing given she wasn’t his family, close friend, or lover, but for some reason he wanted her to call him by his given name. Just once, he wanted to hear Callum slip from her lips, and not just when she was being sassy, like she’d been just now. He wanted to hear it from her lips in a whisper. In a moan. In a scream. That would be like music to his ears.
Of course, he couldn’t say that. He could barely admit it to himself.
Ignoring her, he twisted on his heel and marched back the other way. His eyes darted to the wall that divided the cafeteria from the gymnasium, where fifty terrifying children awaited his speech about the importance of the arts and maintaining program funding. He was comfortable giving a speech at the finest clubs to the most serious and formally dressed men and women of state, but children…children made his brow sweat, his feet restless, and his stomach churn. He imagined their tiny fingers, their snotty noses, their curveball questions.
