Page 16 of Taken By the Beastly Duke

If she could just remember that, she just might achieve her aim without any injuries to her heart.

By the time he dropped her at her family house, she was already making plans on how to perform even better on their next outing

Soon enough, another week passed and she was once again on the Duke's arm walking into the opera. This time though her sister accompanied them. She had heard that her favorite play was showing in the theatres for the first time ever. Her excitement to see the play had outweighed her fear of the duke. Hence why she was following them into the Duke's box. Looking at her sister's face on the other side of the duke, she could see that she was once again unsettled.

Victoria could guess that it had something to do with the fact that was sitting on the duke's right where she had a close view of his scarred face.

It seemed she was not the only one that noted her discomfort because the next moment, the duke turned to her, flashing her a smile in hopes of calming her down. Instead Victoria watched as the look of fear increased on her sister's face.

"Tell me Miss Charity," Anthony started, obviously ignoring the obvious look of revulsion on Charity's face. "Do you frequently visit the theatre?"

"No your grace, I... I only visited to watch this particular play," she answered her eyes trained on the stage not bothering to spare him a glance.

"Why this particular play, if I might ask? It is not particularly what most young ladies of my acquaintance would truly care for seeing it's a story known for its tragic end."

"It is my favorite," she replied, making no effort to pull her eyes away from the stage.

At that point the duke seemed to give up on making conversation with her, since it was obvious to anyone that she was not interested in conversing with him. He turned to watch the stage, a slightly frustrated look on his face.

No matter how much Victoria loved her sister, she had to admit that she had been particularly rude and that was just bad manners for someone who had received specialized tutoring in social etiquette. She resolved to talk to her when they arrived home.

She turned back to the stage to watch the actors as they worked to bring one of the most tragic stories in history to play.

She watched as Othello allowed himself to be thoroughly deceived by that sneaky devil, Iago.

She felt anger by the time the last act played out and she watched as Othello killed the beautiful Desdemona in a fit of jealous rage. By the time the curtains were drawn to signify the end of the play, she was blinking back tears of anger.

A white embroidered handkerchief appeared before her, she looked up to see the duke smiling at her with barely leashed amusement.

She took the handkerchief, mumbling her thanks, then proceeded to dap her eyes.

"It seems ironic that the heroine was killed simply because of a handkerchief. Never knew that these little piece of cloth had such power," he said gesturing to the handkerchief with a smile.

"I beg to differ, your grace. I think she died because of the sheer pig-headedness of her husband. I wonder why he would take the word of his friend over that of a woman he married?"

Anthony could guess a thousand reasons why, going by his experience with his previous betrothed. Women in his experience were not particularly known for their trustworthiness but the same went for men as well.

"I think he was a coward, because if there is one thing I have come to learn about in life. Do not act when overwhelmed with emotions. Many catastrophes have occurred when this rule is ignored."

"He could have just sent her away, instead of killing her," she replied bitterly.

Well an unhealthy obsession with a woman has been known to cause many men to act in senseless ways.

In recent times, he had noticed signs of that uncontrolled emotion in his interaction with the lovely Victoria. If he should suspect her in an affair with another male, he would prefer not to think of how he might react.

However he was more likely to kill her hypothetical lover than harm her. The thought of any harm touching her filled his chest with an unbearable ache.

He was more likely to worship her body on a bed than contemplate the idea of smothering her. Why would he want to that when he could be kissing her plump lips?

Said lips bloomed with pink color that glittered in the light of the dimly lit box. The memory of how sweet those lips tasted almost pushed him to sample them, but he was jolted out of his lustful fog by the sound of the audience clapping in appreciation to the players that stood on stage.

It seemed that was their cue to leave. He offered Victoria his arm once again. He fancied exiting the opera house before the crowd decided to surge out the narrow door. He didn't fancy the idea of being trapped in the crowd.

By the time he got to the door, he was stopped by a gentleman.

"Devlin," the Earl of Pembroke greeted. "Fancy seeing you at a theatre."

Anthony indicated with a tilt of his head towards Victoria that she could leave.

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