Feeling exasperated and restless, she rose from the table. Perhaps she should call for hot water and change for bed. But she really wished to wear something fresh. Raphael hadn’t seemed to mind her borrowing his shirts before. She crossed to his trunk and opened it, carefully pushing aside silk banyans, searching for a shirt.
Her fingers touched the edge of something hard.
Puzzled, she drew out a book—a sketchbook—very like the one she’d found in the ducal chambers in Dyemore Abbey.
For a moment she could only stare, her body frozen.
Then she opened it.
A minute later she flung open the door to the room and found Ubertino and Valente outside. “Where is he?”
“Your Grace.” Ubertino smiled hesitantly as he rose from his chair. “The duke said we were to guard you.”
“Good,” she replied, marching past them, “then you can take me to him.”
“I do not think he will like this,” Ubertino muttered.
She ignored him, continuing down the stairs and forcing the two men to follow her. She felt as if she might explode soon. “Where did he go?”
“We don’t know. Perhaps we can escort you back to your rooms?”
“No indeed,” she said. “He mentioned going out for air. We’ll try the inn yard.” She paused impatiently. This inn was larger than the one they’d stayed in the night before. The corridor had several doorways. “Which way is it, do you know?”
Ubertino exchanged a glance with Valente and sighed. “This way, Your Grace.”
He led her along a narrow passage and into the kitchens, bustling with activity at this time of night.
“Your pardon,” a maid gasped as she trotted by, a huge tray laden with full tankards on her shoulder.
Iris stepped aside, momentarily distracted.
She heard a shout from outside.
Her heartbeat sped up.
She picked up her skirts, hurrying to the back door. It was probably only a fight between hostlers, nothing to worry about, nothing to concern her.
Behind her, Ubertino called, “Your Grace!”
She burst out into the cool night air.
The inn yard was large and square, enclosed on three sides by the stables, with the inn on the fourth side. An ancient arched tunnel led to the side of the inn and the road. A few lanterns were hung by the stables and by the door where she stood.
As she watched, a mass tumbled from the deep shadows at one end of the stables, rolling into a pool of light and spilling apart into two men.
Raphael and a man with a knife.
Raphael uncoiled into a crouch.
Men flooded into the courtyard, fighting with fists and knives.
The masked man attacking Raphael staggered up and immediately leaped at him. But Raphael was already flowing to the side, his left hand flashing out to grab the other man’s knife arm. Raphael lunged, wrapping his right arm around his opponent in a vicious hug, knocking his legs out from under him.
They both went down.
Iris couldn’t see them in the melee. She darted to the side.
A gun exploded nearby.
She flinched.
Someone jostled her, and she turned to see a man with a kerchief over his mouth.
She opened her mouth to scream—
Valente hit the man hard in the belly, shoving him away.
“Come inside, Your Grace!” Ubertino shouted.
“No!” She pulled her arm from his grasp.
The men had parted, and she could see Raphael on top of his attacker.
He lifted the knife man’s hand and smashed it into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
A third time and the knife spun away as the knife man lost his grip.
The attacker arched up, white teeth snapping at Raphael’s face, his wig askew, and the fingers of his left hand scrabbling at Raphael’s throat.
Raphael jerked his head back. The attacker tried to wriggle from his grasp.
Raphael growled, baring his own teeth in a savage snarl, and slammed his fist into the side of the other man’s head.
Iris heard a distinct crack, and the masked man lay still.
She stared, horrified. He wasn’t …?
Ubertino took her arm and said gently, “Come away now, Your Grace.”
The fighting had died down in the yard, and she could see now that the duke’s men had prevailed against what looked like nearly a dozen attackers.
She turned on Ubertino angrily. “Why didn’t you help him? Why didn’t you save your master?”
“My duty is to protect you.” Ubertino looked at her gravely. “Had I or Valente left you, the duke would have dismissed us. Had you been hurt, he would have had us whipped.”
Iris stared at him, appalled. Then she shook her head and hurried to Raphael.
He still knelt by the man who had attacked him. Raphael held the edge of his palm beneath the man’s nose.
“Is he …?” Iris asked.
“Dead.” Raphael frowned at her as he rose. “What the hell are you doing out here? Ubertino?”
Her guards had caught up with her.
“They’ve been with me the entire time,” she said hurriedly.
“That doesn’t explain why they let you wander out into an attack,” Raphael growled, eyeing poor Ubertino and Valente.
“Your Grace—” Ubertino began.
“No excuses,” Raphael snapped, looking quite frightening in the lantern light, a smudge of blood on his forehead and a terrible scowl on his face. He seemed to loom over the other men. “If my duchess had been harmed, I would have both of your heads. How can you—”
“Raphael.” Iris gingerly touched her husband’s arm. “He couldn’t stop me.”
“He bloody well could,” Raphael said without taking his eyes from his red-faced men. “If he can’t keep you safe, then I’ll assign another in his place.”
“No, don’t,” Iris exclaimed, and he finally looked at her. She took a breath to steady herself. “This is my fault. I’m not a dog, and I don’t respond well to commands. Blame me if you need to blame someone.”
He gave her a look. “You should go inside to our rooms. This is distressing.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling anger ignite low in her belly. “Yes, it is, but probably not for the reason you think. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“As you wish.” He turned to the manservants. “Ubertino, take Valente and see who is hurt and if any of our men are missing. Have the men take any live brigands to the corner of the stable yard. Mind their hands and ankles are tied tightly.”
Ubertino nodded and hurried to obey Raphael’s orders.
Raphael crouched by the man who had attacked him and took off his mask and wig.
The face revealed was of a man in his early thirties with an upturned nose and thin lips, in all ways ordinary save for the fact that his hair was a bright orange.
Iris winced. The man had blood on his temple.
Raphael grunted. “Of course.”
She leaned closer. “You know him?”
“Not here,” her husband murmured.
He withdrew the dead man’s right arm from his coat sleeve and rolled the shirtsleeve up past his forearm.
There on the inner elbow was the tattoo of a dolphin.
The sign of the Lords of Chaos.
“What goes on here?” The shout came from the innkeeper, belatedly peering from his back door.
“My men and I have been assaulted in your yard by brigands.” Raphael slowly rose to his full height. “Is this the business you do? Luring rich travelers into your inn and murdering them for their money?”
The innkeeper’s face went so white it was nearly green. “N-no, Your Grace, indeed not! I can only apologize for this tragic occurrence. Please. I’ll send for a doctor immediately to tend to your men.”
“See that you do so at once.” Raphael waved aside the man’s continued stuttered apologies as he backed into the inn.
Raphael caught Iris’s elbow. “Come. I want to see the faces of the other assassins.”
He strode to the side of the inn yard where his men had already dumped five dead foes. Iris hurried to keep up. She glanced once at the dead men’s faces and then quickly looked away again. But Raphael spent some minutes gazing at each.
When he was finished he straightened and beckoned Ubertino over. “How many hurt?”
“Ivo has a cut to his cheek and Andrea a broken arm. Otherwise it is merely bruises and scrapes. There were many more of us than them.”
Raphael nodded. “Good.” He gestured to the bodies at his feet. “Have Bardo and Luigi strip the bodies and look for a tattoo of a dolphin. Do the same to the prisoners.”
He went to the four attackers who had survived the assault. Again he studied their faces, but finally he shook his head.
He pulled Iris toward the kitchen door of the inn.
“You didn’t recognize any of them?” she asked, only slightly out of breath.
“No.” Raphael glanced at Valente and gave a small jerk of his chin.
The Corsican inclined his head and stepped back into the yard.
The innkeeper opened the kitchen door and started on finding Raphael right in front of him.
“Y-Your Grace.” The innkeeper swallowed. “I’ve sent for two doctors and ordered that rooms be prepared for your men.”
“Excellent,” Raphael said. “My duchess is weary and I find myself ready to quit this sordid yard. We’ll retire now.”
“Of course, Your Grace, of course!” The poor man bowed as he held the door open, his face shining with sweat.
A minute later Raphael led Iris back into their room. The fire had been stoked, and fresh plates of food were waiting for them. Warm water was already steaming in pitchers on washstands beside the bed.
“Would Your Grace care for more refreshments?” the innkeeper asked. “Some sweetmeats for your lady?”
“No,” Raphael replied. “That will be all.” He turned to both the innkeeper and Ubertino, who had followed them up the stairs to the room. “And no one shall enter this room after this save my men. Is that clear?”
“But … but the maids—”
“No one.”
“Y-yes, Your Grace.” The innkeeper bowed himself out.
Raphael waited until the door was closed and then looked at Ubertino. “I want two men at the door at all times tonight and two below the window. Two at the front of the inn and two at the back. Two more in the common room. Make sure they are rotated so that no man becomes fatigued and falls asleep. There will be no more attacks. Not with my duchess close by.”
Ubertino came to attention, his bright-blue eyes flashing. “No, Your Grace. I will see to it on my honor.”
Then he too left.
Raphael began taking off his coat. “Shall I send for a bath for you?”
“No, thank you.” Iris frowned at her husband. “You were terrible to the innkeeper. That poor man thinks that you blame him for the attack in the yard.”
She caught the silver glint of his eye as he glanced at her. “Better that than he accuse me or my men of murder.”
“But you and your men were only defending yourselves.” She wrapped her arms about her waist, remembering the horrible scene.
“Yes, but I don’t wish to have to explain that to some provincial magistrate,” he said as he sat to remove his boots. “And besides, I wanted the innkeeper out of the yard in order to give Valente a chance to search the bodies.”
“Why did you order him to do that?”
“To see if he could find any information, obviously,” her husband replied in what sounded like a very patient tone. “The man who attacked me wasn’t a common brigand.”
“Well, that much I’d gathered when you found the dolphin tattoo on his arm.” She sat in a chair across from him, watching as he shrugged out of his waistcoat. He was favoring his right shoulder again. “Who was he?”
“Lawrence Dockery.” He glanced up at her. “Judging by his red hair and the placement of his dolphin tattoo, I suspect he was the one wearing the fox mask on the night you were brought before the Lords of Chaos.”
She shuddered at the memory. “Do you think the Dionysus sent Mr. Dockery to kill you?”
“Most likely. Although …” His brows drew together, pulling at the scar on the right side of his face.
“What?”
He glanced up at her and shook his head. “It’s just that if the Dionysus did send Dockery to assassinate me, it was an uncommonly foolish move on his part.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, rising and moving toward a washstand, “I’d already overpowered the Fox easily on the night of the revelry. He wasn’t exactly a proficient assassin, even with hired bullies. And, too, there was always the chance that matters would play out exactly as they have—leading to my discovering Dockery’s identity. It gives me a way to track the Dionysus—Dockery must have some connection to him.”
He gingerly pulled his shirt over his head.
For a moment Iris was entirely distracted by the movement of the muscles across his bare back. The wings of his shoulder blades glided gracefully beneath smooth skin as he lowered his arms, and his spine made a sort of hollow in the small of his back, just where it disappeared into the waistband of his breeches. She found the entire sight unaccountably fascinating and couldn’t help but wonder if he intended to continue stripping off his clothes.
So it was a beat or two before she processed what he’d said. “That means you might be able to discover the Dionysus.”
“Perhaps.” He poured warm water into a basin. “But my visitors yesterday morning told me that the Dionysus communicated with them via letters. None of them actually knew who the man beneath the mask was.”
“Oh.” Iris slumped in her chair in disappointment.
He glanced over his shoulder at her as if he’d heard all her dismay in that one word. “I’ll still question Dockery’s friends and acquaintances once we reach London. Perhaps the Dionysus has made a mistake.”
“Mm.” She stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. It had been a long day filled with travel and too much excitement.
“You are weary,” he said in that voice like smoke. “You should prepare yourself for bed.”
She looked at him speculatively—that wide, muscled back, the stubborn set of his jaw—and thought of the argument they’d had before in the dining room. Of the words she’d meant to say to him when she’d stormed through the kitchens.
“Actually, I had something important that I wanted to discuss with you first.”
He stilled as if he knew what was coming. “What is that?”
She rose and crossed to the bed. A black banyan had been tossed across the end, and she moved it aside to reveal the sketchbook. She picked it up and opened it to the first page.
To a sketch of her.
Sleeping.
For a moment she studied the sketch. It had been done in pencil and the artist was very skilled. The single sharp line that edged her nose, the delicate shading on her bottom lip, the suggestion of light reflected off her forehead.
In the sketch she lay asleep and peaceful—and beautiful. Iris had never thought of herself as beautiful. That word was for the lauded belles of society. The women who walked into ballrooms and made conversations stop.
But in this sketch she was beautiful.
And in the corner were the initials R.d’C.
This was how he saw her.
When she looked up at him he was watching her, his crystalline gray eyes wary.
“I found this,” she began, “in your trunk. It’s yours, isn’t it?”
He inclined his head.
She stepped closer to him. “These sketches are very good. Who taught you?”
He swallowed. “My father.”
She nodded. “I saw his sketchbook as well.”
At that his eyebrows snapped together. “What?”
/>
“When I went into the ducal bedroom. His sketchbook was there.” She inhaled. “I didn’t like his drawings, but I like yours.” She glanced up at him. “Even if they all are of me.”
He didn’t answer. He stood there like a solid block of ice and said nothing. If he hadn’t been watching her, she would’ve thought he wasn’t listening.
His very serenity maddened her.
“This entire book is full of sketches of me,” she said again, her voice tight. “Horseback riding, walking, dancing. Laughing and simply smiling. Profiles and full face.” She looked down at the book, turning the pages. “You had to have been following me. Following me for months. Why?”
He blinked. Blinked. “I met you at a ball in which I’d gone to rendezvous with members of the Lords of Chaos. I … was worried for you.”
“Worried?” She threw up her hands. “Worried doesn’t explain page after page of my face in your book.”
He turned, putting his back to her. “I found you an interesting subject.”
“Don’t lie to me!” She went around his back to face him. His nostrils were flared, his mouth pressed into a thin line. He tried to retreat, but she followed. “You made me think that you were indifferent to me. That I was a burden that you never wanted to take to your bed. When all along,” she whispered. “All along you had a sketchbook full of pictures of me. A man doesn’t do that because of worry or an interesting subject.”
By the time she’d come to the end of her rant she was right up against his bare chest, searching those icy eyes—except they weren’t very icy at the moment.
Not at all.
She stretched on tiptoe and pressed the sketchbook to his chest, holding it there with the flat of her palm. “Tell me the truth, Raphael. Now. Tonight. No more evasions and lies. What is it you feel for me? Is it affection—or merely indifference?”
He finally moved then, snatching the sketchbook from her hand and tossing it to a chair.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and fisted her hair with the other hand, bending over her until she had to grasp those broad shoulders or fall. “Believe me, Wife, the last thing I feel for you is indifference.”
Duke of Desire Page 14