She felt exquisite.
He breathed against her, lying half-on and half-off her body, and she thought that he might be too heavy before long, but not yet. Not quite yet. She wanted to linger like this, secure in his heat.
Secure in his affection.
She felt tears prick at her eyes. He’d made love to her—finally. Now they were truly married.
Now they were truly joined.
Joy flooded her being. She was so happy with this man. This, this was what had been missing from her former marriage—indeed, from her entire life.
A sense of belonging.
A sense of peace.
She loved him. The realization was a wonderful glow within her.
She loved Raphael.
Too soon she felt him shift. Felt that sublimely sad moment when his flesh slipped away from hers. He rose from the bed.
She rolled to watch him.
He was standing still, his back to her.
Iris knit her brows. “Raphael,” she called softly, and felt a flush when she heard how husky her voice was. “Come back to bed.”
He turned.
His face was white, his scar a scarlet snake on his skin. “No. No, I …” He stared at her as if she were something catastrophic.
As if she were disgusting.
Iris felt herself shriveling. Dying. “Raphael?”
He strode from the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Now El quickly grew strong again, her cheeks pinkened, her eyes sparkled, and her laughter filled the little hut. She rose from her bed and was able to do all the work she could do before and more.
And then Ann told her father and El that she must return to the Rock King and be his wife for a year and a day.…
—From The Rock King
Raphael stood in the room adjacent to the duke’s rooms—a dressing room—and tried to button his falls.
He’d …
Dear God.
He’d penetrated Iris. He’d come in Iris.
His hands were shaking and his breaths were harsh. Absently, in a small corner of his mind, he thought he sounded like a bear about to charge.
What the hell had he done?
He could smell her on him—some flowery perfume and the scent of her cunny, arousing and dear to him now.
He gasped as if he’d been punched in the gut.
After that had happened. After his father had ruined him for all living things and cast him into solitary darkness, he had been a being without sex for a very long time.
He had not touched himself save to do what needed to be done to keep himself clean.
He had not looked at others with lust.
He had not thought of bodies at all, except with the utmost revulsion.
Indeed, had he been of the correct faith he would have made an exemplary initiate to the priesthood.
But then, in his sixteenth year, things slowly had begun to change. He’d seen a girl and his eyes lingered on her breasts. He no longer ignored the erections he got at night—and, more and more often, during the day.
He’d grown to his full height in the next several years.
He’d mastered horseback riding to the point that he needed neither saddle nor stirrup and could guide the animal by his thighs and heels alone.
He’d learned to fight and once, when roaming alone on a deserted part of the island, knocked to the ground a man who had meant to rob him.
He’d learned Italian, Corsican, Latin, Greek, and French.
He had became a man.
And in his twenty-first year he lay with the widow who did the laundry in his house. Her hands were rough, but she was a gentle soul, ten years older than he, and not a promiscuous woman by any means. He met with her thrice more and gave her a cottage and enough money to buy an oven and begin selling bread.
He’d had two other women since.
None had been lovers.
And he had not penetrated them. He had not penetrated any woman.
Until Iris.
God. What had he done? He’d made a vow to himself that he’d never have children. That he wouldn’t continue his father’s cursed line.
He’d forsworn himself because of her.
She’d destroyed all his defenses.
“Raphael?”
He stiffened at her voice and then turned.
She hesitated in the doorway. She’d undressed and wore only a chemise and wrapper, her hair down about her shoulders.
She shone.
Her light hurt his eyes and he shut them against her radiance. “Leave.”
“No.”
Her simple word made him look up.
Her lips trembled, but she stood brave and tall in the doorway, refusing to go. Refusing to leave him in his broken ruin.
“Raphael,” she said, “what is the matter?”
He stared at her. Could she truly be so unaware?
“I … I’ve made a mistake,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. Trying to keep from shouting. This wasn’t her fault.
The fault—the weakness—lay with him.
“What …” She licked her lips. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “You know what I mean. I told you innumerable times.”
He heard her quiet inhalation. “You didn’t want a child. Yes, you said that to me, but would it really be so awful if—”
“Yes!” He’d lost the battle not to shout. “Dear God, yes. My father was a monster. I cannot risk having a child like him. Can’t you see—”
“I see that you aren’t your father.” She took a step toward him. “If—”
“How do you know?” He gripped his own hair. He felt as if his sanity were leaking out of his pores. “How the hell can you tell? I have his blood in my veins. I have his words and actions in my brain. He raised me to be his. Don’t you see—can’t you understand—that I am just as much monster as he?”
“No!” She rushed to him and wound her arms around his neck, holding him when he tried to pull away.
He couldn’t injure her. Not even now.
“No,” she said again, her face inches from his. He could see the storm in her eyes, the desperation in her face. “You are not him, Raphael. You will never be him.”
“I cannot risk it,” he said, his voice low. “It’s too much. I cannot.”
Her arms fell from him and she stepped back, swallowing. “And if it’s too late?”
He shook his head, turning away. “I don’t know.”
He looked at her, so beautiful with her golden hair around her. With her light shining bright from within her.
He’d never deserved her. It’d been folly to tell himself otherwise.
He inhaled and said it, severing whatever might have been. “I only know that this can never happen again.”
Her lips parted and she simply stared at him a moment. He had the odd hope for a second that she would argue further. That she would somehow convince him otherwise.
But in the end she simply left him there.
Alone, cold, and in utter darkness.
He couldn’t stand it. He’d been in her light too long.
Raphael slammed out of the dressing room and into the hall. He passed a startled Ubertino, standing guard outside the ducal bedroom, and kept walking.
“Your Grace!” the Corsican called behind him.
Raphael ignored the shout and ran down the stairs.
Valente and Ivo were at the front door. He held up a hand as Valente stood and opened his mouth.
Both servants stood aside as he made the door.
Raphael walked out into the night.
Leaving everything light behind him.
The Dionysus sat in front of a roaring fire that evening, drinking a very good brandy. He held up his glass and watched the amber glow of the firelight behind it.
“Dyemore is getting close,” the Mole said from a chair nearby. “And the attempt on his duchess’s life will make him even more determined.”
The D
ionysus ignored him. Other than for the very fine brandy, the Mole was of little use to him.
Something the Mole had apparently forgotten.
“Will you send another assassin?” the Mole asked.
Obviously he was worried that he would be the next assassin chosen. “I mean, of course Dyemore needs to be killed, but I don’t know if it wouldn’t be better to simply pressure him to return to Corsica.”
The Dionysus raised his eyebrows and slowly turned to the Mole. “You’ve been talking to my brother.”
“No.” The Mole’s eyes widened in what looked like fear. “No, I wouldn’t, my lord. I’m loyal to you. Only you.”
“Are you?” the Dionysus asked with genuine interest.
“Yes!” The Mole was sweating. Perhaps because of the proximity of the fire, but more likely because of the proximity of the Dionysus. “I … I just think that now you’ve spread the rumors about Dyemore, he’ll be less likely to stay in England. Who, after all, would associate with him? You’ve isolated him most admirably.”
The Dionysus nodded. It was the truth. He narrowed his eyes at the Mole, feeling in a playful mood. “Yes, Dyemore has lost any allies he might have had, but that’s not enough. He must be destroyed.” He sipped his brandy, watching the other man over the rim of his glass. The Mole looked nearly ill with fear. “Only the most loyal of my followers can be trusted for such a mission. Do you have any candidates?”
“I … That is …” The Mole took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blotted his forehead. “Perhaps the Bear?”
The Dionysus raised his eyebrows.
“Or … or even the Badger.”
“Not my brother?” the Dionysus asked, simply to find out what the Mole would say.
“Do you trust your brother?” the Mole asked, which was rather brave of him.
The Dionysus smiled. “No.”
The Mole winced, and the Dionysus enjoyed watching him slowly realize.
“I can do it,” the Mole said, as if it were his choice. “I’ll kill Dyemore.”
“Lovely.” The Dionysus smiled at him and listened as the Mole came up with a plan.
The Mole was a treasonous bastard, he decided. Or perhaps simply cowardly. Or the Mole’s face had taken on an ill-starred aspect.
Whatever the case, the Dionysus no longer favored him. The Mole was not his friend nor his brother nor his pet.
He would have to be cast out.
Dyemore would also have to be cast out. Out, out, out into the far reaches of hell. Out of this life entirely. But first the Dionysus would have to steal away Dyemore’s salvation and his life.
For if the Dionysus was not allowed salvation, then neither should Dyemore be.
It was only fair.
The sun had long risen by the time Raphael woke the next day. He winced at the sunlight streaming into the room—he’d gone to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms of his house, avoiding both the duke’s and the duchess’s chambers.
He wasn’t certain he’d be able to resist Iris again.
He rose slowly, careful of his aching head. He’d gone to several taverns last night, and while he’d not been exactly drunk when he’d returned in the early hours, he hadn’t been entirely sober, either.
For a moment Raphael sat on the side of the bed and held his head. She’d looked so hurt. As if he’d stabbed her through her heart and the blood was only beginning to flow from the wound.
Had any other person put that look on her face, he’d have killed them. But it had been he who had hurt Iris so awfully.
He’d been the one wielding the knife.
The mere thought made his stomach lurch.
God, what was he going to do? He couldn’t live with her, not now that he’d obviously shown he couldn’t resist her. But what if she was with child?
He sighed, standing like an old man, and looked at the clothes at his feet. Bending, he picked up his coat, and a scrap of paper fell out of the pocket.
He stilled.
He didn’t remember having put anything in his pocket the day before.
Raphael picked up the paper and unfolded it. In what looked like hastily scrawled handwriting it said:
He isn’t what he seems
Raphael narrowed his eyes. Who wasn’t who he seemed? The Dionysus? When had the note been placed in his pocket, and by whom?
He began to wash and dress as he considered the matter.
The tavern he’d been drinking in last night had been nearly empty. The maid serving him his drinks could’ve slipped the paper into his pocket had she been particularly adept, but that seemed unlikely. And he hadn’t met anyone walking to or from the tavern.
That left the ball.
The problem was, almost anyone could have slipped a note into his pocket last night at the ball. The crowd had been pressed so closely together, and he’d moved through it several times, encountering innumerable people.
Among them Andrew, Royce, and Leland.
He’d met both Andrew and Royce in the crowd, but they’d been facing him at the time. Of course there was a slight possibility that he’d walked by them or Leland at some point in the mass of guests and not realized it. If he had, any one of the men could have passed the note to him during that time.
Then, too, when Raphael had initially entered the small study to talk to them, both Andrew and Royce had stood behind him. He didn’t think anyone could slip a paper in his pocket without his noticing, but obviously someone had at some point …
And finally, Leland had bumped against him as he’d left the room to whisper that instruction to come to Leland’s house today. He might’ve slipped the note to Raphael at that point.
Always assuming that someone else entirely at the ball hadn’t put the note in his pocket.
Raphael blew out a breath in frustration.
In any case the note was not at all useful. It didn’t mention a name. Whoever had scrawled it had been in a hurry and fearful—the Ts had been crossed twice.
Raphael pondered that point as he pulled on his shoes.
If the note had been written in the study, perhaps it was a warning about one of the other men: he wasn’t as innocent as he seemed.
Or the note could’ve been written by the Dionysus himself or an agent of the Dionysus purely to confuse him.
Raphael’s mouth twisted sourly on the thought. If that was the case, the note was working admirably.
Regardless of the note, he was willing to take Hector Leland up on his invitation to talk. Leland was always about, always on the fringes, but never spoke without Andrew and Royce nearby. Alone, Leland might be more forthcoming—about Dockery and the Dionysus.
He’d go to Leland’s house … but not without his Corsicans.
Having made that decision, Raphael finished dressing and descended the stairs. He met neither Iris nor Zia Lina, but that wasn’t surprising. They were probably breaking their fast together.
A braver man would bid the ladies good morning.
But he’d already demonstrated his inability to resist Iris.
Best to stay away.
So Raphael called for three horses to be brought to the front of the house and then found two of his men.
Fifteen minutes later, he was mounted and riding to Leland’s town house.
London was wet and dreary, matching his mood as he rode, Valente and Bardo trailing behind on their own horses. The streets were crowded and the journey slow.
By the time they came to Leland’s house—wedged into a cramped corner of an older street—Raphael had the feeling that he had missed his opportunity to question the man.
An elderly woman stood on the step of the house, talking with a man who, judging from his bobbed wig and the black case he carried, must be a doctor. Beside them was a sobbing maid who couldn’t yet be twenty, and an elderly butler, white faced and shaking.
Raphael dismounted. “Wait here,” he murmured to his men, giving Valente the reins of his horse.
He approached the tab
leau on the steps.
“Who might you be?” asked the doctor, peering over tiny spectacles perched on the end of a pointed nose.
“I am the Duke of Dyemore,” Raphael said coolly, “and a friend of Hector Leland.”
“Then I’m afraid I’m the bearer of very sad tidings,” said the doctor. “Mr. Leland met with an accident while cleaning his dueling pistol this morning.”
“Wretched boy,” said the elderly lady. She wore a huge lace cap tied under her chin. Her mouth was an unpleasant, lipless line, and her eyes narrowed to unlovely slits. “And my poor niece Sylvia with two babes and another on the way. What a wicked thing to do. I did tell her that she shouldn’t marry Hector Leland. ‘He’s a bounder through and through,’ I said, and now look what it’s got her. Disgraceful, is what it is.”
Two houses down, a door opened, and a maid stepped out to openly gawk.
“I’d like to see him,” Raphael said.
“He’s dead,” the doctor said bluntly.
“Nevertheless, I insist.”
“You won’t thank me for it. Gunshot makes a terrible mess.”
Beside them, the maid shrieked, and the older woman tutted and led her rather brusquely inside, the butler trailing.
The doctor watched them, then turned to peer at Raphael suspiciously.
Whatever he saw in Raphael’s face seemed to make up his mind. The doctor shrugged. “Very well. Be it on your shoulders.” He led the way back inside. “You’ll see soon enough why I have no doubt of the cause of death.”
Leland’s study was on the first floor at the very back of the house, overlooking a meager garden.
“The maid found him there”—the doctor pointed to a desk holding blood-splattered papers—“and I moved the body here after I was called to the house.”
“Here” was a table, probably brought in from another room. Leland was stretched out, wearing his nightshirt and stockings and with half his shaved head blown away.
“Dead,” repeated the doctor. “Told you so.”
“Mm.” Dyemore looked over the body. “You’re sure he did it himself?”
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