Duke of Desire

by Elizabeth Hoyt

  They were dead. All of them were dead.

  Numbly he saw that his men had fought well. Their bodies bore terrible wounds. They had died bravely.

  And on the top of the pile …

  Ubertino lay on the top of the pile. One eye had been obliterated by a bullet, but the other stared, blue and blank, up at the ceiling of the carriage. Raphael couldn’t breathe, his lungs had stopped.

  Slowly he climbed into the carriage and reached for the body of his oldest friend.

  He closed Ubertino’s eye and laid his hand on the Corsican’s already cold cheek.

  Then he stood and climbed down from that charnel house.

  He walked to the front of the carriage and held out his arms for Zia Lina.

  He picked her up—she was as light as a child—and carried her to the house.

  “Where is Iris?” he asked as he climbed the front steps. His voice was steady, his bearing calm, but his chest was frozen solid.

  “He has her,” Zia Lina said in a hoarse voice. “He sent me back with a message: Meet him at dusk, at the ruins of Saint Stephen’s Church on the outskirts of London. He will discuss the matter there with you.”

  He nodded, carrying her into the house.

  “It is a trap,” his aunt said sadly, her voice nearly broken. Had she screamed when they took Iris? Had they hurt her, his tiny, brave aunt? “You must not go, my son. The devil knows how you feel about your wife. He tries to use your feeling against you. But she is already dead.”

  He stopped and looked down at Zia Lina, feeling the first stirrings of a terrible rage. “Did you see my wife die with your own eyes?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then there is hope.” He continued walking. “While there is hope I will fight.”

  “That man is mad,” she said, sounding desperate. “He will kill her and then he will kill you. He had many men. More even than your Corsicans. You are one man, Raphael. You cannot win against him.”

  He shouldered open the door to her room. If Iris died, he would as well.

  She was in his blood. A part of his bones.

  But he merely said, “You are right.”

  Iris sat very still in the strange carriage and watched the madman across from her hold Tansy. His men had found the puppy in her carriage and the Dionysus had laughed and demanded she be brought to him.

  Now Tansy was squirming and licking his hand, and he was playing with her as if he were a normal man.

  But she’d seen this man, whoever he was, send Donna Pieri away in their carriage filled with the bodies of Raphael’s Corsicans.

  Tansy nipped at the Dionysus’s fingers and Iris tensed.

  But the madman only laughed gently.

  Ubertino had been among the dead.

  Iris looked down, for she didn’t want him to see the tears that suddenly welled in her eyes. She wouldn’t show weakness to this creature.

  “She’s a dear little thing, isn’t she?” the Dionysus said.

  Iris looked up at him.

  He had lifted Tansy up in front of his masked face and she was trying to paw at the painted surface. “Oh no, darling one, or Father will have to beat you. At least that’s what mine did to me. Though I never knew why.”

  Iris cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. That … that sounds horrible.”

  The Dionysus lowered the puppy to his lap and said as if he’d not heard her, “Fathers are so capricious, don’t you think? It’s why one should really always stay away from them.”

  His fingers tightened his hold on Tansy’s neck.

  Iris gasped, stifling the urge to snatch the puppy away from him. “She’s bothering you. Why don’t you give her to me?”

  The puppy whined and tried to twist from his grip. He didn’t seem to notice. “I did try to tell Dyemore this—and really, he of all people should have known since his father was the Dionysus—but he would not listen.” He bent his head to Tansy and whispered. “No one listened.”

  Iris stared at him. He of all people … It almost sounded as if the Dionysus knew what had happened to Raphael. But how could he know unless …

  “I’m listening,” she said carefully. “What were you trying to warn Raphael about?”

  The Dionysus shook his head. “He was pampered and kept in ignorance. I wasn’t. How could I be? They took me to my first revel when I was eight.”

  “That’s … that’s awful,” Iris said, though she wasn’t even sure the man was talking to her. “A child should never have to endure that, don’t you think?”

  “I shall make Dyemore listen when he comes for you.”

  Tansy gave a sharp yip.

  Iris saw that the Dionysus had pressed her neck to his leg so that she could not move her head at all. She was frantically pushing her paws against his hand, trying to get away, but of course she hadn’t the strength.

  One twist and he could break her neck.

  Iris knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Ann arrived at the rock tower it appeared deserted, so again she knocked at the door.

  The Rock King answered, and when he saw her he blinked.

  She raised her eyebrows. “You seem surprised to see me.”

  “I am,” he replied. “In seven hundred years seventy maidens have pledged to be my wife for a year and a day. None but you have ever returned to serve their time.” …

  —From The Rock King

  The town house was magnificent. Grand enough for even the son of a king.

  Raphael ran up the front steps with all but two of his remaining Corsicans behind him—over a dozen in all—and pounded on the door.

  It was opened by a regal butler, white wigged and red nosed. “Where is your master?” Raphael demanded before the man could speak.

  The man’s mouth dropped open.

  “Show me now,” Raphael snapped before the idiot could start some protestation.

  The butler turned and led him and his men into the town house.

  Up stairs, through halls, until he arrived at a library.

  Kyle was there with three of his men.

  He rose, his expression wary, at the sight of Raphael and his Corsicans in his domain. His men spread out around him. “What is this?”

  “I need you,” Raphael said. “You and your men. Get your weapons and follow me.”

  Kyle didn’t move. “I don’t take orders from you.”

  Raphael remembered why he disliked the Duke of Kyle so very much.

  “Damn you.” Raphael gritted his teeth. “Please. He’s taken Iris. I need you to help me get her back alive.”

  It was late afternoon now and the carriage was growing dark. Iris was curled in a corner with Tansy safe in her arms. The madman had grown tired of the little puppy after a while and simply let her go.

  Now the carriage was stopped, the Dionysus sitting across from her doing nothing.

  Outside, Iris could just make out a stand of trees and the arch of a church. The rest of the building had either fallen down or been cannibalized for the stone.

  They hadn’t traveled very far, so they couldn’t have gone much beyond London.

  Iris wondered if Donna Pieri had made it home safely. She’d seen Valente driving the carriage past with Donna Pieri on the box beside him. Valente looked as if he had been badly wounded in the shoulder. Would he be strong enough to control the horses until he could get help?

  What if he fainted and the horses bolted?

  She sighed and examined the carriage again. She could see no weapons. If she was left alone she could check the seats to see if they hid a pistol, as Raphael’s carriage did.

  It seemed unlikely, however.

  “Have you ever pondered on the nature of fate?” came the Dionysus’s voice in the darkness.

  He held a pistol loosely in his lap now, handed to him earlier by one of his men.

  Iris eyed it, wondering if she could grab the gun before he shot her.
<
br />   “No, I haven’t,” she replied tartly, even though she knew by now that the man needed no partner for his soliloquies.

  “For instance,” he went on, proving her thought correct, “had I not had you kidnapped and brought to my revels, you would not now be the Duchess of Dyemore. You should thank me.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t,” Iris muttered.

  Good Lord, the man was insane.

  “Of course I will also be the agent of your death,” he went on. “but that is an entirely separate and different affair.”

  He closed his eyes and was silent for several minutes, and she began to think that he’d gone to sleep. If he loosened his grip on the pistol …

  Then he spoke again, dashing her hopes. “But there are deeper matters in fate than you. I think sometimes of what I would be had I not had the father I did. I might have been an entirely normal man. You might have liked me, Your Grace. Imagine that.”

  Iris shuddered. “I sincerely doubt it.”

  She could not imagine in any world liking this man.

  “Oh, come now, Your Grace,” he said. “I am not so very different from your husband, after all. Both our fathers loved the revels. Both our fathers loved us. The only difference is that he escaped and I did not. Am I to be blamed for this? I was but a boy. Should the dog, having been beaten every day of its life, when it finally turns and savages its master, tearing out his throat, feasting on his blood, gobbling his innards, should that dog be blamed for its madness? The dog began an innocent creature.”

  Iris swallowed, feeling sick from his words. If he was speaking the truth and she understood him correctly, then he’d been abused as Raphael had, only the Dionysus had never been rescued by a loving aunt. He’d been left to suffer—and this was the result.

  “So you see why I have this interest in fate.” The Dionysus’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Had I had a normal or even an unconcerned upbringing, perhaps this would be an entirely different carriage ride. Perhaps you would be my loving bride instead of Dyemore’s. Wouldn’t that be strange?”

  Iris felt her breathing slow like a small animal in the presence of a predator. She didn’t like the direction in which his thoughts were turning.

  “But I am already married,” she said steadily. “I rather wonder about you. Have you a wife? A fiancée? Someone you love?”

  “Do you think your husband would mind terribly if we pretended, you and I, that we were wed?” the Dionysus asked mockingly, entirely ignoring her questions. It was as if she were mute.

  Iris remembered that conversation she’d had with Raphael—it seemed so long ago now—about rape and the choice to live or not. She’d been so blithe in her insistence that life was always the better choice. That there was never reason to despair.

  To give up and take one’s own life.

  Now, though, facing an insane man, not knowing if Raphael even knew that she was in danger, not knowing if he could get to her before she was raped and killed …

  Well.

  Things looked rather bleak.

  But she raised her chin defiantly. She still believed that there was hope as long as one lived. No matter what might happen.

  No matter what this madman might do to her.

  She looked at the Dionysus coolly and said, “You are not a tenth the man Raphael is. You could never hope to replace him.”

  Raphael gripped the mare with his thighs as she galloped, her neck strained and flecked with foam. The gallop was reckless on the carriage road. They might come upon a pedestrian or a herd of sheep at any moment. But he’d grown impatient as they rode through London. In the city they’d been able only to trot and sometimes canter, all the while wondering if they’d be in time.

  If he would be in time.

  The moment they’d made the country roads, Raphael had kneed his horse into a gallop.

  Beside him, Kyle was on a big bay gelding, and behind them were their men—his Corsicans, Kyle’s trio of former soldiers, and over a dozen soldiers—the King’s men—hastily gathered by Kyle. How he’d been able to summon the King’s men on such short notice, Raphael wasn’t entirely sure. But that ability was, of course, why he’d sought Kyle’s help in the first place.

  The sun was beginning to set, the sky turning a fiery orange as night fell.

  All he could see was Iris’s face. Her eyes blue gray and stormy. Hurt. Because he’d sent her away. He’d not even said farewell.

  If she should die …

  He would not consider the notion.

  He gripped the reins so tightly they cut into his palms even through the leather gloves he wore.

  She was alive. As long as she was alive, no matter what, all was not lost.

  He would find her and save her. He would apologize. He would go on bended knee if it would make this right again. He would spend the rest of his life doing anything to make her happy.

  Even if that meant letting her go if that was her wish.

  She just needed to live.

  Because a world without Iris was a world without light.

  Chapter Eighteen

  So Ann became the Rock King’s wife, although there was not much involved in the job. The pot was always full of stew, so she need not cook. There were no chickens to feed nor cows to milk nor wool to spin. At night the Rock King would turn down his rough bed and let Ann climb in first. Then he would blow out the candle and she would listen as he undressed and entered the bed bedside her.

  His arms were strong and warm.…

  —From The Rock King

  Iris stumbled as she walked behind the Dionysus in the church ruins, a sleeping Tansy cradled in her arms. The sun had set only minutes before and dark had descended, fast and ominous.

  Over two dozen rough-looking men surrounded them, the Dionysus’s hired toughs. Two of the men carried a large chest between them.

  Her wrists were bound in front of her and she feared for her life. She couldn’t help thinking that she was back in the nightmare that had begun all this: the Lords of Chaos’s revelry with their Dionysus presiding over all.

  Save for the fact that today was not part of a revelry. Today the Dionysus meant to kill her husband and then her.

  She knew this because he’d explained it all to her with great relish before they had left the carriage. If the Dionysus had ever been sane, he’d long since lost the battle to keep his mind.

  “Now here we will meet your husband and here we will lay his bones,” the Dionysus said, stopping by the arch of the ruined church. The two men with the chest set it down with a thunk. “A fitting place for the last of the Dyemores, I think, in the ruins of this forgotten church.” He turned to her and cocked his head. “Would you like to be buried next to your husband?”

  Her fingers were trembling in Tansy’s fur, but she remembered, all those days ago, vowing to not to let this man take her dignity.

  She saw no reason to change her vow now.

  Iris lifted her chin. She was a lady from a family that traced its roots nearly to the time of the Conqueror. And now she was Raphael’s wife as well. A duchess. “Eventually, but not tonight.”

  The Dionysus shook his head. “I’m afraid it will indeed be tonight, Your Grace.” He turned and pointed to where the road ran along the side of the church ruins, disappearing around a curve. “There is the London road. Naturally, we should be expecting Dyemore to come from there. But your husband, being a sly sort, will no doubt try a different way. I think … Yes, I do believe he will try that way.” The Dionysus pointed to the darkened woods beside the ruins. “What a very good thing, then, that I’ve placed sharpshooters in the trees.”

  She licked her lips. “I thought you wanted to talk to Raphael? Didn’t you want to tell him about all that you suffered while he was away?”

  Tansy woke up, and Iris set her down on the grass.

  “I no longer feel the need,” the Dionysus replied carelessly. “You shall be a lovely lamb staked out for our wolf.”

  The Dionysus
took his pistol from his pocket and examined the weapon, sighted down the short barrel, and then cocked it.

  He turned to her. “It shouldn’t be long now. We’ll be done by sundown and back in time for supper—or at least I will be.”

  “Back where?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know well enough,” he answered, kicking the chest. Something inside seemed to groan. “Grant House.”

  Tansy finished her business and trotted over to investigate the chest, sniffing interestedly all around the bottom.

  Iris stared at the chest in dawning horror.

  She glanced back up at the Dionysus.

  His face was turned to hers, and she could almost see his eyes behind that awful mask staring back at her. “Dogs do have the most wonderful sense of smell.”

  One of the Dionysus’s men jogged up to him. “Someone’s comin’ though the trees.”

  The Dionysus nodded. “Very good.”

  His man turned away.

  And Iris knew she couldn’t let Raphael walk into a trap.

  She ran at the Dionysus and seized the arm with the gun, trying to twist it to the side. But he was stronger, of course.

  The pistol exploded between them.

  They had a plan and it was a good one, but when he heard the shot, Raphael started running toward the old church ruins.

  The earth flew up around him as shooters fired on him from the trees, but it was all but impossible to hit a running man.

  Behind him Kyle cursed.

  Raphael could hear gunfire and shouting in the woods. Kyle and the soldiers were taking care of the hidden shooters.

  His Corsicans had but one order: save their duchess. Raphael had made plain that nothing else was more important than that.

  He burst from the cover of the trees and saw Valente and Bardo fighting fiercely with four men. Farther away, Iris was in the Dionysus’s arms and …

  There was blood on her face. He nearly stumbled at the sight.

  A burly man came at him from the side.

  Raphael roared and elbowed him in the face.