Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(10)

Nicoletta pursed her lips but did as he said.

His duchess merely looked bewildered on being handed a key to a treasure box.

“It is yours now,” he said, his voice … Something was wrong with his breath. His gasped. “As my wife. As my duchess. This is yours as well.”

He took her hand—so warm in his—and placed the heavy, chased ring on her finger. It wouldn’t fit her ring finger—his mother had been a fragile creature with very thin hands. Instead he pushed it onto the smallest finger of her right hand. The sight of it there, glowing gold, the central round ruby burnished with the years it had guarded his mother’s family, satisfied something within him.

His hands dropped to the bed like lead weights.

“Protect her,” he whispered to Ubertino as the room darkened. Someone was weeping. Nicoletta? “Promise me. Protect her.”

Iris’s eyes stung, which was ridiculous.

She hardly knew this man, husband or not. What matter to her if he lived or died? He was arrogant, abrupt, and demanding—the last things she’d wanted in a husband.

And yet she wept for him.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Her fingers were stained with blood as she worked on the wound, the gold of the heavy ring Dyemore had placed on her little finger all but obscured by the gore.

She glanced at Dyemore and realized that his face had relaxed. Black lashes lay against his pale cheeks and his lips were parted softly, though the right side was still twisted even now.

He’d passed out.

For a timeless moment she stilled.

He was entirely at her mercy, this ruthless, violent, powerful man. This man who had saved her life and then demanded she marry him. He’d lain down and without hesitation or fear let her cut into him.

He trusted her—with his life, it seemed.

She’d never been so important to someone before.

She inhaled and picked up a small pair of tweezers—probably from a toiletry kit. The servants had brought a stack of cloths, a pair of scissors, water, a basin, a sharp knife, and the tweezers and laid them out neatly on a table beside the bed. They had also lit two candles on the bedside table to provide light in the otherwise dim room.

Carefully sliding the tweezers into the wound along the knife blade, she delicately probed. She was glad he was unconscious—she hated the thought of causing him further pain.

She moved the metal implement about in Dyemore’s flesh, in his shoulder, as the blood continued to ooze out, staining his banyan and the sheets. Sweat slid greasily down the center of her back.

Finally—dear God, finally—she felt the tweezers clink against something. She tried to open the thin blades to grasp the ball, but there wasn’t room.

“Damn,” she muttered under her breath. It was terribly unladylike to swear. But then it was unladylike to have one’s fingers in a gentleman’s bloody shoulder.

She twisted her implement, trying to somehow capture the little bit of metal. For a moment she thought she had it, but then the tweezers slipped off the bullet.

Iris swallowed. She was so weary. She just wanted to correct the wrong she’d done to Dyemore.

Make him whole again.

Nicoletta murmured something and patted around the wound with a piece of cloth, wiping away some of the blood.

“Thank you.”

Iris inhaled and closed her eyes. Working slowly, she felt for the bullet again. Caught the bit of metal … just there … and carefully withdrew the tweezers with the bullet and then the knife.

She blew out a breath, eyeing the nasty little thing, then reached for one of the cloths on the table. She wiped the bullet and examined it.

It was whole.

Thank God.

She set it down on the table and turned back to Dyemore. The wound was still oozing blood. She licked her lips and inhaled. She’d have to sew it closed.

There was no needle or thread on the table and she turned to Nicoletta. “Do you have a sewing kit?”

The maidservant nodded and hurried away.

That left Iris in the room with three big manservants. Ubertino knelt to stir the fire and put more coal on it.

Iris picked up a cloth, folded it into a pad, and pressed it against the wound. How much blood had he lost tonight? Dyemore was a big man, a strong man from what she’d seen—and she’d seen all of him—but even the strongest man could succumb to blood loss.

The door opened and she looked up to see that Nicoletta had returned with a basket.

The maidservant bustled over and opened the basket, revealing a sewing kit. She selected a sturdy needle and threaded it with what looked like silk.

“Thank you.” Iris took the needle.

She lifted the soaked pad from the wound and hesitated. She’d seen bullet holes sewn up before, but she’d never watched closely.

Well. It wasn’t as if they had any other choice.

She pinched the edges of the wound together, then laid the needle’s point at his skin. It was harder than she’d imagined, piercing a man’s flesh. The needle was slippery beneath her fingers and she almost lost her grasp.

Suddenly Nicoletta’s hands were there as well, helping her by holding the wound closed.

“Thank you,” Iris said again gratefully.

She stitched the wound together as best she could, but she was afraid it was rather a mess when she was done.

At least the bleeding had slowed.