Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(26)

“No.” She inhaled and met his gaze, her blue-gray eyes resolute. “I’m not bothered by your scars.”

She lied, he could tell, but somehow that made her insistence on doing this thing all the more … courageous? Yes, courageous. She didn’t do it as some sort of penance or as an act of charity—he could tell by the set of her lips, the steadiness of her hand, the smoothness of her brow—but perhaps because it was simply the right thing to do.

He had married a woman far nobler than he.

He nodded and closed his eyes and suffered her touch again.

The cloth was cool now against his skin, stroking from the unmarred side of his forehead to where the scar started over his right eye. She didn’t hesitate—he gave her that. The cloth swept over the scar and down his face. She must feel the snaking rope. The unnatural smoothness. Yet she continued, wiping down and over his mouth with its twisted lip to his neck. He heard her wring out the cloth and then it returned, wiping the soap from his face.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

Her cheeks were pink. Did she sense his heat? The control with which he held back his limbs from seizing her?

She blinked. “We’d better do your hair next.”

He raised both eyebrows. He had no notion how she and Nicoletta proposed to do that without setting the bed awash in water.

But they somehow wedged a basin, padded around the edge with a cloth, under his head.

His duchess caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she carefully poured warm water over his hair. Her lips were very pink. Plump, with a prominent Cupid’s bow on the upper one. Her mouth gleamed softly with moisture.

His eyelids dropped as he considered what he wanted to do with that mouth.

She was working soap into his hair now with strong, slim fingers that massaged his scalp.

He clenched his jaw to keep from groaning.

She scrubbed backward through his hair, stroking, pressing, and he found his eyes closing like a lazy cat’s. He’d not been touched like this by another since …

Well. Not for a very long time.

She lifted her hands away, and then the clean water was poured over his head. He felt her slick the excess water from his hair and then pat it with a cloth to dry it.

The basin was removed.

He opened his eyes to see her licking her lips nervously. “I … er … We should remove your banyan. At least the upper portion.”

If he were a man given to mirth he might’ve grinned then. She was playing in the flames of his control. Did she not understand her own peril?

But her blush had deepened and she was deliciously out of sorts.

He simply could not resist—either his own urges or her innocent befuddlement.

He spread his arms and said gravely, “Be my guest.”





Chapter Six




Now the Rock King lived so deep in the barren stone wasteland that few had ever seen him. In fact there were those who said he did not exist at all. The stonecutter pleaded with Ann not to go, for he feared she would never return. But Ann’s love for El was strong and determined. In the end she set off with half a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a pretty pink pebble her mother had thought lucky.…

—From The Rock King





Iris swallowed. Dyemore’s voice was rich and husky, his eyes mocking as he held his arms out in challenge to her.

Well, he was her husband, wasn’t he? And an ill man besides. She’d spent the last two days tending to him with the help of Nicoletta. Bathing him was a simple necessity, nothing more.

At least that was what she told herself as she bent her head to the task of unbuttoning his banyan. She couldn’t help but notice that however brisk and no-nonsense her mind’s voice might be, her fingers trembled.

Perhaps that was only to be expected. It had been some time since she had last undressed a man.

Then, too, her late husband had been in his middle years, while Dyemore was a man in his prime, only a little older than she, if she had to guess, and of course he was quite, erm … that is …

Well.

He was quite robust.

Iris tried not to notice how robust Dyemore’s chest was as she and Nicoletta pulled first his left arm and then, very gingerly, his right from the banyan sleeves. The coverlet was pushed to his waist, covering his lower half discreetly.

By the time they were done taking the upper portion of the banyan off him, his forehead was glazed with sweat and he was panting. She exchanged a worried glance with Nicoletta. Iris didn’t want to exhaust him—he’d already been awake for some time, considering he’d been in an insensate fever for the last two days.

But she was concerned that the filthy sheets and the blood crusted on his arm would deter his recovery.

Best to get this over with as quickly as possible so that he might sleep again.

With that in mind she turned to the fresh basin of warm water that Ubertino had brought to the bedroom while she and Nicoletta had undressed the duke. She took a clean cloth and wetted it, then used the soap that the maidservant had supplied. It was the same soap that Iris had bathed with, and the heady scent of oranges filled the air.

She inhaled and turned to the man on the bed, eyeing him and his broad chest. There seemed to be quite a bit of bare skin laid out before her. She swallowed and decided to start with his good arm. She placed the soapy cloth on his shoulder, briskly stroking over smooth skin, trying not to notice how firm the muscles beneath her fingers were.