Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(3)

And with that ominous statement the door closed. Iris was left panting in terror in the dark, empty carriage.

Immediately she tried the carriage door, but he’d locked or jammed it somehow. It wouldn’t open.

She could hear men’s voices in the distance. Shouts and cries. Dear God. They sounded like a pack of rabid dogs. What would the Wolf do to her?

She needed a weapon. Something—anything—with which to defend herself.

Hurriedly she felt the door—a handle, but she couldn’t wrench it off—a small window, no curtains—the walls of the carriage—nothing. The seats were plush velvet. Expensive. Sometimes in better-made carriages the seats …

She yanked at one.

It lifted up.

Inside was a small space.

She reached in and felt a fur blanket. Nothing else.

Damn.

She could hear the Wolf’s growling voice just outside the carriage.

Desperately she flung herself at the opposite seat and tugged it up. Thrust her hand in.

A pistol.

She cocked it, praying that it was loaded.

She turned and aimed it at the door to the carriage just as the door swung open.

The Wolf loomed in the doorway—still nude—a lantern in one hand. She saw the eyes behind the mask flick to the pistol she held between her bound hands. He turned his head and said something in an incomprehensible language to someone outside.

Iris felt her breath sawing in and out of her chest.

He climbed into the carriage and closed the door, completely ignoring her and the pistol pointed at him. The Wolf hung the lantern on a hook and sat on the seat across from her.

Finally he glanced at her. “Put that down.”

His voice was calm. Quiet.

With just a hint of menace.

She backed into the opposite corner, as far away from him as possible, holding the pistol up. Level with his chest. Her heart was pounding so hard it nearly deafened her. “No.”

The carriage jolted into motion, making her stumble before she caught herself.

“T-tell them to stop the carriage,” she said, stuttering with terror despite her resolve. “Let me go now.”

“So that they can rape you to death out there?” He tilted his head to indicate the Lords. “No.”

“At the next village, then.”

“I think not.”

He reached for her and she knew she had no choice.

She shot him.

The blast blew him into the seat and threw her hands up and back, the pistol narrowly missing her nose.

Iris scrambled to her feet. The bullet was gone, but she could still use the pistol as a bludgeon.

The Wolf was sprawled across the seat, blood streaming from a gaping hole in his right shoulder. His mask had been knocked askew on his face.

She reached forward and snatched it off.

And then gasped.

The face that was revealed had once been as beautiful as an angel’s but was now horribly mutilated. A livid red scar ran from just below his hairline on the right side of his face, bisecting the eyebrow, somehow skipping the eye itself but gouging a furrow into the lean cheek and catching the edge of his upper lip, making it twist. The scar ended in a missing divot of flesh in the line of the man’s severe jaw. He had inky black hair and, though they were closed now, Iris knew he had emotionless crystal-gray eyes.

She knew because she recognized him.

He was Raphael de Chartres, the Duke of Dyemore, and when she’d danced with him—once—three months ago at a ball, she’d thought he’d looked like Hades.

God of the underworld.

God of the dead.

She had no reason to change her opinion now.

Then he gasped, those frozen crystal eyes opened, and he glared at her. “You idiot woman. I’m trying to save you.”

Raphael grimaced in pain, feeling the scar tissue on the right side of his face pull his upper lip. No doubt the movement turned his mouth into a grotesque sneer.

The woman who’d shot him had eyes the color of the sky above the moors just after a storm: blue-gray sky after black clouds. That particular shade of blue had been one of the few things his mother had found beautiful in England.

Raphael agreed.

Despite the fear that shone in them, Lady Jordan’s blue-gray eyes were beautiful.

“What do you mean you’re trying to save me?” She still held the pistol as if ready to club him over the head should he move, the bloodthirsty little thing.

“I mean that I don’t intend to ravish and kill you.” Years of anguish and dreams of revenge followed by months of planning to infiltrate the Lords of Chaos, only to have the whole thing collapse because of blue-gray eyes. He was a bloody fool. “I merely wished to spirit you away from the Lords of Chaos’s debauchery. Oddly enough, I believed you would be grateful.”

Her lovely brows drew together suspiciously over those eyes. “You promised the Dionysus that you’d kill me.”

“I lied,” he drawled. “If I’d meant you harm, I assure you, I’d have trussed you up like a Christmas goose. You’ll note I didn’t.”

“Oh, dear Lord.” She looked stricken as she flung down the pistol, staring at his gory shoulder. “This is a mess.”

“Quite,” he said through gritted teeth.

Raphael glanced down at his shoulder. The wound was a mass of mangled flesh, the blood pumping from within at a steady pace. This was not good. He’d meant to have her securely on the road back to London tonight, guarded by his men. If the Dionysus heard that she’d shot him, that he was weakened—