Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(31)

Somehow that broke the spell.

Dyemore drew a rattling breath and rasped, his face gray, “Get it out. Now. Get it out. Get it out.”

“What?” Iris asked, stunned by his rage, the ice in his eyes.

“Cedarwood.”

She stared at him. He leaned against the mantel as if he might fall at any moment, and she didn’t understand. Cedarwood? What—?

He bared his clenched teeth and with one broad stroke swept everything from the mantel. The gold clock, a vase, two china shepherdesses, and a pot of spills fell to the floor with a crash.

Dyemore glared at her and snarled, “Now.”

She jumped at his fury and spun to see Nicoletta already tearing the bed apart. Iris just had time to snatch up the new sheets before Nicoletta took her arm and dragged her from the bedroom, then shut the door behind them.

Panting in the corridor, eyes wide, Iris looked at the maidservant, expecting a smug expression. Nicoletta had tried to warn her not to use these sheets. She’d known something about this.

But instead the Corsican woman merely stared back with sad eyes. She shook her head and then did something entirely unexpected.

Nicoletta leaned forward and patted Iris’s cheek gently.

The maidservant shook her head again and, after taking the sheets from Iris, trudged away.

From within the bedroom Iris heard a crash and her husband shouting in Corsican.

For a moment she simply stood there in the dark corridor, her heart stopped, the duke roaring huskily behind her like some beast out of one of her childhood nightmares.

Despair wrapped chilly fingers around her throat.

Then she brought her hand before her face and looked at the ruby ring on her little finger. Delicate. Lovely. Eternal.

She breathed again.

Dyemore was no beast. No Bluebeard. No fairy-tale nightmare.

He was a man—a man in pain.

And she was going to pull herself together and help him.

She was already moving toward the stairs.

He hadn’t liked the sheets. Something to do with the cedarwood scent had driven him to this crisis. Nicoletta had tried to give her the worn-out sheets—the ones not stored in the cedarwood cabinet. Therefore she needed to go down and find those sheets and return to her husband.

Because they were married now, and that meant she was tied to this man until death decided to separate them.

No, it was more than that.

Dyemore had saved her at great risk to himself, and she’d rewarded him by shooting him. He’d nearly died from that wound—continued to be ill from that wound. She owed the man.

And more still.

It didn’t matter that he was maddeningly autocratic, unsmiling, and abrupt. Or even that she found him to be the tiniest bit frightening. He’d asked her about her childhood. Engaged her in discussion. Was interested in her opinions on Polybius’s Histories—and even when he didn’t agree with those opinions, he’d respected them.

His cool gray eyes as he’d watched her face during their debate had been intent and focused, as if she was the only thing he cared about at that moment. She’d had his entire attention.

And that? That was worth fighting for.

Even if they never had a real marriage.

She rounded the corner to the kitchens, only to almost run into Nicoletta.

The maidservant rocked back on her heels, and Iris saw that she had the worn sheets in her arms—the ones not scented by cedarwood.

Iris held her arms out.

Nicoletta looked at her … and then smiled and gave her the unscented sheets.

“Thank you, Nicoletta.”

The maid was already turning away, back to the kitchens.

Iris retraced her steps until she was once again at the bedroom door. She raised her hand to tap, then thought better of it and simply pushed the door open.

She halted when she saw the duke. His pose was eerily familiar, though she couldn’t quite place in what way.

Dyemore was still by the fireplace, sitting on the floor, his back against one of the chairs. One knee was drawn up, his elbow resting on it, his hand propping up his head, his hair draped over his down-bent face. He should’ve looked weak, a fallen man. Yet even in extremis he reminded her of nothing so much as an ancient hero, battling overwhelming odds. He’d been knocked to his knees, but he would struggle upright again soon, pick up his shield and sword, and march back into the conflict.

She frowned at her own fanciful thought. How terrible it would be if the duke was always at war, never resting.

She shook her head and glanced at the debris of Dyemore’s wrath, scattered on the floor.

Ubertino was across the room with a glass of wine in his hand. The manservant frowned at her entrance.

Iris hurried to him. “Come. Help me to make the bed again.”

She held out the sheets, and though he looked dubious he set down the glass of wine and did as she indicated.

When the bed was remade she took the wineglass and approached Dyemore. “Your Grace, the bed is ready and I have a glass of wine here.”

She waited, but there was no answer.

It wasn’t to be as easy as that, then.

She retraced her steps to place the wine by the bed and then knelt by his side. “Dyemore.”

His raven hair obscured his features, and his broad shoulders, clad in black silk, slumped as if he bore a great weight. At that moment he looked so much like Hades, forever alone and exiled, it made her heart ache.