Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(33)

And not to dream.

He lay on his back and turned his head, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness until he could make out her shoulders sloping down to the indent of her waist and then the curve of her hip. He found himself matching his breaths with hers.

Inhaling.

Exhaling.

Keeping the dreams away.

But of course they came anyway.





Chapter Seven




Three nights and three days Ann journeyed through the rocky wastes, clutching the pink pebble for protection. No animal moved, no bird sang, no color broke the endless gray stone.

Only the wind whistled endlessly.

And on the morning of the fourth day Ann came upon a tower made of that selfsame gray stone.…

—From The Rock King





Iris stood on the parapet of Dyemore Abbey the next morning, looking not at the front drive but at what lay behind the abbey. It was a jumble of ancient wings, towers, and ruins. Close to the main building was a wide green that might in summer have a garden—there were certainly steps leading down into a paved area circled by boxwoods. Dark-green shoots were coming up in the grass, and she thought she saw a bit of yellow, but from this height she couldn’t tell what flowers they might be. Bracketing the green were two wings of the abbey—she wasn’t even sure they were open to habitation. One looked as if it might be a gallery. Farther on was a round building, looking almost medieval. Perhaps in its time the crude tower had been a fortress for the people of the area? In the distance, but still quite visible, were the skeletal arches of the old cathedral, ruined no doubt in some forgotten war.

She’d thought that night when they’d driven away from the Lords of Chaos’s revels that they’d been miles away. Now she could see that had they wanted to they could’ve walked from the old cathedral ruins to Dyemore Abbey.

Iris shivered. How ghastly to realize that evil was so very close to where one slept.

And yet …

She turned, the breeze catching a stray lock of her hair and blowing it against her face. Dyemore Abbey itself wasn’t such a bad place. From up here, high on the roof, she could see for miles. There was a copse of trees close by to the west, but the rest was rolling hills, turning bright green with spring. It was lovely country—gorgeous country. No wonder the Dukes of Dyemore had built here.

Why, then, had the present duke lived most of his life in exile?

Iris turned to make her way back inside the abbey as she pondered the question. Hugh had said there were rumors that Raphael’s father had scarred him. She shivered as she remembered the sketch of Raphael as a nude, beautiful boy. Something had happened here—something terrible—but she wasn’t sure what.

She wondered why Raphael had stayed away from the abbey—from England—for so many years. What would make a man exile himself from his home?

Except … Raphael didn’t seem to look upon the abbey as his home. He’d locked up the ducal chambers, he kept to only one bedroom, and as far as she could see, he hadn’t made any changes or improvements to the abbey.

As if he was simply using it as an inn.

He seemed to have no fondness at all for the manor he’d presumably grown up in.

And she was beginning to have a terrible inkling of why Raphael so loathed the estate. Perhaps she ought to be contemplating a different question altogether: what would make Raphael return to the abbey in the first place?

She shook her head and carefully made her way down the worn stone steps that spiraled from the corner of the rooftop to a hidden door on the uppermost floor of the abbey. The walls here were bare and cold, and she shivered as she felt her way in the dark, her fingers trailing on pitted stones. How many other women had passed along here? Had they, too, had trouble understanding their Dyemore husbands?

The thought made her smile a little wryly.

She opened a little door and stepped out into a narrow corridor on the topmost floor of the house—she suspected the servants’ quarters lay just on the other side.

Iris picked up her skirts, hastening to the stairwell.

She came out into the hallway of the third floor and began walking toward the main staircase at the front of the house. The abbey seemed eerily empty, and she shivered. There was a lush carpet on the floor and small, exquisite paintings hung on the walls, but even so, there was a sense of loneliness.

Of loss.

On the ground floor she noticed that no one was guarding the front entrance—usually one of the Corsicans sat on a chair beside the door.

Now it was empty.

Iris stopped and glanced quickly around. She was alone in the hall.

And she hadn’t been properly outside in days.

Quickly she ran to the door. It had an old-fashioned bar, presumably left over from medieval times. She lifted it and was out the door in a minute.

The front steps were deserted and she let out a breath.

On the night that she’d been brought here she’d had the idea that the abbey was closed in by trees. Now she could see that a little green stood on the other side of the gravel drive. Yellow flowers were in bloom here as well—a veritable carpet of them.

She walked across the drive, heading toward the flowers.

Daffodils. They were daffodils, thousands of them. Iris knelt in the grass and inhaled the faint perfume. A breeze passed by and all the bright-yellow trumpets nodded as one. How could this be? Had someone patiently planted each bulb?