Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(5)

A wicked idea crept into his mind.

She was a temptation—a temptation aimed at his one weakness. He’d walked alone for so long. For his entire life, really. He’d never thought to seek another. To permit any light into his darkness.

But she was right here, within his grasp. To let her go again was beyond his control right now. He was weakened, dizzy, lost. Dear God, he wanted to keep her for himself.

And the means to convince her to stay with him had just dropped into his lap.

“The blood has soaked my fichu.” She sounded upset, but not hysterical. She was a strong woman—stronger than he’d first realized when he’d pulled her from the revelry.

He made his decision. “You need to marry me.”

Her beautiful eyes widened in what looked like alarm. “What? No! I’m not going to—”

He reached up and grasped her wrist with his left hand. Both her hands were pressed firmly on his wound. Her skin was warm and soft. “The Dionysus ordered me to kill you. If—”

She tried to recoil. “You’re not going to—”

He squeezed her fragile wrist, feeling the beating of her heart. Feeling this moment in time.

Seizing it.

“Listen. I meant to have you safely on the road to London tonight. That isn’t possible now that I’m wounded. The only way I can protect you is to marry you. If you’re my duchess, you’ll have my name and my money to shield you when they come, and believe me, Lady Jordan, the Dionysus’s men will come for you. They need to silence you, for you know far too much about the Lords of Chaos now.”

She snorted. “They thought I was the Duchess of Kyle before. That certainly didn’t protect me.”

“I am an entirely different duke than Kyle,” he replied with flat certainty. He brought his other hand up and untied the rope around her wrists. “And I also have my servants.”

She frowned down at her freed wrists and then at him. “How will they keep me from being murdered?”

“They are Corsicans—brave and loyal to a fault—and I have over two dozen.” He’d spent his life filled with rage, grief, and a drive for revenge. He’d never even thought of marriage. This was a flight of fancy. An aberration. A diversion from the strict path he’d set for his life. Yet he could not find it within himself to resist. “My men answer only to me. If you’re my wife—my family and my duchess—they will protect you with their lives. If I die due to your gunshot wound and you do not marry me, they may look upon you far less favorably.”

Her plump mouth dropped open in outrage. “You’d blackmail me into marriage? Are you deranged?”

Oh, indeed. Probably on both counts. “I’m wounded.” He arched an eyebrow. “And attempting to save your life. You might try thanking me.”

“Thank you? I—”

Fortunately the carriage halted before she could articulate what she thought of that idea.

Raphael kept a firm hold of the lady’s wrist as the door was opened, revealing Ubertino, one of his most trusted men. Ubertino was nearly forty, a short man with a barrel chest and graying hair clubbed back in a tight braid. The Corsican’s bright-blue eyes widened in his tanned face at the sight of his master’s blood.

“I’ve been shot,” Raphael told him. “Get Valente and Bardo and tell Nicoletta to come.”

Ubertino turned to shout the orders in Corsican to the other men behind him and then stepped into the carriage.

Lady Jordan backed away warily.

“Tell Ivo to take the lady into the abbey,” Raphael ordered. He wouldn’t put it past her to run once she was out of the carriage.

“Did she do this, Your Excellency?” Ubertino muttered in Corsican as he put his shoulder against Raphael’s bad side.

Raphael grunted and stood, clenching his jaw. He would not pass out. “A misunderstanding merely. You will forget this.”

“I think it will be hard to forget,” Ubertino said.

Carefully they negotiated the two steps down from the carriage.

He was cold. So cold.

“Nevertheless, I order it so.” Raphael stopped and stared at the servant. In another life he might’ve counted this man his oldest friend. “You will protect her no matter what happens.”

The Corsican inclined his head. “As you wish, Your Excellency.”

Valente and Bardo came running into the driveway.

Valente, the younger of the two, began asking questions in Corsican, but Ubertino cut him off. “Listen to lu duca.”

Raphael’s hands were in fists. He would not fall down here before his men. “Go to the vicar in town. You know his house, by the English church?”

Both men nodded.

“Wake him up and bring him here.” He could feel the blood trickling down his side, oddly hot against the chill of his body. “Do not let anything he says or does keep you from your task. Hurry.”

Valente and Bardo ran to the stables.

They knew only a few words of English. The vicar might very well think he was being robbed or worse. Raphael ought to write a letter explaining the matter.

But there was no time.

Behind them Lady Jordan exclaimed, “Take your hands from me, sir!”

Raphael raised his voice. “Ivo is merely helping you into my home, my lady.”