Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(63)

He rose from the table. He needed to see Ubertino and find out if his Corsicans were settled in their quarters.

“She’ll need a ball gown,” his aunt said with not a little asperity, “and something to wear to the dressmaker.”

He glanced at her, frowning. “Yes?”

His aunt raised her eyes to the ceiling as if asking for patience. “I will take her shopping and see if my lady’s maid has something she can wear.”

“Thank you.” He hesitated. “And when you return I’ll take her on a second errand.”

“Oh?”

“To see her brother—and announce our marriage to him.”

The Dionysus watched through guileless eyes as the Mole nattered on about horses over his coffee.

They sat at their leisure in a London coffeehouse, crowded with gentlemen of all walks of life: here the city banker, intent upon his secret moneymaking, there the member of Parliament arguing fiercely about the breeding of hounds with his opponent from across the aisle, and over there the country squire on his annual trip to the city, the clots of mud not yet shaken from his boots.

Gossip and news swirled here almost as fast as the youths who ran back and forth from the counter, delivering coffee to the customers. At the counter a large man in an apron stoically produced tankard after tankard of hot, black brew.

Though of course none of these fine fat pigeons knew anything about the real news in the world.

The Mole sent him an uncertain look, perhaps realizing his companion’s attention had wandered.

The Dionysus leaned forward and smiled.

The Mole smiled back, reassured.

The Fox was dead—he’d had the news yesterday. The Dionysus might mourn the man’s death were it not for the incompetence of his assassination attempt. Better on the whole that Dockery be killed than captured alive. Though really Dockery could not have told Dyemore anything about the Dionysus that he didn’t already know.

Still. It would have been easier had Dockery managed to succeed in killing Dyemore and his new duchess. Now Dyemore had followed him to London and was probably stalking him like a rabid wolf. Which meant the Dionysus would have to think of his next move. Something Dyemore wasn’t expecting. Something that would hit him in his soft underbelly.

It was a pity. In another life they might have been … Well, not friends, for the Dionysus didn’t have friends, but perhaps allies.

They did have so very much in common, after all.





Chapter Thirteen




The Rock King arrived at the stone tower, his brow bloodied, but his gaze steady. In one hand he held a strange little cage made from a round carved rock. Inside the hollowed core glowed a rainbow light.

“Here is your sister’s heart fire,” said the Rock King. “Take it to her and restore her health, but forget not your promise to me.”…

—From The Rock King





“We are very lucky,” Donna Pieri said that afternoon as she and Iris stepped from the most exclusive dressmaker on Bond Street, “that Madam Leblanc had several gowns partially made up and ready. I do hope that you felt you had an adequate selection to choose from?”

“Oh yes.” Iris sighed happily.

It was so nice to be able to afford a dressmaker of such skill. While Iris’s wardrobe was by no means inadequate, she’d always been quite frugal with her gowns, making sure she could wear them for several seasons and taking very good care of them. Today, with Donna Pieri by her side, she’d ordered a half-dozen new dresses besides the ball gown.

The peach gown she’d chosen was the color of the sunrise, the rippling watered silk seeming to subtly change from rose to pink to nearly orange in different lights. She’d fallen in love with it at once.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Iris said as they strolled along the busy street.

Behind them Valente and Ivo were constant, close shadows. Iris hadn’t thought she needed bodyguards on Bond Street of all places, but the Corsicans had been quite insistent that they must come along, apparently at Raphael’s orders. It had been easier in the end to accept their presence than argue further.

Nevertheless, the spring day was sunny, and all of London seemed to be out, promenading and examining the wares set out by shopkeepers. They’d had to leave the carriage around the corner in order to avoid causing a blockage in the road.

“I enjoyed the trip,” replied the older woman in her lovely accent. “I am fond of Raphael, though he makes it hard sometimes, I think. He does not suffer affection easily.”

“I’ve noticed that.” Iris glanced at the other woman meditatively.

Raphael had said that his aunt had spirited him away after his father had …

She mentally flinched from the thought.

After Raphael had cut himself. Was Donna Pieri aware of why he had done such a thing?

The older woman tucked her hand into Iris’s elbow. “He was always thus—a quiet child. A child who watched and made his own decisions. My sister used to write that he hoarded his smiles like a miser.”

Iris frowned at the thought that even as a child Raphael had rarely smiled. How strange. “You sound like you were very fond of your sister.”

“I was.” Donna Pieri turned and met her gaze, her brown eyes calm and a little sad. “My nephew is the closest relative I have left now.” She faced forward again as they moved around a pair of swaggering young bucks laughing raucously and taking up far too much of the walkway. “There was only my sister and I in my family. We had an infant brother, but he died of a fever before he was out of leading strings. We were close, Maria Anna and I. She was very pretty and had many suitors when we were young, while I—” She shrugged and motioned to her upper lip. “I had none.”