Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(7)

His words were arrogant and he lounged in the chair as if it were a throne, but his face was positively gray.

She glanced away. She couldn’t look at him. At what she’d done to him. “You must lie down.”

“No,” she heard him say, his deep voice even, as if they were discussing the price of ribbons on Bond Street. “The vicar will arrive soon. I will remain upright. We must keep the truth of my injury from the Lords as long as possible.”

Her head jerked up at that. “You’re naked under that fur and bleeding. How are you going to hide your injury from the vicar? This is ridiculous!”

She made an impatient movement toward him, but Ivo held her back.

“Let go of me!”

The Corsican looked at her stonily.

She held out her free hand to Dyemore. “Tell him.”

He stared at her a moment, his gray eyes glassy, and she wondered if he was beginning to lose his senses. Lord, if he fainted now it would be a disaster. His servants would turn against her.

Dyemore said something in Corsican to Ivo, and the servant released her.

Immediately she was across the room and bending over the duke.

Nicoletta hissed her displeasure.

Iris ignored her. “Ask your maidservant if she has any bandages to stop the bleeding. And tell your men to fetch a doctor from the village at once.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nicoletta slip from the room. Did she understand English?

“No.” Dyemore’s eyes were on her, calm, cold, and emotionless, though he must be in pain. “No doctor. I don’t trust anyone in the village. You may bind it yourself, if you must.”

“Oh, I think I must,” she replied tartly. “The ball is still in your shoulder and has to be taken out.”

He blinked slowly. “We haven’t time for you to remove the ball. My men will be back with the vicar soon. Bandage the wound so that it doesn’t bleed. Ubertino will help me into some clothes.”

“This is insane,” Iris muttered, but she moved to do as he bid. Perhaps she had fallen under some spell. Perhaps she’d gone mad from her internment in that horrid little hut the Lords of Chaos had kept her in.

Perhaps this was all some dream and she would soon awaken in her boring room, safe in her brother’s London town house.

Except she was a practical woman, a woman not given to vapors or delusions, and she knew well enough that this was no dream. This was a real man bleeding under her hands, his skin solid and much too cold.

She hadn’t touched a man like this since James had died five years before.

She blinked and looked at her fingers, smeared with Dyemore’s scarlet blood. The wound was in the duke’s right shoulder, a jagged, oozing hole below his collarbone. It hadn’t seemed to have broken the bone there. That was lucky, at least.

Nicoletta returned with two more male servants following her, their arms filled with clothing, bandages, and water pitchers.

Iris reached for one of the bandages, but the maidservant snatched it first.

“Let the lady have it,” Dyemore barked. “She has experience tending the wounds of soldiers.”

The Corsican woman pursed her lips, but gave the bandage to Iris.

“Thank you,” Iris murmured as she accepted it.

Really she supposed she couldn’t blame Nicoletta. She was obviously very loyal to the duke and didn’t trust the same woman who had shot him to nurse him now.

Iris took the bandage, wet it in the water one of the men held, and began wiping the worst of the blood away. Dyemore’s skin was darker than her own, noticeably so, cool and smooth. She set aside the dirty bandage and folded a clean one until she had a thick pad. This she placed against the wound.

“Hold this, please,” she said to the plump maidservant.

Nicoletta pursed her lips again, but moved to do as she asked.

Iris wound longer strips tightly around Dyemore’s chest and over his shoulder.

When Iris was done she stepped back.

Dyemore sat upright in his chair, his jaw clenched, his forehead beaded with sweat.

He met her gaze and said gently, “Wash your hands, please, my lady. Nicoletta will help you with your coiffure.”

Iris blinked. She wasn’t sure she wanted the other woman near her hair, but she followed the maidservant to a corner of the sitting room. Two of the manservants came with them, obviously to keep her from bolting out the door. This was insane—she was being prepared to marry Dyemore, a man she neither knew nor completely trusted.

Belatedly Iris realized she wasn’t even sure what part of England they were in. She’d been kidnapped from Nottinghamshire, but it had taken several days’ journey for the Lords of Chaos to bring her to her hut prison. Even if she were to dash from Dyemore Abbey, she wouldn’t know in which direction to run.

Or to whom.

Perhaps she could enlist the vicar’s aid when he arrived? Signal to him that she was being married under duress? But he would be one man against two dozen of Dyemore’s Corsicans. Even were the vicar the most valiant of men, she didn’t see how he could prevail.

And Dyemore was right: the Lords of Chaos would be after her when they discovered that she still lived. They’d track her down. Bring her back to their ghastly revels. Or simply murder her outright.

He was her only safety.

Her only hope.

Nicoletta deftly combed out her tangled hair and pulled it into a simple knot. She was quick and competent. More importantly, she didn’t vent her anger by pulling Iris’s hair.