Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(71)

Raphael’s veins felt as if they were filled with ice, but he hadn’t time to feel dread. To take in the bone-deep fear for both Zia Lina and Iris.

Pack animals attacked when one of their own was wounded or showed fear.

He couldn’t afford weakness here.

So he went on the offensive.

He stalked right up to Andrew, making the shorter, slighter man back into Leland. “You seem to know an awful lot about the Dionysus’s thoughts,” Raphael snarled into the other man’s face. “How he plans. How he takes revenge. Even how he kills. So much so, in fact, that I can’t help but think you must be the Dionysus himself.” He wrapped his hand around Andrew’s throat. “And if that is the case, I can stop looking and settle our argument now.”

He hadn’t actually tightened the hand around Andrew’s throat, but the other man was scrabbling at his hand with his fingers. “No! You d-don’t understand … I … I’m not—” “Don’t be ridiculous, Dyemore,” Royce drawled, still by the decanter and sounding bored. “My brother isn’t any more the Dionysus than Leland over there is. None of us are the Dionysus. We don’t bloody know who he is.”

“Don’t you?” Raphael said softly. He let go of Andrew, who scampered to Royce’s shadow. “How do you explain the attack on my men and me, then, at an inn on the road to London?”

“What attack?”

Raphael turned at Leland’s voice and saw that his brows were drawn together.

“Lawrence Dockery tried to stab me in the back at an inn on the road to London,” Raphael said. “I killed him.”

“Killed him?” Leland went white.

“Then you know who Dockery was,” Raphael said flatly. “I thought only the Dionysus knew all the members’ names.”

“I …” Leland blinked rapidly. “Well, but everyone knew Dockery was the Dionysus’s pet. He had no fear—he had even taken off his mask at the revels.” He shivered and looked down. “Really, it’s no wonder he’s dead.”

“You don’t sound regretful,” Raphael said softly.

Leland raised his chin. “Should I be?”

“For God’s sake!” Royce growled behind them. “What is the point of all these questions, Dyemore? By this time a month from now you’ll be dead and the Lords of Chaos will continue as they always have. Now. You’d better check that your wife is still where you left her, hmm?”

Raphael lifted his lip, but he couldn’t disregard the threat. In a crowded ballroom Iris could be taken and no one would be the wiser.

He strode to the door, brushing roughly past Leland on the way.

“Watch it!” the other man cried, catching hold of his arm. Leland whispered, “My house tomorrow.”

“Let go of me,” Raphael said loudly, without any indication that he’d heard.

He strode into the corridor, pushing past overdressed bodies.

What did Leland want with him? Was he ready to join with Raphael, perhaps help him gain leadership of the Lords of Chaos? Raphael had always thought that Leland was too much of a coward to move without the Grant brothers by his side, but perhaps he’d misjudged the man.

Or it was some sort of trap.

By now the mass of people and the thousands of candles burning in order to light all the rooms had heated the house so that it was as if they were all bubbling in a stew of smells: sweet perfume in overabundance, the stink of body odor, and the wax from dozens of wigs and thousands of candles.

Raphael gritted his teeth and, with the greatest of effort, refrained from simply shoving rudely through the throng. More than one person flinched at his face, but he ignored the stares and mutters.

That is, until he heard a whisper.

“Boy lover.”

Iris had been searching for Raphael for at least fifteen minutes, her hunt made harder by the press of bodies. Lady Barton would be thrilled; her ball was a crush—a sure sign of success. But Iris felt her chest tighten in a near panic. She needed to find Raphael and talk to him quietly alone. Inform him of the nasty gossip in private.

Before he heard it, if at all possible.

She was beginning to think she was on a hopeless errand. She heard snippets of the rumor everywhere she went. The gossip was spreading like wildfire throughout the ball.

And she still hadn’t seen Raphael.

Where was he? She’d been to the punch room and not found him. Could she have missed him on his way to her? Should she go back to the seat in the alcove—or perhaps return to the punch room?

She left the ballroom and went back out to the grand staircase instead, because it was the only place she hadn’t yet looked.

There was a crowd at the top of the steps, but the staircase itself held only a few people—none of them Raphael.

Iris turned in despair and bumped into a lady in an atrocious orange-and-green-striped dress that hurt her eyes. She felt herself stumble, and as she did so someone shoved her hard from behind.

Toward the stairs.

She felt herself teetering, her toes at the very edge of the top step.

Nothing to hold on to …

And then someone caught her, pulling her firmly back against a hard chest. “Iris.”

She gasped and looked up.

Raphael was staring at her with blank crystal eyes, his mouth set, his scar standing out on his face like a brand. “You nearly went down the stairs. You could’ve broken your neck.”