Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(81)

Which left Raphael with what? Leland? He supposed he could go back to the dead man’s house and beg leave to investigate the man’s papers. Perhaps Leland had been stupid enough to leave evidence of the Dionysus.

Or perhaps it was time he found another way of discovering who the Dionysus was. If he—

“Your Grace.”

Raphael turned at Murdock’s voice.

The butler’s face was white. “You must come at once, Your Grace.”

Raphael strode to the door, an impending sense of disaster mounting in his chest. The butler led him to the front steps. His carriage was there. The carriage he’d sent Iris and Zia Lina off in that morning.

Only one man was on the box. Valente tilted sideways, his arm obviously wounded. Beside him sat Zia Lina, stiff and upright.

She turned her head slowly to look at him, her eyes glittering with banked tragedy. “Raphael.”

There were bullet holes in the carriage door.

Raphael heard a shout, and then he was wrenching at the carriage door.

Inside …

Dear God.

The Corsicans he had sent with his family to protect them lay on the floor of the carriage. Gangly Ivo, his long legs sprawled. Luigi with his eyes open, looking surprised. Andrea, who had most of his head blown off. Others whose faces he couldn’t see.

They were dead. All of them were dead.

Numbly he saw that his men had fought well. Their bodies bore terrible wounds. They had died bravely.

And on the top of the pile …

Ubertino lay on the top of the pile. One eye had been obliterated by a bullet, but the other stared, blue and blank, up at the ceiling of the carriage. Raphael couldn’t breathe, his lungs had stopped.

Slowly he climbed into the carriage and reached for the body of his oldest friend.

He closed Ubertino’s eye and laid his hand on the Corsican’s already cold cheek.

Then he stood and climbed down from that charnel house.

He walked to the front of the carriage and held out his arms for Zia Lina.

He picked her up—she was as light as a child—and carried her to the house.

“Where is Iris?” he asked as he climbed the front steps. His voice was steady, his bearing calm, but his chest was frozen solid.

“He has her,” Zia Lina said in a hoarse voice. “He sent me back with a message: Meet him at dusk, at the ruins of Saint Stephen’s Church on the outskirts of London. He will discuss the matter there with you.”

He nodded, carrying her into the house.

“It is a trap,” his aunt said sadly, her voice nearly broken. Had she screamed when they took Iris? Had they hurt her, his tiny, brave aunt? “You must not go, my son. The devil knows how you feel about your wife. He tries to use your feeling against you. But she is already dead.”

He stopped and looked down at Zia Lina, feeling the first stirrings of a terrible rage. “Did you see my wife die with your own eyes?”

“No,” she said.

“Then there is hope.” He continued walking. “While there is hope I will fight.”

“That man is mad,” she said, sounding desperate. “He will kill her and then he will kill you. He had many men. More even than your Corsicans. You are one man, Raphael. You cannot win against him.”

He shouldered open the door to her room. If Iris died, he would as well.

She was in his blood. A part of his bones.

But he merely said, “You are right.”

Iris sat very still in the strange carriage and watched the madman across from her hold Tansy. His men had found the puppy in her carriage and the Dionysus had laughed and demanded she be brought to him.

Now Tansy was squirming and licking his hand, and he was playing with her as if he were a normal man.

But she’d seen this man, whoever he was, send Donna Pieri away in their carriage filled with the bodies of Raphael’s Corsicans.

Tansy nipped at the Dionysus’s fingers and Iris tensed.

But the madman only laughed gently.

Ubertino had been among the dead.

Iris looked down, for she didn’t want him to see the tears that suddenly welled in her eyes. She wouldn’t show weakness to this creature.

“She’s a dear little thing, isn’t she?” the Dionysus said.

Iris looked up at him.

He had lifted Tansy up in front of his masked face and she was trying to paw at the painted surface. “Oh no, darling one, or Father will have to beat you. At least that’s what mine did to me. Though I never knew why.”

Iris cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. That … that sounds horrible.”

The Dionysus lowered the puppy to his lap and said as if he’d not heard her, “Fathers are so capricious, don’t you think? It’s why one should really always stay away from them.”

His fingers tightened his hold on Tansy’s neck.

Iris gasped, stifling the urge to snatch the puppy away from him. “She’s bothering you. Why don’t you give her to me?”

The puppy whined and tried to twist from his grip. He didn’t seem to notice. “I did try to tell Dyemore this—and really, he of all people should have known since his father was the Dionysus—but he would not listen.” He bent his head to Tansy and whispered. “No one listened.”

Iris stared at him. He of all people … It almost sounded as if the Dionysus knew what had happened to Raphael. But how could he know unless …