Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(86)

The door to the ducal bedchamber was ajar.

Cautiously she opened it and looked inside.

The bedroom was a shambles. The bed torn apart, glass shattered on the floor, and drawers pulled from a dresser.

Raphael stood by the fire in shirt, breeches, and coat, watching it roar. He was barefoot. His black hair lay long and silky about his face, and his unmarred side was to her. From this angle he might be a poet lost in unearthly thoughts.

He turned to her and the illusion was broken.

She went to him and saw that the flames were consuming a sketchbook.

“He was a monster,” Raphael murmured, his smoky voice husky from sleep or something else. “Even more of a monster than Andrew Grant. My father not only preyed upon the innocent, he turned them into monsters.”

He walked to the table by the bed and pulled out a drawer. Inside was a knife, and Iris’s heart leaped with alarm.

Raphael took the knife and went to his father’s portrait. He raised the knife high above his head and thrust it into the painted face, gashing the painting. He tore through paint and canvas, slashing to the frame at the bottom. Then he began cutting along the edge, ripping the painting into pieces. He threw them onto the fire.

The fire began to smoke.

Then he froze.

“Raphael?” She went to him, laying her hand gently on his arm.

He was staring at the frame. Inside, between where the painted canvas had been and the backing sealing the frame, was a thin book, wedged into a corner of the frame.

Raphael took it out and opened it.

Iris peered at the book. She was prepared for something awful. Perhaps more sketches, perhaps something worse.

Instead there were tidy rows of names with dates next to them and notations.

She leaned to look over Raphael’s shoulder.

The first line read:

Aaron Parr-Hackett Spring 1631 Badger d. 1650





Iris drew in her breath as she scanned the list. There were dozens of names.

“It’s the ledger of names for the Lords of Chaos,” Iris said. “Hugh thought he’d found it before, but obviously the list of names he had wasn’t complete.”

Raphael paged through the book. There were hundreds of names, some of them shocking. The dates marched forward until he came to blank pages.

The last entry was dated “Spring 1741.”

“I told myself I never knew the Lords of Chaos were still in existence,” Raphael whispered, staring down at the ledger. “But of course I was lying. How would they have died? All that evil doesn’t simply waste away on its own. I should have come back sooner. Burned them away while my father still lived. Confronted him. But I was a coward.” He closed the book. “I am a coward.”

“No, you’re not,” Iris said fiercely. “You saved me. You brought down the Dionysus. You—”

He looked at her, the corner of his mouth—the side not scarred and twisted—curling up in what looked like self-disgust. “The Dionysus was one man. Not even a very large one. He was Andrew Grant, who was raped and beaten by his father and his brother again and again until he went mad from it. Killing such a weak man isn’t the act of a hero. It’s the act of a coward.”

He set the ledger down and walked out of the room.

Iris gaped for a minute before hastily following him, clad only in her chemise. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Corsica,” he said.

She stumbled to a halt. “At once?”

He didn’t even turn as he started down the stairs. “Yes.”

“But I have no clothes,” she said stupidly.

He paused, but still did not face her. “You are not coming with me.”

He continued down the stairs.

She stared after him in shock. But they’d come so far … She’d been kidnapped—again—and he’d saved her and he’d killed two men.

For a moment she simply wanted to sit down and cry. It wasn’t fair.

She shouldn’t have to fight this battle again.

Love shouldn’t be this hard.

But Raphael was nearing the bottom of the stairs now, and if she didn’t move he would be out of sight.

And she might lose him.

She couldn’t let that happen, no matter how hard or how stubborn he might be.

So ran down the stairs after her husband. And when she saw that he’d opened the back door—the door to the garden—and was walking out into the rain, she stepped out into the deluge, too.

“Wait,” she called. “Wait!”

He turned. Rain was running down his face. “Go back.”

She shook her head, raindrops splattering off her nose and chin. “No. Where you go, I go, too.”

He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sky as if this was one thing more to bear. As if his shoulders were bowing under terrible pressure.

“Iris,” he said, “I’m tainted. He fucked me, Iris. My father fucked me. Look what that did to Andrew Grant. Do you want to wait until the day I go mad?”

“But you won’t,” she said, bewildered.

He shook his head. “I can’t breathe when I smell cedarwood. Is that how a sane man behaves?” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I forced you to marry me. I was selfish. Now I let you go. You can have my houses, my estates, my English monies. I’ll never bother you again. Just let me go to Corsica.”