Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(11)

Together she and Nicoletta bandaged Dyemore’s shoulder. At one point the men had to lift the duke so that they could wrap the bandages around his back.

Even that didn’t wake him.

When they were done, Iris found that her hands were trembling.

She blinked, feeling so weary she didn’t know what to do next.

Nicoletta clucked and produced a clean bowl of water. Iris slowly washed her hands, watching the water turn pink from the blood.

She dried her hands and the maidservant gave her a glass of wine and a piece of bread.

Iris ate and drank mechanically, and then Nicoletta showed her the chamber pot behind a screen in the corner of the room.

She should be embarrassed, but Iris found she couldn’t muster the energy. Instead she squatted and relieved herself.

When she emerged from behind the screen she found that the duke had been tucked under the covers of the huge bed and that the other side was turned back.

Waiting for her.

She stopped dead.

It hadn’t occurred to her …

Well, of course they’d married, but …

Oh, good Lord, Nicoletta and the manservants were looking at her expectantly.

Dyemore was injured. Surely she should sleep somewhere else? But what if there wasn’t anywhere else prepared?

And she was so damned tired.

Iris made up her mind. The bed was more than big enough for two—even with such a large man as Dyemore—and she was exhausted. If she disturbed him in the night, she could always sleep on the floor.

She was that weary.

And besides—someone would have to make sure he was all right during the night.

She crossed the room, kicked off her ragged slippers, and climbed into the bed.

Oh.

Oh, heaven.

The light withdrew from the room and she heard the door close.

And then it was just her and this man.

Her husband.





Chapter Three




Now the elder of the stonecutter’s daughters was tall, fair, and strong, and her name was Ann, but the younger was small, dark, and sickly, and her name was El. Soon after her twelfth birthday El took to her bed and lay, gray skinned and shivering.…

—From The Rock King





That same night the Dionysus sat upon his throne and watched the revels of his followers. Underneath the great arch of the ruined cathedral torchlight flickered, drawing macabre shapes on heaving bodies. Moans and the muted slap of flesh on flesh sounded in the night.

The screams had stopped hours before.

He was unaroused by the sights and sounds. These things didn’t appeal to him. Actually, few things of the body appealed to him, truth be known, but this was, after all, a society of debauchery, so needs must.

Besides, they’d made him their Dionysus—their king. It was well to let his subjects celebrate this night.

The Dionysus smiled a little behind the smooth wood of his mask as he watched them. He knew who they were beneath those animal masks. Knew the respectable magistrate fondling the breast of his own sister. Knew the earl being buggered by a handsome youth. Knew the archbishop whipping a weeping woman.

He knew them, and they had no idea at all who he was because, unlike all the idiot men who’d been Dionysus before him, he’d made sure to gain his power without revealing his identity. He wasn’t interested in mere rape and corruption.

While those earlier leaders of the Lords had thought only of pricks, arses, and cunts, he concerned himself with larger things.

He dreamed of power.

“Dyemore hadn’t the right.” The Fox had risen from the mass of bodies and was attempting to saunter toward the Dionysus’s throne. He stumbled, though—his usual grace inhibited by the wine he’d drunk. “He flouts your authority.”

“How so?” The Dionysus tilted his head, watching the Fox.

Like the animal he’d chosen for his mask, the man was sly and untrustworthy. But the Fox had also managed to live through the last six months of bloody upheaval that started when the old Duke of Dyemore—their Dionysus—had been murdered, leading first to a savage struggle for power, and then to the final catastrophe, when the Duke of Kyle discovered them and nearly destroyed their illustrious ranks. Few of the old guard in the Lords of Chaos had weathered the storm.

The Fox was one.

Which was why he bore watching.

“Took the woman, didn’t he?” The Fox waved his arm, presumably to indicate where Dyemore had taken Lady Jordan. Or perhaps simply because he enjoyed waving his arm. “The woman was for us. For tonight.”

The Dionysus sighed impatiently. “She wasn’t the Duchess of Kyle. Her sacrifice would not have been the grand revenge against Kyle that I’d planned.” He shrugged. “I made the decision to give Lady Jordan to Dyemore. It’s done.”

“It was a mistake—”

The Dionysus sat forward, the abrupt movement drawing several eyes in the crowd, among them those of the Mole, lurking alone under a broken pillar. “The mistake was in taking the wrong lady. That mistake was yours, I believe.”

The Fox took a step back before he caught himself and stood his ground. “I wasn’t the only one on that foray. The Mole and the—”

“Yes, but they’re not here complaining to me now, are they?” the Dionysus asked. “They aren’t questioning my authority and despoiling my enjoyment of the revelry.”