Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(15)

Nicoletta sniffed and began clearing the dishes.

Ubertino rolled his eyes. “Nicoletta says she is gratified you enjoyed her food.”

He blatantly ignored the fact that Nicoletta hadn’t spoken at all.

The woman grunted and briskly snapped out some words to the manservants. Then she turned to Iris and made shooing motions with her hands.

This seemed to mortify Ubertino. His eyes widened before he smiled, made an elaborate bow, and said pointedly, “We are all happy to serve you. I shall come with you to the ducal chambers and the others will bring the water when it is hot.”

Iris bit back a smile and led the way.

She’d expected Dyemore to have woken while she was gone, but he still lay in the bed when they entered the room.

Iris frowned.

“His Grace has usually risen by this hour,” Ubertino muttered behind her, confirming Iris’s fears.

He was still sleeping, wasn’t he?

Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment. She crossed to the huge bed and bent over him.

There. She could see his chest rising and falling beneath the thin black silk of his banyan.

She exhaled, feeling light-headed with relief as she looked at him.

“Lu duca is too hot,” Ubertino said from the other side of the bed. “I will fetch fresh cool water.”

The Corsican slipped from the room, but Iris’s attention was still on Dyemore.

He appeared to have pushed down the coverlet and undone the first few buttons of his banyan. Sweat had pooled below his throat, just at the junction of his collarbones, and she could see a few black hairs peeking up from the black silk. They were stuck to his chest with the moisture.

She’d seen this man naked.

She grew warm at the thought. He was so … so … male, even lying here, unconscious and wounded. She could feel the heat rolling off of him, could almost smell his musk, and she had a strange urge to touch that throat …

He has a fever.

Her heart fell at the realization. Fever could kill a man.

The door opened and Ubertino came back in, followed by the other servants. He carried wine, bread, and a jug of water. “I will see to His Grace while you bathe.”

Valente carried a copper hip bath. Behind him were Bardo and Ivo, both holding huge jugs of steaming water, and last came Nicoletta with a pile of cloths in her arms.

Nicoletta marched across the bedroom to a connecting door, the others trailing obediently behind her.

Iris peered through the door and saw that a dressing room lay beyond. Nicoletta was already supervising the filling of the tub.

Iris turned back to the bedroom. She needed something to wear after she was clean.

She went to the chest of drawers and pulled the top out. Inside were handkerchiefs, stockings, and smallclothes. The next drawer down, though, contained shirts—his shirts. She took one out and held it up. It would be disgracefully scanty, of course, but it would cover her body from neck to knees. Rather like a chemise.

And it wasn’t as if she had anything else to wear.

She took a pair of stockings as well, and then the servants trooped out of the dressing room—all but Nicoletta.

Iris clutched the shirt and stockings to her chest and entered the dressing room.

Nicoletta was waiting, hands on hips, the copper bath steaming gently beside her. There’d been only enough water to fill it a couple of inches, but that was enough.

Iris closed the door to the bedroom and set the clean clothes down on a chair. The dressing room held a small bed—presumably for a maid or valet—a tall cabinet with many small drawers, and two chairs.

Nicoletta bustled over without a word and began unlacing the back of her dress.

Something inside Iris relaxed. This at least was familiar. One didn’t need a common language between mistress and maid to undress. The chore was the same whatever the country.

Nicoletta helped her out of her bodice, tutting over stains and a rip at the shoulder seam. The skirts were untied and fell to Iris’s feet. She stepped out and stood still as the maid unlaced her stays. The stays were a fairly sturdy garment and as a result were still in good shape.

Underneath, her chemise was wrinkled and damp from her body. Iris sat on a chair to remove her shoes and stockings, and then hastily pulled the chemise over her head. She shivered as the cool air hit her bare skin.

Quickly she lowered herself into the little copper hip bath.

Oh, this is lovely. She simply rested for a moment in the hot water as Nicoletta moved about the room, muttering and shaking out her clothes, and thought about what the last twenty-four hours had wrought.

She was married. Again.

For a fraction of a second she let her face crumple, and then she smoothed it before the maid could turn and see. This … this wasn’t how she’d wanted her life to be.

She’d hoped that after her marriage to James—a “good” match to a man nearly twenty years older than she—she could marry for love. Or barring love—for she wasn’t such a romantic that she would hold out forever for an impossible dream—for affection. Iris wanted a gentleman who enjoyed the same pursuits as she—reading by a fire, attending the theater in winter, strolling in the country in summer.

Those sorts of everyday, simple things.

But most of all she longed for children of her own. A family of her own. At one point, months ago, she’d hoped that Hugh, the Duke of Kyle, could help make that family with her. But that was before he’d met Alf and they’d fallen in love. At that point Iris had told Hugh in no uncertain terms that really, a marriage between her and him just would not do.