“Good morning, Your Grace,” Ubertino replied, rising and bowing.
He turned to the other manservants and said something sharp. They immediately rose as well, and Ubertino introduced them.
“This is Valente and Bardo, who brought the English priest last night.”
The first was a gangly youth with thick black hair untidily clubbed back. He looked at her shyly from under extravagant eyelashes. The second was a scowling man in his thirties with silver threading his copper-colored hair. He wore a bright-red waistcoat that made his blue eyes seem almost unnaturally bright.
“And this is Ivo,” Ubertino ended.
Ivo was the manservant who had brought her into the abbey last night. He was tall and rawboned and flushed blotchily at her attention.
“I’m pleased to discover your names,” Iris said.
“They do not know the English,” Ubertino replied apologetically. “But if you will, I can convey your words to them?”
“Of course,” Iris said.
Ubertino murmured to the other servants in Corsican.
Only Valente—who smiled at her—changed expression.
“Are there no English servants here?” she asked curiously.
“No, Your Grace,” Ubertino replied. “Lu duca sent away the English when we arrived. He does not trust the people in this place.”
“Ah.” Iris remembered Dyemore’s saying something similar last night.
No wonder the abbey seemed deserted: usually an entire battalion of servants would be taking care of a house like this. One maidservant and two dozen men, most of whom apparently were on guard duty, were not nearly enough.
She nodded. “The duke is still asleep. I would like someone to attend him. But first, can you send a man on horseback to the Duke of Kyle with a letter?”
“Naturally I shall go directly to lu duca,” Ubertino said gravely. “But I am afraid it is not possible to send a horseman to this Duke of Kyle.”
“Whyever not?” Iris asked, trying for a smile. “I am, after all, your new duchess.”
“Indeed, Your Grace, and I am most ashamed that I cannot help you, but His Grace has ordered all the men to stay here to guard you,” Ubertino replied. “Until he wakes and gives a different order, we will do as he said.”
Iris fought to keep her expression neutral as heat crept up her face. It was humiliating that the servants wouldn’t obey her—no matter how apologetic Ubertino looked.
And more, she was irritated that she couldn’t send word to Kyle.
She inhaled. “Then would it be possible to have a bath?”
“Yes, yes, certainly, Your Grace.” Ubertino turned to Nicoletta and told her something in a flurry of words.
The maidservant scowled, shook her head, and snapped something back.
Ubertino insisted and finally the woman tutted and went to the hearth, where a kettle was already steaming over the coals. The other three manservants began filling large kettles with water from a cistern.
Iris raised her eyebrows in inquiry at Ubertino.
“Ah,” he said, his face a little redder from his argument with the maidservant. “Nicoletta says that perhaps you will wish to partake of breakfast while the bathwater heats. She understands the English,” he confided in a whisper, “but she does not speak it.”
“That is good to know,” Iris replied. “And yes, I’ll have breakfast while I wait.”
Ubertino looked relieved.
Nicoletta brought back an enormous stoneware pot of tea and plonked it down on the wooden kitchen table while Iris sat. Valente brought over a basket of bread and some hard-boiled eggs. Bardo offered a dish of butter and another of cheese, and Nicoletta poured the tea into a dainty china cup. Ivo was apparently in charge of the fire and heating the water.
Iris took a sip of the tea and nearly burned her tongue. The tea was strong enough to make her blink rapidly.
She smiled at Nicoletta anyway.
Nicoletta crossed plump arms under her bosom and lowered her brows, watching Iris.
Iris sighed silently and buttered her bread. She knew better than to offer food to the servants even though she sat in what was their domain—the kitchens. She might be in near rags, dirty, and in dire need of a bath, but she was the mistress of the house. As such she was forever apart from them.
She swallowed a bite of the bread. “Delicious.”
Nicoletta—presumably the baker of the bread—didn’t change her expression at all.
Perhaps the truce Iris had thought she’d struck with the maidservant the night before was over.
She sighed and addressed Ubertino. “Your English is quite good. How did you learn it?”
“Thank you, Your Grace.” He bowed. “In my youth I was a sailor and my ship often came across other ships from different countries. When this happened the passengers of these ships became … guests on our ship. A large number of these guests were English.”
He grinned again, rather roguishly.
Iris paused with her teacup raised to her lips and squinted at him. Came across …? Had Ubertino just confessed to having been a pirate?
Carefully she put her teacup down and glanced at the other manservants. Were they all former pirates?
Valente and Bardo stared back innocently enough.
She shook her head and picked up her teacup. “Ah … indeed. And do any of the other servants speak English?”
Ubertino shrugged. “Valente has some English. The others, not so much. But many are like Nicoletta and understand more than they can speak, Your Grace. They all know that you are the duchess now.”
“Ah.” Iris took another sip of her tea, remembering the duke lying so still in the bed, his scar angry and red. “Ubertino?”
“Your Grace?”
She hesitated, and then just asked her question. “Do you know how the duke got his scar?”
But Ubertino shook his head. “No, Your Grace.”
Iris nodded, frowning as she wondered if anyone knew how he’d received that awful slash across his face. It must have been horrific when it had happened. The cut would’ve laid his face open from brow to chin. How painful it must’ve been. How awful the realization that he was so scarred for life.
She frowned, feeling uneasy at her sympathy for the duke. He didn’t seem like a man who would like pity.
She finished her breakfast and pushed back from the table. “Thank you. The bread was lovely—fresh and with a nice crunchy crust.”
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 banya
n. 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.
She’d wanted a man to love her.
Because the thing was, she was alone.
Oh, she had friends, but none of them were close—not since the death of Katherine, her childhood bosom bow. She had her brother and sister-in-law, but they weren’t hers.
All her life she’d wanted a close inner circle, a family that knew her intimately—all the good in her and all the bad—and loved her anyway.
A family in which she could be herself.
Instead she was married to a stranger—a violent, possibly dangerous stranger—who had also saved her life.
Iris was brought back to the present when Nicoletta bustled over and briskly began removing the pins from her hair. However careful Nicoletta was—and Iris could tell the maid was attempting to be gentle—her hair was hopelessly tangled.
Iris winced as her hair was yanked again and again.
When the pins were finally out, the maid placed her hand against the back of Iris’s head and firmly pushed.
Iris leaned forward so that her head hung between her bent knees.
Warm water poured over her head. Nicoletta’s strong fingers worked soap through her hair. It smelled of something nice—oranges, perhaps—and Iris let the movement of the maid’s hands lull her.
Another splash of warm water over her head made her start. It felt good, though.
She pushed back her dripping but clean hair and set about washing herself. Scrubbing away the terror and exhaustion and trepidation. Letting fresh water rinse away the last couple of days.
And what might have been.
When she was done, Nicoletta held out a large drying cloth for her.
Iris stepped from the copper bath, feeling as if she had been born anew. She was the Duchess of Dyemore now, for better or for worse, and really she’d rather pick better if she had to choose. Perhaps … perhaps she could somehow build a family with Dyemore.
If Dyemore recovered from his wound.
She frowned as she rubbed herself dry and then found the clean clothes she’d set out on the chair. Lord, she hoped that he had only a light fever.
That he’d soon wake up.
Iris pulled the shirt over her head. It did indeed come down to her knees, and the sleeves fell over her hands. She heard a sound and glanced up in time to see Nicoletta covering her mouth with both hands, obviously trying to hide a smile.
She met the older woman’s wide brown eyes, and for a moment they both froze.
Then Iris’s lips twitched. “Yes, well, there wasn’t anything else to hand.”
Nicoletta clucked, said something in her native tongue, and then helped her roll up the sleeves. Iris pulled on the stockings while Nicoletta produced a comb from somewhere and patiently tamed the tangle of her hair. When the maid was done, she wove Iris’s still-damp hair into a loose braid and tied the end with a ribbon.
“Thank you,” Iris said.
Nicoletta didn’t smile, but her face somehow softened. She dipped a curtsy and bustled from the room, her arms loaded with the dirty clothes. Hopefully she was off to find a way to clean and mend them, and not to discard the lot.
Iris, left alone, shivered as she looked about the little dressing room. A shirt really wasn’t enough to wear. She should see if Dyemore had another banyan she could borrow. Or perhaps a coat.
But when she opened the door to the bedroom, the first thing she saw was her new husband, standing by the bed, his crystal eyes aimed at her.
“What,” he said in his smoke-filled voice, “are you doing in my shirt?”
Chapter Four
“Is there naught we can do for El?” asked Ann.
“I fear not,” the stonecutter replied. “For your mother gave birth to her in the rock fields, lured there by the flinty shades that haunt that place by night. Those shades stole El’s heart fire the moment she first drew breath. And without t
hat?” The old man shook his head. “She will not live to be a woman.” …
—From The Rock King
Raphael clutched the bedpost, doing his damnedest not to sway. His duchess was poised upon the threshold like a startled naiad, one of his own shirts enveloping her form. Her hair had been braided like a girl’s and hung over one shoulder, making the fine lawn of the shirt wet.
And transparent.
He fancied he could see the tip of one nipple, pink and pointed, and something tightened in his belly. Christ, she might as well be naked before him.
He dragged his gaze away from the sight and focused on her face. Her blue-gray eyes were wide and startled. She looked all of twelve.
Well, except for that damned nipple.
She blinked and seemed to come to her senses. “What are you doing out of bed?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I felt the need to piss.”
Color bloomed in her cheeks, a pale rosy pink. He could spend days trying to duplicate that exact shade on paper and never lose interest.
“You have a fever, I think,” she said tartly. “Perhaps you should return to your bed.”
“I’m fine,” he said, ignoring the sweat that rolled down the middle of his back. “My shirt?”
She clutched the front of the shirt between her fists as if afraid he might tear it from her. The fine lawn pulled tight, outlining her breasts in lewd detail. Was she doing it apurpose?
“I hadn’t anything else to put on that was clean.”
Her words brought him back to the conversation.
“Ah, of course.” He should’ve realized.
Ubertino had informed him of her bath when the Corsican had woken him with wine and bread to break his fast.
He walked carefully to his chest of drawers. He must have something to cover her—for the good of his own sanity if nothing else.
Behind him, she said, “Is there someplace where I can procure suitable clothing?”
He turned with one of his banyans in his hands. “No. The only other woman in the abbey is Nicoletta, and she’s hardly your size.”
She took the banyan from him, looking hopeful. “The town where the vicar came from surely has a seamstress of some sort.”