Chapter 2 #2
Blaise exhaled, sensing the tension in his body and the ache she had left behind without even touching him.
He had one month to find a duchess, and none of those plans had included a woman with eyes like molten amber and a spine of steel.
He chuckled as he tossed the sketchbook and shut the drawer with a sharp snap.
“There is no time to mess around,” he lectured himself as he left the library and re-entered the ballroom.
* * *
“Would you like me to draw you as well?”
“Damn him!”
The blush refused to leave Iris’s skin even as she sat in the small breakfast parlor.
Thank heavens, I need never see the Duke of Knoxford again.
She clung to that as she rose. The silence of Hentley house pressed around her, broken only by the faint rattle of crockery as Mrs. Henkings swept in with the tea.
“Good morning, my lady,” Mrs. Henkings said, setting the pot down and giving Iris a searching look.
The elderly woman was too dear to her to keep her around as a mere maid, so Iris promoted her to housekeeper of Hentley House. And what a fine job she had done. Iris never lacked for anything, and her motherly kindness was sorely needed over the years.
“You were back very late, my lady. I hear the ball was enjoyable,” Mrs. Henkings continued, pulling Iris out of her past.
Iris almost laughed.
“Enjoyable is one word for it. It was…crowded,” she said instead, reaching for her cup of tea. Her hand was steadier than she anticipated. “And noisy. You know how I am about noise.”
Mrs. Henkings sniffed, equally as unimpressed as her lady. “You look flushed, my lady; are you unwell?”
“I am well; I just danced too much last night,” Iris said too quickly.
“A gentleman has asked you to dance?” Mrs. Henkings’ kind face lit up with anticipation, and it broke Iris’s heart to lie to her.
“Yes,” she replied simply.
Iris could not bear to tell her that she had stood to the side and watched others whirl around her. It was another night of being the invisible widow. Or so she believed until she had gone wandering where she should not.
“What is that bundle?” She pointed at the stack of paper in Mrs.Henking’s apron.
“Post, my lady.” She drew several letters from her apron. “Two notes from your sisters, and one from Mr. Earnest.” She paused, lips thinning. “The solicitor.”
The nice illusion of an ordinary morning dissolved as Iris set down her cup with care.
“Thank you. You may leave them.”
Mrs. Henkings lingered. “Shall I stay, in case—”
“No.” Iris softened the word with a small smile. “Truly, I am quite capable of reading a letter by myself.”
Once Mrs. Henkings left, Iris broke the seal of the solicitor’s letter.
Mr. Earnest’s neat handwriting was all apologies and obligations. He would call upon her this afternoon regarding ‘the remaining encumbrances upon the estate’ and an ‘update regarding the late viscount’s cousin.’ Her stomach dipped.
“Another cousin?” she muttered and ignored the dreadful feeling in the pit of her already queasy stomach.
Perhaps he is some distant relation sniffing after the title at last?
Of course, that would happen to her. She had never truly believed she could keep Hentley House forever. Still, the idea of surrendering these rooms, the Persian carpets, the mismatched chairs, and the hard-won quiet life felt like being stripped bare in the middle of a ballroom.
Iris shut her eyes and prayed that the pain would go away and be replaced with pleasure for once.
Pleasure.
A flicker of forbidden imagery of iron rings in the ceiling; silk binding imagined wrists; a tall, dark man watching her with those ocean eyes and that scar like a brand of danger.
“Focus, Iris,” she scolded herself.
Iris crushed the thought of the scarred duke, furious with herself for even thinking about him. There was no room in her life for such… indulgence. Hentley House was her duty, her proof that she was not the useless eldest daughter who let others sacrifice themselves.
The clock on the mantel chimed twelve when footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Mrs. Henkings appeared before her again. Her cheeks were unusually pink.
“My lady,” she said, voice pitched oddly. “A visitor has arrived.”
“I never receive visitors.” Iris rose, smoothing her skirt. “Who is it?”
Mrs. Henkings swallowed. “A duke, my lady.”
Something cold slid along Iris’s spine.
Iris swallowed. “Very well. Guide him into the drawing room.”
She went ahead, giving herself those few seconds to compose herself.
She was pacing when a broad-shouldered, raven-haired man entered her drawing room.
“You have got to be jesting?” Iris blurted out before she could think about it.
At the sound of her voice, the duke’s gaze collided with hers, and Iris’s world began to collapse around her.
“I... I apologize, Your Grace,” Mrs. Henkings stammered.
The duke laughed and held a dismissive palm up. “No need, Mrs. Henkings. I am acquainted with the viscountess.”
“Your Grace,” Iris said more politely, but her tone remained icy. “What are you doing in my home?”
She ignored the appalled look of her housekeeper as his grace lifted a dark brow at her.
“Your house?” he asked in his sin-warmed drawl that had tangled around her the night before. “I believe you are mistaken. This is my home. And, it would seem, once again you are trespassing on my property.”
Iris’s jaw dropped. “That is impossible. This is Hentley House. It belongs to the viscountcy.”
“And I,” he said calmly, stepping closer so that his cinnamon scent and clean skin brushed her senses, “am telling you that this is my house, married or not.”
Mrs. Henkings shifted and turned her back on them. “I will get some tea, my lady.”
Iris was too lightheaded to concentrate on her. The room tilted, and all the years of careful scrimping and small, stubborn pride collapsed beneath a few offhand words from a man who built pleasure rooms for sport.
“I do not have time for this,” she hissed at him.
The duke looked down at her, amusement curling at the corner of his mouth, and a far more dangerous look in his eyes.
The man does not even care.
His Grace leaned across and whispered seductively in her ear, “I am afraid, Little Blossom, that this behavior cannot continue unpunished.”