“You plan to marry me then?” Iris shot back dryly.
She almost laughed at his surprised expression.
“I plan to pleasure you if that is what you desire.” He leaned closer to her.
Iris looked at him with panic-stricken eyes. She placed her palms on his chest to stop him from drawing closer to her again because she could not trust herself, and she whispered, “All I want is to be the one to repair this house. I want to finish what I started. And after that…” She swallowed as she looked at his tempting lips. “I promise that I will leave.”
Blaise froze and stared at her in awe. He exhaled slowly, and she felt his muscles coil under her palm.
Perhaps touching him was a mistake.
“Why would you want to prove your worth through suffering?” he raised a dark brow at her.
Iris let out a dry laugh. “This is far from suffering for me. You would not understand.”
But the duke’s eyes held an understanding there, which Iris brushed off as pure imagination.
“Will repairing this house prove something?” This time, he seemed genuinely curious.
“It will,” she said, without thinking.
“To whom?” he asked. “To me? To society? To your dead husband? To yourself?”
Iris flinched and backed away from him.
“Iris,” His Grace called her name, but she looked away. “If I give you a month, what will I gain from this?”
She thought about it for a second until an idea struck her.
“I will help you find a bride.” The words escaped her lips before she could reconsider their madness.
Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. She was breathless and felt far too bold for the woman who had spent seven years cloaked in widow’s black and quiet duty. Yet here she stood facing the Duke of Knoxford with her heart hammering against her ribs like a wild animal seeking escape.
The duke’s dark eyes narrowed before his scarred brow lifted in a mixture of surprise and unmistakable amusement. Althoughshe backed away from him, the heat of his body still seeped through the thin fabric of her traveling gown and lingered deliciously.
“You?” he drawled, his voice laced with that wicked humor that both infuriated and thrilled her. “You will help me find a bride in one month? How invaluable you think your assistance is, Little Blossom. I assure you, I am quite capable of selecting a duchess without any aid.”
Heat flooded Iris’s cheeks, but she refused to look away from him this time.
I have to stand my ground.
“Not just any bride,” she pressed. “I will find someone who does not want you only for your money and your title. I will find someone who sees… you.” The admission slipped out softer than she intended, and she cursed the way her gaze drifted to the scar again, tracing its vicious path from brow to jaw.
She remembered that she had called him a murderer, yet even then, she could not imagine those hands committing such a betrayal.
His expression shifted, and something unreadable flickered across his features before that lazy smirk returned. He stepped further back just enough to give her breathing room, though the absence of his body felt like a sudden loss.
“The bride… is not even for me.”
Iris blinked back her surprise until the realization dawned on her.
“Then who?—”
“The bride is for my nephew,” he cut her off. His tone darkened with protectiveness. “The boy has been through enough without the weight of bastardy hanging over him like a noose. A suitable marriage will do him good. He will need a bride who will strengthen his position even without the title. It would probably help silence the whispers. It may be the only path to securing his future properly. I simply intend to see that my nephew is restored in every way that matters.”
Iris’s mind reeled, and she was unsure why she felt a sudden sense of relief. The man before her carried layers she had not begun to unravel. He was no simple duke who built pleasure rooms for sport; there was duty there for his illegitimate nephew, too.
His duty tangled with his pain.The realization softened her feelings toward him.
