A sharp breath escaped from several throats, Iris’s among them. Her skin prickled at his words.
A duchess…
“This is mad,” she muttered.
Unromantic and mad.As though he is selecting a horse for his stables.
Almost as if hearing her, his lips quirked again. “I know that in the city, some things are best conducted quietly,” he added. “Rumor and scandal are, of course, to be avoided. I have never been particularly talented at avoiding either. So, until I make my final decision, let us at least agree to enjoy ourselves this evening.”
Laughter filled the room, and the tension broke a little. But the duke’s words lingered in the hearts of many women, and Iris knew she would not even get a second glance from the man. Yet,she could not explain the fluttering feeling in her stomach at the sound of his husky voice.
Iris’s throat felt suddenly dry. Her fingers had gone numb around her glass. She handed the wine to Camelia, who handed it to her husband.
“I... I need some air,” she said softly.
Camelia’s hand closed around her wrist. “Are you unwell?”
“I am perfectly well,” Iris lied. “I shall be back shortly. I promise not to disappear.”
Camelia searched her face, then nodded reluctantly. “Do not be long. Raph will fret.”
Raph glanced between them, reading something in Iris’s pallor. “If you wish, I can?—”
“I only wish to stretch my legs,” Iris cut in. “Truly.”
She slipped away before Camelia could argue, weaving through the edges of the crowd. No one tried to stop her. As she stepped out of the ballroom, sound and heat faded away. The corridor beyond was dimmer, but she took a deep breath and kept walking.
Ridiculous.She had survived a marriage, widowhood, and seven years of quiet battle with debts and creditors. A ball and a scarred duke’s speech should not unnerve her.
Still, the tension coiled in her limbs did not ease. She had never been so affected by a man before; perhaps her loneliness is finally getting to her.
Iris continued down the corridor until the sound of the ball became a faint, muffled hum behind her. She randomly turned and found a door set slightly apart from the others. She placed her hand on the latch and tested it. The door opened easily.
Inside, the faint scent of leather reached her first.
“This cannot be the library,” she whispered as she stepped in and closed the door behind her, shutting out the corridor’s weak light.
It simply did not smell of books and old pages. Her delicate fingers skimmed along the wall until they found a small bracket, and from it, a single candle waited in a holder. A flint lay beside it on a shelf. Iris hesitated only a moment before striking the spark. The wick caught with a tiny hiss.
“This is definitelynota library,” she said breathlessly as she looked around.
It was a room unlike any she had ever seen in a gentleman’s house. The walls were painted a deep, burgundy matte color thatabsorbed light. Mirrors hung in deliberate places, and in the center of the room stood a bed.
Around her were various padded couches. Some were velvet, and others were covered in supple, dark leather.
“What is this place?” she whispered as she approached the bed and noticed that a mirror was above it, attached to the ceiling.
On the four posters of the vast bed were what looked like straps coiled neatly at its edges. Iris was not sure why she felt an ache low in her belly as she perceived the hoops of iron fixed to the walls, and four were even attached to the floor. She had seen such rings used to tether horses in stables.
Her body reacted before her mind could comprehend. A surge of heat rippled through her. Her breath grew shallow, making her bodice feel suddenly tight, as if someone had laced it tighter by another notch.
That was when she saw the silky fabric thrown across the pillows of the bed.
“Oh.” Iris’s cheeks burned so fiercely she felt faint.
“I should not be in here,” she told herself. “I should turn around; I should leave.”
Yet her feet did not move. Some dark thread of curiosity wound from all the years of sensible choices kept her rooted. Her bodyhummed with a restless, unspent energy she refused to name. On an almost soundless step, Iris walked farther in.
