The Duke In His Castle Read Online Free

gone, please be sure to take it with you. Merely by its nature, whatever is inside, it is repugnant to the living. Not to mention, blasphemous and out of place here. Relics, even fake ones, are meant for chapels and tombs, not drawing rooms. In short, I will not lower myself to ask how you acquired it, but I find its presence in my chamber unacceptable.”
    Quite as unacceptable as you , he begins to say, but doesn’t. Instead he closes his eyes as promised, playing his own game.
    When he opens them within moments, she is still there.
    Izelle watches the Duke, her doll-face stilled in an attentive calculating expression. She is possibly evaluating his degree of gullibility even now, measuring him up against the others she has had the pleasure of tormenting, in order to report the exact details to her infernal Duchess.
    “Do I truly disgust you?” she says suddenly. Indeed, as she has promised earlier, she is blunt. But the manner in which she appears to savor the notion is odd and fascinating, and the Duke finds himself startled.
    “This box of venerable remains is distasteful to you, but what of myself, my Lord? Obviously it is so. And yet, you are a blue blood, so where are your manners? Do you always pay such scathing compliments to your guests? No, really, you can’t be this rude.”
    “I cannot help it, you’re a clown, madam,” the Duke replies. “For that matter, you’re not a guest.”
    And the creature before him appears to be stunned into momentary silence. It’s as if up to that point she has no idea that she is indeed a grotesque, a jester, a terrifying costumed scarecrow. Or maybe she does. Wait, yes, the Duke sees a smile held back in the rosebud mouth, a smile pressed hard against little dainty teeth, he imagines. . . .
    “My Lord,” she says softly. “Oh, I like you! You are rude and yet formal as the vestments of a bishop at high mass, a piquant combination! Sarcasm and stuffy decorum and wicked mercy, all in one man! Oh, whatever words shall I use to describe you to my Cousin? I can’t imagine. Have you a pictorial likeness I might take back with me, to show Her Grace? A lacquer miniature, perhaps?”
    He gapes at her swift change in humor—that she remains standing in this small claustrophobic room before him despite his command to depart, that she is undaunted and is in fact laughing at him.
    “I hope there’s one thing you come to understand,” she says. “That nothing you say will make me leave. Hate me, despise me, be nauseated by me and this pretty bones-trinket, but here we are. We will stay until we learn what we must—this Fabled Nairis and I. Right, my dear?” With a grin she looks down fondly and pats the funeral box (it is the moment at which the Duke first seriously considers that she is indeed insane, and as a secondary thought, wonders what is contained in that box of death).
    She, meanwhile, continues, “You may be rude enough to force me physically, to call the butler and a legion of servants—but I can resist. Both you and your men. And your sorcery. It’s rather quite unladylike of me, but as you say, I am a clown, and a very determined one. In truth—” and here she gleefully closes her hands and arms about the funeral box in a morbid embrace, “I do believe I’m going to enjoy myself here. When is dinner served?”
    She ignores the Duke, ignores his eyes—which are dilated in outrage at being subjected to her insolence. She glances around the study—for this chamber obviously doubles as a personal library and a sitting room—and her gaze takes in minute detail.
    He watches her in fascinated horror. His lips part as she suddenly moves toward the nearby writing-table of heavy antique mahogany and plunks down the box beside an open volume of esoteric philosophy, next to sacred yellowed pages that are liable to crumble from a too-strong breeze. . . .
    And then she adds insult by speaking yet again. “Duke, my sweet, while you yourself appear to be clean,