Page 13 of Plucked By the Orc

On the other hand, now that he heard the terms stated plainly, Duncan didn’t fear losing Wintermist or this wager. His brother was desperate, hoping for the outside chance he might get the horse after all.

But Albion hadn’t yet met Iris Gabbert.

Chapter Five

When Mrs. Thompson started to heat water in a large kettle on the wood-burning stove, Iris wanted nothing to do with it. She scrubbed her face, hands, under her arms, and private spaces each morning and every night. Even her hair got a good wash weekly. Immersing her entire body into a tub filled with steaming water, however, was outside her experience entirely.

The housekeeper insisted, and at last, Iris relented. Now, soaking her limbs in the claw-footed marble tub in the corner of the bedchamber she was to reside in while living under his grace’s roof, she realized she’d been a right fool to refuse such a luxury. All well and told, Iris spent the better part of an hour in the warm water, muscles relaxed and hair spread out over her shoulders in wet tendrils.

Eventually, the water grew so chilly that Iris could no longer stand it. Reluctantly, she set her hands on either side of the tub and lifted herself out before draping one of the fluffy whitetowels, nearly as big as the blankets she’d used back in her rented bedsit, around her bare body. She moved to the rosy fire in the chamber’s hearth. Already roaring just to keep her feet toasty!

Blimey, if she hadn’t been clever throwing her lot in with this odd-looking gent.

Some folks were wary of these fellows. Orcs. Lords of the Hidden Realm. But Iris had to make a concerted effort not to stare at his horns, thick and smooth, and wonder what they might feel like cupped in her hands.

She shook her head, trying not to dwell on such foolishness. But there was no denying that looking a mite strange didn’t detract from a fellow’s appeal. Who wanted all men to have the same features, anyway? How boring would that be? That was number one. Number two, there was no connection between the goodness of the heart and what was on the outside. Her father had been a handsome bloke in his youth, and that hadn’t stopped him from turning to drink and making a mess of his life.

Another thing Iris couldn’t help but notice? The lads on the street who said the worst things about orcs were the same ones who looked scared that those gents might give them a thrashing. With broad shoulders and muscular arms, someone like Duncan Higgins could certainly do that. Then again, why would he bother? He was doing well enough here in London.

Looking around, Iris saw nothing but the most tasteful and luxurious apportionments in the room, her favorite being the cozy bed with its four posters and rose-patterned canopy. And two mattresses, if she could believe such a thing. She touched them both just to be sure they were real. The one on the bottom was stiff like wool, while the one above was soft as feathers. Just as a girl might dream of—especially a girl accustomed to frail straw tick mattresses, rigid cots in doss houses, or even a meager blanket on a church step when times were hard.

With a pang of guilt, she remembered Lottie, stuck in the doss house while Iris was warming her tush by this here fire. Well, not for much longer. She’d see this through, and then both she and Lot would look for a better spot for boarding—a more respectable situation in life all around. And maybe before all that, she could figure a way to sneak Lot into this place for a night or two. Give her friend a taste of the high life. What would it matter to this gent, anyhow? He had plenty of room to spare.

Still, she couldn’t quite imagine asking him outright if Lot could stay. For Duncan Higgins, Iris Gabbert was no more than a science experiment, an object of interest to be observed and learned from, and she had made her peace with that much. Problem being, if he grew bored with her, he could kick her out of his townhouse. And after that bath and seeing the big bed that awaited her this evening, she was newly determined not to let that happen.

So she would make herself agreeable. A memory of the duke’s grave expression flashed in her mind. Was it possible the gent never smiled? If so, what a horrible way to live. She would see about trying to change that.

In the glimmer of the tapers lit in a candelabra on the side table, she saw the housekeeper had laid out a new dressing gown atop the bed’s duvet. Mrs. Thompson had said she should expect as much, but she had not expected such finery.

Fit for a queen, it was, and her favorite color at that. She ran her fingers along the sumptuous mulberry colored silk and the dainty lace at the cuffs and collar. Shivering, she fetched the cotton night rail brought over in her worn satchel. That was a sad-looking garment, but when she tied the silk robe over it, she felt as grand as the Empress of Russia, Cleopatra, or any other woman with the good fortune to be born into power.

As she paraded around the room, nodding and waving as she imagined a queen might do, she heard a faint squeak. A mouse!Iris had had enough of those creatures for one lifetime. They scrabbled about in the walls of her bedsit at night and sometimes surprised Lot or Iris during the day. She tried to find a chair to hop on to avoid the tiny beast.

There was another sound, scratching on the floorboards, and she realized it was coming from under the bed. This bed chamber looked clean enough. How had a mouse escaped Mrs. Thompson’s watchful eye?

And then a gray kitten, perhaps six weeks old, scuttled out from her hiding place and bolted across the room and out the door which had been left ajar.

“Gah!” she said, no longer a queen but Iris Gabbert once more. “I didn’t know I ‘ad a roommate for the night.”

Having never met a dog or cat she didn’t like, and feeling more than a little overwhelmed by her luxurious surroundings, Iris thought it a fine thing to have a kitten to cuddle with for the night. She followed the cat out of the bedchamber, thinking the wee creature couldn’t have gotten far on such stubby legs. Indeed, she’d only been startled by Iris’s nonsense with the gown and would welcome a chance to return to the room with its comfy bed and warm fire.

The narrow hallway outside the door was dark, but for a trio of tapers kept safe in sturdy metal sconces along the wall, flames casting shadows on the flocked wallpaper. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, Iris bent down to peek under a walnut hutch. No cat. She rose to her feet once more and turned, only to run smack into the massive chest of Duncan Higgins.

“Oof. What a solid barrel, that’s for certain.”

He hadn’t expected to find her there. That much was clear. And his grace had beat her in finding the kitten, who now curled up in his arms, purring far louder than one would have thought possible given her small frame.

“So you’ve met my foundling,” Duncan Higgins said, stroking the vibrating creature.

His grace was dressed in his informal trousers and shirt, but his cravat was conspicuously missing. Meaning that even in the dim light of the hallway, she noticed the swatch of black hair and firm muscles at the top of his chest, right below this thick collarbone. He didn’t smell foul either, not that she had expected him to smell bad.

Only she hadn’t expected him to smell so good: like a mix of oranges and cinnamon and smoke that she imagined had been concocted in some laboratory in France. He seemed the sort of gent who would want his toiletries imported from Paris, which she found endearing, given his hulking form.

But then, what business did he have wandering the corridors this late in the evening, smelling as though he was going out for the night? Was he going out for the night? Iris realized she knew nothing at all about his habits. For all she knew, he was headed out to the gaming tables, to which some gents devoted too much of their time and treasure, or one of the establishments where women who resorted to selling their bodies resided. Not that Iris was judging them, mind. A girl did what she had to do to survive in this world.

Even so, she didn’t care for the image of Duncan visiting such a place. She thought him a better sort. Which made no sense on the face of it. His grace here was free to do what have you and it was certainly none of her concern.

All the same, she felt suddenly curious about what might happen between the duke and a lady of the night. And what that massive body of his would look like absent the shirt and trousers.

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