The Duke In His Castle by Vera Nazarian

feeling cool to the touch, for the night has its effect upon the living exposed flesh. He presses his fingers; they dig into her shoulders, soft, resilient; he lifts her up into a sitting position.
    The creature Nairis obeys the directed pressure of his hands automatically, making small animal-infant sounds as she exhales, and her skin is covered with goose bumps from the compounded moments of chill. He tries not to look now, but her small plump breasts slide down her delicate ribcage while their roundness becomes pronounced on their underside; at the same time they are suddenly sharp-pointed.
    The Duke looks away, then learns how to look without looking, to see her with his peripheral vision in order not to see lower, the smooth slender stomach, the oval depression of the navel, and continuing below—no. Her glassy eyes remain wide open, and he focuses there, so that it is easier to think of her as still unreal, an animated doll.
    For, in those moments now that he is fully aware of this incarnate responsibility before him, the Duke is cold with terror and with the choices piling up, the temptations that are presented. And in thought he continues to blaspheme, as notions race past him, Does a creator feel lust for his own creation, does Deity desire what is most innocent and unadulterated in the first instant of engendering, just before mortal corruption takes over?
    Izelle watches him. If she suspects what goes through him at that point, she is never to be sure. It is easier, instead, to let him be, and simply feel pity.
    In that moment, Harmion, somehow knowing exactly what is required of him, returns to the open-sky chamber with maid-servants, with additional candles, and with a strange fixed look in his eyes. One maid brings with her a freshly laundered sheet to wrap about the nude woman-child. Their intrusion into this place of ritual is somehow peculiar and breaks the concentrated tension; the sheet is unfolded and its sharp revitalizing scent of lavender soap wafts on the cold air. Another maid brings soft fabric slippers, and a stack of additional linen.
    The Duke stands back, torn out of a personal reverie, and allows the nude innocent to be concealed from his view and from the night by the generous sheet.
    Nairis accepts the covering and shivers, her posture slumping as she withdraws into the sheet and herself. They gather around her and ever-so-gently, with the help of many hands, they teach the body of Nairis to get up.
    She stands. Lovely and limber, yet she totters on her feet newly-shod in the satin slippers. She has to be led away, helped along like a rag doll. As she turns her back, her hair is glorious, a brown and red illusion of flow, nearly to her waist, shimmering in the candlelight. . . .
    Izelle is watching, oddly frozen, unmoved by the sight. Impossibly, she is allowing them to take the woman-child away. It’s as if some new emotion is tearing the Duchess in twain, so that it’s easier simply to do nothing.
    “Where should she be taken, M’Lord?” says Harmion, clearing his throat, pausing just barely at the doorway. And then he adds, “I recommend the Mad Queens Tower, if it’s all the same with Your Grace. The quarters there are sufficiently presentable and ready for accommodation.”
    The Duke stares at him uncomprehending, it seems. Then, he comes to himself. “What? Oh . . . yes, that will be fine, Harmion. Please take her there. Help her . . . ready for the night.”
    When all are gone, all but the candle-lit table, the empty former box of death, and looming night-shadows, Rossian remains standing, immobilized, watching the night. His gaze slithers along the walls, averted from Izelle, and he takes deep breaths of the cold air.
“I am . . . sorry,” she says. “I’ve implied things that are unworthy.”
He remains as he is, never turning her way.
“Rossian? My Lord Duke?”
    “You, my dear, have a malicious bent. Yes, I see it now. You called me truly cruel, but what do