How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 22

  Forsythe rubbed at the divot in his chin, his eyes twinkling down at her. “That very question is why I’ve been called back here, Dr. Lane—that is, Your Grace.” He spared a glance of chagrin for Piers.

  The smarmy fucker didn’t fool him for one moment. Forsythe had not made a verbal mistake, but a calculation. Piers was sure of it.

  Placing the bracelet next to the porous and scratched wrist bones of the skeleton laid out before them, Forsythe went to the tent’s entrance and pulled back the flap to gesture toward the ever-widening entrance to the catacombs. Workers smudged with mud and dust wheeled heaps of earth up planks laid over the five stone steps that led underground.

  “The rumor is that the workers and archeology students will be bringing a Byzantine trader up from the catacombs tomorrow or the day after; that is, if they can finish excavating the final crypt, wherein two bodies are still in the final stages of being uncovered. I’d love for you to be there.” Remembering himself, Forsythe gave another casual nod toward Piers. “For both of you, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it!” Alexandra accepted enthusiastically. “Byzantium was my obsession at school. I daresay I was fanatical.”

  “Who wasn’t?” Forsythe said with a solicitous chuckle.

  “Oh, plenty of people!” she exclaimed. “Those students who were more interested in the Romans and the Greeks, for example.”

  “Philistines.” Feigning disgust, the doctor winked.

  “Them, as well!” She laughed.

  Forsythe reached across her under the guise of retrieving a map.

  Piers noted that she avoided physical contact with her colleague, always keeping proper distance. She never reached for the man. Didn’t flirt, coo, or bat her amber lashes. Not only didn’t she return Forsythe’s longing looks, it was as if she didn’t take notice of them.

  The only shadow over Piers’s triumph in that regard was that she didn’t pay him any more feminine attention than she did Forsythe.

  It was the dead men who held her consideration the longest.

  And Piers refused to be jealous of a man who’d been departed from this world for nearly a thousand years.

  “Ancient Egyptians are distressingly popular these days,” she lamented, carefully examining a scrap of woven robe laid out next to the body. “But they aren’t the only ancient civilization worth such obsession.”

  Piers moved closer to the tables, cataloguing the bones of the departed, imagining the matching ones in Forsythe’s body equally broken and dismantled.

  By his bare hands.

  He’d never learned much about exhuming corpses, but he certainly knew how to make them.

  Alexandra turned to Piers, distracting him from his black impulses with an attractive idea brightening her expression to ecstatic. “Do you really think your Redmayne ancestor might be among those buried here?” she postulated. “Perhaps even that Viking over there? Wouldn’t that be something?” She clenched her fists in front of her like a child who’d been offered a surprise gift.

  The brilliance of her smile turned Piers’s soul all the way over, imparting a cool balm to his bitterness and exposing his shadows to the light.

  In moments when she looked at him as she did now, he forgot all his reasons for being suspicious of her. He forgot what he looked like. Who he was. What she might want from him.

  But not what he wanted from her.

  Which—goddammit—was more than just her incomparable body.

  Unsettled by the strength of his desire, he glanced away, inspecting the skeleton of the Viking on the far table. “This man was buried with a blue sigil.” He pointed to the scrap of heraldry laid out beside him along with the splinters of a blue shield. “Redmayne’s colors were always crimson, for obvious reasons.”

  “An excellent observation.” The condescension in Forsythe’s tone set Piers’s teeth on edge. “Though I don’t think your father was too far off when he suspected that the Redmaynes launched with William the Bastard from these shores. William Malet built his fortifications here, and he was instrumental in winning the Battle of Hastings alongside William the Bastard-turned-Conqueror.

  “Malet wrote about red-haired Norsemen rather extensively, a father and a son. One died on these shores, the other, Magnus, built your Castle Redmayne. Or at least the fortress turned ruin. I’d love to talk with you about an excavation on your grounds someday.”

  “What a capital idea!” Alexandra agreed, turning a hopeful gaze to Piers.

  The polite thing to do would be to extend an invitation to Forsythe, but it would be a cold day in hell before he allowed Forsythe anywhere near Castle Redmayne.

  Piers emitted a noncommittal grunt, letting those gathered interpret it however they would.

  His stare locked with Forsythe’s; a current of understanding passed between them. They disliked each other equally.

  Too absorbed by her specimens to notice the undercurrent of masculine tension, Alexandra stepped around the Persian’s table to examine the Moorish skeleton and the neat piles of pots, baskets, and finery next to him. “If the Redmayne elder was so instrumental in helping William the Conqueror unite the empire, why would they possibly bury him in an unmarked pauper’s grave on a hill outside of town?”

  Forsythe moved to join her, but Piers placed himself next to his wife, forcing the other man to take his place opposite the Moor’s examination table. He picked up a ring of crude yet masterful workmanship and examined it, enjoying Forsythe’s anxious intake of breath.

  “Forgive my uneducated opinion,” he said dryly. “But very few of these men appear to have been paupers.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Forsythe reluctantly agreed. “While they’re often wealthy traders from distant lands, I initially assumed that this place had been sanctioned for the burial of foreigners. However, there are outsiders interred at the priory on holy ground.”

  “I’ve got it!” Alexandra reached out and gripped Piers’s bicep, her fingers becoming claws as she shook his arm, unable to contain her enthusiasm. “Pagans!” she exclaimed.

  “By Jove,” Forsythe breathed.

  “These men, the Viking, the Moor, and the Persian, they were none of them Christian, and therefore not considered fit for burial at the priory.” She turned to Piers, whose entire being focused on the feel of her hand gripping his arm.

  There it was. The sparkle in her eye. The unmitigated gleam of intellectual brilliance and girlish glee. A thoroughly heady concoction that settled an ache somewhere south of his gut.

  “Your ancestors, the Redmaynes, were they Christian or pagan?” she asked.

  Piers struggled to consider as he stared down at his wife. Could he really make it ten days without bedding her?

  “Magnus Redmayne, the son, built Trinity Priory on Redmayne land almost immediately after the fortress,” he recalled. “However, by all accounts, he insisted upon a traditional Viking burial.”

  “He was burned on a barge at sea?” Her face shone with an almost romantic rapture and some of the queer chill Piers had been holding in his heart thawed.

  “That he was.” He flashed her a teasing smile, aware the effect was somewhat lost due to his deformity. “In the old days, it is said, their wives were burned with them, so the women could accompany their husbands to Valhalla.”

  “What tripe.” Alexandra rolled her eyes. “I’m certainly glad of our more modern sensibilities.” Her eyes narrowed, then rounded as something struck her. “Don’t tell me Magnus Redmayne’s wife was burned with him?”

  Piers chuckled, finding her outrage adorable. He caught at a ringlet that escaped from beneath her sensible hat. “No, my bride, she lived to a ripe old age with her three unruly sons, always favored by the new English court.”

  “Oh. Well … good.” Appeased, she tilted a lopsided smile up at him.

  The atmosphere between them shifted, warmed. Piers read in her eyes unspoken and uncertain apologies.

  Was he going to remain angry with her? She’d been
obscure, but had she been dishonest?

  Was she deceitful now?

  The look she gave him whispered of earnest emotion; half hope, half despair. All day she’d seemed as though something cataclysmic perched on her tongue, ready to spring forth and further decimate the fragile bond they’d forged.

  Without meaning to, Piers leaned down toward her. Closer. The fresh scent of linens and citrus enveloped him; he silently willed her to whisper it to him. To put them both out of their misery.

  What are you hiding? he wondered. What secrets lie behind those pools of whisky and honey?

  With a polite clearing of the throat, Forsythe announced himself, breaking the moment. “I’ll just … go and garner updates from the workmen on how the excavation of the catacombs is coming along since I was here last.” He tipped his hat uncomfortably and left them alone with the dead.

  Piers looked down at the silken lock curled in his finger. Falt Ruadh. Such lovely red hair. Such a unique and lovely wife.

  What if she was taken from him?

  The concern that had been churning beneath his skin all day boiled to the surface. How could he be so elementally troubled by the loss of something—someone—he’d only known, only desired, for four days?

  Why couldn’t he shake the feeling that someone was trying to take her from him?

  “Was it you?” he wondered, not realizing he’d spoken aloud until her lips pursed in puzzlement.

  “To what do you refer?” she queried, all wide-eyed innocence and incomprehension

  But that couldn’t be. He’d only just witnessed firsthand her unique intelligence. He’d trailed after her all day like a sentinel, observing her in her element.

  His wife, it seemed, was never more alive than when surrounded by the dead.

  Something had his hackles up like a wolf scenting danger in the forest. Too many strange and dangerous things had occurred since they’d met. Mercury’s escape. The gunmen in the ruins. The incident on the ship.

  “Falt Ruadh,” he murmured. “Can you think of any reason anyone would have to harm you?”

  “I—couldn’t tell you.” She didn’t look guilty, but neither did her denial seem particularly convincing.

  The canvas made a thick sound as a burly worker punched it open, storming inside. “Your Graces!” he exclaimed, the outline of his eyes extraordinarily white against the grime covering the rest of him. “They’ve found his sigil! They’ve found the tomb of Redmayne in the catacombs!”

  With a exclamation of pure delight, Alexandra drove herself into his arms.

  Stunned, Piers looked down at her, struck by the realization that this might have been the first time she’d ever initiated such physical contact.

  He folded his arms over her, disconcerted by how well—how easily—she fit within them.

  “Let us go have a look, shall we?” he suggested, and was unable to finish the sentence before she was all but dragging him bodily out of the tent.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Hours later, Alexandra gawked at the stranger in the mirror.

  It wasn’t the expensive foreign gown, exactly, that caused her not to recognize herself. She couldn’t even say it had anything to do with her conceding to the corset, or the appallingly and—she supposed—fashionably low neckline that revealed much more of her décolletage than she was accustomed to.

  It was a little bit of everything. Insubstantial changes had turned her into an absolute foreigner. Where she’d often considered her eyes a dull brown, she found a glisten of amber fire within them. A gleam of something indefinable and undeniably feminine. Her lips seemed fuller, somehow, flushed with a peach that matched the high color in her cheeks. Could it be possible that whatever new feelings her husband had begun to evoke now shone on her countenance?

  Was joy beautiful? Because today had been joyful, hadn’t it?

  Transcendent, all things considered.

  Even her hair glinted with a brighter sheen, coiled in a simple but flattering braided knot that shimmered in every form of light.

  When they’d parted at the end of their day at the catacombs, Alexandra and Redmayne had each been covered in a fine layer of cobwebs, stone dust, and a patina of cheerful exuberance.

  Her husband had seemed much his prior charming self, and willing enough to let them retain some of their previous amicability.

  He’d barely been an arm’s length away from her the entire day, a looming—some might say hovering—tower of virile muscle and grim caution. Something about the intensity, the insistency, of his proximity had both alarmed and appeased her. The words he’d spoken when they’d been alone had evoked whispers of warmth within her that didn’t want to abate.

  Her body shimmered with awareness—and not a little caution—when he was so close. And yet, she felt absolutely protected beneath the shadow of the Terror of Torcliff. As though any of the danger they’d faced in Devonshire couldn’t touch her here.

  He’d even displayed some interest in the catacombs as they’d surveyed the walled-off entrance to the final tomb. His eyes had glowed with pleasure as he’d verified the Redmayne sigil decorating the worn red banner over the entrance.

  Tonight had been subsequently decreed a celebration. Of the serendipitous find. Of their nuptials. Of wine and food and summer evenings by the sea.

  Tomorrow, the work on the Redmayne tomb would begin in earnest.

  Julia Throckmorton had decided to spend a few nights in Seasons-sur-Mer to further her pursuit of Dr. Forsythe. It had taken her all of five minutes to declare Alexandra’s wardrobe hopeless, and she’d thrust upon her this emerald silk gown bedecked with bronze beads at the sleeves, hem, and neckline.

  Alexandra had been given no recourse but to accept the woman’s insistent kindness.

  Before she’d left her room, Alexandra had pinched herself soundly, admonishing herself for a fanciful fool. She was clean and presentable and attired as a duchess should be attired. What else mattered when it all came down to it?

  She floated down the hall toward the grand hotel’s open ballroom, following a path lit by crystal wall sconces and faded striped paper.

  Ever interested in her setting’s history, Alexandra had learned that the Hotel Fond du Val had been a majestic resort before the Napoleonic wars, and had sunk into disrepair, though it was lovingly and patiently being restored by a new owner. The accommodations were clean and spacious, if not opulent, and Alexandra found herself utterly charmed by the touch of rustic in a missing crystal or two of the chandeliers, or the dull creaks of the undervarnished floors.

  Because of this, the rooms which had once housed Philippe de France, the beloved brother of Louis XIV, could now be let to everyone from gentility to humble archeologists to merchants from the city on a seaside holiday.

  She paused at the top of the stairs, smoothing her gown for the thousandth time. Beset by nerves, she consulted the faded golden carpets beneath her feet before gathering her courage to look up and find her husband.

  She forced a shaky breath into her constricted lungs, grateful for the fragrance of the summer sea air wafting through windows flung wide. In the northwestern corner of the grand room, several white linen-covered tables were set apart by topiary and serviced by perfectly attired footmen offering an informal dinner.

  A dark wood bar stretched out below the stairs, behind which a small, harried man struggled to fill glasses that drained faster than he could pour.

  Alexandra hadn’t hesitated on the steps to be noticed, though she became painfully aware of the increasing number of eyes upon her. It was the sight of her husband that had rooted her to the ground and had her grasping at the finely wrought mahogany railing for support.

  Redmayne stood at the bar conversing with a gathering of gentlemen, sipping occasionally from a glass of red wine.

  He was an oak among aspens. A mountain among men.

  When would she ever get used to the sight of him in formal attire?

  So often, he was to her the man she’d met on
the platform. Indolently dressed in a casual workman’s kit, throat exposed and dusky muscles hinted at beneath thin, white shirtsleeves.

  How did she prefer him? The hunter, predatory and insolent? Or the duke, charismatic, sleek, and cunning?

  Either way he’d the same effect on her mind, which endlessly churned with thoughts, ideas, anxieties, and plans, and seemed to sputter to a crashing halt in his vicinity.

  His effect on her was most unnatural. Distressing, even.

  If only his hair wouldn’t gleam like ebony pitch beneath the lamplight. If only that one unruly forelock, forever trailing out of place in a most distracting manner, would cease calling her hand to smooth it down.

  Or perhaps his jaw should be less bold, less square and unabashedly male. His wintry eyes flashing with fewer storms.

  Alexandra had stood in one place for so long, her thoughts agitating as loud as factory machinery, that she only just noticed that the lively chatter in the hotel’s dining room had hushed to a murmur. The guests’ activities and gestures, once as busy as leaves in a sea breeze, died away as the air went still.

  Redmayne cast a questioning glance at the quieted crowd, noted the direction of their collective gazes, and found her at the top of the stairs.

  Alexandra could hear her own breath rattle about in her chest as he performed a slow, thorough, and very public examination of her.

  His expression remained impassive, his eyes shuttered, but the wine in his glass sloshed violently before he abandoned it to the bar and strode toward the stairs with the unmistakable intention of claiming his place at her side.

  He conquered rather than climbed the stairs, and Alexandra realized why he’d hidden his gaze. Only depravities lurked there. Wickedness and wanting. She had to look away from the intensity of his regard as he drew nearer.

  It was that, or faint.

  Her husband stopped two steps below her, took her gloved hand in his and, as was his custom, placed a kiss on her knuckles.