How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 24

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Piers tried, and failed, to remember when victory had ever been so delicious.

  He’d many to choose from.

  Even as he appreciated a bite of his sumptuous dinner, he savored the delectable tinge of peach and pink rising from beneath his wife’s bodice to splash over the creamy skin of her chest.

  When was the last time he’d enjoyed a conversation so much? When had he been so intellectually challenged, and at the same time, so at ease in someone’s company?

  Once again, he failed to call such an interaction to mind.

  Never had he delighted in something so ubiquitous as a woman’s blush. Never had he wanted to collect his prize so desperately as in this moment.

  But despite the fact that the table hid his body’s reaction to the wicked reward he’d been promised, he hadn’t lost enough of his civility to drag his wife from a crowded room in order to ravish her.

  Besides, he wasn’t ready to be done teasing her. Playing with his prey.

  There was, after all, one more question. But at least now, her body was his, if not for the taking, at least for the tasting. He kept a tight grip on his fork, forcing himself to appear unaffected. To maintain their conversation, and to keep up with her quick mind.

  “Your selection of quotes makes me wonder about you,” he drawled around another bite. “Are you a pious or God-fearing woman?”

  For a woman with a tendency to let whatever thought skipped through her mind fall from her mouth, she gave this question a great deal of consideration. With her bow lips pursed in contemplation, she took the opportunity to study the view beyond him rather than his features.

  “I do not live in fear of any particular God, and neither do I know which one to believe in,” she finally answered gravely. “I’ve studied so many of them, enough to know that it is more reasonable to live in fear of man than God. Of what man makes of this world. For we are capable of enough evil without a god or a devil to influence us one way or the other.”

  Piers absorbed her words, studying a bleakness in the depths of her burnt-whisky eyes. What had she seen, he wondered, that put in her the fear of man? He’d picked up rather similar ideals in his lifetime and in his travels. He’d seen too much blood shed in the name of one God or another to ascribe his faith to any of them. Strange, that he would have found a spouse who felt the same. Who’d seen similar corners of the earth and lingered in the shadows of gods more ancient than their Anglican one.

  “What about death?” he queried. “Do you fear existential judgment after this life?”

  “I used to,” she murmured. “I used to worry about it obsessively. Perhaps it is why I study those who have already passed on. I learn what I can from them. I honor their journey through this world, and hope they have found peace in the next. That … I might also find peace.” She studied the napkin in her lap. “Sometimes, though, I fear the weight of my sins will pull me into the abyss. I hope if God exists, if we are to stand judgment, that justice is more compassion than vengeance.”

  Piers studied her, noting the weight of which she spoke curling her shoulders forward in a self-protective posture most ladies wouldn’t indulge in public. The sadness emanating from her permeated the fortifications he’d erected around his heart.

  “What sins could you possibly have committed—?”

  The unmistakable sound of silver tapping against crystal evoked a pall of silence among the attendees as Forsythe called them to attention.

  Piers glared over Alexandra’s bare, smooth shoulder at him, wishing fervently the crystal would break and slit the man’s wrists.

  No such miracle occurred.

  Alexandra turned in her chair to heed the man, and Piers set his jaw against a maelstrom of churlish resentment.

  “Mesdames et messieurs,” Forsythe began, lifting his glass as he prepared a toast. “It is with humbled gratitude and fervent anticipation I accepted the commission to become the next foreman of this exciting archeological expedition. So often, as surveyors of the past, we archeologists are called to distant locales where the climates, both political and ecological, are so very inhospitable. It is in such places, one learns to appreciate, to admire and esteem, those closest to him.”

  Forsythe’s gaze slid to Alexandra.

  Piers’s grip on his knife tightened as suspicion churned the meal he’d enjoyed to bricks of disgust.

  “I am fortunate in this particular vocation, in this lovely country, that we can study the ancients of our own vast and violent English history, rather than those of another mystical society,” the doctor continued, swinging back to the company at large. “Fortunate, indeed, that the descendant of our Viking specimen is not only among the living, but among us here, tonight.” He turned to their table, directing all attention not to Alexandra, but to Piers, himself.

  “To His Grace, Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, and his new and incomparable duchess. May your marriage be long and fruitful.”

  “À votre santé!” the audience toasted, and Alexandra turned to Piers, her smile radiant as she urged him to stand, to accept the applause beginning to swell. When he didn’t instantly comply, she stood, obliging him to do so, or to risk disrespecting her in public.

  Piers didn’t hear their applause as he stood.

  He still contemplated the meaning of the word “sin.” The sins his wife might have committed in her past. The ones she might commit against him in the future.

  The sin he wanted to commit with her here. Now. Iniquities so fiendish, even the devil would blush.

  “Would Their Graces indulge us in a waltz to begin the evening?” Forsythe stroked his mustache above a cheeky grin and the assemblage made affirmative noises as the chamber musicians thrummed the first notes of Strauss.

  Piers advanced, thinking Forsythe would look a great deal better wearing the champagne rather than drinking it. Such seemingly innocuous words. Appreciate. Admire. Esteem.

  But not when it came to his wife.

  My wife. The beast within him snarled. Mine.

  Was he too quick to believe her when she claimed there was not—nor had there been—a relationship between them? Forsythe’s look had certainly conveyed more. And for a man who disliked Piers as heartily as he was certain Forsythe did … why would he take such pains to show him such public courtesy?

  Curious, indeed.

  What Piers wouldn’t have given to have been able to catch the look Alexandra had given back to Forsythe.

  Had it been one of similar meaning?

  A small hand slipped into his, as Alexandra stepped out in front of him, a vision of mahogany hair, emerald silk, and metallic gems as she glided past a few tables, the topiary, and the grand fireplace.

  She nodded to Forsythe and her vapid friend—Piers forgot her name, Jane?—but then she paid them no further heed as she led Redmayne to the middle of the grand room.

  Piers pulled Alexandra close, closer still as he twirled his graceful wife across the marble in a seamless, flawless waltz.

  He hoped the intelligent Dr. Forsythe made some keen fucking observations. Such as, the perfect fit of her body against his. How synchronous their rhythm was. How, even though Piers was arguably the unsightliest man in the room, he could still get the most beautiful woman in the world to smile up at him, just as she did now.

  Light from the chandelier gilded flecks of gold into her eyes.

  She smiled despite the dark subjects of their conversation. Even though they’d spoken of God and death, scars and sin, something about the atmosphere of the evening, the gather of the west wind beyond their enchanted golden celebration, and the feel of her glorious shape locked in the circle of his arms gave Piers the fanciful sensation of dancing on a cloud.

  Because, yet again, she didn’t look away from him. Even when she ought to.

  She didn’t look at Forsythe. She didn’t arch her lovely neck away as propriety dictated. She kept her gaze firmly affixed to his and, for a moment, Piers thought she
might possess the acumen to look past the scars on his face, through his eyes to the ones on his soul.

  Those were uglier, he feared. Those would drive her away surely, even if his physical deformities did not.

  For the first time, Piers’s step almost faltered as Forsythe’s form spun into view. He’d abandoned his untouched champagne and affably followed his intrepid partner—Judith?—as she dragged him to the floor.

  A strange question haunted Piers, one he’d never thought to ask.

  He’d been so focused on what this marriage might mean to him, his future, his legacy, his revenge, he’d never stopped to think about what it would mean for his bride.

  In his mind, he’d saved her from financial ruin. Because she’d asked him to.

  But what of her heart? He’d never thought to possess it before. He’d not expected to, as it wasn’t something he could equally trade for.

  Could it belong to another? Had he, by taking her hand in marriage, also taken any chance at future happiness, as well?

  Perhaps that was why she’d been so aloof. So reluctant.

  Suspicion surged through him, chasing away the clouds upon which he danced and weighing him deftly to the ground. He gazed into her eyes. Such beautiful eyes, a brown so amber that the shades in her hair set a certain fire to the color. Not red, but close.

  If only he didn’t read secrets in their depths. If only her thoughts weren’t so infuriatingly opaque.

  Perhaps she wasn’t dishonest with him about feelings for Forsythe, but with herself. Sometimes Alexandra was the most logical woman he’d ever met. And other times, she spoke the most utter nonsense. She’d claimed to have no prior romantic entanglements, and no interest in such.

  And yet, she’d taken a lover.

  She claimed that lover hadn’t been Forsythe.

  In this moment, so much of him wanted to believe her, even though his shallow, black heart screamed that to do so would be folly.

  What if he fell for her? What if he fucked her?

  What if she then gave birth in nine months to a golden-haired genius with Forsythe’s unctuous features? The very idea had him contemplating walling the bastard in with his ancestor and leaving him to rot.

  Piers would hate himself for allowing it. For being as weak against her multitude of charms as his father had been.

  He’d hate her for being so deceitful.

  He’d hate the child for not being his.

  After the life he’d led, a deception of this magnitude would be his undoing.

  He couldn’t allow this fate. No matter how much his body yearned for her. No matter what sort of spell she weaved with her wit and her wisdom.

  He would wait to claim her. He would wait until the machinations of fate were more under his control.

  He would not allow himself to fall. It was better that way, for them both.

  If he never loved her, he could never hate her.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t set about some machinations of his own.

  No matter what happened in ten days—eight now—he could still lay siege to her body. He could—he would—pleasure her, and then he’d take what pleasure she could give. If two people such as they couldn’t share trust or love, at least they could indulge in this. This connection threaded through the warp and weft of his very fabric, thrumming within him a constant erotic longing.

  Oh, he’d have her.

  He’d use his hands and mouth and skill to erase the memory of any other man, so that by the time he took her, she’d not only have forgotten the feel of her former lover inside of her.

  She’d have forgotten his name.

  “Where did you go?” she whispered gently. “You’re miles away.”

  “I was visiting the future,” he said casually.

  “Oh?” Her brows rose. “And what did you see there, pray?”

  “You,” he murmured, inhaling her vaguely tropical scent. Sweet and citrus. Intoxicating.

  “And what was I doing?” she inquired.

  He leaned in as low as he could while maintaining their waltz. “You were screaming my name.”

  She blanched and would have stumbled had he not such a solid hold upon her. “W-what?”

  “You were crying out blasphemies to every god you don’t believe in while you came apart in my arms.”

  Her breath sped against him. Her limbs trembling a little.

  Excellent.

  “You mustn’t say such things. Not here in public.” She looked around at the couples who’d joined them in their waltz, offering many of them a shaky smile.

  “No one heard me.” He chuckled darkly.

  “I heard you!” she huffed.

  “Yes,” he crooned. “And you owe me another quote.”

  “Now?”

  “When else?”

  “Um.” She searched for words.

  Piers sent a triumphant glance at Forsythe, who appeared to be very pointedly not watching them.

  Her eyes followed his gaze and she frowned.

  “I’ve one for you,” she clipped. “‘Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.’”

  Before he could summon a rejoinder, a dapper middle-aged gentleman tapped him on the shoulder. “Pardon, monsieur, but I have never had the opportunity to dance with a duchesse.”

  “Of course.” Piers bowed to the gentleman, and bent to his wife. “You’ll meet me on the west veranda at half past the hour.”

  He placed her hand in the older man’s as she sputtered. “But—outside?—you didn’t guess—”

  “Cicero,” he said over his departing shoulder, searching for a dance partner among the local countrywomen.

  The next time he touched his wife, it would be in places she wouldn’t soon forget.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  He couldn’t really mean to share intimacies out of doors, could he?

  Alexandra crept through a small entry from a back corridor out onto the west veranda.

  She hadn’t understood the size and scope of the structure until this vantage. Not only did it wrap around the edifice of the hotel, it boasted several dozen potted trees, ferns, flowers, intricate screens, and furniture from which to enjoy sumptuous sunsets over the ocean.

  The sun had set hours ago, and a cold, silvery moon illuminated white waves across which England awaited.

  The night breeze feathered over flesh unused to exposure to the elements. Her bare shoulders, the swells of her breasts pressed unnaturally high by the corset, indeed all her skin welcomed the cool kiss of the night.

  For the past hour her husband’s gaze, heavy with illicit promises, had turned her entire body into a furnace.

  She’d barely been able to concentrate on her waltz with Jean-Yves, let alone a civilized, pleasant conversation. By now, half of France likely assumed her the most bumble-headed ninny alive.

  But how was one supposed to think clearly with the weight of his gaze teasing little shivers from the fine hairs at the back of her neck?

  How was it that a man, not just any man, her husband, could affect her in such a manner?

  Her slippers barely made a sound as she navigated artful arrangements of furniture in search of him.

  She found Redmayne leaning forward against the railing, his face lifted to the moon. Eyes closed and nose flaring as though he enjoyed the fragrance of wisteria, posies, and night-blooming jasmine shamelessly baring themselves beneath a tall wych elm.

  He didn’t seem to mark her approach, even as she joined him at the railing not more than an arm’s length away. She could only make out the scarred side of his face. Even in the dim light, the silver moon drew such savage lines through his beard.

  For a protracted moment, Alexandra could do nothing but stare.

  Everything about him, from his scars to his soul, held her in an undeniable thrall.

  Why hadn’t she noted the sartorial elegance beneath his sardonic savagery before now? Certainly, he was a
bestial creature, fierce and unruly as his barbaric ancestors. A hunter of beasts. An apex predator. But a nobility lurked in the long, sophisticated lines of his form, as well. Something handsome and almost … wholesome in a sort of robust way.

  Almost civilized.

  Almost.

  Therein lay the draw, perhaps. Whatever lurked in his blood, whether the Viking warrior, the fabled were beast, or fearsome demon, it was undeniable that something sinister and sinful rippled beneath the ducal bearing. Something ferocious and ancient that might have earned him a pagan’s grave upon a day.

  He did not belong in this age of gentility.

  Staring at him now made her think of reincarnation. Had his soul graced these shores before? A thousand years prior, such a man launched from these Norman beaches and invaded England, handing a crown of blood to the bastard who would become a conqueror. A king.

  And here stood the Redmayne progeny. The product of an old and unbroken legacy chock-full of strong warrior sons.

  As Alexandra pressed her hand to her belly, a breath of longing escaped her. His decedents would be hers, as well. In truth, as a scientist, she’d never much given credence to noble bloodlines, even her own. Titles could be granted and taken away. Dynasties rose and fell through the sands of time, some of the greatest families already long forgotten.

  So why did it give her such a strange shiver of pleasure at the thought of bearing such a man’s child?

  That he should choose her to do so.

  Not that he chose her, she reminded herself. Rather the opposite.

  She’d selected him. Out of desperation, at first.

  And now unexpectedly—astonishingly—she’d discovered within her a desire for him to choose her back. Or, perhaps … she merely wanted to be considered worthy.

  Shame had been her companion for so long. So very long. She had to admit it was difficult to hear the whispers about her. To know the ton considered her undeserving to stand as consort to such a man. To such a duke. She was too bookish. Too educated. Too old and unsocial.

  Everything she’d once made peace with, had been proud of, she now questioned.

  She hated that her growing feelings caused her to question herself. Hated even more that he questioned her. Her loyalty. Her word.