How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 5

  Alexandra shifted out of his reach most ungracefully. “No!” She put up a hand to stop him, fully aware how useless it was to try. No world existed in which her feeble strength could be pitted against his in her favor. “No, I—I am quite unharmed. See? No need to concern yourself further.”

  Lord, she couldn’t look at him again. He was simply too big. Too—male. Despite his cultured accent, he didn’t appear at all civilized. Indeed, he could have belonged to the scores of rowdy and robust men her professors had hired to protect them in unknown countries.

  Men she’d spent a decade doing her best to avoid.

  A silent and solemn stare made most anyone uncomfortable enough to flee her presence. It’d worked on everyone from desert marauders to determined matrons with notions of a convenient marriage for their sons. She’d wielded it with some expertise for years now.

  So, why couldn’t she make herself lift her eyes from the mist? Why did the warmth of his skin linger in such a strange fashion? Why did her lungs still refuse to fully inflate?

  Perhaps she did need a doctor.

  “I’m trying to decide if you’re incredibly brave or exceptionally stupid.” His imperious tone broke her stupor.

  Her eyes snapped to his, her fears shoved behind indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What were you thinking trying to control a beast of Mercury’s proportions? You saw what he did to that idiot porter and the lad is half again your size!” His frown deepened the interruption of the scar on his lip.

  “I was thinking poor Smythe might be killed if someone didn’t do something.” Remembering the boy, she turned to where a few men helped him limp away. Smythe’s thin face was one heart-squeezing grimace of pain as he cradled his arm to his chest. Half of his penciled mustache had washed off in the mud, leaving his aching youth exposed.

  “Is he going to be all right?” She took an unconscious step toward the procession.

  “There’s a sawbones not a stone’s throw from the railyard. He’ll set the boy’s shoulder and send him home with morphine. Do you know him?”

  She shook her head, disconcerted to discover the notice she and her companion had garnered from the remaining passengers, workmen, and railway employees. “We’d only just met when he carried my bags, but what does that matter? I still didn’t want to see him hurt … or worse.”

  The man gave her his back, bending to retrieve both her gloves and his. Alexandra resolutely averted her gaze from the trousers stretching across his backside. Had she ever in her life noticed such a thing? Forcing a swallow, she took the opportunity to investigate the condition of her own suit. Mud and whatever other unmentionable slicks of dark grime now soiled her smart white blouse and beige jacket beyond repair. Her skirt had fared better, but only just.

  “Better him than you.”

  His low words froze her hand midair, leaving her coiffure uninvestigated. “I’m sorry?”

  He said nothing, extending his hand to offer the soiled corpses of her gloves. A muscle tic appeared at his hard jaw, causing his third scar, mostly concealed by the black beard, to pulse in time to his ire.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Azure beams of inquisition roamed her from beneath satirical brows. “Though your actions were unduly reckless, that was well done of you. Where did you learn to handle horses?”

  The admiration warming his words prickled irritating awareness across her skin. “A camel herder on the Arabian Peninsula once demonstrated to me that very trick on his own beast. I hadn’t any idea it worked on horses before today.”

  He blinked several times before echoing, “A camel herder…”

  She nodded, the memory animating her. “His tribe could often pack their entire household on a camel’s back. Imagine how devastating such a display of beastly temper would have been in his case.”

  “Devastating.” He repeated slower this time, intently regarding her for a pregnant moment.

  “Of course, his animals were much more properly trained.” She shot a pointed glance to the horse cart, where the beast, Mercury, was now blinded and hobbled between the four mares.

  The man’s lips—why couldn’t she stop glancing at them?—did the opposite of what she’d expected. He wasn’t smiling. But he wasn’t not smiling, either.

  Those lips parted, then paused.

  She likewise hesitated, sensing an as yet unidentified awareness hovering over them like a curious bee. The buzz of silence grew louder the more still they stood.

  Should she make some sort of introduction? They’d already broken the rules of civility by exchanging so many words without a presentation by a third party. However, judging by his broadcloth trousers and mud-stained shirtsleeves, he wasn’t a man who lived by civil rule. Nor by that of nobility. Indeed, he was indolent about his attire. As though he couldn’t be bothered to have dressed properly to go into town.

  He finally broke the silence. “It is … fortunate you’re unharmed, Miss…”

  “Lane. Alexandra Lane.” Her first inclination was to curtsy, but she ultimately decided to do what she’d done with most men of his social standing from students and factory workers in America, to stone masons and professors in Cairo. She offered her sullied hand for a congenial shake. The working class tended to like that sort of greeting nowadays.

  He regarded it as though she’d shoved a rank fish beneath his nose.

  Alexandra faltered. Just who was he to put on airs? No gentleman, certainly. For what gentleman would wear his hair longer than his collar? Or work in public without a vest? Or grow anything more unruly than a trim mustache, scars or no scars?

  Right as she’d decided to retract her offer, she found her hand once again enveloped in warm solid steel.

  He shook twice, the calluses on his palms catching on her skin as his hand slid away. Little shocks rasped at her, as though every insubstantial ridge on his fingertip was electrified with sensation.

  “May I inquire as to your destination, Miss Lane? Or is it Mrs.?” Something smoothed the gravel from his voice, as though he’d poured honey over the shards of stone.

  “D-doctor,” she blurted.

  The muscles about his neck tensed, as he went instantly alert. “I thought you said you didn’t need a doctor.”

  “No, it’s Doctor Lane.”

  His chin rose a few notches. “Women aren’t allowed to practice as physicians in England.”

  As if she weren’t aware. “I earned my degree some time ago at the Sorbonne, if you must know.”

  “Some time ago?” The words seemed to amuse him. “How many ages have passed, I wonder?”

  “That’s of little consequence,” she said crisply, painfully aware her freckles and pert nose still made her appear a few years younger than twenty and eight. “But if you must know, I am a doctor of history. An archeologist, all told, my field of expertise being that of ancient civilizations.”

  “Thus … the camels.” He reached out, trailing a finger down the collar of her traveling suit. “And the tweed.”

  She jerked away. “You are too familiar, sir.”

  His hand remained suspended midair for the briefest of moments before returning to his side.

  “My apologies.” He seemed neither impressed nor censorious. Nor did his apology contain much in the way of penitence. But she had the sense she’d surprised him just as readily as he had shocked her. “As recompense for your troubles on behalf of my beast, I’d be delighted to conduct you to your destination in my coach-and-four. Or are you waiting on someone, Doctor Lane?”

  The undue emphasis on the word grated at her. She glanced again toward the dusty work cart to which the four new equine arrivals were tied. Its shoddy if sturdy construction so incongruous with the handsome and stately coaches awaiting or conducting well-bred wedding guests.

  Coach-and-four? Oh please. Of all the cheek.

  She lifted her chin. “Cecil is tardy but will be along shortly.”

  That’s right, she thought. Best you move along. The
last thing she needed was to be alone with a man so drenched he might as well have been half naked and dripping with as much virility as he did rainwater.

  She had a feeling even the little pistol she kept in her handbag wouldn’t stop a man of his size should he take it into his head to—

  “Just as well.” He jerked his gloves back over his hands, turning the scarred side of his face away from her. “I need to take this beast to Castle Redmayne, where he’ll be taught to behave like a gentleman.”

  Not by this lout, surely.

  “Castle Redmayne? You look after the beasts there?”

  His lip twitched once more, and Alexandra had the errant suspicion a dimple lurked beneath his beard.

  “That I do. I’ve a great many responsibilities there.”

  “Well, don’t let me keep you from them.” Alexandra turned to the road, making a great show of scanning for her conveyance. Her gaze kept blinking back to him, though, just to make sure he’d not surreptitiously moved closer.

  At her dismissal, his eyes went flat, and she thought he might have readied himself to deliver a flippant retort before a little body thrust herself between them.

  Alexandra found herself the prisoner of a five-year-old’s exuberant gratitude.

  “Mummy says to thank you,” she crowed, clutching at Alexandra’s knees through soiled skirts. “You saved us.”

  “Oh, yes, miss!” huffed the woman as she hurried over, her baby clutched to her breast. “I’ve never seen the like in me life. You’re so brave, miss. I can’t thank you enough.” The infant was unexpectedly shoved into Alexandra’s arms. A soft, familiar ache settled with the little bundle against Alexandra’s chest just beneath where the baby rested.

  After the mother’s interruption, more bystanders and railway agents rushed forward with hearty exclamations, showering her with praise and expressions of concern.

  Alexandra caught the sight of his retreating shoulders as he sauntered toward the cart. As though sensing her gaze upon him, he paused, and glanced over his shoulder.

  Even from a distance, the blue of his eyes was striking. Preternaturally so. From so far away, they could almost be white.

  He nodded, and so did she, realizing that she still didn’t know his name.

  “You’ve been saved by the devil, miss.” The mother regarded him from behind wary eyes. “The Terror of Torcliff.”

  “The whom?”

  “Oh, aye.” The woman leaned in conspiratorially. “They say he’s been slashed by a werewolf.”

  Alexandra had to work very hard not to wrinkle her nose. “That sounds rather…” Preposterous. Absurd. Unbelievable. “Rather unlikely, doesn’t it?”

  The woman gave a shrug, stroking the cheek of the baby in Alexandra’s arms. How well it fit there. How tiny and lovely it was. “All’s I know is, since he came back to Castle Redmayne, the mists have been strange.”

  That seized Alexandra’s attention away from the gurgling infant. “Strange how?”

  “Just like this here!” She expanded her arms to encompass the station, only just showing signs of recovery from the ordeal. “An animal knows when a devil is about, me Gran always said. No wonder the horse spooked. Danger lives in these vapors. Devils and demons and the like.”

  “Surely you don’t believe he’s a demon.” Alexandra wasn’t a superstitious woman, but a chill snaked its way through her, lifting every hair on her body.

  The woman shrugged. “Misfortune haunts every black soul who lives in Castle Redmayne. Drives them to all manner of lunacy.” She jerked her chin toward where Alexandra’s savior had disappeared. “And the Terror of Torcliff has known more than his share. The devil’s touched him twice, they say.”

  Alexandra thought of his hands on her. Of the strange sensations they elicited.

  “The Terror of Torcliff,” she whispered. A devil best left alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Piers dragged a towel across his hair and down the ruined side of his face, wiping away chilling rivulets of rain as he leaned against the stable door. All the while, his thoughts lingered on the feminine curves his hands had negotiated only an hour or so prior. On the most arresting figure of an extraordinary woman.

  He’d wrested the blasted stallion into his stall and made certain the animal was given hot mash and a dry blanket.

  Not that the blighter deserved it.

  Alexandra Lane. He grunted out a steaming breath, testing the syllables in his mind as he had a hundred times in the last hundred minutes.

  Alexandra Lane. Sounded more like an address than a bedeviling female.

  One would think, when searching for bone breaks or wounds, that the curve of a hip or the length of a thigh beneath all those skirts wouldn’t make any sort of lasting impression. Especially not to a man so familiar with the female form as he.

  And yet.

  His hand twitched each time he recalled the weight of her own palm against his. He could exactly recollect the flare of her waist. The quirk of her lip. The delicate structure of her, not at all shaped by a corset.

  Just sensible tweed and womanly flesh.

  Alexandra Lane. A confounding dichotomy of iniquity and innocence.

  She’d conversed with camel keepers and successfully acquired a doctorate at the Sorbonne.

  One touch from him, though, and the lady threatened conniptions.

  Not a lady, he corrected himself.

  A doctor.

  The bloody woman had gone to war with his new stallion and won. She’d possibly saved several lives, and had nearly been crushed to death. The moment she’d caught her breath, she’d forgotten to be upset about any of it.

  Fearless.

  But she’d snatched her hand from his as though he’d burned her. She’d been unable to even look at him until he’d rankled her.

  Because he’d terrified her.

  To be fair, he alarmed and disgusted everyone he met, especially before they accustomed themselves to his fairly new and startlingly dreadful appearance. And yet, something about his interaction with the doctor struck an unfamiliar note. A note that lodged in his head like a song that, when finished, would simply start again until it drove one mad.

  He’d frightened her. But …

  She’d shrunk from him, obviously. Evaded his touch. His gaze. But when goaded, she’d met him head-on with clear eyes and condemnation. Going so far as to engage him in conversation.

  He’d spoken more words to Alexandra Lane than he had to anyone in more than a year.

  In their moments together, he’d not detected a trace of true disgust. Fear, but not revulsion.

  In fact, he’d imagined for a brief moment that he’d read admiration in her whisky eyes. The kind of feminine appreciation his looks had entitled him to his entire life before the incident.

  Which made absolutely no fucking sense.

  In his experience, people often reviled what they feared, or vice versa. So, if she wasn’t repulsed by him, why fear him?

  Had he been mistaken? Had he read admiration where none existed?

  Perhaps his physical reaction to her had somehow interfered with his powers of observation, and his speculation was nothing but fanciful tripe.

  A latent yearning for a captivating woman to return his desire.

  Because it had been ages. Or, at least, what seemed like ages.

  Glancing up toward the turrets of Castle Redmayne with frank detestation, he tossed the cloth aside with undue violence.

  It would be ages more. Possibly never.

  Tugging his damp shirt from his trousers, he whipped it down his shoulders, away from the chill bumps blooming on his skin. God’s blood, it was cold. Cold as gray stone and the merciless sea.

  This place. This fucking castle had always been thus, he imagined. Cold. Empty. Miserable. From the moment the Viking, Magnus Redmayne, had mercilessly claimed Torcliff and the surrounding land, up until the current fucking useless lord, it seemed that nothing at all could make this place hospitable.

>   Piers glared out into the unrelenting storm across the vast castle estates and down to the treacherous red cliffs. Maynemouth Moor, where fifes and fishermen had once lived, had lately been renovated into charming cottages and even boasted a seaside resort.

  Where is Dr. Lane resting her head tonight? he idly wondered. In some cozy stone bungalow with an equally erudite man, no doubt. Cecil, did she mention his name was?

  Lucky bugger.

  They probably pored over maps together, speaking animatedly about curious dig sites, and cursed tombs.

  Cecil. He spat on the ground. What a name. Probably wore spectacles and a smart mustache. Likely had a hunchback from bending over texts, soft, scholarly hands and—Piers stroked his beard—and a weak chin. At least he hoped the punter was possessed of a weak chin. Or weak arms, at least.

  Piers pictured them in one of the little homes on the moor hunkered over a well-worn desk using bloody, damned—he didn’t know what—magnifying glasses and cartographer tools or some such.

  Cecil would make a terrible pun. She’d lift her delicate chin and laugh with her entire body, her eyes sparkling with tears of merriment. They’d take dinner. And drinks. Sherry or brandy.

  Piers’s lip curled at the thought, tightening his scar. A painful reminder why a woman like that would rather have academic Cecil over a hard-hearted huntsman like him.

  He kept all the beasts at the accursed Castle Redmayne.

  So, what was it about this storm that made him envisage another destiny? What if he’d been born another man?

  Suddenly that cottage on the cliffs became something else. The man at the table wasn’t good old Cecil.

  Dr. Lane greeted Piers, instead, with enthusiastic kisses and a lively story about a runaway horse. Before unpacking the maps and magnifying glasses, he’d light the golden lanterns and check her properly for bruises. Peel away her soiled kit and bathe the chill from her bones. He’d stretch her out upon a rickety brass bed that made unholy noises and proceed to welcome her home properly.

  After, he’d feed her from his hands and watch her features beam with enthusiasm as she discussed fucking Borneo or wherever she’d returned from.