Maybe, in this pleasant fiction, they’d take their restless spirits and find meaning and fulfillment reading the bones of the dead.
And why not? Let Cecil keep the beasts at Castle Redmayne.
A sheet of brilliant lightning blanketed the sky, reflecting off the turbulent ocean below the cliffs and wiping away the image he’d so preposterously invoked of a life he could never have.
Christ. When did he develop a penchant for revolting sentimentality?
Piers stared into the dark storm long enough for his entire torso to go numb, watching as one by one the cottages at Maynemouth Moor tucked in for the night.
Best he never saw Alexandra Lane again. The strange longings she evoked were both unsettling and bloody dispiriting. He’d a long and terrible retribution to attend to, and then there were the beasts to consider.
Both within and without the castle.
Though maybe he’d keep her in that cottage on the cliff, locked in his mind.
And when he had a moment to himself, he’d visit her there.
* * *
Alexandra combed her fingers through her hair one last time, deciding the fire had dried it well enough.
She glanced around Cecelia’s chamber, gilded with golds and greens and delicate crystal, and thought about the history that haunted these stone walls. Francesca would be lucky to be part of the story this keep would tell, not that she’d care. The countess—soon-to-be duchess—would be more interested in the size of the stables than the state of the tapestries.
Castle Redmayne might have been a drafty old keep, but it was in excellent repair and boasted fireplaces large enough to burn a heretic or two should the need arise.
Pressing her hands to her heated cheeks, Alexandra considered sloughing off her robe to cool down. Her attention snagged on the large ancient shutters resting upon iron hinges which kept the storm at bay. Or would have, once upon a time, before a recent clever duke had sturdy windows installed within the old casements.
She’d rather it be cool inside, so she could keep her layers of clothing on.
She always felt more comfortable in layers.
“I’m going to open a window to let in a bit of fresh air,” Alexandra called to Cecelia, who was finishing her nighttime ablutions in the washroom.
“Capital idea, old fellow!” Cecelia called back, quite clearly cleaning her teeth from the garbled sound of her words.
Alexandra smiled as she padded to the window and undid the latch. Once the great wooden panels had been secured against the wall, she turned the delicate handle to the window glass, and pushed it open.
Poor Cecelia had been racked with guilt over her tardiness, she’d exclaimed a thousand apologies, painfully aware that had she been on time with the carriage, Alexandra might not have had her encounter with the stallion.
Nor with the—
Alexandra’s mouth fell open.
Nor with the stablemaster.
The very one who stood across the gently sloping grounds, outlined in lantern light as he leaned against the wide-open stable doors in a pose most pensive.
The Terror of Torcliff.
She instinctively shifted out of his view, but it became apparent that his focus was not the castle at all but the village past the moors or the black swath of sea beyond.
Of course he was still at the stables. The new horses would have to be padded down for the night and the great stallion checked for wounds caused by his misadventure.
The man’s features were concealed by the distance, the darkness, and the storm, but Alexandra knew immediately it was him. In all her travels, she couldn’t remember meeting a man with his proportions.
Perhaps in effigy, or immortalized in stone or marble, but not in reality.
When she had seen him that afternoon, his dark hair had been slicked back by rainwater, but now it hung about his eyes in jagged tufts, as though he’d mussed it in a futile attempt to keep it dry in such weather.
What did he search for in the distance? Alexandra glanced over to the lovely little village and to the edges of the moor, the golden glow of the town ending in an abrupt horizon at the cliffs. It was an unparalleled vista, but her eyes found their way back to the outline of the man. Had he moved? Could he see her?
Likely not. The light was dim in Cecelia’s rooms, and the windows of the round tower in which they were housed faced more toward the sea than the stables. Had she not been leaning out to open the windowpane, she’d have missed him altogether.
With a few swift and impatient movements, the man jerked his shirt from the waist of his trousers and ripped it from his shoulders and down his arms before discarding it.
Alexandra clapped her hand over her mouth. Then her eyes. Then her mouth again.
Even from across the lawn, the light silhouetted him so clearly, she could make out the distinctive latissimus dorsi flaring with strength across his back. His shoulders—deltoids—rounded and sloped to his neck in a broad, beautiful sweep.
Arrested by the sight, Alexandra didn’t blink until her eyes burned.
Why would he disrobe? To shapeshift, perhaps?
The odd and errant thought shamed and irritated her. Really, what a ludicrous notion. A werewolf indeed. She’d spent a great deal of her life in the company of mummys’ curses, resident demons and devils, superstitions, and gods. She understood the science behind them.
Or the lack thereof.
That such a misconception should reside in her own enlightened empire elicited a sigh for the whole of humanity.
She had seen more than her share of bare masculine torsos. Laborers in Cairo. Tribesmen in sub-Saharan Africa. Even a native on display in America once.
Never had she paid them the least bit of mind. In fact, she’d avoided noticing anything about the male physique beyond their bones.
The dead could do no damage.
The dead … had none of what made a man dangerous. The things that had lent them life had turned to dust. Strength, blood, muscle, flesh.
Sex.
All of it disintegrated, leaving only a story.
But … a man like the one who stood before her detained her notice against her will. Against her fear and her better judgment.
He was built to defy the gods. It seemed impossible that someday he’d be nothing but a pile of bones.
Really, who needed all that superfluous muscle?
A man who rode and trained beasts three times his weight, she supposed.
A hunter.
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut, banishing all speculative thoughts from her unruly mind. Probably the idiot man wrestled a bear or something equally ridiculous. He was the kind likely drawn to chaos and depraved conduct.
Better that she not look. Better she not enjoy what she looked at. Because he was the kind of man who could easily steal from her what she’d fought for years to regain.
Her dignity. Her sanity.
Her body.
“What a magnificent view.” Cecelia’s unexpected voice so close to her ear would have startled a scream from her had her breath not been locked in her chest.
“Yes,” Alexandra wheezed, finding her composure. “Yes, the vista of the sea is incomparable, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I wasn’t at all referring to the landscape.” Cecelia rubbed her spectacles on the sleeve of her gown and replaced them on the bridge of her nose, blinking down in the direction of the stables. “They certainly do breed a different kind of man out here in the bucolic south, don’t they?”
“I’m certain I hadn’t noticed.” Alexandra turned from the casement.
She glanced back at Cecelia just in time to catch her friend’s pitying look. She quickly hid it beneath a dimpled smile just a touch brighter than the moment warranted.
For such a statuesque woman, Cecelia floated when she walked, her dressing gown of shimmering scarlet silk whispering against her feet. “What do you suppose is keeping Frank? I’m dying to see her.”
Alexandra glanced at the
door. “I couldn’t begin to imagine. Her fiancé, perhaps?”
“Fiancé…” Cecelia’s expression of concern deepened. “Doesn’t it feel strange that Frank has never mentioned a betrothal to a duke all this time?”
The thought had occurred to Alexandra more than once. “Perhaps she didn’t know?”
“Perhaps…” Cecelia lowered herself to the edge of a chair opposite the fire, her hair catching the exact color of the dancing flames. “I’m not inclined to think poorly of her but … do you think she simply didn’t say? Because of the vow we took never to marry?”
Alexandra considered it, then shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like Francesca. Of all of us, she’s the one least likely to hold her tongue.”
“True, but we’ve all become rather deft at keeping secrets.”
My fault. The weight under which Alexandra constantly lived compounded with a new heavy stone of guilt. It buckled her knees, collapsing her into the chair opposite Cecelia.
Because their secret was in danger of being a secret no longer, and soon she would have to relay that to her accomplices. She’d been keeping the wolves at bay for ten long years, and now …
Cecelia continued, blissfully unaware of her thoughts. “If Francesca doesn’t want to marry this Redmayne, why not simply call off the betrothal instead of throwing a masquerade and only then imploring our help? She’s trapped somehow. I can feel it.”
Guilt needled Alexandra once more; she had been too lost in her own difficulties of late. She clung to Cecelia’s hand like it was a mooring line in a sea storm. “If she’s in danger, we’ll do whatever it takes to get her out of it, won’t we?” she said with a forced confidence she didn’t exactly feel.
“Always. We’ve conquered bigger demons than that of the Duke of Redmayne.” Ever the shrewd examiner, Cecelia studied her through her spectacles “Alexander, are you all right?”
Are you all right?
It was a question people asked of women who’d survived what she had. Even after all these years. Are you all right?
The answer was categorically … No.
She’d not been all right for longer than a decade. She’d been recovered. Repurposed. She’d been content, if not happy. And accomplished, if not all right.
In truth, ten years had softened the edges of the pain. Had allowed for more sleep and fewer nightmares. Had lessened the trembling and shame and had increased the number of days between the flashes of memory that left her sobbing and scouring her skin in scalding water. Along with a million other allowances and distractions and efforts she made to cultivate a life of purpose and passion, she’d still tended to her loneliness as fervently as she had her friendship with the two extraordinary women she loved most in this world.
Because loneliness was safer than love.
In all, ten years had made her less of a liar every time she smiled and replied to the question with, “Yes, I’m quite all right.”
But tonight, she couldn’t give that answer. Because she wasn’t even approaching all right. And when her friends heard what she had to disclose, they wouldn’t be either. Perhaps now was the time to tell her.
“Cecelia, I’m—”
The door burst open and a streak of red and black fluttered in before it slammed again.
Francesca had never been one for knocking.
“Sweet Christ, am I glad to see you two.” She panted as though she’d run a league.
The burst of energy had driven both Alexandra and Cecelia to their feet, and they rushed to embrace her as she held her arms wide in silent supplication of their support.
“What’s happened, Frank?” they asked in tandem.
Francesca’s emerald eyes glinted with solemnity not at all typical of her character. “I need you to help me find proof that the Duke of Redmayne’s family murdered my parents,” she revealed in a clandestine whisper. “Because if any of them find out who I really am, I might be next.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Alexandra gaped at Francesca in dumbfounded silence.
The Countess of Mont Claire had always been a stranger to gravitas, so to see her porcelain skin stretched so tightly over her tense expression was alarming. She’d been possessed of a lean build since girlhood, but her strong cheekbones cut an even more dramatic angle and the cleft in her chin was more pronounced. Alexandra worried she’d not been eating.
As she clutched at the collar of her black silk robe, Francesca’s countenance whitened to iridescent, setting her russet hair ablaze. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We should sit down for this.” Cecelia took one of her hands, and Alexandra the other, pulling the distressed woman to the gold velvet settee across from the fire. “Would you like tea?”
“I tell you my life may be in danger, and you offer me tea?” Francesca regarded them as though they’d lost their minds.
Unperturbed, Cecelia made certain they were settled before gliding back toward the sideboard and preparing three cups. “Am I to take it that you decline?” She delicately poured the liquid over the tea strainer in each, before reaching for the sugar cubes.
Francesca huffed, then muttered, “Three cubes.”
Cecelia had already plopped three into the first cup, two into Alexandra’s and one into hers. The preparation had been the same for almost fifteen years, now.
She returned to distribute the saucers before settling herself in a graceful flourish, arranging her spectacles just so. “All right. Now let’s do hear what calamity you’ve found yourself embroiled in.”
Once Francesca found herself on the settee in the company of her trusted friends, she lost the bluster in her sails. She curled around her cup of tea like a vagrant would a fire on a winter’s night.
“I’m not even certain where to start.” She exhaled wearily. “I haven’t allowed myself a moment’s sleep the entire three days I’ve been at Castle Redmayne.”
“Why are we here, Frank?” Alexandra asked over a careful sip of the amber liquid. “How is it possible you’re getting married? And to someone you suspect of murder?”
Francesca’s hand began to tremble, and she set her saucer down, untouched. “I didn’t know of the betrothal contract until Redmayne summoned me.”
“Summoned you?” Alexandra couldn’t imagine strong-willed Francesca ever answering anything close to a summons.
“I would have declined,” she admitted. “But I needed a reason to find a way into the castle. How else am I to ascertain if his family was responsible?”
“What makes you think they were?” Cecelia gulped down her cup of tea and poured another.
“Because, when I read the betrothal contract, I found something I couldn’t ignore…”
“Which is?” Alexandra tucked her slippers beneath her, worrying the inside of her lip with her teeth.
“The date the contract was signed, was the very day prior to the massacre at Mont Claire,” Francesca revealed.
Ever skeptical, Alexandra asked, “Have you any other evidence against them? The timing is suspicious but wouldn’t bear water in court.”
Francesca shook her head and let out a heavy, exhausted breath. “Every night, I’ve been scouring the castle, poring over various documents and historical texts, even the diaries and ledgers of the late Duke of Redmayne, and I’d found very little. But then I realized I’d been investigating the wrong Redmayne.”
“Your betrothed, you mean?” Cecelia puzzled, conducting some hasty maths in her head. “He would have been all of … twelve when your family was killed.”
Francesca became more animated, leaning forward to declare, “The mother, Gwyneth. She has a son from a previous marriage, one who was adopted by Redmayne, but could never be his ducal heir. Gwyneth’s first husband was a Scotsman and, as it turns out, in line to inherit the Mont Claire title. I need to not only find out how close he was to inherit, but I’d also need to ascertain malicious intent on her part.”
“Or on the part of the son.” Alexandra placed a chilling puzzl
e piece in place. “Where is he now? And who is he? I suddenly wish I paid more attention to the haute ton.”
Francesca leaned forward conspiratorially. “He sits on the Queen’s Bench as Justice of the High Court.”
Cecelia gasped. “You mean—”
“Yes. The High Court justice rumored to be the empire’s next Lord Chancellor. Sir Cassius Ramsay.”
“I’ve heard of His Worship.” Cecelia made a face and set her tea down as if it had put her off. “He’s said to be all fire and brimstone. Forbidding, merciless, and utterly moralistic.”
Francesca shuddered. “Sounds horrifying.”
Cecelia nodded her agreement. “The Vicar Teague plans to vote for him, if that’s any indication.”
It was all they needed.
“It certainly would help Ramsay’s chances at a chancellorship with the traditionalists if he were to inherit an earldom,” Alexandra ventured.
“It certainly would.” Francesca’s eyes sparkled with spite.
“Which gives him ample motive,” Cecelia said.
Alexandra went to the sideboard and poured them all a spot of brandy, thinking that the news of the night certainly called for something stronger than tea.
And the worst was yet to come. She’d yet to reveal her blackmailer.
Francesca appeared both doubtful and indecisive as she mulled over her problem. “At the time of the massacre, Ramsay would have been seventeen. Almost eighteen. Old enough to commit a murder, but I wouldn’t dare say old enough to instigate such a concentrated effort.”
“The question remains, why, after all this time, would you be summoned to wed his younger brother? Does Redmayne really want to marry you? Or did Ramsay orchestrate the entire thing to lure you here in order to cut the last branch from the Cavendish family tree?”
“There really is no way of knowing until we find evidence.” Cecelia brooded as she finished the plait in her hair. “It was right of you to call us here.”
“And find it, we shall.” Alexandra handed the ladies their brandies and touched the rim of her glass to theirs. “You shan’t be alone until we’ve uncoiled the mystery and discovered the culprit.”
How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 6