How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  The melody filtered up from two flights below, and Alexandra couldn’t decide if it added to the tranquility of the temperate night, or to the eeriness of it.

  She decided she was a terrible watchman—watchwoman? Was there such a thing?—as she found it difficult to keep her eyes from the unnerving suit of armor in the alcove opposite her. Hadn’t the helmet been faced the other way last time she’d marked it?

  “Oh, I’ve found her diary,” Cecelia exclaimed, doing her best to keep her excitement contained within a whisper.

  “And I a family Bible containing the Scottish line of the Ramsays,” said Francesca.

  “Do read quickly,” Alexandra hissed back, wishing she could school the note of desperation out of her plea.

  The lack of rejoinder from inside the chamber suggested they were doing just that.

  Alexandra itched at raw skin beneath her mask of silver silk and white dove feathers, bedecked with tiny crystals, aching to rip it away.

  She’d always hated these sorts of soirees. Masquerades in particular. What was it about a mask that granted an entire room of supposed nobility the permission to behave like debauched tavern revelers?

  They couldn’t possibly imagine that there was any true sort of anonymity.

  And yet, men’s hands grew bolder, venturing where they’d dare not otherwise. Women drank more, flirted shamelessly, even encouraged lascivious behavior.

  To what end? Copulation? What woman would desire a man to do such things to her? To treat her so disgracefully?

  To hurt her so terribly?

  When Redmayne had entered the grand ballroom, she’d understood a little better why he’d select a masquerade for his first reintroduction to society. His black satyr mask covered all but his mouth and the very point of his beard, hiding all but the scar on his lip. It seemed he’d decided to embrace his new tenure as the Terror of Torcliff.

  She couldn’t help but admire his courage.

  Her fingers tightened on the door latch, remembering.

  Until tonight, she’d thought him comprised of all weathered angles and animalistic sinew. But tonight he wore more black than was fashionable and the effect had been stunning. All that unbridled power, now contained in a suit coat, threatened to burst forth at any moment. She’d been astonished to discover the thought compelled her more than it had repelled her.

  Eschewing the convenience of gaslights, he’d had hundreds of candles lit for the occasion, casting a medieval glow over the revelers. They blazed in the chandeliers, and flickered from priceless crystal and silver candelabra on tables laden with delicacies and delectables. Clever little cups at the base of the candles caught any drips of hot wax.

  A fortune in candles. Because a fortune he possessed.

  He’d drifted through the twirling eddies of waltzing couples with feline grace, like a dark ghost who expected no one to notice him.

  Or perhaps a lion who’d known the crowds of lesser creatures would part for him.

  And they did. They all did. How could they not? He stood head and shoulders above most, his titanic size surpassed only by his enigmatic potency. The guests not only parted for him, they danced around him as though he were an ancient pagan god in demand of worship.

  It made a great deal more sense that some of the more superstitious ancients believed certain men could be made into gods. Or that they’d been sired by one.

  Conversely, she supposed, perhaps it made sense that the modern mind, influenced by penny dreadfuls, made a shapeshifting devil of him, instead. England had long since agreed upon one God, but in this unhallowed world, there were still demons aplenty. And since he had such mysterious wounds, and the build of a beast, it wasn’t much of a leap for minds prone to such whimsical imaginings.

  The candlelight had glinted off the dark layers of his hair, still too long and unruly to be strictly proper.

  Alexandra had done her best to disappear behind a potted tree in the corner of the ballroom. Not a wallflower. Wallflowers sat where they hoped to be observed, aching to be danced with. To be romanced.

  She’d fashioned herself a moth in a field of butterflies, and the effect seemed to be working.

  A few times, she fancied she’d caught the gleam of a blue gaze in her direction from the slits in his hellish mask.

  She knew better than to fancy that Redmayne had searched for her, but she’d caught her breath all the same.

  Alexandra didn’t like him in a mask. It covered his exotic cheekbones, and the hint of the playful dimple beneath his close-cropped beard.

  Behind his sinister disguise, no one could read the boyish sparkle in his gaze. They might not notice the suggestive dissonance of his full mouth against such a marble-hard jaw.

  Then they’d misjudge him even more fiercely thus, wouldn’t they?

  For in his dark attire and macabre mask, one could truly imagine he was the Terror of Torcliff, stalking the shadows for his next victim. Something helpless, something delicate and decadent. Like the virgins he claimed to dine upon.

  She’d heard the assembly whisper about him, as he’d stood at the balustrade with Lord Ramsay. A terribly hostile-looking man as dissimilar in looks to Redmayne as he was in reputation.

  Their jaws had a similar set, she supposed. Their mouths the same lush cruelty.

  And their eyes, she’d noted. A wintry blue. The color of the sky after an angry storm.

  “Look at this.” Francesca’s murmur rose in volume, breaking her reverie. “I’ve found where the Cavendish and Ramsay lines intersect.”

  “What does it say?” Alexandra whispered, opening the door a little wider to overhear.

  “Drat.” The book slammed shut, and Alexandra could picture the irritation tightening Francesca’s mouth. “Sir Cassius Ramsay is something like eleventh in line to the earldom. He’d have to murder half the haute ton to bloody get his hands on the Mont Claire title.”

  “His mother…” Cecelia tsked. “What an awful woman. Her diaries seem to be mostly lurid and disgusting accounts of her vast affairs. She delighted in cuckholding her husband. I should not like to read further, but here, the year your family was killed, she mentions nothing of the massacre. In fact, she’s lamenting that her sons are on the Continent, which places them solidly out of the country and—”

  “Wait a minute.” Francesca’s voice became agitated. “I’ve seen this name before. During my previous investigation.”

  “Which name?” Cecelia’s skirts rustled closer to Francesca’s voice.

  “Kenway. Lord Kenway. He’s only second in the line of succession after me—”

  The shadows shifted once again, drawing Alexandra’s notice from the conversation. She slammed the door shut, trapping her friends inside. Squinting into the distance of the hall, she held her breath, certain she’d caught sight of a figure sliding into the darkness between the windows.

  Just as she was about to open the door again, the character emerged into the silver shafts of moonlight cascading from the window nearest her. The sight of his satyr’s mask sent her heart diving toward her stomach in a sickening, desperate attempt to escape.

  “Your Grace!” she gasped, secret and troubling parts of her clenching at his stealthy approach, even as her hand searched for her concealed weapon.

  “Doctor,” he greeted her blithely, though she detected something ominous beneath the calm façade.

  Fidgeting with her mask, she kept her voice loud enough for her friends trapped inside the chamber to overhear. “What are you doing here, Your Grace?”

  “What am I doing here?” He signaled casually to the moonlit hall. “In my wing of the house? The wing I kept dark to dissuade any trespassers?”

  She emitted a shrill sound that was meant to be a laugh but fell absurdly short. “Oh, is that where we are? I didn’t realize … I was just—”

  “Snooping?”

  “Exploring.” She gulped. She knew as well as he did there wasn’t much difference between the two.

  “Well, you
won’t find anything of interest in there.” He gestured to her hand still wrapped around the door latch. “That was my late mother’s chamber.”

  She released the latch as though it had burned her. “Oh? I never met your mother.”

  “Consider yourself fortunate.”

  There was that banked fury again. The one forever lurking beneath the rasp of masculinity. At his rather distressing reply, Alexandra had to attempt three swallows around a dry, paralyzed tongue before she could speak again.

  Her job was to distract him. To draw him away from the door so her friends could escape. And all she wanted to do was to lift the hem of her skirts and flee down the hall back toward the stairs.

  Only one thing stopped her from doing just that. The knowledge that he’d catch her, this predator. She’d not make it past the first window before he pounced on her.

  And God only knew what would happen next, once his instincts had been roused.

  “You have such an impressive collection here.” She adopted an overbright tone, tripping toward the suit of armor gleaming in the moonlight. “Is this sixteenth-century Italian?” She fiddled with a pauldron that had tilted off kilter.

  “Fifteenth-century Burgundian, actually.” He drifted closer to her. Close enough for the scent of whisky, leather oil, and bergamot to entice her to breathe deeply. “But why did I get the feeling you already knew that?”

  The pauldron suddenly came off in her hand.

  “Merde,” she cursed. Partly because of the mistake, and partly because he was right.

  He reached around her, the hard disc of chest brushing her shoulder. She flinched away, and would have dropped the heavy metal armor had he not already grasped it.

  If he noticed, he said nothing. “Cursing in French is so much less offensive, isn’t it?” he stated casually. “Though I rarely find it as satisfying.” He returned the pauldron to its original place, taking care to see it straightened, she noted.

  “Have you seen Lady Francesca?”

  The sound of her friend’s name on his lips knotted a small frown between her brows which she refused to examine. “Not for quite a moment, Your Grace.”

  “Really? When I noted that you’d left together, I was certain I’d find a conclave of you drumming up some sort of mischief.”

  She stepped to the side of him and around, so she was no longer cornered in the alcove. “We most distinctly did not leave together.” They’d made sure of it. Five-minute intervals to the moment. Well, ten for Cecelia.

  He made a sound deep within his throat that could have been disbelief “My mistake. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is? I’d speak to her one last time before the reveal.”

  Panic choked her, and she willed herself to remain calm.

  Did he know? Was he toying with her like a cat was wont to do with a helpless bird? Did he hear them earlier and was merely allowing her to bury the three of them in a grave of lies?

  Don’t bolt, she admonished herself. Stay calm. “Francesca?” That came out as a word, right? Not a squeak? “Where she is? At this moment?” She took one tiny backward step down the hall toward the beckoning light at the top of the stairs. “I—I could not say where she is, though I would wager she’s a bundle of nerves. Situations such as the one we find ourselves in tend to make one anxious, don’t they?”

  “Evidently.” He glanced around, his mask taking on an almost lifelike cast, half in moonbeams, half in darkness. “Your friend never struck me as the sort to give in to bouts of nerves.”

  She retreated one step more. “Yes, well … it’s impossible to decipher anyone’s true nature, is it not? The most charming smile could be cloaking a devious evil, and the bravest countenance can disguise a coward. We all wear something of a mask, don’t we?”

  “Indeed.” The bleak note in his reply struck her. “What are you hiding behind yours, I wonder?” He reached out to smooth an errant dove feather.

  Alexandra summoned every bit of her will to remain still. “Me? Oh, oodles of secrets, upon my word.”

  “Care to share any of them?” He took a step closer, and she a simultaneous one in retreat. Why must he be so bedeviling? Why did his mere presence send her pulse fluttering like a bird trying to escape?

  “Isn’t it the nature of secrets not to share?” she challenged.

  “You make an excellent point. I’ll leave you to your secrets and ask you to share something else.”

  A kiss? she wondered. Alarms in her head warred with a strange and discomfiting clench in her belly.

  “A drink.” He motioned to two closed doors across from a high veranda overlooking Torcliff and beyond to where the dark sea met the sparkling horizon. Long sheer drapes fluttered in the breeze like specters in gauzy white robes. Angels or ghosts, depending on one’s perspective.

  Alexandra hesitated. The door to which he’d directed her was two doors farther from escape.

  And yet, Cecelia and Francesca needed to stay hidden.

  “Come and share one drink with me, Lady Alexandra,” he pressed. “We can discuss my future wife, since the two of you are so close.”

  She found it was the last thing she wanted to discuss with him.

  “You really must call me Dr. Lane,” she said almost tartly.

  At this he merely shrugged and lifted one side of his mask with a lopsided sneer. “It’s my castle, I’ll call you whatever I like.”

  “And you prefer Lady Alexandra?”

  “I find that I do.” He said this as though it had significance.

  “Have you made any progress with our attackers from yesterday morning?” She latched on to a change of subject.

  His gloves made a sharp sound as his hands curled into fists, and Alexandra worried about how much pain his knuckles must be in after the beating he’d delivered.

  “The one I shot is at the morgue, the other in hospital.” His tone denoted more pride than disappointment. “But as soon as he wakes, the authorities will allow me to be present for his interrogation.”

  “Wonderful,” she said with a relief she didn’t at all feel.

  Approaching a room, Redmayne opened the door, and swept his arm gallantly for her to enter first.

  She paused in the doorway, all the blood draining from her face.

  Forcing her limbs to move, she gave a weak cry and leaped away, retreating to the far side of the hall.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alexandra somehow knew that beneath his mask, Redmayne regarded her as though she’d lost her mind.

  For a moment, she had.

  Because she could not cross the threshold into that room.

  “Not the study.” She shook her head vehemently, a tremor overtaking her limbs. If she saw his desk, she’d go mad.

  “Why ever not?” He peered into what was surely, to him, an innocuous room. “Did you see a spider?”

  A spider. “Yes!” she said. No better excuse for hysterics. “Yes, I—think it was a spider.”

  “Well, show it me. If I can save you from two grown gunmen, surely I can vanquish an eight-legged interloper.”

  “I—I’d rather not get close.” She backed farther away, unable to compel her body to cease until a wisp of a curtain caressed the backs of her arms. “Might we tarry outside to the veranda?” At least there, someone could hear her scream.

  “Certainly. I prefer the outdoors to a stuffy room filled with books.” He examined the doorway for errant arachnids. “And to drink?” he asked idly. “Wine? Sherry? Brandy? Port?”

  “No port,” she announced, rather more insistently than she’d meant to.

  At this, he produced an imaginary notebook from his pocket and equally invisible pencil, which he moistened on his tongue. “Emphatic dislike of port,” he pretended to note. “Fear of spiders, studies, and stablemasters, but not snakes, stallions, or scandalously unclad felines.” He looked up as though to consult her. “Anything else?”

  Something about the dramatic patient expectancy behind his demon mask struck her as absur
dly comical and threatened to disarm the clamor of the bells inside her head.

  “We’ve not the time, nor you the imaginary lead to dictate the alphabet of my neuroses,” she lamented wryly.

  “Very well then.” He flipped his invented notebook closed and repocketed it. “Whisky or wine?”

  “Whisky, if you please,” she decided, and hoped for a large, medicinal dose.

  “A gentleman’s drink. I should have known.” Careful to avoid any hiding spiders, he disappeared into the study, leaving the door ajar.

  “You’ve dropped your pencil,” she called after him, unable to help herself. He’d not returned that imaginary object to his pocket.

  “Let the servants try to find it,” he volleyed back, his voice warm and beguiling. “It’ll give them something to do.”

  Despite herself, she indulged in the nervous laugh he elicited.

  He returned with two generous pours of whisky in elegant glasses and didn’t hand one to her until they’d drifted past the curtains onto the balcony.

  Alexandra took a brooding sip, chagrined that they could still see most of the hallway through the uncommonly large windows.

  She brought the whisky to her lips, drinking deeply. A part of her wondered if the flavor of caramel and salt caressing her tongue was part of the whisky, or the man who’d handed it to her.

  “You are worrying about your friend, I think … what with her being coerced into marriage to a brute like me.”

  Alexandra paused mid-sip. She’d not been worried about that at all, she’d been thinking that it felt rather strange and intimate to put her mouth where his fingers had just been.

  “I would … be a liar, Your Grace, if I said I did not fear for Francesca’s future happiness.”

  He watched her with undue interest as she savored the velvet burn of the blend as it slid down her throat and trailed a path of light and fire all the way to her belly.

  “Such a careful, clever woman, you are,” he murmured, turning to consult the moon hanging close as a lantern on such a clear summer’s night. “You are a school friend of Francesca’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about school. De Chardonne, was it?”