Alexandra put a hand to her belly, where unease mixed with relief. There were situations where a woman could be so desperate, so destitute, she’d be driven to that sort of deceit. The world was a cruel place, even crueler to the helpless.
“Thank God,” she whispered for perhaps the hundredth time. Thank God de Marchand hadn’t sired a child that night. Because, as much as she ached for one now, the evidence so long ago would have been damning.
So, what should she do about today’s disaster?
She’d absolutely choked when faced with her husband’s fury last night.
It wasn’t that she’d forgotten his banked rage, it was just that Redmayne seemed to discard it in her presence. As though he’d forgotten it when she was nearby. He’d treated her with such tender deference. Like she was a treasure he’d uncovered. Something precious.
That was the case no longer, and his rage was currently directed at her.
Exhaustion and despair drove her to the railing of the first-class promenade deck where she did her best to breathe in a few balancing inhales. Stark taupe cliffs lined the shore of Normandy, capped with grasses so lush and green, they reminded her of Devonshire. As a Channel crossing could be concluded in mere hours from Dover to Calais in these large steamships, one from Maynemouth to Le Havre was conducted overnight.
In no time, they’d dock and disembark.
Alexandra was desperate to smooth things over with Redmayne before then.
She’d only have to find him first.
“Duchesse?” The aged Frankish male voice startled her from her reverie, and Alexandra turned to find a short but stout man standing at the rail with her. Beneath his golden traveling hat, his kind chocolate eyes, bracketed by an attractive web of fine lines, threatened to dissolve her composure into a puddle of liquid tears. The man had a timeless quality about his middle age, and the Rogues used to speculate about just how old he might be. A well-worn forty-five or an aged sixty? It was still impossible to tell. He’d barely aged a day in ten years. He’d traded his dirt-smudged gardner’s kit for a smart morning suit more appropriate to his position.
“Jean-Yves,” Alexandra gasped in surprise. “Whatever are you doing on the ship? Is Cecelia with you?” Surely, she’d have more sense than to accompany her, uninvited, to her honeymoon?
“Duchesse, est-ce que vous allez bien?” He ignored her question, placing a careful hand on her elbow, exerting the same pressure as one would on a piece of blown glass.
That question again. Are you all right?
He asked because he’d been there. He’d seen her that night with blood on her gown and her innocence shattered into a million pieces.
He’d helped her cover her crime. To piece her life together. And for that, Alexandra would always be thankful.
“I’m very well,” she answered him in French, accepting the hastily folded letter he held out to her. “It’s good to see you.”
Alexandra avoided his alert, worried gaze as she broke the Red Rogue wax seal and opened the letter. Why she should feel awkward around him, she couldn’t say, but his presence brought too many memories to the surface.
Because he always watched her with the same soft pity as he had since that night in the garden. To him, she was always that helpless girl.
The one she’d tried so hard to leave behind.
Alexander,
I sincerely beg your forgiveness of my presumption, but with all that’s transpired we simply couldn’t bear to think of you alone and so far away. I’ve sent dear Jean-Yves to keep watch over you from a discreet distance. I didn’t tell you because I know you’d refuse, but it was the only way to keep Frank from booking passage on the ship and making a nuisance of herself on your honeymoon. Jean-Yves will be staying at the Hotel Fond du Val along with the others from the dig, and he is at your disposal.
Sir Ramsay has been investigating the gunmen. I’m told he’s not convinced of the intended victim as of yet. Though Frank insists it’s her, I cannot shake this impending premonition she’s utterly mistaken.
Do be careful out there, darling Alexander. Stay close to Redmayne, I feel that he’ll keep you safe.
I hope your travels are wondrous and your honeymoon full of unexpected pleasures.
All my love,
Your devoted Cecil
Tears of longing sprang to Alexandra’s eyes as she read the letter again, and once more. Dear, devoted Cecelia, voluptuous and vigorous and ruthlessly brilliant.
Possessed of the gentlest heart in the empire.
She ran a finger over the bottom of the page where an overlarge inkblot belied Cecelia’s contemplation before the words “unexpected pleasures.”
Her friend had been worried about her wedding night but, ever the supposed vicar’s daughter, was too circumspect to say so.
Unexpected pleasures. Those words could certainly be used in conjunction with her wedding night.
Among others.
“Duchesse,” Jean-Yves prodded. “You are distraught? Your husband, does he hurt you?”
Alexandra grasped his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You may report to your mistress that I am very well,” she said. “My husband has not hurt me in the least.”
Rather, it seemed, she was the one to cause him pain. Enough pain to spill over into anger.
“I must go find him,” she explained.
“Of course.” Pleased, Jean-Yves bowed over her knuckles. “I will be nearby.”
Releasing him with a grateful smile, Alexandra ventured toward the stairs that would take her down to the second-class decks, and perhaps below to where great loads of cargo were being wheeled out in preparation for incomprehensibly large cranes to load them onto the docks.
“Your Grace!” a dim feminine voice called. “Duchess!”
She’d been so distraught by the events of last night, so plagued by nightmares, and dejected at waking up in an empty bed, that she didn’t mark the call as addressing her.
A hand seized her elbow, and she whirled to find Julia Throckmorton, resplendent in a crisp white sailing kit, holding on to her magnificent hat as the wind tried to rip it away from her luxurious curls.
“You little minx!” she crowed as she threw her arms about Alexandra, crushing her breath from her lungs before releasing her abruptly. She motioned to her companions, Lord and Lady Bevelstoke, with wild, excited gestures as she spoke almost too rapidly to follow. “There she stood on the train platform in absolute rags and let me speculate for hours as to the identity of the new duchess and gave not a single clue it was her all along!” Julia elbowed her meaningfully. “How cruel you are to an old and dear friend.”
Alexandra made a pathetic attempt at a winsome smile. Is that what they were, old and dear friends? Or was that how Julia wanted to shape reality now that Alexandra had become a duchess? They’d not conversed for hours on the train platform. It would be kind to speculate that they’d chatted for minutes.
Lord Bevelstoke, a man of superfluous wrinkles and distracting chin waddle for a man in his mere fifties, had made his blustery apologies right before he’d been called upon to walk her down the aisle.
Lady Bevelstoke, however, stepped forward to render her kisses on the cheek as though she were approaching royalty. “How fare your Lord and Lady Bentham, Your Grace?” she asked in her tight, tiny voice. Alexandra had used to quip unkindly with her brother, Andrew, that the woman resembled her precious Pekingese in more than just her looks, but her voice and temperament as well. “I shall call upon your parents upon my return to Hampshire first thing.”
Alexandra offered them a polite nod, feeling as though another attempt to smile at these people would crack her face like ancient pottery. “I’m certain they’d appreciate that, Lady Bevelstoke. If you’ll excuse me, I—”
Julia cut off her anxious attempt at a polite escape. “Off to your honeymoon, I see. Where are you going? I’m desperate to know. Oh, I’ve guessed it. It’s obvious you’ve not had your wedding trousseau yet. Is Redma
yne taking you to that genius seamstress in Rouen? She’d give one of her fingers to drape you, as you could make sackcloth and ashes look couture. You’re such a beauty. That’s where we’re headed before our Continental tour, her shop in Rouen. I could lend you one of my appointments! We’ve added Italy to our schedule, and I needed extra gowns, isn’t that right?”
Her head spinning from the speed of Julia’s conversation, Alexandra glanced down at her simple day dress. It was one of her favorites. A light frock the color of the Egyptian desert at sunset, with sturdy braided cord at the bodice and hem to weight it against the sand and wind. It just barely occurred to her that most of her clothing was more suitable for an archeologist than an aristocrat.
“Actually.” She nudged her chin up a notch. “The duke is conducting me to an archeological dig in Normandy. Redmayne ancestors are thought to be buried there.”
At least, she hoped that was still the plan, if he hadn’t thrown himself overboard in the night rather than honeymoon with her.
“Just where is that mysterious husband of yours?” Julia queried, making a great show of looking around the deck. “I tried and tried to meet you at the masque and the wedding, but the two of you were surrounded by scads of people. With Francesca and Cecelia glued to your side, I couldn’t get close.”
Alexandra found it overwhelming that Julia tended to discuss two or three subjects at once, so she decided to answer her first question.
“His Grace has gone for … coffee,” she lied. “I’m to meet with him soon to disembark.”
Julia threaded her arm through Alexandra’s. “Let’s take a turn about the decks until then, shall we?” Her voice was a suggestion, but the arm locking Alexandra to her side gave no room for a polite extraction. “Pardon us schoolmates for a moment, won’t you, Lord and Lady Bevelstoke?”
The Bevelstokes fell over themselves with solicitous exclamations as Julia led Alexandra across the wide deck and past large and lovely windows toward the aft.
“If you’re going to dig in Seasons-sur-Mer, then you must know Dr. Thomas Forsythe,” Julia exclaimed. “He’s in second class somewhere, headed to the selfsame dig to excavate some godawful thing.”
The name distracted Alexandra momentarily from her distress. “I do know Dr. Forsythe from Cairo.” They’d been friendly some years ago.
“I spied him at the hotel in Maynemouth only yesterday.” Julia leaned in conspiratorially. “He’s a perfect specimen, isn’t he? I’ve always had a weakness for those vital, poetic intellectuals. I’m intent upon making him my lover just as soon as we’re introduced.”
“Julia!” Aghast, Alexandra blinked around, worried someone had overheard.
“Oh, don’t be a prude!” Julia admonished, shaking her arm before directing them to the steps leading toward the lower decks. “What happened to the Alexandra I went to school with? Always reading forbidden novels, drinking spirits, and attending clandestine meetings with Francesca and Cecelia in the middle of the night in trousers. We’re married women now, we can have such conversations.”
Once they’d emerged from the stairs to the shelter deck, an elegant couple bowed to Alexandra and offered their felicitations. She’d couldn’t for the life of her recollect their names or rank, but she did the best she could to be gracious.
She really was going to make a terrible duchess.
Julia lowered her voice as the couple moved on. “Speaking of matrimony, how fared your wedding night?” She made a sound of pure rapture. “Bedded by the Terror of Torcliff? You should hear the talk among the ton. Was that the first time, or have you been lovers for ages?”
Stunned, Alexandra gaped at her. “It was … I … What talk?”
Julia slid her a glance full of mischief. “Oh, you must know that before his—um—disfigurement Redmayne was quite the rogue. Bedded every pretty thing with a title above a baroness until he met Rose. Every available pretty thing, I should say, as he never took married ladies as lovers. More’s the pity.” Her face twisted as though she’d licked a thousand lemons. “What a misfortune you have Rose as a nemesis now, and a relation. She was such a beast at school.
“Anyway.” She moved back to more salacious subjects. “Everyone’s been speculating as to why Redmayne has been living as an absolute monk since he’s been home. And now we know, don’t we? He’s been in love all this time. We all thought it was his vanity, I mean his scars are so ghastly. Don’t they frighten you, or do you merely turn off the lights when he’s—you know?” She lifted her eyebrows.
Dumbfounded and distressed, Alexandra groped for an answer. For a lie. She’d asked him to douse the lights … but it had nothing to do with his scars.
And everything to do with hers.
Tired of waiting for an answer, Julia stopped and jerked her to a halt so abruptly, Alexandra felt her bones clack together. “You’re not … in a family way, are you? You can tell me, I’ll keep your confidence. But I’ll warn you that is the speculation around the ton, that the reason for the astoundingly odd and accelerated circumstances for the wedding was because of a little future duke or lady on the way.”
Alexandra’s lips pressed together, acknowledging that anything she said to this woman had absolutely no chance of remaining a confidence. She was likewise forced to admit she didn’t know what to expect with this marriage, but it certainly hadn’t been that everyone would assume she was pregnant.
“I assure you, I am not in the family way.”
“Oh, look! There is His Grace now, and he’s chatting with Dr. Forsythe, what an excellent coincidence. Come, come!” Julia yanked her toward the portside railing, where Alexandra noted the two men stood, broad backs to the commotion.
The beaches drew nearer, as did long wharves stretching from the lovely port city of Le Havre to accommodate the incoming ships. The men leaned indolently on the rail, watching the cliffs loom in the distance, their rumbled masculine conversation interrupted only by careful sips from their hot tin cups of coffee.
Though every line of his body and deportment bespoke innate power, Redmayne’s attire showed little of his breeding. He’d donned a midnight-blue suit that brought out the brilliant darkness of his hair and the cobalt sheen in the unruly layers imparted by the relentless summer sun reflecting from the sea.
As Redmayne conversed with Forsythe, his manner was polite, engaged, but a hard glint never smoothed out of his gaze. An ever-present alert tension kept the bulk of his shoulders rigid. It was as though he always prepared to spring into action, toward or away from danger.
He never seemed quite civilized, did he? Not even in his wedding suit, come to think of it. He’d the large-boned, barbaric build of the marauding ancestors they were about to examine, and something about that innate savagery caused a strange, not altogether unpleasant flutter under Alexandra’s ribs.
The world beneath her feet felt as though it would give way at any moment, and not because the engines chugged to a halt as the ship prepared to drop anchor.
It was her husband who threatened to tip her world over. The sight of him. The proximity to him.
Memories of the previous night flooded her with an indecent awareness. She ogled as though truly seeing him for the first time, dissecting the parts of him she’d never noticed before.
His lips. Well, she had noticed them, hadn’t she? All along they’d held a particular allure. Capable of imparting the harshest, cruelest words as well as the most delirious, dizzying kisses and heart-melting sentiments. She suddenly longed for them to curl with amusement the way they did when he fought a smile.
His hands. His strong, clever hands were roughened unlike any other aristocrat she’d known. His calluses had abraded her skin with delicate rasps, eliciting goose pimples and shivers of pleasure.
Pleasure. Those hands had taught her the truest meaning of the word. As promised, he’d become her erudite instructor in the ways of her own carnal delight. Her sex had always been a challenge for her. Something to ignore, to avoid. Somehow, he’d laye
red an astonishing bliss over the memory of pain that had owned that area of her person for so long.
And she knew he’d so much more to teach her, so much more she could learn from him.
She absurdly wanted to thank him.
If he’d ever deign to speak with her again.
“Look who I’ve found, Your Grace,” Julia announced boldly, presenting her to her husband.
Redmayne spared Alexandra a wintry glance. “You cannot find what was not missing,”
All the words spoken and unspoken between them hovered in the sea air until they fell at their feet like shards of shattered glass.
Among the mess, Alexandra’s confidence might have been found. Along with her heart.
“Gads, can that be young Dr. Alexandra Lane?” A handsome and robust man kicked his hip away from the railing, abandoning his coffee to offer the approaching ladies a proper greeting. His cream linen suit coat flapped out behind him as he lifted his hand to wave before shielding his eyes against the eastern sun.
“Dr. Forsythe! What an absolute pleasure.” Alexandra couldn’t fight a smile of genuine delight at the sight of his sandy curls and self-effacing smile. She’d only known him a short while in Cairo, but he’d never treated her like a woman. Only an intellectual equal. She’d always appreciated that more than she could express.
“You know better than that.” He accepted her gloved hand in both of his and shook it with winsome enthusiasm. “You may call me Thomas, please, just like before.”
A dark prickle tuned every hair on Alexandra’s body, and she glanced over at her husband in time to catch a black shadow cross his features.
A sharp jerk at her elbow reminded her of her manners. “Thomas, Your Grace, allow me to introduce Lady Julia Throckmorton, a chum from school.”
“Delighted.” Julia reached out delicate hands, dressed in white lace gloves, to receive her due from both men. “Just what are two cultured gentlemen of your caliber doing on the cargo decks, one must wonder?”
Alexandra’s gaze collided with her husband’s, and she feared he’d admit that he’d spent their wedding night away from her.
How to Love a Duke in Ten Days Page 20