How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

by Byrne, Kerrigan

Julia stumbled toward her, her entire yellow day dress now an ethereal shade of white. She collapsed into Alexandra’s arms shuddering with irrepressible sobs.

  “Are you hurt?” Alexandra demanded, searching her for injures with unsteady hands.

  “He saved me,” Julia wailed. “Forsythe saved me, and now I cannot find him. Is he dead?”

  Alexandra handed Julia off to an awaiting student. Swamped with a grave sense of foreboding, she tripped back toward the catacombs’ entrance.

  Now an impenetrable wall of stone.

  Men were already digging at the rocks, yelling and creating a line to pull the earth away from the blocked archway.

  Which meant …

  “No.” She lurched faster, attempting to run on legs as steady as a newborn fawn’s.

  Redmayne. He’d have been the last one out. Where was her husband?

  She expected his wide shoulders to melt out of the cloud of settling dust, white as an archangel and just as merciless. He was the Terror of Torcliff. The Amazon hadn’t conquered him, nor had the Nile. He’d tamed jungles and forged across pitiless deserts.

  A simple cave couldn’t possibly defeat him.

  The very thought was categorically impossible.

  Now that the air had become less choked with stone and dirt, Alexandra found Forsythe as he dragged himself out of the rubble looking dazed. The pallid substance caked in his sweat darkened to take on the appearance of dried blood.

  Alexandra helped him to his feet only to shake him. “Where is Redmayne?” she cried, not caring that she sounded just as hysterical as Julia. “Where is my husband?”

  Slowly, as though he had trouble understanding her, Forsythe looked to the man-sized pile of stones at his back. “He … was right behind us. Wasn’t he?”

  “No,” she whispered. Or screamed. “No, no, no. No!”

  Forsythe caught her as she shot past him, gripping at her arms. “Alexandra, don’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  She struggled against his grip. “He is still in there. I have to get him out.”

  Forsythe held fast. “If I know Redmayne, I know he wouldn’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way, not on his account.”

  “You don’t know him. I do. He’s my husband!” She wrenched away from him. “Either get a shovel and help, or get out of my way!”

  She joined the men, grabbing and shoving at a rock she had no hope of budging.

  A gentle hand landed on her shoulder, and she turned with her teeth bared, ready to do battle with anyone who might drag her away from the catacombs.

  Jean-Yves’s concerned gaze didn’t hold the comfort it might once have, but she didn’t have time to dwell on her suspicions about him.

  “I must find him,” she panted, unsure of why her lungs still felt tight, or why her heart might burst open. “I must. He’s my husband. He’s my … husband.”

  Sobs drowned the word she could no longer say. A foreign word only a week ago … Husband. And now, she’d the luxury of one. A good husband. A kind husband. A wounded heart and a generous man. Over the course of eight days, he’d become so much more to her than she’d ever imagined. A mentor. A protector. A knight in tarnished armor. One who rode an unruly, disobedient horse and tamed both predator and prey alike.

  He was supposed to father her children.

  He’d teased her only seconds ago. Twinkled playful blue eyes at her. Dear God, if she never saw those eyes again. If she never … what if he…?

  A little despondent noise escaped her, warning of a deeper hysteria threatening to overflow her barely contained panic.

  “Petite duchesse.” Jean-Yves used the voice one did with the enraged or the infirm as he squeezed her shoulder. “Mon petit oiseau blessé.” My little wounded bird. “Cecelia led me to believe … that is…” His face twisted uncomfortably. “I was not given to think this man, your husband, means anything to you.”

  Alexandra shook her head violently. “I … I can’t lose him, Jean-Yves,” she sobbed. “He brought me to Normandy to be kind. Because he thought I’d find it enjoyable. I can’t be the reason he … Oh, God … He can’t die…”

  Jean-Yves gazed at her with sheer disbelief crinkling the deep groves branching out from his weathered eyes. “This hard man you have only known for days. This duke with a terrible name. You would remain married to him, even after all that has happened to you? You … care for him?”

  “I … I do!” She did. God help her, but she did.

  “Then.” He ripped off his jacket, trading it for a shovel someone was handing to the laborers. “Let us dig.”

  Alexandra let out a grateful sob, snatching a shovel of her own.

  How could she suspect dear Jean-Yves? When he was so good. So steadfast. He always seemed to be there in her darkest hours, this enigmatic Frenchman.

  Digging into the earth for her.

  This time, not to bury a body, but to reclaim one.

  Alexandra pried as many boulders away from the entrance as she could, digging trenches beneath them so larger men could roll them away. She broke her nails clawing at the smaller stones that acted like mortar between the large ones. Eventually the straining and burning in her arms gave way to exhausted trembling. Sweat curled the wisps of hair at her temples, trickled down her back and between her breasts. Stones crushed her toes. Blisters smarted her palms. And still she would not stop digging.

  Not until she reached him.

  Someone called his name. Chanted it. Sobbed it at a frantic decibel that threatened to break her heart. It took her several moments, not to mention the astonished stares of the other laborers, to realize that someone was her.

  Beside her, right in front of where Jean-Yves toiled, a stone, triple the size of any man’s head, shuddered as though a great weight slammed against it. The masculine bellow from behind it was like a beam of sunlight piercing her panicked desolation.

  “Piers?” she called, clawing at the boulder. “Piers, is that you? Answer me. Are you there?”

  The earth muffled his reply, as did the sound of her pulse pounding in her ears, but she was certain he’d barked a surly directive of some sort.

  Swamped by an unholy elation, she ineffectually chipped at the edge of the boulder, hoping to dislodge it, unable to cognate well enough to translate the words being hurled at her in rapid French.

  Jean-Yves seized her, pulling her aside just in time before the boulder gave way and rolled down the mound of smaller stones, bringing a great deal of the blockage with it.

  She called his name once more, this time it escaped as a pathetic moan.

  Frantic, aware of how humiliatingly agitated she was, Alexandra yanked and pulled at rock and debris, aware that someone worked just as frenetically on the other side.

  More so.

  Her husband.

  His voice reached her. Spouting commands at first. And then his tone gentled with a concerned intonation. And still, she couldn’t process the words. Not exactly. All she knew was that she had to get to him.

  Finally, it was as though the rock wall between them disintegrated into dust, the smaller stones clattering down the mound as it gave way beneath their collective need.

  They clawed only at each other then, driving their bodies together with a wild fusion. As though making certain no barrier of any kind could come between them again.

  Alexandra was vaguely aware of a hearty applause. Of voices and cheers and more chaos.

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She heard nothing but the strong, sure beat of his heart beneath her ear. She felt nothing but the molten heat of his skin poured over swells and mounds of steely muscle as he cocooned her in his strength. She didn’t breathe air anymore, but she filled her lungs with his scent, took it deep within herself until he overwhelmed every sense she could think of but for taste.

  And that could come when they were alone.

  She would kiss him. And, dammit, he would kiss her back.

  “Alexandra.” She heard his voice both from his lips an
d from deep in the chest beneath her ear. It calmed her. Soothed the uncharacteristically feverish hysterics threatening to overwhelm her logic. “Are you hurt?” He ran his hands down her arms, and up her back, searching for injury. “Sweet Christ. I couldn’t tell if you’d climbed the stairs in time. I feared you didn’t make it out.”

  “I thought you’d been crushed.” Her voice sounded small and plaintive against the wide planes of his chest.

  Gentle hands pried them apart. Jean-Yves and another worker guided Redmayne to a rock upon which he could sit and catch his breath. Alexandra trailed after them, anxiously taking in every detail.

  He was a mountain of dust and mud. It caked in the thick layers of his hair and even his beard, settling into the shallow grooves of his scars and the slight lines branching from his eyes.

  In all her vast and exotic experiences, he had to be the most beautiful sight she’d ever witnessed.

  He took the water someone offered and swished the dust from his mouth, spitting it onto the earth before taking another swig.

  Alexandra hovered, drinking in the sight of him just as deeply until she noted one of the dirt-caked stains on his thigh was darker than the others caused by sweat.

  She dropped to her knees beside him, reaching for the torn part of his trousers. “Oh, blast, you’re injured!”

  He shrugged. “A rock landed on my leg, but it’s of no consequence.” He brushed a palm over her shoulder and down her elbow. “Did you sustain any injuries? Your hands, they’re raw—”

  “Someone fetch me some water,” she ordered. “I’ll clean the cut and assess—”

  “That’s not necessary, darling.” The patina of dirt caused his piercing eyes to appear otherworldly as they glimmered down at her, containing both censure, and something softer. “It smarts like the devil, but it’s not serious. What I want to know is why you put yourself in harm’s way trying to dig me—”

  “But you’re bleeding!” she interrupted. Nothing else mattered at the moment.

  “Hardly.” He waved a hand over the wound, declaring it inconsequential.

  Alexandra wouldn’t allow herself to be appeased. There was too much dirt caked around the tear in his trousers to tell if the wound was deep or not.

  “Let me see,” she insisted.

  “You’re not a medical doctor,” he reminded her mildly.

  “It might need to be stitched.” She peeled back one side of the torn material. “I’ve stitched a wound bef—”

  He caught both of her trembling hands in his, engulfing them in familiar, rough-skinned warmth. “Leave it, wife,” he crooned gently. “You needn’t upset yourself over me. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself.”

  At that, she surged to her feet, wrenching her hands away from his as she fought to fill her lungs fast enough. “I am calm,” she declared. “I’m the very essence of calm. If I were any calmer, I’d be asleep!”

  Even though he was sitting, he didn’t have to reach up very far to place his palms on either side of her face. “I understand, Alexandra. Being spared a terrible death can set anyone’s nerves on edge—”

  She made a sound of immense frustration at his condescending tone. “That isn’t it. I’ve been nearly missed by death before.”

  “Then…” He frowned, the puzzled lines in his forehead creating cracks in the mud drying there. “I was able to save the bones, you needn’t worry that you lost—”

  “I thought I’d lost you, you enormous Neanderthal!” She knew she sounded shrill, but at this point, she was beyond caring. “Hang the bones! Must you insist on hefting the largest box? Upon turning everything into a competition? You could have left it for … for tomorrow … You could have escorted me out. You … You … You could have died!”

  Dammit, sobs crawled up from her chest and crowded her throat, demanding every part of self-control she had left to grapple them back down again.

  “Come now,” he soothed with a crooked smirk, rubbing a thumb over her cheek. “Would that really have been so bad? You’d be a wealthy widow. Your problems would have been solved.”

  Alexandra’s hand lashed out and connected with his cheek before she’d realized what she’d done.

  In the stunned silence that followed, she seized his face and kissed him brutally. Crushing her mouth to his with enough force to feel his teeth. Hard enough for him to feel her rage and taste her terror.

  That done, she slapped him again.

  Never in the recorded history of mankind had twenty men been so utterly quiet and still for so long.

  Redmayne stared at her, stone-faced and eyes glinting. With what, she couldn’t tell.

  For once in her life, she didn’t care.

  Then, her husband did something she’d never seen him do before.

  He grinned.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It occurred to Piers that he should stay at the dig site. That he should investigate. Especially since no one seemed to be that suspicious. Old caves collapsed all the time; the men shrugged. Perhaps the fortifications hadn’t been as sound as everyone had thought.

  What utter. Fucking. Horseshit.

  He’d seen to the fortifications, himself. Thousand-year-old cathedrals had less structural integrity.

  No. Something had happened. He’d heard it, right before the ceiling had caved in, a different sound had warned him to jump away just in time. Some sort of hiss, and crackle, preceded a pop before the rocks had begun to fall.

  Not an explosion, but he suspected gunpowder or a similar agent.

  The structural engineer wouldn’t return from Le Havre until tomorrow, and it would be folly to attempt to return inside the catacombs without him.

  Besides, it would take a miracle to peel him from Alexandra’s side.

  Now that she might be in danger.

  Now that the dynamic had shifted between them. Their bonds strengthened.

  “Your wife, she loves you.” A medic named Giuseppe had clapped him on the back after washing, stitching, and bandaging his wound. Which hadn’t been as shallow as he’d thought, nor as deep as she’d feared.

  Piers hadn’t wanted to argue with the man.

  His wife didn’t love him. She couldn’t. Not only after a few short days.

  But she cared. She cared more than he’d expected her to.

  It had taken some doing to intimidate her into submitting to an examination in the next tent over. Her hands had been abraded, but what other injuries could she have sustained?

  Trying to rescue him.

  “What makes you think that?” he asked of Giuseppe.

  “Do you not speak of love?” The elder man’s impertinence rankled him, and he cast him a warning glare. He didn’t dare speak, as his blood ran hot. His temper high. And a thousand foul words sprang to his tongue.

  The medic wisely moved on. “It’s quite apparent she is utterly besotted with you.”

  “Because she tried to save my life?”

  The older man had eyed him as though he’d never met a man so dense. “If she didn’t love you, she would not have slapped you twice.”

  Piers had looked away then, so the observant man wouldn’t see his heart glowing through his eyes.

  The medic wasn’t privy to the extraordinary circumstances of their marriage. Nor the extent of their denied passion. Nor the unfeasibility of trust between them.

  However, he’d been right about one thing.

  She’d slapped him twice.

  Because she cared.

  The sting of her palm still lingered on his cheek. And every time he marked it, an absurd smile threatened to engulf his entire face.

  He’d fought it the entire way back to the hotel, unwilling to allow her to see it. She’d be unable to interpret the expression, and he wasn’t ready or willing to discuss it.

  In fact, they didn’t speak much in the carriage, but her hands, more scraped than wounded and thus not warranting bandages, remained firmly tucked within his own.

  When he found the culprit,
the bastard would pay in five times the blood for every single scratch on her perfect skin.

  They sat hip to hip, her head resting on his shoulder. It was as though some polymer or adhesive had grown between them, resisting any separation.

  He barely felt a twinge in his leg as he swept her down from the carriage and mounted the steps into the grand lobby.

  “Your Grace.” The desk clerk called as they passed him, holding out a slim piece of paper. “You’ve a telegram.”

  “Later,” he barked, mounting the first stair.

  He was alive. She was alive. That fact, so often taken for granted, scorched a fire through his veins that he meant to quench with her body.

  Ten days be damned.

  What mattered other than that she cared? That he yearned?

  He’d spend an indecent number of hours bathing her. Bathing with her. All her creamy, sweet skin slick with soap beneath his hands. He could only imagine her slipping her lithe body against, over, and around his. He’d wash every soft and feminine crevice, conducting a thorough examination with his hands, and then his mouth.

  Would she do the same? Would she discover him as she scrubbed the grit from his body? His cock reacted with such violence to the thought, he suppressed a groan and quickened his pace.

  He wanted—no—needed her hands on him. Small, elegant hands. So efficient and competent, used to intricate work and detailed exertion.

  He needed her spread open on the bed beneath him. Wide and bare and without restraint.

  Tonight, he was going to—

  “But—the telegram, it’s from your, Sir Cassius Ramsay,” the desk clerk sheepishly persisted. “Marked urgent. Excessively urgent.”

  Piers gritted his teeth so hard he feared one might have cracked. But he released his wife with a kiss to her grime-streaked forehead. “I’ve sent ahead for a bath to be drawn, and for Constance to undress you.” A privilege he’d burned to claim for himself.

  After her outburst, all the fight had drained out of her. She replied with a docile nod.

  Piers tried not to think of how young she looked. How much like prey she seemed now with her big gentle doe eyes and vulnerable chin that was wont to wobble.