Page 18 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
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 manyageshave 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 youmustknow, 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,DoctorLane?”
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 drenchedhe 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 andrailway agents rushed forward with hearty exclamations, showering her with praise and expressions of concern.
Alexandra caught the sight ofhisretreating 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?”
