Page 80 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
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 toCalais 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.
