Page 90 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
If only his hair wouldn’t gleam like ebony pitch beneath the lamplight. If only that one unruly forelock, forever trailing out of place in a most distracting manner, would cease calling her hand to smooth it down.
Or perhaps his jaw should be less bold, less square and unabashedly male. His wintry eyes flashing with fewer storms.
Alexandra had stood in one place for so long, her thoughts agitating as loud as factory machinery, that she only just noticed that the lively chatter in the hotel’s dining room had hushed to a murmur. The guests’ activities and gestures, once as busy as leaves in a sea breeze, died away as the air went still.
Redmayne cast a questioning glance at the quieted crowd, noted the direction of their collective gazes, and found her at the top of the stairs.
Alexandra could hear her own breath rattle about in her chest as he performed a slow, thorough, and very public examination of her.
His expression remained impassive, his eyes shuttered, but the wine in his glass sloshed violently before he abandoned it to the bar and strode toward the stairs with the unmistakable intention of claiming his place at her side.
He conquered rather than climbed the stairs, and Alexandra realized why he’d hidden his gaze. Only depravities lurked there. Wickedness and wanting. She had to look away from the intensity of his regard as he drew nearer.
It was that, or faint.
Her husband stopped two steps below her, took her gloved hand in his and, as was his custom, placed a kiss on her knuckles.
It was as though her gloves were insubstantial. The warmth of his lips suffused her instantly, sending a swarm of hummingbirds alight in her belly.
Her restless eyes lit on Julia by the unlit fireplace, clad in a dress of vibrant violet. Julia frowned up at Dr. Forsythe who, in turn, stared at Alexandra in a manner almost wolfish. Beyond them, she found Jean-Yves lingering at the bar nursing a white wine and watching the spectacle closely. She smiled fondly at him, the almost paterlike pride in his eyes setting her cheeks aglow.
To her chagrin, Redmayne followed the direction of her smile and, having never met Jean-Yves, misinterpreted the object of her delight.
His hand tightened on hers. Not painfully, but, she dared to think, possessively, as he conducted her down the stairs.
Alexandra looked up at him sharply, finding his wintry eyes glaring shards of ice toward Forsythe. He leaned down to her, scandalously close, his breath warm on her ear. “You’ll have to tell me, wife, from whom you acquired that dress… and for whom you are wearing it.”
If only he knew how wrong his suspicions were. If only she knew how to tell him.
I wore it for you.
“My friend Lady Julia Throckmorton lent it me, as I only own the one silvery ballgown and didn’t think to pack it for an archeological dig.” She slid her arm through his, trying not to note the tense muscles contained beneath the jacket. “I thought it nice, to commemorate the occasion.”
“Consider it commemorated,” he muttered, steering them toward the quaint dining room.
“Am I to take it that you approve?” A trill of pleasure warmed her breast.
“You are to take it that every man in this room approves, a bit too much for my liking. I thought it was your practice to hide those away.” He glanced down at her bosoms, his eyes darkening before he dragged his gaze elsewhere.
His frown deepened to a scowl as he caught a young waiter gaping at her with a slack jaw. The maître d’ whipped him in the back of the head with a towel and sent him back to the kitchen with some harsh words in blistering French. That accomplished, he floated toward them on lean legs made for dancing, and flashed a smile made for seduction beneath his precise mustache.
Alexandra liked him immediately.
“Monsieur le duc, madame la duchesse,I have prepared your table as instructed, if you would please follow me.” He bowed one too many times and led them to an intimate corner table on a dais that could very easily have fit a party of four, but boasted two elegant settings beside which a silver five-pointed candelabra glowed.
The corner was constructed of more windows than walls, and even in the darkness of the evening, whitecaps of raucous waves and golden beaches were illuminated by a waxing moon.
“I shall direct you tonight to consider the superb duck confit, coq au vin, or swordfishàla niçoise.” The maître d’ filled glasses of wine to the perfect line without even looking, never breaking solicitous eye contact with Redmayne. If he was affected by the scars, one would never know. “I will allow you to peruse the menu and will return at your convenience.” He bowed and slipped away with little fuss, hovering nearby like a pleasant summer cloud.
“I’m considering pilfering him for our household,” Redmayne remarked. “It is a skilled servant who knows when he is needed, and a masterful one who knows when to disappear.”
Their household?Alexandra bit back a pleased smile.
“It surprises me, my lord, that you requested a table alone,” she observed. “This fete is technically in your honor, and that of your ancestor. I should think a long table would have been more appropriate, so you could converse with others.”
He made a face. “I’ve spent all day conversing with other people, and when those musicians over there start to play, no doubt we’ll be expected to grant dances as we are a duke and duchess. However, I wanted to have—” Helooked at her, started to say something, and then changed his mind. “A meal, at least, all to myself.”
For some ridiculous reason, his surliness evoked a soft, teasing laugh from her chest. “How magnanimous you were with your august person, Your Grace,” she teased, enjoying the flicker of shadow cast in his scars by the candles. “It never before seemed to tax you so, to walk amongst the common plebeians.”
