Page 10 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

The invitation had been equally as ambiguous, stating that the future duchess of Redmayne would be unveiled, as it were, at the ball. Included in Alexandra’s particular envelope was a request for her to attend as a bridesmaid.

The subsequent plea for help from Francesca—Frank—had arrived in a tiny envelope with the Red Rogue seal they’d commissioned some years prior.

Alexandra hadn’t even known Francesca had returned from her romps about the Continent. Last she’d heard, the countess had been in Morocco, doing reconnaissance of some sort. Nothing in her letters had mentioned a suitor. Not a serious one, in any case. Certainly not a duke.

Francesca had a talent for mischief and a tendency to interpret danger as mere adventure.

So, what could possibly frighten her fearless friend?

Marriage, obviously,Alexandra thought with a smirk. A risky venture, to be sure.

And dangerous.

Alexandra smoothed her traveling skirts, whose smart tweed became more worn and forlorn with each passing year.

She should have taken better care of it. She shouldn’t have taken for granted that her father would always be able to buy her another.

The train trundled up to the Maynemouth platform with a series of lurches, sending the man’s briefcase tumbling from the seat beside him. It landed at her feet before sliding half beneath her skirts.

“Sorry, madam,” he said in heavily accented Continental English as he leaned toward her lap, reaching for the briefcase below her. “I’ll just—”

Alexandra surged to her feet, staggering toward the vestibule door. She burst into the narrow hall, stabilizing herself against the dark wood wainscoting as she passed the more judicious travelers who waited until the train came to a complete stop before disembarking.

Could she have acted more absurd?

Yes. And she had, a multitude of times.

She clung to a rail by the door as the train came to a halt, and leaped into the Devon seastorm the moment the porter opened the door.

She’d forget this interaction, she reminded herself as she sought cover beneath the overhang to wait for her luggage. She always did. Embarrassment was nothing compared to safety.

A half hour later, Alexandra nervously chewed her lip as she stood on the platform, lost in a billow of engine steam and sea mist, ready to debark to the infamous Castle Redmayne.

If Cecelia ever arrived.

The coach was supposed to have met her a quarter hour past, but Alexandra might have known her sweet, disorderly friend would be tardy. As good as the woman was with numbers, a concept as simple as time confounded her. Thus, Cecelia forever functioned a half hour behind the rest of the world.

“You got a chaperone, miss?” The endearingly young, knobby-jointed porter with what appeared to be a penciled-on mustache eyed her impertinently. Smythe, his gleaming name badge christened him. “I got to be about me work, see, but I don’t like to be leaving you alone. We’re running like rats wot with all the toffs arriving for thegrand wedding. And… no offense meant, miss, but me mother’s sick, and I’d rather not lose out on the gratuity by standing still.”

By standing next to an impoverished spinster, he didn’t say.

He didn’t have to.

“Of course.” Alexandra didn’t bother to explain that she happened to be one of the bridesmaids in the aforementioned grand wedding. Nor did she inform him of her status as one of the “toffs” to which he referred. It would have been well within her privilege as the daughter of an earl to demand he address her as “my lady” rather than “miss.”

Instead, she gathered a precious ha’penny from the carpetbag she’d acquired in Cairo, and pressed it into the young man’s glove. “Someone will be along to collect me shortly. Thank you.”

She enjoyed a bit of relief when the porter scurried away in search of peerage. Indeed, there were plenty more to be found disembarking the train.

She could attest to that, as she’d been avoiding as many as she could.

In case they’d seen her in second class.

In case they’d heard of her family’s recently reduced circumstances, and felt the need to remark upon their spinster daughter who was now too old, and too clever, to catch a husband.

If they only knew the truth. What would they say then?

It had been heavy carrying one devastating shame around for a decade. She’d underestimated what the weight of a second scandal would do to her.