Page 129 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

A magnetic awareness tuned the fine hairs on his neck and arms. A charged pull as subtle and as potent as that of the moon on the tides drew him around to find her. On the other side of the bed, tucked between the wardrobe and the wall, Alexandra stared stone-faced and unmoving, her arms around her knees and her gaze fixed on the far wall.

This time, when he said her name, it was in an aching whisper.

She flinched, but didn’t look at him. Not until he made his way around the bed, slowing to attempt a careful approach.

Countless questions and platitudes sprang to his lips, the first of which was:Are you all right?

But he bit down on his lip, refusing to ask the insipid question. Because, of course, she wasn’t all right.

And part of that was his doing.

In a swift but oddly graceful motion, she pushed away from the wall and stood, stepping out to face him. Her back straight and shoulders squared, like a martyr readying to meet her fate. He yearned to help her, to hold her, but wasn’t certain she’d even want him to touch her just now.

The soft blue of an overcast gloaming painted her a paler shade of ivory than he’d ever seen. Tears smudged bruises beneath her eyes and pain etched hollows below her cheekbones. Her lips, swollen with her grief, withhiskisses, glistened as they shook.

Someone had turned her beauty into her tragedy. Despite her simple attire and her serviceable style, she was possessed of a poise and proportions that were eminently desirable.

To look at her was to appreciate something rare and irrevocably flawless. A brilliant, mercurial woman with a smile full of secrets. More of a masterpiece than theMona Lisa.

Lovelier. More seductive.

What made a man think that he could do aught but appreciate such a work of art? What sort of fiend would help himself to her innocence without her consent?

When her pleasure was so radiant, how could anyone stand to cause her pain?

Even though two identical rivers of tears unceasingly flowed down her cheeks, her voice remained steady when she spoke. “I owe you an explanation.”

“Alexandra.” He took a step toward her, and shriveled a little inside when she retreated a step away. “I know.”

The preparatory breath she took shuddered through her entire body. “Let… let me start by apologizing… for—”

“Don’t you dare.” This time he advanced, but curled his fists firmly at his sides to keep from holding her. The effort took more restraint than he credited himself with.

“Iknow,” he repeated. “I know your secret. The one you’ve desperately been trying to hide from me all this time.”

Her breath hitched as she went from pale to gray, then stopped breathing altogether.

“Someone… raped you, didn’t he?”

He said it.

The word he’d been avoiding for what felt likehours. It scraped his throat like shards of glass, leaving his tongue with an acid taste of disgust and regret. But it had to be uttered. To be aired, this secret they had between them.

Her face crumpled first, followed by her body.

She folded over, curling around herself as her legs completely failed her and she sank to the floor in a pool of ivory skirts. Her arms locked around her middle, as though doing so could somehow keep her together. She rocked back and forth as a low, awful sound burst from her mouth. Followed by another, forcing its way through her clenched teeth.

Sobs, he realized, terrible reverberations of anguish. She fought a losing battle against them, doing her best to bite them down. To swallow them. Going so far as to clamp both her hands over her mouth.

But they rose. Like demons they rose, ripping their way out of her and into the night.

Piers dropped along with her, hitting his knees. Reaching, but not touching. Aching, but not speaking. Because language hadn’t yet invented words for this sort of pain, and therefore neither had it words far comfort.

Despite this, or because of it, a miracle happened.

She surged forward, falling into his arms in a storm of tears and pain and a mass of mahogany hair.

He gathered her to him, settling her in his lap right there on the floor, folding over her as she wept and shuddered, sobbed and clung. Her face buried itself against his heart as it broke alongside hers, drenching it with her tears.