Page 143 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

In his drowsy stupefaction, he almost did.

But the facts immobilized him. She’d left his bed at—he checked his clock—nearly midnight, dressed, and now made her way toward the catacombs alone.

Catacombs he’d meant to scour for clues as to who was trying to kill him.

Mind racing with a million thoughts, suspicions, and subsequent denials, he yanked on trousers, a shirt, a dark jacket, and his boots.

What the veritable fuck was she up to? At this hour, she could only be about one of a few things, and each scenario that filtered through his thoughts was more sinister and offensive than the last.

He’d given her a fortune in cash this morning. Could she possibly be leaving him? Could their mind-altering sex have been nothing more than a grateful fare-thee-well?

Had she meant to abandon him all this time?

A bleak thought sent him reaching for his pistol and tucking his knife into his boot.

She might be meeting someone.

A friend in need? A coconspirator?

A lover?

A growl ripped its way out of his chest. He’d beensocareful, so suspicious.

He sifted through their every interaction since they’d met, searching for a clue, stopping to stare at the bed as his breath sawed in and out of him.

She could have pretended a great many things. Her affection, her story, her kindness.

But not this. A woman’s affectation could falsify her pleasure, but not her body. The trembling. The need. The wide-eyed awe of it. The wet, pulsating releases.

But what of everything else? What about…

I think it’s possible that I love you.

Why would she say that, if she’d meant to leave? If she was meeting another man?

Was it possible she wanted to throw him so completely off course she’d stoop to such a heartless confession?

She’d been a weakness of his since the moment he’d met her. A dazzling, alluring, infuriating,confoundingwoman. One he’d been so desperate to claim as his own.

All this time, could her heart have belonged to another?

He refused to believe it, that she would break him so thoroughly.

Icy fingers of doubt and dread slithered their way around his heart, freezing it, turning it brittle and still.

Women did what they had to do, didn’t they? In lieu ofhonorable duels, lucrative vocations, and socially sanctioned means of survival, they had to find a way to seize their power through any means necessary, didn’t they? They were adrift and prisoners of the social mores of men, and so to get what they wanted, they often stooped to stunning feats of brutal manipulation.

His mother, his former intended, his mistress…

His wife?

He fought the urge to slam out of his rooms, creeping through the hotel and veering toward her path in a steady, silent jog. He took no lantern, accustomed to navigating in the dark, using the sliver of the moon and the swing of the distant lantern as a guide.

His wife had a reason to hate all men. For, no matter how suspicious he became, he couldn’t deny that her trauma had been real.

He’d held her as her heart shattered. Had her sanity gone, as well?

What a brilliant woman he’d married, and hadn’t it been socially and medically acknowledged that there was a fine line between madness and brilliance? Was it possible she was both victim, and mastermind? Could she have married him intending to become his wealthy widow all along, waiting for the final strike until she’d at least a small fortune with which to disappear?