Page 15 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

“Someone will hang for this!” the now familiar voice bellowed, much closer than before.

“Y-yes, you’re—”

“Whereis she?” Fury scalded every word with brimstone heat.

I’m here on the ground,she thought.Or am I lost?

Better to remain beneath the notice of his fury. Better for everyone. Perhaps if she just gave herself to the mist, if she disappeared, all the scandal and sorrow would follow her into the darkness. It wouldn’t touch her loyal friends, nor would it besmirch what little was left of her family name.

Perhaps this was the solution she’d been searching for.

A heroic death.

As she entertained the terrible thought, black boots appeared from the mist, just before tremendous knees landed beside her.

It was the weight of two strong, careful hands roaming her person that finally sent a full breath screaming into her lungs.

“No!” she shrieked.

Or, rather, croaked inaudibly.

“Don’t move.” Rough palms snagged the shoulders and bodice of her herringbone tweed traveling kit as she helplessly drew greedy breaths into her chest. “Not until I know if anything’s been broken.” He exerted gentle pressure on her ribs and, though it was tender, no pain greeted his touch.

Only terror.

And… something else.

Alexandra couldn’t struggle. Her limbs didn’t seem to understand their purpose.

It was her nightmare come to life.

How many times had she battled the dark? A faceless man holding her down, his hands roving her body as her limbs refused to obey her.

Electric shivers coursed through disobedient nerves, returning her strength as unexpectedly as the lightning. She tried to shrink from him, to roll over, and to lash out all at once. The resulting spasm more resembled a seizure than a retreat.

“Someone get a doctor!” he barked, muttering beneath his breath, “And a bloody undertaker.”

“No need.” Her words came more easily now, lent sound by her slowly returning breath. “I’ll live.”

She jerked her ankle from his grip, but he caught it and pressed it back to the ground. “The undertaker is for the conductor after I murder him—I thought I told you not to move.”

“Nothing’s broken.” She kicked her leg as though his hand were a bug she intended to shake off her skirts. “I don’t need a doctor. Kindly unhand my ankle.”

To her astonishment, he complied, returning to bend over her. Loom over her, more like, a swarthy, sinister shock of a man rising from the mists.

The rain had soaked through his shirtsleeves—which must have been white at one time or another—rendering it iridescent, if not obsolete.

Beneath, he’d the chiseled-marble build of a Greek hero, and the features of a Greek tragedy. Shoulders and arms to impress Atlas. A torso to rival the statue of Ares she’d once admired in Hadrian’s Villa.

And all the unhallowed malice Hades could summon.

Such scars.

It would be easy to imagine the gods, ever unduly punitive to a mortal who dare challenge their strength or beauty, had sent a creature to rake demonic claws across features so flawless.

“Can you breathe normally?” he demanded. “How do you feel?” The questions might have been gentle if they’d hailed from a chest with a less barbaric depth.

“I feel… erm…” Howdidshe feel? What did she feel? “I feel as though I’ve been crushed by a horse.” She wheezed a vague attempt at levity. “But I can breathe fine and am more bruised than broken.”