Page 19 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

The woman gave a shrug, stroking the cheek of the baby in Alexandra’s arms. How well it fit there. How tiny and lovely it was. “All’s I know is, sincehecame back to Castle Redmayne, the mists have been strange.”

That seized Alexandra’s attention away from the gurgling infant. “Strange how?”

“Just like this here!” She expanded her arms to encompass the station, only just showing signs of recovery from the ordeal. “An animal knows when a devil is about, me Gran always said. No wonder the horse spooked. Danger lives in these vapors. Devils and demons and the like.”

“Surely you don’t believe he’s a demon.” Alexandra wasn’t a superstitious woman, but a chill snaked its way through her, lifting every hair on her body.

The woman shrugged. “Misfortune haunts every blacksoul who lives in Castle Redmayne. Drives them to all manner of lunacy.” She jerked her chin toward where Alexandra’s savior had disappeared. “And the Terror of Torcliff has known more than his share. The devil’s touched him twice, they say.”

Alexandra thought of his hands on her. Of the strange sensations they elicited.

“The Terror of Torcliff,” she whispered. A devil best left alone.

CHAPTERTHREE

Piers dragged a towel across his hair and down the ruined side of his face, wiping away chilling rivulets of rain as he leaned against the stable door. All the while, his thoughts lingered on the feminine curves his hands had negotiated only an hour or so prior. On the most arresting figure of an extraordinary woman.

He’d wrested the blasted stallion into his stall and made certain the animal was given hot mash and a dry blanket.

Not that the blighter deserved it.

Alexandra Lane. He grunted out a steaming breath, testing the syllables in his mind as he had a hundred times in the last hundred minutes.

Alexandra Lane.Sounded more like an address than a bedeviling female.

One would think, when searching for bone breaks or wounds, that the curve of a hip or the length of a thigh beneath all those skirts wouldn’t make any sort of lasting impression. Especially not to a man so familiar with the female form as he.

And yet.

His hand twitched each time he recalled the weight of her own palm against his. He could exactly recollect the flare of her waist. The quirk of her lip. The delicate structure of her, not at all shaped by a corset.

Just sensible tweed and womanly flesh.

Alexandra Lane. A confounding dichotomy of iniquity and innocence.

She’d conversed with camel keepers and successfully acquired a doctorate at the Sorbonne.

One touch from him, though, and the lady threatened conniptions.

Not a lady,he corrected himself.

A doctor.

The bloody woman had gone to war with his new stallion andwon.She’d possibly saved several lives, and had nearly been crushed to death. The moment she’d caught her breath, she’d forgotten to be upset about any of it.

Fearless.

But she’d snatched her hand fromhisas though he’d burned her. She’d been unable to even look at him until he’d rankled her.

Because he’d terrified her.

To be fair, he alarmed and disgusted everyone he met, especially before they accustomed themselves to his fairly new and startlingly dreadful appearance. And yet, something about his interaction with the doctor struck an unfamiliar note. A note that lodged in his head like a song that, when finished, would simply start again until it drove one mad.

He’d frightened her. But…

She’d shrunk from him, obviously. Evaded his touch. His gaze. But when goaded, she’d met him head-on withclear eyes and condemnation. Going so far as to engage him in conversation.

He’d spoken more words to Alexandra Lane than he had to anyone in more than a year.