Page 41 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

“One of them might pull through.” Piers made a helpless gesture. “And eventually he’ll be able to move his jaw again.”

His brother shook his head. “I’ll try to have an answer for ye before the wedding. In the meantime, keep yer fiancée and her companions out of trouble.”

Piers was interrupted from a reply as the dowager Duchess of Kent, a great friend of his father’s, engaged him with congratulations and a not-so-subtle interrogation regarding his impending nuptials.

He paid as close attention as he could to the woman, his notice drawn again and again to the corner Alexandra Lane had disappeared around.

When Francesca didn’t return after five minutes, he worried that he should follow her. Could she be in danger, even here at the castle? Would anyone dare to accost her under the nose of the Terror of Torcliff?

He found Miss Teague as she politely returned an empty cup of punch to a footman with a cheery smile beforedrifting toward the same hallway down which his fiancée had disappeared.

Odd. Was she searching for Francesca, as well? He’d assessed Miss Teague to be a canny creature. Should he follow?

Excusing himself from the growing circle of dowagers and matrons flocking to him like a conspiracy of sharp-beaked ravens, he searched once again for Alexandra.

There. She’d finally peeked out from around the corner in which she’d ensconced herself, and was hurrying across the ballroom with no little alacrity.

They were up to something.

Piers made his excuses, and swept down the stairs, intent upon finding out just where the three intrepid redheads were going.

And what trouble they were certain to find.

CHAPTERSEVEN

“Did you find anything?” Alexandra whispered through the small crack in the door.

“It’s easier to search if we don’t have to answer that question every five seconds,” came Francesca’s hissed reply.

“Just…dohurry,” she urged. “I don’t know how much longer our luck will hold.” Alexandra peered down the long stone hall. The shadows of restored tapestries hung in neat rows like windows to another time.

A darker time.

The east wing layout of Castle Redmayne was all wrong for such a caper. Gargantuan windows set into alcoves lined one side of the hallways, and treasures and objets d’art cast unruly shadows onto grand chamber doorways. The shadows occasionally shifted, threatening to snap her nerves strung as tightly as the violin strings currently serenading the ballroom with Strauss.

The melody filtered up from two flights below, andAlexandra couldn’t decide if it added to the tranquility of the temperate night, or to the eeriness of it.

She decided she was a terrible watchman—watchwoman? Was there such a thing?—as she found it difficult to keep her eyes from the unnerving suit of armor in the alcove opposite her. Hadn’t the helmet been faced the other way last time she’d marked it?

“Oh, I’ve found her diary,” Cecelia exclaimed, doing her best to keep her excitement contained within a whisper.

“And I a family Bible containing the Scottish line of the Ramsays,” said Francesca.

“Do read quickly,” Alexandra hissed back, wishing she could school the note of desperation out of her plea.

The lack of rejoinder from inside the chamber suggested they were doing just that.

Alexandra itched at raw skin beneath her mask of silver silk and white dove feathers, bedecked with tiny crystals, aching to rip it away.

She’d always hated these sorts of soirees. Masquerades in particular. What was it about a mask that granted an entire room of supposed nobility the permission to behave like debauched tavern revelers?

They couldn’t possibly imagine that there was any true sort of anonymity.

And yet, men’s hands grew bolder, venturing where they’d dare not otherwise. Women drank more, flirted shamelessly, even encouraged lascivious behavior.

To what end? Copulation? What woman would desire a man to do such things to her? To treat her so disgracefully?

To hurt her so terribly?