Page 44 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

“Evidently.” He glanced around, his mask taking on an almost lifelike cast, half in moonbeams, half in darkness. “Your friend never struck me as the sort to give in to bouts of nerves.”

She retreated one step more. “Yes, well… it’s impossible to decipher anyone’s true nature, is it not? The most charming smile could be cloaking a devious evil, and the bravest countenance can disguise a coward. We all wear something of a mask, don’t we?”

“Indeed.” The bleak note in his reply struck her. “What are you hiding behind yours, I wonder?” He reached out to smooth an errant dove feather.

Alexandra summoned every bit of her will to remain still. “Me? Oh, oodles of secrets, upon my word.”

“Care to share any of them?” He took a step closer, and she a simultaneous one in retreat. Why must he be so bedeviling? Why did his mere presence send her pulse fluttering like a bird trying to escape?

“Isn’t it the nature of secrets not to share?” she challenged.

“You make an excellent point. I’ll leave you to your secrets and ask you to share something else.”

A kiss?she wondered. Alarms in her head warred with a strange and discomfiting clench in her belly.

“A drink.” He motioned to two closed doors across from a high veranda overlooking Torcliff and beyond to where the dark sea met the sparkling horizon. Long sheer drapes fluttered in the breeze like specters in gauzy white robes. Angels or ghosts, depending on one’s perspective.

Alexandra hesitated. The door to which he’d directed her was two doors farther from escape.

And yet, Cecelia and Francesca needed to stay hidden.

“Come and share one drink with me, Lady Alexandra,” he pressed. “We can discuss my future wife, since the two of you are so close.”

She found it was the last thing she wanted to discuss with him.

“You really must call me Dr. Lane,” she said almost tartly.

At this he merely shrugged and lifted one side of his mask with a lopsided sneer. “It’s my castle, I’ll call you whatever I like.”

“And you prefer Lady Alexandra?”

“I find that I do.” He said this as though it had significance.

“Have you made any progress with our attackers from yesterday morning?” She latched on to a change of subject.

His gloves made a sharp sound as his hands curled into fists, and Alexandra worried about how much pain his knuckles must be in after the beating he’d delivered.

“The one I shot is at the morgue, the other in hospital.” His tone denoted more pride than disappointment. “But as soon as he wakes, the authorities will allow me to be present for his interrogation.”

“Wonderful,” she said with a relief she didn’t at all feel.

Approaching a room, Redmayne opened the door, and swept his arm gallantly for her to enter first.

She paused in the doorway, all the blood draining from her face.

Forcing her limbs to move, she gave a weak cry and leaped away, retreating to the far side of the hall.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Alexandra somehow knew that beneath his mask, Redmayne regarded her as though she’d lost her mind.

For a moment, she had.

Because she could not cross the threshold intothatroom.

“Not the study.” She shook her head vehemently, a tremor overtaking her limbs. If she saw his desk, she’d go mad.

“Why ever not?” He peered into what was surely, to him, an innocuous room. “Did you see a spider?”