Page 67 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

Alexandra hesitated, pressing her fingertips to lips still tingling with sensation from his vital, gentle kisses. Whydidit matter? She wasn’t jealous, was she? Of a woman she loathed and a man she didn’t love? Lord, she’d only known him two days. Only encountered him a handful of times.

And now they were to be married. He would be her husband.

Given her circumstances, her past, any woman might welcome a mistress into their situation to avoid a distasteful act.

And yet…

“I wouldn’t surrender a shawl I was passing fond of to Rose,” she muttered bitterly. “Let alone a husband.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Francesca agreed.

Cecelia lifted her glass. “Hear. Hear.”

A sharp knock surprised Alexandra into gulping her whisky rather than sipping it. She set the glass down on the table, her eyes watering at the burn.

I’ll come find you.

“It’s for me.” She stood, making certain her friends were out of sight of the door before she went to it. She pressed her hand to her belly as though to contain the riot of moths within.

He’d come. And it had only been minutes.

But, as she was well aware, the act could only take minutes, and one needn’t disrobe.

Gathering her courage, she opened the door.

Redmayne’s eyes touched her everywhere, absorbing her features from the dimly lit alcove.

He’d donned his waistcoat and tamed his hair but left his necktie off. There was no way to tell whether or not he’d only just finished an interlude of a physical nature.

“You are not alone.” His voice pulsed with the familiar fury.

Perhaps she’d also identified its source. Rose.

“I’m not alone,” she confirmed.

“Might I speak to you?” He gestured to the empty bartizan alcove. It would afford them a modicum of privacy, at least.

“Of course.”

He didn’t step back to make room for her, and the moment the door closed behind her, Alexandra found herself enfolded against a solid wall of heated steel.

Once, she might have panicked. Or struggled. He didn’twarn her, and she’d not prepared herself for the physical contact.

But as he gathered her against him, one of his large hands pressing against her back and the other cupping her head, she found that her limbs didn’t seize with the familiar instinct to thrash or flee.

A strong, rhythmic thump against her cheek held her in thrall. His heart raced, pounded, and the sound of it hypnotized her, lulled her into a sense of contentment

He held her closer than he had before. With less deference and more desperation, as though he’d been half afraid he’d find her gone.

Breathing deeply, Alexandra searched for a foreign or female scent but found nothing but his distinctive, alluring essence.

She smiled at this. Rose had been drenched in a floral French perfume. Surely if they’d embraced—if they’d been intimate—he’d reek of her.

Indulging in a sigh of relief, Alexandra relaxed against him. She even slid her hands around his ribs to his back, attempting to encircle the great, big whole of him and found it almost impossible.

She burned to know what had happened, but she sensed he needed this. Needed her for another silent moment.

Silence she could give him. Silence she had in spades.