Page 9 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days

She’d have to learn to hide who she was. Whohe’dmade her.

A murderess.

God.What if she couldn’t keep such a dark secret?

Anguish overwhelmed her until Cecelia huddled closer, her lips grazing Alexandra’s ear in the dark. “You’ll always be haunted by this night,” she whispered, tinged with agony no one her age should bear. “You’ll forever miss what was taken from you. But your body will heal, Alexander, and you’ll get stronger.”

Francesca pressed her forehead to her temple, kissing at a tear. “Your heart will learn to beat again. Until that happens, I’ll protect you. I promise.”

They’d protect each other, Alexandra fervently swore.

Whatever it took.

CHAPTERONE

Maynemouth, Devonshire, 1890

Ten years later

Alexander,

Accept the invitation to Castle Redmayne.

I’m in danger. I need you.

—Frank

Alexandra Lane had spent the entire train ride from London to Devonshire meticulously pondering those fourteen words for two separate reasons.

The first, she had been unable to stop fretting for Francesca, who tended to give more than the appropriate amount of context. The terse, vague note Alexandra now held was more of a warning than the message contained therein.

The second, she could no longer afford a first-class, private railcar, and had, for the last several tense hours, been forced to share her vestibule face-to-face with a rough-featured, stocky man with shoulders made for labor.

Alone.

He’d attempted polite conversation at first, which she’d rebuffed with equal civility by feigning interest in her correspondence. By now, however, they were both painfully aware she needn’t take four stops to read two letters.

It was terribly rude, she knew. Her carpetbag remained clutched in her fist the entire time, except when her hand would wander into its depths to palm the tiny pistol she always carried. The sounds of the other passengers in adjoining vestibules didn’t make her feel safer, per se.

But she knew they would hear her scream, and that provided some relief.

For a woman who’d spent a great deal of the last ten years in the company of men, she’d thought these painful moments would have relented by now.

Alas, she’d become a mistress of manipulating a situation so, even if she had to endure the company of men without a female companion, there would be more than one man. In the circles she tended to frequent, people behaved when in company.

It had worked thus far.

Alexandra braced herself against the slowing of the train, breathing a silent prayer of relief that they’d finally arrived. She’d been terrified that if she’d glanced up once, she’d be forced into conversation with her unwanted companion.

Rain wept against the coach window, and the shadows of the tears painted macabre little serpents on the conflicting documents in her hands. One, a wedding invitation. The other, Francesca’s alarming note.

A month past, she’d have wagered her entire inheritance against Francesca Cavendish’s being the first of the Red Rogues to capitulate to the bonds of matrimony.

A month past, she’d assumed she’d had an inheritance to wager.

Their little society had seemed destined to live up to the promise they’d once made as young, disenchanted girls to never marry.

Until the invitation to an engagement masquerade—given by the Duke of Redmayne—had arrived the same day of her friend’s cryptic and startling note.