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 and won. 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 from his as 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 with clear 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.
In their moments together, he’d not detected a trace of true disgust. Fear, but not revulsion.
In fact, he’d imagined for a brief moment that he’d read admiration in her whisky eyes. The kind of feminine appreciation his looks had entitled him to his entire life before the incident.
Which made absolutely no fucking sense.
In his experience, people often reviled what they feared, or vice versa. So, if she wasn’t repulsed by him, why fear him?
Had he been mistaken? Had he read admiration where none existed?
Perhaps his physical reaction to her had somehow interfered with his powers of observation, and his speculation was nothing but fanciful tripe.
A latent yearning for a captivating woman to return his desire.
Because it had been ages. Or, at least, what seemed like ages.
Glancing up toward the turrets of Castle Redmayne with frank detestation, he tossed the cloth aside with undue violence.
It would be ages more. Possibly never.
Tugging his damp shirt from his trousers, he whipped it down his shoulders, away from the chill bumps blooming on his skin. God’s blood, it was cold. Cold as gray stone and the merciless sea.
This place. This fucking castle had always been thus, he imagined. Cold. Empty. Miserable. From the moment the Viking, Magnus Redmayne, had mercilessly claimed Torcliff and the surrounding land, up until the current fucking useless lord, it seemed that nothing at all could make this place hospitable.
Piers glared out into the unrelenting storm across the vast castle estates and down to the treacherous red cliffs. Maynemouth Moor, where fifes and fishermen had once lived, had lately been renovated into charming cottages and even boasted a seaside resort.
Where is Dr. Lane resting her head tonight? he idly wondered. In some cozy stone bungalow with an equally erudite man, no doubt. Cecil, did she mention his name was?
Lucky bugger.
They probably pored over maps together, speaking animatedly about curious dig sites, and cursed tombs.
Cecil. He spat on the ground. What a name. Probably wore spectacles and a smart mustache. Likely had a hunchback from bending over texts, soft, scholarly hands and—Piers stroked his beard—and a weak chin. At least he hoped the punter was possessed of a weak chin. Or weak arms, at least.
Piers pictured them in one of the little homes on the moor hunkered over a well-worn desk using bloody, damned—he didn’t know what—magnifying glasses and cartographer tools or some such.
Cecil would make a terrible pun. She’d lift her delicate chin and laugh with her entire body, her eyes sparkling with tears of merriment. They’d take dinner. And drinks. Sherry or brandy.
Piers’s lip curled at the thought, tightening his scar. A painful reminder why a woman like that would rather have academic Cecil over a hard-hearted huntsman like him.
He kept all the beasts at the accursed Castle Redmayne.
So, what was it about this storm that made him envisage another destiny? What if he’d been born another man?
Suddenly that cottage on the cliffs became something else. The man at the table wasn’t good old Cecil.
Dr. Lane greeted Piers, instead, with enthusiastic kisses and a lively story about a runaway horse. Before unpacking the maps and magnifying glasses, he’d light the golden lanterns and check her properly for bruises. Peel away her soiled kit and bathe the chill from her bones. He’d stretch her out upon a rickety brass bed that made unholy noises and proceed to welcome her home properly.
After, he’d feed her from his hands and watch her features beam with enthusiasm as she discussed fucking Borneo or wherever she’d returned from.
Maybe, in this pleasant fiction, they’d take their restless spirits and find meaning and fulfillment reading the bones of the dead.
And why not? Let Cecil keep the beasts at Castle Redmayne.
A sheet of brilliant lightning blanketed the sky, reflecting off the turbulent ocean below the cliffs and wiping away the image he’d so preposterously invoked of a life he could never have.
Christ. When did he develop a penchant for revolting sentimentality?
Piers stared into the dark storm long enough for his entire torso to go numb, watching as one by one the cottages at Maynemouth Moor tucked in for the night.
Best he never saw Alexandra Lane again. The strange longings she evoked were both unsettling and bloody dispiriting. He’d a long and terrible retribution to attend to, and then there were the beasts to consider.
Both within and without the castle.
Though maybe he’d keep her in that cottage on the cliff, locked in his mind.
And when he had a moment to himself, he’d visit her there.
Alexandra combed her fingers through her hair one last time, deciding the fire had dried it well enough.
She glanced around Cecelia’s chamber, gilded with golds and greens and delicate crystal, and thought about the history that haunted these stone walls. Francesca would be lucky to be part of the story this keep would tell, not that she’d care. The countess—soon-to-be duchess—would be more interested in the size of the stables than the state of the tapestries.
Castle Redmayne might have been a drafty old keep, but it was in excellent repair and boasted fireplaces large enough to burn a heretic or two should the need arise.
Pressing her hands to her heated cheeks, Alexandra considered sloughing off her robe to cool down. Her attention snagged on the large ancient shutters resting upon iron hinges which kept the storm at bay. Or would have, once upon a time, before a recent clever duke had sturdy windows installed within the old casements.
She’d rather it be cool inside, so she could keep her layers of clothing on.
She always felt more comfortable in layers.
“I’m going to open a window to let in a bit of fresh air,” Alexandra called to Cecelia, who was finishing her nighttime ablutions in the washroom.
“Capital idea, old fellow!” Cecelia called back, quite clearly cleaning her teeth from the garbled sound of her words.
Alexandra smiled as she padded to the window and undid the latch. Once the great wooden panels had been secured against the wall, she turned the delicate handle to the window glass, and pushed it open.
Poor Cecelia had been racked with guilt over her tardiness, she’d exclaimed a thousand apologies, painfully aware that had she been on time with the carriage, Alexandra might not have had her encounter with the stallion.
Nor with the—
Alexandra’s mouth fell open.
Nor with the stablemaster.
The very one who stood across the gently sloping grounds, outlined in lantern light as he leaned against the wide-open stable doors in a pose most pensive.
The Terror of Torcliff.
She instinctively shifted out of his view, but it became apparent that his focus was not the castle at all but the village past the moors or the black swath of sea beyond.
Of course he was still at the stables. The new horses would have to be padded down for the night and the great stallion checked for wounds caused by his misadventure.
The man’s features were concealed by the distance, the darkness, and the storm, but Alexandra knew immediately it was him. In all her travels, she couldn’t remember meeting a man with his proportions.
Perhaps in effigy, or immortalized in stone or marble, but not in reality.
When she had seen him that afternoon, his dark hair had been slicked back by rainwater, but now it hung about his eyes in jagged tufts, as though he’d mussed it in a futile attempt to keep it dry in such weather.
What did he search for in the distance? Alexandra glanced over to the lovely little village and to the edges of the moor, the golden glow of the town ending in an abrupt horizon at the cliffs. It was an unparalleled vista, but her eyes found their way back to the outline of the man. Had he moved? Could he see her?
Likely not. The light was dim in Cecelia’s rooms, and the windows of the round tower in which they were housed faced more toward the sea than the stables. Had she not been leaning out to open the windowpane, she’d have missed him altogether.
With a few swift and impatient movements, the man jerked his shirt from the waist of his trousers and ripped it from his shoulders and down his arms before discarding it.
Alexandra clapped her hand over her mouth. Then her eyes. Then her mouth again.
Even from across the lawn, the light silhouetted him so clearly, she could make out the distinctive latissimus dorsi flaring with strength across his back. His shoulders—deltoids—rounded and sloped to his neck in a broad, beautiful sweep.
Arrested by the sight, Alexandra didn’t blink until her eyes burned.
Why would he disrobe? To shapeshift, perhaps?
The odd and errant thought shamed and irritated her. Really, what a ludicrous notion. A werewolf indeed. She’d spent a great deal of her life in the company of mummys’ curses, resident demons and devils, superstitions, and gods. She understood the science behind them.
Or the lack thereof.
That such a misconception should reside in her own enlightened empire elicited a sigh for the whole of humanity.
She had seen more than her share of bare masculine torsos. Laborers in Cairo. Tribesmen in sub-Saharan Africa. Even a native on display in America once.
Never had she paid them the least bit of mind. In fact, she’d avoided noticing anything about the male physique beyond their bones.
The dead could do no damage.
The dead … had none of what made a man dangerous. The things that had lent them life had turned to dust. Strength, blood, muscle, flesh.
Sex.
All of it disintegrated, leaving only a story.
But … a man like the one who stood before her detained her notice against her will. Against her fear and her better judgment.
He was built to defy the gods. It seemed impossible that someday he’d be nothing but a pile of bones.
Really, who needed all that superfluous muscle?
A man who rode and trained beasts three times his weight, she supposed.
A hunter.
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut, banishing all speculative thoughts from her unruly mind. Probably the idiot man wrestled a bear or something equally ridiculous. He was the kind likely drawn to chaos and depraved conduct.
Better that she not look. Better she not enjoy what she looked at. Because he was the kind of man who could easily steal from her what she’d fought for years to regain.
Her dignity. Her sanity.
Her body.
“What a magnificent view.” Cecelia’s unexpected voice so close to her ear would have startled a scream from her had her breath not been locked in her chest.
“Yes,” Alexandra wheezed, finding her composure. “Yes, the vista of the sea is incomparable, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I wasn’t at all referring to the landscape.” Cecelia rubbed her spectacles on the sleeve of her gown and replaced them on the bridge of her nose, blinking down in the direction of the stables. “They certainly do breed a different kind of man out here in the bucolic south, don’t they?”
“I’m certain I hadn’t noticed.” Alexandra turned from the casement.
She glanced back at Cecelia just in time to catch her friend’s pitying look. She quickly hid it beneath a dimpled smile just a touch brighter than the moment warranted.
For such a statuesque woman, Cecelia floated when she walked, her dressing gown of shimmering scarlet silk whispering against her feet. “What do you suppose is keeping Frank? I’m dying to see her.”
Alexandra glanced at the door. “I couldn’t begin to imagine. Her fiancé, perhaps?”
“Fiancé…” Cecelia’s expression of concern deepened. “Doesn’t it feel strange that Frank has never mentioned a betrothal to a duke all this time?”
The thought had occurred to Alexandra more than once. “Perhaps she didn’t know?”
“Perhaps…” Cecelia lowered herself to the edge of a chair opposite the fire, her hair catching the exact color of the dancing flames. “I’m not inclined to think poorly of her but … do you think she simply didn’t say? Because of the vow we took never to marry?”
Alexandra considered it, then shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like Francesca. Of all of us, she’s the one least likely to hold her tongue.”
“True, but we’ve all become rather deft at keeping secrets.”
My fault. The weight under which Alexandra constantly lived compounded with a new heavy stone of guilt. It buckled her knees, collapsing her into the chair opposite Cecelia.
Because their secret was in danger of being a secret no longer, and soon she would have to relay that to her accomplices. She’d been keeping the wolves at bay for ten long years, and now …
Cecelia continued, blissfully unaware of her thoughts. “If Francesca doesn’t want to marry this Redmayne, why not simply call off the betrothal instead of throwing a masquerade and only then imploring our help? She’s trapped somehow. I can feel it.”
Guilt needled Alexandra once more; she had been too lost in her own difficulties of late. She clung to Cecelia’s hand like it was a mooring line in a sea storm. “If she’s in danger, we’ll do whatever it takes to get her out of it, won’t we?” she said with a forced confidence she didn’t exactly feel.
“Always. We’ve conquered bigger demons than that of the Duke of Redmayne.” Ever the shrewd examiner, Cecelia studied her through her spectacles “Alexander, are you all right?”
Are you all right?
It was a question people asked of women who’d survived what she had. Even after all these years. Are you all right?
The answer was categorically … No.
She’d not been all right for longer than a decade. She’d been recovered. Repurposed. She’d been content, if not happy. And accomplished, if not all right.
In truth, ten years had softened the edges of the pain. Had allowed for more sleep and fewer nightmares. Had lessened the trembling and shame and had increased the number of days between the flashes of memory that left her sobbing and scouring her skin in scalding water. Along with a million other allowances and distractions and efforts she made to cultivate a life of purpose and passion, she’d still tended to her loneliness as fervently as she had her friendship with the two extraordinary women she loved most in this world.
Because loneliness was safer than love.
In all, ten years had made her less of a liar every time she smiled and replied to the question with, “Yes, I’m quite all right.”
But tonight, she couldn’t give that answer. Because she wasn’t even approaching all right. And when her friends heard what she had to disclose, they wouldn’t be either. Perhaps now was the time to tell her.
“Cecelia, I’m—”
The door burst open and a streak of red and black fluttered in before it slammed again.
Francesca had never been one for knocking.
“Sweet Christ, am I glad to see you two.” She panted as though she’d run a league.
The burst of energy had driven both Alexandra and Cecelia to their feet, and they rushed to embrace her as she held her arms wide in silent supplication of their support.
“What’s happened, Frank?” they asked in tandem.
Francesca’s emerald eyes glinted with solemnity not at all typical of her character. “I need you to help me find proof that the Duke of Redmayne’s family murdered my parents,” she revealed in a clandestine whisper. “Because if any of them find out who I really am, I might be next.”