Those lips parted, then paused.
She likewise hesitated, sensing an as yet unidentified awareness hovering over them like a curious bee. The buzz of silence grew louder the more still they stood.
Should she make some sort of introduction? They’d already broken the rules of civility by exchanging so many words without a presentation by a third party. However, judging by his broadcloth trousers and mud-stained shirtsleeves, he wasn’t a man who lived by civil rule. Nor by that of nobility. Indeed, he was indolent about his attire. As though he couldn’t be bothered to have dressed properly to go into town.
He finally broke the silence. “It is … fortunate you’re unharmed, Miss…”
“Lane. Alexandra Lane.” Her first inclination was to curtsy, but she ultimately decided to do what she’d done with most men of his social standing from students and factory workers in America, to stone masons and professors in Cairo. She offered her sullied hand for a congenial shake. The working class tended to like that sort of greeting nowadays.
He regarded it as though she’d shoved a rank fish beneath his nose.
Alexandra faltered. Just who was he to put on airs? No gentleman, certainly. For what gentleman would wear his hair longer than his collar? Or work in public without a vest? Or grow anything more unruly than a trim mustache, scars or no scars?
Right as she’d decided to retract her offer, she found her hand once again enveloped in warm solid steel.
He shook twice, the calluses on his palms catching on her skin as his hand slid away. Little shocks rasped at her, as though every insubstantial ridge on his fingertip was electrified with sensation.
“May I inquire as to your destination, Miss Lane? Or is it Mrs.?” Something smoothed the gravel from his voice, as though he’d poured honey over the shards of stone.
“D-doctor,” she blurted.
The muscles about his neck tensed, as he went instantly alert. “I thought you said you didn’t need a doctor.”
“No, it’s Doctor Lane.”
His chin rose a few notches. “Women aren’t allowed to practice as physicians in England.”
As if she weren’t aware. “I earned my degree some time ago at the Sorbonne, if you must know.”
“Some time ago?” The words seemed to amuse him. “How many ages have passed, I wonder?”
“That’s of little consequence,” she said crisply, painfully aware her freckles and pert nose still made her appear a few years younger than twenty and eight. “But if you must know, I am a doctor of history. An archeologist, all told, my field of expertise being that of ancient civilizations.”
“Thus … the camels.” He reached out, trailing a finger down the collar of her traveling suit. “And the tweed.”
She jerked away. “You are too familiar, sir.”
His hand remained suspended midair for the briefest of moments before returning to his side.
“My apologies.” He seemed neither impressed nor censorious. Nor did his apology contain much in the way of penitence. But she had the sense she’d surprised him just as readily as he had shocked her. “As recompense for your troubles on behalf of my beast, I’d be delighted to conduct you to your destination in my coach-and-four. Or are you waiting on someone, Doctor Lane?”
The undue emphasis on the word grated at her. She glanced again toward the dusty work cart to which the four new equine arrivals were tied. Its shoddy if sturdy construction so incongruous with the handsome and stately coaches awaiting or conducting well-bred wedding guests.
Coach-and-four? Oh please. Of all the cheek.
She lifted her chin. “Cecil is tardy but will be along shortly.”
That’s right, she thought. Best you move along. The last thing she needed was to be alone with a man so drenched he might as well have been half naked and dripping with as much virility as he did rainwater.
She had a feeling even the little pistol she kept in her handbag wouldn’t stop a man of his size should he take it into his head to—
“Just as well.” He jerked his gloves back over his hands, turning the scarred side of his face away from her. “I need to take this beast to Castle Redmayne, where he’ll be taught to behave like a gentleman.”
Not by this lout, surely.
“Castle Redmayne? You look after the beasts there?”
His lip twitched once more, and Alexandra had the errant suspicion a dimple lurked beneath his beard.
“That I do. I’ve a great many responsibilities there.”
“Well, don’t let me keep you from them.” Alexandra turned to the road, making a great show of scanning for her conveyance. Her gaze kept blinking back to him, though, just to make sure he’d not surreptitiously moved closer.
At her dismissal, his eyes went flat, and she thought he might have readied himself to deliver a flippant retort before a little body thrust herself between them.
Alexandra found herself the prisoner of a five-year-old’s exuberant gratitude.
“Mummy says to thank you,” she crowed, clutching at Alexandra’s knees through soiled skirts. “You saved us.”
“Oh, yes, miss!” huffed the woman as she hurried over, her baby clutched to her breast. “I’ve never seen the like in me life. You’re so brave, miss. I can’t thank you enough.” The infant was unexpectedly shoved into Alexandra’s arms. A soft, familiar ache settled with the little bundle against Alexandra’s chest just beneath where the baby rested.
After the mother’s interruption, more bystanders and railway agents rushed forward with hearty exclamations, showering her with praise and expressions of concern.
Alexandra caught the sight of his retreating shoulders as he sauntered toward the cart. As though sensing her gaze upon him, he paused, and glanced over his shoulder.
Even from a distance, the blue of his eyes was striking. Preternaturally so. From so far away, they could almost be white.
He nodded, and so did she, realizing that she still didn’t know his name.
“You’ve been saved by the devil, miss.” The mother regarded him from behind wary eyes. “The Terror of Torcliff.”
“The whom?”
“Oh, aye.” The woman leaned in conspiratorially. “They say he’s been slashed by a werewolf.”
Alexandra had to work very hard not to wrinkle her nose. “That sounds rather…” Preposterous. Absurd. Unbelievable. “Rather unlikely, doesn’t it?”
The woman gave a shrug, stroking the cheek of the baby in Alexandra’s arms. How well it fit there. How tiny and lovely it was. “All’s I know is, since he came back to Castle Redmayne, the mists have been strange.”
That seized Alexandra’s attention away from the gurgling infant. “Strange how?”
“Just like this here!” She expanded her arms to encompass the station, only just showing signs of recovery from the ordeal. “An animal knows when a devil is about, me Gran always said. No wonder the horse spooked. Danger lives in these vapors. Devils and demons and the like.”
“Surely you don’t believe he’s a demon.” Alexandra wasn’t a superstitious woman, but a chill snaked its way through her, lifting every hair on her body.
The woman shrugged. “Misfortune haunts every black soul who lives in Castle Redmayne. Drives them to all manner of lunacy.” She jerked her chin toward where Alexandra’s savior had disappeared. “And the Terror of Torcliff has known more than his share. The devil’s touched him twice, they say.”