* * *
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?”