How to Love a Duke in Ten Days by Kerrigan Byrne

Author:Kerrigan Byrne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Tears of longing sprang to Alexandra’s eyes as she read the letter again, and once more. Dear, devoted Cecelia, voluptuous and vigorous and ruthlessly brilliant.

Possessed of the gentlest heart in the empire.

She ran a finger over the bottom of the page where an overlarge inkblot belied Cecelia’s contemplation before the words “unexpected pleasures.”

Her friend had been worried about her wedding night but, ever the supposed vicar’s daughter, was too circumspect to say so.

Unexpected pleasures. Those words could certainly be used in conjunction with her wedding night.

Among others.

“Duchesse,” Jean-Yves prodded. “You are distraught? Your husband, does he hurt you?”

Alexandra grasped his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You may report to your mistress that I am very well,” she said. “My husband has not hurt me in the least.”

Rather, it seemed, she was the one to cause him pain. Enough pain to spill over into anger.

“I must go find him,” she explained.

“Of course.” Pleased, Jean-Yves bowed over her knuckles. “I will be nearby.”

Releasing him with a grateful smile, Alexandra ventured toward the stairs that would take her down to the second-class decks, and perhaps below to where great loads of cargo were being wheeled out in preparation for incomprehensibly large cranes to load them onto the docks.

“Your Grace!” a dim feminine voice called. “Duchess!”

She’d been so distraught by the events of last night, so plagued by nightmares, and dejected at waking up in an empty bed, that she didn’t mark the call as addressing her.

A hand seized her elbow, and she whirled to find Julia Throckmorton, resplendent in a crisp white sailing kit, holding on to her magnificent hat as the wind tried to rip it away from her luxurious curls.

“You little minx!” she crowed as she threw her arms about Alexandra, crushing her breath from her lungs before releasing her abruptly. She motioned to her companions, Lord and Lady Bevelstoke, with wild, excited gestures as she spoke almost too rapidly to follow. “There she stood on the train platform in absolute rags and let me speculate for hours as to the identity of the new duchess and gave not a single clue it was her all along!” Julia elbowed her meaningfully. “How cruel you are to an old and dear friend.”

Alexandra made a pathetic attempt at a winsome smile. Is that what they were, old and dear friends? Or was that how Julia wanted to shape reality now that Alexandra had become a duchess? They’d not conversed for hours on the train platform. It would be kind to speculate that they’d chatted for minutes.

Lord Bevelstoke, a man of superfluous wrinkles and distracting chin waddle for a man in his mere fifties, had made his blustery apologies right before he’d been called upon to walk her down the aisle.

Lady Bevelstoke, however, stepped forward to render her kisses on the cheek as though she were approaching royalty. “How fare your Lord and Lady Bentham, Your Grace?” she asked in her tight, tiny voice. Alexandra had used to quip unkindly with her

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