Surprised at Egan’s command of Nvengarian, Damien had agreed, and they’d adjourned to a tavern. Egan had then told Damien an extraordinary story. While wandering the wilds of Europe some years before, he’d been waylaid by robbers, beaten, and left for dead by the side of the road. He admitted he was drunk and had little wherewithal to fight. He would have died, but for the kindness of a Nvengarian girl named Zarabeth, who had found him and convinced her mother and father to take him home with them. The family had nursed him back to health—“sobered me up,” he said—and he’d stayed with them until he healed.
The girl, Zarabeth, turned out to be Damien’s distant cousin.
Egan and Damien had become friends over the tale and the brandy. Damien liked finding a European who was neither fascinated nor awed by the fact that he was a Nvengarian prince. Egan, though son of a Scottish laird himself, had an easy way about him and cared nothing for a man’s rank, only his worth. This philosophy did not make him particularly popular with snobbish courtiers, but Damien enjoyed his egalitarian ways and found his good humor infectious. Egan could also let his brogue ebb and flow—when he found an Englishman annoying, Egan’s accent became so thick it could barely be deciphered, but in the next instant, he could speak in the clipped, clear tones of any high-born Englishman. The brogue slipped in again when he was drunk or angry, but when sober, he had the ability to turn it on and off at will.
Whereas Damien had acquired a reputation as a charming seducer, Egan had acquired one for being wild and reckless. He made love to women with the same enthusiasm that he lost thousands on a roll of dice or proposed duels to defend a lady’s honor. He won at cards with the same recklessness, and would be one day flush with money, the next day destitute. He cared nothing for either state, living through it all with high good humor and an indifference that Damien admired.
Egan had commanded his troops on the Peninsula with careful efficiency. “Fine for me to walk the edge of the cliff,” he’d say in explanation, “but not for me to drag a hundred men with me.” He’d taken care of his lads so well that soldiers far and wide nearly worshipped him. They lauded his bravery and his wisdom and his ability to use gutter language like the lowest of them.
Even the French he’d defeated had known of Egan Mc-Donald, the Mad Highlander, and vied to introduce themselves to him when he captured them. In London, former soldiers inevitably came up to him in the street to shake his hand. “Now that’s a real officer,” they’d say to their companions.
Egan took his celebrity like he took anything else, with a shrug and good-natured indifference.
Even with Egan’s easy friendliness, however, Damien sensed he’d never gotten to know the true man. Egan kept something buried within him that he showed no one. It swam to the surface sometimes when Damien and he talked about Nvengaria, but just when Damien thought he’d at last broken through the Mad Highlander facade, Egan would change the subject.
Damien saw a glimpse of the real Egan now as Egan asked, “And how is your wee cousin Zarabeth? Remember me to her, and tell her I am bad at writing letters.”
“My ‘wee’ cousin is a grown woman and married to a duke. One of the damned Council.”
Egan stopped, his mouth opening. He looked almost comical in his surprise. “Married?”
“Three years now. An arrangement between her parents and his family. I do not like the man, but I was not there to prevent it, unfortunately.”
“But good lord, she’s just a bit of a thing. She can’t be after being married yet.”
“She is, I believe, twenty-two.”
Egan’s brows furrowed as though trying to reconcile the loss of time. “You say you don’t like him?”
“No, but no need to bring your claymore. He has given her a huge estate of her own and plenty of money and jewels. She is the toast of the town, much admired by one and all.”
His harsh face took on a faraway expression. “Little Zarabeth. She was always so quiet and kind.”
“Quiet? Zarabeth? She was a wild hellion. But tenderhearted.”
“She was kind to me.” Egan stopped and pulled his face back into its usual carefree lines. “Does she ever mention me?”
Damien shook his head. “I’ve not had opportunity to speak with her much of late.”
“Damn,” Egan said softly. He stood a moment, lost in thought, then seemed to remember their present situation. He straightened up and clapped Damien on the shoulder. “Come on, old man. Time for you to lose your freedom.”
The moved together toward the ballroom. “I take it you have never thought of marrying?” Damien asked, although he knew the answer already. Egan had very strong ideas about marriage—the English expression was “over my dead body.”
“Not me,” Egan replied fervently. “A carefree bachelor to the end of my days.”
“You might change your mind when you see my lady. But if you do, remember she is already taken, and that I am a dead shot.”
“No fear,” said Egan, then they entered the ballroom, and the Highlander’s words died on his lips.
Damien wanted to stop in stunned admiration as well. He had not much paid attention to the London seamstresses who had swarmed the house, but now he saw the results of their labors.
Penelope was resplendent in a gown of cream silk that gathered under her breasts and fell in a smooth line to the floor. Seed pearls decorated the bodice, which bared a hint of bosom. Lace draped her upper arms, leaving her lower arms bare. Her honey-colored hair was gathered in ropy curls and wound about her head. Pearls glistened against her locks, and a single curl artfully escaped and dangled to her shoulder.
At least a hundred people stood in the room, most between her and him, and yet, her gaze went immediately to him and stayed there. Her red lips, lush and ripe, parted as he approached.
The guests moved aside for him, growing silent as he crossed the room, like a breeze rippling through wheat. He never noticed them. He saw only Penelope and her gold-green eyes and her sweet body in its glorious dress that he wanted to rip from her body.
Sasha stood next to Penelope, waiting like a father about to give away the bride. He smiled benevolently as Damien stopped before Penelope.
Damien looked down at her, scarcely able to believe that in the space of a few minutes, he would be betrothed to this incredible young woman. He felt the corners of his mouth pulling upward in a grin. Penelope, on the other hand, did not smile. She watched him, her eyes shining—with tears of joy? he wondered.
“Honored guests,” Sasha said. “Let us begin.”
Every person in the room had already riveted attention on Penelope and Damien. Sasha beckoned to Petri, who stepped forward bearing a tray. On the tray lay a small, clean, sharp knife and a piece of rope. That was all. Penelope’s brows twitched as she regarded the tray; they had not told her beforehand what the ritual would entail.
It would be barbaric, as all things Nvengarian were—barbarism covered with a thin veil of civilized behavior. But then, Damien had once witnessed the marriage ceremony for the English. The woman promised to submit herself body and soul to her husband, something no Nvengarian woman would promise, and the man vowed to worship her with his body. Even the ring put on the woman’s finger was a symbol of bondage.
The Nvengarians went about it more blatantly. The bondage in Nvengaria went both ways—man tied himself to woman and woman to man, usually literally.
Sasha beamed and began. “I will say the words in Nvengarian and repeat them in English. That way, all may understand.”
Closest to Penelope and Damien stood Lady Trask, handkerchief at the ready to catch her motherly tears, Meagan, smiling hugely, and Michael Tavistock standing quietly behind her. The Prince Regent sat in his Bath chair behind Sasha, enjoying the procedure and anticipating the newspaper articles that would describe how he’d attended the betrothal of the famous Prince Damien.
Egan McDonald stopped behind Damien, throwing Damien an envious grin. Damien and Egan had shared women in the pa
st, but not this time, Damien promised. The lady is mine.
Mine. The word felt wonderful echoing in his head.
Sasha began. The ritual consisted of chants about how these two people had come together in love and would be bonded in love. He sensed Penelope’s skeptical glance and looked at her.
Green-gold flecks swam in her eyes as she watched him. Warmth began in his belly as his gaze flicked to the soft cleavage between her breasts. He wanted to dip his tongue there, taste the salt of her skin. He imagined easing her bodice down to reveal the dark tips of her breasts, which were already pebbling under his scrutiny.
His gaze traveled upward, taking in her long, delicate throat, her lips, her beautiful eyes. He met her gaze, finding the sharpness softened. The prophecy was stirring them again. After this ritual, they would be betrothed, and then would come the mating. His blood stirred in anticipation. He wondered whether the prophecy would have the patience to wait through Sasha’s chanting, because he certainly might not.
By the smirk on Petri’s face, his valet sensed Damien’s growing impatience. The man was positively gleeful. Damien had instructed him to have the bedchamber prepared and guarded, in case he had to rush with her there the moment Sasha finished.
Sasha droned on, the ceremony twice as long because Sasha stopped every few sentences to translate to English.
“Princess Penelope, do you agree to be bonded to Prince Damien, to share his bed, his troubles and his joys, his sorrows and his hopes, his children and his life?”
Penelope blushed. She glanced at Damien, and for one agonizing instant, he thought she would respond with a “No.”
She swallowed, looked at her mother, who quickly sniffled into her handkerchief, then squared her shoulders and said, “I agree.”
Sasha translated her answer to Nvengarian, and the room erupted in masculine cheers. The cheering went on and on, drowning out Sasha’s identical question to Damien and his own, “I agree.”
Sasha, his eyes wet with tears, took up the tray and offered its contents to Damien. Damien lifted the knife. “It will hurt only an instant,” he murmured to Penelope. “I promise.”
Her eyes widened. Gently Damien took her hand and turned it palm upward. Then, as quickly as he could, he slashed her palm straight across.
She winced, and he sensed Michael Tavistock start forward, to be blocked by Petri. Damien slashed his own palm, then clasped Penelope’s hand and lifted it to head height between them.
Sasha took up the rope, looped it three times around their touching wrists and tied it securely. Damien and Penelope faced each other. Sasha reached up and closed his hand around theirs, and shouted in Nvengarian. “They are joined!”
The room erupted in cheers again, coupled with stamping and hooting. Damien felt Petri clap him on the back, and then Egan, grinning widely.
“What happens now?” Meagan asked, her tone excited.
“Now we dance,” Sasha proclaimed, “and lead the couple forth to seal their betrothal in their first mating.”
The English guests expressed either shock or delight, and the Nvengarians went on screaming. Circles formed for the dancing, Nvengarian hands dragging the London aristocrats into the dance. Rufus and Miles seized the handles of the Regent’s Bath chair and swung him out to the middle of the floor.
Penelope and Damien were put into the middle circle, and married couples joined hands and danced around them. Outside the circle, the unmarried ladies and gentlemen danced. Men far outnumbered women in this group, thanks to all Damien’s Nvengarians, and they vied with each other to grab the ladies’ hands and twirl them about. Rufus and Miles had their eyes on a pair of giggling maids and showed off for them, dancing and leaping, Nvengarian style.
In the center of the circle, Penelope, still tied to Damien, held his hand and said very little. He moved with her slowly, letting the others wear themselves out in the frenzy of the dance. He wanted to save his energy for the long night to come.
The doors of the ballroom suddenly blasted open, and a icy wind slammed through the room. Shouts of dismay and surprise echoed. Penelope turned to Damien, a question on her lips, then Damien grabbed her shoulders and shoved her to the floor just as something small and fierce and dark hurtled past them and crashed into the far wall.
“What in God’s name was that?” Egan cried. His hand dipped beneath his kilt and came up with a broad-bladed knife.
Penelope was trying to scramble up to look. Damien crouched protectively over her. “Stay down.”
“What about you?” she panted.
“Never mind about me.” The Nvengarian guards and servants had hurried to form a wall around Damien and Penelope, knives at the ready to face whatever it was that had hurtled into the room. Egan and Michael Tavistock joined them.
“Meagan,” Michael ordered over the din. “Take Lady Trask out.”
The Regent was whimpering with fear. He heard Meagan trying to coax Lady Trask away, but she was arguing, saying she’d never leave Michael.
“Perhaps it was just a large bat,” Penelope whispered hopefully.
“No.” Damien felt grim.
What had screamed past him, barely missing his head, had been a creature out of legend, a creature out of nightmares. Logosh were half demon, half human, changing from form to form at will. They dwelled in the Nvengarian mountains, cursed a thousand years ago, and lived high in cliffs, unseen by all but those unwary enough to stumble into their demesne.
Or at least, the legends claimed. No one had ever actually seen a logosh, and those who claimed to were usually drunk or known to be insane. Glancing over the shoulders of his men, Damien understood that seeing such a being could turn a man mad.
It was man-shaped, about the size of a boy, and clung to the wall like some strange reptile. It crouched, facing downward, with fangs protruding the sides of its mouth. It hissed, drool sizzling where it ran across the creature’s chin.
“What on earth?” Penelope gasped.
It turned its head to follow her voice, then to Damien’s alarm, it sprang at them.
Ladies screamed and shoved one another out the double doors. Damien whirled as the logosh sailed over heads toward Penelope. He caught up the small ritual knife and held it ready, the only weapon at hand. His left wrist and Penelope’s right were still bound, but he dared not take the time to cut her free.
The creature soared overhead, lightning fast, and landed on first one wall, then the other. Sasha, whitefaced, stared upward in amazement. “A logosh. God have mercy, he’s sent a logosh.”
Egan McDonald slapped him on the back. “Well, whatever it is, laddie, it’ll taste the bite of Highland blade.” He raised his dagger and shouted. “To me! The best Scots whiskey to the man who brings it down.”
A dozen Nvengarian throats screamed a battle cry, and they launched themselves at the nightmare. The creature scuttled upward, and the men, sensing its wariness, surged forward, Egan running with them. “That’s it, lads. It’s no match for us.”
No wonder they called him the Mad Highlander, Damien thought. He’d fight the spawn of Satan himself.
The logosh hurtled itself upward with astonishing speed. It clung to the ceiling for an instant and dropped to land an inch from Damien.
Damien roared and struck out with the tiny knife as he tried to shove Penelope behind him. Petri had been borne away by those chasing the damn logosh across the room. Sasha stared, frozen. Michael Tavistock was protecting Lady Trask.
Damien kicked, catching the creature in the stomach. The thing shot upward again and dropped straight down, slashing at Damien’s arm with its claws. Penelope tried to drag Damien from the thing’s path. She’s trying to protect me, for God’s sake, he thought distractedly.
Then Meagan rose up behind it, a large candlestick gripped between her hands. She brought the candlestick down, thump, on the logosh’s back. Or, the blow would have landed on its back had the confounded creature not twisted away. Meagan caught it on the shoulder, then all of a sudden
, it was facing her.
Her pale face grew still. “Oh, dear.”
Damien slashed down with the knife, but the blade was too small to do much damage. Then Egan McDonald appeared out of nowhere and plunged his dagger into the creature’s shoulder. “Take that, hell-beastie.”
The thing snarled and shrieked and shot straight upward again. But it was hurt. It scampered along the ceiling, the men chasing it. It launched itself from the ceiling through an arched window with a shattering of glass.
“After it,” Egan shouted. “It’s wounded. We’ll hunt it ’til it’s dead.”
He hurtled out of the ballroom, the Nvengarians and more able-bodied Englishmen running pell-mell after him.
“I have not seen him that happy in a long time,” Damien mused to Petri, who had come panting up.
“They’ll get it for certain, sir. Jesus and Mary, was that truly a logosh? I thought they were make-believe, sir.”
Sasha still stared out the broken window, his mouth hanging open.
Damien dropped the knife, stained with black blood, to the tray. “Penelope, love, are you all right?”
She gave him a shaky smile. “I believe so.” She raised her hand, twining her fingers about his. “Look. We are still joined.”
It happened then. Damien’s control, held in check for weeks, snapped. “Petri,” he said in a tight voice.
“The chamber is ready, sir. I will guard it myself.”
Desire coursed through him, his veins raw with it. He closed his hand around Penelope’s wrist. She looked startled, but he read the same hunger in her eyes. “Time to consummate this betrothal, love.”
She could have asked many questions, beginning with “Now?” But she did not. Penelope, bless her, merely nodded.
He more or less dragged her out of the room, her slippers pattering on the floor as she strove to keep up with him. He passed the Regent, who was fanning himself with a large handkerchief, and Michael Tavistock, his arms full of a half-swooning Lady Trask. He swore Lady Trask had a calculating gleam in her eye.