But he knew that ordering them to observe a day of mourning would not have been popular. The people wanted to spend all their time preparing for bloody prince Damien and his long-lost princess. The newspapers tomorrow morning would have a precise engraving of Alexander placing the wreath on his wife’s tomb, the entire first page devoted to a description of the ceremony and remembering the grand duchess’s life. The people might worship Damien, but Alexander controlled the newspapers.
He had not been very surprised when Nedrak informed him that the ridiculous scheme of sending a logosh after Damien and Penelope had not worked. The fact had only increased the superstitious Nedrak’s loyalty to the prince and the prophecy.
If the head of the Council of Mages turned on Alexander, he would pull many with him. Damn the man, and damn custom for giving an idiot so much power. Nedrak was left over from the dead Imperial Prince’s rule; Alexander was determined to handpick the next one.
He turned back to Nedrak. “You have worked hard for me, Nedrak. Perhaps I have not seemed grateful, but I am worried.”
Nedrak nodded, responding to the praise like a bird just thrown a crumb.
Alexander nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I believe I will prepare a banquet in your honor, as a reward. I have been meaning to do so for some time.”
Nedrak’s eyes brightened, his pride stroked. “Why, thank you, Your Grace. I have, indeed, been working very hard to establish your right to rule Nvengaria.” He paused. “I am sorry the logosh did not work. I was certain he would kill Prince Damien.”
Alexander shrugged. “It was a good idea. It’s just a shame the only creature you could capture was so young. Not your fault.”
Nedrak preened, and Alexander barely hid his irritation. Fool. Nedrak liked romance and drama. Alexander saw things straight and clear. Damien would fail, and Alexander would make certain of it. In fact, Damien had already failed. A few more snares in place, and Damien would fall in the eyes of the Nvengarians, and that would be that.
Nedrak asked hesitantly, “Is there anything else you’d like me to do for you this afternoon?”
Alexander turned away, his hands behind his back. “No. You’ve done enough. Go about your business.”
The dismissals always infuriated Nedrak—the two men should have been equals, after all. “Yes, Your Grace.” He scuttled to the door, then paused. “May I express my deepest sympathies on the death of the Grand Duchess.”
Alexander looked up. Nedrak shivered. He could feel the ice of those blue eyes all the way across the huge room.
“Thank you, Nedrak,” Alexander said silkily. As the mage turned to leave, Alexander added, “And, Nedrak.”
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Do not speak of my wife again. Ever. Do you understand?”
Nedrak swallowed, his throat dry. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Alexander looked away. It was like a gate clanging shut. Nedrak scurried into the hall. A stiff, silent attendant shut the door behind him.
“Cold-hearted bastard,” Nedrak muttered as he made for the mage’s council halls. Then he cast a swift glance around, fearing he’d been overheard, gathered up his starry robes, and ran. Alexander had spies everywhere.
Sasha was beside himself with excitement when he learned that Penelope had tamed the logosh. Not only had she tamed the boy, Wulf, she’d washed him and dressed his wounds, which were already closing and healing. Wulf, in turn, clung to her.
“It is in the prophecy, sir,” Sasha prattled. “‘And the princess will heal the sick and tame the beast.’ I did not understand the part about the beast, sir; I thought it meant you.” He flushed. “Oh, I did not mean…”
Damien smiled, but he felt grim. “My life was admittedly wild before my father died, but the prophecy seems to be amazingly literal.”
“It is all coming true, Your Highness,” Sasha said happily. “It is all coming true.”
The household woke groggily from its enchanted sleep. Mathers, indignantly rousting servants from bedrooms, discovered Rufus and Miles with the two pretty maids and gave them all a good tongue-lashing. Rufus and Miles resumed their duties looking a bit sheepish and a lot smug.
Petri, on the other hand, sank into remorse. “I failed you,” he said while he tried to straighten Damien’s bedchamber, picking up things and absently setting them down again. “I have never, ever in my life fallen asleep while I guarded you, not even when we were lads begging for scraps. The logosh could have killed you while you slept, and I could not stay awake to prevent it.” He squared his shoulders. “You may put me to the sword, sir. I will deserve it.”
“For God’s sake, Petri, we all succumbed to the damn spell. Do not turn dramatic on me, I beg you. You are my voice of reason in all this madness.”
“You did not succumb.”
“Yes, I did. I do not know what woke me, but I was sleeping as hard as anyone else. Penelope only woke when I smashed into the wall, and so did you.”
He shook his head, his eyes haunted. “No, sir. I woke when the princess shouted. The logosh might have throttled you before I could reach you.”
“Stop flagellating yourself. If you want to make recompense, find the mage who cast the spell. It had a decidedly Nvengarian feel to it, so it is one of us.”
Petri’s eyes flashed, anger replacing remorse. “I will flush him out, sir. And skin him alive.”
“Now you sound like Titus. Before you skin him, bring him to me so that I can ask him a question or two.”
“Yes, sir. I will not fail you.”
“Good.” Damien could bear no more of the man’s guilt, and stalked out of the room.
He found Michael Tavistock in the lower hall. When Tavistock saw Damien descending the stairs, he swung to him and waited at the bottom. “A moment of your time, please,” the Englishman said stiffly.
Damien nodded and gestured that they should talk in the sitting room. That room, however, proved to be full of giggling ladies who looked up eagerly when Damien walked into the room. “Good evening, Your Highness,” they said collectively.
Damien stopped, controlling his impatience. “I beg your pardon,” he said. He put his hand on his chest and made a deep bow. The giggling escalated, accompanied by fluttering fans and batting eyelashes.
Damien escaped, and Tavistock suggested they walk outside.
As usual, several footmen detached themselves from duties and followed, watchful and alert.
“When do you leave?” Tavistock asked him.
It was early evening, the long English summer day at last drawing to an end. The clouds he’d observed earlier had thinned, and only a few golden-streaked wisps adorned the horizon. Gentle swells of green hills flowed away from them and disappeared into haze where the sky met the ground.
A flat land, Damien thought, thinking of the razoredged mountains of home. Damn, but I miss it.
He cleared his throat. “Immediately. Tomorrow. The last ritual is tonight. Penelope and I and a small part of my entourage will depart in the morning, with the rest following when they are ready. I realize they’ve become somewhat entrenched here.”
He said it apologetically, trying his winsome smile. Not that it ever worked with the hardheaded Tavistock. Meagan had once claimed that her father was a cheerful and happy man, but Damien had never caught him at it.
“You and Penelope will marry in Nvengaria?” Tavistock asked.
“Yes. It will be the wedding of the year. She will be married in fine style, never fear.”
“Will this be a Christian wedding? Performed in a chapel? Or another Nvengarian ritual?”
Damien kept his best Prince Charming smile in place. “In a cathedral, with a bishop.”
Tavistock stopped walking. They stood a short distance from the house, halfway down the drive, at the top of a green hill that dropped down toward the village. “Penelope is an English girl, despite your tale of rings and lineage. I would rather see her married in an English chapel in a ceremony she understands.”
T
he smile deserted him. “The ritual we performed this morning binds her to me as though she were my wife. The wedding in Nvengaria will only seal it. I assure you, this is no elaborate trick to gain a new mistress.”
A spark of anger lit Tavistock’s mild eyes. “So you say. I admit that I can imagine no man going to all this trouble to lure a young lady into his bed, but the point is, she has gone there. And you are not married. If you find a princess more to your taste on your way home, and abandon Penelope, she is unprotected and ruined.”
“She is not ruined under the laws of my people,” Damien said. “I assure you of this.”
“But she is not of your people, Prince Damien. Nvengaria is a land far away and most people in Oxfordshire and even London have never heard of it. The English guests you invited are already inventing jokes about a maiden who cannot resist a prince. They wonder who you will charm into your bed next.”
Damien felt the temper inherited from his father rise. “Who dares say these things?” He was surprised at how icy his voice had become.
“The Prince Regent for one. He wonders if Penelope is partial to all princes. Shall you challenge him to a duel?” Tavistock looked angry enough to do it himself, or maybe to challenge Damien.
“Damn,” Damien said feelingly. He said a few more choice phrases in Nvengarian. His bodyguards glanced his way, wondering.
Tavistock went on. “I do not hold myself up as an example of excellent behavior. You know that Penelope’s mother and I have been lovers. My only excuse is that we are older, Lady Trask is a widow, and I hope we were discreet. Penelope is a maiden, with much to lose.”
“Do you think I would shame her?” Damien’s accent became thick as his anger increased. “She will be Princess of Nvengaria, not the lover of a backstreet scoundrel.”
“What I think is that you came from nowhere and have successfully enticed an innocent young woman into your bed.”
Damien growled again, but he knew that from Tavistock’s point of view, Damien’s actions looked exactly as described. Tavistock might have come ’round to believing in Damien, but not everyone in England would, including, it seemed, the damned Regent.
He held on to his temper. “What would you have me do?”
“Marry her,” Tavistock said. “Have an English wedding, here in the village.”
“I do not have time. The days are marching and the road home is long.”
Tavistock’s dark eyes were steady. “There are plenty of powerful and influential men staying here. I am certain any of them can help you procure a special license. You need delay one or two days at most.”
Damien balled his fists, but he made himself stay polite. He needed these people to like him, because he needed them to let him have Penelope, and not only because of the prophecy. He wanted her. He was painfully aware of how much he wanted her.
“I will speak to Egan McDonald,” he said. “He will be able to obtain a special license from whoever gives them in your country. Everyone admires Egan.”
“Good.” The brown eyes, flinty hard, did not soften.
Damien understood. “You are waiting for me to tell you that I will keep myself away from Penelope until then. That she will sleep alone.”
“It would be best.”
He sighed. “That is a cruel, cruel thing to ask a man, Tavistock, whether he be Nvengarian or English.”
Tavistock shrugged. “I care very much for the Trask family. I do not want to see them compromised or slandered in any way.”
“Neither do I. Very well, you have won. I will marry Penelope in your English chapel with your English license. By the time the poor girl is finished, she will have married me three times over.”
“It will still the wagging tongues.”
Damien thought of the ritual that was to have been tonight, and closed his eyes in painful longing. The bathing ritual, in which the bride and groom were cleansed and then brought together to wash each other.
Sasha had supervised the building of a special bath in a ground-floor chamber. Traditionally, the ritual was attended by a crowd of the bride’s and groom’s families and friends, who drank wine and cheered them on. Damien had gotten Sasha to pare the number down to himself and Penelope’s mother and Meagan, to spare Penelope embarrassment.
He had been looking forward for a long time to standing behind Penelope in the deep water, drawing the ritual sponge over her neck and shoulders. Her hair would curl in the damp, strands clinging to bare skin flushed from the heat of the bath. He’d rinse her with a trickle of water, then follow the trickle with his tongue. His hand would come up to cover her breast, to pinch the tip into a firm peak, and she’d arch back against him in longing.
He willed his imagination to still, and opened his eyes. Tavistock was watching him narrowly.
Damien made a conceding gesture, as though it made no difference to him. “Very well,” he said with difficulty. “I will inform Sasha that the ritual is to be postponed.”
“Oh, Penelope, just fancy, I’ll be your bridesmaid after all.”
In the garden at the Trask home, Meagan threw her arms around Penelope’s waist. Penelope hugged her friend back, then released her without a word. Not far from them, Wulf sat in an unused flower bed, digging to his heart’s content.
He loved to dig, much like any boy his age, making little trenches and strange forts out of the rich earth. His wounds had healed with alarming speed, an event which both Sasha and Wulf attributed to the healing powers of the true princess.
No one in the house was particularly happy to hear that the logosh, albeit turned to a small boy, was staying.
“Penny, dear,” her mother had said as she entered the small servants’ room to which Penelope had carried Wulf. Wulf had lain under a pile of blankets, his pale face bruised and scratched, his hand firmly closed around Penelope’s.
Lady Trask hovered in the doorway, her hands fluttering nervously. “What if he turns into a demon again and tries to eat us all?”
“He will not,” Penelope said. She did not know how she knew this, but she knew it with all her heart. “He will not turn into his other form unless I tell him to.”
Lady Trask shot Wulf a last look around the door. “Well, please be certain not to tell him to, there’s a good girl.”
They had discovered this morning that Wulf liked sugar very much, after he’d eaten an entire bowlful in the kitchen. He’d showed no ill effects, and Penelope had soothed the cook’s temper and dragged the boy away. He also liked carrots, and happily munched through the bunch that Penelope gave him.
Penelope watched him dig and burrow, getting himself filthy, but humming a happy tune while he did it.
She herself was beyond frustration. Last evening, Damien had appeared at supper and made the abrupt announcement that he would be marrying Penelope by special license in the village chapel tomorrow or the day after that, as soon as he could arrange it.
Everyone had stared in surprise, except Michael Tavistock, who looked satisfied, and Sasha, who looked unhappy. Penelope understood his unhappiness when Damien went on to say that the rest of the Nvengarian rituals would be postponed until he and Penelope were properly married.
The supper guests had clapped happily and said their congratulations. Damien had warmed them with his benevolent smile and raised his glass to Penelope.
Penelope had sat in stunned silence, wondering what on earth had just happened. But she had no opportunity to speak to Damien or argue with him or even look at him. He had disappeared after supper, and she had not seen him since.
“I wish I had time to get a proper dress made, but there it is,” Meagan was saying. “You are so lucky, Penelope. A handsome prince riding out of nowhere, sweeping you off your feet, and marrying you. It is too romantic.”
“It is, rather,” Penelope said colorlessly.
“Please remind him, when you reach Nvengaria, that he has promised me someone ten times better than a duke.” She tilted her head to one side. “I wonder what he means
by that?”
Penelope shook her head. It was another fine day, and the sun shone hot. Her parasol cast a blue shade over her, while Meagan’s sent a yellowish glow over her face.
“I’ve been hoping to get you alone,” Meagan said, a little pink creeping into her cheeks. “Yesterday, when we were all running after Wulf and then falling asleep, did you…” She waggled her brows. “You know.”
Penelope had tried to put it from her mind, but in a rush, she remembered the heavy weight of Damien’s body on hers, the feeling of being stretched and opened, and the strange fullness of his length inside her.
She remembered it vividly, as though her body transported itself back to the hot room with him for a time, then was deposited again in the garden with a crash. She drew a breath and opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said.
Meagan squeezed the handle of her parasol. “Oh, my dear friend, how wonderful for you. Was it—I mean, did it hurt?”
“Not really. Not as much as I’d feared.” Penelope was blushing, too, and she looked over at Wulf to distract herself. He was getting dirtier by the minute.
“Goodness, I am relieved to hear that. Maddie Roper said she screamed aloud when she was first—well. She also said her husband did nothing but grunt, rather like a pig. I hope Damien said sweet nothings instead.”
Penelope remembered him whispering under the shadow of the canopy while he kissed her with hot thoroughness. “He said things in Nvengarian.”
“Ah. Well, when you learn more Nvengarian, you will understand them. That would make me wish to study harder.”
Penelope looked at Meagan’s eager, teasing face, and dissolved into laughter. “You always make me feel better.”
“Why should you not? I am pleased he is such a good husband already. I will bless your good fortune and hope to be wed myself to a gentleman with tight trousers who does not grunt in bed. That is as much as an old maid like myself can wish for.”
She sounded mournful, but her eyes danced.
“Do not let your father hear you speak so,” Penelope admonished.
Meagan deflated. “Poor Father. When we woke yesterday, he was holding your mama, and I so hoped that things were settled between them. But I am afraid not. Papa is being uncommonly stubborn.”