He guffawed and Sir John chuckled with him, though it was clear Sir John did not truly understand what Rudolfo was talking about.
Duchess Mina suggested they sit down for cards. The two gentlemen could play, she said, the so-charming Miss Lincolnbury could assist her, and Mary could stay with Baron Valentin and explain the games to him.
At last Mary came to life. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but Miss Lincolnbury has come to dance,” she said, giving Duchess Mina a half bow. “We should return to the ballroom.”
Miss Lincolnbury dug her fingers into Mary’s arm and glared at her. Apparently playing cards with a duchess trumped dancing with young gentlemen—Valentin was not familiar enough with the ways of debutantes to know why.
Mary conceded reluctantly, and the duchess smiled and led Miss Lincolnbury away. Her husband followed with Rudolfo, leaving Mary alone with Valentin.
They faced each other for a long, frozen moment, Mary’s color high, her breath rising in a long intake against the blue trim on her bodice.
Her eyes were dark brown, flecked with gold, framed with dark lashes. Entrancing, seductive. Mary never understood how deeply beautiful she was.
At the table about two feet from where Valentin and Mary stood, a man turned to blatantly stare at them. “You’re breaking my concentration, old boy,” he said to Valentin. “Have to keep my wits about me to prevent these ladies from beggaring me.”
He spoke good-naturedly but also in a tone that said he expected Valentin, the foreigner and merely an ambassador’s aide, to obey.
Valentin gave him a polite bow and led Mary to a small, empty table away from the others, where two chairs waited. He pulled out one chair and placed it in front of her. “Sit, please.”
For a moment, he thought she’d refuse. She’d bathe him in scorn and sail out of the room, leaving Valentin holding a chair while these English people laughed at him.
But Mary was ever one for rigid politeness, whatever the circumstance. She sank gracefully into the chair, snapped open her fan, and flapped it vigorously.
Valentin seated himself across from her and reached for a card box in the middle of the table. It held three packs of cards, ready for any game.
“You will teach me.” Valentin extracted a deck and laid it in front of Mary. “Perhaps the game of whist?”
Mary continued to wave her fan, avoiding looking at him directly. “You need four people for whist.”
Valentin raised his brows as he stopped himself from restlessly ruffling the pack. “Is there is a game for two? In Nvengaria, we have forzeqt, for two, but it is very fast, very competitive. Sometimes bloody, when tempers are lost. Not, I think, a game for a London house.” He heard himself babbling but for some reason couldn’t make his tongue cease. Valentin, the man of few words, ran on in front of the woman he wanted to think highly of him.
Mary’s expression didn’t change. She was as poised as a statue, though much more vibrant. Everything about her was a song. “There is piquet,” she said. “But for that we need a piquet deck.”
“And this is not a piquet deck?”
Mary slammed her closed fan to the table and turned the pack over, her slender fingers separating the cards. “For piquet you use only seven through king, and aces.”
Valentin could be silent on the matter most important to him no longer. His body was stiff as he leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Why did you not come to me?”
Mary’s hands stilled but she did not look up. “You have just betrayed how un-English you are.” Her voice shook a little. “In this country, a gentleman would never dream of asking a lady an awkward question in so forthright a manner.”
“But I am not English. And neither are you.” Valentin balled his hands on the table. “Nvengarians do not cloak their feelings behind a mask of words.”
Mary’s gaze flicked to his at last. Her eyes were burning, emotions churning beneath her smooth surface. “No, you take out knives and go at each other in your Council meetings at the slightest provocation. Debating tax bills must be dreadfully exciting.”
Valentin’s hands tightened. “Such violence in government is a thing of the past now that Prince Damien rules.”
“Then thank heavens for Prince Damien.” Mary went back to extracting cards. “I am certain Nvengarian wives now feel much better about sending their husbands off to a day in government.”
“Is that what you fear? The violent nature of Nvengarians?” Valentin tried to match her light tone. “I am not in any of the ruling councils, in any case.”
Mary gathered the sorted cards into two piles and pushed one aside. “No, but Prince Damien sends you on missions where you get yourself shot.”
Which he had while being bodyguard to Prince Damien’s cousin at remote Castle MacDonald. “It was my duty to protect Princess Zarabeth.”
Mary glanced across the room at Rudolfo and his wife, now absorbed in a game with Miss Lincolnbury and her father. “At least this time your duty is no more dangerous than following an ambassador who has a roving eye.”
Valentin said nothing. He slid the cards Mary had discarded to his side of the table and began to straighten them.
“Oh, dear,” Mary said, her voice softening with sudden understanding. “It is dangerous, isn’t it? That is why you were sent with him and not some mindless lackey.”
Mary was an intelligent woman, one of the things Valentin loved about her. “I watch him,” Valentin said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “It may come to nothing.”
“But if it comes to something …?” Mary’s intense gaze was on him again.
“Then I will do what I must.”
“Which is?”
Valentin shook his head. “Too many ears.”
“I understand.” Mary heaved a sigh and began to shuffle what was left of the deck. A lock of hair fell from her coiffure and curved like a streak of midnight across her cheek. “Nvengarian secrets.”
Valentin abandoned the cards he’d been toying with, reached across the table, and laid a heavy hand over hers. The words he had to say grated and hurt, but he had to push them out. “Why did you not come? Tell me.”
A swallow moved down Mary’s throat, but she did not jerk from him. “Back to forthright questions, are you?” She shook her head. “Please, do not ask me.”
“I do ask you. I deserve to ask you.”
Her fingers moved beneath his. “Nvengaria is quite far away.”
“Yes.” Valentin held her gaze, his hand firming on hers.
“My son is here.” Mary’s voice became fainter. “At Cambridge.”
“Yes.” He continued to stare straight at her, willing her to tell him the truth.
Mary finally ceased toying with the pack. She set down the cards, her brown eyes troubled. “When we were in Scotland, you made me feel like a girl again.” Her lashes flicked down, once, twice, as though she blinked back tears. “Full of hope, when for so long I’d known nothing but disappointment.”
Valentin tried to understand. “And for this, you decided to stay home?”
She gave him an anguished look, and he saw that her eyes were indeed wet. “How could I go? Should I travel halfway across the continent to find that you’d forgotten me? That you meant nothing by your invitation? How could I risk that sort of humiliation?”
His heart beat faster in both frustration and hope. “Why did you not write me? I would have reassured you.”
“Why did you not write?” Mary countered. “You ask a woman to travel a thousand miles to see you, but you cannot be bothered to mention whether you made it home safely yourself?”
“Princess Penelope and the Grand Duchess would have told you this,” Valentin said, confused at her anger.
Mary looked heavenward and slid her hand from his. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you behaved like a man.”
“I am a man. Or half-man.” Valentin paused. “Is the fact that I am logosh what deterred you?”
She gave him a look of aston
ishment. “You believe I hesitated because you are logosh?”
Valentin shrugged. “You did not believe in logosh when I first came to Scotland. You believed in no magic at all. Nvengaria is a heavily magical place.”
Mary laughed a little. “After the things that happened at my brother’s castle I believe in magic, thank you very much.”
Valentin’s heart continued to beat rapidly, and his hands sweated inside his gloves. “Then may we begin again? I am whole and well now, and can be a fine lover to you.”
Mary started, and her dark eyes widened. “Lover?”
Valentin warmed. “You are a beautiful woman, and I wish to offer you the pleasures of my bed.”
“Valentin.” Mary leaned forward, the soft round of her bosom swelling against the table’s edge. “You really must reread your book on English customs. A gentleman does not say such things to a lady in a room full of people. Not at all, in fact. Not if she’s a lady.”
Valentin’s body began to tighten with pleasant heat. Mary was so near, after all this time, a touch away, and she was as passionate as ever. “The people in this room are playing cards and not listening. The ambassador commands their attention, not I.”
Mary leaned closer. “Do not believe it. I have already overheard several bolder ladies speculating on what you look like out of your clothes.”
Valentin smiled, thinking of how he’d stood with Mary outdoors on a cold Scottish night, without a stitch on him. “And did you tell them?”
Mary flushed and sat back. “No. Good heavens, Valentin. What am I to do with you?”
Valentin stood. Before Mary could protest, he took her hand and tugged her up from her chair and with him to another door. Opening it, he slipped through, pulled her after him, closed the door, then turned before she could step away and pinned her against its panels.
“You will do this with me,” he said, and kissed her.
Chapter 3
Valentin’s strong body held her in place against the door while his hot tongue swept into her mouth. His hands found the curve of her waist, his grip strong, unrelenting.
He kissed her like he meant it, not as though he wanted to impress Mary with his tenderness or charm. He wanted her; she could taste it. No man had ever kissed her like Valentin.
Valentin eased his mouth from hers, but the panels of the door dug into her back, and his thighs were tight against hers. When Valentin had left Scotland a year ago, he’d been wan from his wound, but he’d grown healthy and sun-bronzed in the intervening months. Tonight he wore the formal midnight blue military uniform of Nvengaria, complete with gold braid, colorful medals, and slanting sash.
Mary couldn’t help remembering the power of the body beneath the uniform, the muscles under his tight, warm skin. She’d seen all of Valentin’s flesh, first when she’d nursed him, then again when she’d led him stealthily from the castle to the dark heath. He’d thrown off his clothes in order to shift into his wolf form, and for a moment, he’d stood bare, his body gleaming in the moonlight.
Valentin nuzzled the line of Mary’s hair as he’d done that night in Scotland, as though he learned and memorized her scent.
“Do you propose to kiss me until I come with you to Nvengaria?” Mary whispered shakily.
Valentin smiled into her skin. “This does not seem so terrible a thing.”
It did not seem terrible to Mary, either. “If it were as simple as kisses, I would have left Scotland long ago. But it is not that easy.”
Valentin’s blue eyes flickered as he drew back. He’d shaved recently, his hard jaw smooth rather than sanded with whiskers as she remembered it. He’d grown strong again, like the rock cliffs on which Castle MacDonald was built.
“It is simple,” he said. “But perhaps I want too much.”
Valentin’s voice had always been mesmerizing. Mary had forgotten in the intervening months how full and deep was his timbre, how rich his accent, how he pronounced each English word as though he did not want to make a mistake.
She’d been praising herself for allowing Julia and her father to persuade her to come with them to the ball despite the fact that Valentin would be here, but now she wondered if she shouldn’t have ignored Julia’s pleas and stayed home. She’d thought she could stand resolute but she was already crumpling.
“I barely know you,” Mary said, the tremor in her voice lingering. “I’d only just learned who and what you were, and then you were gone.” Taking Mary’s peace of mind—what little she’d had—with him.
Valentin closed his hands over her shoulders. She loved the hard heat of his body against hers, his breath on her lips. “Then you will learn more of me, as I stay to watch my ambassador.”
Uneasiness trickled through her. “Is Duke Rudolfo so dangerous?” He’d seemed rather harmless, if a bit crude. “Is that why you’re watching him?”
“The Grand Duke is suspicious of him.” Valentin spoke with conviction. “That is enough for me.”
Mary nodded. “Yes, I remember Grand Duke Alexander. A formidable man. Icy and precise.” Tall and eagle-eyed, Grand Duke Alexander was reputed to be the iron hand inside charming Prince Damien’s velvet glove. So Mary had heard, and she believed it.
“The Grand Duke is the most dangerous man in Europe,” Valentin went on. “So if he worries that a man wishes to destroy Nvengaria, I too worry.”
Mary touched Valentin’s face, seeking the lines she’d tried so hard to forget. She was suddenly angry on his behalf. “It is not fair that they always send you to face their troubles.”
Valentin gave his characteristic shrug. “I am good at it.”
Mary’s blood heated. “If I asked you to tell them, no, you will not endanger yourself for them—would you?”
He didn’t hesitate long. “No.” Something glinted in his eyes, determination, regret, before it was gone.
There it was, then. Valentin would not unbend for her, nor she for him. And Mary was no longer the bending sort.
Valentin brushed a tendril of hair from her face, his touch so warm her knees began to buckle. “The ambassador’s wife wishes to be friends with you. It would help me if you let her.”
Mary blinked. “Help you?”
“In my task.”
Mary smiled to mask her hurt. “Ah, you mean will I cultivate her friendship and give you the juicy gossip she spills about her husband?”
“I would not ask were it not important,” Valentin said. “The safety of Nvengaria, and perhaps England as well, might depend on it.”
“That important, is it?” Mary made a gesture of resignation. “You know that as a Scotswoman I would cheerfully watch England sink into the sea, as long as the Stone of Destiny washed up again on our shores.” She sighed. “But then I have many English friends I would not like to see hurt. Nvengarians as well. I will help you for their sake.”
“Thank you.” Valentin sounded relieved.
Mary kissed him lightly on the chin, pretending his warm skin under her lips didn’t make her heart pound. “You could have convinced me to help you without the kiss. Not that it wasn’t pleasant.”
Valentin frowned as he continued to trace her cheek, his left hand remaining on her waist. “My feelings for you have nothing to do with the ambassador. I would stay here with you all night, showing you what I want with you, but I should not leave him for long.”
Mary’s already quick heartbeat sped again, heat suffusing her limbs. I would stay here all night, showing you what I want with you. A dangerous thing to tell her—her imagination was too creative. “Now I know why the Grand Duke sent you,” she said, her tone light. “You are good at flattering others to help you.”
Valentin’s frown deepened. “I would never flatter to gain help. That smacks of deceit, and I tired of that long ago.”
Mary wondered what he meant by this and realized anew that she knew so little about Valentin. He was younger than she, but she wasn’t certain how much younger. She knew nothing at all of his life in Nvengaria, and her Nve
ngarian friends had surprisingly little information about him.
She softened her voice and let her hand drift to the medals pinned to his broad chest. “Of course I will help. I understand the seriousness of your task. I will befriend Mina, as she wants me to call her, and report all she tells me. As the ambassador says, I am a good friend to Nvengaria. Perhaps we should return to the duke and his wife now, before they plot any assassinations.”
“It is not a laughing matter. The ambassador might do just that.”
Mary felt a qualm. “Forgive me. You are right. Nvengarian politics, from what I have seen, are exciting but deadly. I’ve promised to help. We should go now.”
Instead of releasing her, Valentin cupped her face with his hand, his thumb warm on her cheeks. His eyes held concern, wariness, and a vast watchfulness that she’d noticed in him before. He could be as volatile as any of his countrymen—she’d seen that in him when he’d hunted for kidnappers last year. But he was also very good at containing his violence, honing it until it became as quiet and deadly as a sword.
Valentin kissed her lips, his touch almost gentle. “Thank you,” he said, and finally let her go.
* * *
The next day Mary, Julia, and Sir John rolled from the Lincolnbury house in Curzon Street to a Grosvenor Square mansion by invitation of the Nvengarian ambassador and his wife. Julia was excited, reasoning that acquaintanceship with a duchess, even a foreign duchess, would carry much weight when she entered her second Season in the spring. Julia had fussed over what to wear until Mary had nearly gone mad, but as they traveled the short distance to the ambassador’s residence, Mary found herself becoming as nervous as Julia.
Mary had fretted over her own appearance, but for a different reason. She’d peered anxiously into her mirror for a good half hour before she’d finally gone to round up Julia, wondering if the fine lines at the corners of her eyes were entirely noticeable. Perhaps she should cover them with powder.