Alexander became aware of Egan McDonald at his side, grinning hugely.
“Never took ye for bein’ obtuse, Alexander,” Egan said. “Your wife wanted to dance with you, not me, as handsome and charming as I am.”
Alexander gave him a brief, chill smile. “I know.”
“Are ye a fool? She’s a lovely lass, agog to be with you. If you’re not careful, some blade will snatch her up to be his bit on the side.”
“I know,” he repeated, his tone hard.
“Then what ails ye, man? Run to her. Finish the bloody dance.”
“Did you give her a copy of Adolpho’s book?” Alexander asked abruptly.
Egan stopped, his inane smile fading. “Adolpho’s book?” He looked blank for a moment, and another delighted grin spread across his face. “The Book of Seductions? Ye poor fool. No, ‘twas not I, but I wish I’d thought of it.”
Alexander believed him. Egan’s surprise and then glee were genuine.
“I am puzzled as to where she could have laid her hands on a copy,” he said. “I own one, but left it in Nvengaria.”
“‘Tis a good question,” Egan mused. “I doubt English booksellers have heard of it. Is it not only available in Nvengarian? How has she translated it?”
“I do not know.” Alexander felt something tighten inside him. “But I intend to find out.”
“Adolpho’s Book of Seductions?” Anastasia hid a delighted gasp with her fan.
She and Alexander stood in a supper room in the Prussian ambassador’s house. Meagan’s schedule had sent her to a ball in her honor at the Duchess of Cranshaw’s, and Alexander had come to the ambassador’s house alone. Anastasia had arrived with an Austrian count, no doubt one she was pumping for information of some kind.
“Yes. Is the question so difficult?” Alexander asked churlishly. “Did you obtain or translate a copy for her?”
“Goodness, no, Alexander.” She smiled, her eyes taking on a faraway look. “I remember when Dimitri gave me a copy after he first met me, telling me it was a book that would help me improve my Nvengarian. The devil. I was quite shocked. I laugh now to think what an innocent I was.”
Alexander noticed to his surprise that Anastasia spoke of Dimitri without the usual flash of pain in her eyes. There was fondness, affection, and love, but her bitter grief was absent tonight. He wondered what had happened to engender such a change.
She rapidly waved her fan in front of her face. “I thought you would be pleased that Meagan has done such a thing. She is no wilting weed and has obviously decided to embrace being a Nvengarian wife in all its facets. Congratulations are in order, dear Alexander.”
Alexander did not answer. His friends did not understand what Meagan’s determined attempt at seduction might cost him, or her, and he could not explain.
Part of him wondered whether some clever person, knowing Meagan was the only woman in the world who could unleash the beast inside him, had passed her a copy of the book.
“I will feel more comfortable when I find out who gave it to her,” he said.
“The matter is simple.” Anastasia bathed him in a winsome smile. “Ask her.”
Alexander made an exasperated noise and moved off to speak to another irritating ambassador who was trying to run him down.
Anastasia sat in front of her dressing table later that night, a silk peignoir across her bare shoulders, her dark hair crackling as her abigail brushed it out.
She thought of Alexander’s dilemma and smiled. Bravo for Meagan for not laying herself down before the ruthless Alexander and letting him step on her. Sephronia had handled being married to Alexander by being every inch the Grand Duchess and staying out of his way. Meagan seemed bound and determined to be his wife.
Adolpho’s Book of Seductions was required reading for Nvengarian girls when they came of age, but the book was extremely racy by English standards. She also wondered where Meagan had come by it and decided that Meagan had more facets to her than met the eye.
Anastasia’s maid finished her hair and stood back deferentially, ready to tuck her mistress into bed for the night. Anastasia shook her head, remaining in the chair.
“That is all, thank you so much. I will sit up and read a book.”
The well-trained abigail nodded. “Yes, my lady. Take care you don’t catch a chill.”
She poked the fire high and threw on another shovelful of coal, ensuring that Anastasia would be well warmed, before dusting off her hands and departing the room.
Anastasia smiled as she went. The woman had taken it upon herself to become Anastasia’s nursemaid these days, being of a mind that every lady should have a husband to look after her, no matter she was a widow and vastly wealthy. Anastasia felt the abigail’s pity, and it amused her.
She lost her smile as she lifted the brush and pulled it through her hair.
Dimitri had liked to brush Anastasia’s hair. He’d stood behind her and carefully stroked the hairbrush through her tresses, the feeling of the brush on her scalp sensual and intimate. Then Dimitri would lean down and kiss her, and things would turn exciting from there.
Dimitri had been the most exciting man Anastasia had ever met. He’d sometimes tired her desperately with his excitement.
Now where had that disloyal thought come from? She frowned at her reflection.
Dimitri had taken shy little Anastasia away from her prim and proper Austrian home and showed her a world of incredible delights. Nvengaria’s soaring sharp mountains and deep valleys had amazed her after living her entire life on the flat plain of Vienna. She had never even seen the magnificent Alps in her own country until Dimitri had showed them to her.
Dimitri had taught her how to live outrageously and love outrageously, how to find her wild side and set it free. Her pious Austrian family had been shocked and horrified by her swift marriage to him, but the Nvegarians loved her.
Dimitri had taught Anastasia to ride like a hellion, shoot pistols as well as any man, dance for three days and still be able to host another grand dinner party. They had been wild and reckless and young, and Anastasia had been so, so happy.
He had died the same way he’d lived, brave, defiant, risking everything. He’d often told her that his greatest fear had been dying in a bed, old and diseased, while grown children hovered round, waiting for their inheritance.
Well, he’d avoided that fate on both counts. Dimitri had died in a blaze of glory in the Peninsular War, and Anastasia had never conceived a child.
Dimitri had left her a large estate and all the money he’d accumulated through his grand speculations. But she had no child, nothing of him, and that had hurt her for a very long time.
Her thoughts of Dimitri were interrupted by a soft knock on the door. The sound was so faint that at first she hadn’t thought she’d truly heard it.
She lowered the hairbrush. “Come in,” she said softly.
The door slowly opened and Myn, dressed in rough breeches, boots, and linen shirt, entered the room. His hair hung in long black tangles to his waist, his blue eyes fixed on her.
“I thought you’d come tonight,” Anastasia said without turning around. “But I must say I never thought you’d knock first.”
Myn closed the door and came to her, watching her in the mirror. “I learn human ways.”
Her heart beat faster. The nearness of him, the fresh, outdoor scent of him did things to her senses. Sudden warmth pooled at the base of her spine as he picked up the hairbrush.
She closed her eyes as he slid the brush through her hair. With his other hand, he loosened the ties that held her peignoir closed and dipped his fingers inside to touch her bare body.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alexander hunted. He ran through the woods, the muscles of his long, lean cat’s body rippling, his breath coming fast and hot. He was far from civilization, where cultivated fields had given way to woods and bleak moors.
He needed to run and run and run.
His logosh instincts had wanted him to ki
ll innocent Egan McDonald for daring to dance with Meagan that day. He’d decided to travel a long way into the countryside where he could run the instincts into the ground.
It should have been Alexander taking Meagan into his arms and spinning her gently, not Egan. But then, the love spell coupled with the logosh inside him could not have borne dancing with her. Alexander would have carried her off, or ravished her in the ballroom under Egan’s nose, he was not certain which.
Alexander craved her and he needed her, and he needed to avoid her. Hence he’d taken himself as far away from London as he could and changed.
He liked the shape of the panther, liked the sleek black fur that helped him be unseen in the dark, the heightened senses of smell and hearing and his strange new sense of sight. The creatures of the forest gave him a wide berth, but he could sense them waiting in the dark, huddled in panic.
No need to worry, he thought with a touch of grim humor. He wasn’t a true panther but a human who liked his meat cooked and served on a plate with sauce. A good bottle of wine with it didn’t hurt either.
Alexander wondered as he ran if returning to Nvengaria without Meagan would break the love spell. Or perhaps he could send Meagan and Alex back to Nvengaria without him, if his duties did not permit him to leave England. Princess Penelope would no doubt be happy to see her best friend.
But then his heart burned at the thought of being so far away from his son and his new wife. When Alexander had surrendered to Damien last year, his one fear had been that Damien would separate him from Alex as punishment. Damien had looked surprised at that assumption, a good sign that Damien was not the monster his father had been.
Alexander caught a scent along one path and loped onto a flat expanse of moor. A wolf sat under the moonlight, a breeze ruffling its fur.
“There are no wolves in England,” Alexander told him. He did not actually speak—he had learned to convey ideas without words.
“Or panthers,” Myn said.
“No. We ought to be careful lest an eager farmer shoots us or captures us for a menagerie.”
Myn looked at him with his light blue eyes, no humor in his expression. “As you say.”
“You have been with Anastasia,” Alexander said. He caught the unmistakable scent of Anastasia’s floral perfume even over Myn’s wolfness.
As a human Alexander would have many complicated thoughts about Myn sleeping with Anastasia, such as whether Anastasia was up to something, or whether Myn was, or how he could use their partnership to his advantage. As an animal and logosh, he saw a very straightforward picture—Myn wanted Anastasia and Anastasia needed Myn.
“She has been deeply hurt,” Alexander said.
“Yes. Dimitri was my friend, but he was not good for her.”
“No.” Alexander saw everything with startling animal clarity. “He made Anastasia fly too high and fall too far.”
“He should have loved her better.”
Alexander stretched himself on the ground, uncramping the muscles of his cat’s body. “When you were with Anastasia, how did you keep the logosh at bay?”
“I did not.” He turned his wise wolf’s face to Alexander. “The logosh is not evil or harmful. We are strong and dangerous, but that is only part of us. We love our mates and our children with tenderness.”
“You have had your entire life to practice being logosh,” Alexander pointed out, “while I have only known of it several weeks.”
“It is part of you,” Myn said. “You must let it be part of you. You cannot keep it separate.”
“The last thing in the world I want is to hurt Meagan.”
“Then let her help you. Every Nvengarian has violence inside him, as does every logosh. Nvengarians embrace violence while logosh are peaceful people until necessary. Let your love for her bring you peace.”
Alexander whuffed, a useful sound panthers made. “The love is a spell that winds me to a frenzy. I want to devour her, I want…” He broke off. “The love spell does not care if I hurt her.”
“Then you must look beyond the spell to what is truly in your heart.”
“Or I should break the spell. This Black Annie must be a powerful witch to evade me all this time. I will hunt her.”
“I predict you will not find her.”
Alexander growled deep in his throat. “I must find her. What is in my heart is all mixed and tangled in the love spell and I don’t know what I truly feel.”
“You will if you look closely enough.”
“Damn logosh.” Alexander rolled to his feet. “The way I know I am only half logosh is because I don’t speak in riddles. Only full logosh are as cryptic as you.”
Myn, to his surprise, gave him a wolf’s smile. “It is useful.”
Alexander loped away, back to where he’d left his clothes. He’d return to the inn where he’d taken a room and ride back to London tomorrow.
“Look into my heart,” he repeated with a cynical growl, not waiting to see if Myn followed. “I haven’t looked in so long I know I’ll not like what I find there.”
The Grand Duchess of Nvengaria’s first hosted ball was the talk of the ton for years to come, for more reasons than one.
“Not your fault, darling,” Simone said days later, reading yet another newspaper story about it. “You couldn’t have anticipated…well…everything.”
It started fine enough. The footmen had swarmed through the house hanging drapes and looping wreaths of flowers through chandeliers and wall sconces. Mrs. Caldwell and Meagan had chosen Nvengarian red, blue, and shimmering gold, and the colors swirled through the house like the brightest of blossoms.
Both Nvengarian and English flags hung in the ballroom, the entire theme of the party being good English and Nvengarian relations. It did not hurt, Mrs. Caldwell said, that Meagan came from a blue-blooded English family of unblemished background, not rich perhaps, but she had breeding. And breeding of course was much more important than riches any day.
Meagan tried to believe this, knowing that half the ladies in the ton looked upon her as a country bumpkin in finery.
The musicians tuned in their corner of the ballroom, the butler carried bottles of wine to and fro, and the Nvengarian footmen dashed about on last-minute errands. Susan had taken one hour to dress Meagan and one hour on her hair.
The result was stunning. A silver silk dress skimmed Meagan’s body, shimmering under a net of midnight blue, and a circlet of diamonds glittered in her hair. The ensemble looked so simple but was the result of countless machinations by Susan, with the assistance of Meagan’s second maid and Mrs. Caldwell.
Meagan roamed the house—carefully, so as not to muss her hair, thus having to endure another hour with Susan tugging and twisting it—looking over the preparations yet again. Everything seemed fine, yet Meagan paced nervously.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Simone said, glittering with jewels Meagan had given her. “You will be the envy of the ton. You have this splendid house and a splendid husband and splendid diamonds, and the ball will be the best of the Season. Everyone talks about you, my dear.”
Meagan had never been shy, liking forthright ways that often unnerved Simone, but now her heart fluttered at Simone’s words. She would never get used to being the center of attention. She also worried about the ices melting and the flowers drooping and the wrong words coming out of her mouth to the wrong person. The newspapers would either pronounce her first ball as Grand Duchess a brilliant success, or they’d print scathing reports that would make her hide under the bed for the rest of her life.
As she stood in the center of the ballroom, watching Marcus and Brutus clinging perilously to a ladder to secure a garland to a chandelier, she became aware of Alexander behind her.
She knew these days exactly when he came into a room and when he left it, whether she actually saw him or not. Half the ballroom separated them, but she knew he stood in the doorway before she even turned around.
Her hungry gaze roved his tall form and muscular bod
y arrayed in his tight Nvengarian coat and sash of office. He had been so elusive of late, never taking meals in the house, barely speaking to her when they met in public though he showed her every politeness.
The people of the ton thought them madly but tastefully in love. Only Meagan knew of the nights in bed alone when Alexander did not even bother to come home.
She knew he went out with Myn, because she saw the two of them coming and going often enough. But if she ever entered a room where they spoke together, Alexander would break the conversation and leave without a word. She tried to ask Myn what was happening, but her Nvengarian was still halting and Myn pretended not to understand her.
Husbands, she thought in exasperation. Maddening creatures.
She started across the ballroom to him now, expecting him to abruptly turn and depart when he saw her. If she could have run to block his exit without looking like a fool, she would have, but she had to settle for striding majestically toward him and hoping he did not run away.
Before she could reach him, Nikolai stepped into the ballroom and caught Alexander’s attention.
“Your Grace, there is a problem with the sword dance.”
Problem? Meagan’s heart beat faster. Two hours before her first hosted ball she did not want to hear the word problem.
She realized Nikolai spoke English, likely for her benefit. “What problem?” she demanded as she reached them.
“One of the footmen is ill.” Nikolai’s expression said that he disdained such weakness.
“I know,” Meagan answered. “Gaius. I believe he ate something that disagreed with him, and I told him to stay in bed.”
“Humph,” Nikolai said.
“He is quite ill, poor thing. Moaning piteously and very green.”
“What has Gaius’s illness to do with the sword dance?” Alexander interrupted. He would not look at Meagan, but she felt his attention touch her like a caress. Just the heat of his body anywhere near her was enough to drive her mad.