Anastasia closed her eyes, her face still red. Alexander bustled Meagan out the door, his fingers points of warmth on her arm.
“Good gracious,” she whispered as they moved back to the ballroom. “I will never forgive you for not telling me, Alexander. We ladies like to know when our friends have found someone.”
“I believe what she has found is a challenge,” Alexander replied, in no way chastised. “It will be good for her. She’s built heavy walls around her heart and hidden herself behind them.”
Meagan studied his granite-hard face and the line of black whiskers on his jaw. “Well, you ought to know all about that.”
His eyes were still. “Why do you think I understand her so well? We both have dealt with our grief by burying ourselves in our work.”
“You don’t always, you know.”
“Always what?”
“Have to bury yourself. Not any longer.”
He stared down at her a moment, blue eyes narrowing. Suddenly he scooped her to him, his arm hard on the small of her back. His lips came down on hers, briefly searing her, and then he was gone.
He strode back to the ballroom, away from her, nearly colliding with Egan McDonald, who was heading toward them.
Egan watched Alexander’s retreating figure in surprise. “Everything all right?”
“‘Tis as usual,” Meagan said, taking his arm. “Danger, intrigue, Alexander stubbornly trying to solve all the problems of the world himself. A typical day in the household of the Grand Duke of Nvengaria.”
Egan bellowed laughter, but the laugh was hollow and his brown eyes looked haunted. Meagan studied him in concern. His usually swarthy face was pale, and he had dark smudges under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept much of late.
“Egan, what is it?”
He returned her look innocently. “Eh? What’s what?”
She pulled him to a halt outside the ballroom. “You are not very good at pretending, at least not to me. Has something happened?”
Egan’s usual good-natured smile deserted him, and for a moment she thought he’d glare at her and walk away.
“I had some news that I didna like, and I’ll thank ye to not repeat it to anyone.”
“I’d never betray a friend’s confidence,” she said indignantly.
He smiled. “Aye, you’re a good sort, and Alexander doesna deserve ye, but I’ve always said that. Remember the Nvengarian lass I told ye about?”
“The one called Zarabeth? Oh dear, is she ill?”
“No.” He shook his head, dark curls moving. “I had a letter from Damien about her husband, who turns out to be a black-hearted, good-for-nothing, be-damned…” He broke off, eyes filling with pain. “Beggin’ your pardon for the language, but I’d like to murder the son of a bitch.”
Meagan flinched at the viciousness in his tone. “Why? What has he done?”
“He’s been scheming against Damien, pulling Zarabeth into it, unwittingly on her part. She’s a sweet lass, never would hurt anyone.” He grimaced. “Well, except for the time she nearly hit me on the head with a whisky bottle, but I deserved it. Her husband is a hard, cold man, I’ve been told, and Zarabeth had to choose between loyalty to him and loyalty to Damien, her cousin. She chose to tell Damien of her husband’s plots, and she’s holed up in Damien’s palace while her husband stirs up an insurrection.”
“An insurrection?” Meagan said in alarm.
“Hush, lass, that’s not for general knowledge. Damien isna worried about this particular uprising and thinks it will be put down in a trice. Apparently, ‘tis not the first one he’s had since coming home.”
“Good heavens, does Alexander know?”
“Aye, he does. Damien tells him everything. Apparently ‘tis not so dire that Damien would call Alexander home.”
Meagan relaxed slightly, but her annoyance stirred. She’d just been thinking so eloquently that Alexander had let her unilaterally into his life, but she realized he had not shared every secret with her, including the one about Myn and Anastasia. She would have a few things to say about that.
She patted Egan’s arm, wanting to comfort him. “Damien and Penelope will take care of your Zarabeth.”
“Aye, I know they will, but it kills me not to be there where I could take a knife to the blackguard.”
“It’s likely Damien would not let you. Zarabeth is his cousin. Damien will avenge her, and he has enough power to do so.”
“Aye,” Egan repeated. “But ‘tis a hard thing, lass. She wouldna want me to protect her even were I there. We were friends, but we did not part on the most cordial of terms. She never even told me of her marriage.”
“I am sorry.”
Egan shook himself, coming out of his doldrums. “Listen to me go on. It’s me own troubles, lass, donna be bothering about them.” He pasted on his Mad Highlander smile and held out his hand to her. “Now, let’s go have a good knees-up.”
Meagan smiled back at him, trying to look reassuring, but she was troubled. An insurrection, however minor, would put her best friend Penelope in danger, no matter that Damien, and apparently Alexander, thought the matter easily solved. It was worrying being connected with such powerful men.
But the wife of a powerful man pretended not to let such things trouble her. Lifting her chin, she sailed into the ballroom with Egan, where they slid into the roles of the entertaining Mad Highlander and the lofty new Grand Duchess of Nvengaria.
Alexander saw Meagan enter with Egan, both of them smiling merrily over some shared joke, and envied the easy camaraderie Egan seemed to engender. Camaraderie was not for Alexander of Nvengaria.
All eyes turned to the new Grand Duchess, lovely in her silver and midnight gown. Egan had her possessively on his arm, but the gentlemen of London began to flow to her from all parts of the room, like moths attracted to a particularly colorful flame.
Alexander watched it happen as he had at the French ambassador’s ball, the first they’d attended as man and wife. The gentlemen’s attentions at first bewildered Meagan, then she found them amusing, then she blossomed under them. He watched her begin to realize her power, how she only had to flick her fingers and the young bloods would run to fetch her sherry or a macaroon.
She smiled at them, not flirting, but rewarding them when they pleased her. He watched her tell a few gentlemen to pick out this young lady or that one to dance with, and the gentlemen bowed and rushed to do the bidding of their newfound goddess.
Alexander did not miss the dark glances some of the bolder gentlemen shot Alexander as he went about his own duties as host. He had the feeling he would once again have to propose a shooting exhibition to deter too many tiresome requests for duels.
The ball wore on. Alexander noted that Michael Tavistock kept his wife reined in so she did not throw herself too much on the king and the royal dukes or Wellington. Alexander escorted Simone Tavistock to supper himself, letting her squeeze his arm and behave as though they’d been intimate friends all along. He understood that she was rubbing her rivals’ noses in her new position, and Alexander knew all about keeping rivals on their toes.
The supper was a lavish banquet the staff had worked on for days. The tables and sideboards were heavily laden with pheasant, fish, roasts, goose, duck, ham, pullets, soups clear and cream, jellied consommés, bright greens and salads, sauces of every flavor, and bowls overflowing with apples, grapes, pears, and hothouse strawberries.
The centerpiece of the main table looked like something from a Gothic cathedral—a small square fountain with five tiers of carved wooden angels and gargoyles that rose to an apex high above the table. Water spilled down the angels and gargoyles, spinning wheels that rang soft bells, so that the whole thing was a musical accompaniment.
“Oh, how clever,” Simone Tavistock said at his side. “Meagan did so well on all the arrangements, did she not?”
“Yes,” he said, unable to keep the note of pride from his voice.
Simone took on a smile of delight. “She was
so very well raised, dear girl, by her father all alone, but countrified, quite countrified. Of course once I became her mother I took her in hand and gave her a great dose of polish. She had a fine foundation and all it needed was my touch to bring out the best in her. Do you not think she turned out well, Your Grace?”
Alexander’s gaze strayed to Meagan as she walked to the supper table on the arm of the very portly King George, slowing her steps to match his. She glanced over at him, saw him with her stepmother, and sent him a tiny smile that warmed his heart.
“Meagan is an exquisite young woman,” he said. Simone preened, believing he was paying her a compliment.
Supper commenced and flowed predictably. Alexander had to talk to every lady but his wife, and Meagan spoke to every gentleman but her husband.
He noted that Egan and Michael Tavistock hovered close to Meagan, which gave him some relief. They’d protect her, and that pirate turned viscount looked like he’d be good in a fight as well. Alexander could trust Myn to keep an eye out for von Hohenzahl and his underling Peterli during the ball, and afterward Alexander would deal with the Austrian.
Perhaps Alexander would let Anastasia “sell” him to Peterli after all, however much Meagan protested, and then turn the tables on the Austrians, wrap them in ropes, and deliver Peterli and von Hohenzahl to their beloved Prince Metternich. That would be the end of von Hohenzahl. Metternich was a ruthless and urbane man, much like Alexander, and he did not look kindly upon bumblers.
First Alexander needed to get through the supper and then the rest of the ball without giving in to the temptation of sweeping up Meagan and carrying her upstairs to ravish her.
“Yes, of course,” he said with the half attention he’d been paying the marchioness at his side. “English cricket is a quite an interesting game, I agree. Tell me more.”
After supper came the exhibition dancing the Nvengarians had been practicing all week. Meagan stood with Egan McDonald as the men formed a circle in the center of the ballroom, naked steel swords in their hands. The swords were plenty sharp—as Nikolai had repeatedly mentioned.
A sigh of interest ran through the ladies in the ballroom. The men wore collarless lawn shirts open over muscular chests, thigh-hugging trousers, and knee-high boots. Biceps flexed as the Nvengarians hefted their swords.
Those with longer hair had pulled it into queues, as Alexander wore his. They formed a circle, eleven models of Nvegarian male perfection.
Meagan’s gaze strayed hungrily to Alexander. Like his men, he’d dispensed with his coat and stood easily in this half undress, one brown hand on his hip, waiting for the dance to begin. His usual ruby earring glittered in his ear, matching the ruby on his hand.
“You look quite intense,” Maggie Finley said next to her.
Meagan let out a small sigh. “When I made my coming out, my friend Penelope and I used to sit in ballrooms and search for tight trousers, TTs we called them, and rate them. My husband, I think, would have earned the perfect score tonight.”
Miss Finley laughed in true mirth. “I must learn this game.”
On Meagan’s other side, Egan nudged her. “Stop ogling your husband and pay attention. They’re about to start. Now this, lass, is something to see.”
The Nvengarians used no music. They began by slowly clapping their swords against those of the men next to them, turning back and forth to clap first one, then the other.
Because there were eleven, one man each half turn would not touch his sword to another’s. It was a different man each time, seemingly random. Meagan nearly went dizzy trying to decide how they knew which man would be out at a particular time.
The men increased their speed a tiny bit at a time, and began to accompany the sword striking with a slight stamping step that shuffled the circle slowly inward, then out again. The shuffling step caused the men’s backsides to sway slightly, and the fluttering of ladies’ fans increased.
The odd man out of the sword clapping began to toss his sword once, having just enough time to grasp the hilt again before striking his neighbor’s blade. They went on like this for some time, their precision beautiful to watch. The tossed swords went up in a glitter of steel, first here, then there, while the rhythm of the stamping boots and the clattering swords kept a succinct time.
Meagan watched Alexander, one hand on his hip, his other hand strong on the hilt of his sword. He frowned in concentration as he clacked his sword against the blade next to him, once, twice, three times, then tossed his sword precisely when the other two men weren’t there to meet him.
He performed with a polished skill that astonished her, an easy grace she’d never encountered in anyone else. She remembered the last time they’d gone to bed before he’d begun avoiding her, when he’d showed her the arts of pleasure he’d studied in Nvengaria. Every movement that night had been as precise and polished as the dance was now. His own passion had shone from behind the moves, reflected in the intensity of his blue eyes.
Perhaps tonight she’d again lie under his long, taut body, and he’d move into her with the same intense precision. She watched the muscles of his arm flex as he tossed the sword again, catching it with ease, his strong hips moving with the dance.
“Do not swoon, Your Grace,” Miss Finley whispered with good humor behind her fan. “People will talk. Believe me, I know how the ton can talk.”
“Am I that obvious?” she whispered back.
Miss Finley grinned. “Everyone is watching the dancers, fortunately.”
At that moment, Alexander shouted a word that sounded like “Hep!” and the dancers doubled their speed. The movements were exactly the same, except they now went twice as fast.
The audience gasped as the swords clacked and rang and the circle moved in and out, the blades flying high as each man tossed his in turn. After only a few moments of this, Alexander called “Hep!” again, and the dancers again doubled their speed.
The crowd murmured in admiration. The dancers shuffled together and apart, blades flashing, then the whole circle began to move first clockwise, then counterclockwise, boots flashing in intricate steps. The time for each man to throw his sword had shortened considerably, and yet they did it, catching them without missing a beat or dropping a one.
They began adding more difficult moves, spinning once as they tossed their swords, keeping in perfect rhythm with the others.
Meagan nearly screamed when Alexander flipped his body backward and landed on his feet again in time to catch his sword. A few other dancers copied his move while some spun in place, three, four times before catching the sword to the audience’s stunned gasps.
And then Alexander shouted for the pace to increase again. This time the sword man out tossed his blade astonishingly high while the men on either side of him clashed swords across his body. Meagan held her breath, waiting for the blades to slash blood across her husband’s clean white shirt, but the swords never touched him.
The dance whirled faster still, Nvengarian wildness taking over. Alexander shouted his command, and another dancer cried a high-pitched ululation, echoed by the others.
They began to move with lightning speed, the swords clashing and rising and falling, their booted feet crossing and uncrossing in complex steps as they went around the circle and together and apart.
Another cry split the air, and all of a sudden, each man tossed his sword high, their cries echoing to the fussy painted ceiling. The wall of deadly blades arced higher and higher, the swords reaching the apex, and spinning to come down in a rain of glittering steel.
The men caught the swords at precisely the same moment, not dropping one. The circle burst apart, dancers spinning in dizzying circles or flipping over their swords held against the floor. Their cries and stamping filled the room as each dancer grabbed a woman by the waist and swung the startled lady across the ballroom.
Nikolai grabbed Miss Finley a second before Alexander, his eyes hot and blue, snaked his arm around Meagan’s waist and dragged her to the floor. Ou
t of the corner of her eye she saw Anastasia being pulled out by Dominic, and then Alexander spun Meagan with him, his mouth set, his face wild, his arm strong around her waist.
This was not the stately Nvengarian dance Egan had taught her. This dance was crazed, Alexander’s arm rock-solid against her abdomen, his sword held out to his side. Whenever they passed another whirling couple, Alexander’s and the man’s swords met in a ringing clash.
“You’re mad,” she shouted and then she started to laugh. “You are completely mad.”
He grinned at her, the wild and feral Nvengarian loose at last. It was as though without his medal-bedecked coat and sash of office, he could let free the being inside him. His face shone with perspiration, as did his muscled chest bared by the open V of his shirt. He looked like his barbarian ancestors, the Magyars and the gypsies and the nomads in tents under the stars who lived and loved with great passion.
“I love you,” she said beneath the stamping and shouting and clanging and clapping. “I love you, Alexander.”
Alexander jerked her close, and there in front of their five hundred guests, he scooped her to him and kissed her.
His sword clanged Nikolai’s, and the valet laughed out loud. Meagan joined the laughter, tasting the frenzy of Alexander’s bruising kiss.
A loud crash sounded, even over the riot of dancing and shouting, and the two tall windows at the end of the ballroom broke and fell in sheets of shimmering glass. The night rain and wind tumbled in, along with five men carrying pistols cocked and ready.
The gunmen’s gazes roved the crowd that scrambled away from them, women screaming, men shouting. Meagan had the feeling she knew whom they searched for. With his sash of office and medal-bedecked coat gone, the assassins weren’t sure which of the Nvengarians spinning around the room was Alexander.
So they decided to shoot at them all.
Alexander threw Meagan behind him as ten pistols rose and ten shots roared into the crowd. The smell of gunpowder choked her, her ears ringing from the discharge. She shrieked as her slippers slid out from under her, and she landed in a heap of silk and net on the floor.