Egan remembered her. “So this is the English lassie who’s taken down the grand Alexander,” he said when he saw her. He swept her up into a bear hug, which Meagan returned.
Egan was replete in his garish plaids and kilt and high leather boots, his wild dark hair caught in a tail at the nape of his neck. His eyes twinkled, but they held a wary light, and he swayed with too much Scots whisky and Nvengarian wine. “And here I thought ye’d set your cap for me.”
“But you love another, Egan McDonald,” Meagan said teasingly.
Egan started. “Eh? Why do ye say so?”
Meagan hesitated, realizing she’d touched a nerve. “It is in your eyes. You think of her often, do you not?”
Egan grasped her elbow with an iron grip and lowered his head to hers. “You keep that to yourself, lass, all right? Never make mention of Egan McDonald and his unrequited love again.”
His words were light and scented with whisky, but she sensed pain and deep anger in them.
“Of course I would not,” she said. “I would never gossip about a private matter of yours.”
His grip eased, but his voice still grated. “No, that ye wouldna. And for your kindness, I’ll give ye a bit of advice—tread lightly around him. I know why ye want to marry him, he’s told me, but he’s a ruthless cur, and there’s something not quite right about him.”
Meagan blushed. “He told you?”
“Aye.” His handsome face darkened. “And had I known beforehand, I’d have plunged a knife into his heart, but a wedding’s a better thing than bloodshed. He’s a dangerous man, lass. If ye ever need help, just call on Egan McDonald. I owe it to Princess Penelope to look after ye. She’s a great lady, is Penelope.”
“I know.” Tears stung Meagan’s eyes. One of her deepest regrets was that Penelope was not here to see her married. The two wrote often, but that was not the same as sitting with Penelope in her bedchamber while she poured out her heart.
She blinked back tears and turned her head to see Alexander standing at her elbow. He hadn’t been there before, she was certain of it. The man moved like a cat, graceful and predatory, and often so silently that she never knew it until it was too late.
She could not tell whether he’d heard Egan’s declarations. His eyes were neutral, his mouth straight. “It is time, Meagan.”
Meagan felt the touch of the love spell as he put his fingers on her arm and guided her to where his servants were forming a circle. It was always there when he touched her, threads of magic that drew her to him. His tall body at her side made her feel protected, even with Egan’s warning dancing through her head.
As the ritual began, Alexander’s men encircled them, and the tall man called Myn held the tray with the ceremonial knife, cord, and goblet of bloodred Nvengarian wine.
Meagan glanced at Myn as she stepped to where Alexander directed. He had blue eyes, rather larger than most men’s, and he wore his linen shirt, breeches, and boots as though they were uncomfortable, as though they trapped him. His face, while masculine and handsome, was slightly pointed, and he gazed back at her in unblinking calm.
She knew where she’d seen that look before, in a small boy who could shape-shift into a demon on a moment’s notice. The boy-demon had been sent to murder Prince Damien last year and had ended up giving Penelope his undying devotion.
Meagan grasped Alexander’s cuff. “He’s a logosh,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Alexander said smoothly, as though shape-shifting demons were an everyday occurrence. He gave Myn a cool nod. “Please begin.”
In a deep, melodious voice, Myn spoke the ceremony that would bind Meagan to Alexander forever in the Nvengarian way. He spoke only Nvengarian, and Nikolai translated for the English guests.
One person notably absent from the gathering was Lady Anastasia. It would look odd were she to be present, Alexander had explained when she asked him.
Alexander’s six-year-old son, on the other hand, was very much present, standing with Egan McDonald. Meagan had been nervous about meeting young Alex, but he’d given her his allover assessment and sensed with a child’s keen perception that she was as out of place in Alexander’s world as he was. He’d bowed formally, then flung his arms about her legs.
Now he joined in the foot stomping with Alexander’s men, which grew louder and louder in a wild beat as Myn held up the knife and gave it to Alexander. Alexander slashed the knife across his own palm, then quickly across Meagan’s, too quickly for pain. Myn bound their cut hands together with plain cord. Alexander lifted the goblet and drank, then held it steady while Meagan sipped.
They were betrothed. The Nvengarians cheered, voices rocking the garish ballroom. The men grabbed the hands of the guests and began to dance in a wild and chaotic circle. Alexander, his hand still tied to Meagan’s, leaned down and brushed her lips with his.
Fire began with the kiss, and Meagan laced her hand behind Alexander’s neck.
“Mine,” he breathed against her mouth, and the word held finality.
It was traditional for the betrothed couple to make love afterward, but Meagan went home with her father and stepmother instead. Mayfair was not ready for the permissive sexual customs of Nvengarians, Michael said, and Alexander did not argue with him.
Alexander seemed to understand when he should concede to English notions and when he could be Nvengarian. In the game of smooth give and take, Alexander was master.
His eyes told Meagan a different story. When he bowed and kissed her hand in the echoing foyer of his house, the heat in his eyes nearly undid her.
“I will see you at the wedding ceremony in four weeks,” he said; plain words, but his voice went rough, and he brushed his finger across her lips. Four weeks would be forever to wait to see him again.
As it turned out, Meagan did not have to wait four weeks. The morning after the banns were first read, an official notice appeared in the Times announcing the betrothal of Miss Meagan Tavistock and the Grand Duke of Nvengaria.
Mayfair went into an uproar. Invitations suddenly bombarded the Tavistock house from every hostess in town, from duchesses to baronesses and everyone in between who wanted to see to whom the most fascinating man in England had betrothed himself.
Half of the ladies of the ton said they always knew Meagan Tavistock was a sweet and pretty girl and they were not surprised that the Grand Duke, wealthy, powerful, and handsome, had chosen her to be his bride. The other half hissed that Miss Tavistock was nobody and didn’t deserve such a match, that her stepmother was an ambitious harpy who’d thrown Meagan at the Grand Duke. They spread still darker rumors that Meagan and Simone practiced black magic and had ensnared Alexander with witchery.
Meagan had little doubt as to who had started the last rumors after she encountered Deirdre Braithwaite at the Duchess of Cranshaw’s at-home party the night after the betrothal announcement.
Deirdre pushed through the crowded staircase hall, her silk gown dangerously low on her breasts, her chest glittering with dozens of diamonds. In spite of the rather interested crush, Deirdre planted herself in front of Meagan and slapped her across the face.
“How dare you?” she cried. “You stole that talisman and used it yourself. You were in collusion with the witch all the time, weren’t you?”
Deirdre could not hit very hard, but the fact that she’d done so in front of so many people astonished Meagan.
“You insisted I keep it, I believe,” Meagan countered.
“So you admit you used it. Bitch—”
Deirdre broke off abruptly, not so much because of the happy stares of the other guests, but because four muscular Nvengarians dressed in blue uniforms suddenly surrounded her.
Two seized Deirdre under the elbows and turned her around, and the other two closed in on either side of Meagan. As the two men bore the shrieking Deirdre through the crowd, she screamed over her shoulder, “That’s fifty guineas you owe me!”
One of the Nvengarians who remained beside Meagan, a man with a nose that
had once been broken and several nasty scars on his cheeks, said in a gravelly voice, “You are fine, yes?”
“Yes.” Meagan put her hand to her face where Deirdre had slapped her, the sting already gone. “She’s harmless, really.”
“Grand Duke Alexander, he says we stay with you. Keep you from hurt.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
The man grinned, as though he approved of her defiance. “We stay with you all day, all night. Many bad people could hurt you, and so hurt Alexander.”
“I see.”
Meagan did, with a chill that disturbed her. Alexander was an important and powerful man, and the games he played were dangerous. She remembered how she’d walked with Penelope last year in the fine weather to a peaceful village square, and how an assassin had come out of the crowd to attack Damien and then Penelope. Meagan remembered diving in panic behind the public well, stones scraping her hands and face, remembered how the Nvengarian men had so eagerly surrounded and killed the man who’d tried to harm their beloved Penelope. The sudden violence on such a beautiful day had frightened her and stayed with her a long time.
“I am Dominic,” the burly man said. “You call me when danger comes.”
The flock of Mayfair ladies and gentlemen stared and whispered and openly gawked. Meagan noted that they did not draw too near, however, with the two Nvengarians flanking her. Her first instinct was to flee from the scrutiny that unnerved her, but she lifted her chin. She would not run. She’d not give Deirdre the satisfaction.
She spent the rest of the evening at her stepmother’s elbow, her bodyguards watching at what they thought was a discreet distance. The attention she received from the hostess and all the other guests nearly wore through her defiance, but Simone lapped up every minute of it.
“We truly are important, now,” Simone crowed on the way home. “The ladies who wanted to snub me didn’t dare with those Nvengarians breathing down their necks. We are in, my dear.”
Oh, yes, in, Meagan thought sourly. What a delightful place to be.
Dominic and his men followed her everywhere. They slept in shifts, two on, two off, lived in the Tavistock house, and accompanied Meagan every time she stepped out the door. She was used to going about escorted by her footman, but the silent menace of Nvengarian bodyguards striding along on each side of her was much different from the presence of Roberts, who stumbled often and dropped packages every few feet.
Meagan had always gone where she pleased, not particularly noticed by anyone. Now, not only did ladies and gentlemen of the ton stare at her unusual entourage, but the newspapers decided to take an interest in her. Dominic and his men had to push back the nosy journalists who flocked to the Tavistock house, waiting every day for Meagan to come out. Unfortunately, the more Dominic threatened and manhandled the journalists, the more persistent they became.
In higher places, the leaders of society squared off, sharply divided in opinion about the soon-to-be Grand Duchess of Nvengaria. The Duchess of Cranshaw, a girlhood friend to Simone, led the supporters of Meagan, declaring her to be adorable and just right to soften up the Grand Duke. Lady Featherstone fell in with this crowd, pleased to boast that her ball had brought them together.
The opposition was led by the Duchess of Gower, a woman of thirty who headed a very fashionable set of ladies, married and widowed, who enjoyed the most handsome men of London as their lovers. No one spoke of their conquests out loud, of course, but Simone kept Meagan informed of every rumor. Deirdre Braithwaite was a firm member of this crowd.
The Duchess of Gower had hoped to land Alexander in her net, Simone said, and was enraged that he’d gotten himself engaged to a nobody like Meagan Tavistock. The duchess had even made a wager she’d have Alexander a week after his wedding, proclaiming he’d quickly tire of his washed-out redheaded wife.
Meagan endured Simone’s tales without screaming, but only just.
“I have always hated the Duchess of Gower,” Simone concluded with vicious glee. “I am pleased you have tweaked her tail, my dear. She is so proud of her beauty, but you will easily outshine her once Alexander has fitted you out with the best frocks and jewels in London. She fights dirty, but do not worry, with the Duchess of Cranshaw on your side, and me, we will send her home weeping. After all, you will be Grand Duchess of Nvengaria and many times more important than she.”
Meagan groaned and buried her face in her hands. “May we move to Northumbria? Or the Yorkshire Dales? Those are sufficiently remote.”
“Do not be so silly,” Simone said. “Everything will be delightful.” She laughed, clearly in transports.
After sessions like these, Meagan was ready to send Alexander a polite note and call the whole thing off.
But then she’d dream of him. Every night when she dropped off to sleep in her small four-poster bed, Alexander invaded her dreams. They were so real she could feel his touch on her skin, smell his breath as he leaned to kiss her, and taste him—his skin, his lips, his fingers—as he brushed them over her.
He’d come to her and strip the covers from the bed and the nightrail from her body. He’d already be naked, skin smooth over hard muscles, moonlight kissing his body. He’d climb upon the bed, his warm body covering hers, his voice low and beautiful. He’d speak Nvengarian, but she’d understand every word. “Love,” he’d whisper, “I want you. I want you so much, I’m starving for you. Touch me.”
She would run her fingers over his hot skin, tracing the perfect muscles of his back and shoulders. He’d let out a half sigh, half moan, his blue eyes dark. He’d taste her skin and tease her thighs with his arousal, making her want him deep inside her as he had been the night of the Featherstone’s ball.
“Please,” she’d beg, arching her hips to him.
“No, love. We wait.”
“Why?”
“The time must be right.” His hot breath would tickle the curls at her temple. “Soon.”
She’d writhe in frustration, because it was a dream, for heaven’s sake, and why could she not at least have fulfillment there? Alexander would laugh and trail kisses down her throat and between her breasts. He’d press his mouth over the space between her navel and her female places, then flick his tongue over the nub between her thighs.
She’d scream and gasp, then wake to find her nightrail raked over her legs and her fingers pressed tightly to her opening, her hand wet.
The dream never came twice in one night. She only ever had one a night, try as she might to conjure the vision of him again.
“Bloody love spell,” she’d groan, punching her pillows. She no longer carried any skepticism about Black Annie and her power. Only magic could have made her life this bizarre.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two weeks after the betrothal ritual, Meagan walked with Simone and the Nvengarian bodyguards along Oxford Street so that Simone could shop for gloves and hats and ribbons and lace by the dozens.
“I will need such things when I begin attending the important balls you give,” she said. “The stepmother of the Grand Duchess must be well fitted out.”
Meagan’s father did not stop these shopping expeditions for two reasons. The first was that Simone was never happier than when decorating herself and imagining the envy of her friends over said decorations. The second was that Simone, as fluttery as she was, had a masterful grasp of economy. She could stretch a shilling farther than a Lloyd’s of London clerk, and her bargaining skills were legendary. She knew exactly how much money she could spend and exactly how to get as much finery out of it without compromising quality. A rare gift, Meagan always thought, although she never told Simone, who would not understand the compliment.
Ahead of them a door that led to the shop of an exclusive modiste opened and a lady emerged. She wore a full-length dark blue velvet cloak that shimmered as she moved, and beneath it a pale green gown, unadorned but at the same time breathtakingly elegant. Meagan recognized the sculpted face and lovely black hair of Lady Anastasia Dimitri.
Meagan started forward, eager to greet her, but Simone pinched her elbow. “Meagan, are you mad? A lady does not greet a courtesan, especially not her betrothed’s mistress.”
“But she is not his…” She stopped, remembering Alexander’s explanation that he had woven “layers of lies” to keep gossips from realizing the truth about his relationship with Anastasia. She rearranged her words. “She is not a courtesan. She is the widow of a Nvengarian count. It seems rude not to speak to her after I met her at Lady Featherstone’s ball.”
Simone considered, finger to her lips. She so clearly wanted to talk to Lady Anastasia, a highly intriguing woman, but at the same time wanted to preserve propriety.
“Ah, she is coming this way,” Simone said, relieved. “We can not cut her if she greets us first.”
Lady Anastasia moved to them as gracefully as a swan gliding across a pond. Before the avid stares of the journalists held back by Dominic, she stopped and extended a long-fingered hand.
“Mrs. Tavistock, how fine to see you,” she said, her Austrian tones giving her an exotic sound. “And Miss Tavistock. May I take it that you shop for the marriage?” She gave Meagan the barest wink.
Too many people with too many eager ears existed for Meagan to do anything but respond politely. She imagined the journalists on the edge of the circle taking furious notes. “Miss T—chats cordially with Lady A—on an Oxford Street outing,” their stories would say. “Could they perhaps be speaking of gloves?”
Meagan knew the newspapers would be filled with innuendo, because just this morning she’d read an article that described Grand Duke Alexander sitting with Lady Anastasia at the opera the previous night and dancing later with her at the Duchess of Gower’s ball. Miss Tavistock had been nowhere in sight. “Home with a cold?” the journalist had snickered.