The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(100)
Before Alexander could puzzle out what he meant, a sudden swarm of men with weapons descended upon the room. A net of metallic thread landed around Alexander’s snarling body and something hard crashed against his skull.
* * *
Meagan stared at Black Annie in shock. “Temporary? I do not understand. The love spell is even now as strong as it was the day it began.”
Black Annie looked pleased with herself. “Grand Duke Alexander is a very attractive and captivating man, my dear. Of course you fell in love with him.”
“No, it was the love spell.” Meagan shook her head. “I saw the visions. Alexander experienced them too.”
“Have you had any visions since your wedding night?” Black Annie asked, her eyes bright. “Or just the feelings?”
Meagan realized all at once that she had not. She’d had one last vision in the dining room when she and Alexander had shared their ridiculous wedding night supper, and he’d made love to her on the table. After that, the visions had not plagued her, but Meagan had assumed that the love spell no longer needed them. Her own imagination conjured plenty of ways in which she and Alexander could enjoy each other.
She gazed at Black Annie in anguish. “But if you are correct, then I am truly in love with him. What am I going to do?”
“Continue to love him, of course,” Black Annie said, as though it were obvious. “The love spell nudged you together, but you and Alexander made it real.” She beamed. “You see? I knew you’d suit.”
“But how could you have known?” Meagan demanded in bewilderment. “You had never met me, and I had never heard of you. What made you think Alexander and I would fall in love?”
Black Annie rose, went to her writing table, took a carved wooden box from one of the drawers, and from that extracted a letter.
“Your temperament is very like your mother’s, my dear, though you inherited your hard-headed practicality from your father,” she said. “Your mother and father loved each other desperately—and before you believe it was all magic and not real, I gave them the same sort of spell I gave you and Alexander. It pushed your father into noticing your mother and led them to the altar, but their life afterward was their own doing.” She pushed the letter into Meagan’s hands. “If you want a full explanation, read.”
Meagan was in no mood to read anything, but she took the letter and unfolded it.
The page was worn with time, covered in a crisp handwriting Meagan recognized from the few papers and books she had that once belonged to her mother. Her breath caught as she read the first words.
My dear Annabella, when you read this letter, I will be gone, dead and buried, at peace. I wanted to say good-bye to you who have been a dear friend to me, the woman who gave me the two greatest gifts of my life—my husband and my daughter.
Meagan’s heart ached as her mother’s voice reached from the past. Through fresh tears, she read on.
I was a foolish young woman when I approached you, saucily wanting to catch the eye of the handsome Michael Tavistock. You gave me your wise smile and said you would help me. You knew me for a frivolous thing, and then you gave me your gift, not because I craved it but because you knew it was good for me. When Michael met me that day at Chatsworth and could not keep his eyes—or his lips—off me, I knew that you had done what I asked. And at such a bargain!
But it is not of my own happiness that I write to you today. My greatest sadness is that I will not live to see my daughter grow to womanhood. I will miss her debut and her first dance and her first blush of love. I will miss her wedding and the dear grandchildren she would have given me. Her father will do his best, of course, but she will need wisdom from another party when it comes time for her to make her match.
Please, Annabella, my dear friend, can you find it in your heart to make certain my Meagan finds the man who will be her truest love, who will befriend her and be kind to her and love her for everything she is? I want for my daughter the same happiness you helped me achieve, with a gentleman who will love her as she deserves. Guide her to him as you guided me, bringing to me the greatest happiness a woman could know.
And my dear friend, to make you smile, I have enclosed your future fee. One bob.
Black Annie gently took the paper from Meagan’s frozen fingers and led her to sit on the sofa.
“This is why you gave me the talisman,” Meagan whispered as she sank to the cushions. “Why you had me help you when you made it.”
“Indeed.” Black Annie seated herself next to Meagan. “I watched you from afar in the years you were growing up, and I confess, I sent in a spy now and then to keep an eye on you—a charwoman here, a gardener there. When Alexander came to London, I realized that you and he were perfect for each other. He needs a forthright young lady who will love him with an honest heart and bring him out of his shell. You need an intelligent man who will challenge you a little but also see your true worth.” She smiled, dimples on her cheeks. “And it does not hurt that he is so very handsome.”
Meagan thought of Alexander’s body touched with firelight as he drowsed next to her, his fingers a breath on her hair. She thought of him in his open shirt and slim trousers the night before as he danced the wild sword dance of his people.
She remembered when she’d first seen him in the ballroom at Lady Featherstone’s, how his blue eyes had burned her all the way across the room. And how he’d looked in their first shared vision in the bath chamber, his hair slick with water, his eyes half-closed, a gleam of heat coming from them.