The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(28)
From the shadows of another corner, Myn emerged, his large blue eyes thoughtful. The regulars at this public house tolerated Myn more than they did the Austrian gentlemen because Myn, while odd-looking with his very black hair, muscular body, and strange eyes, drank ale quietly and disturbed no one. They’d come to accept Myn, who was quiet and calm, and they also sensed it would be unwise to disturb him.
Therefore, the men in the taproom that night had done nothing to betray his presence to the Austrian gentlemen.
Myn set down his ale and walked quietly out after them. He did not speak German, but he had recognized the name Alexander and a smattering of German words taught to him by his old friend Dimitri of Nvengaria. Myn also had an excellent memory for words and phrases, and he would store these up and have someone translate for him.
Princess Penelope had asked Myn to look after Grand Duke Alexander and keep him from harm, and Myn would obey her, no matter how many people he had to hurt to do it.
* * *
Simone Tavistock got her way. To Meagan’s surprise Alexander withdrew his suggestion that he and Meagan marry immediately and promised Simone that he would plan a grand society wedding.
But as the whirlwind caught Meagan to sweep her from that moment to the altar in St. George’s, Hanover Square, a month later, she began to wish Alexander had insisted she marry him then and there. Would have saved so much trouble.
Chapter 8
First, the jewels began arriving. The morning after Meagan had agreed to marry Alexander—although agreed was not the word she liked to use—Rose and Simone leaned over Meagan at the dressing table as she opened a flat box Rose had hurried upstairs with. Large square-cut rubies bound together with a heavy strand of gold lay serenely inside. The rubies glittered dull red against the black velvet inside the box, the necklace obviously old and valuable.
Simone sat down swiftly and waved her hand in front of her face. “Oh my, aren’t those grand,” she exclaimed, while Rose breathed, “Oh, miss. Oh, miss.”
The card that had accompanied the rubies simply said, For Meagan Tavistock. Alexander of Nvengaria.
Each day brought another delivery of costly jewels. Alexander sent large diamond earrings to drip beneath Meagan’s curls, an emerald diadem, more diamonds for her throat, and a strand of them for her wrists. The rings arrived together, ten lined up in a box. Four were gold, six heavy Nvengarian silver. All bore round or square jewels—diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires.
Its card read, The Grand Duchess’s rings. Alexander.
Meagan touched the rings gently, realizing that they had adorned the hands of the previous Grand Duchess, Sephronia of Nvengaria. Penelope had written about Sephronia in her gossipy letters long before Meagan had met Alexander. Sephronia had passed away before Penelope reached Nvengaria, but she was still much talked about.
The Grand Duchess had been a divinely beautiful woman, it was said, adored and admired even while her husband had been feared. She’d been a popular society hostess whose balls and fêtes had been perfect, down to the last detail. Nvengaria would never see her like again, the aristocrats liked to say.
Meagan closed the box on the softly sparkling rings in trepidation. Now Meagan would wear the jewels, and the Nvengarians would expect her to host the most perfect balls and fêtes in the land. Meagan groaned and wished she’d never let Deirdre talk her into tagging along to Black Annie’s.
The ring Alexander gave Meagan for the Nvengarian betrothal ceremony he purchased himself—the package arrived straight from the jewelers with their emblem stamped on the box. Inside was a simple band of beaten silver fixed with two diamonds.
Any other gentleman might have written a flowery declaration that he chose it because the diamonds reminded him of her eyes, but the note simply read, For the betrothal ceremony. Alexander.
Meagan gently laid the handwritten card in the little box where she carefully kept all the others and lifted the ring to her lips.
Meagan wore the ring, along with a new gown sewn in haste by the seamstresses Alexander had sent to her, for the Nvengarian betrothal ceremony in Alexander’s overwhelming house.
Alexander’s entourage was smaller than Prince Damien’s but no less enthusiastic. His Nvengarian servants wore dark blue military-style uniforms with medals and high polished boots, and all had the unruly black hair and brilliant blue eyes of Nvengarians.
The men formed a circle around Meagan and Alexander as they stood together in the red-ceilinged ballroom, the retainers’ booted feet keeping up a stamping rhythm. On the outside of the circle were Meagan’s father and Simone, a few close family friends, and a man called Egan MacDonald, a Scotsman Meagan had met last summer at Penelope’s betrothal ceremony.
Egan remembered her. “So you’re the English lassie who’s taken down the grand Alexander,” he’d said in a near shout before the ceremony as he’d swept her into a bear hug.
Egan was replete in his MacDonald plaids and high leather boots, his wild dark hair caught in a tail at the nape of his neck. His eyes twinkled but held a wary light, and he swayed with too much Scots whisky and Nvengarian wine. “And here I thought you’d set your cap for me,” he’d growled as he released her.
“But you love another, Egan MacDonald,” Meagan had said teasingly.
Egan started, his grin falling away. “Why do you say that?”