The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(30)
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 lips across her fingers. Four weeks would be forever.
As it turned out, Meagan did not have to wait four weeks to see him again.
The morning after the banns were first read, an official announcement appeared in the Times announcing the betrothal of Miss Meagan Tavistock and the Grand Duke of Nvengaria. Mayfair went into an uproar. Invitations bombarded the Tavistock house from every hostess in Town, from duchesses to baronesses and everyone in between. All of society wanted to see who the most fascinating man in London had betrothed, each lady wanted to be the first to host the now most talked about couple of the Season.
Exactly half of the ton said they always knew Miss Tavistock was a sweet and pretty young woman and were not surprised that the Grand Duke, wealthy, powerful, and handsome, had chosen a simple English rose to be his bride. The other half stated with cold anger that Miss Tavistock was nobody and didn’t deserve such a match, and that her stepmother was an ambitious harpy who’d thrown Meagan at the Grand Duke with alarming single-mindedness. A few spread an even darker tale that Meagan and Simone had practiced black magic and ensnared Alexander with sorcery.
Meagan had little doubt as to who had started that rumor—confirmed when she encountered Deirdre Braithwaite at the Duchess of Cranshaw’s at-home the night after the betrothal announcement.
Deirdre pushed through the crowded staircase hall, her silk gown dangerously low across her breasts, her bosom glittering with diamonds. Despite the interested crush around them, Deirdre planted herself in front of Meagan and slapped her across the face.
“How dare you?” Deirdre snarled. “You stole that talisman and used it yourself. You were in collusion with the witch the whole time, weren’t you?”
Deirdre could not hit very hard, but the fact that she’d do so in front of a houseful of people astonished both Meagan and the guests near enough to witness it.
“You insisted I keep it, I believe,” Meagan countered.
Deirdre’s face went nearly purple. “So you admit it. Bitch—”
Deirdre broke off abruptly, not so much because of the happy stares of the other guests, but because four muscular Nvengarian men dressed in blue uniforms had suddenly surrounded her.
Two of the men seized Deirdre under each elbow and turned her around, while the second pair closed in on either side of Meagan. As the first two men bore the shrieking Deirdre through the crowd, she shouted over her shoulder, “That’s fifty guineas you owe me!”
One of the Nvengarians who’d remained beside Meagan, a man with several nasty scars on his cheeks and a nose that had once been broken, said in a deep, gravelly voice, “You are fine, yes?”
“Yes.” Meagan put her hand to her cheek where Deirdre had slapped her, the sting already gone. “She’s harmless, really.”
The man looked skeptical. “Grand Duke Alexander, he says we stay with you. Keep you from hurt.”
“Oh, he did, did he?”
The man grinned, as though he liked her defiance. “We stay with you all day, all night. Many bad people could hurt you, and so hurt the Grand Duke.”
“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 recalled how she’d walked with Penelope last year in fine weather to a peaceful village square, and an assassin had burst out of nowhere to attack Damien and then Penelope. Meagan remembered diving in panic behind the public well, stones scraping her hands and face, and how the Nvengarian men had so eagerly surrounded the man who’d tried to harm their beloved Damien and Penelope, ready to kill him. The assassin had foiled them only by killing himself.
The sudden violence on such a beautiful day had frightened Meagan 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 near Meagan stared and whispered. Meagan noted that they did not draw too close, however, with the two Nvengarians flanking her.
Meagan’s first instinct was to flee from the attention that unnerved her, but she lifted her chin. She would not run. She’d not give Deirdre the satisfaction. Dominic looked approving, which comforted her somehow.
Meagan spent the rest of the evening keeping close to Simone, the bodyguards Alexander sent watching at what they thought was a discreet distance—which meant a step or two behind her.
The attention lavished on Meagan from the hostess and her guests nearly wore through her defiance, but Simone lapped up every minute of it.
“We truly are important, now,” Simone said with glee as they rolled home in the carriage Alexander had insisted they use for outings. “The ladies who wanted to snub me didn’t dare with those Nvengarians breathing down their necks. We are in, my dear.”
In, Meagan thought in dismay. What a delightful place to be.
Dominic and his men rode on top of the carriage to the Tavistock house, and henceforth followed Meagan everywhere. They moved into the house and slept in shifts, two on, two off, and were at Meagan’s side every time she stepped out the door.