The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(57)
She took a bite of toast. “I note there is no entry for Alex chatting with his stepmother either.” She pointed a buttery finger at the paper.
“Ah, no, I see there is not.” Mr. Edwards gave Meagan a nod. “I will consult the Grand Duke’s secretary about scheduling you an appointment if you wish.”
“No need.” Meagan took another bite and swallowed. “I will consult the Grand Duke myself.”
Mr. Edwards gave her a hesitant look. “His Grace is rather busy.”
“Make me an appointment with him then,” Meagan said, exasperated. She threw down the toast. “I believe I am finished with breakfast.”
“Very good, Your Grace. Perhaps then, you will start on your correspondence.”
Mr. Edwards picked up a stack of at least a hundred letters and piled them high in front of Meagan’s plate. Her eyes rounded, her mouth went dry, and her sturdy resolution to keep her new duties from controlling her life began to crumble.
Breathing a tiny sigh, she put out her hand and picked up the first one.
* * *
“You are an interesting man, Herr Alexander. I have been looking forward to this meeting.”
Otto von Hohenzahl clasped Alexander’s hand, narrow rings on each of his fingers burning cool bands into Alexander’s palm. Von Hohenzahl’s handshake was firm, his eyes clear blue and ingenuous. The Austrian was a tall man with graying hair, a trim physique, and a round, red face. He smelled of cheroot and beneath that a touch of acrid perfume.
Decadent, Alexander decided. A hedonist who likes his pleasures—wine, food, cheroots, women. Alexander also added shrewd as he sensed von Hohenzahl size him up in return.
“I must congratulate you on your, as the English say, nuptials,” von Hohenzahl continued, releasing Alexander and smiling a sly smile. “So surprising it was to learn that the Grand Duke had taken a young English bride with no title or fortune.”
Alexander shrugged. “I fell in love.” Why he’d chosen Meagan was none of von Hohenzahl’s affair.
“Mein freund,” von Hohenzahl laughed, “is that any reason to marry a woman?”
“I believe it is.” Alexander let his voice cool. Von Hohenzahl shot him a startled look then smoothly let his laughter die.
“Ah, well, it is your second marriage. In a second marriage a man can be indulgent if he has used his first marriage well. You have a son and heir—why not enjoy yourself?”
“Yes.” Alexander, for some reason, did not want to sit down in the proffered chair in von Hohenzahl’s surprisingly tasteful sitting room. The Austrian had taken a furnished townhouse in Curzon Street for the Season, as he’d explained when Alexander arrived.
There was nothing wrong with the house or the sitting room, which was decorated in hues of yellow, but Alexander’s senses, heightened since his logosh side had begun pushing its way into him, smelled something unsavory behind the fresh paint and the slight dust in the carpet. Alexander could not place it, but he did not like it, and he decided to be very, very careful.
“I have a busy afternoon ahead,” Alexander said. “Many appointments that will not wait.”
“A pity,” von Hohenzahl answered. “I would have liked to have a long conversation. But no matter. We will proceed more quickly if we switch into a language we both know?” He said the last in Nvengarian.
Alexander’s senses came even more alert. “Not many Austrians know Nvengarian.”
“Except the fair Lady Anastasia, eh? I envy you her, my friend. But I am puzzled—you say you married for love, and yet Lady Anastasia, she too you love, if rumor is correct?” Von Hohenzahl smiled suddenly. “Ah, but you Nvengarians, you never let that stop you. You love a wife, you love a mistress, why not have them both? And if the two ladies like each other—well, all the better.”
A growl rose in Alexander’s throat. The man was correct that Nvengarians did not have the same restrictions on their beds that the English put on theirs, but what a Nvengarian did with his paramours or his wife was his own business. To make rude hints or to mock a gentleman or his ladies was grounds for a duel, usually a deadly one involving knives or swords. No clean twenty paces and one shot each. Duels in Nvengaria were violent, bloody, and permanent.
Von Hohenzahl seated himself and removed a cheroot from a box on an octagonal table. “I admit to curiosity about the practice. While one is busy with the first lady what does the other lady do? Or do you have one on either side? Or perhaps the ladies entertain each other while you are in audience?”
For an instant, Alexander wanted nothing more than to take his knife and decorate von Hohenzahl’s elegant ivory waistcoat in his own blood. Alexander’s fingers moved to his pocket where a fine steel knife with an ornamented blade rested, a pretty thing, but deadly. He took a step toward the man, red flickering on the edges of his vision.
He imagined himself very clearly cutting deep creases in the man’s chest, the glee he’d feel doing it, the taste of the man’s blood on his fingers.
It was so real that he heard von Hohenzahl’s screams and his own animal-like snarls. Then the vision fell away, and he was standing in the middle of the carpet, his hands in tight fists, the only sounds in the room the clock ticking on the mantel and a slight sucking sound as von Hohenzahl tipped a candle toward himself to light his cheroot.