The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(65)
Scurrilous gossip would make much of this. Biting back a snarl, he strode after them.
Dominic, like the good bodyguard he was, had headed after Meagan. Alexander followed the man’s bulk to a small sitting room at the end of a hall.
Inside, Anastasia sat on a sofa, her arms drawn about her body, rocking and shaking. Meagan hovered over her worriedly, her handkerchief held out in offering. Alexander closed the door against interested stares of people who’d crowded the hall behind him. Dominic took up a stance against the door.
“What do you think you are doing?” Alexander demanded of Anastasia.
Anastasia looked up, then let out a shriek. Meagan gasped in shock. Alexander swung around to see Myn calmly stepping through a window in his logosh form. Dominic tensed but made no move.
Myn’s demon form shrank and melded into that of a wolf, huge and gray, his eyes still logosh blue. He padded to Alexander then rose to become human again in a hum of magic. He wore nothing on his large body, which in no way seemed to worry him.
Meagan’s mouth hung open, but Anastasia regarded Myn in near terror.
Alexander felt the magic in himself respond, his body wanting to change. He fought it. Now was not the time, not here in an anteroom in the French ambassador’s house.
“Has something happened?” he asked the logosh.
“The one you call von Hohenzahl awaits you,” Myn said in Nvengarian. “He has ordered men to capture you. They wait in the streets between here and your house.”
“Let me take them, Your Grace,” Dominic said in the same language. “I and my men will rout them.” He gave Alexander a feral grin. “It will be a pleasure.”
Nvengarians loved a good fight, but Alexander shook his head. “If you round up these men, von Hohenzahl will simply hire more. I will confront him and cut off the problem at its head.”
Dominic’s eyes glinted. “Even better, sir.”
“What is he saying?” Meagan asked Alexander, her brown eyes round. “Tell me.”
“Intrigue,” Alexander answered in English. “Nvengarian and Austrian intrigue. Dominic will take you home, and he and his men will stay with you, while I visit von Hohenzahl. Anastasia, I want you with me. I will leave you at your hotel afterward.”
Anastasia’s eyes were haunted, but she forced a smile. “If you run off with your mistress while your wife goes home alone, people will talk.”
“Good. While their minds are filled with tittle-tattle we can go about our business undisturbed.” In Nvengarian he said, “Myn, I need you too.”
Meagan rose swiftly and put her hand on Alexander’s arm. “You are going to do something dangerous, aren’t you?”
“More dangerous to von Hohenzahl, I assure you,” Alexander said warmly.
Her fingers closed over him, the love spell sliding around them both.
Damn von Hohenzahl. If not for him, Alexander could ride home with Meagan and take her into his arms in the carriage. He’d experiment with how much they could do in a moving conveyance in the middle of Mayfair.
He slid his arm around Meagan’s waist and pulled her close, leaning down to kiss her. Never mind the other three staring at them, Dominic in glee, Anastasia wistfully, Myn neutral. He wanted Meagan, damn intrigue and damn all Austrians who couldn’t stick to gossiping in coffee houses in Vienna.
The door swung open behind him, the draft breaking his bliss. A deep voice with a Highland lilt rumbled into the room. “’Tis a wee commotion you’re causing out here, Your Dukeness. Everything all right?”
Reluctantly, Alexander eased away from Meagan. Her eyes were half closed, lips parted in longing, the spell affecting her as much as it did Alexander.
“Egan MacDonald,” Alexander said to the Scotsman who filled the doorway, his kilt and wild hair showing he was playing the Mad Highlander tonight. “Perfect.”
* * *
“What is it about Nvengarian gentlemen,” Egan said, a teasing twinkle in his eyes as he and Meagan entered Maysfield House, “that makes their brides so downcast to be shunted off to Egan MacDonald? First Princess Penelope now the Grand Duchess. A man’s got his pride, ye know.”
Meagan let Gaius take her cloak and led Egan to the India sitting room, where she called for coffee.
“I beg your pardon, Egan,” Meagan said as Gaius scuttled away to shout orders at the English staff. “That is rude of me, when you are being so kind. I am worried about Alexander is all.”
Alexander, before he’d kissed her and departed with his entourage, had beckoned Egan to him. “Guard her well,” Meagan had heard Alexander say. “Stay with her until I return.”
“You needn’t worry about him running to another woman, lass,” Egan said now, sitting in a particularly ugly armchair and stretching out his long legs. “Especially not Lady Anastasia. I gather ye know why he works with her. But even if he weren’t using her for his games, it’s not his way to pursue a bit of muslin. Alexander is a cold man.”
“No he is not.”
Meagan clamped her mouth shut as Egan raised his brows and Gaius trotted in with a tray of coffee and some whisky for Egan. Meagan felt some small affection for Gaius because he reminded her of Roberts, the bumbling Tavistock footman, although Gaius did not drop things nearly as much.
Egan motioned for Gaius to leave the decanter of whisky, and the young man moved it to a table next to Egan and departed. Egan poured himself a large measure.