The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(92)
“And there you’ll be, bound helpless in front of him,” Meagan said sternly. “I believe this is a flawed plan.”
“I never intend to be helpless.” Alexander answered. “I will have my men in place to retrieve me, and I might have a few surprises for my captor.”
“Now who is being overly clever?” Meagan planted her hands on her hips. “You would put your life in danger, not to mention those of your loyal men? In hopes this Herr von Hohenzahl will tell you his plans?”
“My bodyguards are Nvengarian,” Alexander said, as though that were a perfectly reasonable explanation. “They would be offended if I did not put their lives in danger.”
“What of your wife and son? Are we to stay at home wringing our hands wondering whether you live or die?”
“She has a point, Alexander,” Anastasia put in.
Alexander remained maddeningly calm. “I would be well looked after. The time spent wondering would be short.”
Meagan leaned forward until she was on eye level with Alexander. “I know Nvengarians, my dearest darling. They would delight in getting themselves killed for you, the more bloodshed the better. You might die with them, but oh, the ballads that would be sung afterward!”
“Another good point,” Anastasia murmured.
“I do not like loose ends,” Alexander said coldly, his eyes so blue and so close to hers that the love spell began to stir within her. “Von Hohenzahl is a loose end, and I will snip him.” He lifted two fingers and scissored them in demonstration. “My greatest fear is that von Hohenzahl will go behind me and use you somehow, you and Alex. You two are my weak points, and my enemies know it.”
“Your weak points. How very flattering.”
Alexander didn’t blink. “Perhaps my English is faulty. I mean to say you are key to my heart. If something happens to you, it will break me.”
Meagan stopped, her body going warm, lonely, empty places inside her suddenly filling.
“If we end the love spell, perhaps that key will go away,” she said, her voice softening. “At least with regard to me.”
Alexander gave her a steady look that let her see straight into him. No taint of love spell, no fear of logosh, no cold Grand Duke, just Alexander. “I no longer believe that ending the love spell will make any difference.”
Their gazes caught and tangled, Alexander’s eyes as blue as a summer lake.
In that moment, Meagan realized she loved him. Not with the craving of the spell, not with the need of her newly awakened desires—she loved the man who’d swept into her life and carried her off to this fantastic fairy-tale house and showered her with gifts as though she were a princess.
Alexander could have married her and shoved her into a garret, or sent her to some lonely house far away. He could have abandoned her altogether after taking her virginity, simply walking away and leaving her to her ruin. Alexander was a powerful man and Meagan’s family had no power at all. He would have gotten away with it.
Instead Alexander had defied gossip and the requirements of his position to take a nobody miss to wife. Then he’d proceeded to draw Meagan into his home and his life in ways he did not need to. He could have let Meagan believe Anastasia was his mistress instead of telling her the truth; he could have condemned her for spoiling Alex’s routine instead of joining her in the fishing expedition; he could simply have ignored her as so many society husbands did their wives.
Meagan had thought the fact that Alexander was foreign made him different from the everyday English husband, but she realized with sudden clarity that Alexander’s kindness and compassion came from within himself, nothing to do with where he’d been born. Surprising that he had compassion at all, really, after the horrible things he’d gone through as a youth.
To the rest of the world Alexander showed the hard, cold man who had learned to suppress his turbulent emotions to survive. To Meagan he gave glimpses of the other man, the one who so carefully lifted his son onto his high-strung horse and held him steadily while they rode. The one who avoided Meagan for fear of hurting her. The one who told her exactly what to expect from his life so she would not be caught off guard by the danger and intrigue surrounding him.
In that moment, as their gazes met, Meagan let herself nurse a wild hope that Alexander loved her too. He was capable of deep love, and her greatest happiness would be to have that love directed at her.
Anastasia was watching them with avid interest, in no way about to turn her head and pretend not to notice them. “I dislike to interrupt, Alexander, but you do remember von Hohenzahl, do you not?”
Alexander slowly dropped his gaze and looked away, taking the warmth with him. Meagan felt suddenly cold and rubbed her hands on her arms.
“I will take care of von Hohenzahl,” he told Anastasia.
“Alexander,” Anastasia began.
She was interrupted by the door opening. All three swung around, but it was only Myn who slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. His black hair hung loose, and his intense blue eyes went directly to Anastasia and stayed there.
Anastasia flushed berry red, the fear with which she’d previously regarded Myn gone. Meagan looked at her in surprise but noted that Alexander did not look amazed in the least. Meagan’s mind connected things, and her eyes widened.
Alexander gave a little shake of his head, as though telling her to say nothing. She frowned back at him. He’d known about Myn and Anastasia, drat him, and hadn’t said a word.