The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(95)
A murmur of interest ran through the ladies in the ballroom. The Nvengarian dancers wore collarless lawn shirts open at the neck, thigh-hugging trousers, and knee-high boots. Arms flexed as the Nvengarians hefted their swords.
Those with longer hair had pulled it into a queue, as Alexander wore his. They formed a circle, eleven models of Nvengarian male perfection.
Meagan’s gaze strayed hungrily to Alexander. Like his men he’d dispensed with his coat and stood easily in this half-undress, one hand on his hip, waiting for the dance to begin. His usual ruby earring glittered in his ear, matching the ruby on his hand.
“You look quite intense,” Maggie Finley said next to her.
Meagan let out a sigh. “After my come-out, my friend Penelope and I used to sit in ballrooms and search for tight trousers. TTs we called them, and tried to decide whose looked the best. My husband, I believe, would have earned the perfect score tonight.”
Miss Finley laughed. “I must learn this game.”
On Meagan’s other side, Egan nudged her. “Stop ogling your husband and pay attention. They’re about to start. Now this, lass, is something to see.”
The Nvengarians used no music. They began by each slowly clapping his sword to that of the man next to them, turning back and forth to clang against first one then the other.
Because there were eleven, one man each half-turn would not touch his sword to another’s. It was a different man each time, seemingly random. Meagan nearly went dizzy trying to decide how they knew which man would be out at a particular time.
The men increased their speed a tiny bit at a time, and began to accompany the sword striking with a slight stamping step that shuffled the circle slowly inward, then out again. The shuffling step caused the men’s backsides to sway slightly, and the fluttering of ladies’ fans increased.
The odd man out of the sword clapping began to toss his sword once, having just enough time to catch the hilt again before striking his neighbor’s blade. They went on like this for some time, their precision beautiful to watch. The tossed swords went up in a glitter of steel, first here then there, while the rhythm of the stamping boots and the clattering swords kept a succinct time.
Meagan watched Alexander, one hand on his hip, his other hand strong on the hilt of his sword. He frowned in concentration as he clacked his sword against the blade of the man next to him, then the other, then tossed his sword precisely when the other two men weren’t there to meet him.
He performed with a polished skill that astonished her, an easy grace Meagan had never witnessed. She thought of their last time in bed together—before he’d begun avoiding her—when he’d showed her the arts of pleasure he’d studied in Nvengaria. Every movement that night had been as precise and polished as the dance was now. Alexander’s passion shone from behind the ritual, reflected in the glitter of his blue eyes.
Perhaps tonight Meagan would again lie under Alexander’s strong body, and he’d move into her with the same intense precision. She watched the muscles under his shirt move as he tossed the sword, catching it with ease, his hips swaying with the dance.
“Never think to swoon, Your Grace,” Miss Finely whispered with good humor behind her fan. “People will talk.”
“Am I that obvious?” Meagan whispered back.
Miss Finley winked. “Everyone is watching the dancers, fortunately.”
At that moment, Alexander shouted a word that sounded like “Hep!” and the dancers doubled their speed. The movements were exactly the same, except they now went twice as fast.
The audience gasped as the swords clacked and rang and the circle moved in and out, the blades flying high as each man tossed his in turn. After a few moments of this, Alexander called “Hep!” again, and the dancers again doubled their speed.
The crowd murmured in admiration. The dancers stamped together and apart, blades flashing, then the whole circle began to move first clockwise, then counterclockwise, boots flicking in intricate steps. The time for each man to throw his sword had shortened considerably, and yet they did it, each catching his without missing a beat or dropping nary a one.
They began adding more difficult moves, spinning once as they tossed their swords, keeping in perfect rhythm with the others.
Meagan nearly screamed when Alexander flipped his body backward and landed on his feet again in time to catch his sword. A few other dancers copied his move while some spun in place, two, three, four times before catching the sword to the audience’s stunned cries.
And then Alexander shouted for the pace to increase again. This time Alexander tossed his blade astonishingly high while the men on either side of him clashed swords across his body. Meagan held her breath, waiting for the blades to slash blood across her husband’s clean white shirt, but the swords never touched him.
The dance whirled faster still, Nvengarian wildness taking over. Alexander shouted, “Hep!” and another dancer cried a high-pitched ululation, echoed by the others.
They began to move with lightning speed, the swords clashing and rising and falling, their booted feet crossing and uncrossing in complex steps as they went around the circle and together and apart.
Another ululation split the air, and all of the sudden, each man tossed his sword high, their cries echoing to the fussy painted ceiling. The wall of deadly blades arced higher and higher, the swords reaching their apex, then spinning to come down in a rain of glittering steel.