The Mad, Bad Duke (Nvengaria #2)(96)
The men all caught their swords at precisely the same moment. The circle burst apart, dancers spinning in dizzying circles or flipping over their swords held against the floor. Their cries and stamping filled the room as each dancer grabbed a woman by the waist and swung the startled lady across the ballroom.
Nikolai grabbed Miss Finley a second before Alexander, his eyes hot and blue, snaked his arm around Meagan’s waist and dragged her to him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Anastasia being pulled out by Dominic and then Alexander spun Meagan with him, his mouth set, his face lit by a frenzied joy, his arm strong around her waist.
This was not the stately Nvengarian dance Egan had taught her. This dance was crazed, Alexander’s arm rock-solid against Meagan’s abdomen, his sword held out to his side. Whenever they passed another whirling couple, Alexander’s and the man’s swords met in a ringing clash.
“You’re mad,” she shouted and then she started to laugh. “You are completely mad.”
Alexander gazed down at her, the wild and feral Nvengarian escaping at last. It was as though without his medal-bedecked coat and sash of office Alexander could let free the being inside him. His face shone with perspiration as did his muscled chest bared by the open V of his shirt. He looked like his barbarian ancestors, Meagan thought, the Magyars and the Romany, nomads in tents under the stars who lived and loved with great passion.
“I love you,” she said over the stamping and shouting, clanging and clapping. “I love you, Alexander.”
Alexander jerked her close, and there in front of their five hundred guests, he scooped her up to him and kissed her.
His sword clanged Nikolai’s, and the valet laughed out loud. Meagan joined the laughter, tasting the delirium of Alexander’s bruising kiss.
A loud crash sounded even over the riot of dancing and yelling, as the two tall windows at the end of the ballroom broke and fell in sheets of shimmering glass. The night rain and wind tumbled in, along with five men carrying two pistols each, cocked and ready.
The gunmen’s gazes roved the crowd that scrambled away from them, women screaming, men shouting. Meagan had the feeling she knew who they searched for. With his sash of office gone, the assassins wouldn’t be sure which of the Nvengarians spinning around the room was Alexander.
So they decided to shoot at them all.
Alexander shoved Meagan behind him as ten pistols rose and ten shots roared into the crowd. The smell of gunpowder choked her and her ears rang from the discharge. Meagan shrieked as her slippers slid out from under her, sending her to the floor in a heap of silk and netting.
Drifting powder filled her vision and she smelled blood mixed with acrid smoke. “Alexander!” she shouted.
In another instant, her bodyguards were there, Dominic and his men surrounding Meagan like an impenetrable wall. Meagan scrambled to her feet, but she could not see past their broad-shouldered bodies, the scent of sweat and wool overpowering her.
“Alexander!” she cried, pawing at Dominic’s shoulder. “Let me see.”
Dominic and the other bodyguards paid her no attention. Their job was to protect the Grand Duchess and they weren’t letting her out of their circle. Nikolai had once said that the Nvengarian bodyguards would die to the last man for her, and facing the line of pistols, she now believed it.
Another volley fired. Dominic grunted and folded in half, and over his bent back Meagan saw many things.
One assassin went down as Nikolai, Marcus, and Brutus tackled him. She saw Myn leap forward as a pistol went off, changing into his logosh form in midair. His clothes fell away in shreds and the pistol ball crashed into his side.
The man who’d fired the pistol turned white as Myn shrugged off the shot and bore down on him in all his logosh fury.
Viscount Stoke tackled yet another gunman, his fists flying as he struck and struck again in fury. He was laughing.
And Alexander …
Alexander’s eyes glowed brilliant blue as he dove for one of the assassins. His shirt was red with blood, his sword stained with it, his lips curling in an animal-like snarl. The assassin threw down his spent pistol and ran from Alexander, leaping through the window to a rope dangling there, disappearing from view.
Alexander did not bother with the rope. He reached the window, sword still in hand, balanced a moment on the sill, then dove through into the windswept night.
Chapter 24
Hours later Meagan sat upright on her bed, gazing straight in front of her. Simone hovered at her bedside, bathing Meagan’s hands in lavender water while Mrs. Caldwell plumped pillows and kept repeating that everything would be all right after Meagan had a nice rest.
Meagan only wished they would leave her alone before she went mad. Alexander had disappeared, and his men could find no sign of him.
Her guests had fled into the night after the attack, the ball dispersing. Miss Finley had offered to stay and help Meagan, but the Nvengarian bodyguards sent her home with her parents. Her viscount father had hovered over Maggie protectively, looking enraged but also buoyed by the fight.
Sleep was out of the question. Meagan stubbornly refused the laudanum-laced tea Mrs. Caldwell kept trying to press on her. She could only see in her mind, again and again, Alexander spreading his arms and diving out of the ballroom window, high above the ground. No one had seen him since.
Had Alexander changed form to chase the assassins and dispatch them? Was he dying of a gunshot wound in some dark passage in London? Or was he dead already?