She craved him. She might be elderly in Julia’s eyes, but Mary was still a strong, healthy woman with strong, healthy appetites.
One reason she’d decided to meet Dougal in London for Christmas this year was because seeing Egan, Zarabeth, and their new son so happy in Scotland too sharply reminded her of her own loneliness. She was very glad for them and loved her tiny nephew, and Egan never made Mary feel that Castle MacDonald was not her home.
But Mary needed more. Her brief affair with an Englishman last year in Edinburgh had been a desperate need to satisfy bodily desire, and had left her feeling colder than ever.
She knew she’d not find coldness with Valentin. He had a fighting man’s body—the muscles she had caressed in the park yesterday had been hard and formidable. She’d seen him bare, had stood against him, had shared with him the deep kisses of lovers. Mary’s body throbbed with need for him, and what was more—she could love him. She was certain she already did.
She tried to distract herself from thoughts of Valentin by watching the duchess roam the house, supervising the unpacking and the Christmas decorating. Mary didn’t believe for a moment that Sir John Lincolnbury would deliberately involve himself in spying, but Valentin’s speculation made Mary wonder. Why did the ambassador and dear Duchess Mina take so much interest in Julia and her father? Simple friendliness? Or something more?
Mary shook herself out of her thoughts. She was becoming as conspiracy-minded as Valentin.
The duchess closely watched the English servants who hung ribbons and greens about the house, asking questions at every turn. They would not put up holly yet, Julia told her. It was bad luck to have it in the house before Christmas Day, which Duchess Mina found delightfully superstitious.
They ate an informal luncheon, during which Julia and Duchess Mina chattered like old friends. No one mentioned overthrowing Prince Damien or passing secrets to King George or assassinating anyone. All very harmless.
When the afternoon reached its brightest point, Duchess Mina insisted that the skating party go forward.
“Of course you will skate, Mrs. Cameron,” the duchess said when Mary expressed the desire to remain on the canvas-covered bench at the pond’s edge and watch. “We all must. Do not ruin my fun.”
“Skate with me, Aunt Mary,” Julia cried, already on the ice. “You must hold my hand so I do not fall too often.”
Resigned, Mary let a Nvengarian footman who doubled as one of the duchess’ bodyguards help her strap blades to her flat-soled boots. She hoped she’d not end up on her backside every few feet. Her true reason for not wanting to skate was that she hadn’t in years, not since Dougal had been a boy.
The Nvengarian man helped guide her onto the ice, then gave her a slight push when Mary nodded at him to do so. She rocked her body to gain her balance, then tentatively glided out her right foot.
The world spun around her, and she sat down sharply on the ice, legs splayed in front of her. Julia put her hands over her mouth to hide her giggles. The duchess laughed openly then glided across the pond with the ease of long practice.
“You will grow used to it, Mrs. Cameron,” Duchess Mina called. “We skate all the time back home.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” Mary muttered.
Julia helped Mary to her feet. The girl linked arms with her after Mary regained her balance, and they skated slowly after the more competent duchess. The pond curved to the right, angling behind a thicket of trees, but the butler had indicated that the surface closest to where they’d entered was the safest.
“Oh, look,” Duchess Mina cried after they’d skated about a quarter of an hour, Mina showing off how gracefully she moved on the ice. “Our gentlemen have arrived. How splendid.”
She spun with a flourish, finishing with a pose to greet the men moving along the path from the house. Pride goeth before a fall, Mary thought in annoyance. The duchess, however, remained upright.
The train of male figures headed down the muddy and snowy slope—the ambassador, Valentin, and Sir John, followed by Nvengarian servants. The animal in Valentin was evident as he effortlessly navigated the slippery path. The others picked their way carefully, but Valentin moved with unselfconscious grace.
Julia pulled Mary toward the shore and called out to Valentin. “Do come and skate with Aunt Mary, Baron Valentin. She’s already fallen once.”
Mary flushed. Valentin sent her a ghost of a smile, and Mary’s heart turned inside out. Valentin’s rare smile was like a gift just for her.
The gentlemen stopped at the bench to don skates, then came onto the ice. Sir John moved across it remarkably well, but he’d been raised in Westmoreland, which must have plenty of frozen ponds in winter. The ambassador was more awkward, but perhaps his duties in the Council of Dukes didn’t allow him much time to skate.
Valentin glided to Mary and took her arm. She didn’t trust herself alone with him, but nor did she have enough confidence in her ability to remain upright to push him away. Valentin skimmed her along, and they quickly left the others behind.
“You fell?” His breath hung in the air beside her ear. “Are you all right?”
Mary’s face heated. “Fine if slightly bruised. Both my pride and my backside.”
Valentin’s hand on her arm tightened. “Perhaps we should go inside then.”
Mary trusted herself alone inside with him still less. “No, no. I am of hearty Scottish stock, not a wilting weed. I will survive it.”
She thought she might not survive Valentin’s body against her side, though, or the way his thigh brushed hers with every gliding step. She took a long breath, trying to cool herself with the frigid air.
Valentin held her easily as they skated onward, his balance ensuring hers. “What have you discovered from the duchess?”
His mission. Of course. Mary let her voice take a light tone. “That her favorite English Christmas customs are those that might involve men losing their trousers.”
Valentin’s half smile returned, and Mary decided she should cease joking. She would melt right through the ice if he kept smiling at her like that.
“Jesting aside, she seems harmless,” Mary said. “We have unpacked, and Duchess Mina has made plans to skate, light the Yule log, and carry a wassail bowl about to the neighbors. She likes the idea of kissing under the mistletoe, so she has ordered it hung everywhere. Beware of that when you enter the house.”
“Hmm.” Valentin’s brow furrowed, as though he tried to decipher what sort of code Yule logs, mistletoe, and wassail might mean.
“The duchess has so far not pumped Julia about her father’s business, nor tried to pry English secrets out of her, nor confessed a desire to overthrow the Nvengarian government,” Mary went on. “Either she is very careful, or she is innocent. I cannot believe she’d know nothing of her husband’s involvement in insidious plots.”
Valentin rumbled, “Grand Duke Alexander is never wrong.”
“Perhaps he isn’t, but I do not believe the avenue of danger is through the duchess.”
“That may be,” Valentin conceded. “But please, keep watching her.”
Mary sighed. “I’m not comfortable spying on my friends. I know you grew up in a country full of mad political conspiracies, but I had a fairly normal childhood in a Scottish castle. That is, if you consider being the only girl among a pack of half-crazed Highland males normal. True, I had to deal with feuds within my own family, but those weren’t secret.” She broke off under Valentin’s unnerving stare. His blue eyes were quiet as he focused all his attention on her. “What is it?” she asked, suppressing a shiver.
“Nothing,” he said, his voice low. “I like to watch your lips when you speak.”
Mary flushed from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair. Very well, perhaps he was not focused only on his mission. His very rapt attention made her feel like a giddy debutante. “We are skating far from the others,” she said breathlessly.
“I know.” Valentin’s grip on her arm was steadying and warm. “I do
not wish them to hear what we are saying.”
Because he wanted to talk about his mission, or because he wanted to again say things he’d said yesterday? I want you as my lover. To give you all that the word means.
Mary’s imagination spun with images of Valentin coming to her bed, his clothing gone, he pulling back covers to put caressing hands on her flesh. Leaning to kiss her, to whisper that he loved her, before he stretched his body over hers and slid inside her, making her complete.
Mary cleared her throat, fire in her veins. She tried to speak normally, but the words were hoarse from her dry throat. “It might be dangerous to go too far. The English servants say we should stay near the banks.”
Valentin moved with her around the bend behind the trees then pulled Mary to a halt. The thicket of leafless branches tangled on the bank above them, shielding them from the others.
Valentin tapped the ice with his skate blade. “It is fine here. The water is shallow and frozen hard.”
“Have you been out here before?” Mary asked, still shaking from her vision. “I presume so if you are familiar with the depth of the pond.”
“I am familiar with ponds in general. We skate often in Nvengaria.” Valentin shrugged. “The winters are cold and long so we enjoy whatever we can from them.”
She slanted him a look. “When you are trying to convince a lady to come to Nvengaria with you, you ought not to mention long, cold winters. Although I confess winters can be bleak in northern Scotland. I spend most of them in Edinburgh. Or London.”
Mary half hoped Valentin would say something about ways they could keep themselves warm through the long winters, but his next words stunned her.
“I have decided to stop trying to persuade you to come to Nvengaria.”
Mary went cold, her intake of breath nearly choking her. At the same time, beads of sweat broke out on her brow. “You have, have you?” The words were faint, not defiant as they were meant to be.
“I do not have the gift of persuasion.” Valentin slid his hands under her elbows, his grip solid. The look in his blue eyes was not one of a man defeated, however. He looked determined, nearly triumphant, as though he knew he’d already won. “But I do believe in the magic of my people.”
“Magic?” Mary repeated in a choked voice. “What do you mean?”
“Today is the winter solstice, the Longest Night. It is said among the logosh that the person you stay with on the Longest Night will remain in your life—always.”
“Are you saying you wish to spend the night with me?” Mary’s voice cracked. “You know that is a highly improper suggestion, even to a widowed lady.” She didn’t mind the suggestion in the least, but she felt obligated to point this out.
“It is why I led you from the others.” Valentin leaned to her, his warmth like a blanket. “I want to lie with you, Mary. I have since the day I woke up in Scotland to see you leaning over my bed.”
Mary swallowed nervously. “You were ill. I was tending you.”
“Yes.” The word expanded, slow and rich. “Your hair was mussed, your dress loose, and you smelled like heaven.”
Mary’s reserve was melting like snow before a summer wind. “I am Julia’s chaperone,” she tried. “My behavior must be impeccable.”
“I am logosh.” Valentin’s focus returned to her, sharp and honed, the eyes of a wolf. “I know how to come to you without the others knowing.”
Mary drew a shaky breath. They swayed a little on the ice, Mary’s foot slipping. Valentin’s firm hands moved to her back, catching her in his embrace.
It felt good to be held. Mary dearly loved her son and her brother, and Zarabeth and the new baby. But that did not mean her loneliness did not make itself felt.
Mary wanted to be caressed, kissed, told she was desirable. In her world, she was supposed to admit her youth was gone and resign herself to being a widow, a doting mother, a chaperone. No longer wanted by men.
She knew in her heart that this was a lie. Mary longed for a man’s touch, and Valentin, eight years her junior, was gazing at her as though he thought her the most beautiful woman in the world.
If she let him, Valentin would pull her into his strange life, taking her far away from all she knew. In return Mary would have Valentin, with his beautiful eyes, velvet voice, and powerful body. Hers for always.
“I don’t know what to do,” Mary whispered, a difficult admission.
Valentin’s lips moved from the line of her hair to her cheek. “I will come to you, tonight.”
Mary touched his face, liking the hardness of his jaw under her glove, the rasp of whiskers catching on the kid leather. He was powerful, handsome, and his warmth under her touch made her heart pound.
“Very well,” she heard herself say.
Valentin kissed her then, his mouth commanding. Mary balled her hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating rapidly beneath them.
He tasted raw and wild, like the winter afternoon. He didn’t belong in this tame English countryside, with its neat hedgerows and formal gardens that shut out the common people. He fit with the Scottish Highlands, its rugged mountains and cold, dangerous seas.
Mary dug her fingers into his coat, pulling him closer. This wasn’t casual for him, she realized. He was as lonely as she was. She wondered if he’d be as formidable in bed as she imagined, and longed to find out.
The quiet moment was shattered by the sharp sound of a pistol shot. Then came the screams of Julia and the duchess, the startled shout of Sir John.
Valentin yanked himself from Mary, and she slid backward without impediment across the ice. By the time she stopped herself, Valentin was already off the pond and tearing free from his clothes.
Mary skated as fast as she dared to the bank and pulled herself onto firm ground.
Valentin’s boots and coat fell empty to the mud beneath the trees. Mary grabbed a branch to steady herself and watched a huge black wolf sprint across the park toward the woods beyond.
Chapter 6
Julia wouldn’t cease screaming. Mary yanked the skates from her boots and hurried around the snowy banks to the path and bench.
Ambassador Rudolfo lay on his back on the ice, a pool of blood under him, his wife on her knees at his side. Sir John had his hands to his mouth, eyes wide in horror, and Julia stood beside him, shrieking.
The duchess had taken her husband’s head into her lap and was parting his clothes to feel his chest. Mary halted on the bank, her heart pounding in fear.
“He’s alive,” the duchess said crisply, looking up at Mary. “Wounded in the shoulder.”
Mary released a breath of relief then let her efficient persona take over. She turned to the servants hurrying down from the house and addressed them in a commanding tone.
“Quickly, carry the ambassador to the house and to his bedroom. You, fetch blankets, tell Cook to boil water, and find my box of remedies. Tell the butler to fetch the nearest doctor. Hurry.” Mary turned back to the pond as the servants, both Nvengarian and English, rushed to obey her. “Julia, for heaven’s sake, stop screaming. The ambassador is not dead.”
“But the bullet,” Julia sobbed. “It went right past my cheek.”
Mary seethed at Nvengarian politics, which did not care if it hurt innocents in its wake. “Come over here to me. I’ll take care of you. Everything will be all right.”
“Where is Baron Valentin?” Sir John demanded. “He was with you, Mrs. Cameron. Where did he go?”
Mary extemporized. “He ran to find out who was doing the shooting. Do come here, Julia. You are in the way.”
As she’d hoped, her sharp tone cut through Julia’s hysteria. The girl skated to the bank and climbed out, her eyes wide.
“I thought I saw a wolf, Aunt Mary. An enormous black wolf.”
“What absolute nonsense.” Mary wrapped her arm around Julia and sat her on the bench to remove her skates. “You saw someone’s dog running loose, is all. There are no wolves in this part of England. Not these days.”
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br /> “But why would someone shoot at us?” Julia bleated. “Are they trying to kill us?”
Mary quickly unbuckled Julia’s skates and pulled them off. “I am certain they were stray shots from a shooting party. Foolish city folk going after grouse in entirely the wrong place. Baron Valentin will stop them.”
Duchess Mina gave Mary a level look as she followed the footmen carrying her husband. She knew quite well that the shots had been deliberate.
What did not make sense to Mary was why the ambassador, suspected by Grand Duke Alexander of plotting against Prince Damien, would be an assassin’s target. Perhaps the Grand Duke had sent the assassin himself, not wanting to wait until Valentin finished his investigation. But would Alexander deliberately endanger Valentin or Mary or innocent Julia in the attempt? She did not think so.
Or perhaps these shooters were from a different group altogether. The ambassador could have more enemies than Grand Duke Alexander. Nvengaria was rife with plots.
At least Mary knew Valentin hadn’t shot the ambassador. He’d been at her side when the gun had been fired.
Her heart pumped faster as she thought of Valentin charging into the woods to hunt the hunters. As a logosh, Valentin possessed strength beyond an ordinary man’s, but these men had weapons.
With much fuss—and sobbing from Julia—Duke Rudolfo was carried into the house and up the stairs to his bedroom. He woke as the footmen bore him into his bedchamber, pressed his hand to his wound, and groaned.
Mary assumed she’d end up doing most of the nursing, but Duchess Mina proved unexpectedly competent. Mary helped her put the ambassador to bed and bathe his wound, but the duchess firmly took charge.
The doctor, a country man of round face and genial speech who was also a surgeon, arrived soon after that. He gave Rudolfo a good dose of laudanum then pried open his shoulder and probed for the bullet.
The duchess did have to leave the room then, calling for smelling salts. The other servants turned green and sidled off, and it was Mary who held the bowl to receive the bloody bullet.
She did so without squeamishness. Growing up in a household of boisterous Scotsmen, Mary had become used to helping set broken bones and patching up wounds, even extracting stray bullets from sheepish men. This was all quite familiar.
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