A Christmas Ball

by Emily Bryan

  “Well, I am not Nvengarian. And I have a son to consider.”

  Valentin stopped, pulling her around to face him. They stood alone on the path, the cold wind blocked by the tall hedges. “Do you think I would shame you by creating scandal for you? That I value you so little?”

  By the pain in her eyes, she did think that. “Duchess Mina told me what happened to your sister.”

  The words were not ones Valentin expected to hear, and he wondered why Mary spoke of it now, without preamble.

  “Why did the duchess tell you this?”

  “I’m not certain, really. She wanted to explain that you lived to ‘take your revenge’ and nothing more.”

  An image of Sophie rose in Valentin’s mind, the one he always saw. Her eyes sparkled with laughter, with her vibrant love of life. She’d remained lighthearted even as they’d watched their money dwindle and the house grow colder and shabbier each year. It didn’t matter, she’d said. They still had each other. Remembering her still hurt, but he never tried to push thoughts of her away.

  “She was lovely,” Valentin said. “You would have liked her.”

  “If she was like you, yes, I think I would have.” Mary put a gentle hand on his arm. “I am so sorry, Valentin.”

  Valentin swallowed the ache in his throat. “The ambassador’s wife is correct only in part. I tried to kill Prince Damien in vengeance for my sister. As I was not given the opportunity to kill his father, I thought to destroy his son. In Nvengaria, we are willing to take one family member in payment for another.”

  “But Damien talked you out of it.”

  Valentin nodded, remembering the day he’d crept into the palace, knife hard under his coat, ready to both kill and die. He’d managed to get all the way into the Imperial Prince’s private rooms, to take the place of one of the servers at his dinner table, to stand behind Damien’s chair. He’d lifted his dagger to drive it into Damien’s neck. Damien’s wife Penelope, a young Englishwoman, had seen and screamed, and Damien dove aside just in time. Valentin’s blade had slashed Damien’s coat, missing the prince by a hairsbreadth. And then Damien’s bodyguards had piled on Valentin and dragged him away.

  Valentin had woken up in a cell. They’d known somehow that he was half logosh, and had reinforced the cell against his unnatural strength. They’d let him stew a few days, and then Prince Damien himself had come to talk to him. Every day.

  Valentin had been sullen at first, refusing to speak, but gradually he’d opened up. Valentin found himself telling Damien about Sophie, what the now-dead Imperial Prince had done to his family, and all about his rage. Eventually he’d come to understand that Damien was an intelligent, shrewd, generous-hearted, and wise man, very different from his horrible father. Valentin had grown to respect and even to like Damien.

  “Prince Damien can talk very well,” Valentin said with a touch of amusement. “He is, as you say, a raconteur. But it was his wife’s love for him that convinced me I had it wrong. She is pure of heart and could not love a monster.”

  “Then your quest for vengeance is over? And the duchess is mistaken?”

  “My quest is of a different kind now.”

  “To catch the ambassador doing something illegal?”

  Valentin slid his arms around Mary’s waist. They were alone on the path; even the maid had dropped out of sight. “To find a woman with eyes the color of chocolate.” The soft of her breasts pressed his coat, and he lowered his head to lick the hollow of her throat. Her skin was salty, warm from their walk.

  “Valentin.”

  “I do not ask lightly.” Valentin pushed back her hood, let his lips skim the line of her hair. “I want you as my lover. To give you all that the word means.”

  “While you are in London, fulfilling your task of spying on the ambassador?”

  “For as long as you’ll have me.”

  “Now we’re speaking again of me traveling to Nvengaria, a land of which I know nothing. I’ve never been farther from home than Brighton, and I didn’t think much of that.” Mary tried to keep her voice light, but Valentin heard the strain in it, the fear.

  “Do you wait for me to offer marriage?” he asked.

  Mary shook her head. She broke his hold and walked away.

  He quickly caught up to her. “The reason I do not offer marriage is because I have nothing to offer. My estate is bankrupt. I lost everything even before my sister died. It was one reason the Imperial Prince could not understand why Sophie resisted him. He offered to clear our debts.”

  Anger flared on Mary’s face, and Valentin liked that anger. She understood. “What a loathsome man. I hope he died painfully?”

  “Rumors say that Grand Duke Alexander poisoned him, but no one has proved it. No one wants to.”

  “I can believe it of the ruthlessly efficient Grand Duke Alexander. But surely Alexander can help restore your estate. As could Prince Damien, if he has become so pleased with you.”

  “The Grand Duke pays for my services, but not enough to keep a wife.” Valentin took Mary’s hand and turned her to him again. “I know that your husband left you destitute. I would never saddle you with another penniless husband.”

  “Mr. Cameron wasn’t so much penniless as profligate. You seem the frugal sort.”

  “Mary.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I can offer you nothing.”

  “That’s not true, you know. You can offer yourself.”

  He wished she understood that he wanted to give her everything a beautiful woman should have—gowns, jewels, horses, carriages. He wanted her to be the envy of every lady in Nvengaria. He wanted himself to be the envy of every gentleman.

  “I do offer myself.” Valentin pressed firm kisses on each of her fingers, then lifted her hand to his cheek. “My friends would think you prudent for not tying yourself to me. You would be free to leave at any time, free to live your own life, with your own money.”

  “Let me understand you. You are saying that people in Nvengaria live together openly, without marriage, and consider it prudent?”

  “If a woman risked beggaring herself by marrying, yes.”

  “This Nvengaria is a strange place.”

  “It is a beautiful place.” Mary would love it: its knifesharp mountains, deep blue lakes, emerald meadows, brilliant flowers. “Also, Nvengarians would think you prudent because I am logosh. They are still not comfortable with wild creatures in their midst.”

  “Neither am I, to tell you the truth.”

  “Then it would be wise for you not to marry me.”

  Mary disengaged her hand from his. “I think you’ve run mad. You wish me to travel with you to Nvengaria—whenever your duty here has ended—and live with you as your mistress. So that the allowance my brother gives me will keep me well in your drafty house, and if your ability to change into a wolf becomes too much for me, I can leave without impunity.”

  Valentin nodded. “Yes. To all of that.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “You do realize that most Englishwomen would consider your offer shocking and a grave insult?”

  “Would they?” The English never ceased to amaze him.

  Mary’s mouth curved, and her eyes filled with wicked beauty. “How fortunate for you that I am Scottish.”

  Hope flared in his heart. “Then you will agree?”

  “I mean that I will give it careful consideration.” She turned from him again. This time Valentin let her walk away, liking how her cloak flowed over the curve of her hips.

  After a few yards, Mary turned back. “I refuse to believe that you arranged this assignation simply to make your shocking proposal. Why did you wish to meet?”

  Valentin no longer wanted to talk about business, but he forced himself back to the matter at hand. “To ask you about Miss Lincolnbury’s father.”

  Mary’s brows rose. “Sir John? What about him?”

  “Who is he? What sort of business does he conduct, and why is he here over Christmas?”

  “Goodness, is that al
l? Why do you want to know?”

  “Because the ambassador seems interested in him, more so than a Nvengarian duke should be interested in a plain English baronet.”

  Mary gave him a thoughtful look. “Duchess Mina, too, seems quite interested in Julia. I am fond of Julia and Sir John, for my old friend’s sake, but they are not among the great and titled. Though Sir John is very rich.”

  “How did he make all this money? Is he in employ of your government?”

  “My friend Allison told me his wealth came from family money and good investments. He is forever going to the City and the Corn Exchange, and Julia will become a very wealthy young lady on her majority. I’m certain the gentlemen will come out of the woodwork for Julia then.”

  “I wondered whether Sir John was a liaison for the ambassador to some English spy. So the ambassador can betray Nvengarian secrets.”

  “If so, I think the ambassador could have chosen a better conspirator. Sir John is a kind man, and Allison loved him, but he’s not very bright.”

  “Perhaps that is the exact kind of man the ambassador needs. A man known to be slow-witted and innocent. Who would suspect him?”

  “Goodness, you see plots everywhere. Perhaps the ambassador and his wife simply like Sir John and Julia. The duke and duchess are a bit slow-witted themselves.”

  “When Nvengaria is involved there are plots everywhere,” Valentin said. “And conspirators and spies.”

  “Like you.” Mary smiled.

  Her smile could stop his breath. It made him want to be the best man in the world—honest, pure of heart, rich. He was none of those things.

  If he could hold Mary in his arms, bury his face in her neck, breathe her scent all night, he was certain he would be all right. His wounds might heal, and he might forget, for just a little while, how much he’d failed.

  “Like me,” he agreed in a quiet voice.

  He’d kissed her at the ball last night in a fever of longing. His longing was no less today, but he wanted to take her slowly this time. He leaned down, and she readily lifted her face, letting their lips meet.

  I need you to make me whole, he wanted to say. Did he have the right to ask that of her? Of anyone?

  Mary slid her arms around his neck. Her lips were warm in the cold December air, the heat in her mouth a haven. He loved her sharp taste, like cinnamon and exotic spices.

  “Be with me, Mary,” he said against her lips. “Please.”

  She eased away. “I am Julia’s chaperone. I could compromise her chances.”

  “In Scotland, you were tied to no one. You were ready to leave the castle to your brother and Zarabeth. Now I find you with these people you do not even respect. When will you free yourself to be Mary?”

  She flushed. “Julia is the daughter of my best friend, who died some years ago. Julia needs help, and I will not let her drift. I owe it to Allison.”

  “You like to tie yourself to needy people. They take advantage of you.”

  “That might be true. But it’s nice to be needed.”

  “I need you.”

  Mary clasped Valentin’s arms, fingers sinking into his flesh. “You are the strongest person I know. You take care of everyone—Zarabeth, the ambassador, Prince Damien. When will you release yourself to be Valentin?”

  “It is not the same thing. I am atoning for my past.”

  “For trying to stab Prince Damien? You’ve been forgiven that, I thought.”

  “Not for Damien,” he said impatiently. “For Sophie.”

  “We have already discussed this.”

  Valentin shook his head, eyes stinging. “I was not there to defend her. I’d gone off and left her alone.”

  “Not alone, surely. You had servants and bodyguards, I imagine. Every Nvengarian nobleman and—woman has bodyguards, I’ve been given to understand.”

  “If they’d stood against the Imperial Prince, he’d have had them shot. Sophie knew that. She wouldn’t let them stop him.”

  Tears trickled down his face, hot on his cold skin. Englishmen avoided showing emotion, Valentin had noted, but Nvengarians were not ashamed to weep.

  He saw Mary’s anguished face before her arms were around him. Her embrace held heat against the winter day, the fur of her cloak tickled his cheek, and her body against his comforted him, as though he floated without care in a warm sea.

  The feel of her heart beating between her breasts soothed his hurt a little. Valentin pressed his lips to her neck, absorbed the warmth trapped inside her cloak. If he could stay in Mary’s arms forever, all would be well. He was certain of it.

  Chapter Four

  Mary’s head spun with conflicting thoughts the rest of the evening, through the long winter night, and on into morning as she finished sorting Julia’s things for the visit to Hertfordshire.

  She and Julia rode with Duchess Mina in a traveling coach that was a decadence of cushions and velvet upholstery. Ingenious fold-down cabinets contained food and drink and books, everything the well-heeled traveler could want, with punched tin boxes of glowing coals to warm their feet. The duchess even had a hand-warmer—a small metal box wrapped in cloth—inside her muff. She generously let Julia use it when Julia complained of cold fingers.

  The morning was cold and crisp, the sky bright blue, the air dry and clear. Perfect for a carriage journey out of the metropolis. Pristine English countryside unfolded around them as the four horses in gleaming harness jogged along. Hedge-lined lanes led through a patchwork quilt of small farms; woods and gentle hills flowed to the horizon.

  Julia and the duchess exclaimed at the prettiness. Mary, used to rugged mountains that dropped to churning seas, found the scenery tame and dull.

  The house in Hertfordshire was anything but dull. Good King George must have wished to keep the Nvengarians happy, because he’d given them an enormous Palladian mansion that rose, escarpment-like, from a vast snow-covered lawn. The extensive park ran to a wood in the east, and a frozen pond glimmered like a fallen mirror across the ground.

  The grounds even had a ha-ha, a green bank, now dusted with snow, which rose gently to end in an abrupt drop. A trespasser dashing across the great English lord’s land in the middle of the night would suddenly find himself flat on his face in the mud, five feet down. Ha-ha.

  Mary disapproved. English country houses always repelled her. Scottish castles were open to the entire clan; they were places to gather in times of trouble or for celebration. English houses, beautiful to look at, shut out all but the privileged few.

  The house inside was a typical stately English home, with high-ceilinged rooms, a central elegant staircase, myriad halls, and paintings of two hundred years of the house’s inhabitants. As they entered, the butler informed the duchess that the pond was indeed safe for skating. The duchess squealed and clapped her hands like a schoolgirl.

  It was the twenty-first of December, Yule, the longest night. They would have a skating party this afternoon, Duchess Mina declared, and then they’d burn the Yule log and have all kinds of festivities that night. The ambassador had said he could join them that evening, and he’d bring Julia’s father with him. It would be a fine celebration.

  That meant Valentin would come. Mary both wanted him there and feared his presence. His bold offer in the park and her glimpse behind his stoicism had unnerved her deeply.

  She wanted him. She might be elderly in Julia’s eyes, but Mary was still a strong, healthy woman with a strong, healthy appetite. One reason she’d decided to meet Dougal in London for Christmas this year was because seeing Egan, Zarabeth, and their new baby 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 affair last year in Edinburgh had been a desperate need to satisfy bodily desire, but had left her colder than ever.

  She knew she’d not find coldness with Valentin. He had a strong, fighting man’s body, the muscles she had caress
ed in the park yesterday hard and formidable. She’d seen him bare, had stood against him, had shared with him the deep kisses of lovers. Mary’s body already throbbed with need for him, and what was more—she could love him. She was certain she already did.

  Mary tried to distract herself from thoughts of Valentin by watching the duchess. She didn’t believe for a moment that Sir John Lincolnbury would deliberately involve himself in spying, but Valentin’s speculation made Mary wonder, as well. Why did the ambassador and dear Duchess Mina take so much interest in Julia and her father? Simple friendliness? Or something more?

  Goodness, she was getting as conspiracy-minded as Valentin.

  The duchess roamed the house the rest of the morning, supervising the English servants who decorated with ribbons and greens. No 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 innocuous.

  When the afternoon reached its brightest point, Duchess Mina’s skating party went forward.

  “Of course you will skate, Mrs. Cameron,” Duchess Mina 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 a bodyguard 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’s childhood.

  The Nvengarian 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 stepped out with her right foot.

  The world spun around her, and she sat down sharply on the ice. 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.