by Emily Bryan
“You will get used to it, Mrs. Cameron. We skate all the time back home.”
“I am so pleased to hear it,” Mary muttered.
Julia helped Mary to her feet. The girl linked arms with her, 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, the duchess 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 heading down the path from the house. Pride goeth before a fall, Mary thought in annoyance, but the duchess remained upright.
The train of male figures moved down the snowy, muddy slope: the ambassador, Valentin, and Sir John, followed by more 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, my lord. She’s already fallen once.”
Mary flushed. Valentin sent her a little smile, and her heart turned inside out. His 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 many duties in the Council of Dukes didn’t allow him time on the ice.
Valentin glided to Mary and took her arm. She didn’t trust herself alone with him, but she didn’t have enough confidence in her skating ability to push from him as he skimmed her away from the others.
“You fell?” His breath hung in the air beside her ear. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, if slightly bruised. Both my pride and my backside.”
“Perhaps we should go inside, then.”
She did not trust herself alone inside with him, either. “No, no. I am of hearty Scottish stock, not a wilting weed. I will survive it.”
Mary thought she might not survive his warm body against her side, 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 on, his balance supporting hers. “What have you discovered from the duchess?”
His mission. Of course. “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 stop joking. She would melt right through the ice if he kept smiling at her like that. “Jesting aside, she seems harmless. 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 were trying 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, tried to pry English secrets out of her, or 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.”
“Grand Duke Alexander is never wrong.”
“Perhaps not, but I do not think the avenue is through the duchess.”
“Please, keep watching her.”
Mary sighed. “I’m not comfortable spying on my friends. I know you grew up in a country 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 men normal. I only had to deal with feuds within my own family, and those weren’t secret.” She broke off under Valentin’s unnerving stare. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I like to watch your lips when you speak.”
She flushed from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair. Very well, perhaps he was not focused only on his mission. The fact that he was happy to see her made her feel like a giddy debutante. “We are skating far away from the others.”
“I do not wish them to hear what we are saying.”
Because he wanted to talk about his mission, or because he wanted to repeat things he’d said yesterday? “I want you as my lover. To give you all that the word means.”
Her imagination spun with what he might have in mind. She cleared her throat and tried to speak normally. “It might be dangerous to go too far. The English servants say we should stay near the banks.”
Valentin skated her around the bend, then pulled her to a stop. A tangled thicket of trees on the bank above shielded them from the others.
He tapped the ice with his blade. “It is fine here. See, the water is shallow and frozen hard.”
“Have you been out here before?” Mary asked. “I presume so, if you are familiar with the depth of the pond.”
“I am familiar with ponds in general. We skate quite often in Nvengaria. The winters are cold and long, so we enjoy whatever we can from them.”
“When you are trying to convince me to come to Nvengaria with you, you should not mention long, cold winters. Although I confess winters can be bleak in northern Scotland. I spend most of them in Edinburgh. Or London.”
“I have decided to stop persuading you to come to Nvengaria.”
Mary went cold, though beads of sweat broke out on her brow. “You have, have you?”
“I do not have the gift of persuasion. But I do believe in the magic of my people.” Valentin slid his hands under her elbows, holding her steady.
“Magic?” she repeated.
“Today is the winter solstice, the Longest Night. It is said among logosh that the person you stay with on the Longest Night will remain in your life for the next year, perhaps longer.”
“Are you saying you wish to spend the night with me?” Her voice cracked. “You know that is a highly improper suggestion, even to a widowed lady.”
“It is why I led you from the others.” Valentin leaned toward 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.”
“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.”
“I am Julia’s chaperone. My behavior must be impeccable.”
“I am logosh. I know how to come to you without the others knowing.”
Mary drew a shaky breath. They both swayed a little on the ice, and Valentin’s firm hands moved to her back.
It felt so 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 held, kissed, told she was desirable. She was supposed to admit that her youth was gone, to 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. She longed for a man’s touch, and Valentin, eight years her junior, was gazing at her as though she were the most beautiful woman in the world.
If she let him, he’d pull her into his strange life, take her far away from all she knew. In return she’d get Valentin, with his beautiful eyes, warm voice, and honed body. Hers for always.
“I’m not certain what to do.”
Valentin’s lips moved from the line of her hair to her cheekbone. “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 strong, handsome, and his warmth under her hands made her heart pound
.
“Very well.”
Valentin kissed her. She balled her hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath them. This wasn’t casual for him; he was as lonely as she was.
He tasted raw and wild, like the winter afternoon. Valentin didn’t belong in this tame English countryside, with its neat hedgerows and formal gardens that shut out the common people. He’d fit well into the Scottish Highlands, its rugged mountains and cold, dangerous seas. She shivered at she thought of him in bed with her, won?dering if he’d be as strong and dangerous as he seemed, and longing to find out.
The quiet was shattered by the sharp sound of shots. Then came the screams of Julia and the duchess, the startled shout of Sir John.
Valentin pushed Mary away from him, and she slid backward 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 Five
Julia wouldn’t stop 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 his left shoulder. Sir John had his hands to his mouth, eyes wide in horror, and Julia stood, shrieking, beside him.
The duchess knelt next to her husband, his head in her lap, and was parting his clothes to feel his heart. Mary stopped on the bank, her own heart pounding in fear.
“He’s alive,” the duchess said crisply. “Wounded only in the shoulder.”
Mary sighed in relief, then let her efficient persona take over. She turned to the servants hurrying down from the house and pointed to them one by one.
“You, quickly, carry the ambassador to the house and to his bedroom. You, fetch blankets, you, 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. “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. “Skate to me. I’ll take care of you. Everything will be all right.”
“Where is Lord 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 off the ice, 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 take off her skates. “You saw someone’s dog running loose, is all.”
“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 only stray shots from a shooting party. Foolish city folk going after grouse in entirely the wrong place. Lord 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 the Grand Duke 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 even Grand Duke Alexander deliberately endanger Valentin or Mary or innocent Julia in the attempt?
Or perhaps these shooters were in a different plot altogether. The ambassador could have more enemies than Grand Duke Alexander. Nvengaria was rife with plots.
At least Mary knew that Valentin hadn’t shot at the ambassador. 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 halfway through, pressed his hand to his wound, and groaned.
Mary thought she’d have to take charge of his nursing, but Duchess Mina proved unexpectedly competent. Mary helped her put the ambassador to bed and bathe the wound, and then the doctor, a country man round of face and genial of speech, arrived. He gave the ambassador a good dose of laudanum, pried open his shoulder, and probed for the bullet.
The duchess did have to leave then, calling for smelling salts. The rest of the servants turned green and sidled off, and Mary ended up holding the bowl to receive the bloody bullet. She did so without squeamishness. Growing up in a household of rough 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.
She chafed at the delay, however, because she wanted to retrieve Valentin’s clothes from the woods before anyone else found them. Valentin himself had not been seen or heard from since the shooting.
“This one is easy,” the doctor said cheerfully, as the round bullet clinked into the bowl. “I wrenched out many a ball lodged right into the bone when I was a surgeon on the Peninsula. Sawed off my share of legs, too. This is the most interesting wound I’ve tended since I became a country doctor, except for the poor lad gored by his oxen two summers ago.”
Mary offered no comment. She wiped away blood while the army surgeon-turned-doctor sewed the wound shut, then helped him make the ambassador comfortable.
The sun slid behind the horizon as the doctor packed up and left, the Longest Night beginning. Mary callously handed the bowl and bullet to the nearest footman, suggesting he clean the bullet and offer it to the ambassador as a souvenir. Then she hastened downstairs to see the doctor out, hoping to slip away and fetch Valentin’s discarded clothes.
Too late.
The ambassador’s valet, a small, fastidious Nvengarian who’d excused himself during the doctor’s work, came in the front door, carrying Valentin’s clothing and boots.
Mary moved to intercept him. “I will take those.”
“Isn’t that Lord Valentin’s coat?” Julia came charging out of the drawing room with her father on her heels. “Where is Lord Valentin?”
“Where did you find ‘em?” Sir John asked. He touched the coat as the valet handed it to Mary.
The valet spoke only broken English. “By the frozen water,” he managed.
“Strange place for the fellow to disrobe, eh?”
“He didn’t disrobe, Father. The wolf took him.” Julia clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh dear heaven, the wolf’s eaten Lord Valentin!”
Sir John looked shocked, the valet confused. Mary snatched the boots. “Julia, please. If you examine them, you will see that these clothes are quite whole. What wolf undresses his dinner before eating it?”
“Oh.” Julia looked doubtful. “But why on earth did Lord Valentin leave his clothes near the pond? How can he run about without them?”
“Perhaps somebody stole ‘em,” Sir John suggested. “Shoved them down there, planned to fetch them later. Lord Valentin can tell us if he has any missing. Where is the fellow, by the way?”
“Still trying to discover who shot at the ambassador, I’d imagine.” Mary turned away to the stairs.
“Oh, the chappie wasn’t shooting at the ambassador,” Sir John said. “He was shooting at me.”
Mary turned abruptly. “At you? Why on earth should someone shoot at you?”
“I don’t know, my dear. But Duke Rudolfo pushed me out of the way and took the bullet himself.” Sir John puffed out his che
st. “Damned decent of him, I’d say. Good fellow, that ambassador, even if he’s foreign.”
The wolf approached the house under cover of darkness, sensing the warmth within. The mansion was a bulk of shadow in deeper darkness, the lower floor black, with only a few lights on the upper floors.
The strange ditch the English called a ha-ha might keep out a wandering tramp, but to a nimble animal it presented no barrier. Valentin easily leapt the ditch and scrambled down the bank to the shadows of the house.
In the back, facing the pond, two square windows showed candlelight. He knew that the window on the far left was the ambassador’s bedroom, the one on the far right, Mary’s.
Nvengarians considered logosh demons. Logosh regarded themselves as simply logosh—beings that had inhabited the Nvengarian mountains for eons. They were shape-shifters, able to take animal, demon, or human form as they chose.
Valentin was only half logosh, and he’d always found shifting painful. He clenched his teeth as he forced his wolf limbs to change to the demon’s. Fur became skin, paws became claws, and his thighs thickened with logosh muscle. All creatures but logosh considered the logosh’s demon form hideous, but in it, Valentin could climb.
He moved swiftly and noiselessly up the wall to the lighted window and peered into what must be Mary’s dressing room. An open wardrobe showing neat rows of Mary’s garments stood next to an armless chaise. At the dressing table, ribbons had been sorted neatly, as had her cosmetics and jewelry. Not one stray glove, hat, or handkerchief rested on the chaise. The pristine neatness of it made him smile.
Mary herself leaned over the washbasin, scooping water from hands to face. Her bodice hung loose at her waist, her corset and chemise spotted with water.
Valentin hooked his claw around the edge of the casement and pulled, surprised when the window opened easily. Mary had left it unlatched, just as she hadn’t drawn the curtains.
He’d meant to be silent, but at the window’s slight squeak, Mary whirled around. She stood silently, eyes wide, hands dripping, while the logosh climbed into her chamber.