A Christmas Ball

by Emily Bryan

  Mary’s own heart raced in anger. “Well, he ought to have done something. Do you mean to say that he kicked his heels in the corridor while his prince ravished Valentin’s sister in the next room?”

  The duchess furrowed her brow. “ ‘Kicked his heels?’ I do not understand.”

  “An English expression meaning waiting or wasting time. You are avoiding the question. Why did your husband do nothing?”

  “Because of me.” Duchess Mina sighed. “Rudolfo feared that if he interfered with the prince’s wishes it would endanger me and our daughter, who was a debutante at the time. We could not know if the Imperial Prince would mete out the same sentence on our family that he did to Valentin’s. He likely would have, unfortunately. It was no idle worry.”

  Mary balled her gloved fists. “Then Duke Rudolfo ought to have finished off the Imperial Prince then and there. It would not be unusual for Nvengarians; I am told they run each other through with much less provocation. Had I been there, I certainly would have taken up a pistol and shot him.”

  Duchess Mina smiled suddenly. “Do you know, my dear, I believe you would have. You are a woman of courage. Luckily Grand Duke Alexander saved us all from the Imperial Prince not long after.”

  “You, too, believe Grand Duke Alexander poisoned the Imperial Prince? Does anyone know that for certain?”

  “No, but we all know, if you understand me. In any case, Alexander helped drive the prince completely mad, and the man died.”

  Mary shivered, but she couldn’t help feeling glad. Her wild Highlander blood wished she could turn back the clock and rush to Sophie’s rescue that day. She’d have told the Imperial Prince what she thought of men like him before she fired her shot.

  “But Valentin was not content with the Imperial Prince’s death,” Duchess Mina continued. “He is obsessed with vengeance. Valentin tried to kill Prince Damien, you know, though he was thwarted from that. He no doubt came with us to England for a chance to punish Rudolfo. Valentin wants revenge on all who were with the Imperial Prince that day.”

  Mary’s head hurt. She remembered what Valentin had told her, that he’d traveled here at the request of Grand Duke Alexander to spy on Duke Rudolfo. She was certain that some of the ambassador’s bodyguards and servants were spying on both Valentin and the duke. Spies on the spies, in the mad confusion of Nvengarian politics.

  Mary could clear up some confusion, at least. “Valentin did not shoot at your husband, Your Grace,” she said in a brisk tone. “When the shots were fired, Valentin was with me. We were talking together, screened from view by the trees.”

  The duchess looked disbelieving. “Why did he not come out with you? You came right away to see what was the matter, but Valentin disappeared.”

  “He ran off in the other direction to find the source of the shots.”

  Duchess Mina smiled archly. “Leaving his clothes behind?”

  Mary flushed. “He…”

  The duchess patted Mary’s knee. “My dear, do not bother to explain. I know you are his lover. I know he stayed in your room last night. Oh, yes, I am not as slowwitted as I seem. I know when a woman loves a man. But please be careful, Mrs. Cameron. Lord Valentin might not have fired the shots himself, but others can be hired to do so, you know.”

  Mary started to argue that in that case, anyone could have hired them, but Duchess Mina firmly changed the subject. Mary found herself woodenly answering questions about the differences between English and Scottish Christmas customs while they continued to the house of the nearest neighbor.

  As they wended down the country lane between cheerful villages, Mary swore she glimpsed a black wolf trailing them, keeping to the fringes of the woods. She watched without drawing attention to the fact, but the wolf never approached, and it disappeared altogether when they finally returned to the ambassador’s house late in the winter-dark evening.

  Chapter Seven

  Valentin scraped the skin off his hands when he helped the footmen position the Yule log in the drawing room’s huge fireplace that night. The duchess, Julia, and Mary tied ribbons to the branches, and Julia explained they each had to sit on the log at least once, for luck in the coming year.

  Traditionally, the Yule log was to be lit with a piece of the previous year’s, but the prior inhabitants of the house apparently hadn’t burned one. The duchess made do with a freshly cut piece from the woodpile, and soon she had everyone coaxing the log to burn.

  As soon as it caught, Mary said, in her efficient voice, that Valentin needed his hands looked after. She bade him go to the dining room across the hall, where she joined him after fetching her bag of remedies.

  Valentin didn’t mind her standing so close, never noticed the sting on his palms as she dabbed them. The scent of her filled his nostrils, and her warm body close to his did bad things to his heart.

  “I thought you were to stay with the ambassador while we paraded about the countryside,” Mary said as she worked. She bent close to his palm, and her hair tickled his nose. “I saw you following us, though I don’t think any of the others marked it.”

  Valentin realized that her hair tickled him because he’d instinctively leaned toward her. But this gave him the opportunity to speak softly into her ear. “I followed because I believe Sir John is correct that he was the intended victim.”

  Mary jerked her head up, nearly colliding with his. “Truly? Why?”

  He liked her face so close. “Perhaps he knows something he should not. Perhaps he is a go-between someone fears, a go-between who needs to be removed.”

  “Removed?” Her brows arched. “You mean killed. Good grief, Sir John was married to my dearest friend. I can’t let him be removed. What would become of Julia?”

  “This is why I followed you, today, to keep Sir John safe. Happily I saw no one to put him or you in danger on your outing.”

  “Thank heavens for that.” Mary resumed wiping at his palms. Her ministration was unnecessary—as a lo-gosh, Valentin healed quickly. But he enjoyed how tenderly she nursed him, the light feel of her fingers on his skin.

  Mary turned away to her remedy box, and Valentin caught her arm. He’d wanted her all day, could barely contain his patience for the household to go to bed. When the house grew quiet, he’d slip into Mary’s room again, splay his hands across her body, ease every bit of worry with his lips.

  Mary stepped from his grasp. “The others might come in.”

  “You fear too much. We have the excuse of mistletoe.” He pointed at a gray-green ball hanging from a chandelier.

  Mary’s stance, her tension, was not about to let him in. She looked up at him with new hardness in her brown eyes, and he sensed all their progress of last night evaporating.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She stood silently a moment, looking unhappy. “The duchess told me that Duke Rudolfo accompanied the Imperial Prince to your house that day.”

  Valentin stifled a growl. Damn Duchess Mina’s gos-siping tongue. Why the woman wished Mary to know these things, Valentin couldn’t understand. But Mary watched Valentin, willing him to be truthful with her, no matter how much it hurt.

  “She is correct,” Valentin said. “Duke Rudolfo was there that day.”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  Valentin closed his fingers on her arm again but kept his touch light. “Because I hate to think of that time, that most horrible day of my life. I know Duke Rudolfo could have done nothing to save Sophie. The Imperial Prince would have killed Rudolfo’s family in retaliation if he had interfered. I know this. The Imperial Prince was a monster.”

  “So I have heard. Duchess Mina fears that you have come to kill her husband.”

  “And I must, if he proves to be working against Prince Damien.”

  “Is Duchess Mina right, then? That you live for vengeance? Is this why you so eagerly agreed to Grand Duke Alexander’s assignment?”

  His fingers tightened. “I told you why I so eagerly agreed to this assignment.”

&
nbsp; “But you had no idea I’d be in London.”

  “That did not matter. Alexander’s task could at least get me to England. I had been saving the money to make the journey alone, but I snatched this opportunity. I planned to make my way to Castle Macdonald when this business with the ambassador was done, for good or for ill.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  Valentin clasped her hands between his, not caring that his palms still stung. “Because you belong with me, my Mary. I knew it when I first saw you. I need you.”

  “But do I need you?”

  Her breath warmed his fingers. She smelled so good, damp and warm with perspiration, and he wanted to drink her in. “I hope that you do.”

  “Even if you have no wish to marry me?”

  Valentin gripped her hands tighter, but he felt her slipping away. “If marriage is what you want, I will work to make it so. My estate is recovering under Prince Damien’s rule. It will take time to make it yield enough for you not to be ashamed to be my wife, but I will work hard to bring it about.”

  Mary gave him an indignant look, one he’d come to love. “I would never be ashamed to be your wife. But I must understand you. You say you do not blame Duke Rudolfo for not helping your sister, but how can that be true? I’d be enraged at anyone who didn’t keep my son, or Egan, or my sister-in-law, or anyone I loved from harm. At anyone who stood by to save his own skin, in fact.”

  She was stubbornly proud, his Highland lass. The strength of her people flowed through her, and he loved her for it.

  Valentin released her hands. He remembered the impossible rage that had filled him when he’d found Sophie in a tight ball on her bed, too stunned and shocked to even cry. Sophie’s maid had told Valentin the tale, every detail. The maid herself had been beaten by the Imperial Prince’s guards because she’d tried to protect Sophie.

  Valentin folded his arms across his chest. “I was angry with Rudolfo, yes, and I still have that anger—I will not lie. Duke Rudolfo should never have let him touch Sophie. If he’d shot the Imperial Prince that day, I doubt the Council of Dukes would have cared.”

  “Will you try to kill Rudolfo, now?” Mary asked. “For being a spy? How convenient you can take your revenge at the same time. Two birds with one stone?”

  “It is complicated. I am angry, yes, but I also have my duty to Damien and Alexander. My personal wishes are no longer important.”

  “Of course they are important. You likely think it is too Nvengarian for me to understand, and you are right. I don’t understand. I am too Scottish to understand. In my world, the personal is far more important. A clan lord would agree if you had to take care of a personal feud before answering his call to arms. The clan lord might even help you. That way, he’d know you’d be finished with the business and not distracted.”

  “I am finished,” Valentin said in a firm voice.

  “Are you? How can I be certain you won’t rush off on an unfinished vendetta as soon as you take me home with you? Or that Grand Duke Alexander won’t send you to do your ‘duty’ with another insurrectionist? When will you stop being the dagger hand of Prince Damien and the Grand Duke and just be Valentin? The man I can love?”

  “I am not their servant…”

  “Aren’t you?” Her words cut at him. “And yet, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been on some assignment for them. I want you, Valentin. Not Valentin the bodyguard or the spy or the hired assassin. Dear heaven, Alexander expects you to murder a man if he turns out to not love your prince.”

  “You do not understand how dangerous such men can be. If I discover Rudolfo is working to bring down Prince Damien, he will make certain I never report back to Nvengaria. He would not hesitate to kill you, or your Sir John, or even Julia, to stop me. In my world, secrets must be kept secret. At all costs.”

  “Well, it is a bloody inconvenient world, isn’t it?” Mary came close to him, her dark eyes swimming with tears. “I don’t think I could live there.”

  “Mary, let me finish this, and then we will speak.”

  “No.” She gave him a sorrowful look. “I want life and love, not death. I will not marry the man Grand Duke Alexander uses to do his dirty work.”

  Valentin balled his fists. He’d never been given to demonstrating his rage, always needing to keep the beast inside him at bay. He knew that if he ever gave in to that beast and its basic, volatile emotion, he’d become more of a monster than the Imperial Prince had ever been.

  “I did not offer marriage,” he said. “I told you I could not.”

  “I know. You offered me compromises, conveniences even. That is not what I want.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “I have told you,” she said.

  She wanted something he couldn’t give her. She wanted certainty, and Valentin’s entire existence was based on uncertainty. He pressed his lips together, his heart a burning lump in his chest.

  When Valentin said nothing, Mary kissed the corner of his mouth and walked away from him. The door opened behind him, and then her light footsteps sounded as she left the room. The click of the door closing was the bleakest thing he’d ever heard in his life.

  Mary was ready to run back to London that very evening, but after a bout of agitated pacing in her bedchamber, she decided to make herself stay. Leaving would draw attention to herself and Valentin, and she would not be such a coward. She also could not justify either abandoning Julia or wresting the girl from Hertfordshire when Julia was so enjoying herself. Mary had never seen her this happy.

  She arrived at the supper table in time to hear Duchess Mina reveal more plans for her very English Christmas. Mary sank to her place in the richly paneled dining room where she’d ministered to Valentin, both relieved and worried not to see him there. He’d gone out, Duke Rudolfo said, to look for the shooters again. Rudolfo was convinced the gunmen had given up and gone, but Valentin had insisted on checking.

  “A mummers play,” the duchess interrupted from her end of the table. “As I was saying to the others, Mrs. Cameron. We’ll be the mummers ourselves and invite the neighbors ’round to see us.”

  Mary reflected that the neighbors might well have had enough of their foreign visitors trying to be so English, but she nodded. Julia jiggled in excitement; she adored dramatics.

  Julia and Duchess Mina conferred on the play in the drawing room after supper, asking for pointers from Mary and Sir John to keep everything traditional. To Mary’s dismay, the ambassador announced that he was not needed in London until after Boxing Day, so he and Valentin could stay and take part in the dramatics. Sir John then announced that he’d jolly well take a holiday from business, too. Everyone seemed happy, natural, animated. Everyone, Mary thought grumpily, except herself.

  Valentin did not return, and though Mary lay awake most of the night, Valentin never ventured to her room, either as man or logosh. She was angry with him and did not want to see him. So why did she remain awake in the darkness, listening, hoping to hear his step?

  Mary regretted now that she’d run away from Scotland and the family celebrations there. She’d told herself she was tired of all the traditions and festivities, and that a Christmas alone with her son in London would be preferable.

  She now realized that a warm family Christmas was exactly what she needed. Meeting Valentin here had brought home to her how much she hated being alone.

  She wanted Valentin, wanted to be with him in all ways, but the duchess’s words had chilled her. Not that she believed Duchess Mina’s idea that Valentin lived only for vengeance, but Valentin hid so much from Mary. She saw his pain when he spoke of Sophie, but he’d never volunteered any information about her until Mary pried it from him. She wondered how long he’d have waited before mentioning he’d had a sister at all.

  Mary slept finally, and rose, groggy and late for breakfast. In the sunny breakfast room, Duchess Mina passed out the parts for the mummers play and told them to work very hard so they could be ready by the next day, which was Christmas
Eve. Mary kept herself from snapping a reply, and again when Valentin strolled into the ballroom where they’d adjourned to rehearse, looking fresh and rested.

  The duchess and Julia had decided to improvise a story involving Saint George, sans dragon, very traditional for a mummers play. Duke Rudolfo would be Saint George. Sir John would play a dark knight, and he and Rudolfo would battle it out with swords. Saint George would be slain, but a powerful magician, played by Valentin, would bring him back to life.

  Julia would be Saint George’s intended bride, ready to weep copiously at the death of her beloved. Mary was to play Athena, goddess of wisdom, who came in at the end to drive the sword of justice into the dark knight.

  The duchess, as the playwright, decided to narrate and direct. “It is a good way to practice my English,” she said. “Mary will make a splendid Athena, will she not, Lord Valentin? So stately in her robes, and she will carry my husband’s saber.”

  Valentin gazed at Mary in silence, and she turned away, unable to meet his eyes.

  Valentin read his part in a quiet voice. The only time Mary had to be near him was at the end, when she was to point her sword at Valentin and declare that he was the best of them, because he gave life. The duchess had them run through the play a few times before they broke apart to find appropriate costumes. They would have a rehearsal in costume, Duchess Mina said, and then luncheon. Mary obeyed without argument, too tired to fight Duchess Mina’s iron-handed enthusiasm.

  Upstairs in her room, Mary donned an ivory evening dress, then instructed her skeptical Scots maid to help drape a sheet around her in classical-looking folds. Mary knotted her hair on top of her head and let a few curls fall to her cheeks. Deciding she looked sufficiently Greek, she made her way to the ambassador’s rooms to borrow his saber.

  Duke Rudolfo was alone in his sitting room, already strapped into Saint George’s makeshift armor. The ser-vants had taken apart several real suits of armor from the main hall and fit bits of them to the ambassador. It all looked strange with the swath of white bandage on his shoulder, but Rudolfo had insisted that he was well enough to enact a sword fight; he would use his uninjured arm anyway.