Drifting powder filled her vision and she smelled blood mixed with acrid smoke. “Alexander!” she screamed.
In another instant, her bodyguards were there, Dominic and his men surrounding her like an impenetrable wall. She could not see past their huge bodies, and they nearly crushed her between them, the smell 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 her and they weren’t letting her out of their circle. Nikolai had once said they’d die to the last man for her, and now, facing the line of pistols, she believed it.
Another volley was fired. Dominic grunted and bent in half, and over his shoulder Meagan saw many things.
She saw one assassin go down as Nikolai and 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.
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 TWENTY-TWO
Hours later Meagan sat upright on her bed, gazing straight in front of her. Simone hovered nearby, 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 wanted to stay and help Meagan, but the Nvengarian bodyguard sent her home with her mother. The viscount had gone with them protectively, looking pleased he’d been able to participate in a good 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, over and over, Alexander spreading his arms and diving out the ballroom window, two stories above the ground. No one had seen him since.
Had Alexander changed form and chased the assassins and dispatched them? Was he dying of a gunshot wound in some dark passage in London? Or was he dead already?
The dratted Nvengarians would not let her out of the house to go look for him, not even Dominic, who’d taken a shot to his side and lay feverish in his bed in the attic.
Nikolai arrived to report on Dominic’s progress as Mrs. Caldwell tried to persuade Meagan yet again to drink the tea. “He will live,” Nikolai assured her, his eyes glittering. “But he is proud to have fallen for you. He would die one thousand deaths for you and think it not enough.”
“I don’t want him to die even one death for me,” Meagan said, pushing away Mrs. Caldwell’s teacup-laden hand. “Do make him stay in bed and recover.”
Nikolai looked slightly disappointed at her practical order, but bowed. “I will convey Your Grace’s wishes.”
“And why aren’t you out looking for my husband?” she demanded.
“Julius and the other bodyguards will find him, Your Grace, rest assured. I stay home to prepare either to heal His Grace’s wounds or to lay him out for his funeral.”
Meagan flinched, and Mrs. Caldwell said sharply, “Go out of here with your talk of funerals, you ridiculous young man.”
Nikolai looked perplexed. “If Grand Duke Alexander has fallen in battle protecting that which is most dear to him, his funeral and monuments will be the grandest the world has ever seen.”
Simone clapped her hands over her ears, upsetting the bowl of lavender water. “Do make him stop. I cannot bear it. I cannot dress all in black, it does not suit me. Oh, my poor dear Meagan.”
Mrs. Caldwell slammed down the teacup and ran at Nikolai, eyes flashing, arms outstretched. “Out! Now!”
Nikolai took one startled look at a hundred and fifty pounds of angry housekeeper bearing down on him and fled.
“It is too much for me,” Simone said, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “I am sorry, my dear, I must have a lie down.”
Meagan felt a flicker of relief beneath her numbness. Simone in a sick room was not conducive to good health.
“That is all right, Stepmama. Mrs. Caldwell will show you to a guest room. You will stay here tonight.”
Mrs. Caldwell at last abandoned the bloody teacup. She called the maid, Susan, to come and keep an eye on Meagan while she half escorted, half dragged Simone out of the room.
Susan sat down by the bed, trying to look cheerful. “Now then, madame,” she said brightly. “I shall tell you funny stories and make you feel better.”
“You are kind, Susan,” Meagan said. She pushed the untouched teacup toward her. “Do have some tea. Mrs. Caldwell made it and it seems a shame to waste it.”
Meagan never succeeded in leaving the house. With Susan snoring softly under the influence of the laudanumdosed tea, Meagan had dressed and crept downstairs. Her plan was to go to her father and have him take her to Bow Street where she could hire a Runner to search for Alexander.
But the bodyguards left behind to guard the house were diligent. They stood at the front door, arms folded, like a wall of muscle and blue coats, and refused to let her out. Explaining what she wanted to do, Nikolai translating, did not help. Bow Street Runners weren’t Nvengarian and would not understand. Alexander’s men would find him. Meanwhile, Her Grace should go back to bed.
The bodyguards spoke in grunts and monosyllables, but from their annoyed glares she knew Nikolai translated correctly.
“In that case,” she snapped. “If I am to be your prisoner, I wish to be informed of everything you find. No matter how unimportant, you tell me everything. If you do not, I will…” She broke off, looking at the stoic bodyguards and Nikolai as he rattled off the translation. “Well, I shall have something to say about it.”
Drawing her dignity around her, she turned and swept back up the stairs, seething all the way.
When daylight broke, she donned a morning dress with a mantle and half boots and swarmed down the stairs after choking down a half cup of coffee, all she could manage.
The same bodyguards reposed at the door, blocking her way.
“Do not worry, I am not going to Bow Street,” she said in a freezing voice. “I have an appointment of a different nature in mind. You may come with me, all of you. So please call my carriage, Nikolai.”
The bodyguards grudgingly allowed her this much, but would not let her out the front door until the carriage arrived at the step. Four of the bodyguards piled onto the outside, then the coachman started the horses and followed Meagan’s directions to Garland Close, just off the Strand.
Meagan did not really expect Black Annie to be at home. If Alexander’s men could not find the elusive witch, she did not believe an unexpected call would do the trick. Therefore she was quite surprised when the cherub-faced maid opened the door and said, “Oh, yes, Your Grace, Mrs. Reese is in. Would you care to step this way?”
Black Annie kept Meagan waiting in the pleasant sitting room only a few minutes. Dressed in a neat gown of gray, she entered and curtseyed politely, but a twinkle lit her eyes.
“Your Grace, how kind of you to call on me. What can I do for you today?”
“I believe you know perfectly well why I’ve come,” Meagan said, tight-lipped.
Black Annie gracefully slid into a seat opposite Meagan. “You look well, if I may be bold to say so, Your Grace. Much better than whe
n I saw you with Mrs. Braithwaite. I believe married life agrees with you, although you do look a bit tired this morning. Did you not sleep well?”
“My husband has gone missing.”
Meagan hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but her worry consumed her.
Black Annie looked thoughtful but not worried. “Nvengarians are always surrounded by intrigue, Your Grace. He will turn up when he’s finished.”
“He was chasing assassins.”
“Well, of course he was. Gossip of what happened at your ball is all over town. Some believed it part of the Nvengarian festivities, calling it a prank put on by lunatic foreigners.”
Meagan blinked back tears. “One of my bodyguards is hurt, and my husband is missing. I’d hardly call that a prank.”
Black Annie leaned forward and patted Meagan’s knee, her smile motherly. “I truly am sorry, Your Grace. What may I do to help?”
After Simone’s hysterics and Mrs. Caldwell’s nursemaid fussing, Black Annnie’s kind-voiced concern unleashed the tears Meagan had kept dammed up all night. They spilled out, unhindered, before Meagan could stop them.
Instantly, Black Annie was at her side, gathering Meagan into her arms, her plump body comforting.
“There now, don’t take on so. The Grand Duke has much experience chasing assassins, and he can defend himself. Being part logosh will help him.”
Meagan lifted her head with a gasp. “How did you know about that?”
Black Annie smiled. “It is simple, my dear. I knew his mother.”
“You did? But…” Meagan stared around the very English, very middle-class sitting room in astonishment.
“Did you not guess, Your Grace? I am half Nvengarian. My father was English, my mother from Nvengaria.”
Meagan shook her head. “No, I did not know.”
“Hmm, I had thought it was obvious. I was raised in London, and when my father died, my mother took me back to Nvengaria to meet her family. Because my mother was inclined to the Craft, she knew of the logosh and took me to the mountains to find them. I met Alexander’s mother when she was dying, poor thing. She worried about the child she was leaving behind. She said she had a feeling that Alexander would one day end up in England—he hardly could avoid it, being Grand Duke, so that was not a very difficult prediction—and would I make sure he was all right? I promised. And last autumn, sure enough, he turned up in London.”
“You knew he was logosh all along?” Meagan asked. “Why did you not tell him?”
Black Annie looked blank. “You mean he did not know?”
“No, he did not find out until recently. And that was all your fault.”
Black Annie withdrew her comforting arm. “My fault? My dear, what are you talking about?”
“The love spell.” Meagan rose to her feet in agitation. “The be-damned love spell you made for me, I mean, for Deirdre. Except Alexander said those sorts of spells are very specific, and that you truly made it for me and him.”
“He is right. I did, yes.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Black Annie looked surprised. “Because I thought you’d suit, of course.”
“You thought we’d suit?” Meagan laughed, a little hysterically. “So you decided to trick me…but your love spell is tearing us apart. The spell released the logosh inside Alexander and now he refuses to come near me. Every time the spell flares, he is afraid he’ll hurt me, so he keeps his distance, and I never see him anymore.” She choked on sobs.
Black Annie watched her, puzzled. “I’m afraid I do not understand. Every time the spell flares? What do you mean?”
“I mean that every time Alexander and I are within glancing distance, the spell makes us want nothing but to be with each other—in bed, you know what I mean. We have both been trying to find you, to make you break the spell, but you have been unfindable, and I do not know what he’s done with the talisman.” She made a helpless gesture. “You must know a way to counteract the spell without the talisman. Please, I will pay you as much as Deirdre did—more, I can give you whatever you want if it’s money you need. I seem to be very rich now. When Alexander is no longer under the influence of the spell, perhaps he will be able to control the logosh and he will cease avoiding me…”
“Meagan.” Black Annie’s gentle voice cut through her words. “You are making no sense. The spell is finished and gone. It was only temporary. It dispersed the night you consummated your marriage.”
Alexander saw everything with beast’s eyes, the world black and white and curved but very sharp about the edges. He smelled blood and knew the assassins lay inside the small house he’d tracked them to.
They hadn’t known he’d followed, foolish, foolish men who’d left a huge trail of scent—blood, unwashed bodies, gunpowder.
Alexander the man might wonder who the men were and what their scheme was, how they’d managed to get into the garden past his guards, who they worked for, what their master wanted them to accomplish, and how he could use them to counteract the plot. Alexander the beast did not care. These men had compromised the safety of his wife, his son, his home, and for that they would pay.
He padded softly through an unkempt garden and to a window, able to smell their stench and hear their grating voices. He shimmered into his demon form, hid in the shadows near the window, and peered inside.
He saw a warm, comfortable sitting room, but the men in it looked anything but comfortable. Otto von Hohenzahl stood before the fire in a lavish dressing gown, holding a cheroot in one hand and a crystal goblet of wine in the other.
His expression as he gazed at the men before him was one of abject horror.
“You idiots!” he said in loud, clear German. “You invaded his house in front of dozens of witnesses? Why would you do such a stupid thing?”
“To avenge you,” the man who seemed to be the leader said. “At least that is what Peterli told us.”
“Peterli…” The name died on von Hohenzahl’s lips. “Oh, God in heaven. Why would he do such a thing?”
A distant part of Alexander’s mind remembered that, according to Myn, von Hohenzahl had been speaking to a man called Peterli in the tavern in Wapping.
“To avenge you,” a new voice repeated as a younger man entered the room. He was dressed to the nines in a fine Austrian military uniform, his dark hair crisp, his eyes slightly crazed. “And keep you from being taken in by that bastard Alexander. He turned you from your higher purpose.”
“Higher purpose?” von Hohenzahl spluttered.
“To bring Nvengaria under the wing of Austria, where she belongs. To teach the arrogant Nvengarians all about submission.”
Von Hohenzahl’s face went ashen. “You are mad, Peterli. My plan, it failed. I cannot make a move without Alexander’s men watching me, and they must have followed you here tonight. I am doing what is prudent, withdrawing until he tires of me so that I can start again.”
Peterli glared at him. “That is not how to make Austria great or Prince Metternich happy.”
“Peterli, you are too young. You do not make Austria great by charging into balls at ambassadors’ houses and shooting at people. You plan and wait and have patience. You succumb to enemies when necessary, and plot for later. That is how you live another day in this game.”
“Game?” Peterli looked aghast. “I thought you were an honorable man, mein Herr.”
“Now you sound exactly like the Nvengarians. You have utterly ruined me, Peterli. Even now, a pack of Alexander’s dogs will be hunting you—and me—and I do not think they’ll wait for someone to translate that you acted without my knowledge.”
“You would betray me?” Peterli said, shocked. “You would hand me over to them?”
“I would. I’ll not waste twenty years of plans because of a hothead like you.”
“But I avenged you. Alexander took away your honor.”
“Peterli, you are so impossibly stupid.”
Alexander smelled the young man’s shift from triumph to bewildered s
urprise to blood-crazed fury. Peterli had come here expecting to be praised and rewarded, only to find himself slapped on the nose like a slow-witted dog.
Peterli moved fast. Before the word “stupid” had completely left von Hohenzahl’s lips, Peterli had a long knife in his hand and was plunging it toward von Hohenzahl.
Von Hohenzahl was faster. He lifted a primed pistol from the table that held the expensive bottle of wine and fired it directly into Peterli’s chest.
The impact sent Peterli flying backwards to the floor, a look of astonishment crossing his face before he died.
The smell of fresh kill released the beast inside Alexander. He smashed the window glass and the wooden frame and tore into the house.
In terror, von Hohenzahl aimed his pistol at Alexander, but it was already empty and harmless. Alexander ignored him and slashed heavily into a man who’d brought up a pistol ready to be fired. The others tried to flee.
Alexander slid into his panther form and sprang after the running men, tackling one and hurling him into the others before they could reach the front door. He played with one fallen man like a cat would, pinning him and swatting at him as he squirmed in terror.
He changed back into his logosh form and swung around just as von Hohenzahl tried to plunge his knife into Alexander’s back. One blow of Alexander’s fist sent von Hohenzahl across the sitting room to smash against the wall. A second blow dispatched another man with a gun who landed on his side, bleeding and groaning.
Alexander spun back into the room, changing into the panther as he sprang to von Hohenzahl and planted one large paw on the man’s chest. Von Hohenzahl looked appropriately terrified.
“It was not me,” he bleated in heavy Nvengarian. “I was true to you.”
Alexander growled, giving von Hohenzahl a close-up view of his very long, very sharp teeth.
Von Hohenzahl shook all over, his body stinking of fear. “You almost succeeded,” he whispered.