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"The Longest Night" in
A Christmas Ball
Dorchester/Leisure
October 2009
Nvengaria series 4
 
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Chapter One

London, 1820

“You will sort it out, Aunt Mary, won’t you? Please?”

Seventeen-year-old Julia Lincolnbury pirouetted in front of the mirror while Mary tried to make sense of the chaos of Julia’s bedchamber. Julia expected her “Aunt” Mary Cameron to sort out her bonnets, her gowns, her invitations, her maids, her tutors, and her mind. If Mary had been the young woman’s governess or even her true aunt, she’d feel obligated to do so, but she’d offered to chaperone Julia these past few weeks as a favor to her father.

Two weeks ago, when Mary had arrived in London, where she’d spend Christmas with her son, she’d happened upon Julia’s father, a sad baronet called Sir John Lincolnbury outside a bookshop on a gray London street.

“Stuck in London for the winter,” he’d said mournfully. His northern accent pronounced it Loondon. “I like th’ quiet, but Julia is driving me mad. She made her bow in the spring, but no one’s offered for her, poor gel. She’s been invited to a Christmas ball at the Hartwells’, the best invitation, but of course she can’t attend unchaperoned. If her poor, dear mother had lived . . .”

Julia’s poor, dear mother had been Mary’s closest childhood friend. When she’d died, Sir John had gotten through his grief by spoiling Julia rotten.

“You are allowed escort her to a ball, Sir John,” Mary pointed out. “You are her father, after all.”

“But a gel needs a wooman’s hand, doesn’t she? I can do nowt with her. And here we are in the south at un unfashionable time of year.” Sir John eyed Mary speculatively. “I say, Mrs. Cameron, if you’re stuck here like a lump as well . . .”

“I’d be happy to chaperone her.”

Mary cut off what was sure to be a long, rather wet appeal to Mary’s charitable instincts. She had come to London early to wait for her son Dougal, because back home in Scotland, the castle was preparing for another warm, happy, overflowing celebration, which had only reminded her of her acute loneliness. “For Allison’s sake.”

By the time the day of the ball rolled around, the nineteenth of December, Mary was reflecting that even Allison wouldn’t have asked her to take on such an onerous task as looking after Julia. But it was a distraction, and Mary needed distractions these days.

Julia held a new gown of pale yellow muslin against her body and admired herself. “Lord Sheffley is certain to be at the Hartwell Ball. We must think of ways to keep him from dancing with that horrid Miss Hamilton. Aunt Mary, do think of something clever.”

“The best way to attract a gentleman is to do nothing,” Mary said. “If Lord Sheffley dances with Miss Hamilton, you pretend you care nothing for it.”

“But I do care. I want to scratch her eyes out.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.” Just as with Julia’s father, Mary had discovered that a firm tone did wonders on this girl. “Remember what I said about manners.”

“Yes, Aunt Mary.”

Mary hid a sigh. The girl was naïve and feckless, but she meant well.

A bell rang downstairs. Julia dropped her new dress to the floor and dashed out of the room. “The post has come!”

In the hall below Julia snatched the handful letters out of the footman’s gloved hands and sorted through them, squealing every time she found one addressed to her.

“So much correspondence one has when one’s friends are away in the country. Oh, Aunt Mary, here’s one for you.” She tossed it carelessly at her.

The missive was from a Lady Stoke, a friend of Mary’s brother. Mary had made the acquaintance of the lady when she’d come to London. It was whispered that the lady’s husband had once been a pirate, and Mary admitted that he looked the part.

I was pleased to see that you would be attending Lady Hartwell’s ball tomorrow evening, Lady Stoke wrote. It might interest you to learn that the ambassador from Nvengaria and his wife will be there. Having met your brother in Nvengaria, they are is eager to make your acquaintance. His aide, one Baron Valentin, indicated that he previously met you at your family’s house in Scotland; indeed, that he stayed with your family for a number of months. I am certain you will enjoy the unlooked-for reunion.

Mary’s fingers went numb and the letter fell to the floor.

“Aunt Mary?” Julia asked in concern. “Is it bad news? Your son?”

“No.” Mary retrieved the letter and crumpled it in her fist. “Not bad news. But I will not be able to attend the Hartwell Ball.”

She turned and marched up the steps to her chamber, ignoring Julia’s shrieks of dismay.

#

The man needed to be watched.

Baron Valentin glided after the Nvengarian ambassador and his wife as they entered Hartwell House the night of the Christmas ball. The house overflowed with ladies in glittering jewels, gentlemen in dark finery. Garlands of greenery threaded the rooms, and balls of mistletoe dangled from every doorway and chandelier.

The English had a bizarre custom that if a person paused beneath a clump of mistletoe, it was an invitation to be kissed. In Nvengaria, the parasitic mistletoe was a symbol of death, used in funeral wreaths. But Valentin had learned during his previous visit to the British Isles just how odd the English could be.

He had no interest in attending balls, even those in the most lavish houses in London. Crowds unnerved him, English chatter unnerved him, acres of bared female shoulders and promising smiles unnerved him. But he couldn’t afford to let Rudolfo out of his sight. Much as he chafed at this assignment, Valentin was not about to fail it.

He walked a pace and a half behind Rudolfo, watching the much-ribboned hem of Duchess Wilhelmina’s dress flow across the marble tiles. If the Hartwells’ servants hadn’t dusted the floor today, it would be well-dusted now.

They entered the ballroom, a lavish chamber with a mosaic-patterned ceiling that spoke of Near Eastern luxury. Lines of colorful ladies and monochromatic gentlemen met and parted in an English country dance, the room seeming to move.

Valentin couldn’t help glancing through the throng, searching, seeking. He did not really expect to see the red-lipped, dark-haired Scottish lady he’d met last year, though he’d fallen into the habit of looking for her everywhere. She’d tended him when he’d been hurt, and her lilting voice had twined around his heart and pulled him back to life.

She wasn’t here. Of course she wasn’t. Mary would be in Scotland at her brother’s castle, preparing for Christmas and Hogmanay. She’d be helping the housekeeper stir the black bun, perspiring in the warm kitchen while firelight glistened on her hair. She’d smile her slow smile that had made his blood heat the first time he’d seen it.

He’d kissed her, touched her, asked her to come to him in Nvengaria. He’d gone home and waited for her through a brief, golden summer and a colder than usual autumn.

She never came. As the weather worsened, so did his hopes of opening the door of his run-down manor house to find Mary Cameron smiling on his threshold.

Why should she bother? The journey to Nvengaria, a tiny country wedged between the Austrian Empire and the Ottoman one, was long and dangerous, and Mary had every reason to stay in her brother’s castle. Her new sister-in-law was having a baby, and Mary had a son of her own to look after, even if he was seventeen.

As an added complication, Valentin was logosh. Mary knew. She’d seen him shift to his animal form—a black wolf—and she’d not been upset by it. But perhaps after Valentin had gone, she’d had second thoughts about promising herself to a man who was part-demon, part-animal. That fact made even Nvengarian women think twice.

Ambassador Rudolfo, however, didn’t know that Valentin was logosh, which was one reason Grand Duke Alexander had given Valentin the task to spy on him. Valentin, in fact, was only half logosh. He could pass for human very well.

A commotion behind him made him turn. At the head of the receiving line, a young woman crowed to Lady Hartwell at the top of her voice.

“What a privilege to be here, my lady. What an honor. Mrs. Cameron and I were so pleased by your kind invitation.”

And there stood Mary, his Highland lady, just behind the girl, her face set in tired patience. Valentin had no idea who the young woman was, nor who was the plump gentleman behind Mary, nor why Mary should be with them. He only saw her. Here.

A year fell away. Memories poured at him--Valentin lying in a stone chamber in a drafty Scottish castle, Mary leaning over him. Her bodice had been damp with the water she’d used to sponge his wound, her face beaded with perspiration. A tendril of hair had escaped her bun and stuck to her cheek, and he’d reached up to touch her.

She’d gasped, eyes widening. Then Valentin had slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her down to him. Her breath had swirled into his mouth, and her lips touched his. He’d tasted her sweetness--Scottish honey and heady wine.

Later, he’d revealed all his secrets to her. Valentin had kissed her again, held her supple body against his. Now his heart beat in slow painful throbs as Mary stood in stillness across the Hartwell House ballroom.

As her companions effused over Lord and Lady Hartwell, Mary turned to sweep the crowd with her gaze. Her eyes met Valentin’s.

Everything stopped. Mary did not move, and neither did he. Her hair was still brown, shining in the candlelight, and her dark blue bodice slid seductively from her shoulders. A man privileged to touch her could slide his arms around her waist, pull her back against him, press his mouth to her bare throat.

Valentin’s heart thundered in his ears. After months of waiting and planning, torn by anger, impatience, and need, he at last stood in the same room with her.

Loud female laughter interrupted. The young lady Mary had arrived with had moved to a knot of gentlemen, where she waved her fan and sashayed her hips. Mary pressed her mouth closed and glided away, graceful as a doe, to fetch her. She took the young lady by the elbow and steered her out of the ballroom, the girl arguing every step.

Valentin let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Mary, here—why? Who were those people, and why did Mary behave like a mother would to the young lady? Too much time had passed, so much had happened in her life, and Valentin was no longer part of it. The thought burned through him like a slow match.

Someone bumped him. Lines of dancing had formed around Valentin, and he stood like a rock against the tide. The guests eyed him askance, wondering what the strange foreigner was doing. Valentin took himself out of the way.

Then he cursed. Ambassador Rudolfo, the possible traitor whose every move Valentin was supposed to watch, was nowhere in sight.

#

“There you are, my boy,” Ambassador Rudolfo said in Nvengarian. After searching the confusing house, Valentin finally found the duke and duchess in a room full of card tables. Gentlemen and ladies clumped around the tables, gazing at cards in rapt concentration, while paintings of stiff English men, women, and horses watched from the walls.

Duke Rudolfo clapped Valentin on the back, a habit Valentin already abhorred. “This is where our work is done in England, Valentin. Over their games of whist and piquet and vingt-un. You lose gracefully at cards, and they eat from your hands. This is what Prince Damien tells me.”

Rudolfo’s mouth pulled into a sneer as he spoke Damien’s name. Rudolfo thought he was safe showing his disapproval of Nvengaria’s Imperial Prince to Valentin, which was another reason Alexander had given Valentin the assignment to watch him.

Before Valentin could think of an answer, Duchess Wilhelmina swept into the card room, leading Mary, Mary’s young charge, and the plump man Valentin had seen with them before.

“Rudolfo,” Duchess Wilhelmina said, “This is Mary Cameron, sister of the most honorable Egan Macdonald of Scotland.”

Rudolfo swiveled an admiring gaze to Mary’s bosom and bowed over her hand. “Charmed, my lady.”

Valentin fought his logosh instinct to rip out Rudolfo’s throat. Rudolfo liked to look at ladies, the more comely the better.

Mary raised a brow. “You are kind, Your Grace.”

“Do not be so formal,” the ambassador boomed in painfully accented English. “Address me as Rudolfo, and my wife as Mina. You are friend to Nvengaria, no?”

Valentin expected Mary to say, “No,” very firmly. Through his anger, he wanted to laugh. Rudolfo would never take in Mary.

“My brother has said nothing but good things about Nvengaria,” Mary replied. “And of course, I met Zarabeth, the prince’s cousin.”

No mention of Valentin. His temper flared. Any thought of letting Mary go fled. He would get an explanation out of her, make her tell him why she’d shunned him. Why she continued to shun him.

The girl was bouncing on her toes. Mary introduced her to the ambassador and his wife as Julia Lincolnbury and her father, Sir John. Rudolfo at least did not slide his lecherous gaze over Miss Lincolnbury. He had enough sense to leave virginal daughters alone, besides which, virgins bored him.

“Nvengarians, eh?” Sir John Lincolnbury said. “Funny, Nvengarians came up when I was looking over some of my investments in the City today. You buy much braid, you lot do. By the bucketful.” He pointed at the gold trim adorning the ambassador’s uniform coat. “You dress like soldiers, but there ain’t no more war in Europe, now that we gave old Boney a kicking, eh?”

The ambassador looked polite but uninterested. The duchess suggested that they sit down for cards. The so-charming Miss Lincolnbury could assist her, she said, and Mary could stay with Lord Valentin and explain the games to him.

At last Mary came to life. “I am sorry, but Miss Lincolnbury has come to dance. We should return to the ballroom.”

Miss Lincolnbury dug her fingers into Mary’s arm and glared. Apparently playing cards with a duchess trumped dancing with young gentlemen. Mary conceded reluctantly, and the duchess smiled and led Miss Lincolnbury away. Her husband followed, leaving Mary alone with Valentin.

Valentin pulled out a chair and placed it in front of her. “Sit, please.”

For a moment, he thought she’d refuse. But Mary was ever one for rigid politeness, whatever the circumstance. She plopped down in the chair, snapped open her fan, and flapped it vigorously.

Valentin seated himself across from her and reached for a card box in the middle of the table. It held three packs of cards, ready for any game.

“You will teach me.” Valentin extracted a deck and laid it in front of Mary. “Perhaps this English game of whist?”

Mary continued to wave her fan. “You need four people for whist.”

“There is a game for two, then?”

“Piquet. But you need a piquet deck.”

“And this is not a piquet deck?”

Mary slammed her closed fan to the table and turned the pack over, her slender fingers separating the cards. “For piquet you use only seven through king, and aces.”

He leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Mary, why did you not come to me?”

Mary’s hand stilled, but she did not look up. “You have just betrayed how un-English you are, my lord. In this country, a gentleman would not dream of asking a lady an awkward question in so forthright a manner.”

“But I am not English. Nvengarians do not cloak feelings behind a mask of words.”

Mary’s gaze flicked to his at last. Her eyes were cold, tight with anger. “No, I hear you take out knives and go at each other in your Council at the slightest provocation. Debating tax bills must be dreadfully exciting.”

“That violence is a thing of the past now that Prince Damien rules.”

“Thank heavens for Prince Damien. I am sure Nvengarian wives feel much better about sending their husbands off to a day in government.”

“Is that what you fear? The violent nature of Nvengarians? I am not in any of the ruling councils, in any case.”

Mary continued to extract cards. “No, but Prince Damien sends you on missions where you get yourself shot.”

Which he had while being bodyguard to Prince Damien’s cousin at remote Castle Macdonald. “It was my duty to protect Zarabeth.”

Mary glanced at Rudolfo and his wife, now absorbed in a game with Miss Lincolnbury and her father. “At least this time your duty is no more dangerous than following about an ambassador who has a roving eye.”

Valentin said nothing. He slid the cards Mary had discarded to his side and started to straighten them.

“Oh, dear,” Mary said. “It is dangerous, isn’t it? That is why you were sent and not some mindless lackey.”

Mary was an intelligent woman, one of the things Valentin loved about her. “I watch him,” he said. “It may come to nothing.”

“But if it comes to something . . . ?”

“Then I will do what I must.”

“Which is?”

Valentin shook his head. “Too many ears.”

“I understand.” Mary heaved a sigh and began to shuffle what was left of the deck. A lock of hair curved like a streak of midnight across her cheek. “Nvengarian secrets.”

Valentine laid a heavy hand over hers. The words grated and hurt, but he had to say them. “Why did you not come? Tell me.”

“Back to forthright questions, are you? Please, do not ask me.”

“I do ask you. I deserve to ask you.”

Her fingers moved beneath his. “Nvengaria is quite far away.”

“Yes.”

“My son is here. At Cambridge.”

“Yes.”

Mary finally stopped trying to toy with the pack. She looked up at him, her brown eyes troubled. “When we were in Scotland, you made me feel like a girl again. Full of hope, when I’d known nothing but disappointment for so long.”

“And for this, you decided to stay home?”

She gave him an anguished look. “How could I go? Should I travel halfway across the continent to find that you’d forgotten about me? That you meant nothing by your invitation? How could I risk that sort of humiliation?”

“Why did you not write me? I would have reassured you.”

“Why did you not write?” Mary countered. “You ask a woman to travel a thousand miles to see you, but you cannot be bothered to mention whether you made it home safely yourself?”

“Princess Penelope and the Grand Duchess would have told you this.”

Mary rolled her eyes and slid her hand from his. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you behave like a man.”

“I am a man. Or half-man.” Valentin paused. “Is the fact that I am logosh what deterred you?”

She gave him an indignant look. “You think I hesitated because you are logosh?”

“You did not believe in logosh when I first came to Scotland. You believed in no magic at all. Nvengaria is a heavily magical place.”

Mary laughed a little. “After what happened at my brother’s castle I believe in magic, thank you very much.”

Valentin’s heart beat rapidly, and his hands sweated inside his gloves. “Then may we begin again? I am whole and well, now, and can be a fine lover to you.”

Her dark eyes widened. “Lover?”

“You are a beautiful woman, and I wish to offer you the pleasures of my bed.”

“Valentin.” Mary leaned forward, the soft round of her bosom swelling against the table’s edge. “You really must reread your book on English customs. A gentleman doesn’t say such things to a lady in a room full of people. Not at all, in fact. Not if she’s a lady.”

“The people in this room are playing cards and not listening. The ambassador has their attention, not I.”

“Do not believe it. I have already overheard several bold ladies of the ton speculating on what you look like out of your clothes.”

Valentin smiled, thinking of how he’d stood with Mary outdoors on a cold Scottish night. “And did you tell them?”

Mary flushed. “No. Good heavens, Valentin. What am I to do with you?”

Valentin stood. Before Mary could protest, he took her hand and pulled her with him to another door. Opening it, he slipped through, tugged her after him, closed the door, and pinned her against it.

“You will do this with me,” he said, and kissed her.