“I understand,” he said with a courtly bow. “If I can ever be of service, please do not hesitate. It is good to see you again, Princess. Now I must go and claim my dance with the lovely Lady Ravenna.” He grinned. “Any suggestions?”
“Be yourself,” Sarani said and then almost laughed at the irony.
After the marquis left, she surveyed the ballroom, looking to see if Rhystan had returned, but the duke was nowhere to be seen. Following his footsteps, she made her way out to the terrace. He was not there either. She paused at the top of the stairs leading down to the lawns framed in thick hedgerows. The idea of walking alone into the shadowy gardens to find him was unnerving. But he needed her; she could feel it.
She would have a quick look and then return to the ballroom. Walking briskly, she’d stepped past the first set of hedges when a hand latched on to her elbow, yanking her into a narrow arbor.
“Excuse me,” she began and then stopped when she recognized her companion with a wave of nausea. “Lord Talbot, this is untoward.”
The earl smiled. “Is it? Engaged couples have secret trysts all the time.”
“We are not engaged.”
“I beg to differ,” he said, his body blocking the exit.
She gritted her teeth—she would barrel through him if she had to. “You can beg all you like,” she said. “Agreements change all the time. You do not own me.”
“Not yet,” he said, stepping closer. “But I will have my way, one way or another.”
Sarani did not move, squaring her shoulders and refusing to cower before this man’s aggression. “Tell me something, did you ever see the fighting exhibitions at my father’s court in Joor, Lord Talbot? The ones with the knives.”
He stopped moving. “Yes. What of them?”
“Would you be surprised if I told you one of the masked fighters was me?”
She lifted bladeless palms and whirled them in a complicated but recognizable pattern for anyone who might have viewed the matches. Talbot’s throat bobbed, eyes widening. Sarani grinned. In this public setting, she would use her faithful kukri blades only as a last resort. She was trying not to cause any further scandal, if she could help it.
She stepped forward until they were nearly nose to nose. “You are a gutless coward, accosting a woman in the dark.”
His hands flew out to capture hers, his grip punishing. “I am a peer of England.”
“Good for you,” she said. In response, his fingers tightened painfully. Sarani hefted her knee, but her stupid crinoline frame was in the way, blocking the blow from connecting where it would hurt him the most.
“Do you think anyone will care about you?”
Rhystan would. Ravenna would. The French marquis would. And maybe there were others. There were always exceptions to every rule and people who might not be so close-minded or judgmental. She lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“Vikram didn’t,” he drawled, squeezing the slender bones of her wrists. “He was all too willing to barter you like chattel for a crown. Why do you think he sent a man to find you? You were part of the agreement; no princess, no prince.” Sarani inhaled, but the earl went on. “Eventually, I would have relieved him from his position and annexed your little state. But I have one thing to claim first…my bride.”
“I will never be yours. Release me, Lord Talbot.”
“I’d do as the lady says,” a voice said from behind them.
The deadliness in Rhystan’s words sent shivers down Sarani’s spine. Talbot released her so quickly that she stumbled backward, nearly crashing into the duke. He moved to intercept the earl, but Sarani put a hand on his chest, stalling him. “He’s not worth it.”
His gaze burned with rage. “But you are.”
The words filled her with both happiness and sadness. She knew he meant them, but words were empty unless they were backed by action. He could declare it in front of a snake like Talbot but not anyone else. Not the duchess. Not the ton.
She straightened her spine. “I am, and I know I am. Will you please escort me back inside, Your Grace?”
Rhystan nodded with reluctance, his fist clenched at his sides, but offered her his arm. As they walked back up the terrace, Sarani did not look back. That was her mistake, she supposed. Because she wasn’t prepared for the wild-eyed earl who’d followed them, crashing into the ballroom like a bull gone mad.
“You stupid, worthless creature.”
Music cut off, and voices went silent. Sarani’s heart climbed into her throat, though there was nothing she could do but watch the train wreck of her life finally derail.
“She’s nothing but a filthy mongrel, Embry!” Talbot shouted. “Daughter of a native and a disowned countess. Lady Lisbeth? Everyone knows what a harlot she was, running after that Indian like a bitch in heat. Even Beckforth wrote her out of his will.”
Sarani whirled. “Don’t you dare speak about my mother!”
“That’s your future duchess?” Talbot sneered at the Duke of Embry. “Lady Mulatto?”
She glanced at the duke, whose face had gone rigid with fury. She recognized that deadly look—she’d seen it on the Belonging. A thousand men could not hold him back, much less Sarani. She did not even try. With one fist, he flattened the earl, knocking him out cold. Screams cut through the ballroom, chatter climbing to the rafters. Rhystan had silenced the man, but the damage had been done.
She caught the horrified eyes of the dowager duchess, the sympathetic ones of Ravenna, and the triumphant glare of Penelope. But mostly, people stared at her with disdain and mistrust, as though she were an impostor who would run off with the silver or contaminate them with some malodorous disease. The whispers grew around her—native, duchess, scandal—until nothing else could be heard.
There, the truth was out.
Everyone knew.
Twenty-Five
The scandal sheets the next day were far from kind. Rhystan had expected it. They were calling him the Disgraced Duke, though Lord knew why he should be disgraced in any way, beyond engaging in fisticuffs in the middle of a ballroom to defend a lady’s honor. As though that had never happened in the history of the aristocracy.
He was the one who had let Sarani down. In the aftermath of Talbot’s announcement and Rhystan’s own ungoverned reaction, he had called for their carriages and they’d left. His mother, predictably, had had a fit of the vapors and returned home to Huntley House. Ravenna, however, had insisted on staying with Sarani at his residence. They’d slept in Sarani’s bedchamber, and he’d been grateful that Sarani had not been alone. He had no idea what she must be thinking or feeling, and it gutted him. He didn’t want her to feel pain or be hurt in any way.