And then it was his brother’s face and not Mina’s. It was Nando, stupid, boyish, careless Nando who was challenged to duels and who bedded five women at one time and asked one to eat syllabub off the other’s bubbies.
Maxim nodded, sucking in a struggling breath. Sanity was gradually returning to him as they struck up a familiar pace together, walking up and down the length of the den of sin. Nando had thrown on some trousers and haphazardly stuffed a shirt over his head. Thank Christ for that.
“Has something happened?” Nando asked. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
He sounded remarkably lucid, perhaps pulled from the depths of his stupor by Maxim’s own madness. Here was a reminder that he might judge his brother for his faults, but Nando never judged Maxim for his.
He swallowed hard. “I was worried.”
“You’re always worried, brother.”
Pace, pace, pace.The measured steps restored his mind to a sense of order amidst chaos. His thoughts were no longer muddled. The past was not before him, even if he would never forget the way he had last seen Mina. Even if he would never forgive himself for the role he’d played in her death.
“The princess has been wounded,” he managed at last. “There are assassins afoot. And her lady-in-waiting is in danger as well.”
“Lady Tansy? I wouldn’t be averse to offering her my most sincere protection.”
Nando didn’t protect women from murderous villains. He bedded them. And the only man in Tansy’s bed was going to be Maxim.
He stiffened, disliking his brother’s continued interest in her. “You needn’t concern yourself with her. I’ve seen to her protection with some of my guards.”
But would it be enough? The fear was there, heavy and hot, lodged in his stomach like a stone that would not be removed.
“What is that edge I hear in your voice, brother?” Nando asked smoothly as they continued their march.
Slow and steady. His heart was resuming a more normal pace. The madness had almost entirely faded.
“I don’t know what you’re speaking of,” he lied, for he had no wish to examine the complexities of the emotions he felt concerning Tansy here and now, in this den of iniquity.
It felt wrong.
“You forget how well I know you,” Nando persisted.
Damn him. His brother was a ne’er-do-well, but he also knew Maxim better than anyone else. It was the primary reason he was here in London with him. That, and Maxim feared the trouble Nando would make for himself in his absence.
He sighed heavily. “Lady Tansy is under my protection.”
It was all he would allow himself to reveal.
But Nando understood the implications.
He turned to Maxim, his countenance lined with surprise. “You’ve taken the lady-in-waiting of your future queen as your mistress?”
He very much disliked the termmistress. His ears burned.
“She is mine,” was all he said curtly, looking away from the questions in his brother’s curious stare.
They continued their march, down another length of the chamber.
“What of Lucinda?” His brother wanted to know.
Lucinda was a distant memory. A kindhearted widow of gentle persuasion who had warmed his bed.
“I’ll be cutting ties with her when we return to Varros,” he said.
Nando whistled through his teeth. “And yet you barge into my chamber and chase away my goddesses.”
“I interrupted an orgy,” he countered, and not without disapproval. “And the women whose company you were keeping were paid to do so. They’re not goddesses, Nando. They’re prostitutes.”
