A Royal Kiss and Tell

“And Vinters? What does he gain?”

Lysander shrugged. “Favor, perhaps? There are many who believe that Wesloria will never be as strong as Alucia without an Oberon on the throne, and more still who believe an Oberon on the throne will be the end of Alucia. Perhaps Vinters is gambling.” He’d tilted his head to one side and studied Leo a moment. “You know how these things happen.”

“No, I don’t know,” Leo had protested. “I don’t know anything. I am not my brother, sir. I am the spare.” That, he thought, was glaringly obvious.

But Lysander stared at him with golden eyes, and Leo had felt as if the man could see to the very bottom of his soul.

“You can’t bring me this news here,” Leo had added quickly. He might not know about these practices, but he knew what sort of uproar it would cause if anyone close to his father was to hear this. Frankly, Leo wasn’t certain his father would take his word over Vinters’s.

But Lysander had pressed on, mentioning the maid Ann Marble. Leo had stopped him, had asked him to meet later at Jean Franck’s house. They were practically in earshot of the king, for God’s sake.

That afternoon, Leo had wanted nothing more than to turn a blind eye to the appalling things Lysander had laid at his feet. And yet, at the same time, he was compelled to know more. If this was truly happening, he had an innate desire to crush those men. Even if one of them was to be his future father-in-law. Especially if.

But Lysander never appeared at his friend’s house, as he’d been apprehended that very afternoon in the palace gardens. Still, Leo thought perhaps his two henchmen might come.

No one came.

Leo heard nothing more until he was preparing to leave the palace to board his ship. As he waited for the footmen to load his trunks into a wagon, he overheard two government men talking. They said Lysander had been sent to Wesloria to answer for alleged crimes there.

“Aye, let the Weslorians have at him,” one of the men had said behind him. “They’ll make quick work of him.”

Leo had swallowed down a lump. That, then, he surmised, was the end of it. What could he possibly do without Lysander to advise him?

But that was not the end of it.

When the ship arrived in London in the middle of the day, the docks were teeming. The crew of his ship was eager to discharge their duties and have their time on shore. As Leo watched men move crates and trunks and God knew what all, a sailor inadvertently bumped into him, touching his hand. Startled, Leo turned and realized that the sailor was slipping a paper into his hand.

“What is this?” Leo asked.

“From Lysander,” the sailor said. “Find one, find them all. Bring them home, and let the dust settle where it may.”

“Pardon?” Leo looked up, confused—but the man had disappeared into the throng of working men.

Leo unfolded the page. Listed were five feminine names. Those names—and the faces he imagined to go with them—were the reason he couldn’t stop his attempts, bungled as they may be, to speak to Ann Marble. She had to know something.

His first instinct had been to send the names to Bas with a note explaining what little he knew. But Leo had quickly discarded that idea. Bas was honeymooning. Moreover, Bas had carried the mantle of greater responsibility between the two of them all their lives. He’d worked to make things better in Alucia while Leo had worked to avoid any responsibility. Bas had earned the reputation of being smart and capable, and Leo had earned the reputation of being a rogue, a profligate. And this...this horrible business was happening in England, right under his nose.

Maybe, after living with such grace and privilege, it was time he did something for someone else.

But he wasn’t exactly versed in the practical ways of the world. There was, and had always been, someone close by to do everything he needed. How he might even attempt to find these women was a mystery to him. And what if he did find them? Then what? Was he to command them into his carriage and bring them...where? Here? To this hotel?

He was no hero. If he allowed himself to think too much about it, Leo could drown in a sea of self-doubt. And yet, at some point, it had occurred to him that Lysander was right—he was uniquely qualified to do something about this, precisely because he was a useless prince. His title alone gave him entry into practically any house in London that he liked. His title alone attracted the attention of women, and his title alone had afforded him many opportunities to practice his charms. If there was a man who could walk into the houses where these women were kept, it was him. If there was a man who could convince these women to leave with him, to come forward, to speak, it wasn’t the hulking Lysander. It was him.

All he had to do was find Ann Marble. Isn’t that why Lysander had mentioned her? Leo wished he could remember precisely what he’d said, but he had to believe that if he found Ann Marble, he could find these women. Find one, find them all.

Unfortunately, after his visit to Lord Hill, he’d discovered that Ann Marble was no longer in Lord Russell’s employ, either. No. She was now cleaning rooms in the home of Lord Beckett Hawke.

What a small world it was.

A LIGHT RAIN had begun to fall when Leo reached the Upper Brook Street mansion where Hawke and his sister resided most of the year. Hawke had said once that in the unbearable months of summer they decamped to a family house in the Cotswolds. Leo was flanked by Kadro and Artur as he jogged up to the door. Kadro reached forward and rapped on the door. Several moments passed before the door swung open and Hawke filled the frame. He was still wearing his dressing gown. Dark shadows accentuated his green eyes, and his darkly golden hair appeared to be standing on end. Leo’s first instinct was that Lady Caroline had died.

But then Hawke grinned and said jovially, “Highness! You’ve come just in time. The fever broke last night.”

“That is welcome news indeed, friend.”

Hawke threw his arm around Leo’s shoulders and hauled him inside. “Come in, come in, all of you. No need to guard him here, eh, lads? We’ll have ale. No! Better yet, we’ll have gin. A toast to my sister’s health. Garrett! Where are you, Garrett?” he bellowed, calling his butler.

Kadro and Artur did not move from their post at the door. Hawke didn’t seem to notice. He let go Leo and padded into the salon, barefoot, his silk dressing gown billowing out behind him. “Garrett, come here!”

Leo glanced back at his guards and, with a tip of his chin, sent them outside to wait, then followed Hawke into his study. The place was disastrously cluttered. Books had been tossed onto the settee; more of them, once stacked near the hearth, had toppled over. Morning papers were stacked haphazardly on a table. There was a pile of what looked like clothing, but Leo wasn’t entirely certain. On the desk, dishes from a previous meal. It appeared as if Beckett Hawke was living in this room.

Garrett entered and bowed, then offered to take the flowers and whisky from Leo.

“What good news it is to hear your sister has recovered,” Leo said.

“She still drifts in and out of sleep. It’s to be expected. She’s hardly eaten a thing,” Hawke said. He made his way to the sideboard, waving off Garrett, who juggled the flowers and the whisky in his hands. Hawke uncorked a bottle and poured gin into two glasses.

“Has she spoken yet?” Leo asked.

Hawke looked at Leo and grinned. “Oh, but she has. She accused me of causing her fever by hovering so close to her side and sent me from her room.” He laughed. “That is a very good sign. If she is cross with me, she is feeling herself again. Is that not so, Garrett?”

“Yes, milord.”

“And the doctor? What has he said of her health?”

“The doctor, the doctor,” Hawke said with a shake of his head. “He says the same thing he’s said all along. He presses his horn to her chest and says she has a heartbeat as dependable as a drummer boy, that there is nothing to fear.” He signaled his opinion of that by flicking his wrist dismissively. “She nearly died, I tell you. Had we not opened the windows to clear her room of bad air, and Mrs. Green had not made a poultice for her feet to draw the fever out, she would have certainly died.”

“Then God’s grace smiles on you today, my friend, for she did not,” Leo reminded him.

“No, she didn’t,” Hawke agreed, and paused to ponder that. He nodded and looked at Leo. “You’ve convinced me.”

“I’ve what?”

“Convinced me that her health has returned to her.”

“I have?” Leo asked, confused.

“I am to the club! You’ll wait, won’t you, while I tidy up a bit? I insist you accompany me and tell me what you’ve been about.” He picked up his glass and downed the gin. “I suspect you’ve been a naughty boy, Your Highness.”

Leo smiled thinly. “I would be honored if you would call me Leo when you mean to chastise me.”

Hawke laughed. “Then you must call me Beck. Not Beckett—sounds too much like bucket, doesn’t it? Garrett, have hot water brought to my rooms. And do something with those,” he said, gesturing to the most excellent whisky and the flowers. “Caro will like the flowers to brighten her room. Oh, yes, and see to it that His Royal Highness is kept comfortable until I return.”

“Aye, milord.”

“Do make yourself comfortable, Highness,” Hawke—or Beck—said as he swept out of the room behind Garrett.

Leo didn’t know how he’d make himself comfortable in a room as chaotic as this one. And really, what Leo wanted to do was sneak out of here and find Miss Marble. He had a feeling that once Lady Caroline was fully recovered, his access to this house and the servants would be abruptly curtailed.

He moved closer to the door, so that he could see into the hallway. He was standing in front of a painting of a fox hunt. The rider on a black steed, bent over the horse’s neck, was Beckett Hawke. In the distance was a stately home that Leo supposed was their country seat. He was studying the dogs racing alongside the idealized version of Beck when he heard the butler in the hallway just outside the door.

“Susan? Susan!”

Leo leaned forward slightly, listening.

“What have you got there?”

“Linens, Mr. Garrett. We’ve changed her bed linens.”

“Fetch Ann. Have her take these flowers to Lady Caroline, compliments of His Royal Highness Prince Leopold.”

Leo winced. Lady Caroline would read far too much into that, he was certain.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Garrett, but Ann has gone to fetch her soup.”

Leo’s ears pricked up.

“Then you take them,” Garrett said. “I must attend his lordship.”

There was a lot of movement, a rustling of fabric, a small sound of exasperation. But then Leo heard Garrett’s sure footfall move away. An idea suddenly came to him, and he half leaped to the door before Susan could get away. He poked his head around the corner of the frame to see the maid standing where Garrett had left her, a pile of bed linens in one arm and his flowers in the other hand. When she saw him, her eyes widened, and she glanced nervously down the corridor. She looked as if she wanted to flee.

“May I be of service?” He smiled his most charming smile.

The maid blinked. “I, ah... I can...this is not...” she stammered.

Leo stepped out of the salon. “Susan...allow me to be of service,” he said smoothly.

CHAPTER TEN

A stalwart patron of the opera has recently taken to riding on Rotten Row in the evenings. It is said she will not miss the appointment, for her husband’s gift of proper riding lessons has come with the services of an instructor who is not only a competent rider, he has eyes the color of a summer sky. Our lady does prefer summer to other seasons.

The new trend in home ownership, begun by a royal visitor to our shores, is to find abandoned ruins to renovate for purposes that defy this writer’s imagination.

Ladies, it is never too soon to introduce obedience into the lives of your children. Experts advise that when they begin to express what they want, either with words or gestures, obedience should be the first lesson taught.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

CAROLINE FELT AS if she’d been living in a cave somewhere far away from the world and from London, and it left her feeling very tired and cross. “Am I to live, Martha?” she asked. “Please answer truly. I want no false hope.”

“You are to live a long and happy life, Lady Caroline,” Martha said reassuringly, and rolled her onto her side.

Martha and another maid were putting fresh linens on her bed, which necessitated a lot of rolling her back and forth. “Can this not wait?” Caroline complained.

“No, milady, it cannot,” Martha said firmly, and used another cold compress to wipe her face.

Caroline pushed her hand away. She felt grimy and sticky, and when she put her hand to her hair, she felt on the verge of tears. It was a terrible tangle. She imagined it would take weeks to return to her former glorious self.

The commotion around her eventually settled, and Caroline closed her eyes once more, ignoring the whispering as the maids scurried around her. She heard someone mention soup and said, “Yes, soup, please.”

There was the sound of a door opening and closing, and then, blessedly, nothing. But as she lay there, she became aware of a smell so sweet that she had to open her eyes and see what it was. Well, she opened one eye, as her face was mashed against the pillow. She thought she saw the figure of a man standing beside her bed. It had to be a dreamy hallucination. Or the wire dress form, shaped to her figure, which she kept in her room. She’d been working on her latest sartorial creation when she’d taken ill.

She lifted her head so she’d have the benefit of both eyes. That was not a wire dress form, nor was it a hallucination or apparition. No, that was very clearly the Arse of Alucia, smiling down at her and holding her grandmother’s vase full of fragrant yellow flowers.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked pleasantly, as if they were at an afternoon social function, or as if they were just leaving church services and strolling along a path. What the devil was he doing in her room? And why was he holding those flowers? She managed to get herself up on an elbow to look him over. “Do you...do you live here now?” she asked uncertainly. She wouldn’t put anything past Beck.

He laughed. “No, but I’m very close by. I’ve taken rooms at the Clarendon.”

Caroline let herself drop, and rolled, facedown, onto her pillow. “This is unbelievable,” she said into the soft cover, then rolled onto her back. “Have you been here all along?”

“All along?”

“For the two days I’ve been sick.”

“No. But I’ve come periodically to see after your brother. He’s been consumed with worry for you. It’s not been two days, however—I believe we’ve entered the fourth day of the death watch. But you keep defying the odds.”

Something about that didn’t make sense. “Day four?” she repeated. “That’s not possible.” She turned her head to look at the window. Gray light filtered in through the gap in the drapes. Was it possible? Had she really been ill for so long? Good Lord, her legs were probably entirely useless now. She pictured herself in a wheeled chair, being pushed about by Hollis.

“It is entirely possible, Lady Caroline. And once again, you’ve created quite a stir.”

“What do you mean?” She turned her head to look at him.

“Have you forgotten the many stirs you created in Helenamar?”

She thought about that a moment. “I did wear some stunning gowns,” she conceded.

“I wasn’t...that was not...” He shook his head.

“What are those?”

He glanced at the bouquet he held. “Flowers.”

“Yes, but...did you bring them for me?”

He stared at the bouquet as if he wasn’t certain why he’d brought them. “They were... Yes.” He met her gaze. “I did.”

“Oh dear. You really must have feared I would die. No doubt you will demand an apology from me for not going through with it, but I won’t give it to you.”

A wry smile tipped up one corner of his mouth. “I would most certainly think you on the verge of death if you apologized for anything. Can you sit up?”

“Of course I can sit up,” she said irritably, and gamely tried to push herself up. But the exertion was overwhelming.

The prince put the flowers on her bedside table and leaned over and slipped his hands beneath her arms and lifted her up. “Stop that!” Caroline cried out with alarm. “I’m perfectly capable.”

“No, you’re not,” he said as he held her up, then shoved some pillows behind her. “All right, then?”

“All right,” she grudgingly admitted. She felt entirely conspicuous with him hovering over her like he was. “Must you stand just there?”

“Your brother was right. You are cross. I’ll report to him that you cannot possibly be in any danger of departing this earth. I understand that people on their deathbed are more repentant.”

“Whatever would I have to repent?” she asked him, quite seriously. She thought herself rather good, all in all. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but she did love her brother, and she loved her friends, and she was generally kind to everyone she met. Even this arse. Well, she’d been kind to him before he’d been rude to her, at least. “Why are you here?” she asked. “I should think you would be on your jolly way after your attempt to defile our servant was thwarted. Who was she?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” he asked with a smile of bemusement.

He stood there looking impossibly handsome and innocent. Oh, but he thought she’d forgotten. Well, she hadn’t forgotten a blessed thing. She looked at the flowers he’d brought and pondered his entirely suspect motives. “What a curious place a dark hallway is to meet a proper acquaintance,” she said.

The prince leaned casually against a poster at the foot of her bed. “You must have been entirely delirious. You’ve created a fantasy.”

“It was no fantasy, Your Highness. You were in the hallway with a woman, and now you are in my room. But how? Garrett would never allow it.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

She blinked. “What? Where is Beck?”

“Preparing to go out for the evening. Which is why Garrett was not available to bring these flowers. I thought to do it for him.”

She flicked her gaze over his magnificently masculine figure. His perfect appearance reminded her of how she must look. She wanted to sink under the covers and hide. “I’m not ready for callers,” she said. “I am not at my best. I’m feeling rather weak, so perhaps you’d like to return to the study to wait for Beck.”

“I think you will be feeling better very soon. I understand soup is being prepared for you.” He smiled slowly, and it was warm and sympathetic, and it made her feel a little tingly in her head.

“I should think the Alucian government would want you as far away from illness as possible.”

“I suspect if the government were to get a good look at you, you’d be right.”

Caroline tried to snort, but it was impossible due to her stuffy head.

“Your brother has been terribly worried.”

Caroline had snatches of memory of Beck leaning over her, his hair dangling across his forehead.

“I lost a sister to fever, you know,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“She was quite young, only three years when a fever took her.”

Caroline pushed up a little higher in her mountain of pillows. “I never knew you had a sister.”

“It was a very long time ago. I was awfully young, too, but I remember it very well. Hawke certainly feared losing you, notwithstanding the fortune he claims you have spent on dressmakers and modistes and cloth merchants.”

“Has he complained of it again?” Caroline asked with a weary sigh. “I try to intercept the invoices before he sees them.” She actually hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud.

The prince chuckled and eased himself onto the foot of her bed. “He takes very good care of you.”

That was true. Beck could have made her life miserable if he’d wanted to after their parents were gone. But he’d always been very protective of her. “I take care of him, too. It’s been only the two of us for so long now,” she said wistfully. For some reason, tears welled in her eyes. Lord. “He’s been like a father to me. I scarcely remember my real father. You’re fortunate, to have your father still with you.” She swiped at one tear that had leaked. Is this what illness had done to her? Made her wretchedly sentimental?

“My father was not much of a father, really,” he offered matter-of-factly. Caroline waited for him to clarify, assuming he said it in jest. But the prince didn’t smile. He merely shrugged again. “Old complaints die hard, I suppose, but my brother had my father’s attention. He spent our youth preparing Sebastian for the throne. I was... I was merely there. He scarcely noticed me at all.”

Surely that wasn’t true. Caroline couldn’t imagine having a father who didn’t notice her. What little she remembered of her father came with warm, loving feelings.

“Ah, but such are the hazards of being born the second son in a royal family,” he added with a wistful smile.

Someone knocked softly on the door. The prince stood as it swung open, and the new maid came in, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup. The scent was so savory that Caroline’s stomach growled.

But the maid stopped walking halfway across the room. She was obviously flustered by the prince’s presence, as well she should have been, and dipped an imperfect curtsy and almost spilled the soup. “Don’t mind him, Ann. He shouldn’t be here.”

But Ann did mind him. Her face turned red and she so ardently avoided making eye contact that Caroline couldn’t help but notice. She couldn’t imagine how shy one would have to be not to at least steal a glimpse of the man—he was a handsome prince! But Ann Marble was working very hard to keep her gaze averted from him as she carried the tray across the room.

She put the tray on Caroline’s lap and almost spilled it again when Beck burst through the door, his hair dripping from being combed wet.

“Caro! You’ve come to! What a relief it is to see you sitting up. Martha says we ought to apply one more poultice,” he said, striding across the room. “The fever has broken, but we must be cautious and draw the last of the illness out of you. So if you have the slightest inclination to help the poultice along, I suggest that you do so.”

Caroline picked up her spoon. “How on earth does one help a poultice along?”

“What? I’m not a doctor, darling, so I can hardly be expected to know. But do heed what I say. I hope you are never so ill again. We were desperately close to having you leeched.”

“Leeched!” she exclaimed as Beck straightened the tray on her lap.

“You see? That’s why I need you to help the poultice along.” He gestured for her to sit up and removed some of the pillows from behind her. “Oh dear, your hair,” he said with a wince. “Well, Martha will repair it. If she can, that is. It looks as if some of it might need to be cut out—”

“Beck!”

“Ah, here is Martha with the poultice,” he said as her lady’s maid appeared at her bedside.

Whatever she was carrying smelled bloody awful. “Might I have the soup first?” Caroline begged. “I’m famished.”

“Yes, of course!” Martha chirped. “And then we’ll put this on your chest.” She pushed Caroline gently forward and put the same pillow behind her that Beck had just removed. She smoothed Caroline’s hair. “Dear me,” she said, wincing. “That will take some work.”

This was exhausting. Caroline wanted only to eat her soup and sleep again. She looked around her brother to see if the prince was still standing insouciantly at the foot of the bed. But he’d disappeared.

And so had Ann.

The only way Caroline could be certain the prince had been here at all was by the presence of the very cheerful flowers on her bed stand. She frowned down at her soup as Beck nattered on, proclaiming himself so relieved she would recover in time for the Montgomery ball. “I know how you love a ball,” he said, pleased with himself for remembering.

Caroline might have been desperately ill, but she was still whip smart when it came to men, and she still knew when they were catting about.

And that rake of a prince was catting about with one of their chambermaids.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Invitations have been delivered for the Montgomery ball, an annual event that marks the beginning of the summer social calendar. All persons of import will be in attendance, including the new prime minister. His wife will not be in attendance, however, as she is said to be enjoying her cabbage garden in Kent. Other guests will include a recently widowed earl who is in much demand and, naturally, a visiting prince to round out the list.

Ladies, a hint of rouge on your cheeks at dusk will give you a healthy, youthful glow, which will delight your husband and keep him at home.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

ANN MARBLE WAS a mousy thing, and Leo was mystified how she came to be involved in this indelicate matter.

He caught her in the hall when Beck had come into Lady Caroline’s room. Cornered her, really, in a manner he was not proud of, particularly given how frightened she had seemed of him. “You’ve nothing to fear,” he assured her. “I need your help.”

She looked frantically about, her eyes growing wider. “I told you, I could lose my position!” she whispered harshly.

Leo was not used to anyone saying no to him and wasn’t quite certain how to convince her she must do as he said without causing a scene. “It is imperative that I speak with you—”

“Not here,” she said quickly, and craned her neck to see past him. “In the market on Wednesday.” She glanced up at him warily.

Leo stared at her. “The market? What market?”

She whispered something.

“Pardon? I didn’t catch that. I am not... I don’t know the markets,” he admitted. How could he possibly know? Everything he needed was purchased for him.

“Half past two. I’m to buy poultry. The good chickens come on Wednesdays.” And then she whirled and dipped to one side, as if she thought he would try to stop her, and fled down the hallway.

Leo stood there like a dunce, confused. What had she said? All he’d heard was half past two on Wednesday and good chickens. But which market? How did he go about finding a poultry market without drawing attention to himself? And bloody hell, as if he didn’t have any number of things he must do on Wednesday, the lass had summoned him like a suitor...

All right, he didn’t have so many things to do on Wednesday. Tea with the Alucian ambassador, that was all. He never had anything of importance to occupy him—he generally filled his days with social calls and gentlemen’s clubs. In light of what he was endeavoring to do now, that all seemed rather...indolent. Yes. In light of what he was trying to do now—very much on his own, thank you—it was embarrassingly indolent.

Beck finally emerged from his sister’s room, his vivacity and naturally jovial spirit having returned to him, babbling about her renewed health and the fact that she’d lapped up that bowl of soup with the eagerness of a dog. Off they went to the club, where Beck passed around the room, reporting to anyone and everyone that his sister was “much recovered”—although she hadn’t looked so recovered to Leo—and “fit as a fiddle.”

Then Beck sat and complained that Leo had hardly touched the gin and wondered aloud why that was. “You don’t think you’ve come down with an ague, do you?” he asked. “Caro might have been very contagious.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Leo said. He’d lost his appetite for drink, that was all. His thoughts were on the need to discover where one purchased chickens in London, and what one had to do to gain entrance to the market. He was too bothered by this business with these poor Weslorian women and the men who would treat them so ill, and how ill prepared he was to do anything about it. Last night, he’d lain awake, tossing and turning, trying to make sense of his life. It was as if his twenty-ninth year had crept up on him like death and had found his life lacking in so many ways. He’d done nothing worthwhile.

Leo was ashamed of himself. But on the other hand, he wished he had tackled something a little less complicated than freeing women sold into slavery.

He and Beck were soon joined by two other men, Mr. Humble and Sir Granbury, both of whom were eager to celebrate Lady Caroline’s return to health, although neither seemed to know her. When the talk turned loud and boisterous and Beck complained of hunger, he insisted they carry on to a restaurant nearby that he claimed prepared a very good beefsteak.

Leo saw his opportunity and blurted awkwardly, “I’ve had a hangering for good poultry.”

The three men looked at him.

Leo looked back.

“I believe you meant to say hankering, Your Highness,” said Sir Granbury.

“Pardon?”

“The word you are seeking is hankering, not hangering,” Beck supplied, grinning.

“Ah. Thank you.” Leo could feel a warmth in the back of his neck. He’d picked up some words in the last few years that he had not learned from his childhood English tutor.

“If it’s poultry you want, I’ve the best in Lancashire,” said Mr. Humble. “You’ll not see better meat than what is produced on my land. Plump birds.” He used his hands to demonstrate just how plump.

“It is good poultry, Davis, I will grant you that,” Beck agreed.

“Perhaps something a bit closer than Lancashire,” Leo suggested. “Surely there is a market...”

“What have you got all those servants for?” Beck scoffed. “Send them out to fetch good poultry and don’t concern yourself.”

The three men nodded in agreement. Leo would have, too, because naturally, if he wanted poultry, he would tell someone, and it would magically appear on his plate. “Truth be told, sirs...my man does not have an eye for the fattest hen.”

“Neither do I,” said Sir Granbury, and the three men burst into laughter. Various jests about the gentlemen’s appendages and how they’d like to fit said appendages into fat hens went round the table while Leo tried to think of another way to ask about the market.

When the laughter died, he said, “But is there a market for poultry? Someplace I might send him?”

Mr. Humble shrugged. “There is Leadenhall. Or Newgate.”

Leadenhall! That’s what Ann Marble had whispered.

“Not Newgate,” Beck argued. “Leadenhall for poultry, Newgate for beef. Everyone knows it.” He looked at Leo. “Tell your man to go to Leadenhall.”

“Yes, thank you—I will.” That answered the question of where. But as the four of them prepared to leave the gentlemen’s club and seek supper, he moved on to fretting about how he’d convince Miss Marble to tell him what he needed.

ON WEDNESDAY, Leo had to convince his valet, Freddar, that he did indeed want to dress like an unassuming gentleman of English descent. “But the cut of the English suit does not serve your physique, Highness,” Freddar had sniffed.

“It serves me well enough. And a hat, Freddar. Not a beaver hat. Something less conspicuous than beaver.”

“Less conspicuous,” Freddar repeated, as if he didn’t understand the word.

“I’d like a plain hat,” Leo clarified.

Freddar frowned. “As you wish, Highness,” he said primly, his curtness signaling that he was being made to do this under duress.

Kadro and Artur, too, seemed to participate in Leo’s excursion under duress. He overheard Kadro complain to Artur that the English coats were restrictive.

But Leo rather liked it. And he liked the plain hat with the wide brim. He was able to wander the wide lanes of the Leadenhall market with scarcely a notice.

The market was fascinating. So many people, so many animal carcasses! It wasn’t that Leo had never been to markets—he’d visited them on occasion in Helenamar. But those ventures were always done with a coterie of royal observers, and the visit arranged so he’d see only what the hosts wanted him to see. In England, he’d had opportunity to enter markets, of course, but there had never been any need to actually do so. The idea of wandering through stalls of meats and leathers and various goods he did not want had never crossed his mind.

Well, he had no idea what he’d been missing! He’d commanded Kadro and Artur to wait at a public house near the entrance of the market, so that he might stroll at his leisure. Just the number of beef carcasses alone hanging from the tops of the stall fronts were a sight to behold.

He was so entranced with the number of people and the sale of the meat that he very nearly collided with an old woman who was carrying the carcass of a sheep wrapped around her shoulders. She looked through him and carried on to her stall, one foot before the other, trudging along as if no one else was in the market.

Costermongers moved in between the shoppers, barking out their wares, singing about their fruits and vegetables, their herbs and flowers. People crowded the stalls, bartering for their cuts of meat. Ale was sold out of carts, and gentlemen strolled through the lanes with tin tankards. An enterprising young man had roasted legs of mutton to sell, too, and the smell made Leo’s mouth water.

On another aisle were leather goods. Belts and knife sheaths, saddles and shoes. Leo walked past a heated argument that had broken out at one tanner’s post. The gentleman apparently thought the tanner’s price for leather to make boots was exorbitant. The tanner accused the gentleman of sullying his reputation and took a swing.

Leo moved on to the poultry stalls, where live chickens and skinned chickens existed side by side, the latter hanging in rows above the stall. He lingered in this lane, pretending to look over all the birds, then walked back and looked again, waiting for a glimpse of Miss Marble. He was beginning to think that she had avoided him once again, but then he spotted her. She was walking with another woman, engrossed in conversation.

He had not counted on there being anyone with her. That was alarming all on its own, but then Leo happened to notice something else that caused his heart to skip a few worried beats. Just behind Miss Marble, a very ornate hat and a tumble of blond curls beneath its brim was moving steadily toward him, like the prow of a ship making its way to the quay. Good God, that was Lady Caroline strolling the market aisle on the arm of a gentleman.

What in blazes was she doing here, at this market? It had been only three days ago he’d seen her in bed looking as if she’d just crawled back from the jaws of death. How in heaven had she untangled the mess of hair he’d seen on her head, much less coiffed it into curls? And how could she look so pretty after appearing so emaciated?

Miss Marble and her companion stopped at one chicken stall and studied the birds. Leo ducked behind a stack of crates stuffed with live birds and held his breath against the stench, impatiently waiting for Lady Caroline and her escort to stroll past. They were not alone, he realized—two ladies dressed similarly to Lady Caroline strolled behind them, looking terribly ill at ease.

When he saw the group of them go round the corner into the lane of beef, he darted out from behind the crates, very nearly knocking them over, and drawing the immediate ire of the proprietor.

Miss Marble didn’t see him at first. She was laughing with the other woman, who, Leo realized as he drew closer, was also from the Hawke home. Bloody hell, who was next? The butler? Beck himself? He stepped out of their line of sight and bumped into a lad carrying a basket of cakes. He held one up. Leo dug in his pocket for a coin and handed it to him in exchange for a cake.

“A crown?”

Leo momentarily turned his attention from Miss Marble and looked at the coin in the lad’s hand. “Looks like it is,” he agreed.

“The cake, it’s a half penny, milord,” the lad said.

“Is it?” That seemed awfully inexpensive. “Buy yourself a treat, then,” Leo said, and with a friendly pat to the lad’s shoulder, he moved past him, following Miss Marble and the other maid as they moved down the aisle while munching on the cake.

He feared he was going to have to resort to extreme measures to separate Miss Marble from her friend, but suddenly, Miss Marble’s friend turned down another aisle, and Miss Marble walked up to a poultry seller. Leo quickly hopped forward and sidled up to her. “Miss Marble.”

She gasped. Her hand went to her throat. The man behind the stall looked at him curiously, then at Miss Marble.

“Please don’t draw attention,” Leo muttered.

Unfortunately, Miss Marble could not appear to be anything but alarmed. She seemed frozen with shock. He did not understand her shock. She’d told him to meet her here—did she think he would not?

“Say something,” he urged her, and forced a smile for the poultry man.

“Something amiss here?” the man rumbled.

Miss Marble managed to gather herself. She said to the man, “Two of your best chickens, if you please. Make certain they’re your best—they’re for Lord Hawke.”

The man nodded, took butcher paper and turned around for his stick to reach the carcasses hanging above him.

“Wrap them well,” she said, then gestured for Leo to step into a tight passage between two stalls. She stepped in behind him, glanced over her shoulder, then dipped into a curtsy.

“Oh no, no,” Leo said, reaching to lift her up, but drawing back his hand before he touched her, uncertain if he ought to, given the circumstances. “That’s...that’s hardly necessary, given this...ah, arrangement,” he stammered, seeking the right word.

“Please, Highness, what do you want of me?” she begged him. “I’ve done all I can do. I told the gent that I couldn’t help more.”

“The gent? What gent? Do you mean Lysander? But he gave me your—”

“Who?”

Leo paused. “Lysander, the Alucian.”

She shook her head.

Leo frowned with confusion. “But he gave me your name. What gentleman are you referring to?”

“Don’t know. I only know the Weslorian girl.”

“Who?”

“Isidora Avalie,” she said.

Leo’s heart lurched. That was one of the names.

“She’s the one you want, isn’t she? I told you, I can’t help you. I told the other gent that, too, when he came looking for her. Lord Hill, he turned us both out, and without any pay. Lord Russell, he didn’t like the way Lord Hill had done it, but he was kind enough to take me in until I could find another position. But Isidora, he wouldn’t take her, not her, because she was Weslorian, and he said he’d not involve himself in that. There, I’ve told you all I know, and now I really must go, Highness! If I lose my post, I’ve nowhere to go!”

“Hawke won’t turn you out—”

“He will, Highness, he will! Please, let me go.”

“Take a breath,” he said, realizing it was his own chest that felt tight. He was far out of his depth.

“I tried to help Isidora, on my word, I did, but she...she...” Miss Marble suddenly burst into tears.

“Oh no. Goodness, no,” Leo said, putting both hands up. “No, Miss Marble, you mustn’t weep. Why are you weeping?”

“She had no place to go, either, and now she...oh, she’s lost, the poor soul. Lost!”

Leo’s breath caught. “Do you mean she’s gone missing? Or...” He winced. “Dead?” he whispered.

Miss Marble looked up from blubbering into her hands and pinned him with a ferocious look. “She ain’t missing or dead. She’s working in a house of ill repute, that’s what. Right at Charing Cross. What was she to do? I begged Mrs. Mansfield to find something else for her—”

“Who is Mrs. Mansfield?” Leo asked, his head spinning.

Miss Marble’s eyes narrowed. “She owns the house where Issy stays now,” she said stiffly. “She said Issy was as safe with her as she was in some grand house, and if I didn’t leave her be, she’d take me in, too.” She glanced over her shoulder and gasped. “Molly’s looking for me! Please, Highness, don’t ask me again, I beg you.”

“Just one last question—who is the other gentleman who asked you about your friend?”

“I don’t know.” She turned to go.

“Wait! Where is Mrs. Mansfield? Where might I find her?”

“Charing Cross,” she repeated irritably.

“But Charing Cross is...”

It was too late—Miss Marble had fled, returning to the poultry man to collect her bundle, then rejoining her friend without once looking back.

Leo stepped out of the space between the stalls and looked around him. How the devil was he supposed to find a brothel with nothing more to go on than it was at or near Charing Cross? That wasn’t a street—it was a juncture of many streets.

He began to walk, his head down, thinking. He had no idea what he was doing, much less what he meant to do if he found any of these women. He was chasing rainbows and wandering around meat markets.

“Dear God, it’s you.”

Leo instantly stopped walking. He turned slightly and looked directly into the lovely green eyes of Lady Caroline. “I beg your pardon. It’s you.”

She suddenly beamed at him, clearly delighted with her find. She took in his plain hat, his unassuming coat, and her smile turned impossibly brighter. “Well, well, what have we here? What are you about today, Your Highness? Hungry for a leg of mutton, are you?”

It was impossible to imagine that this woman, who had been in bed just a few days ago, could look so beautiful. She was a tad too thin, but the glow of health had returned to her cheeks, and her eyes were glittering with wicked delight. “It may surprise you, Lady Caroline, but I like mutton as well as the next man.”

“Do you know what I find interesting?”

“No, but I’ve no doubt you will tell me.”

“That the last Alucian gentleman who dressed like this was your brother. He was sneaking about, as you may recall. Are you sneaking about?”

“I see that your impertinence has returned in full. It’s rather astonishing that I must say this aloud, but what I do is no concern of yours. I think the better question is why are you here at all? Were you not deathly ill only two days ago?”

“Three,” she said. “But I am blessed with a hearty constitution, and I bounce back like a rubber ball.” She moved closer. “Why are you prancing about Leadenhall market dressed as a regular Englishman?”

“I am not prancing—I am walking. You can’t possibly understand, given that you are not a prince, nor inclined to listen, but sometimes it is easier to go round dressed like a regular Englishman.”

“Is it,” she said skeptically.

“It is,” he assured her. “Shall I call someone to help you to your carriage? You oughtn’t to be about.”

Her brows dipped into a decided V over her smile. She stepped closer. “Will you not humor me and tell me why you are here, Highness?”

He shifted closer to her, too. He could see the deep green specks in the irises of her eyes, dancing little eddies, drawing him in. “Will you not humor me and tell me why it is you think you have license to interrogate me? Why does anyone enter a meat market? I want a chicken.”

Her brows rose with surprise and she smiled with delight. She leaned forward. “A chicken?” she asked, her gaze on his mouth.

“That’s right, a chicken, Lady Caroline,” he said to her bodice. “The poultry at the hotel is not to my liking.” His gaze moved to the pert tip of her nose. And then to her succulent lips.

“But you have servants.”

“You sound like your brother.”

“Do I? That is somewhat alarming to hear, but I know that the difference between me and my brother is that Beck would probably accept your explanation without question. I won’t.” She tilted her head slightly as her gaze moved to his jaw, and up to his ear.

“But that’s the rub, madam. I don’t need or want your approval.” He desperately wanted to take her by the chin and force her to look him in the eye. He leaned so close that she had to look up. “No offense meant,” he added impertinently.

She smiled for the long moment it took for her gaze to travel lazily to his lips. “None taken.”

“Excellent. Then we may both be about our day.” He touched the brim of his hat and stepped around her. But when he did, his hand made contact with hers. It was a very slight tangle of fingers, hardly anything at all, and yet it set off fireworks inside him. “Good day, Lady Caroline. I shall leave you to your bouncing about like a rubber ball.”

“You’re scurrying away like a rat or a guilty man, Your Highness. What about your chicken?”

“Lady Caroline?”

Leo started almost as badly as Lady Caroline. She abruptly whirled around. “Mr. Morley!” She was breathless, either with surprise or delight, Leo didn’t know. “You found me!”

The gentleman was about the same height as Lady Caroline. He’d walked up behind them holding a basket carrying bread and flowers. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said with a nervous smile. “It would be quite easy to be lost in here, I think.” His gaze shifted to Leo. “I beg your pardon, sir. May I...?”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr. Morley,” Lady Caroline said, and Leo prepared to be introduced as a prince, at which point he’d have to make some elaborate excuse for being here admiring a row of hanging chicken carcasses without a royal guard in sight. “Mr. Chartier, my friend, Mr. Morley.”

Leo was surprised and relieved by the tiny bit of charity from her. Why she’d done it, he wasn’t certain, and he glanced at her questioningly.

She returned a faint smile.

“I am honored to be called your friend, Lady Caroline,” Mr. Morley said, grinning like a lad. “Mr. Chartier, how do you do?”

Leo nodded.

“Are you a Londoner, then?” Mr. Morley asked as the two ladies Leo had seen earlier arrived at his side, each of them carrying a small cake.

“At present,” Leo said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, but if you will excuse me, I’m in a bit of a rush. Good day to you,” he said, and touching the brim of his hat, he turned to leave.

“Good day, Mr. Chartier!” Lady Caroline called in a singsong voice after him.

He could feel Lady Caroline’s gaze on his back, and he swore he could hear her laughter. Impudent woman. Impudent, irreverent, beautiful woman. Impudent, irreverent, beautiful, enticing woman.

With a mouth he would very much like to kiss into submission.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A crate of squawking chickens delivered to the Clarendon Hotel has upset the genteel patrons to the point of complaint. The chickens were a gift for a prince of a fellow from a Humble admirer in Lancashire. It has been said that the prince is so in search of good poultry that he took it upon himself to visit the Leadenhall market. Perhaps the prince might endeavor to raise his own perfect poultry in the ruins of Herstmonceux Castle.

A recent encounter at Gunter’s Tea Shop between a gentleman whose debts have been questioned and the gentleman who questioned them, was devoid of the dictates of polite society and resulted in both gentlemen being ejected from the premises. This serves as a solemn reminder that one must always bow to an acquaintance, even if that acquaintance is one’s enemy.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

CAROLINE WAS FEELING her old self again. The trip to Leadenhall, which Beck was adamant she not attempt, had done her some good after all. She hadn’t meant to go along, she hadn’t wanted to go along—she could think of nothing less attractive than a meat market. But Mr. Morley and his sisters had called, and Caroline had been desperate to escape them, and had said that she must accompany the new maid to Leadenhall, which she was certain would do the trick. Alas, much to her dismay, Mr. Morley said he would be delighted to accompany her as well, and turning to his sisters, he’d asked if they didn’t both need some beef sent home?

The day had been truly exhausting, physically, as she was still recovering, and also emotionally, as she found it taxing to be demure for such long stretches of time. But in the end, Caroline was very pleased that her legs had not lost their usefulness after all. Indications were that she would indeed dance again.

The other happy result of her trip to Leadenhall was the remarkable sight of Prince Leopold prowling around as if he were some inspector of birds. Not the poultry kind, either, as he maddeningly would have her believe.

Caroline had seen him in conversation with Ann Marble. She’d only noticed it because she’d spotted Molly, the kitchen maid, wandering around by herself, and had looked around for Ann. She’d been so intrigued by the intimate little tête-à-tête that she’d stepped away from Mr. Morley and his sisters and slyly moved in the prince’s direction.

She knew what those two were about, obviously. She knew the true nature of men, and she particularly knew the true nature of privileged men. He was a rake! The question was, what was she going to do about it?

She wondered what Beck would say if he knew about this despicable affair. Caroline did not intend to tell him...at least not now. She had her reasons. For one, she didn’t want to see Ann dismissed. She was good around their house, and besides, from what Caroline had gleaned from Martha, the poor girl was alone in this world. Beck had said as much when he brought her into the house. “Russell didn’t want to keep her, and I’d not like to see a young woman put to the street,” he’d said with a grimace.

But Caroline couldn’t allow this affair to continue. It would be a trifling thing to the prince, but it would ruin poor Ann. That was the thing Caroline had come to understand about men—their desire was so immediate, so intense, that they didn’t think of the consequences of what they were demanding. They thought of only the need. They didn’t see a person, really, but a feminine shape that appealed to them and their base instincts.

She’d noticed this, really noticed this, after her debut. She’d always known she was attractive, but she hadn’t realized just how attractive until that night. She had basked in the attention and the compliments, had found it exhilarating. And subsequently, at every party, every soiree after that, she sought the same feeling—of being admired. Of being desired.

But...it wasn’t long after that Caroline began to notice that the attention she gained was not particularly fulfilling. She knew what she looked like and how men looked at her. She began to understand that what attracted men to her was her near perfect shape, her face, her mouth, her hair...her exterior, in short. But they were not attracted to her.

It was as she told Hollis the afternoon her friend had called to see how Caroline fared after her illness. “No one but you cares how I truly am,” she’d complained.

“That is not true!” Hollis said. She was trying on Caroline’s latest gown and admiring herself in the mirror.

Caroline was sitting on her chaise, staring listlessly out the window. “But it is. All anyone had to say was how I looked. ‘Oh dear, your hair, darling, can it be repaired?’ Or ‘your pallor is quite gray.’ Or ‘your dress is too loose, you must eat something!’”

“All genuine concern, darling,” Hollis said. “Surely this gown was not loose on you. My God, I can scarcely breathe at all.”

“But no one asked about me, Hollis. You were the only one to ask if I understood how close to death I’d come and how did it feel to be on the edge of dying.”

Hollis paused to wrinkle her nose. “Well, that sounds positively dreadful when you put it like that. But I was curious, and if I can’t ask you, who might I ask?”

“That’s precisely my point,” Caroline said. “You are very curious about me, and not the terror of my hair. Of course you can ask me those things, because we are very dear to each other. Do you see?”

Hollis had laughed as she’d pulled her gown over her head. “I think you’ve a touch of fever yet, Caro.”

She did not have a fever. She had an inability to articulate what she meant.

It was her own fault, this feeling of disappointment. She’d made a sort of game with herself—how many gentlemen could she get to flock to her? Which of them would inquire after her interests? Or her thoughts about the trade agreement between Alucia and the United Kingdom? Or even something as illuminating as what age she’d been when her parents had died?

But as the years had ticked by, Caroline realized there was something terribly wrong with her game—she continued to attract gentlemen to her, but the game had taken on a new urgency. She used the game as an excuse, to mask her fear, because Caroline didn’t really know what there was to like about her. What if she discovered she wasn’t as pretty on the inside as she was on the outside? What if all her ugliness was tucked away, and would spring free if someone got too close? What if she was completely empty on the inside, and all that she had to offer this world was her fine looks?

Fortunately, Caroline had the luxury of wealth and privilege to play her game and she didn’t have to delve too deeply into the answers. But Ann had no such privilege, and Caroline meant to protect her.

She needed to think how best to deal with the knowledge of the prince’s affair, and until she had determined what to do, she would hold on to this morsel of news and do her level best to keep him from preying on other maids.

He was a rake. A handsome, charming, rake—the most dangerous of them all.

THE WEEK AFTER her visit to Leadenhall, Caroline felt up to accepting an invitation to the home of Lady Priscilla Farrington. Caroline had known Priscilla for an age. She’d married quite young, had three children in quick succession, then watched her husband increase the Farrington holdings with the import of cotton. He’d recently been appointed to the House of Lords.

Caroline had always enjoyed Priscilla’s company. She was jovial and quick with a laugh. She had a growing rivalry with Lady Pennybacker, whose husband had likewise received his seat in the Lords.

Priscilla was keen to have Caroline design her a gown, because Lady Pennybacker would not have one. During her convalescence, Caroline had made a pattern for a gown and needed to fit it to Priscilla’s robust frame.

When she arrived, she was shown to a salon where she was instantly greeted by four small dogs, all of them eager for a pat on the head. Priscilla was lounging on a chaise with yet another dog. The ornate room looked and smelled a bit like a kennel.

“Darling!” Priscilla trilled, waving Caroline over as the footman followed her, carrying the box with the muslin pattern of the gown. “How well you look! You’re recovered from the seasickness, are you? Oh, but you’re terribly thin.”

“A temporary condition,” Caroline assured her. “But I am fully recovered.” She made her way through the small beasts and leaned over to kiss Priscilla’s cheek. She took a seat on a settee across from Priscilla. One of the dogs hopped up, its paws on Caroline’s lap. She carefully pushed it away. It hopped up again.

“You must tell me everything!” Priscilla said. “But not yet! Felicity Hancock and Katherine Maugham are coming to tea.”

Priscilla had not mentioned this fact in the delivered invitation. Katherine Maugham had been very keen to secure an offer of marriage from Prince Sebastian and had not yet forgiven Eliza for getting the offer she’d coveted. Caroline, Eliza and Hollis called her the Peacock behind her back.

“How delightful,” Caroline said, and pushed the dog away once more. But the dog was not to be bested in this, and hopped up and climbed onto Caroline’s lap, circled around, and settled in for tea.

“Is this new?” Caroline asked, looking down at the carpet.

“It is! It was made specially in Belgium and delivered to us just last week. Tom has in mind to hire more servants, too, did I tell you? But only foreign ones. Foreign girls are far better than our domestics, don’t you think?”

Caroline was not pressed to answer that ridiculous question, because a footman walked in at that moment and announced the arrival of the two ladies. Lady Katherine swept in like a stage actress, determined to be noticed first...until she saw Caroline. She slowed her step, blinking in Caroline’s direction. Felicity Hancock stumbled in behind the Peacock, tripping over the edge of the new Belgian carpet.

Caroline pushed the dog from her lap and stood to greet the ladies. “What a pleasure!” she trilled, holding out her arms to both women.

“Lady Caroline, you have returned to us,” the Peacock said. “I thought surely you’d remain attached to the side of your very dear friend. I feared we’d not see you again. Didn’t I say so, Felicity?”

“Who do you mean?” Caroline asked sweetly. “The duchess and future queen of Alucia? Oh, I’ll see her soon enough. I intend to return in the spring. I can call on her anytime I like, you know.”

“Another voyage, really?” Priscilla asked. “But Tom said it made you so dreadfully ill. Very near death, he said.”

“It wasn’t quite as bad as that, but even so.”

“I want to hear every word,” Felicity said eagerly, and settled in a cloud of blue on the settee beside Caroline. “Was it as wonderful as Honeycutt’s Gazette made it seem?”

“Every bit and even more,” Caroline said sincerely. It was hard to relate just how beautiful and amazing the wedding had been in words or song or painting or gossip gazettes.

“Tell us, tell us!” Priscilla insisted as she waved at the footman to begin the tea service.

Caroline was careful not to leave out a single detail. She told them how vast the palace, and how Eliza now had two ladies in waiting to tend to her. How the king and queen had bestowed jewels on her as they’d welcomed her into their royal family. How desperately in love Prince Sebastian was with her. Caroline made sure that every conceivable reason to envy Eliza was laid before the ladies and was rather pleased with her effort in the end.

“I still can’t believe Eliza Tricklebank should find herself married to a prince,” Priscilla said, her voice full of wonder. “Eliza Tricklebank of all people.”

“Why not Eliza Tricklebank?” Caroline protested. “She is the best person I know.”

“Because it wasn’t you, Caroline. If you ask me, you are far more suited to such a match than she.”

Well, that was obviously true. But Eliza deserved it far more than Caroline ever would. She smiled and shrugged lightly. “Fate has a way of putting us in the right place.”

“Doesn’t it,” Katherine said slyly. “Speaking of the great hands of fate...what of Prince Leopold? Did you catch his eye?”

Priscilla and Felicity tittered.

“Oh, I’m certain I did,” Caroline said nonchalantly, feeling a slight flush in her cheeks, remembering how intent his eyes had been on her at Leadenhall. She’d actually felt a spark of excitement standing there in the midst of all that meat. “Frankly, I found him rather tedious.”

“Really!” Katherine put down her teacup. “I fully expected you’d come back with tales of his slavish devotion to you.”

“Why ever would you think that?”

“Well...because you said so, darling,” Priscilla said gently. “Remember? You said he was quite taken with you and you fretted that you’d have to fend him off when there were so many other gentlemen with whom to acquaint yourself while in Helenamar.”

The flush in Caroline’s cheeks was heating her skin. Sometimes, she was too confident. She did indeed recall saying something very much like that one evening after one too many glasses of wine. “I never said I’d have to fend him off,” she scoffed.

“You did,” Felicity said. “You even demonstrated pushing him away,” she said, and pretended to push something away at chest height. “You clearly thought he’d be a bother.”

Caroline wished for something to fan herself. Perhaps she could claim to have a touch of the fever yet. But it was pointless—she did have a tendency to boast. Beck said she was filled with her own sense of grandeur. And it was true that before she’d sailed to Alucia, she’d been extraordinarily confident that the prince would be attracted to her. But he wasn’t the least attracted to her and now she couldn’t help but wonder if she was losing her charm. She was six and twenty, creeping toward the age of spinsterhood, and that handsome prince was more attracted to her maid than her.

“What happened?” Katherine asked with far too much joy to suit Caroline.

“I thought him tedious, that’s all. And besides, his formal engagement to a Weslorian heiress will be announced by the end of summer. It’s been arranged.”

All three ladies stopped tittering and stared at her. “Really?” Felicity asked, incredulous. “Arranged? But...but I’ve heard he’s been in London sowing his oats.”

“Of course he is sowing his oats,” Priscilla scoffed. “Everyone is working to gain an introduction. And he’s far from home—he can do what he likes.”

“But...he and Mr. Frame called on a brothel just this week!” Felicity whispered loudly. “I heard that he took the woman with him.”

Caroline jerked her gaze to Felicity. “I beg your pardon, he did what?”

“Took her,” Felicity said. “He left the establishment with the...woman.”

“Took her where?” Katherine asked.

“You know,” Felicity said, her face turning red. “To his...castle, or what have you.”

Caroline felt a sour twist in her belly. She thought him a rake, but that was despicable. “Are you certain, Felicity? You don’t suppose you misheard?”

“Yes, I’m certain! Mr. Frame’s sister is a dear friend of mine, and she told me. She had quite a row with her brother about it, which threatens to ruin all of Christmas.”

“We are months away from Christmas,” Katherine pointed out.

“That’s how bad their row was.”

Katherine looked at Caroline.

Caroline wouldn’t give her the least bit of disappointment. “Well, I’m not terribly surprised. He’s a prince, and it goes without saying that he’ll soon be engaged, no matter his conduct. But if it were me, I’d not want my daughter anywhere near him.”

“Not your daughter, but perhaps you?” Katherine asked with a devious laugh.

“After the brothels and maids? Certainly not!” Caroline said primly.

“The maids! What maids?” Priscilla exclaimed as she took the lid off the box and pulled out the pattern Caroline had made.

She hadn’t meant to say that. She hadn’t meant to tell all the man’s secrets, particularly as it related to her house. She stood up and walked across the room to join Priscilla. “I’ve heard rumors that he has, from time to time, taken up with a housemaid here and there, that’s all.”

“What house?” Priscilla asked, looking properly offended.

“Oh, I don’t know, really.” Caroline unfurled the muslin pattern. “My point is that he’s a prince in name only. He’s a rake by any other name.”

“But this is so damning,” Katherine said as she rose from her seat so that she might have a look at the pattern, too.

Caroline did not miss the look that Katherine exchanged with Felicity. She didn’t like that look. It was rather judgmental. Of her? Or the prince? It hardly mattered—Prince Leopold was corrupting her maid, and Caroline was both irate and envious, and suddenly very tired, and she wanted nothing to do with him. Not much, anyway.

“I should tell Lady Montgomery about this,” Priscilla announced. “She would not like that sort of scandal at her ball. You know how she is.”

Caroline had said too much. “I do,” she agreed. “Perhaps we ought not to upset her with gossip.”

“Caroline! Are you making this gown?” Felicity asked.

“I am.”

“Astonishing! Will you make me one?” Felicity asked.

“Oh, darling, you must!” Priscilla agreed, and passed the dog she was holding to Caroline so that she could hold out the sleeves of the muslin.

When Caroline left Priscilla’s salon, she had orders for two more gowns. Both for Felicity, however. Katherine Maugham had eyed the gown with envy but could not bring herself to ask Caroline to make her one.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The guest list for the highly anticipated Montgomery ball has allegedly been culled by one. This should be a reminder to us all that even a prince of a man may be hiding some sordid secrets that no respectable young lady would want to introduce to her family.

It is said that a well-heeled gentleman, higher in social stature than most, has been spotted in some unsavory locations. It is rumored that this particular gentleman might have removed a skirt quite light in its appearance and placed it in the kitchen of a fine house. Several theories abound as to why, but the most sordid one is certainly the most plausible.

Ladies, it is suggested, if you are inclined toward canine companions, that you endeavor to open your windows and employ a broom so as not to offend your guests with uncomfortable smells and unwanted hair on the hem of skirts.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

IT TOOK A few days before Leo could persuade Mr. Frame to take him to the brothel he’d bragged about. But Mr. Frame, who had heretofore not shown any inclination toward morality, had suddenly developed one when it came to Leo. He thought it unseemly for a prince to make such a call. Leo didn’t know if he should be offended or pleased that a man he hardly knew thought to step in as his moral compass.

In the end, however, Mr. Frame was persuaded by a promise of a rare bottle of Alucian wine to be delivered to his home...just as soon as Leo had it delivered to London.

Fortunately, Mrs. Mansfield, the proprietor of this decrepit house, so wretchedly dark and dank within, did not know who Leo was, other than someone she had deemed important and thereby felt entirely comfortable demanding an outrageous amount of coin to meet Isidora Avalie. “Yes, of course! Winsome lass, that one,” Mrs. Mansfield had said, as she’d plucked at the loose threads on the arm of her chair. The woman’s girth alone was testament to the success of her despicable enterprise. On a table beside her was decanted wine and a plate of meats and cheeses and nuts, as if she planned to snack her way through the evening while women were subjected to God knew what in the rooms one reached through a very dark and narrow flight of stairs.

“It’s quite a compliment to ask for her by name,” Mrs. Mansfield continued, eyeing his clothing. “You look familiar, my lord. Have you visited us before?”

“How much for the girl?” Leo asked coolly.

“Well, she’s one of my best, she is. She’s Weslorian, you know, and they are particularly skilled in the art of pleasure. I get the highest coin for her.”

Leo never resorted to violence. Even in his youth, he’d avoided tumbles with friends—the thought of striking someone or something nauseated him. But he’d never wanted to punch someone in the mouth quite like he wanted to punch the leering smile off of Mrs. Mansfield.

He negotiated what was an extortionist’s rate for the lass, and when he handed over the money, Mrs. Mansfield hoisted herself from the chair and beckoned him to follow. She showed him to a small shabby room with a worn red velvet settee that looked as if it had been host to any number of gentlemen’s asses. There was a narrow gag-inducing bed in the corner, the sheets rumpled from use. Mrs. Mansfield summoned Isidora Avalie from somewhere behind a door in the room. “Hurry along girl, there’s a gentleman asking specially for you.”

Isidora entered the room timidly. She looked very uncomfortable, clad as she was in scarcely a dressing gown. She had dark hair and dark eyes, but Leo was struck by how vacant her eyes looked. She stared at him blankly for a moment then cast her gaze to the floor.

“What are you doing standing there?” Mrs. Mansfield said irritably to the girl and pushed her into the middle of the room, so that she was standing directly before Leo.

“You have an hour, milord,” Mrs. Mansfield said. “I’ll knock on the door ten minutes to, and give you time to dress.” And with that, she’d gone out.

Isidora did not look up. She was trembling. “Bon den,” he said. Good evening. “Weslorina?”

He hadn’t meant to startle her; he’d meant to assure her by speaking her native language. But the language panicked her. She’d turned and lunged for the door, but Leo was able to leap ahead of her to keep her from leaving before he could speak. She tearfully begged him in Weslorian and English not to hurt her, to let her go.

“For God’s sake, I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you,” he’d insisted.

“Why?”

“Because I do, Isidora. You deserve better than this life. Help me find the others, help me bring the men who did this to you to justice.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You do,” he said gently but firmly. “Allow me to help you and the others.”

She immediately dissolved into tears. “I can’t,” she said tearfully. “They will force my father to give back the money. My family won’t take me back, not after this. I’ll have no place to go but the street—”

“You do have a place,” he said, although he had no idea where she might go—he would have to think of it. But he would think of something.

He gestured for her to sit on the foul settee and tell him how she’d gotten here. Her family was from the mountains of Wesloria, on the border with Alucia, she said. He knew the mountains were an impoverished part of both countries. Most of the men there worked in the coal mines. She said a gentleman had come and offered quite a lot of money to her father for her. She said her father took it to save the rest of the family from starvation.

Leo vaguely recalled his brother talking about the lack of economic opportunity, particularly in some parts of the country. Leo had barely registered the conversation, as he did any topic that seemed too weighty, because he had long been a man who didn’t want to bother himself with anything of importance. Isidora had been sold so a man could feed the rest of his children. Leo could not imagine what it must be like to live with nothing, or the sort of desperation the man must have felt that would allow him to sell one daughter to save his family.

So Isidora had come to England to work for nothing. That wasn’t enough for Lord Hill, she said—he’d wanted more than her services as a chambermaid, and when she’d rebuffed him, he threatened to send her back to the man who’d arranged it. Ann Marble had tried to intercede and he’d fired her, too, then took his family to the country.

Leo withdrew the five names from his pocket and showed her the list. Isidora shook her head and confessed she couldn’t read. So Leo read the other names to her. Nina, Eowyn, Jacleen, Rasa.

Isidora knew them all, but knew only where Jacleen and Rasa had ended up. Rasa, she said, was a maid in the home of Lord Pennybacker, a name that was mildly familiar to Leo.

Jacleen, however, had been sent to a grand country estate belonging to the Duke of Norfolk. That news caught Leo by surprise—the Duke of Norfolk had attended Cambridge with him. He’d known Henry many years and considered him a friend. For God’s sake, he was married to a lovely woman with three children and a fourth on the way. Surely he had no part in this. “In Arundel?” he asked.

“Je,” Isidora said weakly.

His head spun. Who were these men that would use women so ill? How could he be nearly thirty years old and not know men like that existed in his sphere? The knowledge soured his stomach and made him more determined than ever to end this abominable practice.

But first, he had to agree to a price for Isidora. Unfortunately, Leo was not adept at the art of negotiation—when he agreed to the outrageous sum of one hundred pounds, Mrs. Mansfield’s little eyes had gone wide with surprise, and he knew then that he’d been outdone.

He brought Isidora to the Clarendon Hotel, ignoring the looks directed at him, and paid for a room for her. The desk clerk could hardly contain his disgust at what he perceived was happening, and at first he refused to grant her a room. But Leo reminded him how much the Kingdom of Alucia was paying for the rooms he let. The clerk reluctantly agreed to allow one night. Only one night. “Won’t have her type here, Your Highness,” he’d said tightly.

“Her type,” Leo had said, “is that of a woman who has been treated very ill by your country.”

But the Clarendon Hotel was not a solution, and Leo fretted to Josef. “The lass wants to go home to her family,” he lied. “I need a place she might stay until I can arrange it.”

As Josef had not seen Isidora, he had no reason to suspect what Leo was about. He thought about it a moment and said, “May I suggest Mr. Hubert Cressidian.”

Leo knew of the gentleman, an Alucian merchant living in London, who was, by all indications, richer than Croesus. “Do you know him?” Leo asked. “Can I trust him?”

Josef’s expression had remained entirely neutral. “It is my experience, Highness, that Mr. Cressidian may be trusted for a price.”

It turned out that Josef’s instincts were right. Mr. Cressidian was thin and wiry, with black hair and eyes so brown they appeared almost black. Leo told him he needed a place to keep a young woman safe from harm. Mr. Cressidian didn’t ask any questions about Isidora. He didn’t seem to care. He didn’t seem particularly curious about anything, really. He merely stated his terms: a stipend for her keep, and an introduction to a French shipping magnate Leo knew.

Neither did Isidora ask questions—she seemed resigned to whatever fate had in store for her. But when they arrived at the very large house in Mayfair, she looked at Leo. “Who are you?”

She truly had no idea who he was. “I’m no one,” he said, and he meant it. He smiled and said, “My friends call me Leo.”

Three days later, Josef informed Leo that his invitation to the Montgomery ball had been rescinded.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A soiree to be held at the London townhome of the Duke of Norfolk was postponed indefinitely. A friend of the duke has said that the reason might have had to do with one of the guests being unsuitable to dine with someone as dignified as the duke and duchess. Could it be the same gentleman who was disinvited from the Montgomery ball?

Ladies, doctors advise a period of nine hours of complete rest with no distractions or diversions after a period of maternal confinement and birth, with no more than five minutes allotted to one’s husband to assure him all is well.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

CAROLINE HAD A habit of entering her home through the back door if she’d been shopping, lest Beck see her packages. Generally, he was none the wiser when she used this method of entry, but this afternoon, he was striding through the kitchen when she tumbled in with her wrapped packages of brocades and silk fabrics. He took one look at the bundles in her arms, then at her. “What are those?”

She tried to think of an excuse that would spare her. None came to mind.

He frowned at her silence. “Come with me,” he said gruffly.

Things had reverted to normal between them, with Beck complaining about her spending and the fact that she ate his favorite jam—oh, and that she practiced the piano when he was trying to read. And, of course, his favorite complaint—that she did as she pleased.

“Why?” she asked as she hastily shoved her packages beneath a wooden bench in the small entry into the kitchens.

“Why do you think?” He was holding a wooden tray onto which he had himself, apparently, put cheese and bread. “I rang for you two hours ago.”

“I was out, Beck,” Caroline said as she followed him down the hall. He was striding purposefully, and she was struggling to keep up as she tried to unfasten her cloak.

“Yes, you were out shopping again!” he said crossly over his shoulder before turning into his study.

Caroline managed to get the cloak unfastened and pulled it from her shoulders, dropping it onto a chair in the hall.

“I have my own money, have you forgotten? And besides, Felicity Hancock is desperate for one of my gowns. Ladies are beginning to notice—”

“I don’t care,” he said, and dropped the tray onto his desk as she struggled to remove her bonnet. “And need I remind you that your inheritance is in a trust. You are spending our money.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” Caroline demanded.

“It is necessary, Caro, as you have given every indication you would spend all of your trust if given the opportunity.”

Caroline managed to remove her bonnet, but it caught a pin in her hair, and one thick tress tumbled down over one eye. “Blast it,” she complained, and with a sigh of exasperation, she tossed her bonnet onto his desk, too. “I’ll just go and repair my hair,” she said, but before she could turn to the door, he stopped her.

“No, no, we’ll have this said and done now,” Beck commanded her. “I mean to go out soon, and I know your tricks, Caro. If you go up to your rooms, I won’t see you for hours, and when I do, you’ll probably have brought along Mrs. Honeycutt to verbally assault me.”

“Hollis does not verbally assault you, Beck. She is careful to say only what is true.”

“Oh? So is it true that I was born with the head of a monkey and the heart of an ass?”

“Not that, obviously, but the other things she says are true.”

Beck wasn’t listening. He was waving his hand at her. “Enough about Hollis Honeycutt. If Percy were alive today, he’d have her in hand. He shouldn’t have died like he did.”

Caroline tried to push the tress from her face. But the way her hair was pinned, it kept falling. “You have no regard for my very dear friends who have been my loyal companions all my life.” She swiped up a bit of cheese and stuffed it into her mouth and said, dismissively, “Go on then. What is it that is so important?”

“You want to know? I’ll tell you, Caro. You need to marry.”

Caroline froze. Then she laughed. “Not this again!”

“What? You’re six and twenty or very near, and it’s high time you married and it’s high time I let someone else worry about your purchases.” He picked up a stack of bills and waved them at her. “As it happens, I’ve taken matters into my own hands.”

That got her full attention. Beck often ranted about the need for her to marry, but he’d never said anything like this. “Pardon?”

“Your reluctance to entertain an offer before now has left half the eligible gentlemen skeptical of you. So, I’ve let it be known—discreetly, of course—the size of your dowry.”

“You did what?”

“You can’t continue on like this, flitting from one soiree to the next dressmaker without any regard for who you are destined to be.”

“How do you know who I am destined to be?” she demanded, fighting the lock of hair.

“Are you mad? Must I tell you that you are destined to be a wife and mother?”

“Who decreed that I must be a wife or a mother? This is precisely the reason I do not entertain the idea of marriage, Beck. Men think they know all there is to know. Perhaps I’d like to be an artist instead.”

Beck sat down in the chair behind his desk and leaned back, templing his fingers. “That would be well and good, darling, had you ever shown the slightest interest in becoming an artist. I hired an art tutor for you when you were seventeen, you may recall, and you deliberately painted as horribly as you could to chase him away. The only interest you’ve shown is being invited to the next social gathering.”

“At which I excel, thank you. And I didn’t say I will be an artist. I was making a point. I might like to be a dressmaker. I happen to be very good at it.”

Beck snorted. “You will not be a dressmaker. I spoke to the prince about it, and he—”

Caroline let out a bark of laughter before her brother could finish. “Your friend Leo? Your dear, dear friend who has been uninvited to everything in the last fortnight? He knows nothing.” She swiped up another piece of cheese.

She noticed Beck had stilled. When he didn’t give her a snippy little retort, Caroline looked at him. “What?”

“I was about to say, Caroline, that I spoke to the prince about it, who happens to be standing just there.”

An icy scrape went down her spine. The top of her head buzzed. She stared at Beck for a long moment before she pushed her hair from her face and made herself turn around to see. The prince was indeed standing there, his back against the wall, one dark brow arched. He gave her a half-hearted wave. She hadn’t seen him because the door was open and impeding her view, and her bloody hair had obscured the rest of her vision. She whipped back around to Beck. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

“I should think it obvious, seeing as how he is just there,” he said, gesturing emphatically toward the prince. “And by the bye, what do you know about the invitations being recalled?”

“Nothing!”

Beck narrowed his gaze.

“And what, pray tell, did the illustrious Royal Highness have to say for my deplorable status of being an unmarried woman?” She knew quite a lot about those invitations, as it happened. It was she, after all, who had suggested to Lady Norfolk that she might want to postpone her soiree, given Lady Montgomery’s rather visceral reaction to the gossip surrounding the prince. Priscilla had relayed to Caroline that while having tea with Lady Montgomery, she’d mentioned the prince’s unsavory habits, and Lady Montgomery had nearly choked on her crumpet, and screeched for her secretary then and there and demanded the invitation be rescinded at once.

Also, Lady Norfolk was terribly pregnant and terribly cross. Caroline had assumed, on her friend’s behalf, that the anxiety would be too much.

“Watch your tongue, Caroline,” Beck warned her. “Naturally, he said what any man would say—that it’s well past time you married.”

“Ah—with all due respect, Beck, that is not exactly what I said,” the prince politely demurred.

“It was implied,” Beck said impatiently.

“What did you say?” Caroline asked, turning back to the prince.

“Caro, please! Do not speak to His Royal Highness as if he were some servant to be interrogated for a missing spoon!”

“It’s quite all right,” the prince said. “I merely said that in Alucia most women are married by the time they are twenty. It was an observation, that’s all.” And now he was observing her hair with a curious look.

“And you are well past twenty, Caro,” Beck needlessly pointed out.

Ooh, she would strangle Beck when they were alone. Why was it she could never meet the prince when she looked her best? Why must she always look so bedraggled? He’d been casually looking on all the while she was standing with her hair half down and stuffing cheese into her mouth.

She slowly turned back to her brother. “You’re right, Beck. I should marry. Bring on the suitors, then. Bring them now! If the prince says it—”

“Again, I did not say it,” the prince said quickly. “I simply had a conversation with a friend—I didn’t mean to offer advice.”

“But you did.”

“Caro! For God’s sake, he is a prince of Alucia! Show some respect!” Beck bellowed.

“My lord?”

Caroline and Beck turned toward the door at the same moment. Garrett had stepped inside, unnoticed by them, and interrupted what Caroline felt was the prelude to a brawl. “My lord, there is a gentleman at the door about the horse.”

“Ah!” Beck grinned and hopped to his feet. “That must be the stable master where I intend to house my horse when she arrives. Fine blocks of stables they are, too—the queen’s Horse Guard is stabled there.” He started for the door but paused to look at Caroline. “This would be an opportune time to do something with your hair,” he added, his fingers fluttering in the direction of the fallen tress that drooped over her shoulder as he hurried out.

Caroline made a face at his back and remained where she was, her arms folded. When she was certain he was gone, she pivoted around and marched to where the prince stood behind the open door.

He seemed alarmed at first and straightened as if he thought he might have to do battle. But then he quickly clasped his hands at his back, his legs braced apart, and seemed to prepare himself for whatever she had to say.

“How dare you,” Caroline said.

“How dare I...?”

“Speak to my brother about my marriage prospects!”

“Once again, I did not speak to your brother about your marriage prospects. Or even that you were not married. Your brother asked a question and I answered as I would answer any friend.”

“I am not his ward, for God’s sake. I’m a grown woman and I do as I please.”

“Evidently true on both counts,” he agreed. And then he smiled.

It infuriated her that he should smile in a way that would make her feel so buzzy. With a quick look at the door, she shifted closer. “I don’t have to do as he commands, you know.”

“I never dreamed that you did. I can’t imagine there is any man on this earth that can tell you what to do.”

She shifted even closer. She could detect the musky scent of his cologne, could see a bit of lint on his collar. “Why should any man tell me what to do? I am as much a person as him or even you, Your Highness.”

“Obviously.” He picked up the tail end of the loose tress of hair and brushed it along her collarbone before dropping it over her shoulder. It instantly slid forward again.

All the nerves in Caroline’s body began to sizzle. She despised this man, but she’d never been quite so aroused as she was in this angry moment. She dropped her gaze to his mouth and the shadow of his beard. “Why are you always here?” she demanded. “Are you having an affair with our Ann?”

His eyes widened. He barked out a laugh. “Good God, Caroline, do you speak every thought that occurs to you?”

She would ignore, for the moment, that he had used her given name, which meant, she supposed, that they were very much acquainted, thank you, just as she’d maintained all along. She would further disregard how pleasant her name sounded in his melodious accent. And she would not use this moment to discuss how many thoughts did not pass her lips, for there were quite a lot of them. “Well? Are you?”

His brows dropped into a dark frown, and he leaned forward. “Hear me plainly, woman. No. For God’s sake, no. If I were to have an affair, it would be with a woman who is lush, and curved in all the right places, and open to my suggestions for how to debauch her. Not a timid maid.”

The sizzle was quickly turning to fire. She couldn’t help but wonder what his suggestions for debauching a woman might be. Her gaze fell to his mouth again. She was feeling a little heady.

“My turn. Why aren’t you married? Surely a beautiful woman like you, with her own inheritance, and an enormous dowry, apparently, who does not have to do what any man says, would attract quite a lot of gentlemen in this town. Particularly the type who enjoy a great challenge. Or are they all bloody fools?”

Aha—again, she would not be put on her heels by a compliment casually tossed to her. “Of course I’ve attracted them,” she scoffed. “I don’t care for any of them. Why aren’t you married? Been waiting for the right Weslorian to come along?”

He chuckled, and his gaze moved to the bit of lace she’d sewn along the edge of her bodice. “The same as you, madam—I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do and I don’t want responsibilities.”

“Aha! So you do prefer maids, then.”

He slowly lifted his gaze to hers and held it tight, like he had her attention in his fist. “I prefer women, Caroline,” he murmured. “I prefer women who are confident of their place in this world...but perhaps those who hold their tongues when they ought.”

“Because you don’t agree with everything a woman says doesn’t make what she says wrong.”

He lifted his hand, and with the tip of his finger, he traced a line from the curve of her shoulder up to her chin. “Tell me, Caroline—what gives you the right to speak to me in this manner?”

She leaned forward, just an inch or so from him. “I was born with the right to speak however I want to whomever I want. You are not the prince of me.”

The prince blinked. “Of all the outrageous—”

She didn’t let him finish. She pushed at his chest with both hands, forcing him against the wall, and before he could recover, she rose up on her toes to kiss him. She kissed the prince like she’d never kissed another man in her life. Admittedly, there hadn’t been very many, and certainly she’d never kissed a gentleman like this. But there was something about this man that begged for it—he was so high and mighty, so sure of himself. She had never taken such liberties, and she’d never been so wholly thrilled with an act in her life. This was fire.

But for a high and mighty man, he seemed not to know what to do. He held his arms out wide, as if he were silently announcing he wanted no part of this. Except that his mouth said differently. Oh, but his lips and his tongue said something else entirely. He wouldn’t touch her with his hands, but he nipped at her lips, his tongue playing with hers. He pressed against her, his chest against her chest, and kissed her back as passionately as she kissed him. It was intoxicating, and it wasn’t until her hair found its way between their lips that she suddenly pushed him away and stepped back.

She was breathing raggedly and so was he. They were both panting like they’d chased each other around this room. They stared hard at each other for one endless moment. An entire book of thoughts and feelings and unspoken words flowing between them was written in that moment. Caroline felt something open in her, warm and wet and accepting.

But then he said, “What the hell is the matter with you?”

She didn’t have a good answer for him. A fever? If it was a fever, it was a new sort of fever, one that struck without warning and consumed her quickly.

He held up his hand, his palm facing her, as if he thought she would throw herself at him again. His eyes were dark, his lips slightly parted. He looked shocked. But he also looked dangerously aroused. “Never do that again,” he said in a low voice.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, and wheeled about, fleeing for the door. She leaped into the hall and nearly collided with Beck on his way back in.

“Caro?”

She ignored her brother, picked up her skirts and fled to her rooms with that kiss burning on her lips.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Invitations to Lord Pennybacker’s ball will be delivered by the end of the month. Alas, there will surely be those disappointed by the absence of an invitation in their post, as the number of persons desiring to attend has grown steadily through the month. Lady Pennybacker has said the ball will be limited to two hundred souls.

The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk have returned to their family seat as the duchess enters her period of confinement. The couple has enjoyed the calls of many notable personages, including Lord Hawke and his sister, who is much acclaimed for her beauty. So acclaimed, it seems, that a gentleman who is expected to formally enter an engagement of princely proportions in a matter of weeks invited himself along.

It is discovered by many that Lady Caroline Hawke’s talents have extended to dressmaking. Ladies in Mayfair are suddenly clambering to have an evening dress designed and fashioned by our dear friend. She has a unique talent for drawing on the English-and Alucian-style gowns and creating coveted garments. She is taking limited requests for the winter season.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

AFTER A FULL two days of torment, Leo couldn’t shake that kiss.

He was strolling alongside Beck as they toured the stable blocks, and while Beck maintained a stream of commentary about the accommodations for his Alucian racehorse, Leo kept thinking about his outrageous, remarkable sister.

That kiss appeared in his thoughts at the oddest times. When he was alone. In the middle of the night. At breakfast, at lunch, at tea with friends.

He was shocked she’d done it, shocked that she’d so brazenly presumed that she could. And then again, he wasn’t surprised at all. He was appalled by her insolence but also admired her pluck. He was angry that she’d taken the liberty but also damn well excited by it.

He was beginning to believe that he’d never met a more perplexing, confounding, beautiful woman in his life. He seemed to be feeling every emotion—good, bad or indifferent—that a man could feel about a woman.

He was also feeling a libidinous desire that was not responding to his usual attempts to keep it at bay. He wanted to do that kiss again. Only this time, he’d do the kissing, thank you.

He had to force himself to think of something else. He turned his attention again to the women he was trying to save. He had intended to speak to his old friend Norfolk about Jacleen at the supper party, but then the supper had been indefinitely postponed. If that bloody gazette was to be believed, it was because of him. It must be true, because more than one gentleman had laughingly congratulated him for his indiscreet call to Mrs. Mansfield’s “house.”

“Never knew a bloke who could draw so much attention to his activities,” said a man he knew only as Hornsby with a guffaw.

Mr. Frame, who had vigorously cautioned Leo about the need for discretion and a moral compass before leading him to Mrs. Mansfield’s house of ill repute, had a fat mouth.

Now Norfolk and his family were in Arundel, awaiting the birth of their fourth child. That made things more difficult—Leo couldn’t simply drop in on the duke in Arundel. One did not “pass by” a grand English estate in the country, particularly if one had no holdings in that direction... Herstmonceux notwithstanding.

But then Beck handed Leo a solution.

A few days after Caroline had kissed him senseless, Leo had joined Beck at their favorite gentlemen’s club for a spot of gin. Out of the blue, Beck began complaining about having to make a trip to Arundel. “The rains have been awful and left the roads almost impassable, I’ve heard. It will take a full day to get there.”

Leo looked up. “You’re to Arundel?”

Beck sighed. “I promised Caro. Lady Norfolk is her friend, and she’s made a dress or dressing gown or a bonnet, I don’t know what, for her time in confinement.”

“Norfolk is an old acquaintance,” Leo said casually. “We were at Cambridge together. I’ve spent a holiday or two at Arundel.”

Beck didn’t bite. He nodded pleasantly. “Grand place, isn’t it? I’ve known the old chap quite a long time myself.”

Leo sipped his gin. The taste was too bitter. “When will you go?”

“Thursday,” Beck said, and glanced at his watch.

Leo drummed his fingers on the table before them, thinking how to proceed. He could not recall another time he’d been in the position of having to ask to be included. It was he who was always fending off people who wanted to join his party. What a strange new world. He eyed Beck from the corner of his eye and thought what to do. He thought perhaps the best way to approach it was the most direct way. “Beck, my friend, would you mind terribly—”

“Don’t ask it of me, Leo,” Beck muttered.

“Pardon? But Henry is my old friend.”

Beck shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He looked around, as if seeking a footman, even though his glass was full. “Naturally, Highness, at any other time I would be delighted—”

“Ah. I’m a Highness again,” Leo said with a bit of a sardonic laugh.

Beck groaned. He rubbed his face, then looked Leo in the eye. “It’s his wife. Augusta is...reluctant.”

“Reluctant,” Leo repeated.

Beck leaned forward. “You’ve gained a bit of a reputation,” he said with an apologetic wince.

“No. Listen, Beck,” Leo said quickly. “The things that are said about me are not true. Well, not entirely true. That is, they are true, but not in the way you or Henry might understand. I know the supper party was postponed on my account, and I should like to set the matter to rest, with my old friend, if nothing else but for the sake of our friendship.”

Beck winced again. “She’s at the end of a pregnancy and, as I understand it, rather uncomfortable. I’d not want to give her any cause for more discomfort.”

“I won’t see her,” Leo promised. “Arundel is as big as a palace—it is entirely possible our paths need not cross at all. I will do my best to stay out of her way.”

Beck leaned back, bracing both hands against the table. He filled his cheeks with air, then slowly released it. “Yes, all right,” he said after a moment. “I don’t believe what is said of you. God knows worse has been said of me.” He paused. “Well. Not worse, for what is said of you is wretched. Pardon, but you understand. Yes, of course you must come, Leo. We men must stick together.” He smiled.

Leo didn’t think men needed to stick together. It seemed to him they had the upper hand in almost everything as it was.

“I ought to send a messenger,” Beck said. “I should let him know you’re coming.”

“No, no,” Leo said hastily. “He would tell his wife, and the anticipation might cause her undue anxiety. When I call, people tend to be concerned with propriety and having everything just so, as it were.”

“Ah,” Beck said, nodding sagely. “Of course.” He laughed. “I’ve quite forgotten you are a prince.”

Leo laughed, too. “I think so have I.”

CAROLINE COULDN’T KEEP the secret of that kiss another moment. She lasted an entire four days before she went to see Hollis and thought her restraint was rather remarkable given the extraordinary situation.

She wanted to kiss him again, but perhaps this time with his arms around her. She was confused by this desire—how could she feel such strong feelings for the worst sort of scoundrel? He was blithely seducing maids and walking out with women of the night! And then charming women like herself into bad behavior.

She arrived at Hollis’s house after a brisk walk, feeling as strong as she ever had and rather invigorated by the vexation with herself and that wayward prince. Hollis’s home was close by—her late husband, Sir Percival, felled by a muddy road and a carriage accident, had left his widow in very good circumstances. She lived quite comfortably near Hyde Park, in a very large house with minimal staff. It was true that a rich, attractive young widow was quite a lure, and gentlemen of all stripes had sniffed around Hollis in the almost three years she’d been widowed. But Hollis was never interested.

She knocked on Hollis’s door with her usual flair, a series of rapid-fire knocks. A few moments later Donovan opened the door. He stood casually in the doorway, his legs braced apart, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal thick forearms. He was holding a silver teapot and worked to polish it as he looked Caroline up and down. “Good afternoon, Lady Caroline,” he said. “What a pleasure to see you in good health. I had heard you were all but dead.”

“Ha. It will take more than an ague to kill me, sir.”

He smiled. The man was simply stunning in his masculinity and good looks. “That’s the very reason I didn’t believe it. Do come in.” He stepped aside so that she could enter the foyer.

Caroline removed her bonnet and dangled it from one finger in his direction. “Donovan, on my word, you are an Adonis in the flesh.”

“Pardon?” He took her bonnet and tossed it onto a console.

“A Greek god.”

One of his dark brows arched. “You are mistaken, milady—I’m but a regular Englishman.”

She laughed. “You can’t be a regular Englishman, because you are impervious to flattery.”

“Not entirely.” He smiled again.

Something delightful fluttered in her veins. “Where is your mistress?” she asked with a coy smile.

“In her study, naturally, where she spends most of her day.” He gestured for her to follow and led her to Hollis while whistling a cheery tune. He stepped into the room and said, “Lady Caroline is calling.”

“Caro!” Hollis called happily from somewhere inside.

Caroline slid past Donovan with a wanton smile. He returned that smile with a smile of amusement, then closed the door behind her as she entered Hollis’s cluttered study.

Hollis was bent over the layout of her gazette. She’d turned what had once been a very lovely room into an office, where she pieced together her gazette before sending off a template twice monthly to Gilbert and Rivington for printing.

A repurposed dining table dominated the center of the clutter, upon which Hollis had spread out the pages of the current edition of her gazette. Past issues were stacked around the floor and on shelves that Donovan had constructed. A tabby cat was stretched across the stacks on the floor, and another sat like an ornament on one of the shelves. There were books and strings and scissors and visors that Hollis wore when she worked late in the night.

Hollis had also taken to using a monocle to examine the print layout of her gazette, and at present, she held it up to one eye.

“This looks more and more like a government office,” Caroline complained, glancing around her. She took some broadsheets from the seat of the only armchair in the room and shoved them onto a shelf and sat.

Hollis put down her monocle. “What brings you round on this fine day, other than to seduce my household help?”

“I can’t help myself, Hollis. Donovan is a beautiful man and he deserves to be admired, and you won’t do it.”

“He is admired, you may depend. Last week, he accompanied me to the market, and there we met a lass who put herself in our path at every turn. She reminded me of you. Very tenacious, that one.”

Caroline laughed and stacked her feet on top of a pile of gazettes on an ottoman. “I have news.”

“Splendid!” Hollis said. “I’ve just enough space for a bit of gossip in the next issue. Tell me.”

“You know about Prince Leopold and the brothel.”

“I do indeed! You came here with the news yourself, remember?”

Caroline remembered. She’d made a mad dash, as she recalled it now. “Which happened only a week after I spotted the prince chasing our maid Ann around Leadenhall market.”

“I still can’t believe you went there!” Hollis said with delight. “I wrote Eliza straightaway and told her you went to Leadenhall in the company of Mr. Morley and his sisters.” She laughed.

“Never mind that,” Caroline said. “I suspected the prince was a rake, but the visit to the brothel was the truth. But then Priscilla told Lady Montgomery—”

“Oh! I heard about that,” Hollis said. “She was incensed he would do something so terrible before her ball.”

“And naturally, I told Lady Norfolk, because she would never forgive me if Lady Montgomery banished the prince and she didn’t have the opportunity to do the same.”

“You did?” Hollis asked.

“I did! It’s wretched behavior for a man of his stature.” She folded her arms and stared off into space for a moment.

She realized Hollis hadn’t said anything and glanced in her direction. “What? Why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what? Like I’m terribly curious about what goes on in your head? I thought you had clearly resolved to be less infatuated with him, darling.”

“I’m not infatuated with him,” Caroline scoffed.

“Really? Because this is the second call you’ve made to my house since crawling off your deathbed, and both times have been to complain about him.”

Caroline huffed. “He just confounds me, that’s all. That’s why I think that ladies of good reputation should steer very clear of him. He can be quite charming, but beneath the surface, this despicable behavior lurks. But the die has been cast, hasn’t it? Priscilla said Lady Pennybacker means to reduce her guest list, as well.”

“Caro! What are you doing?”

She hadn’t really meant to set all these wheels in motion, but Priscilla couldn’t stop telling everyone she knew, and Augusta, well... Caroline had been in a bit of a mood during that call. “My friends would not want someone of questionable morals in their homes. I have no choice in the matter, as Beck thinks he and the prince are the best of friends.”

“Well. I suppose you know best,” Hollis said with a hint of sarcasm.

“I don’t know if I do or not, but I’m ashamed that I ever kissed him.”

Hollis gasped.

Caroline waved her hand at Hollis as if it were a trifling matter. But it was no trifling matter. Her heart was permanently singed from that kiss. “It was nothing! I was angry, that’s all.”

“Angry! Why would you kiss someone if you were angry?” Hollis scoffed. “Don’t you dare sit there looking so coy, Caroline Hawke. Tell me what happened.”

Naturally, Caroline told her everything. That’s why she’d come, after all—to unburden herself. She told Hollis about Beck’s new determination to see her married, and how he’d been lecturing her in his study, and how she hadn’t seen the prince in the room until it was too late. How she accused the prince of meddling and how he’d called her Caroline. She didn’t tell Hollis that when he said her name in that low, silky voice of his, it had curled around her like a warm silk wrap and held her there. She explained to Hollis that the act had been so impetuous, that it was almost as if someone else entirely had taken over her body, and she hardly realized what she was doing until she did it.

Hollis sat back, grinning with wonder at Caroline.

“Stop grinning at me,” Caroline groaned.

“That was bold, even for you, Caro. Do you think you’re in love with him?”

The question jolted Caroline. “For God’s sake, Hollis! Of course not.”

“Smitten, then. You must admit it, it was very kind of him to bring you flowers while you lay ill.”

“He didn’t bring flowers for me, he brought them for Ann. Honestly, I can’t abide him. He deserves Lady Eulalie, if you ask me. I can’t imagine why she’d want to bind herself to him.”

Hollis laughed. “Can’t you? She is binding herself to him for wealth and privilege, and he to her for political alliance.”

“But that’s not what marriage is for,” Caroline complained. “One should marry for felicity and companionship, not to keep from being murdered.” She plucked irritably at her sleeve. “I would avoid that sort of arrangement with all that I had.”

“You’re not a prince and you don’t believe in marriage in the best of circumstances,” Hollis said.

“That is not true,” Caroline insisted.

Hollis shrugged. “All right. You fear marriage.”

“I don’t fear it. Contrary to what you think, I should very much like to be married. But...” She winced. “I want to be wanted for me. Not for my looks. Or the size of my dowry. Those things can’t sustain a marriage.”

“You bring to mind Mary Pressley,” Hollis said thoughtfully. “She fell very much in love with Malcolm Byrd, and he supposedly with her, and she’s been terribly unhappy ever since.”

“He treats her like a dog,” Caroline said flatly. Mary was a childhood friend of Caroline’s. A sweet girl, who’d never wanted anything more than to be married and be a mother. She was courted by Mr. Byrd, who had charmed her down to her toes. She fell very much in love with him. She and Caroline would lie on Caroline’s bed and spend hours talking about Mr. Byrd, and what her wedding dress would look like and how many children she might have.

But the reality turned out to be quite different from the daydream. Malcolm Byrd was nothing like what he’d presented to Mary while courting her. He was a beast, he was cruel and he didn’t hesitate to strike Mary if she failed to please him.

Once, after Mary had given birth to her first child, Caroline had begged her to run from him, but Mary had laughed sourly. “And go where, Caroline? My elderly parents? I have no money, nothing to my name. He would never allow me to take our son. This is my cross to bear.” And then she had taken Caroline’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “You never know a person until you’ve shared a bed and a house. It’s impossible to know their true nature. Mind you, have a care.”

That stark warning had stayed with Caroline. Gentlemen would come to call, perfectly pleasant and polite gentlemen. But invariably, she would wonder about their true nature, and they certainly never inquired after hers. For every marriage like Hollis and Percival’s, or Eliza and Sebastian’s, she knew a story of another, darker marriage.

But she would concede that she did very much want to be loved.

“I think you should tell the prince how you feel,” Hollis said.

“How I feel about what? You’re mad, Hollis,” she said, and Hollis giggled. “I didn’t come here for that sort of advice.”

“You came because I am your confessor and your conscience. Want to go round and see Papa with me?”

“I’d love nothing better,” Caroline said, and sighed. “But I can’t today. Beck and I are to Arundel on the morrow. I promised Augusta I’d call. She’s terribly worried about being lonely. She has no one but her children to entertain her, you know.”

“Ooh,” Hollis said, her eyes rounding. “They may be the least entertaining children I know. Wild little beasts. Always carrying on about a pony.”

Caroline stood. She walked around the table to bend over Hollis and give her a hug.

“Farewell, darling! My love to Beck. See you next week, then?” Hollis asked as Caroline started out of the room.

“If not before!” Caroline called over her shoulder.

She grabbed her bonnet from the console where Donovan had placed it and walked out into bright sunlight. She looked up, blinking at blue sky. She didn’t love Prince Leopold. Just because he was the only man in a very long time to have filled her imagination, or to have failed to notice her facade, or had seen past it, didn’t mean she loved him or held him in any sort of particular esteem. So why did the thought of him leaving England unsettle her so? Why should she feel a little bit bereft, a little bit remorseful and a little bit heartsick?

Because she was a fool, that was why, with a terrible habit of being attracted to rakes. She would think of the kiss often, but she would not miss him a moment after he’d gone.

She convinced herself that was true and even believed it...up until the moment he climbed into the coach that would ferry them to Arundel.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A lady generous in spirit and in person is adding to her household, and happily, it is not another dog. In this circumstance it is the addition of two new chambermaids. It is expected the lady and her lord will entertain many over the coming weeks of summer, beginning with the first garden party of the season.

Ladies, apply a toilet mask to your face each night liberally coated in sheep fat. After two weeks of night use, skin will revive its youthful vigor.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

LEO COULD COUNT on one hand the number of times he’d actually felt a woman’s disdain for him. Actually, he didn’t even need his hand, for he counted exactly zero times. Until today.

Today, when he’d stepped into the coach in front of Clarendon Hotel, Lady Caroline’s gaze had turned to ice. Leo had expected their first meeting after that kiss to be interesting, but he hadn’t expected that. It was almost as if she had determined she was the injured party, when in fact it was she who had taken liberties with him.

She folded her arms and glared at her brother. “What is the meaning of this?”

Beck blinked with surprise. “The meaning of...?”

She slid her gaze to Leo.

“Prince Leopold? Well, His Highness is to Arundel, like us, and I offered him to ride along.”

“What? He has his guards. Shouldn’t they be the ones to escort him?”

“They are escorting us, Caro. They are riding behind, but the coach is obviously more comfortable for the prince.”

“For heaven’s sake, Beck,” she said irritably, and began to fluff the many, many flounces on her skirt.

“God as my witness, I never understand you. What is the matter? Has he offended you?”

Lady Caroline’s face turned pink.

“Je, please tell me if I have offended you, Lady Caroline, and I will do my utmost to atone for it. When last we spoke, I had the impression you esteemed me quite a lot.” Leo smiled.

Caroline’s color deepened. “I do beg your pardon, Your Highness, if that was the impression I gave you. I was being polite.”

“Ah,” he said, his smile deepening. “Then I must commend you—you were zealously polite.”

“It’s called civility, sir.”

“Is that what it’s called.” He gave a shake of his head. “I am forever learning proper English.”

“What have I missed?” Beck demanded of the two of them.

“Nothing!” Caroline said, and looked away from Leo.

But Leo did not look away from her. He rather enjoyed her discomfit. He was the one who was always back on his heels when they met, and he didn’t mind that, for once, she was the unsteady one. He liked how it turned her cheeks an appealing shade of pink, and how it made her green eyes sparkle so brilliantly with vexation.

“It is clearly something,” Beck said, sounding confused.

“Really, Beck? Have you forgotten that you started it by seeking the advice of His Royal Highness about what to do with your poor, burdensome, unmarried sister?”

“I didn’t ask for his advice,” Beck corrected her. “I know precisely what needs to be done. You’ll see.”

Lady Caroline rolled her eyes. But Leo was interested in what Beck thought needed to be done.

“I’ve some prospects for you,” Beck said.

That caught Caroline’s attention. She looked at her brother curiously. “Who?”

“Ladley, for one.”

She laughed. “Your old school chum? Robert Ladley has never passed a whisky or an ale he didn’t drink.”

Beck’s brows dipped as this was news to him. “I beg your pardon. Ladley was sober enough to go with all due haste to fetch a doctor the night you almost died.”

“I didn’t almost die, and is it not true that very recently you had to have the help of two footmen to haul him out to a hackney?”

Beck’s brows sank deeper. “One time.”

“Who else?” Lady Caroline chirped, having dismissed the Earl of Montford as a prospect.

Beck sniffed. “Lord March.”

Leo didn’t know Lord March, but Lady Caroline clearly did. She slowly turned her head and pinned her brother with a look that made even Leo cringe.

“He’s not as bad as you think,” Beck said quickly. “I know what is said of him, but just because Hollis prints it doesn’t make it true.”

“She happens to be exceedingly accurate in most things. Keep thinking, Beck. And really, this seems neither the time nor place to discuss my dismal marriage prospects. We’d not want to make the drive tedious for His Royal Highness.”

“He doesn’t mind,” Beck said confidently, when, in fact, Leo did indeed mind. “You mustn’t think of him as a prince, really, Caro. He’s more like...like an uncle.”

“An uncle?” Leo said, incredulous.

“My point is, you’re like family now,” Beck said. “You are the brother of Prince Sebastian, married to Eliza, and Caro, you have always said you and Eliza are more sisters than friends. God knows she and Hollis treat me like an outnumbered brother.”

Caroline stared at Leo. Leo stared back. He could feel the tension between them, could feel it fill the carriage and press against the walls, could detect the scent of desire mixed pleasingly with her perfume. “Fine,” she said. “He’s my uncle.”

“I am not your uncle,” Leo said. “I am no one’s uncle,” he added for Beck’s benefit, but neither of them appeared to be listening to him. Lady Caroline had positioned herself so that her gaze was on the window and the passing scenery of trees and rolling hills dotted with sheep. And Beck, upon seeing the same rolling hills, launched into a tale about a hunt he and Norfolk had participated in several years ago where the dogs had been thrown off the trail of a fox by a dead deer.

It was enough to put a grown man to sleep.

After what seemed an hour of mindless chatter, Leo felt himself sliding off into dreamland when he was suddenly jolted by a strange bounce in the carriage. He sat up. Beck was leaning forward, straining to see out the window as the coach rolled to a halt.

“What the devil? Stay here, the both of you,” Beck said sternly. He flung open the door and hopped out, then slammed the door shut behind him. Leo could hear him calling up to the driver, asking if it was a wheel.

Caroline slowly pushed herself upright, her gaze locked on Leo.

Leo leaned back against the squabs. The sound of men talking, or perhaps even arguing, faded into the distance.

“Shouldn’t you step out and see what has happened?” she asked. “Perhaps lend a hand?”

“Thank you for the suggestion of how I ought to behave, but I believe I’ll remain here and discover why you are treating me like a leper.”

“I’m not treating you like a leper.”

“No? Feels a bit like it. Whatever you may call it, you are treating me quite differently than you did the last time we met. You do remember the last time we met, do you not?”

The color in her cheeks returned. “Yes, all right, I was ill behaved when last we met, but I was terribly cross. I beg your forgiveness.”

“Interesting.” He sat up and braced his arms against his knees, leaning toward her. “What a strange thing you do when you are cross. Is it always so?”

“Obviously not. It depends on the person and the injury.”

He nodded, amused. “I don’t know if you are complimenting me or not.”

She frowned. “It won’t happen again. I lost my head, that’s all. My actions were in no way an indication of any...regard for you.”

“Ah. But the color in your cheeks just now and the enthusiasm in your kiss would suggest otherwise. Are you certain you don’t have a bit of regard for me?”

She clucked her tongue. “Completely certain.”

Leo leaned forward in the small space between them. Lady Caroline pressed back. He placed his hands against the bench where she was sitting, on either side of her knees. “May I offer a bit of advice, Caroline?”

Her lips parted and she drew a slight intake of breath. “I’d really rather you not.”

He lifted one hand and touched his fingers to her jaw. “My advice—”

“Which I just said I’d rather not have—”

“Is that you not kiss a man in anger. An angry kiss can be an enjoyable kiss, and certainly yours was, I won’t deny it. But it’s not as enjoyable as a happy kiss.”

She blinked. Her eyes had landed on his lips, and he could feel desire stirring in him. “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it. I understand you’re an expert.”

“I do know a little about it,” he agreed. He couldn’t help himself—he touched a dimple in her cheek with the tips of his fingers.

“And I know a little about rakes,” she said as he tilted her chin up just slightly. “I know one instantly.”

Leo smiled. He leaned closer. “Are you cross, again, Caroline?”

“Yes, Leopold, a little.”

“Would you like me to move away?”

She hesitated. She pushed his hand from her face, and he thought that was the end of it. He was just about to slide back into his place when she cupped his face with her hand. “Just be warned that if you kiss me, it will mean something. I would advise you think long and hard about that.”

“I am thinking long and hard,” he said, and shifted closer.

She put her hand on his chest and sighed. “You are the worst sort of rake, Leopold Chartier. But if you mean to do it, then do it. We haven’t much time.”

He bit back a laugh of surprise. “Has anyone ever told you how contradictory you are?”

She traced her thumb across his bottom lip. “What the devil are you waiting for?”

Leo moved then, touching his mouth to hers. He kissed her quite differently than she kissed him. She’d pressed her mouth hard against his, her tongue probing. He kissed her softly and carefully, lingering against pillowy lips while the faint scent of florals teased his nose. The kiss was so exquisite that he had to claw his fingers into the squabs to keep from falling into her and nibbling her up like a delicious delicacy. He teased her lips apart with his tongue. She tipped her chin up and opened her mouth to him. The kiss was tender and slow, but the flames in him were not. This was the tiny gasp of air in a hearth before a fire raged.

Caroline lifted her hand and cupped his jaw. The gentle touch of her fingers caused him to shiver—he felt as if he could explode with his desire at any moment. He had meant to tantalize her, but she was luring him in, enticing him to a mystic mountain of pleasure, and he very much wanted to go with this brash woman.

Don’t tell me what to do. Her words popped into his head. He wouldn’t tell her what to do; he’d let her lead him to what she wanted. He leaned in, pressing her against the squabs at her back. The kiss was quickly sending him off to oblivion—he wanted to touch her flesh, to feel her skin against his. He wanted to put his hand between her legs and feel the damp of her desire.

It was Caroline who reminded him of where he was. She cupped his face with both hands and pushed his head back. Her lips were wet with his kiss. “My brother is just outside.”

Beck. His only friend if his life continued to progress as it had the last few weeks. Leo gathered himself. He nodded, pressed his eyes shut for a moment, then fell back across the carriage, adjusting his Alucian coat to hide his enormous erection. He pushed his hand through his hair and smiled at her. “How did you find that kiss, madam?”

A ringlet of her hair had tumbled out of place, and she very carefully tucked it back in. “I found it serviceable.” She smiled impertinently.

“I don’t believe you,” he said playfully. “I think you felt that kiss in a way you’ve never felt one before.” He arched a brow, daring her to disagree and knowing full well that she would.

But she laughed and said, “Now who is proud? Very well. It was very nice, Highness. Thank you.” Her smile broadened.

She enjoyed the game she was playing. So did Leo. “You little—”

The door suddenly swung open and Beck’s head popped into the interior of the carriage. He looked at his sister, who was smiling like a fat little feline. “Bit of a mechanical problem,” he said, hoisting himself back inside. “One of the harnesses, as it happens. It’s always something with the harness, isn’t it?” he asked, and began to talk about the number of times he’d been involved with harness issues.

Leo didn’t hear much of what he said. All he could think of was how hard he was for the woman sitting across from him with the most annoyingly enticing and cheeky little smile he’d ever seen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

All of London rejoices with the return of the sun to our skies, but many have already departed for the country. In Sussex, it is anticipated that Lord Hawke will debut his Alucian racehorse at the Four Corners event. He is rumored to have brought the steed to Arundel to be housed there until the racing season is complete.

An afternoon tea at the home of Mrs. Moriarity was remarked because of one particular guest who arrived clad in a morning gown. Ladies, it is important to know how to dress for the occasion, lest you be the one everyone remembers and not for the reasons to which you aspire.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

AUGUSTA, LADY NORFOLK, was in a very foul mood, for which she could be forgiven. She was in the last month of her pregnancy and complained that nothing fit her, her back hurt, and that she hated her husband.

“Augusta,” Caroline said with a sympathetic smile. “You don’t hate Henry.” She had fit the dressing gown she’d made for Augusta around her but realized she’d hardly made it large enough. That was her own fault—she’d never been so close as this to a pregnant belly, and it was...quite large. Privately, Caroline worried that Augusta was carrying more than one child in there. It looked like an entire village.

Augusta had collapsed onto a chair with her legs sprawled in front of her. Caroline wandered over to the towering window to gaze out at the vast lawn below. It was a gloriously sunlit day, and she longed to be outside with everyone. Beck and Norfolk reclined in chairs like a pair of country gentlemen. A nursemaid rocked Augusta’s baby, scarcely a year old, under the boughs of a tree. And in the clearing, the prince...Leopold...was romping with Augusta’s two young daughters along with a frisky black-and-white dog.

He appeared to enjoy it. He was laughing with the girls, encouraging them to chase him. Caroline tried to picture him with the children Lady Eulalie would bear him. Little princesses and princes that looked like him.

It made her feel a little achy.

She absently touched her fingers to her lips and remembered again that staggering kiss in the coach. It had been so tender and considerate—not the same desperate passion she’d shown him. And yet her body had bloomed with it. She could feel herself opening up like a flower, wanting more. Wanting all of him.

Good God. Maybe Beck was right and it was time for her to marry. She was as randy as she’d ever been, wanting things she would not take. Caroline was no saint—she’d been kissed and petted and more. But she’d always been conscious of her virtue and the need to protect it. Great families, her mother had said, maintained their stature through their heirs, their morals and their generosity. She warned Caroline about doing anything that could bring shame to the Hawke name. “A man can recover from his mistakes,” she’d said. “But a woman will carry her shame to her grave.”

For some reason, that warning, said by a mother she’d lost many years ago, had stuck with her all this time. She’d certainly had many opportunities to bring shame to the family name. But yesterday, in the coach, she had seriously considered it.

“What are you looking at?” Augusta asked.

“Oh, just your daughters and your husband in the green below.”

Augusta emitted a sigh that sounded a bit like despair. Caroline turned from the window. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Augusta said. Then she shook her head. “I’m not. Henry disappears from me when I am in confinement.”

Caroline laughed, gesturing to the window. “But he is here, darling. He’s not gone anywhere at all.”

“He disappeared from me in the last four months before Mary was born. The moment he discovered I was with child again, he began to disappear again. He is here in body,” Augusta said morosely. “But not in spirit. He despises my body in this state.” A tear slipped from her eye. “He’s entered some sort of arrangement for exports, and as part of it, he brought home a kitchen girl. Can you imagine? She was part of that arrangement. It’s not the first time it’s happened, either, for him to have a girl tucked away in the servant’s quarters. I got rid of the last one.”

Caroline was stunned. “What are you implying?”

“What do you think?” Augusta asked tearfully.

“No, Augusta,” Caroline said, coming to her side. “That’s not true! He is besotted with you.”

“Don’t try to tell me what he is, Caroline! I know what he is and what he does.”

Caroline suspected she might, too. Last night when they’d arrived, Henry had whisked Beck and the prince away, as if Caroline and Augusta didn’t exist. When she’d mentioned it to Beck, he’d said it was because Augusta wanted nothing to do with Leopold, and really, did Caroline want to sit with the gentlemen while they smoked cigars and talked about masculine things?

“What are masculine things?” she’d asked.

Beck had frowned. “Masculine things. Use your imagination, Caro.” He’d tapped her head with two fingers and had left her to spend the day with a miserable Augusta.

“The dressing gown is beautiful,” Augusta said, stroking the embroidered placket.

“The embroidery is Martha’s work. She’s taught me quite a lot,” Caroline said. “She worked on it while I sewed the hem.”

“I never knew you had any talent,” Augusta murmured.

Caroline laughed. “Neither did I. But last summer, I couldn’t find a modiste who was willing to make a train like the Alucians wear. I’ve always been fairly good with a needle and thought I’d try. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be,” she said with a shrug.

The door to the salon opened, and a young maid entered, carrying a tray with tea service. She misstepped; the pot clattered against one of the cups.

Augusta took one look at her, and her expression turned dark. “For God’s sake, don’t be stupid.”

The way she snapped at the maid surprised Caroline. She’d never heard her speak so ill to a servant.

“I beg your pardon, milady.” The young woman spoke with a slight accent and seemed terrified of Augusta. She put the tea service on a table, then passed close to Caroline to collect a used glass. That’s when Caroline noticed something else about her—a tiny patch of green on her collar. Was that bit of color a coincidence, or was she Weslorian?

“Will you need anything else, milady?”

“No. Leave us,” Augusta said coldly.

The maid practically fled the room, and when Caroline turned back to Augusta, wondering what she ought to say, Augusta surprised her again by bursting into tears. “Augusta!” Caroline cried, and went at once to her side, dropping to her knees beside her. She took Augusta’s hand between both of hers. “What on earth troubles you?”

“That’s her,” Augusta said tearfully. “That’s the girl, the maid Henry is sleeping with.”

“You must be wrong, Augusta. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. Henry would never.”

“He would! He thinks I don’t know, but they all talk, the servants whisper, and I hear them. She sleeps in a room off the kitchen, and twice now, I’ve caught him coming up the kitchen stairs wearing nothing but his nightclothes. He doesn’t come to me—he goes to her.”

“Augusta,” Caroline said softly. But she couldn’t find words that meant anything. What Augusta described was the worst thing she could possibly imagine and perhaps the very thing she expected. “I don’t...men are...well, they’re beasts,” she said, unable to find the appropriate word for the Duke of Norfolk.

“That’s why I don’t want him here,” Augusta said as tears slid down her cheeks.

“Henry?”

“No, the prince! You were right about him, Caroline. He’s a rake, and I think he has influenced Henry. They were mates in school, you know. They have a long history. And from what you said, I began to think on it. They’ve been hunting, and they go round to the gentlemen’s clubs. I heard the prince went to a brothel, and took a girl away from it,” she said, whispering the word. “He probably dragged Henry along.”

Caroline stared at Augusta. She had not a single word to offer in the prince’s defense. She’d heard all the same, but he didn’t strike her as the type to drag others into his corruption. “I’m so sorry, Augusta.”

Augusta turned in her chair and gathered a pillow to her chest and bent over it as best she could and sobbed.

Caroline slowly stood and went to the window. She looked down at the bucolic scene again. Henry was sleeping with that very young maid? Leopold was dragging his friends to brothels? She looked at him, so at ease. He was sitting on the grass now, his legs stretched before him, and the girls were climbing on him. It was hard to look at him now and picture that side of him. It was harder to understand what would drive a man to that sort of behavior. It made her stomach turn a little. Did he kiss those young women like he’d kissed her? Did he smile at them as he smiled at her?

THE LONG DAY with Augusta ended when she claimed a blinding headache and sent word to her husband she would not attend supper. That left Caroline alone to dine with the three men. This was a situation she generally relished. She’d even brought a spectacular green gown, one that had been rather plain three months ago but now boasted a modified train—really, the Alucians wore them too long—and a revised neckline that was more daring than what she typically wore. She had planned to be admired as she always did, but this evening she was feeling out of sorts. She didn’t want their attention or admiration. What she wanted was to be home with her cloth and her needle and thread and her imagination. Lord, she was turning into a spinster with every tick of the clock.

The maid who was sent to attend her as she prepared for the evening was a bubbly lass. Janey, she said her name was. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, if that. About the same age as the other girl had appeared to be.

Janey was not shy about admiring Caroline’s gown or her looks. She was chatty. Caroline took advantage of that, and as she did a final check in the mirror, she said, “There is another maid here, a young woman with dark hair.”

“Oh, there are so many maids, madam! Arundel is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe bigger than Windsor. That’s what Adam said. He’s in the stables, and he rides with the duke and duchess to London to care for the horses.”

“It is indeed a very big estate,” Caroline agreed. “But this girl... I think she is Weslorian?”

“Ah, Jacleen! Aye, she’s come all the way from Wesloria. Hadn’t been in London two weeks before the duke brung her here. It’s all so new to her.”

“I can imagine it must be very new to her,” Caroline said darkly. She didn’t know if she could look at the duke tonight, knowing what he did, knowing that he’d brought that poor young immigrant here to service him while his wife carried his fourth child.

When she finally went down to supper, Caroline was feeling unusually subdued and unlike herself. Beck frowned darkly when he saw her enter the salon, most likely a result of his displeasure with her décolletage. Caroline ignored him. He ought to be thankful that she wasn’t sleeping with a footman like his friend the duke or rounding up her friends to go traipsing off to brothels like his friend the prince.

“Wine, madam?” a footman asked, holding a tray out to her as Beck turned his attention to the duke. Far across the cavernous room, Leopold was sitting in a chair, an open book in his lap.

“Thank you.” She took the glass from his tray, then walked to the window and watched the sinking sun wash the countryside in soft gold light. She hadn’t stood there long when she slowly became aware of a presence. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled thinly at the prince. She couldn’t help herself—the look in his eyes stirred blood, fever and heat. What was wrong with her that she could be so physically attracted to such a rake?

“Good evening, Lady Caroline.”

“Good evening, Highness.”

“You look...” His gaze traveled down the length of her. “Very well, indeed,” he said at last. But his eyes said something more. Or maybe she imagined it, wanting him to mean more. Blast it, she didn’t know what she wanted from this man! To leave her be or take her into his arms?

“Will Lady Norfolk be joining us?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Caroline said, turning her attention to the window.

He moved to stand beside her and look out, too. They stood that way for several long and silent moments. Or maybe only a single moment. Caroline was losing track of time—all her senses were trained on his presence beside her. “You like children,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I saw you playing with the girls earlier.”

“Ah.” He turned around, putting his back to the window so that he could face her. “I do like children, very much. Do you?”

“Yes.” She tapped a finger against her wine glass. “Do you ever think of having your own? What they will look like?”

He gave her a curious smile. “I suppose I have. Doesn’t everyone, at some point?”

She didn’t, really. She assumed she would have them, but with no real prospect of it, she didn’t think much about what her future children might look like, who they might be. “Well... I wish you and Lady Eulalie many happy, healthy children.”

Leopold’s countenance sobered instantly. “Yes.” He glanced away.

Caroline instantly felt contrite. She hadn’t meant to be rude; she’d meant to be polite. But given the turn their acquaintance had taken, it sounded a bit...petulant. She’d only said what was in her thoughts. What was so much in her thoughts suddenly. “I’m sorry—”

“No, don’t be,” he said quickly. “It’s a fair point.” He turned his gaze to her again and smiled sadly. “I find no joy in the inevitability of a match I did not seek.”

It surprised her that he would confess something like that to her. Of course it wasn’t a match he would seek—princes weren’t allowed to marry whomever they pleased. It hadn’t been that long ago that the Royal Marriages Act had been passed to keep royals from marrying people deemed unsuitable for the royal family. Leopold’s own brother had taken a great risk when he’d chosen Eliza—he could have been stripped of his investiture if his father had demanded it.

She suddenly felt a strange sort of sympathy for Leopold. How awful it must be to know all his life that the most important relationship he might have likely would not be of his own choosing. “Matches rarely are what we seek, I suppose.”

He gave her a distant smile. He glanced down at his glass and asked, “What about you, Lady Caroline? Is there a match you seek? Children you want?”

She shook her head. “I should like children one day, of course. But if I am honest, I don’t see it happening.”

He chuckled, as if she were being precocious. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, really, but when I picture my life, I see only me and Beck.” She smiled, ashamed to admit that was true. “We’re an odd little pair, my brother and I.”

“Circumstances have a way of bonding siblings to each other. For me and Bas, it was the box we were forced into as royal sons. For you and Beck, I would think it the tragic loss of parents at such a young age.”

That was true and perceptive of the prince—she and Beck had been inseparable all their lives, really. Beck had only been fourteen when their mother had died, their father gone long before that.

“How is Lady Norfolk?” he asked.

“She is...” Distraught. Devastated. Caroline shook her head. She was feeling so many confusing things just now. “She is very pregnant.”

“Ah. Perhaps she will feel at ease on the morrow when I take my leave.” He glanced around them, then said softly, “I heard them arguing last night, so I’m rather clear on her thoughts about me.”

“Oh dear.” If Augusta had been as plain with her husband as she had been with her, then Leopold knew everything. “I think only the birth of this child will put her at ease, really. She’s not herself.”

He lifted his glass of wine. “To Lady Norfolk’s health.”

“To her health.” She touched her glass to his and their gazes met—and held. It felt almost as if they were suspended in a space where only they existed. She could feel the same energy thrumming between them as she’d felt when he kissed her in the coach. A flush that betrayed her was creeping into her cheeks.

The spell was broken by the butler, who entered and announced rather grandly to His Grace the Duke that supper was served.

“Ah, splendid,” Norfolk said, and strode across the room to offer Caroline his arm. “Shall we?”

In the dining room, Caroline was seated directly across from Leopold. She lost track of the conversation—something to do with horse racing, of course. She kept looking up and catching Leo’s gaze on her. She watched how he laughed and teased his friends, how he respectfully offered his thoughts and advice when asked. Who was this man? Was he the same man who took a woman from a brothel for his pleasure? The more she was near him, the more she felt as if she didn’t know him at all.

She couldn’t stop stealing looks at him. In the glow of the candlelight, she couldn’t stop wondering what if.

What if, what if, what if.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The impending birth of a child can be the most anxious of times for the entire household, including any servants, as they often bear the brunt of familial discomfort and uncertainty. Word reaches us that a young chambermaid disappeared from her post after suffering harsh treatment from her mistress in Arundel. How curious that the lass would disappear at the same moment an illustrious and princely guest took his leave of Arundel.

Ladies, two eggs, whipped to a cream, should be applied vigorously and directly to the scalp for two minutes, rinsed with lukewarm water, and followed by Kaylor’s head cream. The result will be hair that feels like silk and curls much easier.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

LEO HAD SPENT a good portion of the afternoon sniffing out where Jacleen might be, but in this monstrous castle, it was not unlike looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. But Leo had a stroke of good luck when a maid carried in platters of food and tea for the duke and some of the local gentry who had come to call. She had a patch of green on her collar. She was slight and pale, with shadows under her eyes. She looked rather wan.

He watched her place the platter on a long table as instructed by the butler, and as she turned to go, Leo blurted, “Miss!”

The maid and the butler both turned to him, surprised.

“I’ve a shirt to be ironed,” he said quickly. It was the sort of order he had probably barked any number of times at Constantine Palace. A servant was a servant, there to do what was needed, and he rarely gave it any thought.

“Not her,” Henry said, appearing on his right and placing his hand on his shoulder. “She’s a kitchen maid. Janey will iron your shirt. Peterson,” he said, directing his attention to the butler, “send Janey to the prince’s suite.” Peterson nodded and gestured for the kitchen maid to go.

Henry laughed at Leo. “Traveling without a valet, Your Highness?”

“It is often more expeditious to leave him in London,” Leo said. “But he did warn me this might happen.”

Henry chuckled and wandered off to speak to some of his other guests.

Leo was certain that was Jacleen. So she was a kitchen maid. Now what? He couldn’t very well appear at the kitchen door and ask for her, could he? Perhaps he could pretend to be in need of something. No, that wouldn’t do. Henry had assigned a young footman to tend to Leo, and the lad watched him like a dog, trying to anticipate his every need.

And frankly, Leo was having a devil of a time escaping his host. After Leo had offered his apology for having offended his wife, Henry laughed. “She’s easily offended. You mustn’t pay the ladies any heed, Leo.” He certainly didn’t and proceeded to parade his friend the prince before his neighbors.

Perhaps later tonight, he thought. In Constantine Palace, kitchen workers slept near the kitchen. Work began at four o’clock in the morning in a large palace, and it kept them from padding around and disturbing those who were sleeping. He suspected the same was true of Arundel, give or take a half hour.

He settled on that, then. He would say he’d gotten hungry in the night and make his way to the kitchen, if he could find it. He’d already instructed Kadro and Artur to be ready at first light to escort him to London. Which meant he only had twelve hours left to find Jacleen.

Leo was so worried about his plan that he forgot about the shirt. When the maid Janey came to collect it, he was wearing it. Another blunder.

“I’m to iron a shirt, Your Highness,” she said cheerily, dipping a curtsy.

“Oh. Ah...” He looked around, seeking something she might iron, and finding none, glanced back at her and smiled sheepishly. “As it happens, it didn’t require ironing.”

“No?”

“The valet must have done it before I left. Or...or perhaps a footman here saw to it. I do beg your pardon.”

“Aye, Your Highness,” she said, undoubtedly relieved that she didn’t have to add the task to her list of chores. She curtsied again and turned to go.

“Girl,” Leo said abruptly. She turned back. “Janey, isn’t it?”

“Aye, Your Highness.” She smiled faintly.

Leo frantically tried to think of how to ask her where Jacleen might be. But the girl was staring at him, and he couldn’t think of a way to ask that didn’t seem entirely suspicious. He could imagine her hurrying back to the butler. Mr. Peterson, I think you should know that the foreign prince was asking how he might find Jacleen’s room! The thought appalled him, and he shook his head and smiled a little. “Nothing. Thank you.”

When she’d gone out, he dragged his fingers through his hair. “So, then,” he muttered aloud, “you are on your own, sir. For the sake of the kingdom of Alucia, I pray you manage without purchasing a ruin or a crate of live birds, or having to pay another one hundred quid. Or further damage a reputation that was, until recently, at least decorous.” He put his hand to his chest and bowed to himself. “Somewhat,” he muttered. “Don’t compliment yourself too heartily.”

He determined there was nothing left to do but wait until after midnight. Leo went down to dinner, joining Beck and Henry in the family’s private salon. But he bored of their conversation about racehorses and picked up a book, La Cousine Bette. He read until a footman opened the door and Lady Caroline entered the room. She entered like a queen, frankly, in a silk gown that seemed to move like a cloud around her as she walked.

She was lovely, a beauty by any standard. It did seem odd to Leo now that he didn’t remember meeting her in Chichester. He was generally very quick to notice beautiful women. So much so that a paramour had once accused him of seeing only the surface of women. Leo had thought about it and had agreed with her, much to that woman’s chagrin. But it was a truth—he’d never been in a position to form a meaningful connection with a woman for obvious reasons. He had to marry in Alucia and for Alucia, and any relationship he engaged in, romantic or otherwise, could be exploited. So he’d kept his interests to the physical.

If he was to judge on that criteria alone, Caroline Hawke met all his preferences.

Another reason he might not have noticed Lady Caroline that long ago evening was because of the habit he’d developed over the last few years of drinking far too much. It was a side of him that he did not like to admit to or examine, really, but alas, it was also truth. He drank to fill long, tedious hours of having nothing important to do. He drank to numb his feelings about being the spare prince with no meaningful responsibilities. But since his return from Alucia, he had noticed he didn’t have the same desire to fill those hours as he once had. Moreover, this recent change in his long-standing habit had made his mornings brighter and his days more coherent. He rather liked it.

And besides, something else occupied his thoughts now. Something important. He was determined to find these poor young women.

After speaking to Isidora and learning how she’d come to be in a brothel of all places, Leo’s mind had been made up. He couldn’t fathom men so unfeeling as to participate in such a scheme. And then to learn that one such man had been a friend of his, well...that left him feeling strangely ill. One assumed one knew his friends.

He would find these women and return home with them. He would help them face the men who had done this to them. He didn’t know how he’d possibly manage that, either, as he’d never tackled anything of importance in his life, and had deliberately steered clear of responsibility.

There was, as wisdom taught them, a first time for everything.

Which brought him around to thinking about Caroline again, as she, too, was a first of sorts for him. There was much more to her than a beautiful face and flawless figure. She had aroused his curiosity in new ways.

He had begun to realize, as he tried to bumble and maneuver his way through this new life of his, that he’d allowed himself to become intrigued by her. She was brash and impossible. Beautiful and sophisticated. Interesting. Furthermore, she’d accomplished something few people, if any, ever accomplished with him, and that was to turn his initial impression of her on its ear.

Since returning to England, he’d actually enjoyed his encounters with her and had found her impertinence strangely tantalizing. Refreshing, even. He had come to adore the spark in her and the way she went about her life in the most outrageous manner she could possibly get away with. And it went without saying that the rather constant thought of kissing her was popping up far too frequently, creeping in beside his more urgent thoughts of how to free the Weslorian women. Those two things made for uncomfortable bedfellows, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t deny his attraction.

Tonight, however, she was not quite as vivacious as he was accustomed to finding her, and that intrigued him. She was somber. Fatigued, perhaps? He noticed that she scarcely said a thing over supper. But then again, neither had he, as Beck and Henry were ridiculously absorbed in all this talk about horses and summer races.

It wasn’t until they had decided to have a go at the card game Commerce that Caroline finally perked up. Particularly when she began to win. That was when her eyes began to sparkle again in the low light of the candles. She delighted in winning, and when she delighted in anything, she was especially beautiful. When she laughed, the blond ringlets danced around her face, as if they were delighted, too. And when she crowed with victory and dragged her winnings across the table, she was entirely alluring.

She won three hands in a row and cackled each time. She said they were all “typically male” in being surprised by her win, and that she had “cocked their hats,” and had “catawamptiously chewed them up.”

“What does that even mean?” Beck had complained. “It’s gibberish, Caro.”

“It means I beat you, and I beat you soundly,” she said gaily.

Beck snorted. “You’ve been calling on your American friends, again, haven’t you?”

“Yes!” Caroline cried triumphantly. “They are very interesting women. You should make their acquaintance, Beck.” She stood up from the table, sweeping the coins she’d won into her hands. “This ought to purchase a new bonnet. Thank you, gentlemen.” She curtsied.

“Wait, where are you going?” Beck complained. “That is my winning, too, Caro. I gave you the money to start.”

“How right you are. How terribly thoughtless of me.” She carefully counted out two pounds and dropped them like pebbles onto the table before Hawke. “There is your investment returned, sir. The rest belongs to me. Good night, gentlemen!”

Leo rose, too. “I think it time I bid you all adieu, as well. I leave at dawn’s light and it is well past the time I should be abed.”

“What, so soon?” Henry asked. “But you’ve only just arrived, Highness! I thought we might ride down to the village tomorrow.”

His old friend was keen to have him stay, but Leo also suspected Henry would likewise be relieved when he left, given his wife’s feelings. “I’ve some Alucian state business to attend to.” Oh, but that wasn’t true at all. He had no official business that he knew of, but he had some very pressing unofficial business and he was running out of time.

Beck and Henry said their good-nights, then Henry signaled for a footman to refill their whisky glasses as Leo followed Caroline out of the salon. She paused in the hallway and glanced back at him.

“If you like, I’ll carry your coin for you,” he offered.

“Do you take me for a fool, sir? A lady learns very early never to hand her winnings to a gentleman. The next thing you know, he’ll want to invest it for you.”

“Very astute of you.”

They began to stroll along as if at their leisure, his hands clasped at his back, her hands cupping her coins. “I didn’t take you for a gambler,” he remarked.

“Really? I’m very much in favor of it. How boring life would be if one never gambled on anything.” She cast a quick smile at him, her eyes shining with amusement. “I sincerely hope, however, that you don’t sit at the gaming tables often. You played so terribly I shudder to think what the cost is to your royal coffers.”

“I beg your pardon, I was dealt very bad hands,” he said with a grin.

“Ah, the standard cry of the vanquished.” She laughed again and the warm sound of it slid down to his groin.

They started up the grand staircase, moving to one side when a footman went barreling past them in the opposite direction.

“You’re leaving on the morrow?” she asked, as she tried to maneuver up the stairs holding her skirt and her coins.

“Je. For heaven’s sake, Caroline, please allow me to carry your winnings. You may count every coin when we reach the next floor and flog me if any go missing. But you’ll never make it up these stairs without the very real danger of falling and cracking your head if you don’t have use of your hands.”

“You’re right.” She turned to him, reluctantly pouring her coins into his palm, then carefully closing his fingers around them. Her hand lingered on his. “Don’t drop them.”

He covered her hand with his free one and squeezed. “I would rather die,” he said gravely, and with a soft smile let her hand go.

She gathered her skirts, and they resumed walking up the stairs. “When will you return to Alucia?” she asked as she looked up at a portrait of an ancestor glaring at them from above.

“I can’t say for certain, but I’d wager sometime after I’ve been catatumpously chewed up by England.”

“Oh!” she crowed with delight. “Catawamptiously, Your Highness.”

“Leo.”

“Pardon?”

He smiled at her. “I like when you use my given name. My close friends call me Leo.”

“Then I shall call you Leopold.”

He shook his head. “For the sake of quenching my curiosity...are you the most obstinate woman in this land?”

She giggled. “Thank you for your confidence in me, Your Highness, but I think not.” She leaned toward him and whispered, “I think Lady Norfolk can be rather obstinate when she’s of a mind.”

One of his brows rose above the other. “I had that feeling.”

She laughed.

“Why do you ask about my return to Alucia? Are you so eager for me to be gone?”

“Oh, in the worst way,” she said with a winsome smile. “And I feel it is my duty to warn Eliza when the time comes. I write her every week without fail. I tell her everything.”

“I certainly hope not everything.” He winked. And then delighted at her blush. “Why bother writing? Her sister can send her gazette, in which, I may vouch, no stone of gossip is left unturned.”

“You are wrong about that. There are always certain details left out of the gazette,” she said as they reached the next floor. “Details the three of us keep to ourselves.” She paused. “Would you like to know what they are?”

“I would.”

“I thought you might! But I can’t tell you.” She laughed and turned into a wide corridor.

“Can’t you? I might have to employ my technique of teasing information from the most reluctant beings,” he warned her.

“It won’t work. My lips are sealed.” She mimed locking her lips with a key and throwing it away.

A maid hurried by them, also in the opposite direction. They both paused in their walk and watched her practically jog down the hall. They looked at each other; Caroline shrugged.

They carried on.

“What sort of things do you write to Eliza?”

“Everything! I wrote her about my illness and how my funeral had all but been arranged, and that no one had thought to ask me what I should like to wear to my own burial.”

Leo laughed.

“I write her about you,” Caroline said with a saucy little glance at him.

“About what? Are you spying on me?”

She clucked her tongue at him. “Spying is hardly necessary. Everyone knows your news.”

“This may come as a shock, madam, but much of what you think you know of me is not true. Most of it, I’d wager.”

“Ha,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“For example,” he said as they turned another corner into the wing where the guest rooms were situated. “I am not having an affair with your chambermaid, as you so ardently believed.”

“You brought her flowers,” Caroline pointed out.

“I brought those for you, Caroline. I thought you might like something to brighten your room.”

Her gaze narrowed skeptically.

“All right, I brought them to Beck to give to you, and he suggested that they would brighten your room. But as they were all occupied in the making of your soup, I took them up myself, because I wanted to look in on you and assure myself that my worthy opponent was not going to desert me.”

Caroline paused in front of a door to one of the guest suites. She turned her back to it and faced him. “What a lovely thing to say. I like the idea of being a worthy opponent. And I would almost believe your concern, but then you disappeared with Ann.”

She hadn’t missed a thing, even as ill as she was. “Je, I did. Only because Ann was acquainted with a Weslorian woman for whom I had a message. I needed to know where to find her. That’s all I ever asked of her.”

“And is that all you asked of her at Leadenhall?”

“That’s all, on my word. It required more than one meeting as she was disconcertingly reluctant to trust me.”

Caroline’s lips curved into a smile. She studied him a moment, then shrugged and tapped his hand. “My winnings.” She held up both palms.

Leo poured the coins into her hands. “There is something else you have wrong about me, if you’d like to know.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that, but please do try to convince me.”

He waited until she looked up from her hands and into his eyes. “I am intrigued by you, Caroline.”

She laughed. “Yes, I am well aware I have that effect on gentlemen.”

“I’m not talking about your looks, as fine as they are. I’m talking about you. There is something about you that...” He tried to think of the right English word to describe his esteem for her.

“That what?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“My English fails me. There is something about you that holds my attention in the most urgent manner.”

She blinked. A slow, uncertain smile appeared on her lips. Her gaze moved from his eyes to his mouth. To his neckcloth and chest. “Your English doesn’t fail you,” she said softly. “But I don’t believe you.”

He dipped down, so that his eyes were level with hers. “Why not?”

“I think I... I think that...” She looked down at the coins she held in her hands, frowning thoughtfully. “What I think is...that you...”

She was babbling. He’d surprised her, which, frankly, he would have not thought possible, but she was clearly unable to find words for the first time in their acquaintance that he could recall. Leo couldn’t help but smile. “Holy mother, you’re speechless.” He reached around her and turned the knob on her door and pushed it open.

“I’m not.” She stepped backward, into her room. He stepped forward. “I’m wary,” she clarified. “I think there is something you don’t know about me, too,” she said as she took another step backward, deeper into the room. “And you ought to know it.”

Leo moved across the threshold. “I am desperate to know what.”

“I will not part with my virtue, not entirely, no matter how you might tempt me. I will not part with it until I’m in love. So don’t think you can take it because you’re a prince and you’ve flattered me so expertly.” She took another step backward.

“You presume too much, madam. I would not dream of it.” Oh, but he would dream of it. He would probably dream of it tonight. He quietly shut the door at his back.

Caroline stepped to a table and kept her gaze locked on his as she deposited her coins. “If you would not dream of it, then why are you stealing into my room?”

“Stealing?” He glanced around him. “I walked in as you stood there. But if you like, I will go.” He prepared himself to be shown the door before he could touch her.

He desperately wanted to touch her.

He would start with the soft hollow of her throat. Then her shoulders. Her chest. “Say the word, and I’ll go.”

Caroline folded her arms. “I do want you to go.”

His entire body stifled his groan of disappointment. He mustered some sort of face-saving smile and bowed his head. “Very well.” He turned toward the door. “As you—”

“But I don’t want you to go, Leopold. I want to despise you, and I can’t seem to do it.”

His heart filled with hope. He slowly turned back. “Then don’t, Caroline.”

She bit her lower lip, as if biting back words. And then she sighed heavenward. “There is no point to this,” she said gesturing between them. “None at all! It only causes me to desire things that I can’t possibly have and shouldn’t want.”

“Why shouldn’t you want it? What is the harm in wanting?”

“Are you mad?” she asked with disbelief. “Yearning is nothing but agony.”

“That’s not true,” he said, stepping closer. “Yearning can result in extraordinary pleasure. But you don’t have to yearn or want, Caroline. We can be friends. I am a very good friend to those I care for.”

She clucked her tongue. “Robert Ladley is a friend. Even Mr. Morley is a friend. You are not a friend. You are a rake, and you’ve always been a rake. You are something else entirely than a friend.” Her gaze slowly slid down the length of him. “I don’t know what you are.”

In that particular moment, he was indeed a rake, because he was raging with desire. “Would you like to know what I think?”

“No,” she said, but then impatiently gestured for him to speak.

“I think an undeniable physical attraction between us has presented itself and has begun to flame. Personally, I find it increasingly difficult to ignore. But I’ve no desire to ruin you, Caroline. I’ve no desire to go against your wishes in this. I think too well of you to attempt anything crass. What I want, more than I want to kiss you or...” His gaze drifted down her body. He swallowed. “Or to touch you, is to spend time in your company. I want to discover what makes you so confoundingly original.”

One of her brows rose skeptically. “You do?”

“I do.”

She smiled dubiously. “I don’t trust you, Leopold Chartier.”

“So you’ve implied. You’re very cynical,” he said with a lopsided grin.

“You would be, too, if you were me. I’ve been lied to and flattered by more than one gentleman.”

“Ah, well, I can’t defend my sex. Men are such singular creatures when it comes to women. We are ruled by lust. But Caroline, if I wanted to lure you into my web, I would do it. I would entice you with riches and promises that I didn’t intend to keep. I would drape you in flattery. I would gift you with baubles. I’ve done none of those things, you may have noted. I’ve not promised you a thing, have I?”

She seemed to consider this a moment. “True...you’ve not gifted me any baubles and you certainly haven’t flattered me.”

He laughed. “You don’t need to be flattered. You need to be loved.”

Her lips parted and she stared at him, as if she hadn’t heard him properly. And then she looked at the door and rubbed her nape, as if rubbing off a chill. “Friend or foe, Leopold, it’s dangerous for you to be here in this room. My brother is downstairs with the duke.”

“Your brother is always close by.” He took another step closer to her. “This is a bit like gambling, isn’t it? How boring life would be if there was no danger to it?”

Her green eyes sparked with delight. “You do listen to me,” she said. This time, she was the one to move closer to him. “It would be impossibly boring, I should think. If one doesn’t gamble, one must be content with imagining what might have happened.”

“What do you imagine might happen?”

“This,” she said, and reached for him.

“I knew it,” Leo said as she drew him to her. “You like the danger.”

“Don’t talk—we haven’t much time.”

This was the second time she’d urged him to get on with it. Lord, but the woman was intimidating without even trying. A lesser man might have been cowed by that command, but Leo was not a lesser man—he was eager and captivated. He put his arm around her waist and pushed her onto an armchair. Caroline landed with an oof and a giggle. He landed awkwardly on top of her, facing her, his knee braced against the floor and somewhere between her legs, he thought, although the volume of her gown made it hard to judge.

“How aggressive of you.”

“You are the sort of woman a man must aggress.”

Her smile deepened into two dimples. “That’s not a word.” She shoved her fingers into his hair.

“You should be my tutor,” he muttered, and kissed her. The dam burst inside him, desire flooding through him, hardening his cock. There was desire, and there was desire that raged, and his was a raging river in his veins.

He moved to her neck and kissed a path from her neck to her décolletage, kissing the swell of her breasts, sliding his fingers under the fabric to touch them.

She giggled as if it tickled her, but Leo didn’t care. He kissed her again, demandingly, his tongue dancing with hers, his body pulsing with hers. He felt feverish in his skin, too hot. He was piteously aroused and exceptionally ravenous. He maneuvered a perfect breast from the bodice of her gown and drew the nipple into his mouth and felt himself lose a bit of control when Caroline moaned with pleasure. She dragged her fingers through his hair again, traced a soft line around his ears. “Tell me something, Leopold,” she asked breathlessly.

“Anything.”

“What would you do to me if I allowed it?”

Oh, madam. He glanced up from his attention to her breast. Her eyes had taken on a sheen that he hadn’t seen before, but he knew instinctively this was the deep light of desire. She may hold her virtue in high regard, but she lusted, just like him. Something primal and deep kicked hard at Leo. He braced his elbow against the armrest and brushed a curl from her temple, tucking it behind her ear. “If you allowed me, I would fill you up completely. I would carry you with me on an expedition the likes you’ve never experienced.” He kissed her cheek and whispered, “I would make you sob with pleasure.”

Her lips parted with the draw of her breath. Her fingers curled around his arm. “And then, perhaps, I would do the same to you?”

He was mesmerized. Provoked. Her smile was dangerous, and he could imagine how easily he could fall under her spell if he desired it.

She twisted a curl of her hair around her finger. “What’s wrong?”

“You,” he said. “Everything about you is wrong, and yet there is not enough of you.”

She sighed. “How odd that I would feel the same way about you.”

He ran his hand along her shoulder, over her collarbone and breast, down her side, and down one leg, to her ankle. He dug his way under her skirts until he touched the smooth silk of her stocking. She made a sound in her throat and wrapped her arm around his neck, rising up to him. Leo sank into her and shifted slightly so that he could follow a path up her leg beneath her dress, skimming over the silk, then sliding onto the bare skin of her inner thigh as he kissed her.

Caroline shifted lower in the chair, her legs a little farther apart, and Leo slipped a finger through the slit of her drawers and into the damp folds of her sex.

“Oh,” she said, as if she’d just heard something quite interesting. She closed her eyes as he moved his fingers on her. He could have pleasured her there, but it wasn’t enough. He kissed a path down her dress as he slid the hem of her dress up and over her knees. Caroline didn’t stop him. She grabbed at the fabric and petticoats, holding them there. She was as eager as he was, and knowing that aroused him even more. He took her by the waist, pulling her forward in the chair, then dipped his head beneath her skirt and brushed his mouth against the spring of honey curls.

Caroline was panting now. Leo nudged her legs farther apart and slipped his tongue between the lips of her sex. Caroline gasped with surprise, her fingers groping for his shoulders, gathering her skirt higher and higher. As he began to lave her, she groaned with the pleasure he was giving her, causing his blood to pound hotly.

He explored her thoroughly. She moved against him, panting for breath, the little cries of pleasure coming quicker and quicker as she neared her release. He stroked her, sucked her, nibbled as if she were a delicacy until she found it, crying out without regard for their privacy, her hands clutching at him, exalting in the throes of release.

And when it was over, she said, quite breathlessly, “Extraordinary.”

Extraordinary.

Leo sat up and delicately dragged a finger across his lips. He adjusted his clothing and watched with not a small amount of pleasure as her eyes skimmed over his erection. He carefully pulled her skirts down over her legs. There were desires and feelings he wanted to convey, emotions he wasn’t entirely sure he understood himself. The words that came to him were Alucian, and he couldn’t think how to say those feelings in English. So he said, “You are remarkable, Caroline Hawke.”

She laughed softly and sat up. “I know. But I didn’t know that so are you.”

Leo grinned broadly. He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet, kissed the back of her hand as if they’d just finished a dance, then her mouth, lingering there. “I should go.”

“You should.” She brushed something from his cheek, his hair from his forehead. She didn’t ask him any questions. She didn’t ask when she would see him again. She said nothing and smiled that catlike smile, looking sated and happy and in need of a nap. “Good night, Leopold.”

“Good night, Caroline.” He bowed. She curtsied as she bit back a laugh. With one last tug of his clothing, he carefully opened the door and looked out, then stepped into the hall.

He strolled quickly away from her door, but when he turned a corner, he encountered another maid hurrying toward him, this one carrying linens. It seemed an odd time of night for linens, but Leo had no notion of how these things were done. “Pardon, miss.”

The maid stopped and awkwardly curtsied. “Yes, milord?”

“I should like some bread—”

“I’ll fetch—”

“No, no, you are clearly occupied,” he said, gesturing at her linens. “Just point me to the kitchen, will you?”

“It’s directly below us, milord. Two floors down.”

“Very good,” he said with a nod, and continued walking.

He had not forgotten what he had to do, the stirring interlude with Caroline notwithstanding.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk are pleased to announce the duchess has been delivered of a healthy baby boy. The news was met with joy across Sussex and London, as it represents a new beginning. Perhaps the duke and duchess can put behind them the terrible row the night of the birth, the likes of which sent pets and servants scurrying for cover. Gentlemen would be well reminded that a lady’s nerves are at their most frayed the hours before a birth.

Ladies, it is not practical to invest in belt buckles of various shades and colors. Silver and pearl complement all styles of dress. The investment of a buckle with a sturdy clasp is well worth the cost if it keeps one’s belt tightly fastened when a husband has fallen into his cups.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

CAROLINE WAS STARTLED out of a very restful sleep when Beck suddenly burst into her room. He strode in and stopped with his legs braced apart and very nearly shouted, “Why are you still abed?”

“Why? What time is it?” Caroline asked groggily.

“Time for you to be awake, madam.” He strode for the window, throwing the drapes open. “Lady Norfolk is giving birth.”

She abruptly sat up and looked around her. “Now?”

“Yes, now. All night, as it happens. Haven’t you heard them running back and forth? More towels, more water!” he said, gesturing for her to get up. “The midwife says anytime now. Get dressed, get dressed, Caro! You should be helping!” He moved determinedly out of her room.

“I should be helping what?” she mumbled as the door closed behind him.

Nevertheless, she threw off the covers. She was awake now, attuned to the day, even as the memory of last night flooded her thoughts. She shivered when she recalled the way his hand had felt against her skin, the way his mouth worked on her body. She shivered again when she recalled how dark his blue eyes had turned when she found her release, and time and thought and even air had been suspended.

She smiled as she padded across to the bellpull. She’d never experienced anything like what Leopold had shown her last night. She’d heard of it—Priscilla’s older sister once told them that her husband put his mouth “down there.” Priscilla and Caroline, who were much younger at the time, hadn’t believed it. But then Eliza had confirmed that the sort of thing was true between man and woman and really quite enjoyable. Now Caroline could report—

Wait. She couldn’t report any such thing. What was the matter with her? It would not do to talk about it. No, this was a delicious secret she would need to keep to herself. Lord, how would she look at Leopold again, now that this had transpired between them? She’d blush wildly, and everyone around her would suspect the truth, she was certain.

She was still smiling when Janey entered her room to help her dress.

“Good morning, milady!” she said brightly. “What a glorious day it is, isn’t it, with another child to be born? They’ve sent for the duke, so it must be nigh.”

“When did the birthing start?”

“Oh, just before midnight,” Janey said. She held up a dress from the trunk Caroline had brought. “If you ask me, it started in earnest this morning, just before the kitchen fires were started.”

Caroline laughed. “What were you doing about at the hour?”

“Didn’t you hear? It’s a wonder anyone slept a wink, what with all the shouting.”

“What shouting?” Caroline asked as she stepped into her crinoline, and Janey tied it at her waist. She’d slept like a baby—a deep slumber, a contented slumber, she mused, as Janey prattled on. Caroline was slipping back into the memory when something Janey said caught her attention. “Pardon?”

“The midwife,” Janey repeated.

“No, before that.”

“Oh, aye. My poor mistress, she saw the duke come up the stairs from the kitchen, and I suppose she thought he ought to have been close by, I don’t know, but she picked up a vase and threw it at him. The midwife, she said it didn’t go far, as it was heavy, and the duchess had very little strength.”

“From the kitchen?” Caroline repeated. Her buoyant feeling began to dissipate. She looked at Janey’s reflection in the mirror. “Why would he go to the kitchen in the middle of the night?”

Janey pursed her lips and pretended to be fussing with Caroline’s dress.

Caroline glanced over her shoulder at her. “There must have been a reason, Janey.”

Janey paused in the smoothing of the skirt of Caroline’s gown. “I don’t rightly know, milady. All I know is that this morning Cook said there was an awful row between the prince and the duke, and...” She quickly looked over her shoulder, as if she thought someone else was in the room. And then whispered, “The girl Jacleen has gone missing.”

And just like that, Caroline’s heart dropped to the floor. She froze, staring at the wall before her, unable to move. Or breathe.

“Milady?”

“What do you mean, she’s gone missing?” Caroline asked.

“Took her things and disappeared,” Janey said.

“Did the duke send someone to find her?”

“No, milady. He’s been pacing the floor outside his wife’s chamber. She won’t let him in. My mother was that way, too. Didn’t want anyone around when she was giving birth. She had fourteen children, can you imagine?”

“No,” Caroline said weakly. Her mind was racing. She felt flush. She felt as if she might faint and put her hand down on the vanity to steady herself. Leopold had left this morning. The maid was Weslorian. Leopold had taken that girl and fled. But why? “What was the row about?” she asked. “Between the prince and the duke?”

“I don’t know, exactly, but the duke, he struck the prince.”

Caroline gasped.

A loud and sudden knock on the door caused Janey and Caroline both to jump. “One minute!” Caroline called as Janey lifted the skirt over Caroline’s head and let it settle around her waist.

“No minutes!” Beck shouted back. “The baby has come! It’s a boy!”

Janey gasped with delight. “A boy! An heir to the duke!”

“Go,” Caroline urged her. “I can finish dressing myself.”

“I shouldn’t—”

“Of course you should,” Caroline said. “It’s the heir,” she reminded Janey, knowing full well that in this world of dukes and duchesses, an heir took precedence over everything else.

“Thank you, milady.” Janey dipped a quick curtsy and went out. When the door closed behind her, Caroline sank down onto a chair, staring at the floor. Why had he done it? Did he want that girl for the same reason as the duke? But...but it made no sense. If he wanted a paramour, he could bloody well have one. Why did he take up with maids?

And if she doubted it for a moment, Beck confirmed her worst fear when they departed Arundel that afternoon. He fell back against the squabs with a very loud yawn. “A lot of bloody wailing when a child is born.”

“Beck! It’s very painful to give birth.”

“I don’t mean the effort Lady Norfolk has put to bringing the boy into the world. The rest of it.”

“What rest of it?” Caroline asked.

“For someone who hears every little thing that is said about every person, I’m surprised this has escaped you, Caro. I’m talking about the squabble before the birth, while you were slumbering away like a princess.”

“I was sleeping as people normally sleep, Beck. What squabble?”

He snorted. “The maids aren’t whispering in your ear?”

“Yes, Beck, that’s what the maids of grand houses do in the morning. They gossip with the duchess’s guests—”

“Then apparently you don’t know your heart’s desire has left with a kitchen maid. Henry tried to stop him, but he wasn’t successful.”

Caroline gaped at her brother. It was one thing to think it. It was quite another to actually hear it said out loud. “Why? How?” she stammered.

“That rogue attempted to steal away with the maid in the early morning hours as Augusta was in the throes of childbirth.” Beck shook his head. “Leo is a friend of mine. But I don’t care for this side of him.” He glanced at her, looking at her appraisingly. “Keep your distance, Caro. He’s charming, but it’s entirely possible he is rotten at the core. You’ll have suitors enough to think about as it is.”

Caroline felt sick. She couldn’t reconcile what had happened between them last night and Leopold taking a maid with him this morning. What had he said last night? What words had he spoken that she could cling to right now?

“Have you nothing to say?” Beck asked curiously.

Caroline swallowed. “It is...it is appalling,” she said. “On the day of their son’s birth.”

“Yes,” Beck said, and shifted his gaze to the window. “Henry was distraught.”

“Poor Henry,” she muttered. She turned her head to the window, too, and stared blindly at the passing countryside.

It was impossible to fathom why he’d done it. It was impossible to accept that the man who had shown her such pleasure could, just hours later, escape with a maid. How could he do what he did to her, then turn around and take a maid for what she could only assume was his pleasure?

She closed her eyes, thinking of the things she’d told him. That she yearned for him. He had flattered her and she had lifted her skirts, and she’d said things she would not say to another gentleman, and oh, she was such a damn fool.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Residents of Mayfair are hosting a flurry of summer gatherings before they depart for the cooler climes of the country.

Warm days lead to long walks in the park and proper courting. We have on good authority that the daughter of an earl who many considered to be too plain to receive an offer has won the esteem of the very gentleman she has most admired.

The sister of a popular baron is thought to be the Favorite of this summer season, as gentlemen are vying for her generous dowry. Bets placed at gentlemen’s clubs are running in favor of a young viscount from Leeds.

Ladies, experts advise that the secret to a clear and smooth complexion, be you fair or brown, is to limit excess in all things, including food and drink, exercise and pleasure.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

WHAT A SPECTACULAR week it had been. And not in a good way. The good news was that Jacleen was safely tucked away with Isidora in Mr. Cressidian’s large house, but in the course of it all, Leo’s reputation had taken a sound beating.

He’d bungled the rescue of Jacleen in Arundel, which didn’t surprise him in the least. How was he to have known the duchess was in labor? How was he to have known that Henry would pick that night, of all nights, to visit the poor Weslorian girl at four o’clock in the morning? Really, he would think that given the arguing he’d heard between the duke and duchess on the night of their arrival, and given the duchess’s precarious state, Henry might have managed to keep his cock in his pants. He’d sorely misjudged his former friend.

Leo had made his way to the kitchen in what he thought would be the dead of night, a quarter to four in the morning. But as he’d neared the kitchen in the dark, he heard the banging of pots and pans. He was surprised to find the cook building a fire under a large hanging pot. She didn’t notice him at first, not until she stood and turned. And when she did, she cried out with alarm.

Leo wasn’t certain what to say for himself, so the two of them engaged in something of a silent standoff until a footman came in the back door with two buckets. He looked at the cook, then at Leo, then at the cook again. And then the three of them stared at one another until Leo realized he was the only one who could end the stalemate. “Pardon me,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I think I’m a bit lost. I’ll just show myself—”

Before he could finish his sentence, however, Jacleen appeared. She was tying an apron around her waist as she walked into the kitchen from the same hallway the footman had used. Her dark hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, as if she’d done it in a rush. She paused to take in the scene, and even in the dim light of the kitchen, Leo could see the dark circles under her eyes.

He did the only thing he knew to do and seized the opportunity. “Jacleen,” he said, and continued in Weslorian, “I am here to help you.”

She looked confused, uncertain. She looked to the cook as if she thought the older woman would explain it all to her.

Leo repeated himself. She still said nothing. He wondered if he might have said something wrong. Alucian and Weslorian were closely related but not identical, and his Weslorian had never been very good. He’d stood there with the servants looking on, feeling alarmed that he’d botch things so utterly in their presence. He spoke again in Weslorian. “Gather your things and come with me. At once.”

“Jacleen?”

The sound of Henry’s voice was like a punch to Leo’s belly. He’d jerked around to see his old school friend standing there in shirtsleeves and trousers. Henry should have been upstairs waiting on the birth of his child, so Leo had needed a moment to understand what he was doing in the kitchen. A very short moment, however, because the blood drained from Jacleen’s face.

“Is it time, Your Grace?” the cook asked eagerly.

“What? No, not yet,” Henry had said dismissively. His gaze was locked on Jacleen, and Leo couldn’t help but notice how the cook and the footman averted their gazes. They had seen this play before, had learned to avert their eyes when the duke came downstairs. And that made Leo irrationally angry—Henry was using this girl like a piece of meat.

So when Henry shifted his gaze to Leo and demanded to know what he was doing in the kitchen at that hour, Leo discarded all the excuses his brain instantly produced and opted for honesty. “I’m taking her, Henry.”

Henry blinked. And then he laughed. The sort of laugh one makes when one finds something very incredible. And when he did, the cook and the footman turned into dervishes of efficiency in filling buckets with hot water, presumably for the birth of Henry’s child. “Are you mad? You can’t take her.”

Leo remembered thinking in that moment that he sincerely hoped he’d not have to fight Henry, because he was certain Henry would thrash him but good if it came to that. He’d give it his best, of course—his father had insisted Leo and Bas learn to box at an early age—but he didn’t have the heart for fighting. So he’d braced himself for it, then said in English to Jacleen, “Get your things, lass.”

She hesitated. She looked at the cook. The cook was making a tremendous effort not to look back.

“Go,” Leo said, and then in Weslorian, “if you want to be free of him, you’ll do as I say. I give you my word you’ll be safe with me. I won’t touch you, Jacleen, but we obviously can’t dawdle here, given the situation.”

She looked panicked and turned to the cook, her expression pleading. In a bid to buy her a bit of time, Leo said to Henry, “I must admit, I’m rather surprised. I should think a man of your stature need not lower himself to this.”

Henry’s chest puffed and he glared at Leo. “Oh, I see,” he sneered. “You’ve never diddled a servant, then, Your Highness.”

Leo was momentarily silenced because while he’d never forced himself on a woman—the regard had been entirely mutual...or at least that’s what he told himself—he had indeed diddled a servant. He would examine his bad behavior another time. “At least I didn’t buy a servant girl to have at my leisure.”

Behind him, the cook dropped something.

“You shouldn’t be so judgmental,” Henry said. “If you were married to a woman who is either pregnant or tired at every moment of every day, you might sing a different tune.”

“I rather suspect Jacleen is tired, too.” Leo turned his head toward their audience, but this time, he made eye contact with the cook in a desperate bid for her help. But when he turned back to his old friend, Henry had advanced on him, and Leo could see the rage in his eyes. He mentally prepared as best he could to take a hit.

“You’re high and mighty, Leo. Have you forgotten that I saw you with a serving wench in Cambridge? You held her up against the exterior wall of the public house, you may recall.”

“That,” Leo said, holding up a finger, “was different.” And then he’d tried to think how, exactly, it was different.

“At least Jacleen has a roof over her head and food in her belly.”

“How magnanimous of you. What a veritable saint you are, Norfolk.”

Henry’s eyes darkened. He clenched his jaw and said, “You’ll pay the price for this. Your father wants good relations with England, but I can see to it that never happens.”

“I am prepared to pay the price,” Leo said. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and to his relief, Jacleen had disappeared. Maybe she wasn’t coming back. But then she suddenly reappeared on the periphery of his sight, clutching a small black bag and shaking as if she had the palsy.

“Palda Deo,” he muttered. Thank God. He stepped away from Henry. “Thank you for your kind hospitality, Norfolk. I will see myself out.” And with that, he reached his hand for Jacleen. She was reluctant to take it, so he gestured with his fingers that was what she was to do, then gripped her small hand in his.