A Royal Kiss and Tell

“Oh, Beck, how charming you are,” Hollis said dreamily. “Just when I think I despise you, I discover I love you all over again.”

WHEN LORD HAWKE and his charges had been announced and had entered the crowded ballroom, Caroline looked around for Prince Leopold. Naturally, after his afternoon of debauchery, he was nowhere to be seen.

She was inexplicably exasperated by his absence. Should he not have been here, in the center of attention, doing his duty as brother of the groom? Prince Sebastian and Eliza were due to arrive at any moment, but his brother couldn’t be bothered to arrive in time?

And why had he come into the private wing of the palace looking as if he’d been wrestling? The king and queen were here, as were a variety of Alucian nobility Caroline had met in the month she’d been in Helenamar.

Well, no matter—Caroline didn’t care a whit. Whenever he did deign to make his appearance, she was quite confident that her stunning dress and her obvious appeal would catch his eye. By then, of course, it would to be too late for him. By then she would be surrounded by admiring gentlemen and have no room for him on her dance card. Being admired was her forte, after all.

She checked her train to make sure it was securely fastened and sallied forth to meet all the gentlemen.

CHAPTER FIVE

With all the excitement of a very grand royal wedding, most would be content to come away with the experience of it. But for the families of several young women, the royal wedding ball was a perfect opportunity to begin talks of a new royal wedding. Alas, while Prince Leopold was seen dancing with no less than a dozen such young women, it is common knowledge that an engagement to a Weslorian songbird has all been arranged, and an announcement will soon be made.

This news did not prevent the only remaining bachelor prince in Alucia from departing the ball before anyone else.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

LEO REQUIRED TWO cups of medicinal tea and a cold bath before he began to feel in control of his faculties. He did not feel himself, really—that encounter in the alleyway had left him rattled. From his initial fear of imminent death, to the more insidious fear that someone was plotting against him, to the new fear creeping into his thoughts about what this Lysander fellow needed to say to him, he couldn’t seem to find his footing.

Were there truly spies among them? He had hoped that the cancer had been rooted out after the murder of Matous in London. That the palace had been swept clean of those plotting to overthrow the king. Then again, that sounded awfully naive, to think the palace had been swept clean of plotting and intrigue. Still, plotting and intrigue never had anything to do with him.

What could Lysander possibly want?

As Leo soaked in the bath, he tried to recall the details from the workhouse riots a few years ago. Lysander was a priest from the northern mountains of Alucia that formed the border with Wesloria. He’d come to the capital city, like so many other mountain people, in search of work. According to the reports about him at the time of the riots, he’d found deplorable conditions at the workhouses.

Once, Leo had been riding with friends through the streets of Helenamar. They had happened upon the man standing on an overturned crate, shouting at a crowd of people who gave him their rapt attention. “People are dying!” he’d bellowed. “The people in the workhouses lack clean water and decent food!”

“Did he say workhouse or whorehouse?” Edoard, one of Leo’s companions, had quipped. Their friends had laughed. Leo had not laughed. He’d wondered if what the man said was true.

He’d been intrigued by the mountain of a man with the unruly blond hair, and his courage to rebel about those conditions and thereby risk arrest and detention. “Do you suppose it’s true?” he’d asked his friends.

“No,” Edoard had said immediately. “He wants attention, that’s all.”

“He’s lucky he doesn’t have the attention of the metropolitan police,” Jacques had said.

“If Helenamar is to be the jewel of Europe, can such conditions exist for her residents?” the big man had asked the crowd. “If Alucia is to lead the way in economic development, can she treat the most common of her workers like dogs?”