A Royal Kiss and Tell

Lady Eulalie was smiling, clearly having enjoyed the show. Many people around them were watching as well, and Leo realized it was time to start the charade of a courtship. “Now that we’ve dispatched with that, may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

“I’d be honored, Your Highness,” Lady Eulalie said gracefully and in a manner that a woman ought to address a prince.

Bloody Englishwoman.

As it happened, that was not the last Leo saw of Lady Caroline that evening. He spotted her dancing with Lord Sonderstein. The old man was practically drooling into her very enticing bodice. She was looking off to the side and appeared almost bored, as if she’d danced with a leering gentleman a thousand times before.

He saw her twice more after that, once laughing with a captain of the Alucian navy as they moved through an Alucian dance, and then with an Englishman Leo recognized from a hunting party he’d joined last autumn.

Later still, Leo thankfully left his supposed fiancée and escaped to the gaming room. He happened upon Lord Hawke and took a seat at his table. As another gentleman dealt him in, Leo said, “I hope your sister’s feathers are not too terribly ruffled.”

Hawke rolled his eyes. “She’s fine. She’s prone to dudgeon, that’s all.”

“Aren’t they all,” Leo said, and he and his friend and the other gentlemen at the table laughed roundly and loudly.

CHAPTER SIX

The much beloved Duchess of Tannymeade, England’s own Lady Eliza Tricklebank, has generously graced her British wedding guests with fine porcelain teapots commemorating the occasion of her marriage to Prince Sebastian of Alucia. Several of the British contingent have found the Alucian silks to their liking, and many trunks were purchased to carry the goods home. Expect to see these stunning fabrics at social events in autumn.

So festive were the wedding celebrations that many wedding guests were reluctant to return home. One English guest in particular found it difficult to leave her new friend, a gentleman very much in his prime. But home she did go, to another gentleman who is rumored to be approaching his prime.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and

Domesticity for Ladies

WELL.

As it turned out, her stunning dress and her obvious appeal were not enough to entice Prince Leopold. Not that she’d wanted to entice that boor of a man, but that did not erase the fact that he ought to have been. Oh no—she’d had to go to him, engage him, and how dare he say he didn’t recall her at all and liken her to the squads of debutantes who swirled around him at every public event?

“Why wouldn’t he remember me?” Caroline demanded of Eliza and Hollis the next afternoon as they strolled the palace gardens. “Everyone remembers me. It’s so boorish, isn’t it? He’s a haughty prince, and I, for one, have had enough of his prideful ways.”

“Ha,” Hollis snorted. “You don’t mean that at all.”

“I do! Does he truly expect me to call Eliza Your Highness after all these years of knowing her? I called her Eliza Picklecake until I was twenty years old.”

“Oh!” Eliza said with a fond grin. “I had completely forgotten that nickname.”

Caroline ignored her. “What a pompous, superior arse that man was! It was fortunate for him Beck intervened when he did, or I might have...well, I don’t know, but I would have liked to—”

“Ask him to dance,” Hollis cheerfully interjected. “You were dying to dance with him.”

“All right, yes, I wanted to dance with him if for no other reason than my gown would be seen. I’m just saying that I don’t give a fig who he is—he is rude.”

“Caro! Keep your voice down,” Eliza whispered, and glanced over her shoulder at the two palace guards who followed several feet behind them.

Caroline made a harrumphing sound at being told what to do. “Really, you know, I don’t care if he remembers me or not.”

Hollis giggled with disbelief.

“It’s a matter of pride, Hollis. Certainly I don’t recall every acquaintance I’ve ever made, but I like to think I remember most. And there happen to be two I remember with crystal clarity.”

“I wait with bated breath to hear who they are,” Eliza said.

“Well, one is His Royal Arse, Prince Leopold, which I should think is rather obvious.”