A Royal Kiss and Tell

The next day, she felt even worse. She sent word to Beck through Martha that she’d had a late tea—true—and that she wasn’t hungry for supper. Also true. But she hadn’t eaten at tea, either. Her head was pounding and her stomach churning. After a few miserable hours of that, she decided she ought to pour something scalding down her burning throat. She could have quite easily used the bellpull, but she’d now developed the strange fear that after her intense bout of seasickness, and now this cold, her legs might atrophy altogether and she’d be bedridden all her life and would never again dance a waltz. So she’d gamely forced herself out of bed and pulled a dressing gown around her. She used a handkerchief to dab at her runny nose and slowly made her way downstairs. She was alarmed by how dizzy she felt and how useless her legs were already beginning to feel, thus confirming her fears of utter demise.

Just at the top of the grand staircase to the lower floors, she heard voices coming from the salon. Not just voices, but raucous laughter. How many were in that salon? It sounded like dozens. While she’d been wasting away upstairs, Beck had brought his friends to enjoy an evening of debauchery. She ought to die, just to spite him.

Caroline backtracked to the servants’ stairs and slowly made her way down with the assistance of the wall. On the main floor, she padded in the opposite direction from the salon, dabbing at her leaky nose. But when she turned into the hall that led to the kitchen, she spotted a man and a woman in the shadows. Her first thought was that she must be hallucinating. It was not Beck’s habit to consort with the maids or to bring women into their home. She paused. She squinted. That was indeed a man with his back to her. But that man was not Beck. And there was indeed someone else, too, a woman, one considerably smaller than the man.

The pair was standing with their shoulders to a wall, facing each other. How dare they carry on like this in the halls of this house? They were carrying on, weren’t they? Or were they? They didn’t seem to be kissing, which, frankly, is what she’d be doing if she was so inclined to meet a gentleman in the darkened hallway of someone’s house. What other possible explanation could there be? She took another step closer, steadying herself with a hand to the wall. They were whispering. Was it whispers of love? She’d like to hear that.

Perhaps it was one of the new maids. Beck had recently hired two from Lord Hill, who had decamped to the country with a vow to never return to London until the air was cleared of smoke and soot. Beck said he’d never return, then.

Caroline crept closer. It wasn’t the new groom. The man was too tall. That left only one possibility—one of Beck’s wretched friends. But who was he cavorting with? Caroline crept closer still, so close that she could almost reach out and touch the tail of the man’s coat. But then she was suddenly overcome with a violent sneeze at such velocity that she could not possibly prevent it. That bell-clanging sneeze was followed by two more. By the time she had stopped sneezing, the woman had disappeared, and the man had turned around to face her, his legs braced as if prepared to fight.

Caroline dabbed her handkerchief at her nose and looked at the man in the dimly lit hallway. Her belly dipped—good God, it was him. The Arse of Alucia. “You,” she said dramatically.

“Also you.” He relaxed, and leaned against the wall again, his arms folded over his chest. “Well, well, here you are, then, Lady Caroline. I was under the happy impression that you’d gone out for the evening.”

“Well, that was wishful thinking.” She sneezed again. “You’re like a very bad dream following me about. Where is your paramour?” she asked, craning her neck to look.

“Not a paramour,” he said. “A friend.”

“Ha! I may be ill, sir,” she said, pointing at him, “but I am no fool.”

“I never said you were a fool. I said you were a bother.”

Caroline was winding up to admonish him for cavorting with a servant, but his last statement gave her pause. “When did you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. If I didn’t say it aloud, I certainly thought it.” He smiled.

It was the first time he’d actually smiled at her—truly smiled at her...unless Beck was standing behind her and she didn’t know it. But Caroline was fairly confident they were the only two in this hallway, and the effect of that smile made her feel even dizzier. Normally, she would have taken advantage of his smile to charm the wits from him. “In consideration of the source, I will take that as a delightful compliment.”

He stepped closer, and Caroline suddenly remembered her state of existence—the dressing gown, the unkempt hair, the puffy eyes and red nose. No doubt her breath smelled atrocious, too. Mortified, she stepped back and away from him, and smacked into the wall. Funny, she had not sensed the wall at her back.