A Royal Kiss and Tell

“Oh. Je, of course.” Hawke had only rarely left his home during the course of his sister’s illness. Leo had gone round every day, not only because he considered Hawke a friend, but because he needed desperately to speak to Hawke’s new chambermaid again, and that, he was discovering, was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

It galled him that he was so inept that he couldn’t even manage a meeting with a maid. He had made three attempts to find her, and just when he thought he had, Lady Caroline had stumbled upon them, swaying from side to side with a ghostly look about her. Everything about her looked gray...except her remarkable green eyes, which had seemed more incandescent than ever.

Since the night she’d thwarted him by knocking on death’s door, Leo had tried in vain to speak to the Hawke maid, but even as Lady Caroline lay bedridden, she was making that impossible. Every time he called at the house on Upper Brook Street, he felt obliged to sit with Hawke, who fretted like an old woman over his sister, even though the doctor had told him she ought to recover completely. And still, Leo could not manage to talk his way out of that study. Every excuse he offered—to fetch water for Hawke, for example—would prompt Hawke to wave his hand and yank on the bellpull. Or when Leo insisted he needed a chamber pot, Hawke pointed to one in the corner.

Leo was continually hampered by his lack of imagination and Hawke’s attention to detail.

Really, how did anyone expect he would know what to do? All he knew was that the woman he reluctantly searched for had once been a maid in the home of Lord Hill. That, and her name—Ann Marble—was all he could recall of what Lysander had told him in the palace garden.

Except that she wasn’t employed by Hill. By some hook or crook, she’d moved her employment to Lord Hawke’s home, of all places.

Naturally, Leo didn’t know that when he’d worked so hard to gain an invitation to Lord Hill’s home. He was only marginally acquainted with the man, having met him a time or two at the gentlemen’s club he frequented and at formal suppers here and there. He’d never had a proper conversation with him that he could recall. It had required a bit of thinking on Leo’s part, but he’d finally come up with an idea to connive an invitation to the man’s home. He’d thought himself rather clever, too.

“Your Highness?” Josef prodded him.

“Yes, flowers,” Leo said, suddenly remembering himself. “Something bright and cheerful.” God knew the Hawke household needed it. “And some whisky for Hawke. Although I think perhaps the time has come that he put down the bottle.” He’d passed more than a few hours with Hawke while he numbed his fears with whisky.

Josef bowed crisply. “If I may have your leave?”

Leo sighed. “If you’re not going to engage in a bit of tittle-tattle with me, then go about your business,” he said, waving him away. Josef went out. He never engaged in tittle-tattle, that one.

Leo had an hour before the carriage would fetch him and carry him to Hawke’s house, and this time, apparently, he’d be laden with gifts.

More false pretense.

That’s the manner in which he’d called on Hill—with much false pretense. Oh, but he’d racked his brain on what to say to Hill to get his invitation. And then, miraculously, he’d recalled taking part in a hunt one rainy autumn in Sussex. Hill had been there, too, hadn’t he? Yes, Leo determined, he had, as his family seat was nearby. Leo was certain that Hill had been present when their hunt party had stopped at a Herstmonceux Castle ruin to rest the horses. Hill had been there.

But how to use this memory to approach Hill? Leo had thought back to the many ways people had conspired to make his acquaintance over the years. Who knew there would be a lesson in it? But there was, and he’d put himself at a table with Lord Hill at the gentlemen’s club one day and asked if he recalled the abandoned castle they’d rode past during the hunt a few years ago.

“Of course I remember it,” Hill had said.

“Is it for sale?” Leo asked.

Hill had stared at him with confusion. “For sale? That pile of rubble?”

“It has walls yet,” Leo reminded him. “I have in mind to restore it.”

“Restore it!” Hill had laughed. “It would cost a king’s ransom to restore it.”

Leo had shrugged. “A bit of a hobby. Can you show it to me again?”

Hill had grinned. “Well, Highness, I suppose that you, of all people, would have that king’s ransom. Be forewarned—you’ll spend every pence. The wood’s surely all rotted and the stone crumbling from the damp. Aye, come to call in Sussex. The owners are my neighbors to the east. I’ll speak with them and determine their inclination to sell, if you like.”

“I would be in your debt,” Leo had said.