A Royal Kiss and Tell

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.”