A Royal Kiss and Tell

“How right you are. How terribly thoughtless of me.” She carefully counted out two pounds and dropped them like pebbles onto the table before Hawke. “There is your investment returned, sir. The rest belongs to me. Good night, gentlemen!”

Leo rose, too. “I think it time I bid you all adieu, as well. I leave at dawn’s light and it is well past the time I should be abed.”

“What, so soon?” Henry asked. “But you’ve only just arrived, Highness! I thought we might ride down to the village tomorrow.”

His old friend was keen to have him stay, but Leo also suspected Henry would likewise be relieved when he left, given his wife’s feelings. “I’ve some Alucian state business to attend to.” Oh, but that wasn’t true at all. He had no official business that he knew of, but he had some very pressing unofficial business and he was running out of time.

Beck and Henry said their good-nights, then Henry signaled for a footman to refill their whisky glasses as Leo followed Caroline out of the salon. She paused in the hallway and glanced back at him.

“If you like, I’ll carry your coin for you,” he offered.

“Do you take me for a fool, sir? A lady learns very early never to hand her winnings to a gentleman. The next thing you know, he’ll want to invest it for you.”

“Very astute of you.”

They began to stroll along as if at their leisure, his hands clasped at his back, her hands cupping her coins. “I didn’t take you for a gambler,” he remarked.

“Really? I’m very much in favor of it. How boring life would be if one never gambled on anything.” She cast a quick smile at him, her eyes shining with amusement. “I sincerely hope, however, that you don’t sit at the gaming tables often. You played so terribly I shudder to think what the cost is to your royal coffers.”

“I beg your pardon, I was dealt very bad hands,” he said with a grin.

“Ah, the standard cry of the vanquished.” She laughed again and the warm sound of it slid down to his groin.

They started up the grand staircase, moving to one side when a footman went barreling past them in the opposite direction.

“You’re leaving on the morrow?” she asked, as she tried to maneuver up the stairs holding her skirt and her coins.

“Je. For heaven’s sake, Caroline, please allow me to carry your winnings. You may count every coin when we reach the next floor and flog me if any go missing. But you’ll never make it up these stairs without the very real danger of falling and cracking your head if you don’t have use of your hands.”

“You’re right.” She turned to him, reluctantly pouring her coins into his palm, then carefully closing his fingers around them. Her hand lingered on his. “Don’t drop them.”

He covered her hand with his free one and squeezed. “I would rather die,” he said gravely, and with a soft smile let her hand go.

She gathered her skirts, and they resumed walking up the stairs. “When will you return to Alucia?” she asked as she looked up at a portrait of an ancestor glaring at them from above.

“I can’t say for certain, but I’d wager sometime after I’ve been catatumpously chewed up by England.”

“Oh!” she crowed with delight. “Catawamptiously, Your Highness.”

“Leo.”

“Pardon?”

He smiled at her. “I like when you use my given name. My close friends call me Leo.”

“Then I shall call you Leopold.”

He shook his head. “For the sake of quenching my curiosity...are you the most obstinate woman in this land?”

She giggled. “Thank you for your confidence in me, Your Highness, but I think not.” She leaned toward him and whispered, “I think Lady Norfolk can be rather obstinate when she’s of a mind.”

One of his brows rose above the other. “I had that feeling.”

She laughed.

“Why do you ask about my return to Alucia? Are you so eager for me to be gone?”

“Oh, in the worst way,” she said with a winsome smile. “And I feel it is my duty to warn Eliza when the time comes. I write her every week without fail. I tell her everything.”

“I certainly hope not everything.” He winked. And then delighted at her blush. “Why bother writing? Her sister can send her gazette, in which, I may vouch, no stone of gossip is left unturned.”

“You are wrong about that. There are always certain details left out of the gazette,” she said as they reached the next floor. “Details the three of us keep to ourselves.” She paused. “Would you like to know what they are?”

“I would.”

“I thought you might! But I can’t tell you.” She laughed and turned into a wide corridor.

“Can’t you? I might have to employ my technique of teasing information from the most reluctant beings,” he warned her.

“It won’t work. My lips are sealed.” She mimed locking her lips with a key and throwing it away.

A maid hurried by them, also in the opposite direction. They both paused in their walk and watched her practically jog down the hall. They looked at each other; Caroline shrugged.

They carried on.

“What sort of things do you write to Eliza?”