A Royal Kiss and Tell

“Everything! I wrote her about my illness and how my funeral had all but been arranged, and that no one had thought to ask me what I should like to wear to my own burial.”

Leo laughed.

“I write her about you,” Caroline said with a saucy little glance at him.

“About what? Are you spying on me?”

She clucked her tongue at him. “Spying is hardly necessary. Everyone knows your news.”

“This may come as a shock, madam, but much of what you think you know of me is not true. Most of it, I’d wager.”

“Ha,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

“For example,” he said as they turned another corner into the wing where the guest rooms were situated. “I am not having an affair with your chambermaid, as you so ardently believed.”

“You brought her flowers,” Caroline pointed out.

“I brought those for you, Caroline. I thought you might like something to brighten your room.”

Her gaze narrowed skeptically.

“All right, I brought them to Beck to give to you, and he suggested that they would brighten your room. But as they were all occupied in the making of your soup, I took them up myself, because I wanted to look in on you and assure myself that my worthy opponent was not going to desert me.”

Caroline paused in front of a door to one of the guest suites. She turned her back to it and faced him. “What a lovely thing to say. I like the idea of being a worthy opponent. And I would almost believe your concern, but then you disappeared with Ann.”

She hadn’t missed a thing, even as ill as she was. “Je, I did. Only because Ann was acquainted with a Weslorian woman for whom I had a message. I needed to know where to find her. That’s all I ever asked of her.”

“And is that all you asked of her at Leadenhall?”

“That’s all, on my word. It required more than one meeting as she was disconcertingly reluctant to trust me.”

Caroline’s lips curved into a smile. She studied him a moment, then shrugged and tapped his hand. “My winnings.” She held up both palms.

Leo poured the coins into her hands. “There is something else you have wrong about me, if you’d like to know.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that, but please do try to convince me.”

He waited until she looked up from her hands and into his eyes. “I am intrigued by you, Caroline.”

She laughed. “Yes, I am well aware I have that effect on gentlemen.”

“I’m not talking about your looks, as fine as they are. I’m talking about you. There is something about you that...” He tried to think of the right English word to describe his esteem for her.

“That what?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“My English fails me. There is something about you that holds my attention in the most urgent manner.”

She blinked. A slow, uncertain smile appeared on her lips. Her gaze moved from his eyes to his mouth. To his neckcloth and chest. “Your English doesn’t fail you,” she said softly. “But I don’t believe you.”

He dipped down, so that his eyes were level with hers. “Why not?”

“I think I... I think that...” She looked down at the coins she held in her hands, frowning thoughtfully. “What I think is...that you...”

She was babbling. He’d surprised her, which, frankly, he would have not thought possible, but she was clearly unable to find words for the first time in their acquaintance that he could recall. Leo couldn’t help but smile. “Holy mother, you’re speechless.” He reached around her and turned the knob on her door and pushed it open.

“I’m not.” She stepped backward, into her room. He stepped forward. “I’m wary,” she clarified. “I think there is something you don’t know about me, too,” she said as she took another step backward, deeper into the room. “And you ought to know it.”

Leo moved across the threshold. “I am desperate to know what.”

“I will not part with my virtue, not entirely, no matter how you might tempt me. I will not part with it until I’m in love. So don’t think you can take it because you’re a prince and you’ve flattered me so expertly.” She took another step backward.

“You presume too much, madam. I would not dream of it.” Oh, but he would dream of it. He would probably dream of it tonight. He quietly shut the door at his back.

Caroline stepped to a table and kept her gaze locked on his as she deposited her coins. “If you would not dream of it, then why are you stealing into my room?”

“Stealing?” He glanced around him. “I walked in as you stood there. But if you like, I will go.” He prepared himself to be shown the door before he could touch her.

He desperately wanted to touch her.

He would start with the soft hollow of her throat. Then her shoulders. Her chest. “Say the word, and I’ll go.”

Caroline folded her arms. “I do want you to go.”

His entire body stifled his groan of disappointment. He mustered some sort of face-saving smile and bowed his head. “Very well.” He turned toward the door. “As you—”

“But I don’t want you to go, Leopold. I want to despise you, and I can’t seem to do it.”

His heart filled with hope. He slowly turned back. “Then don’t, Caroline.”