A Royal Kiss and Tell

She bit her lip. “There’s no work in Wesloria, Your Highness. Our families...they won’t have the money to return.”

“Your families will not need to return the money. After you speak against the men that did this, you—”

Jacleen gasped so loudly that she startled Leo. She and the lad and Isidora were suddenly talking at once—to each other, to him—in Weslorian and broken Alucian and English. The cacophony of voices was reaching a fevered pitch, and he threw up his hands and demanded they stop. “All right, then,” he said when he lowered his hands. “One at a time, if you please. What is it that causes you distress?” He pointed at Jacleen.

She gripped her brother’s shoulders before her. “We don’t want to speak out.”

“Why not?”

“They will kill us.”

He recoiled at that. “Who will kill you?”

“The men who done this,” Isidora said.

“They said they’d kill us if we told the truth,” the boy said.

“What? What is your name there, lad?” Leo asked.

“Bobbin,” he said softly.

“Bobbin, they will not kill you,” Leo said. But the two women started talking to him at once. “Ladies!” he said loudly. “Have you no faith in me? In my word?”

Isidora steadily held his gaze, but Jacleen looked to the floor. And Bobbin looked frantically at his sister. How old was he? Seven? Eight?

“So that’s the way of it,” Leo said flatly, inexplicably annoyed with them. “I am a prince of Alucia. Has that escaped your attention? I have a certain amount of power and integrity.”

“But...but what can you do, milord?” asked Isidora. “If we speak, they’ll send us home and they’ll find us there. They’ll find our families—”

“No,” Leo said firmly, holding up a hand. “They will not.” God, he hoped he was right about this. “Is this the life you want?” he asked Jacleen. “Is this what you want for your Bobbin? I thought you were relieved to flee Arundel.”

She flushed. “Aye,” she whispered, and wrapped a protective arm around the boy.

“And you, Isidora? Were you not relieved to leave Mrs. Mansfield’s den?”

She quickly nodded her head and took a small step backward.

“More important, ladies, do you want other young women—or children,” he added, gesturing to Bobbin, “to discover what awaits them in England?”

“No,” Isidora muttered.

Leo rubbed his nape. He looked at them again and said solemnly, “I understand. I know I’m not the prince you want to come to your rescue. I am not a hero. And I have a certain reputation that should not recommend me to any part of society.”

Jacleen nodded along as if that was fact.

“But you have my word that you and your families will be protected. If you don’t believe me, then believe my brother.”

Isidora perked up. “Prince Sebastian?”

“Je, Prince Sebastian,” Leo said. “He will assure you are all protected. But you must help me. What has happened to you is an abomination, and those responsible must be held accountable. Such a despicable practice can’t be allowed to continue, and the only way to end it is to bring down the men who have arranged it. We, my brother and I, will need your cooperation.”

The women looked at each other.

“Do we have it?” Leo asked.

“Aye, Your Highness,” Isidora said, and looked starkly at the other two, as if daring one of them to argue.

After a suitable amount of silence, Leo nodded. “But I must find a way to free Rasa, and even then, we won’t leave without Eowyn and Nina. How do I find them?”

“Mrs. Brown,” Jacleen said.

“Who is Mrs. Brown?”

“The cook, Your Highness.”

“Whose cook?” Leo asked, confused.

“She’s the cook here, Highness. She’s the one who readies them to send.”

A wave of nausea went through Leo before he even understood. Something in the back of his mind told him he was the biggest fool to have ever lived. “What, here? Mrs. Brown readies women from Wesloria—”

“And Alucia,” Isidora interjected.

“And Alucia?” he asked, in spite of the answer already forming in his head. “When you say she readies them...”

“To be sold,” Jacleen said flatly.

Leo felt himself sinking down onto a chair at the table. He stared at them in disbelief. “Are you telling me, then, that women who have been sold to English gentlemen come through this house?”

The women stared at him. Isidora said, “We thought you knew. You brought us back here. We thought...” She looked at Jacleen. “We thought we were to be sold again.”

Cressidian, that bloody bastard. No wonder he was as rich as he was—he was a double-dealing scoundrel. Leo suddenly saw it all very clearly—the women, sold by their parents, were brought here, where Cressidian sent them out to the homes of influential gentlemen in exchange for a friendly vote or what have you. And Leo, the hero in this tale, had brought them right back into the place that had sold them to begin with.

He wasn’t a knight in shining armor to them—he was just another man who would use them.

“Well then,” he said. “We need to get you out of here, don’t we? Ladies, Bobbin, gather what things you have. We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?” Jacleen asked.