by Julia London
Lady Eulalie blinked. “Ah...” Her gaze flicked between Lady Caroline and Leo, as she obviously tried to assess the acquaintance between them.
Leo needed to dispatch this beautiful bother before she set all tongues wagging. But before he could consider how to do that, Lady Caroline said, “I recall you dancing at Kensington, Your Highness. Quite an admirably high kick you’ve got.”
Had he danced with her there? He’d had too much whisky that night, too, as was his unfortunate habit, and he didn’t recall it clearly. Perhaps that explained why she thought they were so familiar. Well. For the second time today, he desired very much to kick his own arse.
“The duke and duchess are starting their dance,” Lady Eulalie said.
Bas and Eliza had taken their places beneath one of the dozen enormous crystal chandeliers in the space the crowd had formed around them. Lady Caroline smiled with delight—and then gasped. “Oh dear, her train,” she moaned, and actually leaned against Leo as if to share a secret. “Do you see? It’s undone on one side. I’m sure she doesn’t know—oh! There is Hollis. Hollis will set it to rights. Hollis takes such good care of her, really. So do I, for that matter. I can’t imagine what she’ll do once we leave her, can you? She said she will have a lady’s maid, but it’s not the same, is it? Alas, we must return to London. I have my many friends, as you know, and Hollis, well...” She looked at Lady Eulalie. “Her father needs her desperately. He’s blind.”
Lady Caroline was astonishing. He hardly knew men as free of spirit and tongue as she was. He had never met a woman who wore her eccentricities with such confidence.
She wasn’t paying any attention to him now, as all eyes had turned to the royal couple. The music began, and Bas smiled encouragingly at Eliza as he led her into the first steps of the dance. Poor Eliza’s fair face turned as red as the cardinal’s robes, and she kept her gaze on Bas’s feet as she tried to match his movements.
“Lord, she’s as awful as I feared,” Lady Caroline said without the slightest compunction. “It’s really not her fault. Either one is born a dancer, or one is not, wouldn’t you agree?” She looked at him for an answer.
Leo said nothing. He would not dare criticize Eliza so openly.
“I’ve known more than one lady who has been given any number of dance lessons and can’t retain the steps,” she continued, and winced apologetically. “Eliza tries very hard, but it’s almost as if she can’t hear the music.”
“Oh dear,” Lady Eulalie said with a smile she could not contain.
Lady Caroline blinked as if she’d just realized what she was saying. “Oh! You mustn’t mind anything I say. If Eliza were standing here, she’d be the first to admit her poor dancing. She finds it rather amusing.”
She should certainly not remark so openly about a royal duchess, and by her given name at that. Even he wasn’t so irreverent. He felt a strange responsibility to defend his new sister-in-law. “If you would allow, Lady Caroline, I think you meant to say Her Royal Highness.”
Instead of demurring as he expected, perhaps even apologizing, Lady Caroline’s lovely green eyes rounded impossibly larger. And then she laughed. Chortled, really. “I meant Eliza, of course!”
Apparently Leo still had a bit of stodgy princely blood running through his veins, because he was appalled. Eliza was the future queen of Alucia, and Lady Caroline obviously didn’t fully understand that meant that even she was to afford her friend the respect she was due. If she wanted to call the duchess by her given name behind closed doors, that was one thing. But in a public setting? It could not be tolerated, and he believed he was doing Lady Caroline a kindness by intervening. He turned more fully toward her, so that his back was to Lady Eulalie. “I have no wish to embarrass you, Lady Caroline,” he said softly, “but I would have hoped that someone might have explained things to you before now.”
The light of the dozens of candles in the chandeliers above them sparkled in her eyes. “What things?” she asked as her gaze wandered his face and settled, somewhat disconcertingly for Leo, on his mouth.
“Your friend is the future queen of Alucia. As such, you must show her the respect that all her subjects must show her.” He arched a brow to emphasize that point. Part of him couldn’t believe he was having to say these things. Certainly he had never been one to defend or promote royal decorum. But he’d never been confronted with such an obvious breach of decorum, either. “That would include how you address her...particularly in public.”
Lady Caroline’s mouth dropped open for a sliver of a moment. And then her eyes narrowed into brilliant slits of ire. “I do beg your pardon, Highness. I understand perfectly that Eliza will be the future queen, but I am her dearest friend and I don’t think it is for you to say what I call her.” One of her feathery brows arched high above the other, daring him to disagree.
Her redress absolutely stunned him. And, on some level, bloody well impressed him. That was some cheek for you. But it could not be tolerated, not in this palace, so he glared down at her so that she would not mistake his displeasure. “You should not address the duchess as anything other than Your Grace, and you most certainly should not address me in this manner.”
Amazingly, she gasped as if she were the one who had suffered an insult. She squared off against him and lifted her chin. “Do you call your brother Your Grace and scrape and bow before him?”
“Of course not. He’s my brother, and I myself am a royal prince, lest you’ve forgotten.”
“Forgotten!” A burst of laughter escaped her. “I don’t know how I could—you wear it like a shield.”
His astonishment kept ratcheting. And he might faint dead away if it continued. “Have you considered that is perhaps because I am, indeed, a prince?”
“Oh, I am well aware!” she said grandly. “You told me. In Chichester. Although it was hardly necessary there, either. But in the course of our conversation, you were very sure to mention it.”
Chichester again! “For the love of...” Leo glanced back at Lady Eulalie, who was craning her neck to hear every word. He abruptly took Lady Caroline by the elbow and moved her away a few steps so that he could speak privately. With a quick look around them, he said quietly, “Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I did mention it, for there are times it seems necessary, and I’ve no doubt that was one of those times. But please understand me, Lady Caroline—I do not recall any conversation with you, and I certainly do not recall meeting you in Chichester, or any conversation there. Frankly, I was far too in my cups to remember anything about that particular weekend at all. You must consider how many soirees and fetes and weekend house parties I attend. You must consider that I frequently meet women and often in groups, and I can’t be expected to remember them all.”
She gasped softly, her plush lips forming a near perfect O. Her eyes filled with shock or fury—he wasn’t entirely sure which. “I’m terribly sorry if the truth offends you.”
“The truth of what? That you were as tight as a boiled owl?”
He had heard that rather English expression for being pissed. “I wouldn’t put it precisely that way, but yes.”
“That doesn’t offend me,” she said. “I know a drunk gentleman when I see one. What offends me is that you would lump me in with the all the women you meet frequently and in groups, like a flock of chickens! I’m not a chicken, Your Highness. I am unique.”
“Chickens! You miss my point entirely,” he said, exasperated.
Her eyes widened to such a degree he thought she might keel over with some sort of apoplexy. But she didn’t keel—she rebounded and looked as if she might launch herself at his throat at any moment. He prepared himself for the possibility.
“You have missed the point. You may have noticed that I tend to stand out in a crowd.”
Leo didn’t know what to say. She certainly did stand out in a crowd. She was standing out in all her blazing glory at this ver
y moment. “Are you praising your virtues?” he asked with disbelief.
“I didn’t praise them! I merely pointed out what is obvious to everyone but you, apparently.”
“What the devil is happening here?”
At last, thank the saints, Lord Hawke had arrived to take her away.
“I believe His Royal Highness and the lady are having a row,” Lady Eulalie said excitedly.
Lady Caroline whipped around, nearly colliding with her brother. Hawke bowed his head to Leo. “Your Highness, my sister and I offer our deepest felicitations on the marriage of your brother and our most sincere apologies for anything that might have been said to displease you.” He put his hand on his sister’s elbow, his fingers curling into her flesh as he drew her back with determination.
Leo inclined his head to acknowledge the apology. His heart was still beating rapidly with his indignation, and that little devil’s eyes were shining with her vexation.
Hawke smiled thinly at Leo. “If you will excuse us?” He pulled his sister into his side and forced her to walk away with him.
Leo silently but smugly cheered his friend on as he watched Hawke march away with his sister. But stubborn Lady Caroline tossed Leo a dark look over her shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.
Leo stared after her a long moment, still trying to understand what had just happened, then remembered Lady Eulalie. He turned to her.
She looked delighted. “Who, pray tell, was that?”
“Just an Englishwoman,” Leo muttered. The most exasperating, infuriating, ridiculous and attractive Englishwoman he’d ever met. Oh, but she was right about that—she did stand out in a crowd, and in more ways than one.
“Ah, the English. They are too isolated on that little island of theirs, I think. They don’t know how the world moves around them,” Lady Eulalie said.
Leo said nothing. All he could think was what a burden Lady Caroline was to her brother, whom he considered to be a fine man and good friend. She might be beautiful, but unfortunately, that beauty was accompanied by outrageous behavior.
Lady Eulalie was smiling, clearly having enjoyed the show. Many people around them were watching as well, and Leo realized it was time to start the charade of a courtship. “Now that we’ve dispatched with that, may I have the pleasure of this dance?”
“I’d be honored, Your Highness,” Lady Eulalie said gracefully and in a manner that a woman ought to address a prince.
Bloody Englishwoman.
As it happened, that was not the last Leo saw of Lady Caroline that evening. He spotted her dancing with Lord Sonderstein. The old man was practically drooling into her very enticing bodice. She was looking off to the side and appeared almost bored, as if she’d danced with a leering gentleman a thousand times before.
He saw her twice more after that, once laughing with a captain of the Alucian navy as they moved through an Alucian dance, and then with an Englishman Leo recognized from a hunting party he’d joined last autumn.
Later still, Leo thankfully left his supposed fiancée and escaped to the gaming room. He happened upon Lord Hawke and took a seat at his table. As another gentleman dealt him in, Leo said, “I hope your sister’s feathers are not too terribly ruffled.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “She’s fine. She’s prone to dudgeon, that’s all.”
“Aren’t they all,” Leo said, and he and his friend and the other gentlemen at the table laughed roundly and loudly.
CHAPTER SIX
The much beloved Duchess of Tannymeade, England’s own Lady Eliza Tricklebank, has generously graced her British wedding guests with fine porcelain teapots commemorating the occasion of her marriage to Prince Sebastian of Alucia. Several of the British contingent have found the Alucian silks to their liking, and many trunks were purchased to carry the goods home. Expect to see these stunning fabrics at social events in autumn.
So festive were the wedding celebrations that many wedding guests were reluctant to return home. One English guest in particular found it difficult to leave her new friend, a gentleman very much in his prime. But home she did go, to another gentleman who is rumored to be approaching his prime.
—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and
Domesticity for Ladies
WELL.
As it turned out, her stunning dress and her obvious appeal were not enough to entice Prince Leopold. Not that she’d wanted to entice that boor of a man, but that did not erase the fact that he ought to have been. Oh no—she’d had to go to him, engage him, and how dare he say he didn’t recall her at all and liken her to the squads of debutantes who swirled around him at every public event?
“Why wouldn’t he remember me?” Caroline demanded of Eliza and Hollis the next afternoon as they strolled the palace gardens. “Everyone remembers me. It’s so boorish, isn’t it? He’s a haughty prince, and I, for one, have had enough of his prideful ways.”
“Ha,” Hollis snorted. “You don’t mean that at all.”
“I do! Does he truly expect me to call Eliza Your Highness after all these years of knowing her? I called her Eliza Picklecake until I was twenty years old.”
“Oh!” Eliza said with a fond grin. “I had completely forgotten that nickname.”
Caroline ignored her. “What a pompous, superior arse that man was! It was fortunate for him Beck intervened when he did, or I might have...well, I don’t know, but I would have liked to—”
“Ask him to dance,” Hollis cheerfully interjected. “You were dying to dance with him.”
“All right, yes, I wanted to dance with him if for no other reason than my gown would be seen. I’m just saying that I don’t give a fig who he is—he is rude.”
“Caro! Keep your voice down,” Eliza whispered, and glanced over her shoulder at the two palace guards who followed several feet behind them.
Caroline made a harrumphing sound at being told what to do. “Really, you know, I don’t care if he remembers me or not.”
Hollis giggled with disbelief.
“It’s a matter of pride, Hollis. Certainly I don’t recall every acquaintance I’ve ever made, but I like to think I remember most. And there happen to be two I remember with crystal clarity.”
“I wait with bated breath to hear who they are,” Eliza said.
“Well, one is His Royal Arse, Prince Leopold, which I should think is rather obvious.”
“Caro!” Eliza hissed, looking over her shoulder once more at the two guards who followed them. “You are in Alucia! On the palace grounds! You can’t go round calling Leo names.”
“And the second is the Alucian gentleman with the hook nose,” Caroline continued, as if Eliza hadn’t spoken. “You remember, don’t you, Hollis? I pointed him out to you at the ball.”
“Did you?” Hollis asked, her brows knit as she tried to remember. “Oh! Yes, I remember—the gentleman who never once looked at you. Is that the one you mean?”
“The very one!”
“It was his loss, darling,” Eliza said soothingly.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Caroline asked weakly. “Thank you for saying so, Princess Eliza.”
“Princess? Or is it duchess?” Hollis asked curiously.
“I don’t really know,” Eliza said with a flick of her wrist. “They’ve told me, but I can’t remember. What does it matter? One is as good as the other to me.”
“Well, that’s just the thing, Eliza—one is better than the other,” Caroline said. “How can you not remember if you are to be addressed as princess or duchess?”
“I think if we just address her as Your Highness, it covers all of them,” Hollis suggested.
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Very well, Your Highness, but you’ve been Eliza to me since I was three and you six.”
“For heaven’s sake, Caro, I don’t care what you call me,” Eliza said. “My only request is that you not sp
eak of Leo with such disdain. It’s impolite and badly done when you’ve been a guest of his family for a full month.”
Caroline couldn’t argue with her logic. All the other thousands or millions of Alucians had been quite welcoming, and she was being rude. “You’re right, as is usually the case,” she said with a sigh. “All right, then, consider him utterly forgotten.”
That wasn’t true, and knowing herself as well as she did, Caroline supposed she would probably continue to be rude as far as he was concerned. But she’d keep it to her private thoughts. Arse of Alucia. The pouty prince. Leopold the Rude.
“It’s just as well, darling, as the king means to formally announce his engagement soon.”
“His engagement!” Caroline said, perhaps a bit too loud. “But Beck said he’s returning to England.”
“Yes, he’s returning to England to pack up his things and whatnot. He’s due to return by the end of summer when it will be formally announced. But all the arrangements have been made from what I understand.”
Caroline was stunned into silence. For a moment. “Well, good luck to the lady. She will desperately need it. She’ll be a royal princess or duchess or what have you, but she’ll be married to him. They may call her Your Highness, but she’ll have him to look at across her breakfast table.”
Two women approaching them on the walk stepped out of the path and curtsied as the three of them passed. Caroline looked back at them, still amazed that Eliza Tricklebank could elicit that sort of response from anyone.
“Truthfully? I’d be very happy to be known simply as Mrs. Chartier,” Eliza said.
Caroline couldn’t help but laugh. That was Eliza—never one to pay much mind to social conventions. “You’re impossible, darling! Why should you not embrace your new title and wear it proudly? How will we ever leave you to your own devices?”
