Princes have pomp and glory—not crushes on commoners

Nothing gets the tongues of London’s high society wagging like a good scandal. And when the personal secretary of the visiting Prince Sebastian of Alucia is found murdered, it’s all anyone can talk about, including Eliza Tricklebank. Her unapologetic gossip gazette has benefited from an anonymous tip about the crime, prompting Sebastian to take an interest in playing detective—and an even greater interest in Eliza.

With a trade deal on the line and mounting pressure to secure a noble bride, there’s nothing more salacious than a prince dallying with a commoner. Sebastian finds Eliza’s contrary manner as frustrating as it is seductive, but they’ll have to work together if they’re going to catch the culprit. And when things heat up behind closed doors, it’s the prince who’ll have to decide what comes first—his country or his heart.

JULIA LONDON is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than fifty romantic fiction novels. She is the author of the best-selling Highland Grooms historical romance series, and the Lake Haven contemporary romance series. Julia is the recipient of the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and a six-time finalist for the prestigious RITA® award for excellence in romantic fiction. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Also by Julia London and Mills & Boon

Highland Grooms

Wild Wicked Scot

Seduced by a Scot

Tempting the Laird,

Devil in Tartan

Hard-Hearted Highlander

Sinful Scottish Laird

The Cabot Sisters

The Trouble with Honour

The Devil Takes a Bride

The Scoundrel and the Debutante

The Princess Plan

Julia London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09902-8

THE PRINCESS PLAN

© 2019 Dinah Dinwiddie

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Praise for New York Times bestselling author Julia London

‘There is such an emotional depth to the book…The gorgeous characters and the wit and charm made this a book I simply didn’t want to put down. I was willing Eliza and Sebastian on to their fairtytale happy ending!’

—Nicola Cornick, on The Princess Plan

‘Charming, witty and warm. This is the perfect historical romance.’

—Sunday Times bestselling author

Sarah Morgan, on The Princess Plan

‘Julia London writes vibrant, emotional stories and sexy, richly drawn characters.’

—Madeline Hunter,

New York Times bestselling author

‘London is at the top of her game in this thrilling tale of political intrigue and second chances.’

—Booklist, on Wild Wicked Scot

‘London’s new Highland Grooms series will be well worth following if this first novel is any indication…. An absorbing read from a novelist at the top of her game.’

—Kirkus Reviews on Wild Wicked Scot

‘Expert storytelling and believable characters make the romance between Arran and Margot come alive in this compelling novel packed with characters whom readers will be sad to leave behind.’

—Publishers Weekly on Wild Wicked Scot

‘Warm, witty and decidedly wicked—great entertainment.’

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens on Hard-Hearted Highlander

Dear Reader,

I am so excited to introduce a new historical series to you. A Royal Wedding series was inspired by the very real fairy tale we all saw unfold when Meghan Markle married Prince Harry.

The fairytale of a prince and a commoner has endured as the ultimate romantic fantasy—a handsome man of considerable means plucks an unassuming woman (us) from obscurity, puts a crown on our head, sets us up in a big beautiful home with lots of servants to do the washing and cleaning and, bonus, he worships the ground we walk on. You can’t look at the way Prince Harry looks at Meghan and imagine any less.

I wanted to capture that magical thinking after the recent spate of royal weddings. I thought it would be fun to set the fairy tale in London in the Victorian era. But with a bit of a contemporary twist—the women are strong and outspoken characters that today’s readers can relate to. In The Princess Plan, Eliza Tricklebank didn’t go looking for a prince. But after a murder, some titillating gossip, and some snooping around, a prince came looking for her. The rest, as they say, is a happy ever after.

I hope you enjoy The Princess Plan as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Julia London 2019

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Praise

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

London 1845

All of London has been on tenterhooks, desperate for a glimpse of Crown Prince Sebastian of Alucia during his highly anticipated visit. Windsor Castle was the scene of Her Majesty’s banquet to welcome him. Sixty-and-one-hundred guests were on hand, feted in St. George’s Hall beneath the various crests of the Order of the Garter. Two thousand pieces of silver cutlery were used, one thousand crystal glasses and goblets. The first course and main dish of lamb and potatoes were served on silver-gilded plates, followed by delicate fruits on French porcelain.

Prince Sebastian presented a large urn fashioned of green Alucian malachite to our Queen Victoria as a gift from his father the King of Alucia. The urn was festooned with delicate ropes of gold around the mouth and the neck.

The Alucian women were attired in dresses of heavy silk worn close to the body, the trains quite long and brought up and fastened with buttons to facilitate walking. Their hair was fashioned into elaborate knots worn at the nape. The Alucian gentlemen wore formal frock coats of black superfine wool that came to midcalf, as well as heavily embroidered waistcoats worn to the hip. It was reported that Crown Prince Sebastian is “rather tall and broad, with a square face and neatly trimmed beard, a full head of hair the color of tea, and eyes the color of moss,” which the discerning reader might think of as a softer shade of green. It is said he possesses a regal air owing chiefly to the many medallions and ribbons he wore befitting his rank.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

THE RIGHT HONORABLE Justice William Tricklebank, a widower and justice of the Queen’s Bench in Her Majesty’s service, was very nearly blind, his eyesight having steadily eroded into varying and fuzzy shades of gray with age. He could no longer see so much as his hand, which was why his eldest daughter, Miss Eliza Tricklebank, read his papers to him.

Eliza had enlisted the help of Poppy, their housemaid, who was more family than servant, having come to them as an orphaned girl more than twenty years ago. Together, the two of them had anchored strings and ribbons halfway up the walls of his London townhome, and all the judge had to do was follow them with his hand to move from room to room. Among the hazards he faced was a pair of dogs that were far too enthusiastic in their wish to be of some use to him, and a cat who apparently wished him dead, judging by the number of times he put himself in the judge’s path, or leapt into his lap as he sat, or walked across the knitting the judge liked to do while his daughter read to him, or unravelled his ball of yarn without the judge’s notice.

The only other potential impediments to his health were his daughters—Eliza, a spinster, and her younger sister, Hollis, otherwise known as the Widow Honeycutt. They were often together in his home, and when they were, it seemed to him there was quite a lot of laughing at this and shrieking at that. His daughters disputed that they shrieked, and accused him of being old and easily startled. But the judge’s hearing, unlike his eyesight, was quite acute, and those two shrieked with laughter. Often.

At eight-and-twenty, Eliza was unmarried, a fact that had long baffled the judge. There had been an unfortunate and rather infamous misunderstanding with one Mr. Asher Daughton-Cress, who the judge believed was despicable, but that had been ten years ago. Eliza had once been demure and a politely deferential young lady, but she’d shed any pretense of deference when her heart was broken. In the last few years she had emerged vibrant and carefree. He would think such demeanour would recommend her to gentlemen far and wide, but apparently it did not. She’d had only one suitor since her very public scandal, a gentleman some fifteen years older than Eliza. Mr. Norris had faithfully called every day until one day he did not. When the judge had inquired, Eliza had said, “It was not love that compelled him, Pappa. I prefer my life here with you—the work is more agreeable, and I suspect not as many hours as marriage to him would require.”

His youngest, Hollis, had been tragically widowed after only two years of a marriage without issue. While she maintained her own home, she and her delightful wit were a faithful caller to his house at least once a day without fail, and sometimes as much as two or three times per day. He should like to see her remarried, but Hollis insisted she was in no rush to do so. The judge thought she rather preferred her sister’s company to that of a man.

His daughters were thick as thieves, as the saying went, and were coconspirators in something that the judge did not altogether approve of. But he was blind, and they were determined to do what they pleased no matter what he said, so he’d given up trying to talk any practical sense into them.

That questionable activity was the publication of a ladies’ gazette. Tricklebank didn’t think ladies needed a gazette, much less one having to do with frivolous subjects such as fashion, gossip and beauty. But say what he might, his daughters turned a deaf ear to him. They were unfettered in their enthusiasm for this endeavour, and if the two of them could be believed, so was all of London.

The gazette had been established by Hollis’s husband, Sir Percival Honeycutt. Except that Sir Percival had published an entirely different sort of gazette, obviously—one devoted to the latest political and financial news. Now that was a useful publication to the judge’s way of thinking.

Sir Percival’s death was the most tragic of accidents, the result of his carriage sliding off the road into a swollen river during a rain, which also saw the loss of a fine pair of grays. It was a great shock to them all, and the judge had worried about Hollis and her ability to cope with such a loss. But Hollis proved herself an indomitable spirit, and she had turned her grief into efforts to preserve her husband’s name. But as she was a young woman without a man’s education, and could not possibly comprehend the intricacies of politics or financial matters, she had turned the gazette on its head and dedicated it solely to topics that interested women, which naturally would be limited to the latest fashions and the most tantalizing on dits swirling about London’s high society. It was the judge’s impression that women had very little interest in the important matters of the world.

And yet, interestingly, the judge could not deny that Hollis’s version of the gazette was more actively sought than her husband’s had ever been. So much so that Eliza had been pressed into the service of helping her sister prepare her gazette each week. It was curious to Tricklebank that so many members of the Quality were rather desperate to be mentioned among the gazette’s pages.

Today, his daughters were in an unusually high state of excitement, for they had secured the highly sought-after invitations to the Duke of Marlborough’s masquerade ball in honor of the crown prince of Alucia. One would think the world had stopped spinning on its axis and that the heavens had parted and the seas had receded and this veritable God of All Royal Princes had shined his countenance upon London and blessed them all with his presence.

Hogwash.

Everyone knew the prince was here to strike an important trade deal with the English government in the name of King Karl. Alucia was a small European nation with impressive wealth for her size. It was perhaps best known for an ongoing dispute with the neighboring country of Wesloria—the two had a history of war and distrust as fraught as that between England and France.

The judge had read that it was the crown prince who was pushing for modernization in Alucia, and who was the impetus behind the proposed trade agreement. Prince Sebastian envisioned increasing the prosperity of Alucia by trading cotton and iron ore for manufactured goods. But according to the judge’s daughters, that was not the most important part of the trade negotiations. The important part was that the prince was also in search of a marriage bargain.

“It’s what everyone says,” Hollis had insisted to her father over supper recently.

“And how is it, my dear, that everyone knows what the prince intends?” the judge asked as he stroked the cat, Pris, on his lap. The cat had been named Princess when the family believed it a female. When the houseman Ben discovered that Princess was, in fact, a male, Eliza said it was too late to change the name. So they’d shortened it to Pris. “Did the prince send a letter? Announce it in the Times?”

“Caro says,” Hollis countered, as if that were quite obvious to anyone with half a brain where she got her information. “She knows everything about everyone, Pappa.”

“Aha. If Caro says it, then by all means, it must be true.”

“You must yourself admit she is rarely wrong,” Hollis had said with an indignant sniff.

Caro, or Lady Caroline Hawke, had been a lifelong friend to his daughters, and had been so often underfoot in the Tricklebank house that for many years, it seemed to the judge that he had three daughters.

Caroline was the only sibling of Lord Beckett Hawke and was also his ward. Long ago, a cholera outbreak had swept through London, and both Caro’s mother and his children’s mother had succumbed. Amelia, his wife, and Lady Hawke had been dear friends. They’d sent their children to the Hawke summer estate when Amelia had taken ill. Lady Hawke had insisted on caring for her friend and, well, in the end, they were both lost.

Lord Hawke was an up-and-coming young lord and politician, known for his progressive ideas in the House of Lords. He was rather handsome, Hollis said, a popular figure, and socially in high demand. Which meant that, by association, so was his sister. She, too, was quite comely, which made her presence all the easier to her brother’s many friends, the judge suspected.

But Caroline did seem to know everyone in London, and was constantly calling on the Tricklebank household to spout the gossip she’d gleaned in homes across Mayfair. Here was an industrious young lady—she called on three salons a day if she called on one. The judge supposed her brother scarcely need worry about putting food in their cupboards, for the two of them were dining with this four-and-twenty or that ten-and-six almost every night. It was a wonder Caroline wasn’t a plump little peach.

Perhaps she was. In truth, she was merely another shadow to the judge these days.

“And she was at Windsor and dined with the queen,” Hollis added with superiority.

“You mean Caro was in the same room but one hundred persons away from the queen,” the judge suggested. He knew how these fancy suppers went.

“Well, she was there, Pappa, and she met the Alucians, and she knows a great deal about them now. I am quite determined to discover who the prince intends to offer for and announce it in the gazette before anyone else. Can you imagine? I shall be the talk of London!”

This was precisely what Mr. Tricklebank didn’t like about the gazette. He did not want his daughters to be the talk of London.

But it was not the day for him to make this point, for his daughters were restless, moving about the house with an urgency he was not accustomed to. Today was the day of the Royal Masquerade Ball, and the sound of crisp petticoats and silk rustled around him, and the scent of perfume wafted into his nose when they passed. His daughters were waiting impatiently for Lord Hawke’s brougham to come round and fetch them. Their masks, he was given to understand, had already arrived at the Hawke House, commissioned, Eliza had breathlessly reported, from “Mrs. Cubison herself.”

He did not know who Mrs. Cubison was.

And frankly, he didn’t know how Caro had managed to finagle the invitations to a ball at Kensington Palace for his two daughters—for the good Lord knew the Tricklebanks did not have the necessary connections to achieve such a feat.

He could feel their eagerness, their anxiety in the nervous pitch of their giggling when they spoke to each other. Even Poppy seemed nervous. He supposed this was to be the ball by which all other balls in the history of mankind would forever be judged, but he was quite thankful he was too blind to attend.

When the knock at the door came, he was startled by such squealing and furious activity rushing by him that he could only surmise that the brougham had arrived and the time had come to go to the ball.

CHAPTER TWO

Kensington Palace was the site of a masquerade ball held in honor of the Alucian Court, Thursday past, at seven o’clock in the evening. The Duke of Marlborough hosted in Her Majesty’s stead. The Alucians wore black masks, indistinguishable from one to the next, so that the identity of the crown prince would not be readily apparent, a ploy that might very well have succeeded had it not been for the long line of young Englishwomen who desired an introduction to the prince.

A certain English Kitty, much admired for her Wednesday salons, was so enthralled with the punch cups that a notable fox was on hand to help in any way he might, and thereby took unfair advantage of her in the King’s Cloakroom. When the kitten realized what the fox was about, she demanded satisfaction, and was awarded the assistance of three liveried footmen to escort her out to a waiting carriage, which required such maneuvering around her gown and her ample person as to have knocked the peruke from the unfortunate head of one of the lads.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

WHEN ONE LIVED as simply as Eliza Tricklebank, one did not expect to gain an invitation to a ball, much less meet a prince. And yet, she had somehow managed to put herself in the receiving line to be introduced to a prince, without the slightest bit of assistance other than a wee bit of rum punch.

She couldn’t even say which prince she was waiting to meet, or how many of them there were in total. She’d heard there were at least two of them presently in England, but for all she knew, there could be scores of them roaming about.

It seemed amusing now to think that this evening, and this moment, and the idea that Eliza might make the acquaintance of an actual prince, had all begun only days ago when Caroline had called at Bedford Square where Eliza lived with her father.

Caroline had news about the ball, gleaned from the revered Mrs. Cubison, the modiste from whom she’d commissioned masks for the three of them. “Mrs. Cubison offered that she’d been retained a month ago to provide masks for the Alucians, and that she and her ladies had worked for days to fulfill their wishes.” She’d spoken quickly, with much excitement, even as she lazed on Eliza’s bed.

Hollis had gasped and reached for paper. “Not another word until I have my pencil—”

“You won’t believe what I tell you,” Caroline had said.

“I will.”

“The truth will be known soon enough, I suppose—”

“Caro, by all that is holy, if you don’t tell us, I will squeeze it from you with my bare hands,” Hollis had warned.

Caroline had laughed gaily. She enjoyed provoking Hollis, which Eliza had pointed out to her sister more than once. Hollis stubbornly refused to accept it.

“All right, here it is. Every single mask is black and identical.”

Hollis and Eliza had stared at their best friend, who very calmly pillowed her hands behind her head and crossed her feet at the ankles.

“Why?” Eliza had asked, only slightly curious about this mask detail.

“So you can’t tell the crown prince from the others!” Caroline had cried triumphantly.

Looking around her now, Eliza thought that was very forward thinking by the Alucians because it had worked—she could hardly tell one Alucian from the other. There were scores of tall men dressed in black and identical plain black masks—just like the one she’d encountered in that narrow passageway a quarter of an hour ago.

What a strange encounter that had been. Gentlemen were such odd creatures to her, now that she was at a remove from them by a spinster’s arm length. They could be so presumptuous. She realized now she wouldn’t be able to pick out that man in this crowd of identically dressed men even if she wanted to encounter him again. Which she did not. And while the Alucian women were distinguishable by their beautiful gowns, even they wore the same black mask.

It appeared as if she would have time to inspect them all, sandwiched as she was between ladies adorned in silk and muslin embroidered with perfect stitching, and topped with elaborately constructed masks for this masquerade ball. Eliza knew her gown was not as beautiful as any of the other garments here. It was rather plain in comparison, really. She and Poppy had created it from two dresses. Poppy was quite talented with a needle, as it happened.

Eliza was talented, curiously enough, with the repair of clocks.

Her gown, made of white silk and blue tarlatan with sprays of blue flowers, floated over three tiers of skirt. Her waist and sleeves were adorned with ribbons bought for a dear sum from Mr. Key’s shop. The décolletage was scandalously low, but Hollis said that was the current fashion. It dipped into a little bouquet of gold and blue silk rosettes that bloomed between her breasts. “The gold matches your hair,” Poppy had observed as she’d curled and roped tresses of Eliza’s hair this evening, twining it with strands of gold leaf.

“Doesn’t it seem as if a clump of sod was dropped here and flowers sprang?” Eliza asked, trying to adjust the low bodice.

Poppy had cocked her dark head to one side and considered it. “Not...especially.” Her tone lacked conviction, and Eliza gave her a pointed look as she took in their reflections in the mirror, to let her know she didn’t believe her.

Hollis had proclaimed Eliza’s mask the best of the three that Caroline had bought from Mrs. Cubison, who was, according to Hollis, the premier modiste in all of London. It covered Eliza’s forehead and nose, and gold scrolls had been painted around the eyes. The mask rose from the right side of her face, sweeping up and arcing over her head. “It’s the Venetian style,” Hollis informed her.

Eliza didn’t know what style it was and would have no occasion to know, and neither did she care. She was grateful to Caroline for the invitation and for the very generous gift of the mask, but it seemed an extravagant waste of money to Eliza’s practical nature. Of the three of them, she was the one who seldom made social calls, who rarely received invitations that were not to do with her father. Who never had occasion to set foot in a masquerade ball. That was what happened to spinster caretakers—they fell from the view of society. Were it not for her dearest sister and wildly popular dearest friend, she’d never go anywhere at all. And even then, on the occasions she was included, she generally had her father to consider.

But tonight, she’d been utterly transformed into someone very different. She wore perfume where she generally smelled like old books and court papers. Her hair was artfully arranged instead of being bound haphazardly at her nape. And her borrowed shoes were embroidered, not scuffed like the ones she wore about the house every day. Thanks to Caroline’s magic, she was standing in Kensington Palace in an evening gown and wearing an exotic mask. To say this ball was a luxury for her was a terrible understatement. She intended to breathe in every moment and carry the memory of it around with her for the rest of her days. She didn’t fancy herself a Cinderella.

At least not until she discovered the glittery magic of the queen’s rum punch.

Eliza wanted to tell Hollis and Caroline about the rum punch, but she’d been separated from them almost the moment they’d entered the palace by the mob at the entry. Eliza had tried to keep pace with them, but she was hindered in her progress when three ladies dressed in Alucian costumes crowded in front of her, and Eliza had been so enthralled with their gowns, made in the redingote style and cut tightly to their bodies, and their trains! She’d never in her life seen such beautifully made trains, and she admired how they were tucked up in the back and sides with elaborate fasteners. “What do you imagine is the cost of a gown like that?” she’d asked, and looked up, only to discover Hollis and Caroline had disappeared into the dizzying array of ball gowns and jewels, elaborate masks and the square, black shoulders of all the gentlemen.

At first Eliza was a bit desperate to find them. She’d never been to a ball, and definitely not to one where it was rumored the queen and prince consort might appear. She didn’t know what she was to do.

But the crowd was so thick, and before she knew it, she was being carried up the grand King’s Staircase, past the painted friezes of people standing at a balustrade watching the guests go up, and then down the hall, past more paintings and elaborately carved ceiling medallions and priceless porcelain vases on French consoles. Past gold-gilded mirrors that made it seem as if even more people had been stuffed inside the palace, which was really quite a lot. It was impossible to fathom that London had so many people of Quality, so many people deemed worthy enough to be extended an invitation to this royal ball.

The wave of people she was riding had poured into the ballroom, and once again Eliza was dumbstruck. At least fifteen crystal chandeliers with three tiers of candles glittered above the heads of the dancers. The ceiling soared above them, held aloft by full-length windows. Portraits of Important People lined the room. Risers, covered in red velvet, had been installed on either side of the room, and men and women lounged on them as if they were in a park watching a parade while others danced a quadrille. In a small alcove high above the floor, she could see the musicians, squeezed in practically shoulder to shoulder, their bows moving quickly over their strings as a dizzying swirl of skirts and masks twirled around.

It was magic. Glittery, sparkly magic, and Eliza had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming it.

She’d been given a dance card when they entered the palace, and she’d thought perhaps she ought to step aside and affix it to her wrist. But she’d been distracted by all the people, and gone up on her toes and craned her neck, looking for Hollis or Caroline, but she saw no one she could possibly recognize behind a mask.

That was when a short, broad woman with a plain gray mask that matched her tower of gray hair had cried, “You there!” and pointed at Eliza.

Eliza had looked behind her and, seeing no one obvious, pointed at her chest questioningly.

The woman had impatiently gestured her forward, snatched up her dance card when Eliza was close enough, then clucked her tongue. “You’ve none of them filled! What have you been doing?”

Eliza realized with a jolt that the woman must be one of the ballroom hostesses Caroline had warned them about. Her function was to ensure that all dance sets were filled, and all unattached ladies had a partner. “If you don’t want to find yourself dancing with old, leering bachelors, you best avoid them,” Caroline had advised.

The woman snorted her displeasure at Eliza and commanded her to hold out her wrist, tied her dance card to it, then pointed to a group of young women. “Wait there,” she said, and turned away, presumably to find her an old, leering bachelor.

Eliza looked at the small group of women huddled in a corner. Well, that was a motley lot of wallflowers. One of them was picking at her sleeve, unravelling a thread. Another’s mask was so large that she had to tilt her chin up to keep it on. Eliza might be an old spinster, but she was not joining that group.

She glanced slyly at the ballroom hostess, who was occupied with berating another young woman unfortunate enough to have been caught without a dance partner. She’d thought it curious how a gown and a proper mask could transform a person so utterly in the space of a moment, but Eliza was indeed transformed. Once upon a time, she’d been terribly obedient and quick to please. She’d thought that was the way good young women who would make good young wives were supposed to behave. A review of her life might suggest she was too quick to please, for when Mr. Asher Daughton-Cress had asked her to be patient with him and the offer he would definitely make for her hand, she had not questioned him, because she was naive. She had trusted him because he told her to. And besides, he’d assured her he loved her desperately. But she’d discovered, far too late, long after the situation could be repaired, well after everyone else knew what she did not, that he’d been courting another woman.

A woman with twenty thousand pounds a year, thank you.

To whom he was now married and with whom he shared three lovely children.

That incident, which was the talk of London for what seemed weeks, had taught Eliza valuable lessons. One, she would never ever suffer the pains of a broken heart again, because there was nothing quite like it—she had wanted to die, unable to grasp even the idea that one person could lie to another person so completely and without remorse. And two, never again would she please others for the sake of pleasing, and tonight, of all nights, she would not abide it. She would never again have an opportunity to attend a royal ball and she refused to be shackled to a group of undesirable wallflowers whom men were forced by etiquette to dance with, or worse, around whom leering old gents lingered.

So she quickly glanced around and spotted a footman slipping through a door that was disguised as part of the wall. She brashly followed him on a hop and a skip, escaping the eagle-eyed gaze of the hostess and sliding in through the door behind the footman before anyone could stop her.

She found herself in a passageway of maybe five feet in length and perhaps only three feet in width. At the other end was a similarly disguised door. The walls in the passageway were panelled, and a single wall sconce provided light.

In other words, within ten minutes of entering the rarefied halls of Kensington Palace, Eliza had put herself in a servants’ passageway. No wonder Caroline had insisted she stay close so that she wouldn’t do anything inappropriate.

She didn’t mean to stay for more than a moment. She’d just wanted to avoid the hostess until she’d gone off to terrorize someone else. While Eliza pondered how long that would take, the door at the opposite end of the passageway suddenly swung open. A servant entered, carrying a tray of drinks on his shoulder. He looked at her as he moved toward the door she’d just entered through. “You’re not to be here, madam.”

“My apologies. But the room is so crowded, is it not? I need only a moment.” She made a show of fanning her face. “I won’t move from here, I swear it.”

The servant shrugged and took one of the glasses from his tray. “Might as well have one of these, then.”

“What is it?”

“Punch.”

He swung open the door into the ballroom, and a great cacophony of voices and music blasted the small space before the door swung closed behind him, silencing it all to a din.

Eliza sniffed at the punch. Then sipped it. Then imprudently downed it, draining the glass, because the punch was delicious. How tingly it made her feel!

Moments later, the footman suddenly appeared again and extended his nearly empty tray for her glass. “Thank you,” Eliza said sheepishly. “That was very good.” She took one of the last glasses on his tray.

“Aye, madam. It’s been amply mixed with rum.” He proceeded on, through the other door, behind which Eliza could hear the deep hum of masculine voices. And then it was quiet again.

Who knew that rum could be so delicious? Certainly not her. She liked the soft, blurry warmth that spread through her. The sort of warmth she liked to feel at night when she was drifting off to sleep, or in a hot, sudsy bath. And yet, not like that at all.

When the footman returned a moment later with a full tray again, Eliza was happy to take another one. She rolled her eyes when he arched a judgmental brow before going out again.

She sipped the drink and closed her eyes as the warmth spread through her arms and legs, and then announced to herself with delight, “This is very good.”

She supposed that the fizzy warmth of the rum was what kept her nerves from defeating her completely when the door at the other end of the passageway came open a few inches, as if someone coming through had paused. She listened curiously to the male voices all speaking the Alucian language, and then the door suddenly opened all the way, to reveal an Alucian gentleman stepping into the passageway.

The door swung shut behind him.

Eliza and the masked man were alone.

He tilted his head just slightly to the left, as if he was uncertain what he’d just found. She returned his gaze with a curious one of her own. His presence was so large and the passageway so small that she felt a bit as if she was pressed up against the wall. But thanks to the rum, she was feeling rather sparkly and untroubled and, with the help of the wall, managed to curtsy with a slight lean to the right and said, “How do you do?”

The Alucian didn’t answer.

She supposed it was possible he didn’t speak English. Or perhaps he was shy. If he was painfully shy, he deserved her compassion. She’d had a friend who had suffered terrible stomach pains for days when she was forced to be in society. She was married now, with six children. Apparently, she wasn’t shy away from society.

Eliza held up her glass, making it tick-tock like a clock pendulum. “Have you tried the punch?”

He glanced at her glass.

“It’s delicious,” she proclaimed, and drank more of it. Perhaps as much as half of it. And then chuckled at her indelicacy. She’d forgotten most of what she knew about polite society, but she was fairly certain guzzling was frowned upon. “I hadn’t realized I was quite so parched.”

He stood mutely.

“It must be the language,” she murmured to herself. “Do you,” she said, enunciating very clearly and gesturing to her mouth, “speak English?”

“Of course.”

“Oh.” Well. She could not guess what would cause a gentleman not to speak at all if he understood what was being said to him, but frankly, Eliza was more concerned with the whereabouts of the footman than the Alucian stranger. “Are you going through?” she asked, gesturing to the ballroom door.

“Not as yet.”

The clean-shaven, tall man with the thick tobacco-colored hair and the pristine neckcloth had a lovely accent. She thought it sounded like a cross between French and something else. Spanish, perhaps? No, something else. “How do you find London?” Not that she cared, but it seemed odd to be looking at a gentleman when there were only the two of you in the passageway and not at least attempt to make polite conversation.

“Very well, thank you.”

The door behind him swung open and very nearly hit the gentleman on the backside. The footman squeezed inside. “Pardon,” he said, bowing deferentially before the Alucian gentleman. Eliza thought it curious the footman didn’t offer the Alucian the punch but walked past him to take Eliza’s glass and offer her another. “Oh dear. I really shouldn’t.” But she did.

The footman carried on into the ballroom.

All the while the Alucian gentleman watched Eliza as if she were one of the talking birds that were brought to Covent Garden Market from time to time.

Perhaps he was curious about her drink. “Would you like to sample it?” she asked.

The man’s eyes fell to her glass. He moved closer. Close enough that the skirt of her gown brushed against his legs. He leaned forward slightly, as if trying to determine what her glass contained.

“Rum punch,” she said. “I’ve never had rum punch until tonight, but I mean to remedy that oversight straightaway. You’ll see.” She held up the glass, teasing him.

He glanced up at her, and she noticed he had the most remarkable green eyes—the faded green of the oak leaves in her garden at autumn. His dark lashes were long and thick. She held the glass a little higher, smiling with amusement because she didn’t believe for a moment he would be so ill-mannered as to take her glass.

But the gentleman surprised her. He took the glass, his fingers brushing against hers. She watched with fascination as he put the glass to his lips and sipped the punch. He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket, wiped the glass where his lips had touched it and handed it back to her. “Je, it is very good.”

She liked the way his voice slipped over her like a shawl, light on her skin. “Would you like a glass of your own? The footman and I have an arrangement.” She smiled.

He did not smile. He gave her a slight shake of his head.

She considered this lovely creature further as she sipped the punch. “Why are you here and not out there?”

A dark brow appeared above his mask “One might ask the same of you.”

“Well, sir, as it happens, I have a very good reason. The hostess was not satisfied with my dance card.”

His green eyes moved casually to her décolletage, and Eliza’s skin warmed beneath his perusal.

“I’m not particularly good at dance,” she admitted. “We all have our talents, I suppose, but dance is not mine.” She laughed because it struck her as amusing that she would admit this unpardonable social sin to a stranger. The rum punch did indeed have magic qualities.

The Alucian shifted even closer—her petticoats rustled with the press of his leg against her. His eyes moved over her mask, tracing the scroll that arched overhead. “I would hazard a guess that you would like to tell me your particular talent,” he said, clearly enunciating the last word.

Either the rum or the masculine rumble of his question had Eliza feeling swirly and warm. She had to think a minute. What was her talent? Repairing clocks? Embroidery? Or was her talent something as mundane as taking care of her father? She was certain her sister and her friend would be appalled if she admitted any of that to any gentleman. She couldn’t, anyway—his gaze was piercing, rendering her momentarily speechless and a wee bit slushy.

No, that wasn’t right. It was the punch making her feel slushy.

His gaze raked over her, from the top of her mask’s scroll and down to her mouth, her décolletage and the ridiculous spray of flowers, then to her waist. When he lifted his eyes again, his gaze had gone very dark, and the shine in them had turned her blood into a river of heat. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of that passageway, and she felt the need to hide behind her glass and sip tiny little gulps of air, because she honestly didn’t trust herself not to do something very ill-advised. Like touch his face. She had an insane desire to press her fingertips to his high cheekbones.

His gaze was on her mouth as he said, “Did you not mean to share your talent with me?”

“No, I did not,” she said, her voice somewhere outside of her.

His gaze moved lower, lingering on the burst of gold flowers between her breasts. “Are you certain? I’d love to hear it.”

He was attempting to seduce her. It was exciting and amusing and so very silly. “Your efforts, while admirable, will not work,” she announced proudly. “I am not so easily seduced.” Except that wasn’t entirely true. She certainly liked the feeling of being seduced. It had been a very long time since anyone had even thought to attempt it, and although she was crammed into this narrow passageway and it was hardly the place she would have chosen to be seduced, she rather liked the idea of starting the ball in this manner. It made her feel electric.

Fortunately, she supposed, she at least had the presence of mind to recognize she probably shouldn’t allow herself to be seduced by a perfect stranger.

The gentleman shifted imperceptibly closer, and his masculinity, which felt undeniably potent, wrapped around her and held her there. He lifted his hand and shamelessly, and slowly, traced a finger lightly across her collarbone, sending all manner of chills and shivers racing through her. “Is that not what you intended? To be easily seduced in a dark passageway?”

She snorted a laugh. The ridiculous confidence of men who believed that if a woman came near, they wanted to be seduced! “I intended to drink some punch and avoid the ballroom hostess.” She lifted her hand, wrapped her fingers firmly around his wrist and pushed his hand away. “You think highly of yourself, sir. But I should explain that merely because a woman is standing in a passageway, having drunk a bit of rum, does not mean she desires your advances.”

He smiled smugly. “You might be surprised. What other reason could a woman have for lurking in this passageway?”

“I can think of a hundred other reasons.” She could only think of one. “And I know myself very well, and I would never be seduced in a passageway. So if you would please step away.”

His eyes casually took her in, head to toe, and then he stepped to the side.

Eliza sipped more punch as if she wasn’t the least bit bothered, but in fact, her skin felt as if it was flaming. Her pulse was fluttering. And the thought that she was too practical was playing at the edges of her thoughts. The Alucian gentleman, tall and lovely eyed, was quite enticing. Who would have been the wiser? She wouldn’t mind in the least being kissed at a royal ball...but neither did she want to risk discovery and be tossed out before she’d met a prince.

As luck would have it, the door swung open and another Alucian stepped in. But he drew up short and stared down at her in surprise. He looked past her to the gentleman stranger and spoke in their language. The gentleman responded quietly and stepped around Eliza as if nothing had been said between the two of them and went into the ballroom without so much as a good evening.

The door swung closed behind him.

The door at the other end opened and the footman entered once more with yet another tray of drinks. “Madam, you can’t be in here,” he reminded her.

“All right, I’m going,” she said, and with her glass, she followed the Alucians into the ballroom.

She instantly spotted the hostess searching the room like an eagle surveying a valley from a high perch. So Eliza turned and walked quickly away from the group of undesirable dance partners. She skirted around the dance floor and, when she finally stopped to have a look around, she discovered she’d put herself in a group of women. It was some sort of gathering. In fact, two older women were corralling the young women together like a pair of sheepdogs.

And that was how Eliza had found herself in a line to meet a prince.

She hadn’t realized it at first—she was too taken by the youth and beauty of the ladies, all of them adorned in beautiful masks and gowns, and holding themselves with discernible confidence, quite unlike the wallflowers across the room. This was her group.

Eliza thought perhaps she ought to dispose of her fourth rum punch lest the fizzy feeling extend to her tongue—if it hadn’t already—and when she leaned forward to see around the ladies, she saw a group of Alucian men. Curious, Eliza tapped the very creamy shoulder of the slender and tall young woman before her.

The woman turned. She had dark hair and wore an elaborate mask that included peacock feathers arranged in a clever way around her eyes. The blue and green of the peacock feathers matched the blue of her gown. The woman blinked through her mask, her gaze taking Eliza in.

“I beg your pardon, but who are they?” Eliza asked, nodding in the direction of the gentlemen.

The woman blinked. “I think the better question is who are you?” she responded curtly.

“Eliza Tricklebank.” She bounced into a tiny curtsy. “I am happy to make your—”

“You’re not to be in this queue,” the woman said, cutting her off. “This queue is for selected guests only. You must have been invited to it by Lady Marlborough. Did Lady Marlborough invite you?”

Eliza had the punchy audacity to laugh. It was necessary to have an invitation to stand in line? But the peacock was frowning, and Eliza said, “Of course!” And then she snorted, as if it was ridiculous to even question her.

“Really,” the woman said coolly.

“Really,” Eliza said. “She said to stand here, just behind you.”

The peacock didn’t seem to believe her, but she didn’t press it. She turned her back on Eliza and whispered to her companion.

Was it really necessary to be invited to stand in line? And for what? Frankly, Eliza couldn’t imagine why anyone would stand in line to meet anyone else unless that someone was terribly important. Or rich. Important and rich and handing out bags of money. That was a queue she’d willingly join.

Or if it was queue to meet the queen or some other bit of royalty—

Eliza’s fate suddenly dawned on her like a beacon from above, illuminating the path before her. Of course! She leaned forward again. The Alucian gentlemen, all dressed in black superfine wool and white waistcoats and identical masks, were distinguishable only by the color of their hair. Which, on inspection, was quite similar, all of them shades of darkly golden brown, much like that of the gentleman in the passageway. They were similar in height, too. Only one of them was perhaps an inch taller than the others. Another a few inches shorter than the others. And curiously, they were all clean-shaven. Caroline had said the crown prince had a beard.

It must be the younger one! She was in line to meet one of the Alucian princes! Eliza was beside herself with glee. She felt giggly and restless and looked around once more, desperately seeking her sister, who would never forgive Eliza if she met a prince and Hollis did not.

But Hollis was nowhere to be seen, so Eliza sipped liberally, then touched the woman’s shoulder again. The woman turned impatiently. “What is it?”

“Is it the prince?”

Well. A pretty mask could not cover a good roll of the eyes.

“Good Lord, Miss Tricklebank. You’ve shown quite indelibly that you were not invited to join this line. You best walk on before Lady Marlborough finds you.” And she jerked around and put her back firmly to Eliza.

Eliza was not about to move away, not now, not with a prince only feet from her. And having found no place to dispose of her punch, she continued to sip it as the line slowly inched along, amusing herself with all the ways she could imagine being introduced. Miss Eliza Tricklebank. Miss Eliza Tricklebank. Miss Eliza Tricklebank, of the Bedford Square Tricklebanks. Not to be confused with the Cheapside Tricklebanks, as there had been a rift in the family after her grandfather’s death.

She bent to see around the ladies again, examining the gentlemen. The one in the middle looked oddly familiar.

No. Her stomach fluttered uncomfortably. It wasn’t possible! Was it possible? Good Lord, it was entirely possible. That was the same gentleman she’d met in the passageway. It was a prince who’d tried to seduce her? Hollis would faint with shock. Eliza might, too. He’d sipped her punch! The prince! The younger prince—

No. No, that couldn’t be, she suddenly realized. It was the crown prince who wanted to make a match. It had to be him—why else would these women be queued up like cattle to make his acquaintance?

All at once, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. To think she’d come so close to the crown prince. She might have kissed him! She very nearly had done! He was the crown prince!

She took a breath, forcing herself to calm down.

He seemed a bit stiff to her now, actually. He wasn’t shimmering with the heat she’d felt in the passageway, nor spilling over with seductive energy. He looked to be spilling over with tedium at present. Eliza would think he’d at least attempt to be a bit more cordial if he was indeed searching for a wife. Nevertheless, she would magnanimously give him the benefit of the doubt—perhaps the stiffness in him was the result of a bad back from riding around on horses. Or fighting wars. Didn’t her father say there had been skirmishes with the Weslorians?

Whatever the reason, he clearly was not enthusiastic about these introductions. Certainly not as enthusiastic as the slight man who kept bringing young ladies forward to meet him. Now that man had a ready smile for each lady. He moved strangely, and she realized that he held a gloved hand against his side. It appeared to be misshapen and he used his right hand exclusively.

One by one, the smaller gentleman brought the ladies forward, and one by one, they curtsied before the prince. He never seemed to utter a word but would give a polite bob of his head, then turn his back and resume his conversations with fellow Alucians. It seemed shockingly rude to Eliza.

She wondered what he would say when he saw her. Would he find it amusing? She might offer him the rest of her punch. Or perhaps he would remark on her thirst for it and offer her a punch. Perhaps they’d laugh. “Oh dear, I had no idea it was you in the passageway!”

The peacock wouldn’t like that.

Eliza pictured herself before him, sinking into a deep curtsy. She would say, “Enchanté,” because he surely spoke French, the language of royal courts. He would hold out his hand to help her rise, and perhaps then he would smile, and he’d say, in perfect French, that the ball was quite pleasing, and how did she find it? And she would say, in perfect French, her fluency having improved dramatically for the moment, that she found it quite pleasing, too. He would ask if she’d yet put any names on her dance card, and when she admitted she had not, he would escort her past all the other ladies to the floor for a dance.

“Move up!” someone behind her hissed.

“Oh! Pardon,” she said, and took a sort of hop-step forward as the line advanced, as if she were playing the game “Mother May I.”

The introductions continued like an assembly line. It was the same every time—the enthusiastic Alucian introduced a lady, the lady would wax excitedly about something, and the prince would bob his head then turn away, and the poor man making the introductions had to work to gain his attention again. Some of the ladies, tired of waiting, drifted away, lured by the dancing. Others doggedly waited their place in line, Eliza among them. Why should she not? She felt so sparkly on the inside that she could not keep the smile from her face, particularly when she glanced around the ornate ballroom at all these beautiful people—well, beautiful masks. She was in Kensington Palace at a royal ball. The crown prince of Alucia had sipped her punch!

But just as Eliza was closing in on the prince with her introduction in mind, standing behind only the peacock, the prince said something to the gentleman making the introductions and began to move away. The peacock froze with indecision. Her companion looked back at her, her alarm evident behind her mask. Eliza could imagine what the two of them were thinking—that one friend would have the introduction and not the other was unthinkable.

Eliza nudged her. “Step forward! We might still make his acquaintance—”

The peacock suddenly whirled around to her. “Don’t push me! Miss Tricklebank, has it not occurred to you that you are far too old to be in this line?”

“What?” There was an age limit? There was no time to discuss it—the prince was moving away without so much as a glance in their direction, and Eliza saw her chance slipping through her fingers. She’d had enough rum punch to feel justifiably emboldened, and suddenly leapt around the paralyzed woman and blurted, “Welcome to England!” for lack of anything better to say.

In the days to come, Eliza would believe that Prince Sebastian would never have acknowledged her at all had she not sort of lurched into his path at the very moment he was striding forward, which unfortunately caused him to step firmly on her foot.

Eliza gasped with the surprise and pain of it.

“I beg your pardon, are you all right?” He quickly moved his very large and heavy foot from hers.

“Quite,” she said breathlessly and stuck out her hand as if he were the butcher who had just given her a very good price on pork. “Miss Eliza Tricklebank.”

He looked at her gloved hand as if he didn’t have the slightest idea what he was to do with it. Eliza smiled hopefully. He reluctantly and delicately took her hand in his, which felt like a vast plane of palm and fingers, and bowed over it. “Madam.”

The feel of that strong hand holding hers so carefully fired through Eliza’s veins. It was the zest of accomplishment, the thrill of having met an actual prince, not once, but twice. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance again, Your Highness. Your Royal Highness.” She smiled brightly. “Formally. Obviously, we met earlier.” She beamed at him.

“Sir,” one of the Alucian men said, and the prince let go her hand and turned away from her. Before Eliza could so much as draw a breath, he’d been swallowed up by several Alucians and hurried along.

The man who’d been introducing the women to the prince suddenly appeared at Eliza’s side. “Are you hurt, madam? Shall we have a look at your foot?”

“Pardon? Oh, no need, there was no harm.” She laughed a little hysterically. “I met the prince,” she said to him.

The man smiled. “Indeed you did.” He leaned forward and said, “You and your foot might have left a most indelible impression on him.”

Eliza laughed with delight. Her mission had been accomplished. A broad smile of pride spread across her face, and she turned her head and cast that smile at the peacock. That woman gaped at her, still paralyzed.

“I met the prince!” Eliza said again, and with a bright laugh, she nodded at the kind Alucian and walked away, aware that the peacock’s gaze was boring through her back.

That was another thing that happened when one became a spinster caretaker. One ceased to care what others thought of her.

CHAPTER THREE

Guests at the Royal Masquerade Ball were treated to three sets of Alucian dancing, all of which involve very intricate steps and require an agility and eye for precision demonstrably not possessed by a certain minister many consider to be past his prime.

Ladies, if your lovely ball gown has suffered a mishap, remember to put a teaspoon of Madeira wine to every gallon of water to remove the stain.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

SEBASTIAN CHARLES IVER CHARTIER, the crown prince of the kingdom of Alucia and the Duke of Sansonleon, was hot behind his bloody mask and desired more of the excellent rum punch. But he would accept any liquid that might quench his thirst.

What he disliked about balls and assemblies and state suppers in general was that there were too many expectations, too many people to please. And apparently, to hear the captain of his guard tell it, too many dangers lurking beneath the gowns and the coattails around him. He was not allowed to take a drink from a servant. Protocol demanded any drink or food be handed to him by an Alucian. After it was sampled by an Alucian. And the Alucians were so intent on their duty that a reasonable man could easily believe there were hordes of rebels attempting to poison him at every turn.

Sebastian also disliked the necessity of dancing. He wasn’t a bad dancer, quite the contrary. His position in this world demanded that he be a competent dancer, and to make sure of it, his parents had hired the best dance tutors when he was younger. Still, he didn’t particularly enjoy it. He was wretched at making empty conversation, curt when answering the same questions while trying to keep names in his head. He was not adept at being social, not like his brother, Leopold.

Sebastian would much prefer to be on the back of a horse. Or in a gaming room with his few close friends. Or writing. He was currently engaged in a meticulous recording of Alucian military history. The topic interested him, but his acquaintances found his interest in the past rather dry. If he had his way, Sebastian would be more than content to keep to his study and read his documents and books. He could do without company for long periods of time. Or, he fancied he could. He didn’t really know it to be true, because as the heir to the Alucian throne, he was forced to endure a contradictory private life while constantly in the presence of others. Servants. Secretaries. Advisors. Guards.

And in full view of the public from which he was supposed to be sheltered. People had a way of seeing past the veil. His every step was recorded.

Which might explain his aversion to such events as this. He was surrounded by people he didn’t know who clambered to be close to him. People who wanted to breathe in his air and push a little closer. It was vexing and at times could be terribly unnerving. Once, when he’d been dispatched to the initial launch of one of their newest warships, two men had come from nowhere, putting their hands on his shoulder, trying to capture him or toss him into the sea before the Alucian guard fell on them and stopped them.

In large groups, he felt like a caged animal, a species on constant display.

This particular ball had been planned well before he’d ever stepped foot on England’s shores, a courtesy extended by the English crown to the Alucian crown. Negotiations for it had been handled by Sebastian’s personal secretary, Matous Reyno. It was Matous’s idea for the masquerade.

Matous had been by Sebastian’s side for many years, serving him since the day of his fifteenth birthday and investiture as crown prince. Seventeen years in all.

Outside his immediate family, Sebastian trusted no one as he trusted Matous. That said a lot for the man, really, for the Chartiers believed that no one in the Alucian Court could be trusted. The forty-year-old rift between Sebastian’s father, King Karl, and his older half-brother, Felix, the Duke of Kenbulrook, had created an atmosphere of distrust and betrayal that had followed him all the way to England.

Sebastian didn’t really fear betrayal—he tended to believe the good in most, and more than once had suggested to his father that perhaps the rift between him and his half-brother could be repaired. Sometimes men did unwise things when they were young, he’d suggested.

His father had responded with a murderous look.

His father’s fear that all men had been sent by Felix to harm them had settled into the marrow of everyone that surrounded the royal family. Especially while in England—everything and everyone was suspect.

It was that overriding suspicion that had led Matous to suggest that if everyone wore a mask, and an identical one at that, Sebastian might have some semblance of privacy. Very little, Matous admitted, but it seemed far better than wearing the sashes and the medals and rings of the knight guard Sebastian would typically wear if the ball were more formal. “It is the only way that you might attend without great attention, I think. You will not be so easy a target. And the English like the idea.”

Sebastian had laughed. “A silk mask will not protect me from all the assassins that supposedly lurk around me.”

“It will not protect you, no, Your Highness, but your elite guard will. And it may serve to confuse detractors and menaces.”

Sebastian thought his detractors and menaces were wilier than that, but then again, it hardly mattered what he thought. There were men in the crown’s service paid to think of these things, and their nerves had put Sebastian on edge since his arrival more than a week ago.

The trade agreement he’d come to negotiate was vitally important to his country but perhaps even more important to him. His father had not wanted to pursue it. The prime minister of Alucia resented Sebastian’s interference in the delicate matters of state, and insisted they ought to be thinking of the military. “We should focus on preparing for war with Wesloria,” he’d advised the king, “not pursuing trade agreements with a country so far from our shores.”

Sebastian saw it differently. This friction between Alucia and Wesloria had taken a toll on the kingdom’s economy. Border skirmishes did not come cheap, and had dented the coffers. In the meantime, Alucia had not progressed like other countries, had not begun to manufacture goods like England or America. What they needed was a stronger economy, he’d argued. Alucia might be a small European kingdom, but it was rich in resources. They needed the tools of industrialization, which England had developed above all others. The resources mined in Alucia—iron ore and copper, for example—could be traded for England’s help in creating new, viable industries. Cotton and wheat could be bartered for tobacco and sugar.

Industrialization would give Alucia the upper hand if they found themselves at war with Wesloria, where Uncle Felix continued to sow seeds of discord.

The crux of the dispute between the two royal half-brothers was that Uncle Felix, banished forty years ago to his family’s home in Wesloria when Karl took the throne, believed he had a more legitimate claim to the throne than Karl.

The question of succession had its roots in a sixteenth-century civil war, when a Chartier had first assumed the throne. Felix’s family, the Oberons, who lost that struggle and had retreated to Wesloria, propping up Weslorian kings along the way. They’d long claimed that the Chartier claim to rule Alucia was not as legitimate as theirs.

Felix had promised to unite Wesloria and Alucia under one rule if he was successful in gaining the Alucian throne, and with the many loyalists dedicated to the Oberon cause, the Chartiers feared they could be drawn into war.

Sebastian wanted to unite Wesloria and Alucia, too. He wanted the Chartiers and Oberons and their fellow countrymen to unite in the strength of industrialization and shared prosperity. Not by the ravages of war.

“The prime minister believes this to be a fool’s errand,” his father had said to Sebastian one night in his study, when the two of them had been alone save for the two footmen who stood quietly aside, ready to serve.

“The prime minister can’t see the forest for the trees,” Sebastian had said. “We won’t survive a war by falling behind the times.”

His father had harrumphed but said, “I will agree to your plan, but over the objections of my prime minister. He has threatened that the parliament may not ratify any trade agreement struck by you if it is not completely advantageous to Alucia.”

“I understand.”

“You must maintain the upper hand in negotiations,” his father had warned.

Sebastian was well aware of that. Wasn’t that the goal of any negotiation?

“There is one way you might appease me and the prime minister and perhaps pave a path to ratification.”

“Oh? How?” Sebastian had asked curiously.

“Bring home a wife.”

“Pardon?” Sebastian had laughed.

His father did not. “We’ve waited long enough. We must secure the question of succession—Felix’s son Arman has two children. While England believes in our legitimacy, Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, agrees with the view of his duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who favors Felix. They depend on Wesloria for iron ore, as you know. We can cement your trade agreement and England’s commitment to us with an English bride.”

This had not been part of Sebastian’s thinking, but instead of debating the point, he’d said nothing. He needed to think about it.

His father had pinned him with a look. “You’re not a young man any longer. You’re two-and-thirty. We must secure the succession—it’s as simple as that, son. If you can’t arrange it, then perhaps you have no business inserting yourself in these affairs.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do. You should know that if you don’t settle on a match, when you return, I’ll settle on one for you. A bride from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, perhaps.”

Sebastian had had no choice but to agree.

Now that he was in London, the rumors of rebellion felt dangerously real, whereas in Alucia, the threats always seemed at a remove. His security was the best of his country, and yet, Sebastian felt exposed in London. He didn’t know how his younger brother, Leopold, seemed to live relatively at ease while he studied at Cambridge.

“They’re merely rumors,” Leopold had said with a shrug when Sebastian had questioned him.

Perhaps Leopold did not hear the reports that support for their father was eroding under a relentless propaganda campaign coming from Felix. That was another thing that drove Sebastian—he believed if he could modernize the country, he could shore up support for his father.

And then again, it was entirely possible that those rumors were unfounded but louder in Sebastian’s presence, as he was the heir, the future king. Perhaps they seemed stronger here because of Prince Albert’s support of Felix and Wesloria.

Sebastian had to find a wife in this veritable sea of unmarried English women. Alliances had to be formed, and the ministers of Alucia had hypothesized that a proper English bride with strong connections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom would secure support for Alucia in a deeper rift between Wesloria and Alucia. Which potential bride, however, was an ongoing debate between the ministers that had accompanied him.

Sebastian understood his duty. He wasn’t particularly bothered by the marriage part of this bargain with his father. He’d never entertained the idea that a marriage to a woman could be made solely on the basis of compatibility and affection. He had always known it would be a political alliance in his case, just as his parents’ had been. They’d dispatched their duty to the kingdom and had produced the obligatory heir and a spare. Now they lived separate lives for the most part, his mother generally spending her time in the mountains at their ducal estate, and his father settled in at the palace in the capital of Helenamar. Sebastian assumed his marriage would follow the same path.

The Alucians had narrowed the field of eligible wives to a handful, but the hopes of English parents were evergreen. In addition to hearing the rumors of his demise at every turn, Sebastian was also being bombarded with introductions to unmarried English women.

He’d just endured a long line of them. It was ridiculous, what with all the masks. And what could anyone hope to do in a few superficial moments? Did they think he would look at one of those masked faces and Cupid would sling his arrow into Sebastian’s heart? He’d resented the need to do it, and he’d been so fatigued by the many introductions that he’d actually stepped on the foot of a woman who had greeted him with a hearty Welcome to England, as if she were standing at the port of entry, waving weary travelers through.

“Do you intend to dance?” Matous asked after Sebastian had told him that he would not accept another introduction and had proceeded to walk away.

“No.” Sebastian looked around for a waiter. What were they serving? Was it the punch?

“I would highly recommend it, sir. If you don’t, it will be remarked and your identity revealed.”

“Have I not already been remarked?” Sebastian complained. “You introduced two dozen young women to me in the corner of the ballroom.”

“Two dozen out of what could potentially have been two hundred,” Matous said with a deferential incline of his head. It was a habit of his; he sought to appear deferential when he was disagreeing or correcting Sebastian.

Sebastian groaned and looked around for a footman.

“Is there a...type...that would please you, sir?”

Matous was not asking after Sebastian’s favorite type of dance. The “type” that would please him was a naked one, preferably on a bed somewhere far from this madness. “Red hair,” he said. “I made her acquaintance at Windsor, do you recall? Widowed or separated or something like it. And a drink, man. Wine, punch, I don’t care. I must have something.”

“As you desire, sir,” Matous said crisply, and with a flick of his right wrist, sent one of the four guards, who were dressed identically to Sebastian, hurrying off to find something for him to drink.

The guard returned a moment later with a glass, which he sipped before wiping the rim clean with his handkerchief and handing the drink to Sebastian.

Sebastian downed the drink. It was the rum punch, and it was as good as the first time he’d sampled it. A thought flitted through his mind briefly—was the woman whose foot he’d mangled the same woman in the passageway? He mentally shrugged and thrust the glass at the guard. “More,” he said.

While he waited for the guard to return with more of the drink, Matous went off to find the woman with the red hair. At about the same time as the guard returned with a second round of punch, Matous returned with a woman on his arm. She was wearing a deep blue gown. Her auburn hair looked quite stunning, and her green catlike eyes glittered at Sebastian from behind a mask. She sank into a very deep curtsy.

“Your Highness, may I present Mrs. Regina Forsythe,” Matous said.

“Mrs. Forsythe,” Sebastian said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance again.”

“The pleasure is assuredly mine, Your Royal Highness.” She accepted the hand he’d offered and rose up with a pert smile.

“You intrigued me so with your conversation at Windsor,” he remarked. “I hope it is not an imposition to resume it?”

She smiled coyly. “Which conversation was that? About the soup? Or the fact that my husband is stationed in India at present?”

She was saucy, and Sebastian liked that about her. At Windsor, when he’d asked why she had not accompanied her husband to India to give him comfort, she had slyly explained that her husband saw to his comfort, and she to hers. “Both,” he said to her question. “May I have the honor of this dance?”

“The honor would be mine.”

He presented his arm. She laid her hand lightly on it and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor. The musicians played a waltz, and Sebastian bowed, then took her hand in his, placed his other hand high on her back, and led her into the dance.

“How are you finding London?” she asked.

“It has been a privilege.” Never give an answer that could be in any way misconstrued.

“How do you find your rooms at Buckingham?” she asked, her eyes glittering.

A clever little inquiry. “We are not housed at Buckingham. The queen has graciously accommodated our large party here.”

“How fortuitous.” Her coy little smile went a little deeper. “I am familiar with all the hallways and rooms at Kensington. It’s quite a complicated little palace, is it not?”

Sebastian smiled. “Quite.” He understood her as well as she understood him, as well as she and Matous and he all understood one another. Sebastian knew, without having to ask, that arrangements for private accommodations would be made.

At the end of the dance, he whispered an invitation in Mrs. Forsythe’s ear and how she might go about it if she were so inclined. The lady did not so much as blink. She slid him a look from the corner of her eye, flicked open her fan and whispered her response.

He bowed, escorted her from the dance floor, thanked her, then walked back to his group of men. He looked around for the ever-present Matous and spotted him across the room in an animated discussion with one very round Englishman. But Sebastian was quickly distracted by a couple sailing toward him at what looked like thirty knots. One of his guards stepped in front of him before the couple could accost him.

“How do you do,” the gentleman said, and bowed, exposing the bald spot on his head. “We should like to welcome His Royal Highness.”

Sebastian’s guard said nothing.

“We’d like to invite him to join us for cake,” the woman trilled. But she didn’t look at Sebastian when she said it, and he realized that they didn’t know who he was. They were hoping he or his guard would point out the prince to them.

His guard clucked his tongue at the lady. “I beg your pardon, madam, but the prince does not care for cake.”

Well, that wasn’t true at all. Sebastian very much liked cake and he could do with some now. He was starving.

“Would you be astonished to learn that my father, Mr. Cumbersark-Haynes, was acquainted with your king when they were lads at Oxford?” the man said. “Jolly good times they had, and I’m certain His Highness would enjoy the tale if you’d be so kind to point him out.”

Another guard moved discreetly to stand beside the first, blocking the couple’s view of Sebastian.

“Ah, I see. Yes, my lord,” the guard said, “the prince is just there,” and pointed across the room.

Both English heads swiveled around in the opposite direction of where Sebastian stood.

“Splendid, thank you very much indeed,” the man said. And then he leaned in close to Sebastian’s guard. “Is it true what they say? Is there to be war between Wesloria and Alucia?”

“In Alucia, we do not listen to rumor,” the guard said.

“Oh, of course not,” the woman said quickly, nodding her head so adamantly that the feathers atop her mask looked as if they were bracing against a gale force wind. “And neither do we listen to rumor.”

Except, perhaps, the rumor that war was brewing with Wesloria.

“If you will excuse us,” the guard said, and the couple were both nodding like a pair of dumbledees, the Alucian word for idiot.

The woman put her head next to her companion and began to whisper in his ear as they hurried off in search of the crown prince.

The first guard turned around to Sebastian. “I would recommend, Your Highness, that we adjourn to another part of the ballroom.”

“I recommend we adjourn to the dining room. I’m famished.”

“A private dining room has been set,” the second guard said, and indicated with his chin the direction they were to walk.

As they made their way toward the door of the ballroom, Sebastian looked around again for Matous but did not see him. The Englishman he’d seen talking to his secretary was now in the company of other Englishmen, all of them laughing together at something.

He did not see Matous again until much later, after he’d been served in a dining room and had drunk more of the delicious rum punch. He was in better spirits, looking forward to his clandestine meeting with Mrs. Forsythe. He’d even danced again, this time in complete anonymity with a young woman who focused on her feet. And when the Alucian dances were played, he joined the line with Lady Sarafina Anastasan, his foreign minister’s comely wife.

At half past midnight, Matous appeared at his side. He looked harried, a bit disheveled, and his hair was mussed. All quite unlike Matous. He said low, “All is at the ready, sir.”

Sebastian nodded. As they made their way from the ballroom, Matous said, “If I may, sir, is there some place we might have a word?”

But Sebastian had availed himself of punch and was feeling randy and desperate to be out of the mask. Visions of Mrs. Forsythe’s fair green eyes and unbound auburn hair had begun to play in his head in anticipation of what was to come. “Will it not wait?”

Matous hesitated. He glanced at the guard and pressed his lips together. “As you wish, sir.”

Sebastian took pity on his secretary and said in Alucian, “Come to my suite in two hours. We can speak freely there.”

Again, Matous hesitated. It was not like him at all—he was generally eager to please. Sebastian studied his face a moment. “Will that suit?”

“Je,” Matous said in Alucian. Yes. He bowed his head.

Sebastian carried on, his thoughts already on his tryst.

Mrs. Forsythe was waiting just inside the vestibule of the entrance marked by a clock. She smiled when Sebastian jogged up the steps.

“You must be freezing,” he said.

“I will be warm soon enough. Come.” She boldly reached for his hand. “I’ve the perfect room.”

Oh, he was certain she had the perfect room, probably procured for her by spies in the English government or perhaps even by rebels. He was well versed in all the ways someone might try and catch him in a compromising situation because he’d spent his life learning to subvert such ploys. He pulled her into him, caught her chin with his hand and touched his lips to hers. She sighed longingly.

“I’ve a different room, madam. Would you care to see it?” He wrapped his arm around her waist to escort her down the steps.

She resisted. “But I had the servant light a fire.”

“There will be fire in this room, too,” he assured her.

She gave a quick, furtive look behind her.

“Are you expecting someone other than me, Mrs. Forsythe?”

“Pardon?” She blanched. “No, Your Highness, of course not.”

She lied. But Sebastian smiled. He was well guarded and didn’t care what little scheme she’d cooked up. “Shall we?”

Whatever agreement she’d made, whatever bargain she’d struck, she surrendered it—she preferred pleasure to subterfuge. How fortuitous for him.

He put his arm around her waist and led her down the steps to the drive. They walked briskly behind an Alucian guard who led them around the corner and into a private garden, through a side door, and up the stairs to where the Alucian servants and guards had been quartered. Another guard was waiting at the entrance to one of the rooms. He opened the door for them, then quickly and quietly closed it behind them.

The room was small, but the hearth was lit, and the linens looked freshly washed. Sebastian did not hesitate to remove Mrs. Forsythe’s mask. She was as pleasing to look at as he recalled from the state dinner at Windsor.

She reached up and removed his mask, too, and smiled prettily. “What a handsome man you are, sir. Quite pleasing.”

Sebastian kissed her. She kissed him back. And before he knew it, he had her against the wall, moving with abandon, and she was crying out in pleasure like a hyena.

He never did make it back to his suite of rooms that night.

CHAPTER FOUR

The Royal Masquerade Ball at Kensington Palace included banqueting in a room that boasted wall coverings in rich red and gold, contrasted by tables set in snowy white linens and silver. Guests availed themselves of the twenty-foot buffet serving meats, cheeses, sandwiches, biscuits, sweet meats, towering cakes in delightful shapes, and the evening’s most favored delectable, the royal tipsy cake, served on plates of fine bone Limoges china, and finished in 22 carat gold, produced in France for Her Majesty the Queen.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

THE DISCOVERY OF food was another delight for Eliza. In addition to being a wee bit in her cups, she was famished. With the excitement of the day on her mind and an extraordinary amount of time required to prepare, she’d not eaten a thing since morning. She wandered up and down the tables laden with food prepared by the palace kitchens, filling a plate well past the amount of food that was considered polite for a delicate woman to take. Well, she was not a delicate woman and she was hungry and she was terribly blasé about her personal circumstances. It wasn’t as if she was hoping a gentleman might notice her and consider her a worthy prospect for marriage—Eliza knew better than that. She was eight-and-twenty, on the shelf, unremarkable, plainly dressed, and undesirable to anyone in this crowd. She appealed mostly to the Mr. Norrises of the world, who assumed, given their widowed status and her spinster status, that she would be delighted to clean their chamber pots and darn their socks. No, thank you. Her life suited her well enough and allowed her to eat at royal balls without qualm.

She had settled with her plate of food near the door, at a table that had been set a little away from the others to clear space for those wishing to exit the room. It was there, behind her sandwich, that she noticed once again the enthusiastic, slender Alucian gentleman who had been the one to make introductions to the prince. He seemed far less enthusiastic now. He was standing in the hall, and she wondered what he was doing, when suddenly a veritable armada of Alucian gentlemen came striding down the hall, the prince at the center. The slender Alucian quickly stepped into their path, and Eliza realized he’d been standing there so that he could intercept the prince.

Once again, the prince seemed impatient with the slender man, and very subtly tried to move around him. But the slender man was determined to have his say. Eliza took a rather large bite of her sandwich, chewing enthusiastically, and watched as the man spoke and the prince responded, and then stepped around him. Nevertheless, the prince hesitated before he moved along, but move along he did, and the slender man appeared a bit dejected, judging by the way his shoulders sagged, and he stared down at the floor as guests streamed around him.

Eliza didn’t think she cared much for the haughty prince, in spite of his fine green eyes. She wondered where he was off to at such a clip.

The slim man suddenly looked up and through the banquet hall door. His gaze seemed to land directly on Eliza. She froze, a chipmunk with her cheeks full of sandwich. Was he looking at her? It was difficult to tell with the mask. Surely not.

Well, if he was, he was frightened off, because he suddenly turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction. He walked up to a round Englishman and whisked him off to the side of the hall for animated discussion.

That porcine Englishman seemed terribly familiar to Eliza. She called up many faces in her head as she tried to sort it out.

“There you are!”

The shout startled Eliza so badly she fumbled her sandwich.

“Dear Lord, what are you doing, Eliza?” Caroline exclaimed in horror. “You’re eating as if you’ve not dined in weeks.”

“I’m hungry,” Eliza informed Caroline. “The food is delicious. I want to try everything.”

“Well, it looks like you have everything on your plate.” Caroline sat heavily beside Eliza with a sigh. “I’ve danced to the point I don’t think I can take another step.” Even though her mask was slightly askew, Eliza thought Caroline was particularly lovely tonight. But that was Caroline for you—always impeccably dressed. She had the good fortune of fine looks and a fine figure. Even in her bedclothes and her hair tangled around her, she was quite lovely. She was tall and lithe, and her pale blond hair was put in loops above her ears, anchored there by the velvet ties of her gold mask. Her gown was made of gold and white muslin, and gold velvet ribbons wrapped around her sleeves. She wore a single strand of pearls around her neck.

But it was her mask that stood out above all else. It was a work of art. It was shaped like the oversized eyes of a cat and was covered in the same material as her gown. Cascades of beads hung from the corners and bordered the full mask.

When they’d dressed for the ball, Caroline had taken an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror, admiring herself from all angles, making slight adjustments to her gown and mask, depending on her perspective. “Madam Rosenstern made the gown especially for me, especially for tonight,” she’d informed Eliza and Hollis.

Caroline suddenly reached for Eliza’s dance card dangling from her wrist. “Eliza! You’ve only three of them filled!”

“I was forced to dance a polka,” Eliza said, and took another bite of sandwich. “Have you any idea how dreadfully I dance a polka?”

“I know how dreadfully you dance, darling, but I rather thought you’d do well enough with a quadrille, and yet, you haven’t a partner for that dance. We must find a hostess—”

“No!”

“And will you put down the sandwich? A gentleman will not be inclined to consider a lady for a dance partner, much less a potential wife, if he fears he must feed her as much as his livestock.”

Eliza put down her sandwich. “If a gentleman considers me for a potential wife, he must also consider that I eat. This may come as quite a shock to you, Caro, but I did not come to this ball in search of a husband. I came to meet a prince, and that, I have done. Twice over,” she added pertly.

Caroline gasped. “You have? When?”

“When I was avoiding the ballroom hostess. Look there, do you see that thin Alucian gentleman speaking to the fat Englishman?”

Caroline looked around. “Which one?”

“One of his hands is in a black glove and he holds it at his side.”

“What of him?”

“He was the one making introductions to the prince. Who, by the bye, has shaved the beard you swooned about.”

“Ah. To add to his disguise, I suspect.”

“Who is the gentleman speaking to?”

Caroline sat up a little straighter to see. “If I am not mistaken, that is Mr. John Heath, the banker. You’ve met his daughter, Lucille, haven’t you?”

Eliza shook her head.

“No?” Caroline leaned forward and whispered, “The poor dear has been out two seasons without a single offer. I have heard it said that her modest dowry is not enough to make up for her plain looks. She is not considered a catch.”

“She and I could be fast friends, then, couldn’t we?”

Caroline gave her a little glare. Both women turned their attention to the two men and their discussion across the way. A second Englishman had joined them.

“How on earth did you gain an introduction to the prince?” Caroline demanded. “One must be invited to be introduced.”

“So I was instructed.” Eliza forked a healthy bite of the tipsy cake. “I encountered him in a passageway between a study of some sort and the ballroom.”

“A what?”

“A passageway.”

“What were you doing in a passageway?”

“Hiding,” Eliza admitted. “He sampled my punch. Said it was very good. And then he tried to seduce me.”

Caroline’s eyes rounded. And then she burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious!” she cried gleefully.

“I am quite serious. He tried to seduce me, plain as day. I didn’t know he was the prince then, obviously, or I might have allowed it, but moments later I found myself in a line to meet him, and Caro, I perjured myself.” She laughed. “I claimed to have an invitation, and would you believe that not one person challenged me? Well, that’s not entirely true. There was a woman dressed as a peacock who challenged me, but she didn’t call the authorities.”

Caroline’s eyes widened. “Eliza Tricklebank! You were in the group of debutantes invited to make his acquaintance?”

“Did you see them?”

“I heard of them in the retiring room. Everyone did. Sarah Montrose was bragging and Emily Peters was crushed that she was not invited to join. Apparently, she’s been struck off the list.”

Eliza had another bite of cake. “I wanted to meet a prince and I saw no other way to do it. His eyes are an amazing shade of green, Caro. I’ve never seen such a color. Oh, and he stepped on my foot.”

“What?”

“Right across the top of it, with all his weight. It’s a wonder he didn’t break it—he’s quite a large man up close.”

Caroline gaped at her.

“But I didn’t mind,” Eliza insisted through another bite of cake. “It was an accident, and I own some of the fault, because I leapt in front of him before he got away. I will never have another opportunity to meet a royal prince and I wasn’t going to let it pass because of some unwritten rule that one must be invited.”

Caroline’s mouth dropped more. “What has happened to you?”

Eliza laughed. “Where is the harm? If he’d been swept off his feet by the sight of me and had sent all the other unmarried ladies home, I would apologize profusely for my behavior. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t, and therefore there is no harm. This isn’t Cinderella after all.”

“Well, this is certainly not Cinderella. At least she danced,” Caroline said, and helped herself to a piece of cheese from Eliza’s plate. “You are not the only one to have encountered a prince tonight, you know. I was meant to dance with Prince Leopold, whose name is very clearly written on my dance card, do you see?” she asked, shaking her dance card at Eliza.

Eliza peered at it. She saw the name clearly written.

“We are acquainted, as you know,” Caroline said.

Eliza resisted a roll of her eyes. She loved Caroline, but Caroline adored every opportunity to mention any of her many important friends. She had told Eliza and Hollis the story of meeting Prince Leopold of Alucia at a country house last summer. She had told them more than once—several times over, if one was counting. The meeting had been very brief, but according to Caroline, hugely memorable to her and the prince both.

“We are more than acquainted, really, given our conversation in Chichester. Well, you’ll not believe it—he pretended not to know me at all.”

“Pardon?”

“As if we’d never met!” She reached for another piece of cheese. “I was given the cut direct, Eliza, and for no reason whatsoever.”

“But...did he not write his name on your card?”

“Oh, that,” Caroline said, and had a third piece of cheese. “Miss Williams wrote his name there because I had said, with certainty I believe I am due, that once I greeted him, he would naturally extend the invitation. Any gentleman would have done so. But he has cut me to the bone.”

“The bastard,” Eliza said in full solidarity with her friend.

“He will regret it, you may trust me,” Caroline said confidently. “All right then, come along, and stop eating! Let’s go and fill the rest of your dance card. There are only three sets left, and one of them is an Alucian dance.”

“But I want the tipsy cake!” Eliza complained. “I don’t want to dance the Alucian set. I’ll make a fool of myself.”

“Come,” Caroline commanded.

Eliza stifled a belch and allowed Caroline to remove the tipsy cake from her reach.

They walked arm in arm to the ballroom, but the hall was very crowded and their progress slow. As they made their way, the peacock, all smiles now, passed on the arm of an Alucian gentleman. “That’s her,” Eliza said, indicating the woman with a tip of her chin. “She’s the one who informed me I had to be invited to meet the prince.”

Caroline blinked. “Do you know her?”

“No. Should I?”

Caroline squeezed Eliza’s arm. “That is Katherine Maugham.”

Eliza glanced over her shoulder as the peacock was swallowed into the crowd. “Who is Katherine Maugham?” she asked, mimicking Caroline’s dramatic intonation.

“Eliza!”

“What?”

“Do you speak to no one but the judge? Haven’t you heard of Lady Katherine Maugham? Surely Hollis has mentioned her.”

Eliza shook her head. “If she did, I wasn’t listening.” At Caroline’s withering look, she said, “I have quite a lot to do every day and I can’t listen to every word my sister utters, for you may trust there are loads of words. Where is Hollis, by the bye? And are you going to tell me who Lady Katherine Maugham is?”

“She is the one everyone believed would catch the eye of the crown prince. Her father is particularly well positioned in the Lords and heir to a vast fortune. His ironworks company is one of the largest in all of England and this trade agreement would be a boon for him. I’m truly surprised Lady Katherine didn’t tell you herself, for everyone knows she is certain to whisper it to whomever is nearby at the first available opportunity.”

“Well, she didn’t catch his eye in the introduction line. He walked on before she ever opened her mouth.”

Caroline gasped. And then grinned. “Really. Tell me everything, especially how offended she was.”

Eliza giggled. When they reached the ballroom, Caroline made Eliza stand to one side. “Don’t move as much as an inch, will you promise?”

“I promise,” Eliza said, and saluted her friend.

Caroline hurried off. As Eliza waited patiently—she was too full to do more than that—she became aware of a group of gentlemen very nearby. Alucians and Englishmen, she confirmed with a quick peek, and once again, she noticed the thin, wiry companion of the prince. He seemed particularly agitated now. Eliza sidled closer under the pretense of stepping out of the way of foot traffic as a dancing set came to a close.

“How dare they utter the word rebellion,” one of the Alucians muttered, his words heavily accented. “Do they not understand that every whisper feeds the potential?”

“I think they do not understand your country,” said one of the Englishmen. “They believe what they’ve been told by those who would do you harm.”

That voice sounded familiar. Or did they all sound familiar to her?

“Then perhaps they should not have been invited,” the Alucian snapped. “Surely you must know that he is—” He very abruptly stopped talking and turned around.

Eliza blinked with surprise. She hadn’t realized she’d gotten so close. “I beg your pardon,” she said, and turned away, hurrying toward the ballroom door before any of them could speak.

“Eliza!”

In her horror at having been caught eavesdropping, she’d forgotten Caroline’s instruction. She whipped about to see Caroline walking toward her on the arm of a gentleman.

“Where are you off to?” Caroline said, and through her mask, Eliza could see her glare.

“Um...” She looked toward the door.

“I should like to introduce you to my friend, if I may?” Caroline was staring daggers, so Eliza straightened, smiled and curtsied to the gentleman. Should she have curtsied? Oh well. Caroline would be sure and critique her performance later.

Caroline’s friend was no taller than Eliza. His mask rode up his nose, but he had a pleasant smile and he bowed.

“May I introduce Mr. Howard of Brighton?” Caroline said with proper aplomb. “Mr. Howard, please meet my dear friend, Miss Eliza Tricklebank.”

“How do you do, Miss Tricklebank.” He bowed. “May I be so bold as to request the pleasure of this dance? Lady Caroline informs me that your dance card is not yet full.”

Eliza shot a look at Caroline, whose countenance had gone from impatience to smiles. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Eliza?”

“They will be starting a quadrille,” Mr. Howard said, glancing toward the dance floor.

“Thank you, Mr. Howard. I would like that very much,” Eliza said, offering her hand to be placed on his arm. Which might have been poorly done. She couldn’t keep all the rules in her head.

“You must enter his name,” Caroline said, pointing at her dance card.

Eliza thrust her arm forward. “Perhaps you might do the honor for me, Caroline. I would so very much hate to make a mistake.” If Caroline noticed her sarcasm, she gave no hint of it. She quickly wrote Mr. Howard’s name. “There you are, off you go!” She smiled brightly, as if sending a child off to the schoolroom.

So Eliza trotted off to dance with Mr. Howard. After him, she danced with another gentleman, a friend of Mr. Howard’s. And then, the dreaded Alucian set with an Alucian whose English was so heavily accented that she could hardly understand him as she concentrated on the intricate steps. She danced a quadrille—Caroline was right, she performed passably at the quadrille. And finally, a waltz with a gentleman who reeked of tobacco and liquor.

At this point in the evening, the masks had begun to come off, as people were perspiring behind them. The cacophony of voices grew louder and the punch ran low. Eliza doffed her mask, too, tying the ribbons together and looping it over her arm while she danced. Once or twice, she had to remind herself that she was in Kensington Palace at a royal masquerade ball. That the gentlemen with whom she danced were important and wealthy men. And the women around her who weren’t already in desirable marriages were bound for them.

She might have smiled and flirted, might have pretended for the evening that she was not a spinster who looked after her father. But strangely, she had no desire to pretend. She was quite at ease as a dancing spinster fallen gaily into her cups.

And really, the only eyes she could recall at all in that vast sea of masks were a pair of autumn green eyes.

CHAPTER FIVE

At half past two in the morning, the buffet in the banquet room was replenished to the great appreciation of many after the rigor of the Alucian sets. Masks began to come off and revealed several surprises, including how the curious tastes of a northern lord extends to his costumes. There was not a single sighting of a particular royal visitor after one o’clock. Nor was there any hint of the whereabouts of a lady whose hair marked her identity where her mask attempted to hide it. There was no witching hour for revellers, as many of them were heard in the streets as they departed Kensington well past four o’clock.

Ladies, if a late night of dancing has left you with swollen eyes, the French practice of sleeping in a mask of raw veal is the perfect remedy. You’ll awake fresh and doe-eyed.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

SEBASTIAN WOKE TO an empty bed.

He bolted upright, momentarily disoriented by the small room and the absence of any servant quietly arranging the tea service. But it quickly came rushing back to him—the woman with the brilliant red hair riding him, her fingers curling into the flesh of his chest. He looked down. Je, she’d left a mark.

Sebastian rubbed his hands through his hair, then got out of bed and found his clothes, everything but his discarded mask. He quit the room in a half-dressed state. His shirttails were out, his coat draped over his arm, his neckcloth dangling from his fingers.

Two guards were stationed just outside the door, both of them leaning against the wall, having learned the art of sleeping while standing up, a skill Sebastian himself did not possess. They quickly roused and silently led Sebastian out of the building, taking care to make sure the doors closed soundlessly behind them.

The day was just beginning to dawn when they reached a familiar part of the palace. When Sebastian entered his chambers, his valet, Egius, very nearly fell out of the chair where he’d been sleeping. Sebastian handed his coat and neckcloth to him. “A bath, please.”

“Je, Your Highness.” Egius bowed and went out to arrange it.

Sebastian walked to the basin, plunged his hands into ice-cold water and splashed his face. His belly rumbled with hunger. It had been a vigorous night—Mrs. Forsythe had a voracious appetite for the male body.

His butler entered the room and bowed, “Bon den, mae principae.”

“Good morning, Patro,” Sebastian returned in Alucian. “I’ll breakfast after my bath. Bring round the foreign minister. Where is Matous?”

“I’ll send a man to rouse him, sir,” Patro said.

It was early yet, Sebastian realized with a yawn. Too early to wake a man. “Leave him for now,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Let the man sleep until breakfast.”

When Sebastian’s bath was readied in the adjoining room, he sank into the steaming water and closed his eyes. This was the first time since arriving in England that he felt so relaxed. He was grateful to Mrs. Forsythe for scratching an itch that badly needed tending.

He dozed lightly in the fragrant water as his mind wandered aimlessly through a forest of thoughts, including the dozens of women he’d been introduced to since arriving in London. There were always women—eager, hopeful women. His lack of interest in any one in particular concerned his country’s ministers. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for women—nothing could be further from the truth. But it seemed to him, more often than not, that a woman’s interest in him was more about a position of privilege and notoriety than it was about him.

Nevertheless, he understood that he had to marry. He had to produce heirs. He was two-and-thirty, well past the time to do the one thing required for his life of undeniable privilege and produce an heir.

He’d met scores of women in Alucia. He’d met scores of women tonight at the ball, and before that, at supper parties across Mayfair in the homes of notable Englishmen. And two days after his arrival, at the formal supper at Windsor—but there, he’d been captivated by the saucy Mrs. Forsythe. No one else had stood out to him.

It was the same wherever he went, in any country, on any continent. He was introduced to people who were eager to marry a daughter, niece, sister, granddaughter to him. There were so many young women, in fact, that they’d all begun to look alike. Pale English faces and narrow noses. Mrs. Forsythe had stood out for all the wrong reasons. Compatibility, affection—none of that seemed to matter other than that the woman would one day be a queen and the mother of the heir to the throne in Alucia, and thereby bring the family privilege and standing. Sebastian could be a beast and it wouldn’t matter.

He sank lower into the tub and thought about calling for more hot water. Unfortunately, he had meetings to attend. Today, he was meeting with the English trade minister, who was clearly skeptical of the proposed agreement. Sebastian had to be at his best and convince the man.

And yet, he didn’t move from the warmth of the water.

The problem with all these women, he mused, was that he looked at the task of finding a potential mate as another in a long line of tasks: meet with the English officials about the trade arrangements; form alliances with rich, important men; select a woman from the many presented to marry. It seemed an easy enough task to accomplish if a man could divorce his feelings from it, but there was a part of him that yearned to find one who was compatible with him in some way. One whom he could trust. One who could be a friend and lover before she was ever a queen. Was that possible? Probably not. His grandmother had once said to him that there were trades in everything a person encountered in life. Great wealth and responsibility must come at the expense of something else. He assumed she’d meant love.

Once, he’d said to Leopold that he desired a woman who was compatible, and his brother had laughed. Not at Sebastian, really, but at the absurdity of their lives. They both knew that it was nearly impossible to find people they could completely trust, and they could only hope for it. Wealth and influence and titles had a way of turning otherwise honest people into liars and actors. Not that Sebastian believed that every woman he met was untrustworthy—but he didn’t know how to separate the trustworthy ones from the opportunists.

He would probably never know if the woman he married held any particular esteem for him. She could be bored beyond hope by his quiet life, and he’d not know it. Honestly, Sebastian didn’t know if there was really anything for a woman to admire about him other than the fact that he would one day be king.

The water had cooled, and he grudgingly climbed out of the tub. He accepted a towel and thick wool robe from Egius. He stood in front of the fire and ran his fingers carelessly through his damp hair. When he felt warm and dry, he went into the sitting room, waving off the undershirt Egius tried to hand him. “I’ll have my breakfast first,” Sebastian said.

He took a seat at the dining table. A young Alucian servant poured coffee. Patro had put a neat stack of his briefing papers on the table. He would be presenting language for the agreement later today. He picked up the first one and scanned the writing...power and strength, and to take use of all due means, courses and prescriptions, and execute due acquittance and discharge...

There was a soft rap at the door, followed by Patro’s entrance. He bowed low. “Your Royal Highness, Field Marshal Rostafan and Foreign Minister Anastasan.”

The two men entered behind Patro, both of them looking a little bleary-eyed. “Gentlemen,” Sebastian greeted them in Alucian. “Did you enjoy the evening, then?”

“Excessively,” Rostafan said, and sat heavily at the table beside Sebastian. By the look of it, Alucia’s top military officer had not combed his hair. He was a barrel-chested man, quite tall, with a ruddy complexion and a beard that was in desperate need of trimming. He wore his military ribbons with great pride and had a habit of chewing his bottom lip to the point it looked always chapped. He took very little notice of the protocols and customs when it came to dealing with members of the royal family and tended to treat the king and his sons as if they were all equals.

His manner was the very opposite of Caius Anastasan, the foreign minister. Where Rostafan was big and gruff, Anastasan was trim and fastidious in his manner and attention to Sebastian. His olive brown skin was smooth and flawless, save for the dark circles under his eyes this morning, and he had not a hair out of place in spite of the early hour.

Sebastian knew Caius well—they’d attended Oxford at the same time, and Sebastian had considered him a friend. But his investiture as the crown prince of Alucia had changed some of his earlier relationships, including the one with Caius. His old friend had become deferential, and when he was named foreign minister, his deference had turned almost cloying. Sometimes Sebastian wondered if he’d imagined those years at Oxford.

Caius waited until Sebastian invited him to sit, which he did with a gesture of his hand.

“How did you find the ball, Your Highness?” Caius asked.

“Tolerable,” Sebastian said, then smiled slyly. “Particularly toward the end.” His visitors chuckled knowingly. Sebastian was used to every detail of his life being known to the people around the throne. It was impossible for him to have any secrets for any length of time.

Patro returned, this time with two servants carrying trays of breakfast—eggs and sausages, toast points and jam.

The three of them ate heartily while the men regaled Sebastian with tales about the ball. The sight of the English attaché dancing one of the Alucian sets was the stuff of excellent comedy when Rostafan told it. As they finished their meal, the talk gradually turned toward the meeting Sebastian was to have that afternoon. Caius was speaking about the need to reduce tariffs on Alucian goods. “We should insist on lowering the tariffs for—”

Sebastian stopped Caius from speaking by lifting his hand. “I would have Matous here for this.” He looked around for Patro.

The butler nodded and went out to fetch the private secretary.

Rostafan drummed his fingers on the table, obviously annoyed by the wait. He turned his attention to the window and craned his neck to have a look at the gardens. “Looks to be another gray, wet day,” Rostafan said. “One cannot comprehend how an entire people can abide such gray, wet conditions day in and day—”

The door suddenly burst open and Patro, wild-eyed and ashen, rushed in.

Sebastian twisted in his seat, confused. “What is it?”

“Sir—Mr. Reyno does not rouse.”

Rostafan chuckled. “He can’t hold his drink.”

But Sebastian could see by Patro’s face that he didn’t mean Matous had drunk too much. “What do you mean, he does not rouse?” Sebastian demanded as he gained his feet.

“Sir, I regret to tell you there is a great deal of blood.”

Rostafan lurched forward, brushing Patro aside as he rushed from the room. Sebastian moved to go after him, but Caius caught his arm with a surprisingly strong grip. When Sebastian tried to shrug him off, Caius put both hands on Sebastian’s chest and roughly shoved him back.

“You dare put your hands on me?” Sebastian shouted.

“Sir! We don’t know what’s happened. We don’t know if it’s an ambush or some plot to draw you out. Patro! Send in the guard!”

Sebastian again tried to follow Rostafan and pushed Caius aside, but he was stopped by the appearance of guards who blocked his exit.

“Your Highness,” Caius said, his voice gentler. “You must wait here until we know it is safe.”

Several guards filed in behind the first. Sebastian glared at them all, enraged. He didn’t care that they had a duty—he only cared that they allow him to pass, to see what had happened to Matous.

With a roar of frustration, he whipped around and swept the breakfast dishes from the table, sending them crashing to the floor.

It seemed hours before Rostafan returned. His expression was dark, and his hands were covered in blood.

“Well?” Sebastian demanded.

“Murdered,” Rostafan said. “His throat slit.”

The news was so astounding that Sebastian lost his balance. He tipped into the breakfast table, catching himself with his hand. “It’s not possible,” he said. Matous! His one true friend. He felt sick. There was a pressure on his chest that felt as if it would crush it. He was aware of everyone in the room, crowded with men now. They all stared at him, awaiting his order of what was to be done. “How is this possible?”

No one answered.

“How is this possible?” Sebastian roared, and brought his fist down on the table.

He suddenly recalled Matous intercepting him on his way to rendezvous with Mrs. Forsythe. He’d wanted to speak to Sebastian, had seemed unusually flustered when Sebastian put him off.

He’d told him he would meet him here, in his rooms, and then he’d never come. What had Matous said? What were his exact words?

“Your Highness, with your permission, I will alert the proper authorities,” Caius said. His voice sounded hollow.

Sebastian nodded numbly—he wasn’t even certain who spoke. “Leopold,” he croaked. “Find him and bring him at once.”

More people left the room. More people came in. A maid to clean up the mess he’d made. Egius to dress him. He couldn’t undertake a murder investigation in a dressing gown.

“I want to see him,” Sebastian said to no one in particular.

“I would advise against it,” said Rostafan.

“I want to see him,” Sebastian insisted. He signaled Egius to follow him into the dressing room. When he was dressed, he entered the crowded sitting room again and looked at his field marshal. Without a word, Rostafan went to the door and opened it.

Sebastian followed him, striding down the carpeted hall to a door at the end. He braced himself, then stepped inside the small bedchamber and looked toward the bed. The first thing he saw was Matous’s gloved hand hanging off the side of the bed. He’d been born with the deformity, a misshapen stump of a hand with no fingers. And while one would scarcely notice his hand, as Matous had adapted quite well, there were some things that were difficult for him. Sebastian would imagine that fighting off an attacker would be one of those things.

His belly churned, but he stepped closer. There was a massive amount of blood, and a gaping wound across Matous’s throat. But Sebastian was surprised that his friend looked so peaceful in death, his face free of the creases of worry. He looked as if he was sleeping, his dreams gentle, and below his gentle, dreaming face, an ugly, bloody gash.

Who would have done this?

Who?

The English guards had arrived, and the Alucian guards were insistent that Sebastian leave the room. He was escorted back to his sitting room, which had filled with more people. Alucians, mostly, including the foreign minister’s wife, who was quietly weeping in a corner, consoled by Rostafan. There were two Englishmen in heated conversation with Anastasan. Sebastian was surrounded, and yet, he had never felt so alone in his life.

He’d never felt such guilt, either. Matous had wanted to speak to him, but Sebastian had been ruled by his cock, too intent on relieving it with Mrs. Forsythe. He needed a moment to himself. He wanted to mourn his secretary and friend privately.

He would not be allowed that opportunity. He would be watched by everyone. Even now, as he tried to absorb the shock, a frail Englishman had inched forward. His moustache was in need of a trim, and his skin was a peculiar shade of gray. “I beg your pardon, Your Royal Highness, but if I may inquire as to the last time you saw Mr. Reyno alive?”

Sebastian felt sick, as if his breakfast would depart his body at any moment. He swallowed down the nausea. He’d been taught from the time he was a lad to put on a face to the public. “Last night, at the ball,” he said calmly and prepared himself to answer more questions.

He would do anything to find who had done this to Matous.

CHAPTER SIX

Commissioned for a dear sum from the most prestigious milliners and modistes of London, the masks worn at the Royal Masquerade Ball were a sight to behold. Some of them defied the laws of gravity in their precarious perch upon unknown faces. Some defied the laws of fine taste, and in particular a keen eye was cast upon the bird’s nest that sat upon a lady’s head as if she expected her chicks would come home to roost at any moment.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

ELIZA, CAROLINE AND HOLLIS had returned to Caroline’s lovely Mayfair home at a quarter till five in the morning, and slept like angels until one o’clock in the afternoon. When at last they did rise, they carried themselves down to the dining room, still in their nightgowns and dressing robes and their hair unbound. They had breakfast, lazily picking over the food as they reviewed the masquerade ball in detail.

“Did you see Lady Elizabeth Keene?” Hollis asked with much excitement. She’d drawn her legs up under her nightgown and wrapped one arm around them as she nibbled toast.

“Who?” Eliza asked.

“Lady Elizabeth Keene, darling. If you’d come with me to the recital at the zoological gardens, you would have seen her.”

“I leave the gathering of gossip to you, Hollis, you know it very well. I am better use to you in putting the gazette together.”

“Well, she and Lady Katherine Maugham are fierce rivals and she’s livid she’s not yet been noticed by Prince Sebastian when everyone said she would be. She was quite attentive to a certain English gentleman for spite.”

“The bodice of Lady Elizabeth’s gown was cut so low, I should think she might have had all the attention she pleased,” Caroline said, waggling her brows as she bit off a piece from the slice of ham that she held delicately between two fingers. She had taken two chairs—one for sitting, one as an ottoman for her legs.

“But I thought Lady Katherine was livid she’d not yet been noticed by Prince Sebastian,” Eliza said, confused as to who was livid about what.

“I hardly noticed Elizabeth’s bodice at all,” Hollis said. She was studying a bit of paper she’d smoothed on the table. It contained her notes. “I could not tear my eyes away from her mask. It looked like an awful bird’s nest perched on her head.”

Eliza gasped. “I did see her! I didn’t know who she was, but I feared the poor thing had lost her fortune and had been forced to fashion her own mask.”

Caroline giggled.

“Lady Elizabeth has forty thousand pounds a year, you know,” Hollis announced without looking up from her notes. “Lady Katherine has only thirty thousand pounds a year.”

Eliza and Caroline looked at each other. Their silence prompted Hollis to look up, too. “What?” She was clearly surprised by their surprise. “Did you think you’re my only source of information, Caro?”

“I assure you, I was under no such illusion,” Caroline drawled.

“All right, darlings, we must decide what will be recorded in the gazette about the ball!” Hollis said brightly. “Firstly, we must make comment on the gowns. I’ve made a few notes.”

“There was a peculiar mix of them,” Caroline began. She leaned to one side to allow a footman to pour tea into her cup. “Some of them so beautiful and some of them rather plain. I especially liked the Alucian gowns.”

“Oh, they were beautiful,” Eliza agreed. “But if I had to choose which gown dazzled more, I would say Hollis’s.”

Hollis gasped with delight. “Would you?”

“I would!” Eliza reached for a blue ribbon in Hollis’s hair, which was so darkly brown it almost looked black. The ribbon had been missed in their blurry-eyed disrobing this morning. Hollis’s gown, currently draped over a chaise upstairs, was made of the most gorgeous sapphire blue silk, trimmed in black, with a dramatic skirt that cascaded to the floor in panels. Poppy had worked several nights to bead the bodice with tiny black crystals. Hollis had added a stunning collar necklace made of black onyx, a gift from her late husband.

“The mask suited her, too, didn’t it?” Caroline agreed, smiling at Hollis. “Mrs. Cubison was right about the blue. She was quite right about everything, really. If only she’d told me who was behind which mask! Now I’m cross all over again.”

“So tight-lipped,” Hollis agreed, also appearing to be cross with a modiste whom she’d never met.

“I’d hoped she might give me a hint of how certain people would be disguised, but alas she was a soul of discretion. She said, ‘Lady Caroline, what is the point of a masquerade if you know the identity behind every mask?’” Caroline mimicked Mrs. Cubison’s apparently deep voice.

“A valid point,” Eliza agreed.

“Nevertheless, I persisted,” Caroline said. “I always persist. Frankly, I begged her and I should think she would have obliged me as she owes me a small debt of gratitude.”

“Why?” Eliza asked.

“Why!” Caroline blustered. “Can you not imagine how many clients I’ve sent to her in the last year alone?”

“How many?” Hollis asked curiously.

“I don’t have a number, obviously, but I recommend her to anyone who asks. It doesn’t matter, for she’d not divulge a thing about who’d commissioned what.”

“What in bloody blazes is this? It looks like a harem in here, Caro!” a male voice thundered.

Lord Hawke, Caroline’s brother, he of the handsome visage and trim figure, the gentleman who kept all the young ladies of London and their mothers guessing as to whom he might eventually take to wife, strolled into the dining room. He’d been out, apparently, or was going out, as he was wearing his greatcoat. And he looked quite refreshed, as if he’d had a full night’s rest. It hardly seemed fair.

“Are you only just out of bed?” he asked incredulously, looking at each of them in turn.

“Of course!” Caroline said. “It was dawn before we finally stumbled home. Had you stayed on, you’d still be abed, too.”

“I would not have stayed on. It was personal sacrifice enough that I was forced to escort the three of you against my will. I don’t care a fig about balls, and certainly not for the purpose of amusing some foreign prince. Even so, I am generally in good health and do not need much sleep. You should take your walks, the three of you. It’s good for stamina.” He reached across Caroline and helped himself to a slice of ham. “You’re all too pale, really.”

Eliza and Hollis took no offense. Beck had known the Tricklebank sisters since they’d been children, and tended to view them as children to this day. He paid them no heed, and they paid him even less.

“You won’t believe it, Beck—I met the crown prince!” Eliza crowed.

Beck looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “And?”

“And he’s unmarried.” Eliza winked at him before fitting a cherry into her mouth.

“Dear Lord,” Beck said with alarm. “Surely I needn’t explain to you gooses that none of you, not even you, Caro, have the sort of dowry or connections or the appeal that such a match would require. You’re whistling in the wind! Frankly, if you ask me—”

“No one has,” Caroline pointed out.

“If you ask me,” he said a bit louder, “you’d all do well to be more practical in your dealings about town.”

“Meaning?” Caroline asked.

“Meaning, set your sights on gentlemen who are more suited to your situation. A baronet or knight for you, Caro.” He looked studiously at Hollis and Eliza. “I don’t know, perhaps a clerk of some sort?” he suggested, just in case Hollis and Eliza thought so highly of themselves that they might have set their sights on a lord or, heaven forfend, a prince. “Instead of wasting your time worrying over ball gowns, endeavour to do something useful, such as learning about the care and feeding of a husband and children. You should not be chasing princes and certainly not writing your gazette,” he added with much disdain and a pointed look at Hollis.

“There is not a single gentleman in our acquaintance who appreciates the work or the appeal of Honeycutt’s Gazette,” Hollis said pertly. “Am I the only one to notice this?”

“Trust me, Mrs. Honeycutt, you are not the only one to notice,” Beck said.

Hollis was very protective of her enterprise and looked as if she might launch herself at Beck. But Caroline was quick to step in before anything untoward was said or done. “Thank you for your advice, dearest brother,” she said sweetly. “Surely now that you’ve imparted your vastly superior wisdom, you’ll want to find someone else in need of your advice and leave us to finish our breakfast?”

“You’re dismissing me, are you?” Beck asked casually as he helped himself to bread. “Then you must not care to hear my news.”

“What news?” Hollis asked.

“No, no,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “This is not for your gazette, Hollis. This is strictly confidential. Do I have your word?”

“Really?” Eliza asked, perking up. “What is it? Has Mr. Clarence’s wandering eye wandered again?”

“Nothing as mundane as that,” Beck said, clearly disappointed by her guess. “Do I have your word?”

“Yes!” the three of them cried in impatient unison.

“Very well,” Beck said, and ate a berry before announcing, quite casually, “This morning, the crown prince’s personal secretary was found murdered in his bed at Kensington.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. And then a burst of questions.

Beck held up his hand and looked around at them. “His throat had been cut as he lay sleeping. I suppose he lay sleeping. All I know is that he was found in his bed, dressed in nightclothes, from which one could deduce he’d been sleeping.”

Caroline, Hollis and Eliza looked at one another, their mouths agape.

“But which one is his secretary?” Hollis asked. “They all wore identical masks.”

Beck shrugged. “They say his hand was deformed—”

Eliza gasped. “No!” she croaked.

“Yes.”

“But he was the one who managed the introductions to the prince! You remember, Caro, I pointed him out to you.”

“Well, he won’t be making introductions now,” Beck said carelessly.

Caroline slapped her brother’s arm as he reached across her again. “How can you be so heartless?”

“Really, Beck!” Eliza said, appalled by this news. “The man spoke to me! He asked if I’d been harmed.”

“That’s right,” Hollis chimed in. “A man has lost his life and you are making jests.”

“It’s not a jest, it’s fact. I’m not heartless, but I have no personal knowledge of this man. It is therefore difficult for me to spring tears of grief for his demise.”

“But why?” Hollis asked.

“Because I don’t know him—”

“No, no, I mean why would someone kill him?”

“Well, that is the question on everyone’s mind, isn’t it? I suspect it has something to do with the rumors of rebellion that circulate. Perhaps the murderer meant to slay the prince and mistook his secretary.”

“No,” Eliza said. “The secretary was a slight man. The prince is tall and robust.”

“I suspect they will know soon enough. Someone is bound to have seen something. One simply cannot go wandering about Kensington cutting throats and not be noticed. All right then, stop eating and dress. It’s near to teatime and I’m expecting callers. I won’t have a harem lounging in my dining room.” Beck took another berry and sauntered out of the room. “Please do as I ask, Caro,” he called over his shoulder before disappearing into the hall.

Caroline rolled her eyes and pulled a hunk of bread from a loaf and began to butter it.

“I can’t believe it,” Eliza said. “I can’t believe that poor man was murdered.” She thought about how earnest he was in making his introductions to the prince. How intolerably disgruntled the prince appeared to be, scarcely looking at the ladies. How kind he had been to her when she’d boasted of meeting a prince. He’d said she’d made an indelible impression.

“Why would someone murder him in a royal palace? Where there are guards and people and so many opportunities for capture?” Hollis added. “Beck is right—someone is bound to have seen something.”

“But if one managed to evade capture, suspicion would fall to English and Alucian. Think how difficult it will be to sort it all out,” Caroline remarked.

“Yes, but—”

Hollis’s argument was never heard, for they suddenly heard Beck bellow for Caroline in a voice that clearly conveyed displeasure. “Caro! I will have an explanation for how you came to spend so much for one dress!”

“Oh dear,” Caroline said. “My brother has discovered how extraordinarily generous he is.”

Caroline had long been famous for spending Beck’s money. He generally huffed and he puffed, but really, he could never truly say no to her.

“CAROLINE!”

“Well, then,” she said, quickly gaining her feet. “I think it best if we retire at once to my rooms.” She began to walk so quickly that her dressing gown billowed out behind her as she fled the scene. Hollis and Eliza scurried after her.

As the three of them dressed, Hollis couldn’t contain her curiosity about the murder. She ran through several scenarios that would have led to the poor secretary’s death. As she babbled on, Eliza wondered how the prince with the green eyes had taken the news.

OVER THE NEXT few days, the whole of London was abuzz about the sensational news of a murder at Kensington Palace. Hollis was a frequent visitor to the house in Bedford Square, updating her family on the most recent theories as to who or what had befallen the gentleman, whose name, she’d discovered, was Mr. Matous Reyno. At first it was suspected the culprit was English, perhaps someone opposed to the trade agreement, for who would have access to that part of Kensington but an Englishman? And yet all the servants at the palace had been questioned and no clue had emerged.

The queen herself had offered a reward for anyone with information who came forward.

When no one came forward, suspicion shifted to the Alucians—there was turmoil in their part of the world, everyone said, and surely it had to do with that. But the whereabouts of the Alucians, including their serving staff, were accounted for on the evening of the ball.

“One could conclude that poor Mr. Reyno cut his own throat,” Hollis said drily. She reported that the Alucian princes were made distraught by the crime, and understandably so. “But the crown prince has conducted himself admirably in the course of the meetings in spite of his tragic loss,” she said confidently. “He continues to push for the trade agreement.”

Eliza thought of the green eyes behind the mask and tried to imagine them distraught.

“And now I’ve nothing for the gazette.” Hollis sighed. “It seems rather gauche to speak of fashion in light of the tragedy, does it not?”

“Of course,” Eliza agreed.

“Oh, well,” Hollis said. “Mrs. Pendergrast gave me a lovely pattern for sewing a baby’s christening gown.”

The lack of tantalizing content for Hollis’s gazette did not remain a problem for long, however. It changed one morning when Mr. French, who normally delivered the post, did not appear at the house in Bedford Square. In his place came a stout little fellow who was scarcely taller than a child, wearing a greasy cap and dirty coat. Eliza had seen him around a time or two lurking near the Covent Garden Market.

He handed the post to Eliza.

“Where is Mr. French?” she asked curiously as she gingerly took the post from hands that were gray with dirt.

“Dunno, miss.” He seemed anxious to be on his way, and indeed, once she had taken the mail, he hurried down the steps and across the square as quickly as he could.

In that stack of mail was a handwritten note that would change the course of Eliza’s life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THERE IT WAS, in black-and-white—a rumor implicating Rostafan, printed in a women’s fashion gazette, of all things.

The pomp and gaiety of the Royal Masquerade Ball was marred by the tragic death of an Alucian principal. While it would be untoward to speculate, one cannot help but wonder why or where a certain high-ranking Alucian official, with a generally large presence, would absent himself before the last set of dances?

And neither should one speculate on what a recently wed lady, lithe in appearance and light of heart, will do when she discovers her husband has taken a keen interest in her dearest friend. Therefore, we will not speculate.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

“A generally large presence,” Caius repeated, his brow furrowing. “Generally? General? A high-ranking general? Is it meant to implicate Rostafan?”

Caius, Sebastian and Leopold were bent over the gazette that Leopold had brought to Sebastian. Leopold said a friend had pointed out this rumor, this accusation, very plainly printed. But who would say such a thing? Based on what information?

Sebastian flipped through the pages of the gazette, looking for anything else that might inform him. The pages were mostly advertisements for ladies’ dresses or products such as teething syrup for babies or pomade guaranteed to produce a thicker, longer head of hair if rubbed into the scalp three times a day. There were ads for household products that would make a home sparkle and a husband smile. There was a brief article detailing the proper way to set a table and instructions for making a child’s christening gown.

But here, on the last page, under the heading News About Town, this...rumor? Jest? False clue? “I want to speak to whoever has seen fit to publish this rubbish,” Sebastian said, pushing the gazette away with disgust. “What sort of person profits from gossip?” He focused on his foreign minister. “Who would allow such rubbish to be printed without any evidence whatsoever?”

Caius looked at Leopold. Leopold shrugged.

“Find out,” Sebastian said curtly. “Bring him to me. I would speak with the author.”

“You?” Leopold shook his head. “You can’t speak to him, Bas. Anyone but you.”

There was nothing Sebastian hated worse than being told what he could or could not do. “Why in bloody hell not?”

“You know why. The English authorities are handling the investigation. You can’t undertake one of your own. Think of how it would appear if the crown prince of Alucia was chasing around London in search of clues like a common constable.”

Sebastian flicked his wrist at his brother. He didn’t care what anyone would say of him. He was devastated by Matous’s murder. He had to do something.

“All right, you don’t care,” Leopold said curtly. “But think of what our father the king would say about it.”

That gave Sebastian pause. His father very much cared about appearances. King Karl believed that the appearance of fair and impartial rule, and his projection to the world as a true and just monarch were what kept him on the throne when there were whispers that Felix’s claim was legitimate.

Sebastian looked out the window. He couldn’t erase the image of Matous lying on that bed with his throat cut. He couldn’t stop feeling the ravage of guilt for not having come back to his rooms that night. Had he come when he’d said he would, Matous would have been with him. “Find who wrote this,” he said quietly.

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