He helped her up from the settee, then wrapped her in a warm embrace. “Caroline, I...” His voice trailed away, as if words had failed him.

“I know,” she whispered. She didn’t want to hear him say he had to go. She didn’t want to be reminded that they were hurtling toward the time he would leave her forever.

He kissed her cheek. Her mouth. Her hand. He kissed her lips and lingered...and then walked to the door. He looked over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping over her before locking on her eyes. She felt not of this earth. The candle had almost burned out, and he was in the shadows, like a dream. Her summer dream.

Caroline stood in the very spot he’d left her long after he’d gone. She couldn’t seem to make her feet move. She couldn’t seem to do anything but breathe, and scarcely at that.


CAROLINE WAS STILL abed the next morning when Martha came in and told her she had callers. Caroline groggily sat up. “Who?”

“I don’t know, miss. Garrett sent me to fetch you.”

Her heart started. Was it Leopold? She grinned and threw off the covers. She dressed in a simple day gown, left her hair hanging down her back in a tail and hurried downstairs, eager to see him. But when she burst into the drawing room, the very room where she’d experienced something so very profound just hours before, she didn’t see Leopold at all. It was Mr. Drummond, from the office of the foreign secretary, and a very green Beck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


An intimate supper party at the home of a newly appointed lord erupted into chaos when a maid new to the household was discovered to have run away in the middle of the evening. The party was quickly disbanded. In the following days our intrepid hostess and family departed for the country for the rest of the summer and has not been heard from since.

Ladies, for the bit of dust in corners that does not come away with a good feather duster, balling up a slice of brown bread and dabbing in the corner will do the trick.

—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and


Domesticity for Ladies

AMBASSADOR REDBANE CALLED on Leo in the common room of the Clarendon Hotel quite unexpectedly the morning of the Farrington supper. He seemed agitated, as if he’d been chased by a pack of wolves.

“Good morning, Redbane,” Leo said, looking up at him from the morning papers. “Is everything all right?”

“Your Highness,” Redbane said, clutching his hat. “It is imperative you leave for Alucia on tomorrow’s outgoing tide. The royal ship stands at the ready.”

Leo froze for a moment. “Tomorrow? Why?”

Redbane removed a letter from his pocket. “The British foreign secretary has requested it. They have some outrageous idea that you may be plotting with the Weslorians against the king, or involved in something even more nefarious. They have come to me, asking that the king remove you from England at once.”

“I beg your pardon?” Leo tossed the paper aside and stood up. Redbane handed him the letter.

Leo quickly scanned the contents. It was a formal request to be presented to his father that he be removed at once for reasons of “poor conduct.”

“Poor conduct?” Leo asked.

“It is a more palatable excuse for their accusations that you are plotting against your father. They want no trouble, Your Highness. They can’t have any sort of plot being hatched here.”

“I am not plotting against my father,” Leo said. “And if anyone suspects that is so, they need only follow me back to Alucia, where I will reveal the truth about my activities here,” Leo said curtly. He rubbed his eyes. “Has a dispatch been sent to my father?”

Redbane nodded.

Well, this certainly put a damper on things. Leo suspected his father would give no credence to the talk of treason, but he knew he’d give quite a lot of credence to the charge of poor conduct.

“It is in the best interest of Alucia,” Redbane added.

“Fine, I understand I must go. But on Monday.”

“But Your Highness—”

“There is nothing that will sway me, Redbane. There is one last thing I must attend to before I go.”

Redbane pressed his lips together.

“Is there anything else?” Leo asked.

“No, Your Highness.”

“Then you may go,” he said irritably, gesturing the ambassador away.

He was made distraught with this news. He still didn’t know where one of the women was, and he didn’t know what would happen this evening. But it was the thought of losing Caroline that made him feel so ill. He’d known this moment would come, that he’d have to say goodbye, but he’d fought to keep himself from dwelling on it. He had to face it. She’d come to mean so much to him. She’d come to mean everything to him. She was the light his soul needed. How could he leave? He didn’t know how he could go on, knowing that he wouldn’t see her for a very long time, and when he did, it would be in Alucia and he’d likely be married. If not to Eulalie, then to someone else.

His mood soured over the rest of the day as he tried to think his way clear of this dilemma. He dressed for the night, but he had that odd feeling again of not fitting right in his own skin. As if this new person he’d become didn’t fit his body. As if loving a woman was something he wasn’t built to do. He burned for her. He did. He even lifted his shirt, half expecting to see a mortal wound there.

What had he done? Had he taken the virtue of a woman he truly loved only to leave her? At the time, it had seemed imperative, the only thing that was right between them. Today, with this banishment hanging over his head, it seemed entirely wrong and selfish.

He glanced at Freddar, older than him by twenty years. “What do you say, Freddar, are you ready to return to Alucia?”

“Je, Your Highness. I miss my family, I do.”

Leo didn’t miss his family. He would miss Caroline more. So much more.


HE WAS GREETED at the door of the Farrington house by Lord Farrington himself. “Welcome, welcome, Your Highness. Thank you for coming,” he said as Leo handed his cloak to the waiting footman. “I hope you won’t mind that we are a small group tonight. I look forward to speaking with you this evening, as I’ve been working very closely with Mr. Vinters of Alucia.”

Leo paused as he removed his hat. “Have you?” he asked. That was the name Lysander had given him. His father’s most trusted adviser and peddler of human flesh.

“He’s a clever man, that one. I think we might find numerous avenues of cooperation between our two countries. Trade, naturally. But in the arts, as well. I’m very keen on that idea in particular.” He smiled broadly.

“A noble pursuit,” Leo muttered.

He followed Farrington into a large drawing room that seemed to have been recently decorated, judging by the smell of plaster and the pristine condition of the rugs and drapes. He was greeted by Lord Ainsley, and Lady Katherine Maugham and her mother, Lady Maugham. Lady Katherine would not meet his eye.

Hollis and her father, Justice Tricklebank, had come, and he was introduced to Mr. Edward Hancock and his wife, Felicity Hancock. And of course, Caroline and Beck. Oh, but he was a poor actor—he couldn’t keep the smile from his face when he saw her. She wore yet another beautiful gown of shimmering green. “A lovely dress, Lady Caroline,” he said politely as he bent over her hand.

“Do you like it? I made it myself.” She smiled coyly. “We’ve not seen you in two days, Your Highness. Have you grown weary of us?”

“Quite the contrary. Unfortunately, I’ve been too well occupied.”

“All right,” Beck said. “If you please, Caro, go and keep the judge company, will you? I should like a word with the prince.”

“Really? What word?” she asked.

“Does it not stand to reason that if I wanted you to know, I would invite you to stay? Go,” Beck said, fluttering his fingers at her.

She cast a brilliant smile at Leo and walked across the room to join Hollis and her father.

Beck indicated with his chin a corner of the room.

“Is something wrong?” Leo asked when they had separated themselves from the other guests.

“You’re being watched,” Beck murmured, his eye on the others. “Gentlemen from the foreign secretary have come round. They seem to think Caro might know something about a plot to steal your father’s throne.” He shifted his gaze to Leo. “They think you may have confided in her. What the devil is going on, Leo? Why do they think my sister might know of your plans? What are your plans?”

“Beck,” Leo said. “I don’t have plans. I’m not plotting against my father, for God’s sake. I love him. I don’t even know my uncle.”

Beck looked dubious.

“It is something else entirely.”

“What?”

Leo considered what he ought to say. “It has to do with betrayal in my father’s ranks, but I really can’t say more. I’m asking you to trust me, Beck.”

“And Caroline?”

Leo swallowed. He would not lie to his friend. “She has helped me meet some people who were useful to know.” It wasn’t a real answer, Leo knew, and judging by Beck’s dark frown, he didn’t think so, either. But Leo wouldn’t say more. He would not risk implicating Caroline to anyone.

Beck pressed his lips together and looked across the room to where Caroline was standing. “Look, I don’t know what this is all about, but these men were serious. My advice is to depart Britain as soon as you can.”

“I plan to leave this week,” Leo said.

Beck put his hand on his arm. “Listen to me, Leo. It doesn’t matter what is true—it matters what they perceive. And people perceive you to be rotten at the core.”

“I understand.” He did. The people behind this would look for any scapegoat to keep their profits. How the devil had he gotten himself in this mess?

“For the sake of my sister, I hope that you do,” Beck said. He walked away.

Leo reluctantly turned back to the others. He wanted a word with Caroline, but it seemed as if all eyes were upon her, watching everything she did. And she, of course, was holding court as only she could do.

At supper, he was seated across from Caroline. She laughed and talked as she normally did, almost too beautiful to behold. She looked for all the world like nothing had happened between them. He would have been perfectly content to watch her all night, but Lady Katherine Maugham and her friend, Mrs. Hancock, wanted otherwise. They peppered him with questions he found confusing and silly, and he was certain he appeared as bored as he felt.

The only saving grace was that every so often he would catch Caroline looking at him with a sparkle in her eye. He would carry that delightful sparkle and brilliant smile with him always, imprinted on his heart. He would look back on this night and remember her and imagine what might have been.

She laughingly accused Mr. Hancock of wanting to steal their driver, apparently after a mix-up of carriages on Park Avenue one day. She congratulated Mrs. Hancock on her dress. She regaled the entire table with a tale of three young girls who had gone out when they shouldn’t have and gotten lost in a thicket.

“Where did this happen?” Lady Farrington asked.

“Oh, our home in Bibury. We used to summer there, all of us.”

“What I remember was taking a switch to the three of you,” the judge said.

“You never took a switch to them that I recall,” Beck said with a laugh. “Admit it, my lord. You indulged them terribly.”

“No worse than you, Hawke,” the judge agreed.

Talk turned to the new county courts that were to be established. Justice Tricklebank confessed he’d like to retire to one.

“You can’t desert us for the country,” Caroline protested. “What of me and Hollis?”

“The two of you will be married by then. That is my fervent prayer,” he amended to much laughter.

“Your prayers clearly haven’t been fervent enough, Papa,” Hollis said with a laugh.

When the plates had been cleared, Caroline asked to be excused. All the gentlemen stood and she left the dining room.

At the door, she glanced back at Leo so briefly that he might have imagined it. And then she was gone. He looked down at his plate. His stomach was roiling with nerves. He didn’t want his time here to end this way. And then again, he’d come this far. If he could save one more of them, wasn’t it worth the risk?

“Perhaps all the ladies should retire and leave the gentlemen to their cigars?” Lady Farrington suggested when Caroline had gone out. The ladies agreed and made their way from the room.

The smoking portion of the evening stretched interminably. Leo didn’t smoke but stood at the window, listening to the gentlemen discuss those things they enjoyed: hunting, racing. Women. His nerves kept ratcheting up. He felt a little ill. He wished for whisky.