It was as she told Hollis the afternoon her friend had called to see how Caroline fared after her illness. “No one but you cares how I truly am,” she’d complained.

“That is not true!” Hollis said. She was trying on Caroline’s latest gown and admiring herself in the mirror.

Caroline was sitting on her chaise, staring listlessly out the window. “But it is. All anyone had to say was how I looked. ‘Oh dear, your hair, darling, can it be repaired?’ Or ‘your pallor is quite gray.’ Or ‘your dress is too loose, you must eat something!’”

“All genuine concern, darling,” Hollis said. “Surely this gown was not loose on you. My God, I can scarcely breathe at all.”

“But no one asked about me, Hollis. You were the only one to ask if I understood how close to death I’d come and how did it feel to be on the edge of dying.”

Hollis paused to wrinkle her nose. “Well, that sounds positively dreadful when you put it like that. But I was curious, and if I can’t ask you, who might I ask?”

“That’s precisely my point,” Caroline said. “You are very curious about me, and not the terror of my hair. Of course you can ask me those things, because we are very dear to each other. Do you see?”

Hollis had laughed as she’d pulled her gown over her head. “I think you’ve a touch of fever yet, Caro.”

She did not have a fever. She had an inability to articulate what she meant.

It was her own fault, this feeling of disappointment. She’d made a sort of game with herself—how many gentlemen could she get to flock to her? Which of them would inquire after her interests? Or her thoughts about the trade agreement between Alucia and the United Kingdom? Or even something as illuminating as what age she’d been when her parents had died?

But as the years had ticked by, Caroline realized there was something terribly wrong with her game—she continued to attract gentlemen to her, but the game had taken on a new urgency. She used the game as an excuse, to mask her fear, because Caroline didn’t really know what there was to like about her. What if she discovered she wasn’t as pretty on the inside as she was on the outside? What if all her ugliness was tucked away, and would spring free if someone got too close? What if she was completely empty on the inside, and all that she had to offer this world was her fine looks?

Fortunately, Caroline had the luxury of wealth and privilege to play her game and she didn’t have to delve too deeply into the answers. But Ann had no such privilege, and Caroline meant to protect her.

She needed to think how best to deal with the knowledge of the prince’s affair, and until she had determined what to do, she would hold on to this morsel of news and do her level best to keep him from preying on other maids.

He was a rake. A handsome, charming, rake—the most dangerous of them all.


THE WEEK AFTER her visit to Leadenhall, Caroline felt up to accepting an invitation to the home of Lady Priscilla Farrington. Caroline had known Priscilla for an age. She’d married quite young, had three children in quick succession, then watched her husband increase the Farrington holdings with the import of cotton. He’d recently been appointed to the House of Lords.

Caroline had always enjoyed Priscilla’s company. She was jovial and quick with a laugh. She had a growing rivalry with Lady Pennybacker, whose husband had likewise received his seat in the Lords.

Priscilla was keen to have Caroline design her a gown, because Lady Pennybacker would not have one. During her convalescence, Caroline had made a pattern for a gown and needed to fit it to Priscilla’s robust frame.

When she arrived, she was shown to a salon where she was instantly greeted by four small dogs, all of them eager for a pat on the head. Priscilla was lounging on a chaise with yet another dog. The ornate room looked and smelled a bit like a kennel.

“Darling!” Priscilla trilled, waving Caroline over as the footman followed her, carrying the box with the muslin pattern of the gown. “How well you look! You’re recovered from the seasickness, are you? Oh, but you’re terribly thin.”

“A temporary condition,” Caroline assured her. “But I am fully recovered.” She made her way through the small beasts and leaned over to kiss Priscilla’s cheek. She took a seat on a settee across from Priscilla. One of the dogs hopped up, its paws on Caroline’s lap. She carefully pushed it away. It hopped up again.

“You must tell me everything!” Priscilla said. “But not yet! Felicity Hancock and Katherine Maugham are coming to tea.”

Priscilla had not mentioned this fact in the delivered invitation. Katherine Maugham had been very keen to secure an offer of marriage from Prince Sebastian and had not yet forgiven Eliza for getting the offer she’d coveted. Caroline, Eliza and Hollis called her the Peacock behind her back.

“How delightful,” Caroline said, and pushed the dog away once more. But the dog was not to be bested in this, and hopped up and climbed onto Caroline’s lap, circled around, and settled in for tea.

“Is this new?” Caroline asked, looking down at the carpet.

“It is! It was made specially in Belgium and delivered to us just last week. Tom has in mind to hire more servants, too, did I tell you? But only foreign ones. Foreign girls are far better than our domestics, don’t you think?”

Caroline was not pressed to answer that ridiculous question, because a footman walked in at that moment and announced the arrival of the two ladies. Lady Katherine swept in like a stage actress, determined to be noticed first...until she saw Caroline. She slowed her step, blinking in Caroline’s direction. Felicity Hancock stumbled in behind the Peacock, tripping over the edge of the new Belgian carpet.

Caroline pushed the dog from her lap and stood to greet the ladies. “What a pleasure!” she trilled, holding out her arms to both women.

“Lady Caroline, you have returned to us,” the Peacock said. “I thought surely you’d remain attached to the side of your very dear friend. I feared we’d not see you again. Didn’t I say so, Felicity?”

“Who do you mean?” Caroline asked sweetly. “The duchess and future queen of Alucia? Oh, I’ll see her soon enough. I intend to return in the spring. I can call on her anytime I like, you know.”

“Another voyage, really?” Priscilla asked. “But Tom said it made you so dreadfully ill. Very near death, he said.”

“It wasn’t quite as bad as that, but even so.”

“I want to hear every word,” Felicity said eagerly, and settled in a cloud of blue on the settee beside Caroline. “Was it as wonderful as Honeycutt’s Gazette made it seem?”

“Every bit and even more,” Caroline said sincerely. It was hard to relate just how beautiful and amazing the wedding had been in words or song or painting or gossip gazettes.

“Tell us, tell us!” Priscilla insisted as she waved at the footman to begin the tea service.

Caroline was careful not to leave out a single detail. She told them how vast the palace, and how Eliza now had two ladies in waiting to tend to her. How the king and queen had bestowed jewels on her as they’d welcomed her into their royal family. How desperately in love Prince Sebastian was with her. Caroline made sure that every conceivable reason to envy Eliza was laid before the ladies and was rather pleased with her effort in the end.

“I still can’t believe Eliza Tricklebank should find herself married to a prince,” Priscilla said, her voice full of wonder. “Eliza Tricklebank of all people.”

“Why not Eliza Tricklebank?” Caroline protested. “She is the best person I know.”

“Because it wasn’t you, Caroline. If you ask me, you are far more suited to such a match than she.”

Well, that was obviously true. But Eliza deserved it far more than Caroline ever would. She smiled and shrugged lightly. “Fate has a way of putting us in the right place.”

“Doesn’t it,” Katherine said slyly. “Speaking of the great hands of fate...what of Prince Leopold? Did you catch his eye?”

Priscilla and Felicity tittered.

“Oh, I’m certain I did,” Caroline said nonchalantly, feeling a slight flush in her cheeks, remembering how intent his eyes had been on her at Leadenhall. She’d actually felt a spark of excitement standing there in the midst of all that meat. “Frankly, I found him rather tedious.”

“Really!” Katherine put down her teacup. “I fully expected you’d come back with tales of his slavish devotion to you.”

“Why ever would you think that?”

“Well...because you said so, darling,” Priscilla said gently. “Remember? You said he was quite taken with you and you fretted that you’d have to fend him off when there were so many other gentlemen with whom to acquaint yourself while in Helenamar.”

The flush in Caroline’s cheeks was heating her skin. Sometimes, she was too confident. She did indeed recall saying something very much like that one evening after one too many glasses of wine. “I never said I’d have to fend him off,” she scoffed.

“You did,” Felicity said. “You even demonstrated pushing him away,” she said, and pretended to push something away at chest height. “You clearly thought he’d be a bother.”

Caroline wished for something to fan herself. Perhaps she could claim to have a touch of the fever yet. But it was pointless—she did have a tendency to boast. Beck said she was filled with her own sense of grandeur. And it was true that before she’d sailed to Alucia, she’d been extraordinarily confident that the prince would be attracted to her. But he wasn’t the least attracted to her and now she couldn’t help but wonder if she was losing her charm. She was six and twenty, creeping toward the age of spinsterhood, and that handsome prince was more attracted to her maid than her.