The butler’s eyes widened slightly. “I beg your pardon, Highness, but—”

“But,” Leo quickly interjected and stepped into the doorway, crowding the smaller man, “I am your prince, sir, and you will allow me to see the Weslorian women who are housed here. Assemble them at once.” And then he pushed past the man and strode into Cressidian’s house. Like a bloody prince, thank you.

The women and one lad assembled in a small room near the back of the house that looked to be used by servants, judging by the mean furnishings. None of the rich upholsteries or fine rugs or marble or gold seen in the public parts of the house were evident here. They had a plain wood floor, a long table with six wooden chairs and two more before the hearth. The women entered in service clothes, which Leo didn’t like. He’d paid for their keep. They didn’t need to work for it.

With his hands on his hips, he surveyed the three of them. Isidora and Jacleen stood side by side, and the boy before Jacleen, her arms securely around him. The three of them viewed him warily, which Leo found disconcerting—he had rescued them, after all. Did they think he was like the men who had bartered and sold them?

He sighed. He pushed his fingers through his hair. “There is no need to look at me like that,” he said, gesturing at them. “What are you afraid of?”

Isidora and Jacleen exchanged a glance. Isidora stepped forward. She cleared her throat and ran her hands down the sides of her skirt. “Your Highness,” she said in Weslorian, “may we inquire...what you mean to do with us? Mr. Cressidian doesn’t want us here, and he said...” She paused and glanced at Jacleen and her brother. Jacleen nodded, encouraging her. “He said you mean to take us to Alucia.”

She did not seem to be pleased with the prospect, but seemed rather alarmed. “Don’t you want to go home, then?” he asked.

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

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

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

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

“Why not?”

“They will kill us.”

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

“The men who done this,” Isidora said.

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

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

“Bobbin,” he said softly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No,” Isidora muttered.

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

Jacleen nodded along as if that was fact.

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

Isidora perked up. “Prince Sebastian?”

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

The women looked at each other.

“Do we have it?” Leo asked.

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

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

“Mrs. Brown,” Jacleen said.

“Who is Mrs. Brown?”

“The cook, Your Highness.”

“Whose cook?” Leo asked, confused.

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

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

“And Alucia,” Isidora interjected.

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

“To be sold,” Jacleen said flatly.

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

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

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

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

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

“Where are we going?” Jacleen asked.

Leo laughed wryly to the ceiling. “An excellent question. I haven’t quite worked it out yet, but you’ll not stay another moment in this house.”


IT WAS SURPRISINGLY easy to leave with the women. The butler seemed unfazed when Artur and Kadro entered the house and escorted the two women and the boy out to the waiting coach. Leo joined them in the coach and sat on the bench opposite the two women and the boy squeezed onto one bench. He thought about pointing out they’d be more comfortable if one of them sat next to him, but he had a feeling that none of them wanted to be very close to him.

He didn’t blame them. Men like him must haunt their dreams now.

“Where to, Highness?” Artur asked through the open door.

Leo needed time to think. He looked at Bobbin. “Have you seen the park? No? You should.” He instructed Artur to drive them around Hyde Park while he frantically thought what to do.

But after two trips around the park, and another half hour where he commanded the carriage be brought to a halt and had all of them step out and take some air, Leo had no better idea what to do with them.

It was likewise clear that Isidora and Jacleen knew he had no idea what to do. They kept exchanging glances, then leaning forward to look out the window, as if trying to find their bearings. They were thinking of escape.

“Don’t fret,” he said softly. He needed help. He knew only one person whom he might trust to help him. He pulled down the trap door that covered a funnel that went up to the driver’s box. “Twenty-two Upper Brook Street,” he commanded.

When the coach pulled up in front of the mansion, Leo told the women to wait. “It might a bit of a wait, I’m afraid, but please, do not leave this coach.”

Isidora nodded, and he hoped that meant they had agreed to give him a chance.

He asked Kadro to see to it that no one left the coach, before walking up to the front door.

Leo was not himself. It was as if part of his brain was trying to wrangle all the facts and place them into a semblance of order, while another part of his brain attempted to look reasonable and present and, most important, not hapless or frantic. It was the frantic that had him feeling at sixes and sevens.

But when he walked into the salon and saw Caroline sitting on the settee in a cloud of cream and white, another part of his brain pushed the rest of it aside. His heart quickened and he felt relief.

Caroline stood and gave him a tight smile as she curtsied. She seemed guarded. Uncertain.

It was then that he noticed Beck, who stood from behind a desk and came striding forward, his hand extended. “Your Royal Highness Prince Leopold,” he said jovially. “Garrett, we’ll have that tea, then. Leo, you are looking well!”