Page 85 of A Royal Kiss & Tell
“You knew I would return eventually.”
“Yes. But I thought it would be the end of summer.” She bit her lip and looked down at the floor.
Her reaction was disconcerting. There was one thing about Caroline Hawke he could entirely depend upon—she was not afraid to let him know exactly where she stood or what she thought. She never looked sad. Leo dipped his head to see her face. “I will mourn you. Every day.”
She glanced up.
“You don’t believe me? Oh, but I will mourn you more than you know, Caroline. I’ve come to depend on your company.”
“Really?” Caroline asked softly. There was a different light in her eyes now. They were both dull and shiny. She was looking at him through unshed tears.
“Verymuch,” he said earnestly and shifted closer to her.
“May I ask you something else?”
Je, I love you, Caroline. I love you.“Ask me anything. What is it you want to know?”
“Don’t lie to me, I beg you. Do you plot with the Weslorians to overthrow your father?”
He couldn’t have been more stunned than if she’d slapped him. “W-what?”
“Are they spies? Have they come here to plot with you? For the life of me, I don’t understand, and I’ve tried, but nothing makes sense.”
“Haswhocome? What spies? What the devil are you talking about?”
“The maids!” she whispered loudly, and looked toward the open door.
He stared at her, trying to make sense of this. “Are you asking me if the maids arespies? That is absurd.”
“Thenwhy, Leopold? What have you done with them? They’re Weslorian, aren’t they? And you took them and where are they now?”
He blanched as all plausible explanations went out of his head. Bloodyhell, he wished for a vat of whisky just now. Something to dull this discomfort. But he was not that man anymore. He hadn’t been that man since he met Lysander in the garden. “I will admit to being many things, but I am not a traitor. Christ Almighty, you think I’d plot to overthrow my ownfather?”
“Then please explain it to me,” she begged him.
Leo was torn by this request—he did love Caroline, and he wanted to protect her from knowing what evil there was in this world. She was light, she was happiness and he would prefer the ugliness not touch her. But it was more than that. He didn’t want her to look at him with pity. To see what he suspected she and everyone else knew—that he was a prince with no true talent other than drinking. That he was on a mission that was impossible for someone like him. That he was so bad at it that he now had to ask for her considerable help.
But his reluctance to speak caused her to jump to conclusions of her own. “Dear God, it’s worse than I thought.”
“No, Caroline,no,” he said, lifting his head. “The women—girls, really, these maids—are not spies. They are slaves. And I’ve been trying—bungling, really—to free them.”
She stared at him. “Slaves?”
Leo nodded.
“Where are they?”
“At present, they are just outside, in the coach.”
Her mouth parted with her shock.“Here?”
He put his hand on her elbow. “Please sit and allow me to explain.”
He told her everything. It felt good to say it to someone, to tell another living soul how he’d been waylaid in Helenamar, then given this list of names. To describe how difficult it had been for him to find these women quite on his own. That as a prince, he wasn’t inconspicuous. And that as a prince, he’d discovered he was ignorant of the ways of the world. He told her how he’d made such a mess of things that he’d bought a castle, was paying blackmail to an Alucian businessman who had double-crossed him, had exposed an old friend for the scoundrel he was, and had rescued, quite unexpectedly, a young boy along with the women.
And of course, the crowning detail—that the Weslorian gentleman involved in this scheme was his future father-in-law.
Caroline had turned pale by the time he’d finished. “What are you going to do?”
