Page 7 of Of Fate and Phantoms
The woman pointed her finger at the prince. "I warn you. Be careful of your father."
More howls of laughter followed. "His father's dead," someone said. "God, woman, where have you been?"
The footman grabbed her again, this time with the help of another.
"I have seen him!" the woman screeched, her unwavering gaze still on the prince, even as the two men ushered her away. "He will bring you much trouble! Heed my warning! You know I speak only true to you. Youknowthis!"
The men pushed her forward and she stumbled. They stopped her from falling, and roughly dragged her away. The crowd parted, the women wrinkling their noses in disgust. One man spat at her.
"Disgusting gypsy," muttered a woman near me. "They ought to be barred from entering the country."
Gypsy.
I spun round to Lincoln, but he didn't notice me. He forged his way toward the footmen and the gypsy, who shouted at them to leave her alone, that she would walk unassisted. They did not let her go.
Not until Lincoln gripped their shoulders and tore them away from her. Away from his mother.
Chapter 2
"What are you doing, man?" bellowed one of the prince's friends. His voice rang clear across the room now that the band and guests had gone silent. "Let them escort her out. She's making fools of us all."
Lincoln placed his hand on the woman's lower back and said something to her that no one else could hear. She glanced sharply at him. I tried to determine from her face if she somehow knew he was her son, but her features quickly schooled and she allowed him to steer her out of the ballroom. Lincoln had never met his mother, but he knew her name and where she lived from the file in the ministry's archives.
I picked up my skirts to follow.
"Who is he?" The prince's voice sounded remarkably close. I glanced over my shoulder to see him, Lady Harcourt and our host on our trail. "Hothfield?"
"I am not sure, your highness," Hothfield said. "My wife will know."
"He's Lincoln Fitzroy," Lady Harcourt said. "Of Lichfield Towers in Highgate."
"Never heard of him," the prince said. "Does he know Leisl, do you think?" His use of her first name wasn't lost on me. He remembered her. He must.
"I rather think he does," she said.
I caught up to Lincoln and Leisl in the entrance hall, standing in the shadows beneath the staircase. He nodded at something she said and her lips parted. Her knees buckled but he caught her and guided her to the chaise.
"That's velvet!" Lady Hothfield cried. She stood between her husband and Lady Harcourt, her fan fluttering violently at her chest. "Get up! Get up! You're ruining my furniture with your dirty clothes." She barreled past the prince, but I blocked her with my arm.
"Her clothes aren't dirty," I said in as mild a voice as I could manage considering the way my blood boiled. "She's not doing you any harm sitting there."
"Don't be ridiculous," Lady Hothfield snapped, shoving my arm away. "She tried to assassinate His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales! In my home!"
"Steady on, m'dear, " Lord Hothfield said. "There was no assassination attempt."
"Don't be a fool. She's a gypsy!"
Lincoln stood between Leisl and Lady Hothfield. "She'll leave," he said. "She needs a moment to compose herself first."
"Why doessheneed a moment? I am the injured party! And His Royal Highness, of course." Lady Hothfield assessed Lincoln anew and made no attempt to get past him.
Lincoln crossed his arms over his chest and set his feet apart.
Lady Hothfield took a step back beneath the force of his glare. "Thompson! Thompson, remove these people at once!"
"Leave us, Hothfield," the prince ordered.
"You wish to speak to her?" Lord Hothfield blinked at the prince. "Is that wise considering what she is?"
