“The horses must have returned and they’ve come to find us,” he murmured.

She nodded. “They shall be quite relieved to know we’ve sustained no injuries.” She lifted an arm and waved to gain their attention, quite eager to take her leave of his company and reflect on her improper response to his advances—so that she did not repeat such a mistake again. Because, truly, this needed to stop.

“You are quite the surprise, Miss Hadley.”

She turned to find him gazing upon her. “I thought you claimed you were coming to know me. Am I not predictable anymore?”

“Ah, knowing someone and being able to predict someone are two very different things. I’m coming to know you in that I know you’re not someone who can be predicted.”

With a cool voice she was much proud of, she suggested, “It would behoove us not to waste too much time contemplating each other, do you not agree, Your Highness ?” She placed emphasis on his title, letting it stand between them as a reminder of the gulf that forever separated them.

He stared at her for some time before answering. “Indeed so, Miss Hadley.”

The grooms were upon them now. And not a moment too soon as far as she was concerned.

“We’re quite well,” Prince Sevastian assured the concerned faces staring down at them. “Thank you for your hasty rescue. Just a slight mishap. Nothing to fret over. Miss Hadley here is quite chilled, however. Would one of you see her to the house at once? I’m quite well enough to walk the rest of the way.”

A groom hastily dismounted and gave up his mount for her.

“That’s not necessary,” she objected.

Her arguments were silenced with a wave of the prince’s hand. She glanced at each of the grooms’ faces. They looked only at the prince, eager for his next command. Nothing she said would sway them.

Sighing, she held her tongue. Best to let people think she was the missish type of female who gets chilled and cannot walk out of doors. Besides, she didn’t want the staff gossiping that she was some hot-blooded virago. She already had a strike against her with her father in tow.

She narrowed her gaze at the prince standing so stalwart in the morning wind. As if nothing untoward had occurred. He didn’t spare her a glance even as she couldn’t stop devouring the sight of him. Her cheeks blazed afire.

Perhaps he only wished to be rid of her and that’s why he wished to send her ahead. A groom assisted her as if she were some delicate lady who could not manage. In moments, she was riding at a ridiculously slow dawdle, led by the groom who gave up his seat for her. She sent a glance over her shoulder at the prince, speculating that his strides might very well overtake her.

He gazed straight ahead, his eyes unreadable beneath his slash of dark brows. Sucking in a deep breath, she faced forward again and plodded ahead, letting him fall behind as she waited for the house to appear.

B y the time Sev reached the house, he had done nothing to exorcise Miss Hadley from his thoughts. He spent the half-hour walk attempting to persuade himself that he merely craved a woman and not her specifically. One of the comely housemaids whose eyes followed him about hungrily should satisfy his needs.

There was no glimpse of Miss Hadley upon entering the high vaulted-ceiling foyer and his heart sank with a disappointment he couldn’t deny. There was something about her—a fire, a passion he had not seen since before the war. She was no simpering, naïve, spoiled miss. She possessed an air, a certain knowledge of life and, perhaps most astounding of all, she wasn’t jaded for it.

His steps echoed a lonely sound across the aged marble as he moved toward the grand staircase.

It already seemed long ago that he had held her with winter winds buffeting them on all sides. If the sweet taste of her didn’t linger on his mouth, he might have convinced himself the entire encounter had not occurred. Surely only in a dream would he have disregarded logic and acted so rashly.

What on earth motivated him to kiss a marriage-minded female he had no intention of wooing for the purpose of matrimony? His goal was clear. He’d traveled to England for one reason only and he needn’t waste his time chasing after an ineligible female.

And yet somehow, in the course of their brief acquaintance, she had transformed in his mind. He no longer saw the unfortunate sun-browned, freckled female with the unfashionable hair and miserable pedigree. No. He saw a strong, enticing female who would do quite well in his bed. Too bad she was not angling for the position of mistress.

Shaking his head as if that might free him of such a pointless wish, he entered his chamber, startling his valet from where he dozed in the chair by the window.

“Your Highness? Back already?” The elderly man had been his father’s valet and closest friend. His brother had inherited him first, then Sev next. There was no question that he should find a younger, spry valet. As long as Ilian was willing, he would serve as valet to the Crown Prince of Maldania. Tradition was not something to be tossed aside lightly, especially one involving Ilian.

For some reason the thought of tradition only further drove home how wholly inappropriate his feelings for Miss Hadley happened to be. She was an heiress hunting for a husband, and he best not dally with such a female.

“I’ll ring a bath for you.” Ilian’s joints cracked as he passed Sev.

He spared the man who was like family to him a tender smile. “Thank you, Ilian.”

His valet nodded. “Can’t have you looking mussed if we’re to woo the future queen.”

Sev’s smile slipped further. His mind drifted to the lovely Lady Libbie, feeling strangely empty as he imagined her as his bride. “No. We can’t have that.”

A short time later he was the first to arrive in the dining room, but he was not to be alone for long.

His cousin entered the room as he was cutting into a fat kipper. Sevastian greeted him with a nod, studying Malcolm’s back as he moved to the sideboard and made himself a generous plate of food.

Malcolm tugged down his jacket as he seated himself, and Sev couldn’t help noticing it had already grown snug in the fortnight they’d spent together. A definite paunch had grown there since Sev located him in his rented rooms in Seven Dials—a far cry from the fashionable lodgings Sev had expected to find him occupying.

When Grandfather banished his uncle twenty years ago for daring to ravish a visiting Italian dignitary’s daughter, Malcolm and his mother accompanied him to England, despite Grandfather’s offer for them to remain behind. Aunt Nesha refused to believe the Italian girl’s accusations and wouldn’t let her husband depart without her, so the entire family fled to England. When they left they were by no means penniless. His uncle, Sev learned, had lost everything at the gaming hells and then only inconvenienced his family further by dying in a duel and leaving them to endure poverty without him.

Sev felt only pity for Malcolm when he learned that they had been living in genteel squalor, pride preventing them from returning to Maldania.

“Even if I wanted to, Mama refuses,” his cousin had explained when Sev offered to send them home now. “She feels shame over Papa’s banishment . . . and she’s still angry. She’ll take nothing from Grandfather.”

Sev had seen his aunt only a moment, a wan figure reclining on a faded chaise, her smelling salts in one hand and a much-read novel in the other—which she had thrown at his head. The genteel aunt of memory was nowhere in evidence. That woman would not have known the curses to heap upon his head for Grandfather’s lies and cruelty—as she phrased it.

Sev did not blame his grandfather for banishing his uncle—by all accounts his uncle had badly damaged the girl. But none of that was Malcolm’s fault, so he had taken his cousin under his wing, supporting him with his own dwindling funds since he arrived.

Malcolm wasn’t to blame for his father’s sins. And besides that, his cousin might be penniless, but his rank still gave him access to the ton . Malcolm knew everyone. There wasn’t a hostess who did not dote on him. With Malcolm as his guide, Sev saved precious time. Malcolm knew instantly what debutantes Sev should consider.

“Pleasant ride this morning?” Malcolm asked, lowering down to the table and digging vigorously into his breakfast. “I don’t know how you rise at such an ungodly hour.”

Sev took a lingering sip of his coffee. “Cousin . . .”

“Hmm,” Malcolm murmured as he sawed into a kipper.

“I would like to know more about Miss Hadley.”

Malcolm stilled his sawing. “The one you staked a claim on already?” He snorted. “Sounded like you knew enough about her.”

Sev stifled his wince, determined to suppress the emotion of the previous night when he’d reacted so possessively to Malcolm’s interest in Grier.

Malcolm continued, “I should think you could make better use of your time than inquiring into an ineligible bastard. She’s hardly suitable as the future queen.”

Sev shrugged, pretending his cousin’s words did not annoy him. He loathed revealing more of his interest in her, but Malcolm was the only one he could ask and expect discretion.

Rising from the table, he stared down at his young cousin. “Just learn everything you can about her. Will you do that?”

Something flickered in Malcolm’s face that Sev had never seen before, and for a brief moment he was reminded that he really did not know him, cousin or no. Before he could identify the sentiment, the expression was gone, replaced with Malcolm’s usual affable smile. “Of course, Sev. It’s the least I can do for you after all you’ve done for me. What do you wish to know?”

“Everything.”

As he departed the room, Sev didn’t want to think about why it had become so important to learn everything he could about a woman whose company he would not keep for much longer.

Chapter Thirteen

It never ceased to impress Grier how many well-bodied ferns could occupy one room, and then she told herself to simply be grateful for that fact. Garbed in an emerald green gown, the great, green leafy fronds camouflaged her form perfectly. A smile lifted her lips. She should only ever dress in green.

Presently she cowered behind one of the plants, happily munching on a tart from her small plate of candied pineapple and iced tarts and sugared fruits—delicacies she’d never tasted before departing Wales. She had to give the aristocracy due credit, they ate like royalty.

As if the mere thought of royalty summoned him, a deep rolling voice asked, “Where do you put it?”

Grier nearly dropped her plate. Whirling around with her hand pressed to her pounding heart, she blinked up at the prince.

“You startled me.”

Her heart pounded harder at his nearness. The memory of the last time she’d seen him surged inside her. Not that the recollection ever lurked far. She’d only kissed two men in her life and he was one of them. And of course his kisses had branded an imprint onto her very soul. Standing near him, she couldn’t recall her own name.

“I see that. I’ve watched you for the last quarter hour. I believe that’s your fourth tart.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but her voice failed her. He’d been watching her? Her fingers grew lax. Her plate tipped ever so slightly. A scone escaped.

His gaze shifted from her face, lingering a long moment on the hand she pressed to her bosom before lowering to stare at the floor where a scone had tripped off her plate and rolled in a gradually slowing circle. “Do they not have food in Wales? In Carynwedd?”

Her attention snapped back to him. “How did you know that I’m from Carynwedd?”

He cocked his dark head. “I know a great many things about you, Miss Hadley.”

“Oh.” Her skin prickled with alarm.

Did he know everything? Did he know that she’d been a game master? A vocation typically reserved for men? Heat flooded her face as his gaze drifted to her mouth, fixing there long enough to make her knees tremble beneath her skirts.