a deeper rift between Wesloria and Alucia. Which potential bride, however, was an ongoing debate between the ministers that had accompanied him.
Sebastian understood his duty. He wasn’t particularly bothered by the marriage part of this bargain with his father. He’d never entertained the idea that a marriage to a woman could be made solely on the basis of compatibility and affection. He had always known it would be a political alliance in his case, just as his parents’ had been. They’d dispatched their duty to the kingdom and had produced the obligatory heir and a spare. Now they lived separate lives for the most part, his mother generally spending her time in the mountains at their ducal estate, and his father settled in at the palace in the capital of Helenamar. Sebastian assumed his marriage would follow the same path.
The Alucians had narrowed the field of eligible wives to a handful, but the hopes of English parents were evergreen. In addition to hearing the rumors of his demise at every turn, Sebastian was also being bombarded with introductions to unmarried English women.
He’d just endured a long line of them. It was ridiculous, what with all the masks. And what could anyone hope to do in a few superficial moments? Did they think he would look at one of those masked faces and Cupid would sling his arrow into Sebastian’s heart? He’d resented the need to do it, and he’d been so fatigued by the many introductions that he’d actually stepped on the foot of a woman who had greeted him with a hearty Welcome to England, as if she were standing at the port of entry, waving weary travelers through.
“Do you intend to dance?” Matous asked after Sebastian had told him that he would not accept another introduction and had proceeded to walk away.
“No.” Sebastian looked around for a waiter. What were they serving? Was it the punch?
“I would highly recommend it, sir. If you don’t, it will be remarked and your identity revealed.”
“Have I not already been remarked?” Sebastian complained. “You introduced two dozen young women to me in the corner of the ballroom.”
“Two dozen out of what could potentially have been two hundred,” Matous said with a deferential incline of his head. It was a habit of his; he sought to appear deferential when he was disagreeing or correcting Sebastian.
Sebastian groaned and looked around for a footman.
“Is there a...type...that would please you, sir?”
Matous was not asking after Sebastian’s favorite type of dance. The “type” that would please him was a naked one, preferably on a bed somewhere far from this madness. “Red hair,” he said. “I made her acquaintance at Windsor, do you recall? Widowed or separated or something like it. And a drink, man. Wine, punch, I don’t care. I must have something.”
“As you desire, sir,” Matous said crisply, and with a flick of his right wrist, sent one of the four guards, who were dressed identically to Sebastian, hurrying off to find something for him to drink.
The guard returned a moment later with a glass, which he sipped before wiping the rim clean with his handkerchief and handing the drink to Sebastian.
Sebastian downed the drink. It was the rum punch, and it was as good as the first time he’d sampled it. A thought flitted through his mind briefly—was the woman whose foot he’d mangled the same woman in the passageway? He mentally shrugged and thrust the glass at the guard. “More,” he said.
While he waited for the guard to return with more of the drink, Matous went off to find the woman with the red hair. At about the same time as the guard returned with a second round of punch, Matous returned with a woman on his arm. She was wearing a deep blue gown. Her auburn hair looked quite stunning, and her green catlike eyes glittered at Sebastian from behind a mask. She sank into a very deep curtsy.
“Your Highness, may I present Mrs. Regina Forsythe,” Matous said.
“Mrs. Forsythe,” Sebastian said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance again.”
“The pleasure is assuredly mine, Your Royal Highness.” She accepted the hand he’d offered and rose up with a pert smile.
“You intrigued me so with your conversation at Windsor,” he remarked. “I hope it is not an imposition to resume it?”
She smiled coyly. “Which conversation was that? About the soup? Or the fact that my husband is stationed in India at present?”
She was saucy, and Sebastian liked that about her. At Windsor, when he’d asked why she had not accompanied her husband to India to give him comfort, she had slyly explained that her husband saw to his comfort, and she to hers. “Both,” he said to her question. “May I have the honor of this dance?”
“The honor would be mine.”
He presented his arm. She laid her hand lightly on it and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor. The musicians played a waltz, and Sebastian bowed, then took her hand in his, placed his other hand high on her back, and led her into the dance.
“How are you finding London?” she asked.
“It has been a privilege.” Never give an answer that could be in any way misconstrued.
“How do you find your rooms at Buckingham?” she asked, her eyes glittering.
A clever little inquiry. “We are not housed at Buckingham. The queen has graciously accommodated our large party here.”
“How fortuitous.” Her coy little smile went a little deeper. “I am familiar with all the hallways and rooms at Kensington. It’s quite a complicated little palace, is it not?”
Sebastian smiled. “Quite.” He understood her as well as she understood him, as well as she and Matous and he all understood one another. Sebastian knew, without having to ask, that arrangements for private accommodations would be made.
At the end of the dance, he whispered an invitation in Mrs. Forsythe’s ear and how she might go about it if she were so inclined. The lady did not so much as blink. She slid him a look from the corner of her eye, flicked open her fan and whispered her response.
He bowed, escorted her from the dance floor, thanked her, then walked back to his group of men. He looked around for the ever-present Matous and spotted him across the room in an animated discussion with one very round Englishman. But Sebastian was quickly distracted by a couple sailing toward him at what looked like thirty knots. One of his guards stepped in front of him before the couple could accost him.
“How do you do,” the gentleman said, and bowed, exposing the bald spot on his head. “We should like to welcome His Royal Highness.”
Sebastian’s guard said nothing.
“We’d like to invite him to join us for cake,” the woman trilled. But she didn’t look at Sebastian when she said it, and he realized that they didn’t know who he was. They were hoping he or his guard would point out the prince to them.
His guard clucked his tongue at the lady. “I beg your pardon, madam, but the prince does not care for cake.”
Well, that wasn’t true at all. Sebastian very much liked cake and he could do with some now. He was starving.
“Would you be astonished to learn that my father, Mr. Cumbersark-Haynes,
