“Of course, darling. As soon as your father signs those papers, you have . . . oh . . . twelve hours before you really should leave for Wales.”

“Twelve hours,” Linnet echoed, hoping she was mistaken in what she was thinking. “You can’t possibly mean—”

“Augustus has been following you about like a child with a string toy,” her aunt said. “Shouldn’t take more than a come-hither glance and a cheerful smile. Goodness’ sake, dear, didn’t you learn anything from your mother?”

“No,” Linnet said flatly.

“Actually, with your bosom you don’t even need to smile,” Zenobia said.

“So you really mean—” Linnet stopped. “I—I—”

“You. Augustus. Seduction. Bed,” her aunt said helpfully. “Twelve hours and only one prince . . . should be quite easy.”

“I—”

“You are Rosalyn’s daughter,” her aunt said. “And my niece. Seduction, especially when it comes to royalty, is bred in your bones. In your very bloodline.”

“I don’t know how,” Linnet said flatly. “I may look naughty, but I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” her aunt said brightly. She rose. “Just get yourself a child, Linnet. Think how many young women manage to do it and they haven’t nearly your advantages, to wit, your body, your face, your smile.”

“My entire education has been directed at chastity,” Linnet pointed out. “I had a governess a good five years longer than other girls, just so I wouldn’t learn such things.”

“Your father’s fault. He was frightened by Rosalyn’s indiscretions.”

There must have been something about Linnet’s face, because Zenobia sighed with the air of a woman supporting the weight of the world. “I suppose I could find you a willing man if you really can’t bring yourself to approach the prince. It’s most unconventional, but of course one knows, one cannot help but know, of establishments that might help.”

“What sort of establishments?”

“Brothels catering to women, of course,” Zenobia said. “I do believe there’s one near Covent Garden that I was just told about . . . men of substance, that’s what I heard. They come for the sport of it, I suppose.”

“Aunt, you can’t possibly mean—”

“If you can’t seduce the prince, we’ll have to approach the problem from another angle,” she said, coming over and patting Linnet’s arm. “I’ll take you to the brothel. As I understand it, a lady can stand behind a curtain and pick out the man she wants. We’d better choose one with a resemblance to Augustus. I wonder if we could just send a message to that effect and have the man delivered in a carriage?”

Linnet groaned.

“I don’t want you to think that I would ever desert you in your hour of need,” her aunt said. “I feel all the burden of a mother’s love, now that darling Rosalyn is gone.”

It was amazing how her aunt had managed to ignore that burden during the season and indeed for years before that, but Linnet couldn’t bring herself to point it out. “I am not going to a brothel,” she stated.

“In that case,” Zenobia said cheerily, “I suggest you sit down and write that naughty prince a little note. You’re wise to choose him over the brothel, truly. One hates to start marriage with a fib involving babies. Marriage leads one into fibs by the very nature of it: all those temptations. One always orders too many gowns, and overspends one’s allowance. Not to mention men.” She kissed the tips of her fingers.

“But I wanted—”

“I am so pleased not to be married at the moment,” Zenobia said. “Not that I’m happy Etheridge died, of course. Ah well . . .”

Zenobia was gone.

And what Linnet wanted from marriage was clearly no longer a question worth discussion.

Chapter Four

You must be joking,” Piers said to Prufrock. “I sent my father a list of requirements for a wife that was a page long.”

“It made fascinating reading,” Prufrock said. “I especially appreciated the part where you admitted your incapability in bed. And the tear stain just there on the page—”

“It wasn’t a tear,” Piers said irritably. “It was brandy, you fool.”

“Oh good,” Prufrock said. “Because I hate to think that you were weeping all over the letter. Not when you could be wailing in your lonely bed.”

“Why wouldn’t I wail?” Piers said, wondering whether to have another glass. Better not. “You show me the man with an injury like mine who isn’t brokenhearted over the dark future that lies before him.”

“Dark and dire future,” Prufrock amended. “Don’t lose your alliterative touch now, right at the climactic moment.”

“The despair of never having a good woman at his side, the bitterness of knowing a sticky little hand will never curl around his thumb, the—”

“Or to get to what really matters, years without shagging,” Prufrock said.

“Is that an attempt to make me feel better?”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, with an unmistakable lack of conviction.

“Where did you go to school?” Piers inquired. “You’re altogether too literate for a butler. Most butlers I know say things like As you wish, my lord, and leave it at that. Our conversation should be along these lines: Prufrock, bring me a wench. And then you would say, As you wish.”

“What would be the good of that?” Prufrock inquired. “Under the circumstances?”

“Good point,” Piers muttered. “Well, I think I’ll go for a swim. Tide’s in.”

He left the castle by the west door, still puzzling over his butler. As he’d thought since he hired Prufrock a year ago, the man must be in service to his father, to wit: a spy. That went without saying.

But where on earth had the old man managed to find a butler like that, a Prufrock-like butler, with a sense of humor and a sharper tongue than Piers himself? In short, probably the only butler in the world whom Piers would keep in the castle even knowing that he was a bloody spy?

The only possibility was that his father actually knew or understood something about him, and since that was impossible, he dismissed the thought.

The bathing pool was carved straight out of rock on the edge of the sea, and was filled by the high tide but protected from the worst of the waves. It was a magnificent sight, a rock basin gleaming sapphire blue as the light began to fade. The sea had calmed the way it often did just at twilight, and he stood for a moment looking past the pool at the way the sea rippled on and on, following a dim gold trail of light.

Then he shook himself and pulled off his clothes. If he’d learned anything about his leg in the past years, it was that if he didn’t exercise every day it hurt like the devil. He’d skipped the swim yesterday, and he was suffering the consequences today. Not that it didn’t ache as a matter of course, but without swimming, he found himself in the kind of pain that he couldn’t bear without thinking about opiates.

Not good, those moments, nor opiates either.

He dove off a rock, deep into the water, feeling his hair pull free—damn, forgot to take out the ribbon again—and his body rejoice as his leg kicked free without carrying the weight of his body. Without thinking, he began to propel himself forward, shooting through the water in the way he couldn’t on land.