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Hundreds of candles lit the throne room, casting a soft buttery glow on the crimson carpets that spread out in front of the royal dais like a lake of wine. Loki had always thought it looked like blood, but had learned to keep his observations to himself after he had said so and Mother had winced, the diamonds in her earrings trembling, and said goodness, how macabre, darling about ten years ago. Or perhaps it was fifteen years: the details of the social seasons tended to blend into a great smear of paint in his mind’s eye. Endless nights out spent gambling, drinking, and attending the theater tended to do that to one’s recollections.
And now I must sit on my royal arse and be forced to witness yet another round of girls trying to curtsy. Even worse, I have to do it sober. Loki turned to adjust his stock in a mirror, trying to put off his entry into the receiving hall as long as he could. Not a speck of dust or lint was on that snowy linen, but he pretended to pick at it anyway. Thor would likely show up without a collar on at all, let alone his Order of the Star, and while certain rules could be bent for the Prince Regent, Loki, secondborn and less-important, could not afford to look any less than his best at public events like this. He almost hated to put his mother through another season: she had started to watch every woman he even glanced at in passing like a hawk, giving him subtle, meaningful looks, and every September ended in inevitable disappointment for the Queen Mother. Not a single one? No? Her large, sad eyes would turn away, and her shoulders would set, and that, that nearly broke him more than anything else.
Maybe next season, he’d say, trying to cheer her up. The truth was, he felt not a hint of attraction to any young woman ever he’d laid eyes on in his life— in fact, not a hint of desire towards anyone or anything. Certainly, there had been a sort of longing to be like Thor, when they were children and his brother had gone off to school and Loki had had to stay behind in the nursery for another two years, which he had felt was a grave injustice— but nothing in the way of what anyone might call love . A bachelor: that was what the press liked to call him. One could not accuse him of of being a rake or a rogue, unless in matters of misappropriation of his own money— well! A bachelor was all very well, but as Mother liked to remind them both, the throne craved two things constantly, and that was a seat and an heir. Someone to sit it in the present, and someone to sit it in another fifty years, and so far Thor had only courted one lady, and it had ended in a quiet dissolution. Loki smiled at his reflection. Lady Foster had been lovely, but far too much of a bluestocking and an intellectual to be a future Queen. A pity. She had been great fun to bandy with at dinner.
“Your Highness,” said a voice from behind him, and he turned, seeing one of his brother’s court behind him. Sir Fandral, as always, cut an immaculate figure in a gold-embroidered waistcoat and spotless collar. “I do believe they’re all waiting for you.”
“Of course they are.” Loki gave his reflection one last look, his critical eye landing on the slightest wrinkle by his eye, and walked out, setting his shoulders to endure hours of dreary presentations.
Lady Charlotte Sylvia Louise Green waited in the wings. Not the grandeur of her surroundings, nor the sight of all the other debutantes crowded among her in their white silks and gauze, nor even the knowledge that soon she would be presenting herself to the Queen Mother and her sons— none of these, in short, could distract her from the fact that she was well and truly bored.
It was unconventional to present oneself at court, without a matron to accompany one: this was, however, necessary for Lady Green, who was an orphan and who had no other family in the whole world, save a crusty old great-uncle who had left her all his money upon the occasion of his death six months prior. She really ought to have been in mourning, but she had never laid eyes upon the man, and so felt that such a public display was unnecessary— besides that, she would have had to spend money on mourning wear, and she felt a season’s wardrobe was perhaps a better use of his fortune.
The point of the season, Lady Green thought to herself as she looked over the crowd of wide-eyed girls her age, was not to catch a husband, it was to make connexions and thereby gain some friends and perhaps find adventure in town. She could have moved at once into the country house left to her, but where was the fun in that? Better to try out this high society for a season or two and see how she liked it. Lady Green was in the habit of trying everything at least once or twice, regardless of any barrier put to her. Even the court gown she wore was new to her sensibilities. The ostrich feathers, however, were becoming a swift irritant, owing to the weight of the pin that held them in her pile of curls. She sighed.
The doors opened, and a gentleman in a morning coat began to pompously announce that they were ready to begin the presentation of the debutantes: a hundred girls gasped and began to jostle for position before he added that they would go alphabetically, by last name, and after that everyone seemed to quiet down. Lady Green moved to one side of the room and sighed: she would have nobody waiting for her on the other end of the hall, and G came quite early in the alphabet. She would likely be hanging about a long time, waiting for the Queen to release them all like a governess. And if I had a family, I would then go and make plans for my first ball, but not having one, I must be satisfied with attending someone else’s.
There was a mirror in the waiting room, and several anxious young ladies were preening their feathers before it. She looked over quickly, and saw only a tired-looking girl, too old to be a real debutante at twenty-one, with a too-thin mouth and sharp chin. I can’t do it, she thought, and then, you must do it, you must, else you can’t be out in true Society! So she chastised herself, and turned away from the glass.
Loki had never wished for a glass of brandy more in all his life. Unspeakably dull young women, barely out of childhood, were floating in and curtseying and trying to walk away backward, girls innumerable, and the only entertaining thing that had happened so far was that Lady Eleanora Elizabeth Couburne had tripped on the hem of her silk organdy and fallen, resulting in humiliated tears. He had tried not to laugh at the expression on her old aunt’s pinched face, but his mother had shot him a deadly look, leaned forward from her seat, and said something kind to the girl. It was enough to make him wonder if they oughtn’t to simply do away with the custom of never turning one’s back on the monarch. Thor did not seem to care one bit if anyone made a breach in etiquette. There’s an idea for a reformed law, thought Loki, glancing over at his brother, who sat between him and Mother, so that Loki was on the left and the Queen Mother was on the right.
They had started calling the F’s, so he sat back and amused himself by fixing a neutral expression on his face and thinking about the first round of balls he would be forced to attend in the coming week. It wasn’t that he hated balls on the whole, it was only that they were dreadfully boring when everyone in the room wished to speak to one’s brother. It wasn’t as if he could blame them, either: Thor was boisterous and generous and handsome— Loki was none of those things. Next to the golden, broad Prince Regent, he looked like a black whippet. It would be nice, he thought, to simply have a conversation companion for occasions such as those. Thor’s little court of knights was all well and good, but—
“Lady Charlotte Sylvia Louise Green,” intoned the footman. Loki shifted his weight in his chair and glanced up at the approaching girl, only to see… not a young girl, not an ordinary debutante of sixteen or seventeen, but a woman who could have been anywhere from twenty to thirty, with an elfin face, round blue eyes and a slim mouth and honey-colored hair piled on her head in sensible coils. She was not beaming stupidly, or pale as a ghost and keeping her eyes on the carpet: she simply glided in, straightforward and plain, as if this was something she did every day. Her bearing caught his mother’s eye, too: the Queen leaned forward very slightly and watched with a keen expression as Lady Green came to stand at the foot of the dais, executed a graceful curtsey to them with needle-like precision, and rose back up. Her large eyes drifted quickly over Thor, then the Queen, and then Loki himself, and he was shocked to find that he was staring right back into her open and frank gaze, unable to move. Something twisted strangely in his belly, a trembling sensation he did not understand and had no name for.
Mother came to the rescue. “Lady Green,” she said, “I have not had the pleasure of hearing your name at court before. Is this your first season?”
The woman looked back at the Queen Mother, and Loki felt as if he had escaped something awful. His palms were wet. What is the matter with me? “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, and her voice was clear and firm, with not a hint of the softness that blurred the speech of a proper young lady.
“You cannot be younger than twenty or so,” said Mother. “And you have no matron.”
“No, ma’am,” said Lady Green.
“What is your age, then?” asked Thor, who looked interested from his seat. Loki felt a stab of rage: he would insist on snatching away her attention.
“As I have already confessed to being over twenty, and being presented for the first time, your Royal Highness will forgive me for not revealing it precisely,” said Lady Green, a gleam of good humor in her eye. Thor laughed aloud, and the Queen pressed her lips together to fight a smile.
Loki felt desperate. She would go away in a moment, and he would not see her again once she departed through that door. “What put off your presentation at court for so long?” he asked, and she turned those wide blue eyes back on him. There might have been nobody else in the room— the world entire— save the two of them.
“Many things, your Royal Highness. Lack of station, chiefly.”
“And what brought you here at last?” he asked, feeling as if he must hang on to every word she spoke, or perish.
“Death, sir,” she answered, nodding her head a little.
“It brings us to strange places indeed,” he said.
“Yes, sir. Diverse places, I think: some we like, and some we do not.”
He leaned forward, a smile tugging at his mouth. “And is this court a place you mislike, Lady Green?”
A small, answering smile twitched at the corner of her own lips. “Why, I have not been here long enough to judge properly, sir.”
“A diplomatic answer indeed,” said the Queen Mother, outright smiling. The whole court was listening now, all looking at the young woman who had caught the attention of the Queen. “Lady Green. A diamond of the first water.”
High color rushed to the woman’s cheeks in a flood of rose, and Loki felt an inexorable pull towards her: what was this? “Ma’am,” she whispered, and curtseyed again before retreating, her step as able and deft as a dancer’s as the court began to gasp and murmur and stare at her. The Queen’s words would guarantee Lady Green an invitation to almost every society party, ball, race, or stroll for weeks on end: never in the time since Thor had taken on the mantle of Prince Regent had the Queen Mother named a single debutante a diamond of the first water.
Loki watched the soft gold curls and ostrich feathers vanish through the far door, and tried his hardest to pay attention to the next name being called. Never in all his life had he felt such wild and terrible things: he wished to storm from the room and catch Lady Green up— to demand her presence at every event for the next three months. The awful thought struck him that some other gentleman of the court might take a fancy to her, might at this moment be making an introduction and kissing her white-gloved hand. His nails dug into his palms as he sat, rigid, in his seat.
“I shall ensure that the little diamond receives an invitation to tonight’s ball,” said the Queen Mother softly as the next girl left. “Stop gritting your teeth, darling.”
“Yes, Mother,” he said with some difficulty.
“I have never seen you so affected before. You spoke to her.” His mother’s eyes were bright and inquisitive, hope springing there, and Loki could not stand to look at it. “We will discuss it later.”
“There is nothing to discuss. She intrigues me: that is all.”
“Mm,” said the Queen quite archly, and turned to greet the next girl coming down the carpet.
It had been quite a shock, Lady Green reflected, to be called a diamond of the first water, but even moreso to be pulled aside by a black-haired, grey-eyed woman who wore orders and a sash over her silver and crimson gown, be told that she was expressly invited to the ball in the palace that very evening, and given a vellum invitation with the royal seal on it. Nobody could have predicted it at all, least of all she herself, but thank Heaven she had made the most of her newfound fortune and bought a new wardrobe.
As she dressed for the night in the sparsely-furnished room of the town-house she had only newly bought (and had not had time to furnish properly, hence the aforementioned sparsity) Lady Green thought back to the Queen and the two princes, one on each side of her. The Prince Regent, with his tumbling shock of golden-brown hair and broad shoulders, seemed very good-natured and handsome, with a friendly smile, and took after his mother the Queen in looks— the other one, Prince Loki, who she had up till now only read about, seemed slight and dark in comparison. His hair was black as ink, and softly curled about his high brow— and his eyes! Never had she seen such brightly sharp, intelligent eyes on a man: they were a green-blue like the sea off Dover, which she had seen once, long ago as a girl, and his face was sharp and chiseled as marble, the sharp cheeks high-planed and the elegant mouth thin and expressive.
He had looked at her. There was looking, and there was looking, and she felt quite sure that the prince had taken some sort of interest, whether superficial or not. He had a reputation in the papers for being an avid gambler, interested in horse-racing and the like, but not for loose behavior with ladies, and that fascinated her. What lady would not be taken with a face like that? Lady Green pinned a white rose into her hair and looked down at her ball gown. Green silk beneath the pale gold net, like her name: she had thought herself very clever in her plan to be easily remembered in social circles. Ah, Lady Green who wears green, that’s simple enough, she imagined some lady saying, and dipped a mock curtsey to her mirror.
Certainly it was a frightening prospect, thinking of walking back into that grand ballroom with everyone whispering behind their hands about the Queen’s words toward her, but Lady Green had always tried everything once or twice, and decided she would think of this as a challenge, and rise therefore to it. The carriage was waiting: it was five o’clock. She held her head high and descended the steps.
Her entry into the rooms was announced dutifully, and the court lady who had given her the invitation appeared as if by magic, taking her arm as if they were the oldest of friends. “Lady Green,” she greeted her, smiling. “Let us take a turn round the room, so everyone might see you. I should be surprised if you do not receive half a dozen marriage proposals this very night.”
Lady Green looked over the duchess: her gown was fine, heavy white and silver court dress with a train of yellow silk. “You are very kind, but I am not in the habit of catching proposals, Lady…?”
“Ah! I had forgot, we have not been introduced. I am Lydia Siphinisba Washburne, Countess of Oxford, but you must call me Sif, as my friends do.” The woman squeezed her arm warmly. “I am glad to hear that you have no practice in receiving marriage proposals.”
There was no ring on the Countess’s finger, and Lady Green glanced up. “You are titled in your own right, then?”
“Awarded to me for great services to the Prince Regent,” explained the Countess. “I am well-practiced in the art of receiving proposals, you see— and then, rejecting them—as my highest honor is working to protect the Prince Regent and the royal family in ways only a lady might be able to.”
“I see,” said Lady Green, realization dawning. “So you seek to discover my intentions, since the Queen Mother so graciously spoke of me?”
“I do, and I confess I am curious about the prince’s thoughts on the matter. The Queen tells me he was indisposed half the afternoon, and took hours to dress tonight.”
“The prince?” Lady Green was startled, thinking of the Prince Regent. “But he was so very pleasant in the receiving room.”
“Pleasant? Oh, no— not Thor, the other one. Prince Loki.”
Something odd stirred beneath Lady Green’s heart. “Oh,” she said simply. “I see. He seemed… very strange, when I presented myself.”
“Yes, we all saw,” said the Countess. “He has never behaved like that in all the years he has been sitting on that chair, but something about you struck him like a thunder-bolt to the head. I would counsel a careful step about him. The prince is… given to odd moods of character. Fits of melancholy.”
Lady Green did not know what to say to that. “Surely you don’t mean to say that I am in some danger.”
“Danger! No, only perhaps the danger of being annoyed at his gambling habits,” said the Countess, looking startled. “But if he decides to take a particular interest in you, it may ruin your prospects for any advantageous marriage you might wish to pursue. No man would dare put himself between a prince and the prince’s object of affection.”
“As I am not interested in marriage, that does not bother me much,” said Lady Green. “And I am no object, Countess, regardless of anyone’s feelings about me.”
The lady’s clear grey eyes took her in for a moment as if she was seeing her for the first time, and then she nodded slowly, as if in approval. “So you do have a mind of your own. Good.”
Feeling as if she had just passed a test, Lady Green halted her stride. “I think I have walked enough for now.”
“Of course,” said the Countess. “There are sandwiches and cake and lemonade there on the other wall— the dancing will begin shortly. I would recommend you stand in the corner there.” And with a wink, the lady was gone, dashing through a door and vanishing into a corridor.
Lady Green composed herself a moment and made off to the refreshment table, which was being picked over by some older matrons who did not need to worry about the effects of dancing immediately after eating. She tried some of the sponge cake and a sandwich, realizing how hungry she was halfway through the cake. After all, she’d hardly eaten anything that entire day.
She had just finished a glass of lemonade when someone announced that the Queen was entering, and there was enough time to hurry to the corner before the lady herself entered, resplendent in blue and white with her two sons escorting her. Immediately, Lady Green knew why the Countess had told her to stand where she was: Prince Loki’s eyes found her instantly, away from the center of the ballroom where hundreds of young ladies all thronged, eager to catch the eyes of any gentlemen watching, and she felt rooted to the spot by his intent stare before he looked away and walked with his mother to the seat set out for her in the little gallery.
Quickly, she turned away. He looked very fine in his uniform coat of green so dark it was near-black, with the gold buttons and epaulettes and the black sash of his order across the breast: the snowy breeches and the sword at his side. The terrible thought that he might ask her to dance entered her head, and she fought the urge to run from the room. Surely he won’t, she thought, folding herself back into the crowd in an attempt to hide. But rumors had already spread, and ladies began to turn their heads and whisper, looking at her with expressions varying from admiration to disdain, and before she knew what was happening a low, gentle voice said, “Lady Green.”
She knew that voice: she had mulled it over and over during the course of the afternoon. Lady Green turned and stared up into the sharp-boned face of the second-born prince. “Your Highness,” she said, willing herself to remain composed. He bowed smartly and extended his hand, and without thinking, she took it. Her white-gloved fingers felt very small in his, and he bent to kiss her knuckles briefly.
“Might I request the honor of the first dance?” he asked softly.
“You may,” she told him, feeling as if a hook had pulled her spirit from her body. “Sir.”
“Thank you, madam,” he said, and turned, nimbly guiding her to the open floor while the musicians tuned up. She could not understand how she had ever thought him slight or small. He stood well over six feet, and moved like flowing water. When they faced each other across the forming line, she had to lift her chin up to see his face.
Someone must have called the dance, but she never heard it: the music struck up and they were dancing down the line, whipped away in a riot of color and sound, and through it all she never lost sight of his eyes.
It was some time later, well into the night, when Loki finally managed to get her into a private corner for a conversation, Lady Sif’s keen gaze only a few steps away. She had been whisked off by a few other gentlemen over the course of the ball, and he had been forced by the bonds of etiquette to allow it. Being so sharply aware of Lady Green’s eyes on him all evening, even when she was dancing with others, had been itself a sort of trial by fire, and now he was finally able to speak with her and could not think of a thing to say.
“Are you enjoying the ball?” he asked, casting his voice low.
“Yes, sir,” she told him, her eyes shining and her cheeks pink with heat. “Are you?”
“I am,” said Loki, surprised at his own sincerity. “But I would enjoy more the tale of how you come to be here, at court, four years too late. Tardiness is not tolerable in this court, madam.” He feigned a sharp and scolding tone, and was pleased to see her smile a little.
“It isn’t a very long tale,” said Lady Green. “I am an orphan: when I should have come to court at sixteen and been presented, my parents had both died— therefore I had no money with with to make my debut, sir. But in the time since then, a distant uncle died, and left me all his fortune, so I thought it was better to come late than not at all. Am I forgiven my awful tardiness, sir?”
“You were right: better late than not at all. My royal pardon is extended to you, Lady Green,” he teased, and got a bright smile for his efforts.
“Is that lady Sif still watching us?” she asked, eyes darting off to the side.
That was surprising: nobody but Thor and his inner court referred to the Countess of Oxford by her pet name. Loki turned and met Sif’s grey stare, and after a moment she nodded briefly and moved away, vanishing into the crowd. “Not any more,” he answered. “Which means I am at liberty to do all kinds of rakish and dreadful things to you.”
Lady Green laughed. “Not likely, in a ballroom full of people.”
“No,” he had to admit, smiling back at her, “not likely at all. I think some gentlemen and ladies may have gone missing from the room, however, and it is almost certain that they have made their escapes into various secluded parts of the palace. A library, perhaps, or a broom closet.”
“Scandalous,” said Lady Green, one arched eyebrow rising. “But I have not heard any rumor in the papers that Prince Loki, Duke of Kent, is a rake— or even dreadful.”
“Oh, dear,” said Loki, who was beginning to enjoy himself. “You cannot trust what the papers say— or do not say. I am sure by tomorrow they will all be reporting that you attended wearing a gown of pure white and danced with my brother all night long, when in truth you came looking like a blade of spring grass in a rose-garden.”
“Grass, am I?” said Lady Green, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “What a fine compliment; every lady adores being told she is something for cows and horses to eat.”
“No, that is— not—” Loki tripped over his words and caught himself. “The scent and color of a thousand flowers might overwhelm the senses to the point of disgust, but there is nothing so pleasant or honest as the smell of fresh grass.”
“Well-recovered,” said Lady Green, laughing. “I ought to hand you off to another lady, sir. It would be unfair to hoard you to myself all night.”
He hesitated, unsure if she was in earnest and only being polite. “Truly?” he asked.
“Oh, dear,” she said, gazing up at him. “No, I cannot tease you, sir, or be dishonest. I would rather have your name on every line in my card than dance with anyone else.”
Delight bloomed somewhere deep inside Loki’s body, somewhere secret that he had never had cause to consider before— then he tamped it down as hard as he could. “As expected, since I am a prince,” he murmured, looking away.
“No,” she said with some heat, reaching out and touching his gloved hand with hers before pulling it back as if she had been scorched. Loki regarded her with some surprise. “I mean—”
“Go on,” he prompted.
She squared her shoulders and plunged on. “I should like you the same, were you— were you the King himself, or one of the valets standing there along the wall. And now you must forgive my forwardness.”
“Of course I do,” Loki said. “That marks twice in one night you have begged my pardon, Lady Green.”
“One can only hope your grace does not run dry after only two such encounters,” Lady Green said, and then turned bright scarlet, realizing her double entendre too late. “I— oh —”
Loki could not help but laugh. “I would not know, madam, since it has never been requested before of me.”
She hid her face in her hands and giggled helplessly, and he knew at once what love was.
Rumor soon spread throughout the whole of the ton: the second prince was linked with the mysterious and lovely Lady Green, whose clever wit and quick step had made her the darling of the Queen Mother. Every event attended by the Queen and the Prince Regent included the persons of the Duke of Kent and his companion. The gambling dens and gentlemen’s clubs of London, bereft of their most generous benefactor, railed against the injustice, but it did no good— Prince Loki had turned his back on them for the favor of a golden-haired young woman to whom wit was nearly a second nature.
“You must call me Sylvie,” she whispered to him at the opera one night behind her fan. “It was what my parents called me as a child: I should like to hear it again very much.”
“As you wish, L—Sylvie,” he managed, staggered at the familiarity. But she did things like that all the time: she had been raised in the country, away from society, and he delighted in her little faux pas. She thoughtlessly called him by his given name once during a stroll through Vauxhall Gardens, and he had thought his heart would burst at her frantic apologies. She was nothing like any other debutante— a girl of sixteen would have quailed miserably behind her mother’s skirts at the idea of being alone with a gentleman, but Sylvie was older and did not mind a bit if her prospects would be ruined by a duck around a hedge, clinging to his hand, to show him a swan and her little gray and black cygnets.
“I want to propose,” he said to Thor one fine March morning as they ate breakfast. “To Lady Green.”
Thor blinked and laid his spoon down. “I shall have to ask Mother how she feels about it. You know she intends that I wed first, to secure the succession. Then, you—”
“I’ve waited long enough,” said Loki sharply. “She wants us both married. The season’s nearly done with. What better time than now?”
“You still have until July. And whatever happened to being intrigued, that's all?”
“Just talk to her.”
“Would a bit of politeness kill you, brother?”
“Please,” Loki said through his teeth, and dug into his softboiled egg.
“I never took you for the marrying type,” said Thor, peering at Loki across the table. “But she is a fine girl. If Mother doesn’t want you to wed her, maybe I will—”
Loki fought the brutal urge to throw something at the Prince Regent’s face. “If you even look at her—”
Thor laughed, his mouth full of fruit. “Look at that! Loki, losing his head over a lady! Didn’t you used to tease me endlessly about Lady Foster? Mm, how the tables have turned.”
“All right, and I’m sorry. Just talk to Mother before I go mad.”
“I’ll try my best. Aren’t you taking Lady Green riding this morning in Hyde Park?”
“I am,” said Loki, his appetite gone. “If you’ll excuse me, brother, I need to go dress.”
Sylvie gave her figure a critical look in the mirror. Her dark-green riding habit went nicely with her blue eyes, she thought. Certainly Loki would like it— he favoured green, and had complimented her on her choices of clothing.
“What a thing you’ve gone and done,” she said aloud to her reflection, “catching a prince by mistake!” Even more amusing, she liked him very much. The prince’s efforts to not catch her out in social missteps were endearing, and she had begun to see particular things about his character that she had not noticed before. Around his family, he was cool and aloof, but alone, he was a markedly different man: both his smiles and his words were more generous, and she could not help but suspect he felt a bit slighted and small in the shade of the Prince Regent.
Well, it was nigh on eight in the morning, so she ought to go down. Sylvie set her green riding hat on her head quite firmly and descended the steps as quickly as she could.
Hyde Park was a riot of people, all sitting on the grass having picnics in the wan summer sunshine or strolling about arm-in-arm. Sylvie regarded them all with interest as she rode at Loki’s side, and noticed how many eyes turned to the pair of them, riding along with Lady Sif for chaperone behind.
“They are all looking at you,” she said, turning her face a little so she could see Loki. His riding-coat of deep, rich brown set off his green waistcoat very nicely, and his black curls shone like a raven’s wing whenever the sun came out from behind the clouds.
“They are all looking at you ,” he said with a smile, and she flushed, looking away. “It looks as if it might rain.”
“Might it?” Sylvie peered up into the sky dubiously. “That is all right. I have never minded getting a bit wet.”
“No? I hear every physician says that rain can cause pneumonia.”
“Indeed, but I think as long as one get out of wet clothes as soon as possible and into dry ones, and sits by a fire, there—”
A rolling clap of thunder, distant and grumbling, interrupted her, and Lady Sif rode up. “Sir,” she said to Loki, “shall I escort the lady home?”
“No, there is no rain yet, Sif.” Loki reined in his horse and glanced over at the red brick walls of Kensington House. “But if you wish to ride, would you ride to Kensington and ask my brother to speak with my mother on the subject we discussed this morning?”
“I would, sir, but the Prince Regent has gone to Buckingham for matters of state. The Queen is there with him.”
“Ah, I forgot,” said Loki absently, looking at Sylvie, who pretended she did not see him and looked at the distant sky. “Well, ride to Buckingham then.”
“Yes, m’lord,” said Sif, an eyebrow raised, and took off at a gallop on her mare with such a speed and skill that Sylvie could not help but watch in frank admiration.
“She rides like Athena herself.”
“And is just as wise and warlike, I think. A pity she was born here and now and not in ancient days. She could have led armies.”
Sylvie laughed. “Truly, she might lead them now. I think any enemy would run at the sight of her in full military dress.”
“Indeed they would,” said Loki, and they rode on, watching as picnicking groups packed up, casting worried looks at the graying sky. A few strong gusts of wind bent the green branches of the trees back and forth like dancers.
“What was the thing you wished to ask your brother about, sir?” she asked to break the silence as they rounded the southern side of the park.
“Nothing,” he said immediately, color rising to his face.
“Oh, come now, sir. What was it?”
“Nothing, I tell you.”
“You are blushing like a girl!” Delighted, Sylvie rode closer. “Now I am intrigued. You must tell me, or I shall give you not a moment’s peace about it.”
“I— I—” Loki cast glances at her, at the ground, and at the trees and sky. “You know, I considered myself to have quite the card-playing face before I made your acquaintance, madam. Now you have gone and smashed my mask to bits.”
“You seek to distract me, but it will not work,” declared Sylvie. “Tell me at once, or I shall wear you down with nagging until we are old and gray.”
He had to laugh at that. “All right, then. I wished to— you are aware, I think, that any marriages must be approved by the ruling monarch?”
Something fluttered and leaped in Sylvie’s breast. “Yes. Your brother?”
“It’s complicated.” He set his jaw a little. “Due to a lengthy and confusing Parliamentary law which I will not attempt to explain, my brother must seek and secure the approval of my mother for any marriage. They must approve jointly.”
“Oh, I see,” said Sylvie. “And you are asking for a marriage to be approved as a favor to a friend, or…?”
He swallowed and turned toward her, looking torn. “I…”
The sky above them opened. Rain began to sheet down in torrents, and Sylvie shrieked at the cold, which made her horse start beneath her. “Oh—”
“Here!” Loki had the presence of mind to start off in front, and her steed followed his, galloping all the way off to the west side of Hyde Park. “Kensington!” he shouted back over his shoulder at her— at least she thought he did. The rain and thunder was so loud that she could hardly hear him.
They rode up to the great brick walls, panting and shivering in the rain, and handed their poor horses off to a valet who came running out in a greatcoat. Loki opened the door himself and ushered her in, and there they stood, dripping in silence in the foyer of the massive palace.
Sylvie tried to catch her breath. She had been alone with the prince briefly before, but only in public places, and never indoors. Something about it felt deliciously naughty. “This is your residence?” she asked, clutching her arms.
“It is, when I’m in town for the season,” he said, and peeled out of his riding coat, the brown velvet sodden— then the soaked jacket underneath, leaving him in waistcoat and shirtsleeves. She averted her eyes, heat rising to her cheeks. “One must sometimes throw Propriety to the wayside when one is trying not to freeze, Lady Green,” he said very gently, and she let her eyes meet his again. There was no debauched gaze or lecherous stare in them, only care and concern. “May I help you out of that habit, or shall I go fetch a maid?”
“You may,” she answered, hot all over, and unbuttoned the front of her heavy habit, then turned her back to him. He carefully pulled at the sleeves, divesting her of the habit, but leaving her in her thin shirt beneath, high-necked, long-sleeved— and drenched through, showing her chemise and stays beneath.
An ordinary young lady would have run from the room, demanded a maid, covered herself. Sylvie did neither. She turned slowly to look at Loki, who was as still as a stone, or perhaps a hunting dog who had just alerted to the presence of a pheasant in brush. “Your waistcoat is soaked through, sir,” she said quietly.
“In— indeed it is,” he said, and stripped off his gloves so that he could unbutton it, revealing to her for the first time his bare hands. Pale, elegantly long fingers moved deftly across his waistcoat, and when he had taken it off, she could see the damp linen of his shirt clung to the lines of his body beneath, which was finely sculpted, firm and lean from days surely spent riding or fencing or any number of pursuits suited to the exercise of the physical body: Sylvie was very warm, despite her chilled skin and wet things. “Your skirt,” he said, in tones gone low and dark.
“My skirt, sir?”
“It’s soaked through, madam.”
“Is it,” she croaked, trembling with mingled excitement and fear.
“Yes. And as you said yourself so wisely, there is no danger of pneumonia if you remove the offending articles.” He took a step closer. “And warm yourself,” he added softly.
“I see,” she managed, and undid the closure of her long riding skirt at her side. “Very well, sir, you are in the right.” And she let it fall to the floor in a heap, then stepped out of it, her stockings wet and transparent and her boots muddy. Immediately the heat that had suffused her whole being receded as she saw the mud on the parquet. “Oh, I am getting mud all over your fine floors. I—”
“Easily mended,” said Loki, and knelt down, his fingers working swiftly at her laces. She could not breathe, could not move: the Prince’s head was on a level with her thighs, behind her chemise and drawers. What if he should— should— no, she put such wicked thoughts out of her head. Surely he was only being kind and looking after her welfare. Off came her shoes. He set them aside. “Your stockings are wet as well, madam,” he whispered, his eyes gazing up at her.
“Then I ought to take them off,” she breathed, quite horrified at her own actions as he reached up under her chemise, found the garters, untied them, and pulled her wet silk stockings off her legs. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered.
“I am at your service. Always. I—” He hesitated, bowing his head, and she felt almost sorry for him, kneeling there dripping on the floor. Thunder crashed outside, and Sylvie took her sodden gloves off before resting one hand on his wet head. She meant it as only a gesture of affection, but his reaction was astonishing: Loki leaned into her touch like a hound desperate to be patted, and even more surprising, Sylvie found herself stroking his hair, which was soft as shadow in her fingers. “Sylvie,” he said from somewhere around her knees, and she thought his voice sounded terribly hoarse. “Do you care for me?”
“I…” She gnawed at her lip. “I have never cared for anyone, sir, but if the feeling that I have toward you is care, then I must care for you greatly.”
He raised his head then, and she realized he was still on his knees. “It is my purpose and desire to marry you,” he said, those gentle eyes earnest and soft as he gazed up. “I expect I would have had to propose anyway once rumor of our— scandalous dash into my home unescorted is made public, but— I had to tell you. That was why I made the request of the Prince Regent and my mother the Queen. I never wish to be without your companionship from this day forward. If you feel the same— or if you do not feel the same, you must tell me.”
The entire world had seemed to tilt off its centre. Sylvie stared down at him, trembling. To wed a prince: that meant a lot of society gatherings, and fine homes, and breakfasts and dinners of State and all sorts of matters she was not exactly prepared for. And what would he say, she wondered, if she rejected him? “And if I… said I did not…” she began, faltering at the wounded expression on Loki’s face.
“Then you would be free to roam the marriage market for the remainder of the season, of course,” he said very quickly, as if trying to disguise the hurt in his voice. Coming up to stand, he glanced away from her, the flush receding from his high-boned cheeks. “And I would be sorry to have lost such a fine companion and friend as I have found in you, Lady Green. But it is your decision. I am— I am glad you told me. In private. Truly. I would not wish to make a public spectacle of myself. I will call a maid to find you something warm to wear and as soon as the rain stops, the Countess of Oxford will be summoned to take you home.” He began to turn away from her damp, chemise-clad form.
“What?” asked Sylvie, bewildered, and then realized in a flash: he thought her hypothetical was the truth! “No! Sir, I am sorry, I have said it all wrong. I only asked because I did not know what your reaction might be, and one might tell a lot about a gentleman’s character when he is denied something he desires. It was duplicitous of me.”
He paused in his step and turned back, something dawning on his face. “Then…”
“I feel the same,” she said immediately. “Of course I do. You must know I do. And if you offered me your hand in marriage, then I can think of no other man I would be more pleased to wed.”
An incredulous sound burst past his lips, and then in two strides he had crossed the space between them and caught her up in a wild embrace, nothing but the thin layers of rain-wet linen between them as he clutched her to his body. Sylvie could feel the beating of his heart, and wrapped her arms about his shoulders tightly. My dear prince, my darling Loki, you great fool, she thought fondly. “The Queen will approve,” he breathed into her ear, his nose pressed into her wet hair. “And if she doesn’t— I’ll take you to Scotland and wed you there.”
“You can take me anywhere you like,” Sylvie told him, pulling away a little to look at his face. The cold air of the hall bit her wet skin, and she shivered, laughing. “But first take me somewhere warm!”
“With pleasure,” he said, and so they walked arm in arm to find a fireplace, and a blanket or two and something hot to drink, while the summer rain fell outside, sheeting on the green grass below.