Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“Being powerful is not all everyone thinks of it.”
“Indeed?”
Rupert swallowed. how was one supposed to put all the thoughts that rushed through his mind into words? How could he describe to someone who had never lived inside a gilded cage quite what it was to finally step out of it?
How London, with all its smoke and its people, the noise and the chatter, the chaos and the laughter, was far more interesting than anything he had ever seen in the royal palaces he had been raised in?
She was watching him. Elizabeth’s eyes was bright, intrigued, and Rupert almost quivered under her sharp gaze.
There was an intelligence there that he rarely found in anyone, man or woman. An intelligence that knew that, though her question could appear flippant, it was nothing of the sort.
No, hers was a question of deep interest, and Rupert was rather certain he was going to disappoint her.
“Well,” he said, starting off poorly and bringing his hands together in his lap, almost as though he needed to protect himself. “It’s lonely.”
“Lonely?”
Rupert cringed. Lord, she would think him an absolute fool! Lonely? That was not something gentlemen complained off, much less a man of royal blood.
Lonely?
But there was something in her expression that he had not expected; understanding.
“Loneliness is a terrible curse,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I well know the impact that a lonely heart can have.”
His own heart leapt, though Rupert told himself he was a fool for permitting such feelings to rush through him.
But the merest snippet of understanding from a woman like Elizabeth…it made him feel whole, all of a sudden, as though he had waited for years to hear that gentle encouragement.
And only then did Rupert realise…that he had.
“I have never heard it put that way,” he said warmly, leaning slightly towards her on the sofa.
“But you are right, it is a heartsore place to be. And that is the thing, you see, when you are a prince, everyone assumes you are happy and of course in a way, you are, but…there is no one to confide in. no one to play with as a child, no one to trust as a man.”
“But you must have had friends,” pointed out Elizabeth, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
A log shifted in the grate as Rupert smiled ruefully. Friends…could he describe any of the courtiers as friends?
“There were a few children my sort of age, sons and daughters of nobles, but I was not permitted much time with them,” he admitted. “I think, now I have the benefit of hindsight, that my parents were concerned about maintaining the distinction of rank.”
“But then you were alone.”
“Alone in a palace,” Rupert said briskly.
This was foolishness, he had not intended this evening to wax lyrical on how lonely he had been as a child, let alone how lonely he often found himself now. He had not intended to bare his soul like this to anyone, let alone a pretty woman who made him feel…
Rupert swallowed. made him feel. Feel everything. Feel all the emotions he had wondered would appear when he one day met…
“Tell me about the palace,” Elizabeth said, leaning forward herself.
There was now only a foot or so between them, and Rupert tried hard not to look at where the beautiful woman had laid her hands on the fabric.
If he just moved his own hands a few inches…but no, it was quite clear that Elizabeth—Lady Elizabeth, he should probably call her—had no intention of permitting him to steal a kiss.
Even if he wanted to steal so much more…
“Palace,” Rupert said hastily, forcing his mind away from such delicious images that were surely out of reach. “Yes. Well, the palace where I was born—”
“How many palaces are there?”
Rupert stared. That was a very good question. how many palaces were there in Austria—and why had he never thought to ask this question before?
“I…” he cleared his throat importantly. “I do not concern myself with details like that.”
There was a wicked smile on Elizabeth’s face. “You mean you don’t know.”
“I…I don’t know,” admitted Rupert with a laugh. “Damn, you manage to get things out of me that some of the newspapers have attempted to drag from me for years.”
“Ah, well, that’s the training of an English lady,” said Elizabeth with a wry smile, fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly. “Anything to get the truth out of a gentleman.”
Rupert’s mouth went dry. The truth? The truth—he certainly had no wish to reveal just yet the truth of what this woman did to him.
Had any other woman made him feel like this? Had any other woman shifted his stomach in such a way, made his heart flutter so painfully, make parts of him stand to attention that certainly should not be doing so in polite company?
And yet it was more than that; Elizabeth was more than any woman he had ever met. More charming, more witty, just…more. More than he could handle.
“The palace where you were born,” encouraged Elizabeth with a laugh. “I am sorry, Your Grace, I should not have interrupted.”
“Rupert.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You are determined to lose all sense of decorum, then?”
“I am determined for you to call me Rupert, yes,” he said with a teasing smile, though his heart thumped most painfully.
To hear her name on his lips, it was something close to ecstasy—
“Fine,” said Elizabeth with a heavy sigh. “Rupert. Tell me about the palace where you were born.”
He hesitated, just for a moment. He had never spoken of this sort of thing with anyone; really, no one had ever asked.
But even if they had, Rupert was not sure he would have spilled his thoughts as he was about to do. No one else seemed trustworthy enough, bold enough, interested enough. It was a strange sensation, though not one he disliked. Far from it.
Rupert took a deep breath. “The palace where I was born…oh, Elizabeth, I wish I could take you there one day. Corridors longer than streets, with paintings all along both sides of ancestors I had to memorise as a child. Perhaps they were my true friends.”
“You were a lonely child.”
“I am a lonely man,” Rupert admitted. Well, there was no sense in holding back now, was there? This woman could see right through him, that was obvious. “For all the pomp and ceremony of being a prince, there is very little natural conversation.”
“Like this?”
“Like…” he swallowed. “Like this.”
Why did that moment take his breath away? why did he find it so hard to admit that this moment was special, different?
Because there was no doubt about it. the sun had truly set now, the only light in the library the fire and a candle. Rupert started. one of the candles had gone out, and he had entirely missed it.
Elizabeth shifted slightly on the sofa. Was it his imagination, or had that brought her closer?
“But surely, as a prince, you could have your pick of friends.”
Rupert snorted. “My pick of friends? My pick of sycophants, perhaps, my pick of those wishing to access the royal purse and royal favour. No, I would not call them friends.”
His gaze flickered over her. Every inch of her was engaged in the conversation, her attention absolute. It was a compliment rarely paid, and he did not know how to thank her.
How was she managing to transform him into a fool with a blabbering tongue?
“The thing is, Elizabeth—”
“Betsy.”
Rupert blinked. If there had been anyone else in the room, he would have surmised it was their voice that had come crashing into his mind and it could not have been her.
But Elizabeth was smiling at him—a very nervous smile, it had to be said, and a smile that told him she had considered the matter for a little while before she had actually spoken, but she had spoken.
And she had asked him to call her Betsy.
“Betsy?” Rupert repeated. Well, it would hardly do to mishear and then completely misunderstand the whole situation.
“Betsy,” Elizabeth said, inclining her head. “It’s what my friends call me, and after all of this, getting locked in a library, potentially putting ourselves in a rather scandalous position…well, I think after all that, we can consider each other friends.”
Rupert’s stomach lurched most painfully.
Friends. He had never revealed to anyone else just how desperately he wished for companionship. Bedfellows he could find; there were ways and means of procuring ladies of the night into the palace in Austria, and though he indulged very rarely, if he had an itch to scratch…
But friendship, true friendship; someone he could confide it, laugh with, tease and be teased by—that was different.
“You should probably know that I hold a great store by the word ‘friend’,” said Rupert, trying to make it appear as a joke in case she considered him too serious.
But there was a serious look on Betsy’s face—he could not think of her as anything but Betsy now.
“I am in complete agreement,” she said softly. “Anyone can be an acquaintance, anyone can be a fool—but to be a friend, a true friend, takes something rather more impressive in one’s character.”
Rupert tried to smile. “Does that mean I have met your standard?”
“Perhaps,” Betsy teased, a smile dancing across her face. “Do I meet yours?”
Oh, Lord. How was he supposed to respond to that?
When a beautiful woman asked you if she met your standards, when she was easily the most…the most impressive…had he ever met a woman that was in any way Betsy’s equal?
“You are quiet,” she remarked. “Oh dear. It appears I do not meet the mark after—”
“No!” Rupert had not intended to shout but his instinct to speak, and at once, overruled his better manners. “My apologies for shouting, Eliza—Betsy, I mean, but I would not wish you to have an incorrect view of my opinion of you.”
Betsy arched an eyebrow and placed her arm on the back of the sofa, gently resting her chin in her hand as she beheld him. “Go on.”
Ah. He had not actually expected to need to give a speech; Rupert had rather imagined that she would be flattered by the words alone and merely preen at the suggested words he did not utter.
But now…well. He could hardly remain silent.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed.
He had said the wrong thing. Betsy rolled her eyes, removed her hand from her chin, and leaned back in the sofa, widening the gap between them.
“Oh, flattery, I have heard enough of that to last a lifetime,” she said dismissively.
“That is not what I—listen,” said Rupert firmly. He had to make her see, make her understand. “What I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted—”
“You appeared to be finished,” came the arch reply.
He had to laugh at that, and his heart skipped a beat. Why was laughing with Betsy better than any conversation he had ever had?
“What I was going to say, was that you are beautiful, and charming, and witty,” said Rupert, trying not to laugh at the steely frown the woman gave him at his words. “And yet you are kind.”
There. The steely frown was gone, and if her was not mistaken, there was rather a look of surprise and pleasant uncertainty across her features.
“I…I beg your pardon?”
Rupert shifted slightly along the sofa. He had to be near her, had to be closer to her if he could manage it. why was it so painful to be away from her. Why was it—
And then he realised. Oh, it should have been so obvious, it was right there, but he had entirely ignored all the signs.
His mother had told him it could happen, had she not?
“One day,” she had told her son, “you may meet a woman who makes everything in your life useless. Turning your priorities upside down, making you forget what is due to this house and this country…and you must secure her, Rupert. You must. Because that is what happens when…”
Rupert swallowed. when a man fell in love at first sight.
“You are kind,” he said aloud, trying not to drop the threads of the conversation that he was having right there and then. “Kindness, Betsy, is rather rare in a beautiful woman. Or a handsome man, I suppose, when I come to think of it.”
She was leaning forward now, evidently intrigued. “Now what do you mean by that?”
“I mean that beautiful, rich, wealthy, witty people often have the ability to charm what they need out of the world, or else there merely are given it due to their status,” said Rupert quietly, trying to keep his voice level.
“They have no need for kindness, and so they rarely nurture it within themselves. But you…”
He watched her swallow, a little shyness spreading across her features but she still met his gaze.
Oh, goodness, he was in trouble.
“You are kind, and clever, which is even rarer,” said Rupert with a lopsided grin. “You are perhaps the most impressive woman I have ever—”
“Oh, away with you!”
He blinked. For a moment there, they had been entangled together in a cocoon of conversation, the rest of the world fading into darkness as all they did was look at each other—but now she was laughing.
Laughing?
Betsy shook her head. “That is just flirting, Rupert—you had me going there for a moment, I will admit, but goodness me, you cannot just say things like that!”
“Like—like what?” Rupert was at a loss. Had Betsy never heard such things before—surely she had, just to look at her was admire her.
So why was she so determined not to accept his praises?
“Like…well, like that!” Betsy said, as though that explained the matter. “Why, you were almost speaking like—as though you…you…”
Her voice trailed away as she once again met Rupert’s eye, and this time he did not hold back. All the feelings that had welled up inside him the moment he had seen her, all the sensations she was stirring in him, he allowed them all to be visible for the first time.
“As though I had fallen in love?” he completed softly.
The moment hung between them for an achingly long moment, though Rupert was unsure precisely how long it was.
How were they this close? Just a few inches away from each other now, he could almost feel her warmth upon him. It was a nonsense, it was glorious, it was going to end in tears, if it ended at all, and yet—
“What, love at first sight?” Betsy breathed.
Rupert swallowed. then he nodded.
Well, he could hardly deny it anymore, could he? The instant he had seen her across Lady Jarrold’s drawing room, he had been captivated by the woman—before he had even known her name.
Her title, that was all by the by. She could have been the fourth daughter of a tailor and he would have wanted to make her acquaintance, and now he had…
Well, how was one to fight such feelings?
Betsy shook her head slightly. “I don’t believe in love at first—”
Rupert tried to breathe and laugh at the same time. “Never did I. my mother warned me it could…but you are…when I am with you—”
“I was going to say that I did not believe in love at first sight,” Betsy interrupted, a strange look in her eyes. “And I don’t. but I have always believed in love at first kiss.”