Still, Your Highness, it would have been nice…” Winslow hesitated.

“If she’d talked more about her investments?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Forget it, Winslow. Let’s go eat.”

*

They returned to the castle. Back inside, it was easy enough to find servants to care for their parcels. By the time the two returned to the Grand Ballroom, it had mostly emptied into the Banquet Hall. It was filled with long tables and seats with velvet cushions. But no one was sitting yet. They were all standing behind their chairs, waiting for Princess Rebecca to arrive. Between the guests, waiters were filling glasses, setting out baskets of rolls, and relighting any candles that had gone out. Candlelight gleamed off highly polished silver cutlery. New tapestries, of burgundy-and-gold cloth, draped the walls. A string quartet was playing chamber music. Kevin sent Winslow off to dine below stairs and took his place on the dais, alongside the other guests of honor. Bigelow nodded at him when he returned, then murmured an aside. “So we get to meet the Ice Princess at last. At least I’ll get a look at her before I leave town.”

“You’ve never seen her?”

“If my old man had his way, we’d never see our betrotheds until the wedding day. Bad for discipline, he thinks. He’s a bit old-fashioned. I take it you have seen her.”

“I did some diplomatic work here last summer,” said Kevin. Bigelow was smart enough to recognize this as a nonanswer. He shrugged it off.

The suitors gathered on a raised platform, all on one side of a table, an assortment of Deserae’s nobility on the other side, and Lord Hepplewhit at the foot. (In their pursuit of the Princess, Deserae’s custom was that all suitors were considered of equal rank.) Kevin was placed between Bigelow and Harkness, and across from Lady Tripple. She gave him an encouraging smile. The seat at the head of the table was empty, as were the chairs on either side. Hepplewhit talked with Raymond, while keeping half an eye on the clock. A door opened in the side of the Banquet Hall, and Princess Rebecca entered, preceded by two of her ladies-in-waiting and followed by two officers of the guard. The music stopped. As one man, Logan, Harkness, Bigelow, and Raymond leaned slightly forward.

When a man looked at Princess Rebecca, the first thing that registered on his mind was an impression of curves. Curves that moved. Curves that swayed. Curves that flowed and rolled like waves on a tumultuous sea.