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red.
    Lady Trask gaped. Her hand went to her bosom. “That is for me?”
    “Lud,” Meagan breathed. “Were I Catholic, I’d cross myself.”
    Penelope took a step back, putting herself behind the others, her eyes overly bright.
    “Why did you call her a princess of Nvengaria?” Tavistock asked, brows lowered.
    Sasha answered, “Because she is descended from his most divine majesty, Prince Augustus Adolphus Aurelius Laurent of Nvengaria.”
    Lady Trask blinked. “I am?”
    “Did you not know?”
    She laughed. “It is news to me.”
    “This is nonsense,” Tavistock broke in.
    “Oh, Michael, be a pet. I am enjoying myself. How do you know I am descended from this Prince Augustus Aur—whoever he is?”
    “Because the lineage has been most carefully traced for eight hundred years,” Sasha explained. “You are descended from the princess bound so fortunately in marriage to Prince Augustus of old. Your line is traced through the ladies of that house, while his Imperial Highness Prince Damien’s is traced through the male line of his house.”
    “Are we cousins, then?” Lady Trask giggled. “Two hundred times removed? Fancy.”
    “No, not cousins,” Sasha said quickly. “It all began in the year 1000, or the Year One of the most splendid reign of the two princes—”
    “Sasha,” Damien said. “Later.”
    Sasha did not deflate. “Yes, there will be plenty of time to tutor you in the glorious past of Nvengaria and its seventeen dialects. For now, do you have the ring?”
    Lady Trask blinked. “Ring?”
    “The one you wear on your middle finger,” Damien said. He came forward, lifted Lady Trask’s hand. “There.”
    It was the ring all right. Lady Trask stared at it like she’d never seen it before. It was silver, heavy and old, a thick band with a flat top. It had once held the crest of Prince Augustus the First, but time had worn down the etching.
    Damien tugged off his glove. A twin of Lady Trask’s ring encircled the forefinger of his right hand. Silversmiths had restored this ring every fifty years or so, so the crest of Damien’s family was still quite plain.
    He brought his own hand up to rest alongside Lady Trask’s. Lady Trask said excitedly, “Look, Michael. They’re the same.”
    “They were forged at the same time,” Damien said. “Eight hundred years ago. They were a pledge, a bond of friendship. It is said that when the rings are brought together again, Nvengaria will prosper, as it did of old.”
    “Oh,” Lady Trask said, green eyes starry. “My mother gave me this ring when she was dying. She said something about it being my destiny. I thought she was just senile.”
    “No, dear lady,” Sasha said. He moved close to Damien and Lady Trask. “She was a most honored princess, pure of the line of Prince Augustus. As are you. And when you marry Prince Damien, you will bring together the lines of two dear friends to unite the kingdom.”
    “Marry?” Lady Trask breathed. “Me? Penny, dear, didyou hear that? A prince wants to marry your mama.” She smiled at Sasha. “Do I get the rubies, too?”
    “Of course,” Sasha said. “They are the prince’s betrothal gift to you.”
    “Fancy that, Penny. You’ll be a princess, too, won’t you? I wager Prince Damien will find a handsome duke for you.”
    Penelope was staring at Sasha, her look frozen, her thoughts obviously a little quicker than her mother’s.
    Meagan’s expression had changed from excitement to confusion to hurt. “But, Lady Trask,” she asked in a small voice. “What about Papa?”
    Tavistock stood a few paces behind Lady Trask, his face as frozen as Penelope’s.
    Lady Trask’s smile dimmed. She looked at the rubies. She looked at the ring. She looked at Damien.
    Damien watched her consider going ahead and marrying Damien, then bringing her lover Michael along to Nvengaria, possibly as her “advisor” or some such thing. She searched his eyes, and obviously found that Damien would be wise to that and