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didn’t pay them at all.”
    Pulling his hand back, he stretched out on his side, and watched her in an attitude of vigilance. “I can scarcely believe you dare to look at me through those eyes and insist you are English.”
    The mattress dipped in his direction, and she struggled not to roll into him. “I am English.”
    â€œYou speak English very well, it is true. And you behave too much like an independent woman for your own good. But”—he brushed a feather of hair off her cheek—“you have Serephinian eyes.”
    Jolted, she tried to sit up, fighting the well-aired mattress, which wished to envelop her. Bracing herself on her elbows, she watched him vigilantly as she replied, “They’re odd, yes. But what do you mean, Serephinian eyes?”
    â€œSlanted eyes, the color of mahogany. Eyes inherited from the first queen of Serephina. The queen who was conquered by a Moor, and who in turn conquered him.”
    â€œIndeed?”
    A whisper of memory tugged at her mind. The sight of an old woman with flame-blue eyes looking down at her eleven-year-old face. Taking her chin and lifting it. Turning it from side to side in austere analysis. Saying to one of the hags in charge, “I’ll take her.”
    Danior did much the same, stroking her chin with his thumb, scrutinizing her features. “The queen and the Moor left a combined legacy of legendary beauty and ruthlessness in my country—and in yours.”
    Defensively, she drew her knees up to her chest. “Who am I supposed to be? The legendary beauty, or the ruthless conqueror?”
    His heavy, dark brows snapped together. “I do not think, Ethelinda, this is the time for levity.”
    She hadn’t been trying to be funny. She had been trying to protect herself from mockery. And from that testy, proprietary manner with which hehandled her. “I suppose it’s not out of the realm of possibility that my parents were from Serephina.”
    Picking up her carelessly thrown stole, he ran it through his fingers.
    The sight of the fragile lace in his broad hand gave her an odd sensation, almost as if he were threatening her. “I don’t remember my parents.”
    His fingers paused. “I know.”
    â€œIt’s not so bad being an orphan, once one gets used to it.” Fighting the drag his weight created, she moved back toward the headboard. “It taught me to be self-sufficient.” They were in her bedchamber, this self-proclaimed prince and a counterfeit princess, and they were alone. He had wrestled her onto the mattress. When she had demanded release, he had done so, true, but he had also first made a rather oblique comment. What was it? This isn’t my chosen method of courtship.
    â€œYou don’t know me well,” she said, “and certainly you have no reason to be concerned about a mere stranger.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. He wrapped her stole around his neck and flung the end over one shoulder in an extravagant gesture.
    He should have appeared effeminate. Instead, the lace contrasted with his black jacket. The fringe trickled down his broad back. Incongruous decoration on a stolid statue of a man. “But you needn’t worry that I’ll be unable to care for myself.”
    She scooted toward the edge of the bed and lowered one foot toward the floor. “I am quite practical. This adventure was only a temporary aberration in the even tenor of my life.”
    Her toes had just touched hardwood when his hand grasped her other ankle. “Much as I admire your attempt to divert me from my purpose by reminding me of the tragedies which have ruled your life and your rather touching attempt at bravado, I find myself unmoved— Princess .”
    He emphasized the title with what Evangeline considered unnecessary vigor. “You also seem to be skeptical about our need for you in Serephina and in Baminia.”
    â€œBut you