FICTION/Romance/Historical/Victorian
Mass Market | HQN Books | A Royal Wedding #2
On Sale: 5/19/2020
9781335136978
$7.99
$10.99 CAN
Every prince has his secrets. And she’s determined to unravel his…
Every young man in London’s ton is vying for Lady Caroline Hawke’s hand—except one. Handsome roué Prince Leopold of Alucia can’t quite remember Caroline’s name, and the insult is not to be tolerated. So Caroline does what any clever, resourceful lady of means would do to make sure Leo never again forgets: sees that scandalous morsels about his reputation are printed in a ladies’ gossip gazette…all while secretly setting her cap for the rakish royal.
Someone has been painting Leo as a blackguard, but who? Socially, it is ruining him. More important, it jeopardizes his investigation into a contemptible scheme that reaches the highest levels of British government. Leo needs Lady Caroline’s help to regain access to society. But this charming prince is about to discover that enlisting the deceptively sweet and sexy Lady Caroline might just cost him his heart, his soul and both their reputations…
Every young man in London’s ton is vying for Lady Caroline Hawke’s hand—except one. Handsome roué Prince Leopold of Alucia can’t quite remember Caroline’s name, and the insult is not to be tolerated. So Caroline does what any clever, resourceful lady of means would do to make sure Leo never again forgets: sees that scandalous morsels about his reputation are printed in a ladies’ gossip gazette…all while secretly setting her cap for the rakish royal.
Someone has been painting Leo as a blackguard, but who? Socially, it is ruining him. More important, it jeopardizes his investigation into a contemptible scheme that reaches the highest levels of British government. Leo needs Lady Caroline’s help to regain access to society. But this charming prince is about to discover that enlisting the deceptively sweet and sexy Lady Caroline might just cost him his heart, his soul and both their reputations…
BUY LINKS:
My thoughts:
A Royal Kiss and Tell is the second book in the A Royal Wedding Series. I really enjoyed the first book and had high hopes for his one. While I didn't love it as much, I did ended up enjoying it in the end. This is Leo and Caroline's story. The story line was a bit darker than the first book. It deals with human trafficking, in which girls from Leo's neighboring country are being bought for servitude and other nefarious reasons. Leo risks his reputation to try to save the girls. That subject is what initially turned me off for a lot of the story. If Leo had just told Caroline in the beginning what he was doing, a lot of angst could have been prevented and she could have helped sooner. I also felt like there weren't severe enough consequences for the members of the ton who bought the slaves.
What saved the book for me was the characters. I enjoyed watching Caroline grow and change from a self-centered, superficial debutante into a caring, selfless woman who doesn't care about society rules. I always love when a character whom I initially dislike shows a lot of growth over the length of a book. I loved the person Caroline had become in the end. Leo also went through a transformation realizing that he was worth more than the title of playboy. He was doing something noble, yet had to sacrifice his reputation in the process. That was heart-breakingly unfair. I did love the banter between the couple and loved their HEA. I look forward to the next book in the series.
What saved the book for me was the characters. I enjoyed watching Caroline grow and change from a self-centered, superficial debutante into a caring, selfless woman who doesn't care about society rules. I always love when a character whom I initially dislike shows a lot of growth over the length of a book. I loved the person Caroline had become in the end. Leo also went through a transformation realizing that he was worth more than the title of playboy. He was doing something noble, yet had to sacrifice his reputation in the process. That was heart-breakingly unfair. I did love the banter between the couple and loved their HEA. I look forward to the next book in the series.
Enjoy this sneak peek!
Since the day of Eliza’s betrothal to Prince Sebastian,
Caroline had also assumed, quite incorrectly, that she would be the principal
bridesmaid. After all, she and Eliza and Hollis had been entwined in one
another’s lives since they were very little girls.
“I am content with flower girls, honestly,” Eliza said. “I’d
be content with a very simple affair. I was content with the civil
ceremony. But Queen Daria prefers otherwise.”
“Naturally, she does. This is the wedding where you will be
seen by all the people you will rule one day.”
Eliza snorted. “I will not rule, Caroline. I’ll be fortunate
if I can find my husband in this massive place.” She’d gestured to the
decorative walls around them. It was not an exaggeration—Constantine Palace
appeared to be bigger than even Buckingham.
“Let me be the maid of honor,” Caroline had begged her. “I
am much better equipped to see to your train than Hollis is.”
“I beg your pardon! I am her sister,” Hollis
reminded Caroline.
“The train is thirty feet, Hollis. How will you ever manage?
You’ve scarcely managed your own train since we’ve been in Alucia. And my gown
should be seen. I spared no expense for it.”
Eliza and Hollis looked at Caroline.
“I mean, of course, after your gown is seen.”
The sisters continued to stare at her. Caroline shrugged a
very tiny bit. “Obviously,” she added.
“I rather thought that’s what you meant,” Eliza said
charitably. The three of them had gleefully adopted the Alucian style of dress
since arriving a month ago in Helenamar. The English style of dress—full
skirts, high necks and long sleeves—was hot and heavy. They’d admired the
beautiful Alucian gowns that fit the curves of a woman’s body, with the long
flowing sleeves, and, most of all, the elaborately embroidered trains…until
they discovered that the unusually long trains were a bit of a bother to
wear.
“I will manage,” Hollis had insisted. “No one has come to
this wedding to see your gown, Caro.”
“Well, obviously, Hollis, they haven’t. But they will
be delighted all the same, won’t they? And by the bye, there’s no law that says
the attendant of honor must be one’s sister.”
“There is no law, but she is my sister and she
will be the attendant of honor,” Eliza said. “And besides, if you were to stand
with me, I’d fret the entire ceremony that you were too enthralled with Leo to
even notice my train.” She’d arched a golden brow directly at Caroline.
As if Caroline had done something wrong.
She most certainly had not. “Leo? Is that what we’re
calling him now?” she drawled. Leo was Prince Sebastian’s younger
brother. His Royal Highness Prince Leopold.
Prince Leopold, as everyone knew, had spent the last
several years in England, “attending” Cambridge, which meant, in reality, that
he spent more time at soirees and gentlemen’s clubs and hunting lodges than
studying. Caroline had encountered him last summer in Chichester at a country
house party. They’d engaged in a charming little exchange that Caroline
recalled perfectly, word for word. Prince Leopold, on the other hand,
remembered it not at all. Worse, he didn’t seem to remember her.
The archbishop’s voice suddenly rose into a chant of some
sort, drawing Caroline’s attention back to the ceremony. Oh dear, she was
thinking about Prince Leopold again when she should be watching her best friend
marry a prince. At that moment, Eliza slipped her hand into Prince Sebastian’s
hand and held on tightly as the archbishop asked her to repeat after him in
English. To love, to honor, to protect and defend.
So romantic.
Caroline glanced to her right. She was seated next to her
brother, the baron Beckett Hawke. He was older than her by half a dozen years
and had been her guardian since she was eight and he was fourteen. She leaned
against him.
“Isn’t she lovely?” she whispered.
“Ssh.”
“I think she is lovelier than even Queen Victoria on
her wedding day,” Caroline whispered. “Her gown is beautiful. It was my idea to
use the gold and silver thread on the train.”
Beck pretended not to have heard a word.
“Do you know, I think I could have made that train.” Her
brother put his hand on Caroline’s knee and squeezed as he turned his pale
green eyes to hers. He frowned darkly.
Caroline pushed his hand away and glanced around her. It was
massive, this Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Painted ceilings soared overhead with
visions of angels and other godly images. All the fixtures were gold plated,
particularly the pulpit, which looked more like a monument than a stand for the
Bible. There was so much stained glass that the morning light fractured across
Eliza’s long train, turning it into a moving rainbow as sunlight shimmered through
the panes.
Every seat in the massive cathedral was taken, filled with
beautiful people of varying skin tones and colorful costumes and glittering
jewels. They had come far and wide, Caroline understood, from countries she’d
never even heard of.
In a cove above the altar, a choir of young men and
boys sang the hymns that had accompanied Eliza down the center aisle to meet
her prince. It had sounded as if the heavens had parted and the angels were
singing for this bride.
The ceremony, almost an hour of it now, was filled with a
lot of pomp and circumstance. Caroline wasn’t entirely certain what was
happening, as the ceremony was conducted in Latin and Alucian and, for the
parts Eliza had to say, in English. It seemed to her that Eliza and Sebastian were
up and down quite a lot, one minute on their knees with their heads bowed, and
standing the next, staring starry-eyed at each other. There was a somber moment
when Eliza was directed down onto her knees alone. It looked as if she were
knighted or anointed in some way, and when it was done, the archbishop put his
hand to her head, the king and queen stood, and then Prince Sebastian lifted
her up and pinned a gorgeous sapphire-and-gold brooch to her breast.
“She’s a real princess now,” Caroline whispered to Beck.
Predictably, he ignored her.
Eliza looked like a princess, too, and Caroline
wished Eliza’s father, Justice Tricklebank, could be here. Alas, his advanced
age and blindness had made it impossible for him to attend. There had been a
smaller, private ceremony in England—the first civil union—before Sebastian had
returned to Alucia. That ceremony, which her father had attended, had been
necessitated by the fact that Eliza and Sebastian could not seem to keep their
hands from each other for as much as a few hours.
There was another civil union once Eliza had arrived in
Alucia so there would be no question of impropriety, as the heat between Eliza
and her prince had only grown. It was embarrassing, really.
But neither ceremony had been anything like this. This was a
pageant, a feast for the eyes and hearts of romantics everywhere.
Caroline’s mind drifted, and she wondered if all these
people would be at the ball tonight. She hoped so. She had a beautiful blue
Alucian gown trimmed in gold that was astoundingly beautiful. She’d made the
train herself. The ball would be her moment to shine…next to Eliza, of
course.
Yesterday, Eliza had nervously counted out the heads of
state that would attend the wedding and the ball and had turned a bit pale as
the number mounted. Caroline’s pulse had leapt with delight.
“I can’t bear it!” Eliza had exclaimed, unnerved by the
number of dignitaries, of the many kings and queens. “What if I say something
wrong? You know how I am. Have you any idea how many gifts we’ve received? Am I
to remember them all? I’ve never seen so many gold chalices and silver platters
and fine porcelain in all my life! What if I trip? What if I spill something on
my gown?”
“My advice, darling, is not to fill your plate to
overflowing,” Hollis had said absently. She was bent over her paper, making
notes for the periodical she published, the Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion
and Domesticity for Ladies. The twice-monthly gazette covered such topics
as the latest fashions, domesticity and health advice, and—the most interesting
part—the most tantalizing on-dits swirling about London’s high society.
Hollis could hardly keep up with the ravenous demand
for society news now. She was planning to publish a gazette that would be twice
the length of her normal offering with all the news of the royal wedding the
moment she returned to London. She’d been busily dispatching letters to her
manservant, Donovan, for safekeeping throughout the month they’d been in
Alucia.
She was so preoccupied that her advice, while offered
freely, was not offered with much thought, and Eliza took exception. “I beg
your pardon! I’ve hardly eaten a thing since I’ve arrived in Alucia. At every
meal the queen looks at me as if she disapproves of everything I do! I’m afraid
to do anything, much less eat,” Eliza complained. “They’ll all be looking at
me. They’ll be waiting for me to do something wrong, or speculating if I’m
already carrying the heir. You cannot imagine how much interest there is in my
ability to bear an heir.”
“Well, of course!” Caroline said cheerfully. “You’ll
have to be a broodmare, darling, but after you’ve given them what they want,
you may live in conjugal bliss for the rest of your days surrounded by wealth
and privilege and many, many servants.”
“They won’t all be looking at you, Eliza. At least
half the room will be looking at your handsome husband,” Hollis had said with a
wink.
Caroline was once again jolted back into the present when
the archbishop lifted a heavy jeweled chalice above the heads of Eliza and
Prince Sebastian. Surely that meant they were nearly done? Prince Sebastian
took Eliza’s hand, and they turned away from the archbishop, facing the guests
with ridiculously happy grins on their faces. They were married!
Hollis turned, too, and even from where Caroline sat, she
could see Hollis’s dark blue eyes shining with tears of joy. The guests rose to
their feet as the prince and his bride began their procession away from the
altar. Rose petals rained down on the couple and their guests from above. The
little flower girls fluttered around behind Eliza like butterflies, flanking
her train as they followed the couple down the aisle. Prince Leopold offered
his arm to Hollis, and she beamed up at him. Caroline felt left out. Hollis and
Eliza were near and dear to her heart, the closest thing to sisters she’d ever
had, and she longed to be with them now.
Eliza and Prince Sebastian floated past Caroline and Beck
without any acknowledgment of them. That was to be expected—the two of them
looked absolutely besotted. They were so enthralled with each other, in fact,
that Caroline fretted they’d walk into any one of the marble columns that lined
their path.
Oh, but she was envious, filled to the very brim with envy.
In England, she rarely gave marriage any thought except on those occasions Beck
complained she ought to settle on someone, anyone, and relieve him of
his duty. But he didn’t really mind his duty, his protestations
notwithstanding. Caroline rather suspected he liked having her underfoot. So
she flitted from one party to the next, happy to enjoy the attentions of the
many gentlemen who crossed her path, happy with her freedom to do as she
pleased.
But looking at Eliza, Caroline realized that she did indeed
want one day to be in love with a man who would be as devoted to her as Prince
Sebastian was to his bride. She wanted to feel everything Eliza was feeling, to
understand just how that sort of love changed a person.
Prince Leopold and Hollis passed by Caroline and Beck.
Hollis’s face was streaked with happy tears. Prince Leopold happened to look to
the guests as they passed, a polite smile on his face. His gaze locked on
Caroline’s—well, not locked, really, as much as it skimmed over her—but
nevertheless, she smiled broadly. She began to lift a hand but was suddenly
jostled with an elbow to her ribs. She jerked a wide-eyed gaze to her
brother.
“Stop gawking,” he whispered. “You’ll snap your neck,
craning it like that.”
Caroline haughtily touched a curl at her neck.
Beck turned his attention to the procession. The king
and queen were passing them now. Beck leaned toward her and whispered, “He’s a
prince, Caro, and you are just an English girl. You’re indulging in fairy
tales again. I can see it plainly on your face.”
Just an English girl? She very much would have
liked to kick Beck like she used to do when she was just a wee English girl.
“Better to dream in fairy tales than not dream at all.”
Beck rolled his eyes. He stood dispassionately as the
archbishop and his altar boys followed the king and queen.
Just an English girl, indeed.
AUTHOR BIO:
Julia London is a NYT, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of historical and contemporary romance. She is a six-time finalist for the RITA Award of excellence in romantic fiction, and the recipient of RT Bookclub's Best Historical Novel.
SOCIAL LINKS:
www.julialondon.com/newsletter
www.facebook.com/julialondon
www.twitter.com/juliaflondon
No comments:
Post a Comment