Page 230 of Ten Lords for the Holidays

“Prince Sebastian, I trust you will be true to your word,” she said. “I went sleighing with you and got rather more than I bargained for. Now you must honor your promise to never visit me again.”

He set his jaw, biting back any words of entreaty. She’d made her choice, and he must abide by it. To ask her to reconsider would only make him appear even more the fool.

“Despite what you think of me,” he said, voice clipped, “I will hold to our bargain.”

She set her hand in his and stepped down from the sleigh. For a moment they stood there, hands clasped, gazes locked. His heart beat fiercely while words he could not say burned in his chest. Then she pulled away from him, chin high.

“Farewell, your highness.”

“Goodbye, Mademoiselle Red.”

Her lips parted, but she said nothing—only whirled and hurried into the house without looking back. The door closed with a solid thud behind her.

Sebastian folded his arms and stared blindly at the shrubbery beside the front door. So much for disguises, and adventure, and kisses. The day that had begun full of possibility had ended bleakly.

But not, he reminded himself, any differently than every other day for the past year. It didn’t matter if he’d glimpsed a moment of light and warmth and acceptance in Eliana Banning’s eyes. That was a mythic summerland where he did not belong.

He was, after all, the Ice Prince.

* * *

Eliana hovered behind the curtains in the front parlor, watching Prince Sebastian as he stood unmoving before the sleigh. His expression was bleak, but she hardened her heart.

This was the man who had cruelly abandoned Lady Peony on the very night he’d promised to ask her to marry him. And, to heap insult upon injury, lied to and deceived Eliana. He did not deserve her sympathy, but her scorn. She was right to insist that he never see her again—no matter that her treacherous emotions tried to insist otherwise.

Still, she watched until the horse shook its bridle, rousing the prince from his thoughts. He lifted his head, his breath a plume of white in the air, then patted the horse on the shoulder and stepped into the sleigh.

Pulling the collar of his borrowed greatcoat closely about his features, he flicked the reins and was off. She tried not to sink into misery at the sight.

“Oh, my dear, what is the matter?”

Eliana turned away from the window to see her mother standing in the doorway. Lady Blake’s blonde hair was swept up in an elegant coiffure, and she wore a blue brocade tea dress.

“I’ve had a taxing afternoon,” Eliana said. “Not to put too fine a point on it.”

Her mother went and settled on the sofa before the window, patting the cushion next to her. “Sit down and tell me. Does it have to do with the gentleman who called upon you today?”

Eliana sat beside her mother, trying to decide how much to reveal. Best that she begin with the most obvious event of the day.

“I must let you know that a Lord and Lady Plumley will be visiting at some point to thank me for helping rescue their son,” she said.

“Heavens! What happened?”

Eliana recounted the events of the afternoon. Her mother gasped when Eliana described crawling out on the ice.

“It was extraordinarily brave of you,” Lady Blake said, taking Eliana’s hand and holding it tightly. “But you should not have risked yourself so.”

“I had to. I was the lightest person there and had the best chance of reaching the boy without the ice breaking further.”

“Your gentleman caller should have kept you from such danger. Count Nikolai—is that his name?”

“Yes,” Eliana lied. “But he won’t be calling again.”

“He won’t?” Her mother gave her a concerned look. “Your heart seems troubled by it.”

“Not at all.” Eliana’s gaze went out the window, to the sleigh tracks disappearing down the street. “The gentleman in question isn’t worth the heartache. Truly. I’m going up to rest now, Mother.”

Lady Blake squeezed her hand, then let go. “I hope you trust your feelings in such matters. You know your father and I want only your happiness.”

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