“Yes.” George lifted her head. “My love for you is more important than the fears I might have of marriage or of letting a man have dominion over me.”

“What fears are those, my lady?” He had reached her bedside again. He stroked a finger down her cheek.

“That you might betray me with another woman.” She leaned her cheek on his hand. “That we might eventually grow apart and even come to hate each other.” She waited, but he didn’t try to allay her worries. She sighed. “My own parents didn’t have a happy marriage.”

“Nor did mine.” Harry sat on the bed to take off his boots. “My mother betrayed Da for years; perhaps for the whole of their marriage. Yet he forgave her again and again. Until he could forgive her no more.” He removed his coat.

“He loved her,” George said softly.

“Yes, and it made him weak and eventually led to his death.”

She could no more reassure him than he’d been able to reassure her. She wouldn’t ever betray him with another man; she knew that. But who was to say she wouldn’t lead to his destruction in another way? Did loving her make Harry weak?

George studied the caged leopard. “He gets free, you know.”

He paused in unbuttoning his waistcoat and raised his eyebrows.

She held up the carving. “The Leopard Prince. He’s freed in the end.”

“Tell me.” He shrugged off the waistcoat.

She took a deep breath, and said slowly, “The young king brought the Golden Eel to the father king, just as he had the other gifts. But the Golden Eel was different.”

“It was ugly.” Harry started on his shirt.

“Well, yes,” George admitted. “But besides that, it could speak, and it was wise. When the father king got it alone, it said, ‘Tush! That weakling no more stole me than the wind did. Listen now, tell the young king that the beautiful princess will only marry the man who wears the golden chain with the emerald crown on it. Then you will have the man who has done all these wonderful things. That man and no other shall be her bridegroom.’ ”

“I’m beginning to suspect you are making parts of this fairy tale up, my lady.” Harry tossed his shirt to a chair.

George held up her hand. “On my honor as a Maitland. This is exactly how Cook’s aunt told it to me in the kitchen of my town house over tea and crumpets.”

“Huh.”