She leaned back against the headboard. “So the father king marched back to the young king and told him the Golden Eel’s words. The young king smiled and said, ‘Oh, that’s easy enough!’ And he didn’t even have to return home, for he’d brought the Leopard Prince with him. He went to the Leopard Prince and said, ‘Give me that chain that hangs about your neck.’ ” She paused a moment to watch as Harry started to unbutton his breeches. “And what do you think the Leopard Prince said?”

He snorted. “Shove it up your”—he glanced at her—“nose?”

“No, of course not.” She frowned severely. “No one talks like that in fairy tales.”

“Perhaps they ought.”

She ignored his mutter. “The Leopard Prince said, ‘Impossible, my liege, for if I remove this chain, I will soon sicken and die.’The young king replied, ‘Well, that’s a pity, for I’ve found you quite useful, but I need the chain now, so you must give it to me at once.’And so the Leopard Prince did.” George looked at Harry, expecting a protest, a comment, something.

But he simply returned her gaze and removed his breeches. This made her temporarily forget where she was in the fairy tale. She watched as he sat on the bed beside her, quite nude.

“And?” he murmured. “Is that it? The Leopard Prince dies and the young king marries the beautiful princess?”

George reached up and untied the black ribbon holding his queue. She ran her fingers through his brown hair, spreading it on his shoulders. “No.”

“Then?”

“Turn around.”

Harry arched his eyebrows, but turned so his back was to her.

“The young king presented himself to the father king,” George said quietly as she stroked her hands down his back, feeling the bumps of his spine. “And the father king had to admit that he wore the chain described by the Golden Eel. Reluctantly, he sent for his daughter, the beautiful princess.” She paused to dig her thumbs into the muscles that sloped up from his shoulders to his neck.

Harry let his head fall forward. “Ahhh.”

“But the beautiful princess took one look at the young king and started laughing. Naturally, all the courtiers and ladies and lords and the people who hang about a royal court just stared at the beautiful princess. They could not understand why she laughed.” She worked her fingers into the muscles at the back of his head.

Harry groaned.

George leaned forward and whispered in his ear as she bore down on his shoulder muscles. “Finally her father, the king, said, ‘What causes such mirth, my daughter?’ And the beautiful princess said, ‘Why, the chain doesn’t fit him!’ ”

“How can a chain not fit?” Harry mumbled over his shoulder.