Nights. Alone. Together. Evelina’s pulse quickened and her breath came fast at the thought. She would have to be careful with her seduction of her prince, for he believed her to be a maiden pure, as well as a maiden fair. He must be made to think that he was the one who had seduced her. Evelina’s dream—dreamt from the moment she’d first met him this very morning—was to be Her Royal Highness, Princess Evelina, wife of His Royal Highness, Prince Marcus.

She knew that marriage was long odds, however. The royal mistress. She would settle for that.

Evelina had already discounted the idea of trying to convince Marcus that she was a baron’s daughter, kidnapped by Ven, who carried her, fainting, from her father’s castle. She was pragmatic enough to know that she could never pass for noble-born. She could neither read nor write. She could not embroider or play the lute. Her hands were not the smooth, fair hands of one who has never had to dress herself, never had to wash her own hair or scrub out her own chamber pot. Princes married farmers’ daughters only in the minstrels’ tales. In real life, the princes took the farmers’ daughters to be their mistresses. They set them up in fine houses in the city and gave them jewels and clothes and educated their bastard sons and made them abbots.

Evelina resolved to have the house, the jewels, the bastard son. Maybe not in that order. House and jewels often came as a result of the bastard son. Her primary goal in all this was, therefore, to get herself seduced. That was the reason she’d been urging him to travel downstream, away from his home. The more time she spent with him, the better. He would not go downstream, so she would have to act fast.

Her sobs calmed to hiccups and she timidly raised her head.

Her tears made her eyes shimmer, even if the lids were red. The boat slid along the surface of the sun-dappled water.

“Marcus,” Evelina said, her voice quavering. “I know I am not like the well-born, accomplished women you are used to being around. My father was a merchant in the city of Fairefield. Dear man. He was respectable, kind, and gentle. Just not very practical. My mother died when I was little, and father and I were everything to each other. I’m sorry I stabbed your brother. I’m a good person. I really am. Father and I went to church every week. It’s just . . . when I saw Ven ... I saw my poor father’s body, all crumpled and twisted . . .”

“Don’t cry, Evelina. I understand,” said Marcus. “You will have a home to go to. My home. You saved my life. My parents will welcome you for that.”

Again, that cool polite tone. He looked away, searching the bank for any signs of pursuit. Evelina glowered at him, annoyed.