Why she wished to marry Nikolai wasn’t at all easy to explain without sounding quite mercenary and extremely shallow. And while she certainly had a few mercenary moments and was, on occasion, a bit shallow, she did not think herself to be mercenary and shallow, all in all. It wasn’t the prince’s fortune; she had more than enough money. It wasn’t even his title, although “Princess Camille” did have a lovely ring to it. It was, perhaps, the adventure of it: the adventure of being swept away to a foreign land by a handsome prince and to live there happily the rest of her days; adventure that she scarcely knew existed; adventure that appealed to something deep inside her. Beryl was entirely too levelheaded to understand, but then she had always been the more sensible of the twins. It was the stuff fairy stories were made of, and what woman wouldn’t want that? And want it, Camille did.

“It isn’t as if I set out to catch a prince. I didn’t even know he was a prince when we first met. He is traveling incognito, which he much prefers to do when he is in a foreign country. He says it’s much easier to get to know the people of a country when he is not beleaguered by all the trappings of his royal position, when he is not treated as royalty but rather as an ordinary person.”

“What an . . . enlightened philosophy for a prince.”

“He is most enlightened and very modern. He takes his responsibilities quite seriously and says he wishes to be a prince for the people. It’s quite admirable, even if I don’t understand it entirely, but then he is foreign and therefore his minor eccentricities can be forgiven. Why, he even prefers that I don’t address him by title, ‘Your Highness,’ and that sort of thing. He says, until he ascends to the throne, he prefers, when traveling abroad, simply to be known by one of his lesser titles, Count Pruzinsky. In most respects, though, he is extremely proper. Why, he hasn’t even kissed me. Although he has requested, begged really, that I call him by his given name. Not proper, of course, but so wonderfully intimate.”

“Not what one would expect in a prince.”

“I find it most charming. There is nothing at all like being in the confidence of royalty, you know.”

“I don’t, but I shall take your word for it.” Beryl considered her curiously. “And how did you meet this unusual prince?”

“We crossed paths quite by accident. I was leaving a ball and he was just arriving. I stumbled on a pebble and he caught me.” She smiled at the memory. “It was quite romantic and, well, fate.”

“I see.”

“I like him a great deal.”

Beryl nodded. “You wouldn’t marry him otherwise.”

“He might well be my last opportunity to marry and fall in love.”