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She lifted her head. Their eyes met. The skin just above his collarbone tingled. “Haven’t got any lizards in my kitchen,” she said, a trace of wistfulness beneath her matter-of-fact tone.

Her answer made no sense until he recalled that in Perrault’s story of Cinderella—his and Bertie’s governess had been an enthusiast of such tales—lizards were what the Fairy Godmother had turned into footmen, to accompany Cinderella on her nocturnal forays into Society.

“Not a pumpkin in your kitchen either?”

Her lips curved slightly. “Pumpkins aren’t in season.”

Her mouth was all expressive mobility when she spoke. It was a second or two before he realized that she was waiting for him to respond, and all he did was stare at her mouth, at its slightly uneasy twists and slants. Awareness flooded him: He was sexually attracted to her, in a manner he was not accustomed to—abrupt and primal.

“Would you…like some whiskey?” he heard himself ask.

“Well…” Her voice waffled with indecision. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No, no trouble at all,” he said, in a tone he did not remember ever using with any woman who wasn’t related to him—a gentle, careful tone, as if she were made of spun glass.

He held out his arm toward her. His gesture surprised her. She came within touching distance of him and gazed at his proffered arm a few heartbeats before placing her hand about his elbow, her touch so light that he wondered whether her fingers weren’t simply floating above his sleeve.

Then her gloved hand settled a little more firmly, and his entire arm prickled. This close she smelled of strawberries at their ripest, the decadent scent of it rising from her like steam from a perfumed bath. He wanted to stick his nose in her hair and inhale until his lungs burst. He wanted to ingest her.

She let go of his arm as soon as they reached the study. He turned on the lamp, located the decanter of whiskey and two glasses. She again assessed his house, her head bent, her eyes busy. The study held a miscellany of incense holders and ivory carvings from his days in India, alongside the compilation of law books he’d been forced to accumulate to educate himself in the intricacies and precedents of English Common Law.

He poured them each a splash of whiskey.

“You extend such courtesy toward me,” she said, accepting the glass. Did she take care that her fingers did not brush against his? “I could be your neighbor’s scullery maid.”

He could not see her as anyone’s servant; she was singularly lacking in subservience. And he had not failed to notice the elegance of her motion, or the delicacy with which she held her glass. She had been raised in refinement, her physical grace effortless—thought-less, almost, a habit too long ingrained for her even to notice. “Are you somebody’s scullery maid?”

“No.” She laughed, a sere, brittle sound. “Not currently, at least.”

“What are you, then?”

“A nobody.” She took a large swallow of her whiskey. “Most decidedly.”

He tasted her bitterness on his tongue, like a trace of quinine. “Good,” he said. “I was beginning to fear you were London’s most celebrated courtesan, over whom I shall wreck my promising young political career.”

What he said startled her. And pleased her. Her lips formed something that almost might pass for a genuine smile. “Well then, fear not. I’m no
La Dame aux Camelias.
”

“No, you are only Cinderella,” he said. “Tell me, what’s Cinderella doing in town, without her coach, her footmen, or her ball gown?”

She glanced down at her glass, already almost empty. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Something went terribly awry at the ball.”

“What happened? Did her prince turn into a frog when she kissed him?”

“Oh, an absolutely fulsome toad.”

Her tone was glib, but her words had a hard, disillusioned edge. He walked to where she stood and poured a generous amount of whiskey into her glass. “We must drown your devastation.”

“Strong spirits only give Cinderella a hangover to go with her heartache,” she said, even as she took a swallow of the whiskey. “It makes her terribly cross in the kitchen.”

“I thought Cinderella was always gentle and kind and uncomplaining.”

“Do you know why?” She looked up at him, her voice suddenly heated. “It’s because these tales have been written by men, men who have never spent so much as an hour in the kitchen. The real Cinderella curses, smokes, and drinks a bit too much. Her feet hurt. Her back hurts. And she’s resentful. She would like her pumpkin coach to run over the Wicked Stepmother. And Prince Toad too, if possible.”

Her fury kindled a flame in him. He wanted to grab her and kiss her anger, her vehemence. He made himself move a few steps away. “Does she now?”

Her lips bent in girlish rue. She ran a finger down the side of her glass. “Did I ruin the fairy tale for you?”

“Hardly. The fairy tale was ruined for me well before you came along.”

“Oh? How so?” She cocked her head, her eyes wide with interest, her own rage momentarily forgotten.

“The prince. A problematic character, don’t you think? He always marries the most beautiful girl—Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. And of course he also inherits the castle and the kingdom. Makes you wonder what he has ever done to deserve such good fortune, except for having been born to the queen.”

Now he was the one who said too much. And he never said too much.

She heard it, the undercurrent of resentment in his words—her eyebrows raised. But she did not dig in that direction. “No wonder he turns into such a toad.”

He exhaled in relief and raised his glass. “A toast to you, for having escaped your prince’s amphibian clutch.”

She regarded him, her eyes a clarity of infinite depth, so beautiful it hurt. Then she smiled, a smile at once despondent and hopeful. “A toast.”

She poured the contents of the glass down her throat. Cinderella indeed drank a little too much. He was wary of overimbibing, either in a woman or in a man. But he’d build a distillery with his own hands and put it at her disposal if it were the only way to get her to smile again.

In the silence that followed, he belatedly remembered that he was supposed to get her a hack and send her home. He wished his man, Durbin, were around. So he could instruct Durbin to take his time—much time—before returning with the cab.

“Tell me a little of yourself, if you would,” she said, not quite tipsy yet.

He should tense again. Such requests from women always put him on guard, because they invariably led, however circuitously, to questions about his childhood. He suspected that more than once he’d been seduced not for his looks or accomplishments, but because he’d once lived in a slum.

The women had all but begged for sordid anecdotes.
Tell me about pub fights. About shagging easy women in back alleys. Treat me as you would treat one of them
. They hungrily lapped up what aura of threat they perceived in him to appease the tedium of their existence, never mind that he’d been too young to shag anyone and never fought for the fun of it.

He didn’t tense. He only took a sip of his whiskey. She didn’t need him to tell her about the seedier side of life. “What would you like to know?”

She thought about it. “You seem to think you are not a prince. Then who are you?”

She was not asking for his name, but his story. If she was Cinderella, then who was he?

Just behind her on the bookshelves were all twelve volumes of Galland’s
Les Mille et Une Nuits.
“Aladdin,” he said.

“Aladdin,” she said, her expression meditative. “A young man of humble origin who comes into control of a powerful djinn, who grants him riches and a beautiful, highborn wife.”

“You can never control a powerful djinn,” he said.

“No?”

“For every wish he grants you, he takes away something you love.”

“What did you wish for?” she asked, naturally enough.

He could make something up, something fanciful and far from the truth. “A father,” he said.

Her grip tightened around her empty glass. “And what did you have to give up?”

“My mother.”

He wondered if the pain in her eyes was but a reflection of his own. Her face lowered. “My mother died when I was six. I miss her still.”

“If she looked anything like you, she must have been very beautiful,” he said impulsively.

Her eyes met his again, her aquamarine gaze a mixture of pleasure and wariness. “She
was
beautiful. But I don’t think I am.”

“Well, you are very much mistaken in that.”

She smiled, a shy smile. Her pale cheeks colored. For a fleeting instant he thought she might let him kiss her. But then that gratifying moment passed and unease set in.

He saw his misstep. His inexperience in these matters served him ill. He shouldn’t have made his interest in her so nakedly known. He should have offered her more whiskey instead. A cigarette even, for his vice-laden Cinderella. Or some of the biscuits Durbin kept in a tin somewhere—she looked as if the Wicked Stepmother had not been overly generous with food.

“I’ll go for the hack,” he said reluctantly.

He was a stranger to her. They were already in his house. She had no choice but to mistrust any express inclination on his part.

“Do you not have a carriage of your own?” she asked, her tone almost as reluctant as his own.

“No.” Until he’d sold the Somerset town house, he hadn’t even been able to pay Durbin for more than a year.

“And you have no servants to fetch a cab for you either?”

“My man is on holiday visiting his sister in Derbyshire this week. And my maid lives next door, I’ve a third share of her. So I must do the cab-fetching myself, as lowering as it is.”

“And leave me alone here?”

“You won’t feel safe?”

“I meant, leave me alone with a very nice Constable painting in the house?”

“I think if Cinderella were to turn to thievery, she’d have done so already. Since she’s elected to stay in the kitchen, I assume my possessions are safe,” he said, moving toward the door. He was either an astute judge of character or dumber than the sack of turnips to which he’d compared her intelligence earlier.

Her words halted him. “You shouldn’t trust me. You don’t even know who I am.”

“Then come with me. We’ll take a stroll together. It’s not every day a mere mortal meets Cinderella herself.”

She almost smiled again. She opened her mouth to say something. Nothing emerged. Instead, she stared at the spot that he’d vacated.

He turned his head to look at the shelves before which he’d been standing. Books, his collection of mounted Hashshashin daggers, several small idols of Ganesh, the elephant god…and a little lower, the framed photograph of himself and Bertie.

“Is that you?” she said, her voice unnaturally flat.

“When I was much younger.”

“May I?”

“Please.”

She moved to the shelves and lifted the photograph. She was not very tall, but her arms were long and slender. As she bent her head, her hair gleamed in the light, a deep, burnished gold. Her thumb rubbed against the hammered silver frame as she gazed into the picture.

He took a few steps toward her, until he was standing nearly at her elbow, looking down at the lobe of her ear, the clean line of her neck, the tiny tendrils of hair at her nape that didn’t quite make it into her chignon. Her scent of strawberry surged and teased. His lungs—and his head—were full of the smell of her.

She didn’t say anything for almost a minute, her attention focused solely on the photograph. He wondered at this extraordinary, sustained interest.

“You look livid,” she said at last.

“I was.”

“Why?”

“My brother.”

“Your brother the prince?”

He need not respond. She already knew.

“Do you still hate him?” She handed the photograph to him.

Did he? He studied the photograph. Some days he almost pitied Bertie, forcibly evicted from the town house he’d considered his birthright. Other days the pleasure he took in Bertie’s humiliation was as strong and unmistakable as his own heartbeat.

He shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Then I don’t like him either,” she said, smiling oddly.

“Do you know him?” The question came out of nowhere.

“No. I don’t know him at all,” she said, decisively. She set aside her empty glass. “Shall we go now?”

“If we must,” he said, shocking himself.

She cast a quick glance at him. “I really can’t justify trespassing further on your hospitality.”

Stay, he wanted to say. Make yourself at home. Trespass as much as you like.

“Let me find my hat,” he said.