How to Propose to a Prince Read Online Free

manners.”
    “I?” Leopold’s eyes rounded. “I lack in manners?” The prince whirled around to look at the footmen and the maid hurrying into the room.“He is to blame.” Leopold turned back to face his cousin and rose up on his toes to look Sumner straight in the eyes. “I, sir, am the very model of a superbly mannered nobleman.” He dropped back upon his heels and peered at the footmen as if to ensure they had heard him.
    Not that it should have mattered to him in the least, but the constant mistaking Sumner for the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield seemed to rankle Leopold to no end.
    The maid, eyes demurely downcast, scurried over to tidy up the table, while the footmen settled the brandy-spattered glasses upon a tray for removal. When they had finished, the footmen bowed deeply and the maid dropped a low curtsy before Sumner, and then all three tipped their heads in acknowledgment to Leopold before backing out of the room.
    “Did you observe that? Did you?” Leopold huffed. “Why is it that even when we are standing side by side, people assume that you are the prince and not I?”
    “I told you,” Sumner grinned before finishing his sentence, “it’s my commanding stature.” He clapped Leopold’s shoulder and drew him toward the two gilded chairs positioned on either side of the hearth. “Which is why my plan will work perfectly.”
    “Very well.” Leopold huffed a breath from his lungs as he sat down and leaned against the tufted backrest. “Tell me, what is in that clever military mind of yours?”
    Cavendish Square
Lady Upperton’s library
    Elizabeth tried very hard to avoid looking into Lady Upperton’s faded blue eyes as she accepted the dish of tea from her. She couldn’t bear one more expression of skepticism from someone she cared about, and especially not from her own sponsor. “I know this is exceedingly difficult to believe, Lady Upperton, but I am quite certain he is the man I will marry. Even Anne is so convinced.”
    “Impossible.” Lady Upperton lifted her own teacup to her lips and sipped from it while peering doubtfully over its rim at Elizabeth. “The word swirling Almack’s card room last week was that Prince Leopold has secretly come to London to seek the hand of the Prince Regent’s daughter, Charlotte…and that she is most amenable to the young man’s attentions—especially after the debacle of an engagement her father had orchestrated with that skinny goose, William of Orange.”
    Elizabeth swished her index finger from side to side. “I do not believe it. The Times reported that Princess Charlotte is no longer in London. But Prince Leopold is. Anne and I saw him.”
    The foglike steam rising up from Lady Upperton’s cup had a dreamlike quality about it, and it sent Elizabeth’s mind spinning back to misty Pall Mall—and then to the moment when she peered up into the prince’s silver eyes as he placed the tiara on her head.
    No, he would not marry Princess Charlotte. He would marry her . She knew it in every part of her being.
    Never before had she felt such an instant connection with another human being as she had with him. When she looked into his eyes for the first time, she’d had the oddest notion that he was the part of her that she had been missing all of her life. The piece that filled the aching hollow in her soul. But how could she ever make anyone understand this? There were no words to express the connection she felt with him.
    “So, dear, you saw Prince Leopold?” Lady Upperton settled her dish of tea on the table before her and did her best to appear very confused. “Please do forgive me, sweeting. I thought you told me you had met…one LordWhitevale .” She lifted her snowy eyebrows and widened her eyes expectantly—as if she did not anticipate what Elizabeth’s reply would be.
    Elizabeth tensed. Must she explain what had happened again?
    “Lady Upperton, I told you, he only said he was Lord Whitevale, but the shopkeeper proved beyond