Once I'd gathered my wits after my encounters with James and the queen, it was abundantly clear that there was someone I needed to find. I made sure to avoid the rest of the debutantes, unwilling to get dragged into whatever monotony they were engaged in, as I hunted down my brother. Beelining for the one place I knew he haunted, I found him huddled over a desk in the massive royal library, dust motes swirling through the air as I approached.

"Vee," I whispered, startling him. He hastily folded the sheaf of papers he'd been staring at, slipping them into his jacket pocket as he rose. I opened my mouth to say something more, but he held a finger to his lips, taking my hand to lead me back the way I'd come, between the massive shelves and back through the heavy oak doors towards the ballroom.

"The master librarian takes great offence to both women and the spoken word in his library," Xavier explained, "I'm sorry for rushing you out like that, but apparently he's quick to ban rule-breakers."

"He takes offence to women?" I demanded, incredulous.

"I think he's under the impression your brains are filled with nothing more than gossip, flower petals, and fashion plates," Xavier said, winking. I harrumphed, before I remembered my reason for seeking him out.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Of course I am," he said, surprised, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you left last night before I could come back to find you," I said. Comprehension dawned on his face, but he put on a good show of smiling despite the pain in his blue eyes.

"You were occupied," Xavier grinned, offering me his arm, "Dancing with two of the most eligible men in the kingdom."

"Two? Ick, you mean Dorian?" I asked, pretending to gag. Xavier laughed.

"I do," he said, "If I loan you my jacket, would you care to talk a walk outside?"

"I would love that," I said. We snuck out through the empty ballroom, our footsteps echoing on the marble floor as we made for the terrace doors. Outside, the air was chilly but the sun was shining in earnest, a last hint of summer as the leaves fell from the trees. Xavier shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around my shoulders, his eyes landing on the necklace at my throat.

"You're attired rather finely for daytime," he remarked as we descended towards the winding paths through the gardens.

"I had queen lessons," I said, making a face, "Though I'd wager that I won't be invited back any time soon."

"Why not?" Xavier asked.

"Because I may have insulted the queen by chastising her for not valuing the lives of peasants," I said. Xavier barked a laugh.

"Perhaps it was unwise to insult the woman whose shoes you're aiming to fill," Xavier said, giving my hand a pat.

"I'd rather not think about filling those particular shoes, I doubt I'd fit them that well," I said, slipping my free hand into my brother's jacket pocket. I took advantage of his distraction, his auburn-haired head tilted to the sky to savour the sunlight, to stealthily unfold the papers.

"I'll have those back, please," Xavier said, his eyes still closed as he basked in the sunlight. My eyes flew over the writing and I realized that he'd expected me to pull such a trick.

"What is this?" I demanded, riffling past the first letter to a series of documents that looked like schedules and fee summaries. He opened his eyes, removing the papers from my fingers to carefully fold them and slip them back into the pocket of his jacket.

"I've been offered a place at the Royal Conservatory to finish my studies here in Highcastle," Xavier said, adding when he noticed my shellshocked face, "All my expenses, tuition, room, and board, will be paid."

"But how?" I managed, unable to imagine navigating this Season without my brother, especially now that I was one of the frontrunners.

"An anonymous benefactor," Xavier said, shrugging, "I received word this morning, so I haven't had a chance to ask too many questions yet. But it would be nice to get back to my studies instead of onto a ship bound for India."

"You can't leave," I blurted out. Even though we were outside, I was acutely aware of the palace walls looming just over the lawn, keeping me here while my brother would be freed to pursue his dreams. It was selfish, but I was fuelled by my desperation to keep close the few friendly faces that remained.

"I'm of no use here," Xavier said, a sad smile on his face as he looked down at me, "I came because I thought I could help you, but now it seems that you don't need my help at all."

"I'll always need your help!" I protested, feeling my lip beginning to tremble, "You can't leave me here alone with all these two-faced vipers!"

"Now I think that's being a little dramatic," Xavier gently chided, "And it's not as if I'm leaving Highcastle. I won't be far, Libby."

I looked up at him, really understanding for the first time how miserable he must be here. I was so wrapped up in Andrew that I hadn't spared a moment to think of Xavier. He'd been forcing a smile since we arrived, gamely attempting to play the part of mindless, moneyed courtier to keep me company while I tried to win the prince. He'd said that he was having a hard time accepting Andrew's charity as a sponsor and now, presented with an opportunity to make something of himself that wasn't a half a world away in India, I had no right to balk.

Please, Libby, you need to understand that I want to stand on my own two feet. All my life I'd always thought that meant as a professor...

"What about Georgina?" I said, the words tumbling from my mouth even despite my conscience trying to reel them back in. The corners of Xavier's mouth tightened as he looked away, across the gardens towards the palace wall.

"What about her?" he said.

"If you're going to be a professor, you can't be that daft," I said. His lips twitched, the ghost of a smile flitting briefly across his face.

"I'm not daft," he said, "But it's clear as day that her father expects her to marry into the navy."

"That is not at all the case!" I protested, "Have you really not noticed the way she looks at you?"

"Of course I have," he said, looking down to study his hands so he wouldn't have to look at me, "And it's not lost on me that no woman has ever regarded me in such a way."

"Then you owe it to her to stay," I said, hating myself more than a little for attempting to corner my brother.

"I owe it to her to make something of myself before I can even dream of getting married," he said, his eyes flinty as they met mine.

"At the very least you ought to tell her," I said, crossing my arms, "Because if you don't, she'll wind up engaged to some stuffy old captain, cooped up in a big empty house by the sea."

"Perhaps that would be for the best, if it's what her family wishes," Xavier said.  A frustrated growl escaped my lips and I kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering off the path into the grass.

"She thinks you're too intelligent to ever take an interest in her," I said, well-aware that I was breaking my promise to Georgina, but desperate to do something to keep my brother from abandoning her, "If you run off to the Conservatory without telling her what you feel about-"

"And how do you know what I feel about her?" Xavier demanded, his fiery Marks-Whelan temper flaring to meet my own.

"I know because I'm your sister and she's my friend! I see the way you two look at one another and I know that there is no person on this Earth better suited to you than she is, despite her..." I trailed off, blushing as I bit my tongue to keep from revealing Georgina's secret troubles with words.

"Despite her difficulties reading?" Xavier finished for me, then added when he noticed my slackened jaw, "Don't worry, I worked that out on my own. I won't tell a soul, but it's wrong of you to think I'd hold it against her."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"Because she never turns the pages consistently. Either she's puzzling over the same line for minutes at a time, or she's racing through a book so quickly it's obvious that she's not reading a word," he said.

"And when did you discover this?" I asked, still shocked.

"While you were out touring the kingdom with the prince, she spent the morning with me in the library," he said, "I discovered the master librarian's disdain for women when he came upon us and kicked her out."

I watched him, his jaw muscle working as he turned a circle, alternating between glaring at the palace and glaring at the walls. I took a moment to catch my breath, processing all this new information.

"You have to tell her, Vee," I said finally, when we'd paused to sit on a stone bench in a grove of bright red maple trees.

"And what, ask her to wait for me? Because it will be an awfully long time before I'm considered marriageable by her father," he said, his jaw set.

"Why do you assume that? Have you spoken to him about courting her?" I asked.

"I most certainly have not," Xavier said, affronted, "And I assume because the Courtenays are a prestigious family and Georgina is their only daughter that she'll likely be forced to marry someone like your Dorian Fletcher instead of someone like me."

"If you ever call him 'my' Dorian Fletcher again, I'll kick you," I snapped, "And what's the harm in asking? The worst that can happen is Colonel Courtenay says no and then at least you'll have an answer."

"No, the worst that can happen is that I ask, he approves, and Georgina is the one to turn me down," Xavier said. I blinked over at him, only to see that he'd dropped his head between his hands. With a sigh, I rested my palm on his shoulder.

"Trust me, Vee," I said, looking over the gardens back towards the palace, "She'd never turn you down."

***

Xavier had escorted me back to my suite, the both of us too chilled to continue walking around the gardens as the dinner hour approached. He'd firmly stated that he would be accepting the Royal Conservatory's invitation, but I'd bargained with him about Georgina. If he didn't muster his nerve in the next few days, I'd be the one to tell her for him. It was a cheap play, but I knew my brother well enough to know that he would think himself lower than a coward if his baby sister was the one to reveal his heart's desire for him.

I was so preoccupied in thinking about Xavier and Georgina that I hadn't stopped to consider what I might face at dinner that night after my disastrous showing in the queen's study. Sadly, Ashley did not disappoint. Before I'd even made it to the stairs, Annabelle was upon me, demanding to know whether it was true that the queen had ordered me kicked out of the palace.

"Where on Earth did you hear that?" I demanded, my wide-eyed cousin sagging with relief at my denial.

"From Penelope. Apparently it's all Ashley's been talking about ever since she came back from tea with the queen," Annabelle said.

It was all downhill from there.

When we'd entered the dining room, Annabelle and I had both been shown to a table in the far corner of the room, well away from where we were normally seated. As the rest of the debutantes filed in, I noted with a sinking feeling that Ashley and Adelaide were sitting with James, three seats remaining empty at their table while the rest of the room filled up. Our table was rounded out by Xavier, Georgina, Oliver Pendleton, and an inductee who introduced himself as Phillip Easton, a freckled blond who wasted no time before telling us all about his father's wealthy estates to the north.

The coup de resistance came when the royal family arrived, the three royal siblings taking their seats at the table with James, Ashley and Adelaide. I was so tucked away in a corner that when Andrew briefly scanned the room as he held out his sister's chair, he couldn't even see me.

The queen, however, could. Seated on the raised dais with her husband and his council, her icy blue eyes had watched me as her children had entered. Apparently satisfied that I would not be causing a scene to draw the prince's attention, she spent the rest of the meal studiously ignoring me.

Instead of feeling downtrodden, however, I forced myself to view the seating snub as a challenge. I had expected some sort of countermeasure from her and if putting me in the corner was the punishment, I would bear it and be thankful she hadn't actually kicked me out of the palace as Ashley had been so keen to claim.

If I looked on the bright side, at least I'd been seated with Xavier and Georgina so I could get to work on pushing the pair of them together.

**A/N: Happy Easter everyone! I'm halfway through the next chapter, so you can look for another update this weekend (and I promise there will be more Andrew! :D)**