"My Queen, my Princess," he said, executing a low and graceful bow.

"Greetings, Jon Tom," the Queen said. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I understand you're a detective?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

"What exactly is a detective? What is it you detect?"

"I detect solutions, Your Highness. Solutions, answers, reasons and culprits."

"Solutions to what?" Susannah wanted to know. The man had a wily look she didn't like. His dark eyes glanced about the room, assessed everything and everyone in it.

The man regarded her coolly, almost insolently, as if he knew her secrets. "Solutions to who killed Cock Robin. Solutions to what happened to the Queen's tarts. Solutions to where twelve naughty ladies go every night when the sun is down and the night is full."

The Queen stopped scratching her quill on her notepaper and leaned back in her chair. "Do you indeed?" A smile spread across her face.

"Not every city has a Lost and Found department as assiduous as yours," Jon Tom complimented the Queen. "Not every kingdom has a king who puts his own daughters to work solving the citizens' problems and caring for the community."

"Have you been detecting solutions for long?" the Queen asked.

"Many years, Your Highness. I hail from Pavilion, where the late ruler's failure to produce a male heir has resulted in near anarchy. The kingship has gone to a baronial cousin who isn't bearing the burden particularly well."

"We would like to avoid Pavilion's troubles, but first we must control our daughters."

Susannah pressed her lips together. As if she wanted this strange man thinking of her as out of control!

"You seem to know quite a bit about our situation already." The Queen steepled her fingertips near her chin. "Perhaps you would like to share your theories at this point?"

"Oh, no doubt there is a man involved." Jon Tom winked at Susannah.

Had her mother noticed this bourgeois man, this detective, wink at a royal princess? Susannah turned to her mother to protest.

But the Queen's face was lit with pleasure. "That's exactly what I said."

"And I told you, Mother, there isn't a man involved," Susannah snapped.

Jon Tom smiled, seemingly pleased by the outburst. Her eyes drifted away from that face, from that hawk-like nose and strong chin, to his broad chest, two strong arms crossed over it as he lounged in his chair. Down to tan trousers encasing a fine pair of legs. The man was as attractive as any of the enchanted princes in the land beneath, but he had such an air about him, such a dangerous air, as if he'd sooner snatch her up and eat her than dance a reel.