Miranda Jarrett

by Princess of Fortune

  She had not agreed, but as she began to chide him for twisting her words to please himself, Lady Willoughby came to stand behind her on the stairs.

  “Oh, ma’am, you know Captain Lord Greaves will not like this,” the countess warned in an anxious whisper. “You are not to leave this house without his company, ma’am, and with him at Whitehall—”

  “Greaves isn’t here?” asked Darden. “How splendid for me.”

  “No, Lord Darden, he is not,” the countess said before she plunged on with more reminders for Isabella. “You know those are his orders for us both, ma’am, to help keep you safe. You know that as well as I do, and after the flowers this morning, why—”

  “Did you like the roses, then?” the marquis asked disingenuously. “They did arrive, ma’am?”

  “Yes, and they were lovely.” Isabella smiled as she began down the stairs to join the marquis, her decision made. If Tom had abandoned her, then she saw no reason to respect his orders. His orders: why should she be taking orders from anyone, anyway? “I shall be happy to join you for a short drive, Lord Darden. About this neighborhood, that is all.”

  She ignored Lady Willoughby’s protests as she skipped down the stairs, pausing only for a maid to fetch her hat and gloves.

  “I cannot tell you how honored I am, ma’am.” Darden offered her his arm, which she pretended not to see. He was poorly, yes, but she saw no reason to test her luck. Instead she frowned down at the sword that jutted out from the skirts of his coat.

  “Do you believe that is necessary by day?” she asked as the footman opened the front door. “Everyone keeps telling me London is so civilized, but perhaps they are wrong. Or do you mean to try to challenge another gentleman like you did Captain Lord Greaves last night?”

  “You are observant, ma’am.” He placed one hand over his heart and the other on the hilt of the sword. “But you see, I feel quite naked without my dear blade, my most loyal companion, and as for Greaves, we are ancient acquaintances, and—”

  “Your carriage is open.” The elegant landau before them had bright yellow wheels and Darden’s arms painted on the door, but with the top folded back, passengers on those cushioned leather seats would be as exposed as if they were sitting on a pianoforte bench in the middle of the street.

  Tom had warned her against being as vulnerable as she’d be in such a carriage, how she’d be a perfect target for every window in every house that they passed, and for once she decided to agree.

  “I believe I have changed my mind, Lord Darden,” she said. “I believe I must decline your offer after all.”

  Surprised, Darden tried to look contrite. “Ah, ma’am, how have I sinned again, and so soon? What have I done or said to offend you?”

  “It’s not you. It’s your carriage. I don’t believe it’s wise for me to show myself so—so boldly.”

  Darden shook his head. “And here I’d chosen the landau because I thought you’d judge it safer to your reputation, not to be closed away with my wicked old self.”

  “That, too, must be considered.” She caught herself wondering what Tom would advise, as if she were unable to think for herself.

  “I promise we shall keep only to streets in the best neighborhoods,” he said, “and if at any time you wish to retreat, why, I give you my word that we shall turn about the horses directly.”

  “I believe you gave me your word last night before we went into the garden, and look at what happened then.”

  He winced. “I’m guilty of many foolish actions by night, ma’am. But in the bright light of day, I’m as meek as a kitten, and my word is as reliable as Sheffield steel.”

  Still she hesitated on the doorstep, though she took the parasol the maid offered her against the sun.

  Seeing her reluctance, Darden sighed. “You know, ma’am, Greaves is not the only gentleman capable of looking after you as you deserve.”

  That was true. She’d managed most of her life without Tom at her side, hadn’t she? And she did need to discuss the verse. “Only a brief drive, Lord Darden. And be sure your driver keeps only to the safest streets.”

  She gave her hand to one of the countess’s footmen to help her to her seat in the carriage. She caught how Darden ducked to one side to gulp surreptitiously from the flask he’d pulled from his coat. Some men could not exist without their drink; she was sorry to see that Darden was one of them, just as Tom had said.

  She was glad that Darden chose to seat himself respectfully across from her, avoiding the tussle of too-familiar side-by-side. She was glad, too, that he seemed determined to be vigilant for her sake, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword while he purposefully glanced around the street in much the same way that Tom himself did. Yet still she doubted he’d have Tom’s reflexes in the face of any genuine threats, and uneasily she snapped open her parasol, wishing it would shield her from danger as well as the sun.

  Yet as the carriage rolled through the streets, the sun warm on her shoulders, she finally began to relax and look about at the houses and terraces and parks that they were passing.

  “This city seems to be endless,” she said, craning her neck to look to the golden top of a church spire. “How long it would take to see everything!”

  “It would take weeks, ma’am. Maybe months. But I would gladly be your guide, if you’d but ask.”

  “Years,” she said, “if you English continue your building at such a pace. Everywhere I look there is industry, scaffolding and carpenters and donkey carts full of lumber and stone.”

  “That’s because everything in London must be improved, ma’am,” he answered, clearly savoring his role as her instructor. Not that he’d gaze up at church spires and pediments the way she was doing; instead he’d pulled his floppy-brimmed hat low over his forehead to keep the bright sun from his eyes. “Little stays the same from one season to the next. The grandest houses from our fathers’ day are torn down to make way for grander ones in their place. London gobbles land like a child with sweets.”

  “The common people in Monteverde do not look to the future like that,” she said, remembering how scornful her father could be about the average Monteverdian’s lack of ambition. How curious it was that the English didn’t seem to be like that, too. “They are by nature lazy and idle, and content to let things remain as they are.”

  “Then I’m afraid we don’t share your country’s veneration for the old times.” He sighed dramatically, a romantic’s lament for the lost past. “Our heritage is Roman, too, you know, but we have no handsome stone lions to show for it. If we had, they likely would have been tossed into the river generations ago with a bridge built on top.”

  “Then you understand what will be lost if the French triumph.” She tipped the parasol back over her shoulder and leaned closer to him, her voice low with urgency. “You have not only regard for Monteverde, but respect, as well. This is good.”

  “Of course I have respect and regard for Monteverde, ma’am,” he said easily. “Just as I have respect and regard for that country’s beautiful princess.”

  Impatiently Isabella waved aside the compliment. “Have you considered my request from last night, Lord Darden?”

  Instantly the marquis’s expression turned wary. “We said many things between us last night, ma’am.”

  “Yes, yes, but only one of real importance.” She must keep her temper; artists and poets were notorious for being oblivious to details, and this poet drank, too. “I asked you to write me a tribute to Monteverde in verse. A great poem to be published, and help garner sympathy for my country’s plight.”

  “You would trust me with such a task, ma’am?” It wasn’t just that he’d forgotten her first request, or maybe hadn’t heard it; he was so stunned that she wondered uneasily if the favor she’d asked was too much for him. “You would ask so much of me?”

  She nodded. “I would, Lord Darden. I did.”

  He leaned back against his seat and laughed softly up at the sky before he looked back at her. “Ah, m
a’am, nothing—nothing—would give me greater pleasure. You cannot know how you honor me and my humble talent.”

  “I should hope they are not so very humble,” she said uneasily. “They will be required to produce a work of the utmost importance to the future of my country.”

  But his smile only grew, more like the cocksure Darden she’d danced with last night. His color was coming back to his face as well, though Isabella wasn’t sure if that was due to the fresh air or the furtive swig from the flask beneath his coat.

  “So, ma’am,” he said. “You can tell me. Is Greaves’s jealousy perhaps more founded in truth than I realized?”

  “There is nothing to tell.” Isabella frowned, remembering the sour way that she and Tom had last parted. “The captain is not by nature a jealous man, Lord Darden, or at least he is not jealous where I am concerned. He has no special fondness for me, nor should he. You have misinterpreted his attentions. He is simply following his orders where I am concerned, nothing more.”

  “Then you misread him, ma’am. I’ve known Tom Greaves all my life, and as much as he loves his orders—aye-aye, anchors aweigh!—his reaction last night had more to do with your lovely royal self than with any words from a mere admiral.”

  “You forget yourself, Lord Darden,” she said tartly. She supposed this was his manner of flirtation, or perhaps the effect of those furtive gulps from the flask, but she didn’t care for it, whatever it was. She regretted now that she’d asked him to write the poem for her and Monteverde, inviting this intimacy and obligation. Who knew what he’d write, or what favors he’d expect in return? “I find I must rescind my request to you regarding the poem. I find you are not suitable for such a gallant task.”

  He winked broadly, shocking her. “Since when does a muse take back her divine inspiration?”

  “I am not your muse, Darden.” She’d lost track of how far they’d driven from Berkeley Square by now, but if he continued in this vein, she’d have no compunction about ordering the footmen to put Darden out on the nearest street corner and then having the driver take her home alone. “You grow too familiar.”

  “Perhaps I do,” he admitted, without an iota of remorse. “But then I’ll wager Greaves has, too, hasn’t he? He never was one to chase the skirts for sport, not even when we were rammy young lads. But when he found one he favored, he’d never want to let her from his sight. You’re the lady he wants now.”

  “He does not!” Yet her conscience wasn’t entirely at ease, not when she couldn’t help remembering how they’d kissed this morning, and the excitement that had rippled between them. And her regret, too, that things had ended so badly when he’d left. If he—and she—didn’t care, then it wouldn’t have hurt, would it?

  “Aye-aye, and ahoy to you.” Once again he winked and pulled the brim back over his face. “I saw it at once, ma’am, writ bold all over his weathered old salt’s face. He fancies you, admires you, worships you—we poets can count a hundred ways to say the same thing. Surely you, too, must recognize the signs. Why else do you think I could push him as far as I did last night?”

  She didn’t know which was upsetting her more: the marquis addressing her with so little respect, or his suggestion that Tom’s feelings ran deeper than his orders. “Lord Darden, you misspeak.”

  “Why ever is that? Because for once I speak the truth?”

  “Because you don’t.” For the marquis to concoct such tales of Tom and her—no. No. She leaned past him, addressing the driver. “You will take us back to Berkeley Square at once. At once.”

  “Ah, ma’am, you give me hope, indeed you do.” With a lazy grin, Darden suddenly recalled his role as protector. He shoved his hat back and peered out at the street, belatedly trying to look vigilant. “Where in blazes are we, anyway? We haven’t crossed Oxford Street again, have we?”

  “No, my lord,” the driver said. “Once we turn about, we’ll—”

  “Follow the route we planned back to Berkeley Square.” The marquis’s grin remained, hardly the look of a scorned admirer. “If Her Royal Highness has had enough of my company and wishes to return home, I’ve no intention of keeping her against her will.”

  Pointedly Isabella looked away, concentrating on the elaborate scaffolding that covered the face of yet another new house being built, instead of the marquis. Lady Allen had sworn that all the London ladies loved Lord Darden, for which Isabella could only feel monstrous pity for the London ladies who had so little taste or feeling.

  The carriage slowed, preparing to turn the corner, and as it did a small wagon full of bricks cut in front of it. The driver shouted and swore at the wagon while he struggled to control the carriage’s pair, the horses balking skittishly at the dray now blocking their way. Others on the street began to gawk and add their own suggestions, blocking the street even further.

  “Bumbling ass.” Darden had turned around in his seat to watch, too. “Letting his nag go lumbering out before us like that.”

  “In Monteverde, he could be put in gaol for such an insult to a nobleman.” Isabella sighed impatiently, twirling the handle on her parasol. “Such affronts are not—oh, santo cielo! Darden, look! Darden!”

  Two men with scarves tied over their faces were rushing across the scaffolding, bounding over the narrow boards, running as the sunlight caught the bright sheen of a blade and there was nothing, nothing, to stop the first man from jumping into the carriage beside her….

  Chapter Nine

  Though she had only a fraction of a second to decide, Isabella knew she had two choices when the man dropped into the carriage beside her. She could tremble with terror and shriek piteously for help like a proper English lady, or she could be a true Fortunaro princess, and fight back.

  It wasn’t really a choice at all.

  The man was large, heavyset enough to make the carriage pitch and buck, and in his hand he held a long-bladed knife. She could see his muffled mouth smile beneath the grimy scarf, and the confidence in his eyes proved he’d already decided she was his for the taking.

  He was wrong.

  As he reached out to grab her, she smacked the parasol as hard as she could up into his chin. The bamboo handle cracked across his jaw, shattering in a tangle of painted silk and bent spokes across his face that made him topple back against the seat.

  Furiously he threw it aside, swearing at her in Italian— Italian?—but Isabella had already hiked up her skirts and scrambled out of the carriage, running to the pavement beneath the shelter of the scaffolding. If only she could reach the crowd gathered around the horses, if only she could join the safety of the others!

  But then the second man dropped down in front of her, jerking from side to side like a tattered crab to block her path as she tried to dodge around him. With each step he was forcing her back, until she bumped against the rough brick of the unfinished wall. No one would see her now; she was trapped in this corner, hidden by the stacks of lumber and brick. Fighting her panic, she groped blindly behind her, searching for a way out.

  “Lost something?” The man wiggled his fingers, taunting her. “Something dear?”

  “You let me go!” she ordered, her voice shaking. “You cannot keep me here!”

  “Oh, yes, I can,” he said, laughing at her. “I’m doing it now, ain’t I?”

  “You do not laugh!” cried Isabella furiously. She grabbed a short board from the pile left by the carpenters. “No one laughs at me!”

  Using both hands, she swung the board with all her force, striking the man squarely in the chest. He grunted and staggered a step, giving her time to look back over her shoulder toward the carriage. She had a swift glimpse of Darden crashing swords with the third man, both of them struggling to stay upright in the rocking landau with the crowd now watching them instead of the horses—and instead of her.

  But Darden had defended her after all, she thought with guilty surprise, and he was doing it with considerable skill, too. She could only pray he wouldn’t have to pay for his chivalry on her ac
count.

  Not that she had time now even to pray for herself, not when the man in front of her was finished laughing.

  “You’re no better than the rest of your litter.” He tore away his mask, not caring that she’d see his face now. His eyes were wild, outraged that she’d dare fight back. “Foolish royal bitch.”

  “You’re from Monteverde,” she said, holding the board like a sword between them. “I hear it in your Italian. You should feel nothing but shame for what you are doing!”

  “A Fortunaro can speak of shame? The daughter of a tyrant?” He spit at her feet. “You think you can cross me, eh?”

  “I can, and I will!” Breathing hard, she swung the board again, but this time he grabbed the far end of the board before she could strike him. She struggled to wretch it free from his hands, digging the heels of her slippers into the sandy soil. “A pox upon you, I will!”

  “Not so, my royal whore.” He jerked the plank, making Isabella stumble forward, then abruptly flipped it up, knocking her back against the brick wall. Waves of pain burst from her shoulder, sharp enough to make her cry out. She sank to her knees, and he yanked the plank from her hands.

  “Begging for it now, are you?” He leered, smacking the board against the palm of his open hand. “Not so proud now, are you?”

  “I am proud, because—because I am a Fortunaro!” She forced herself to stand and raise her chin, willing her unsteady legs not to give way beneath her. “I beg for nothing!”

  He raised the board over her. “Then I’ll give you this for nothing, you—”

  His eyes bulged out with shock and his mouth gaped open as he lurched away at a crazy angle, clasping his side. Blood oozed through his fingers and spread over the cuff of his shirt to drip to the ground. He nodded once, twice, then pitched forward in a heavy heap at Isabella’s feet. Only then did she see the yawning hole the bullet had torn through his coat and into his back.