Miranda Jarrett

by Princess of Fortune

  Cranford’s glance was faintly pitying. “Meaning that she’ll no longer be plaguing you, Greaves. I should think you’d be pleased, considering all the princess has put you through. Your concern for her is admirable but soon will be unnecessary.”

  “Then your offers of assistance to her country weren’t empty promises.” Tom said it as a statement of fact, not a question, though God knows he didn’t trust the admiral to tell him the truth any more than he’d told it to Isabella. “You knew that there were English ships in Monteverde’s harbor already.”

  “Be reasonable, man.” The admiral lowered his voice even though there was no one else within hearing. “Monteverde is a small country, of little strategic value to England. It produces nothing that England needs or covets, nor are any of its royal family related to our own king and queen. For generations its main value to us seems to have been to offer a wastrel’s paradise to our young gentlemen on their tour. In my opinion that does not make it worth risking so much as one of my sailors’ lives, especially not now.”

  “But what of the princess herself, sir?” Tom could not believe the admiral was speaking of Isabella so callously.

  “Her future?” Cranford asked, his disinterest clear. “Oh, I suppose some manner of small pension will be settled upon her if she does not return to Monteverde. She will not continue at my poor sister’s home, to be sure, but perhaps she can take rooms somewhere in town if—”

  “But why the devil was she brought here to London in the first place?” Tom could barely contain his anger on Isabella’s behalf. Why was it that no one else in London seemed to regard her as a person, a woman with feelings instead of just a titled exotic? “Why didn’t you just leave her with her family?”

  “Because her father the king asked it as a favor, and at that time the princess was believed to be useful.” Cranford shrugged, toying idly with the Trinita’s triangle. “Surely you must recall that from your original orders. She was to serve as a symbol of resistance to Buonaparte on the Continent—a way to remind the people here in London that we were not fighting the French entirely on our own.”

  Tom did recall this explanation of Isabella’s value. But that had been before, before everything had changed. “And now the princess is no longer useful, sir?”

  “That is not my decision to make, Greaves.” The admiral frowned. “Nor is it yours. You are to continue to look after the princess as you have been doing. Take her about the town. Entertain her as she pleases, and amuse yourself, too.”

  He slid a folded paper across the desk to Tom. “There’s a box secured in your name at Covent Garden for tomorrow night’s performance. That should make the princess forget her troubles, eh?”

  “Covent Garden, sir?” Tom couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice.

  “Yes, Greaves, tomorrow tonight.” Cranford had heard that disbelief, and his displeasure showed. “And steer the princess clear of that wretch Banleigh. I know the ladies all dote upon him as a charming scamp, but the marquis is a drunkard and a rogue, and known to keep dangerous company in the bargain.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hell, he’d forgotten about Darden completely, as if the troubles surrounding Isabella weren’t complicated enough. “But now that we know of this damned Trinita, surely the princess should not be as—as visible. Consider the risk, sir. She’ll be as good as a sitting turtledove in a theater box.”

  The admiral glanced at him sharply. “I never expected you to be frightened, Greaves.”

  “I’m not frightened, sir. I am careful, and there’s a world of difference between the two.”

  “And I say you are overreacting. The princess will enjoy the plays and sitting in the box to be admired, same as every other lady does. Hiding her away in cotton wool and wood shavings serves no purpose.”

  “Except that it might save her life.” Damnation, why was it he seemed to be the only one who gave a fig about Isabella’s survival? “I propose, sir, to keep her within your sister’s house for the next few days, and, with your permission, to post a guard outside the—”

  “A sentry in Berkeley Square?” Cranford asked incredulously. “Don’t be preposterous. I would never insult my sister and her husband that way, not after the strain of the hospitality they’ve already had to show such a thankless guest.”

  “But, sir, the princess—”

  “The princess has you, Greaves.” The admiral’s expression was stern and fixed, putting an unquestionable end to any further protests from Tom. “That’s more than she deserves, and if she’s fortunate enough, it’s all she’ll need.”

  And as Tom rose and bowed, he could only pray the admiral was right.

  “You can’t possibly know how exciting this is for me, Tom.” Isabella leaned over the edge of the box, holding tightly to her fan as she stared down at the swirling crowd below. Even though it was nearly seven, time for the first play to begin, most of the seats in the boxes and benches in the pit were still empty, just as most of the other patrons were much more concerned with calling to their friends and showing off their clothes than in actually finding their places for the performance. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “There’s nothing much to see so far,” said Tom, not nearly as enchanted. He was leaning back in his chair, concentrating more on studying the theatergoers in the boxes around them than on watching the musicians tune their instruments in the orchestra below. “Not until the curtain rises.”

  “It’s all new to me,” she said, “and I’ll still thank you, whether you are bored or not.”

  “I’m never bored with you, Bella,” he said, so matter-of-factly and with so little gallantry that she laughed aloud. “Now don’t take offense. It’s the truth, that is all.”

  “I’m not offended, Tomaso. I’m amused.” She laughed again, pressing her fingers over her lips. “Everything amuses me tonight. Oh, dearest, dearest, you see I am happy, because you have made me that way.”

  He still was not at ease with her being so demonstrative, even in Italian, and she could have sworn he blushed now. Her rugged, weathered captain, shifted his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck, and she loved him all the more for it.

  Her smile widened, her joy spilling out. That was what she couldn’t help, and why not? Since they’d left Whitehall yesterday, everything seemed to be better between them than she could have imagined. Something must have been said between Tom and the admiral, something that merited this change; she didn’t ask, not really wanting to know.

  But there had been no men with swords attacking them, no menacing seamstresses or Trinita to threaten their lives. For these few days, she had made herself stop worrying about the Fortunaro rubies and Monteverde and the fate of her poor family, and he had not asked about them, either. It was almost as if they’d acknowledged how precarious their lives were, and agreed upon a truce, just for these few days.

  Instead they’d retreated to his bed, laughing and teasing and eating biscuits and drinking chocolate, and making love in lazy, perfect passion. Day by day together was what he’d promised her—day to night, to day again—and together that was what they’d had. They both understood there wouldn’t—couldn’t—be more.

  “I cannot take credit for the evening, you know,” Tom was saying now. “It was Admiral Cranford who suggested it, and who secured the tickets for the theater.”

  She wrinkled her nose and made a little puff of dismissal. “But it is you who have brought me here, Tomaso, and it is to your bed that I’ll go afterward.”

  “Where I intend to make you even happier,” he said in a gruff whisper that made her shiver with delicious anticipation: he could do that to her without even trying. “And where you’ll be safer, too. Here now, sit back a bit from that railing. No use in showing your colors to the whole world.”

  She pushed her chair back, more to be closer to him than to keep away from the rail. “I’m not showing any colors to anyone. Look at me! No one will guess who I am. Because you asked it, I’m drab and dull, without a
tiara or any other jewels to speak of. Your Bella dressed as a dry little crow! No other man will notice me now, that is certain.”

  “No other man should,” he said sternly, but the admiration in his eyes told her she’d managed to please him anyway, crow or peacock.

  She was dressed with daring simplicity by her standards, in a midnight-blue silk gown with only the slightest silver embroidery at the hem and cuffs of the tiny puffed sleeves. No one would guess she was a princess. She wore no tiara, no necklace or bracelets, and only her smallest, most modest, gold earrings. Yet because she was on the arm of the man she loved, she felt more beautiful than if she’d been wearing the grandest court dress with garlands of rubies and pearls draped over her.

  “No other man will notice me,” she declared softly, “because I will not allow it.”

  “That won’t stop them.” He indicated two foppish young men in the box diagonally from theirs, both bowing and placing their hands over their hearts and generally trying whatever they could to catch her attention. “There’s a pretty pair of fools for you now. But then I expect you’ve seen much the same in theaters all your life.”

  She shook her head. “I told you. This is my first time in a proper theater. We Fortunari never went to playhouses. Instead Father would summon the acting companies to come to us, and we’d have our entertainments in the palace. We’d sit on armchairs lined in a row in the ballroom, we children as solemn as could be so we wouldn’t be sent to bed early. The actors and musicians would do their best, but without any curtain or scenery or lights, the performances were often not very good. I’m sure this will be much better.”

  But he wasn’t thinking of the play. “You really were like a prisoner in that palace, weren’t you?”

  “I suppose I was.” She smiled, but without the joy she’d felt earlier. “I never thought of it that way, of course, because it was all I knew. But now that I have gone out with you—in a carriage to an entertainment, a playhouse, even a milliner’s shop—I realize how much I have missed.”

  He sighed, covering her hand with his own. “I’ve felt that way as well. When I would be keeping some endless watch on a ship in dirty winter weather, so cold my breath would freeze on the collar of my coat, I’d curse all the luckier bastards back in London, drinking and dancing with pretty girls.”

  She glanced at him curiously. “Did you think of Lord Darden then?”

  “He would head the list.” He smiled, remembering. “Though because you are a lady, I cannot tell you half the torturous punishments I imagined for him at the time.”

  “Then I shall simply have to imagine them for myself.” She grinned, then turned back toward the railing. Finally people were taking their seats, while scraps of an overture were beginning to rise from the orchestra. Two boys were carefully lighting the footlight lanterns on the edge of the stage.

  Down on the benches, in the cheapest seats, Isabella spied a young couple so enthralled with each other that she doubted they’d even notice when the play finally did begin. The girl was close to her own age, and from her checkered kerchief and plain linen gown, Isabella guessed she was a milkmaid or a laborer in a factory. Her sweetheart was an able-bodied sailor in his shore-going best—a glossy black straw hat with his ship’s name painted on the crown, a new bandanna around his neck, and brass buckles on his shoes—with his long pigtail proudly plaited down his back. He was holding the girl so tightly she might as well be sitting on his lap, while she giggled and tickled his nose with one of the daisies from the bouquet he’d given her.

  “Look at them.” Isabella pointed with her fan. “Those two, there. That could be us, you know, if fate had put us with different parents.”

  Tom looked over the rail to where she was pointing, and raised a skeptical brow. “Why can I not picture you living beneath a cottage thatch, rising before dawn to draw water from the well and scatter corn for the hens?”

  “I could do it,” she declared. “I could, if I knew how.”

  “There’s not much of a skill to learn, pet.” He laughed. “But I can’t see you being content with such a life, not after having lived in a grand palace with more servants than you can count.”

  “But I would be free to go where I pleased,” she countered. “I could go wherever I wanted, whenever I chose, without worrying over the scandal I might cause. I could be Bella, just Bella, with no wretched Fortunaro name tied around my neck like a great gilded millstone.”

  His smile faded as he realized she wasn’t jesting.

  “You are serious, Bella,” he said softly, turning her hand so their fingers meshed. “You would prefer such a life?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Because, Tomaso, I would be free to love you forever. Is that so very bad of me to want?”

  The curtain rose and the audience whooped and applauded, but neither Isabella nor Tom were looking at the stage, this moment between them stretching on and on while the actors began their speeches.

  “No, lass,” Tom said at last, his voice raw with longing for what neither of them could have, his fingers tightening around hers. “It’s not such a very bad thing at all.”

  Lord Ralph Darden stepped from the door of the tavern and patted the front of his waistcoat once again, making sure the folded news sheet was still tucked safely inside. Once again fortune was smiling upon him, and he wanted to be sure he smiled back.

  For two days the princess had been not at home to him, but this evening the young footman who’d answered the door in Berkeley Square had revealed that Her Royal Highness had gone to Covent Garden with Captain His Lordship Greaves. Darden had waited until the first play was done, and now he would go find their box in the intermission. Greaves wouldn’t be able to keep the princess from Darden there, not with so many others around them, and at last Darden could present her—his fair muse!—with his masterpiece in her honor.

  No wonder he’d had to pause at this tavern for a drop to settle his nerves. He was acting like a greenhorn boy at the very thought of seeing the princess, his palms sweating and his mind a blank. But then, he’d never had so much invested in a lady, either, and one more time before he crossed the street to the theater, he patted the rustling spot where the printed poem sat in his waistcoat.

  “Buona sera, my lord Darden.” The old man’s hand clutched at his sleeve with surprising strength. “Who would have guessed our paths would cross in this humble street, my lord?”

  “Maestro Pesci.” Darden’s voice was purposefully frosty. He’d no time to squander on the old man now, nor had he any wish to be linked so publicly with a foreigner of such questionable reputation. “You must excuse me, for I have other business.”

  “But my lord, my business is your business.” Pesci smiled, his teeth mottled with age and decay. Wrapped in old shawls and scarves as if it were a January evening instead of June, he leaned heavily on the shoulder of a small, silent boy for support. “We must speak, my lord.”

  Darden pulled his arm free. “I am not in the market for any of your antiquities at present, maestro,” he said loudly, in case anyone among the passersby was listening. “Good day.”

  But Pesci’s hand darted out and grabbed Darden’s arm again, making it impossible for him to escape. “You are not listening, my lord, and you will want to hear what I say. Unless, having written your little filthy screed defending the Fortunaro tyrants, you have no further use for your whore of a muse?”

  Now Darden grabbed Pesci by the shoulder, half-dragging him and the boy into the shadow of one of the square’s market stands, now empty for the night. “You have no right to call her that.”

  Pesci’s eyes burned feverishly bright. “Fine words from you, my lord? Who told me the bitch was here in London? Who gave her to me for vengeance?”

  “Then I’m taking her back.” Darden shoved the old man away from him, watching him stumble unsteadily, clawing at the boy for support. “Keep away from the princess, or I’ll send the constable after you.”

  “Send him, send
him, my lord!” Pesci cackled. His fingers trembling, he fumbled through the cocoon of scarves and shawls to find the crude triangular pendant hanging around his throat. Gently he stroked the amulet, calming himself, taking comfort from the three little twigs. “Do you think I would fear a lowly English constable, after I’ve seen the devil himself? I am an old man, my lord, with one foot already in my grave. Only the hope of retribution keeps me alive, my lord, the wish to make my persecutors suffer as I have.”

  For the first time Darden realized what he’d set in motion, and the real danger that faced the princess because of him. “The Princess di Fortunaro has done nothing to you!”

  “But those of her blood have, my lord, and that will suffice.” He coughed, a rattling rasp. “Unless I can know for certain the Fortunari are gone from Monteverde, their filth swept away, I will not stop, and she will be made to pay.”

  The intensity of the man’s hatred horrified Darden. “You’ve already sent three men to their deaths.”

  Pesci’s smile turned sly, smug. “No thanks to your keen swordsmanship, my lord, no?”

  Darden flushed but refused to be sidetracked. “Three Monteverdian men dead,” he said doggedly. “How many more will follow you?”

  “As many as I need, my lord. London is full of those who have suffered from the Fortunari.” The boy made an odd whimpering noise, and Pesci cuffed him hard with the back of his gnarled hand, then wheezed with the exertion. “I ask, and they will follow.”

  His desperation rising, Darden pulled the newspaper with his poem from his jacket and brandished it before Pesci’s face. “Your cause will be ruined when others see this. London will be full of sympathy for the princess and her family. I’ve shown the Fortunari for the noble rulers that they are, descended directly from the ancient leaders of Rome.”

  The old man shoved aside the newspaper. “You are blind, my lord. The honest common Englishmen have no patience for murderers and tyrants, and your vain, insulting scribbles will only serve to show them the evil of the Fortunari. ‘The fools and rabble in the streets/Are the wickedest tyrants o’er true nobility.’ Ahh, I should be thanking you for that, my lord, considering how many here will join our side because of it.”