Miranda Jarrett

by Princess of Fortune

  “Poor Bella,” he said sheepishly. “Each place I bring you to is farther and farther from the palace where you belong.”

  “Not any longer, I do not.” She dropped heavily into an ancient armchair, letting her head drop back against the cushions. Her hair was trailing down, unpinned and tangled from the wind, and her skirts blotched by the river water. Earlier she had dozed in the boat, her cheek resting on his shoulder, but now her face was pale, and he didn’t need to see the dark circles beneath her eyes to know she must be exhausted. “So this, then, is how the sons of grand English earls live in the country?”

  “Only when they wish to be free from their English countesses for a fortnight or so.” He braced his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned down to kiss her. “Family lore says my great-grandfather acquired Willow Run at the gaming table. The lore likewise says my great-grandmother believed my great-grandfather must have held the losing hand, to be saddled with such a monstrosity.”

  “It’s not a monstrosity,” protested Isabella mildly, making the effort to arch up the tiniest amount for that kiss. “It’s not a palace, no, but it is not a monstrosity, either.”

  “That was a quotation, not my opinion. I have only the fondest memories of this place. My grandfather, and then my father, would bring us boys here to fish in the river and muck about on the pond, and generally do whatever we pleased.”

  She smiled up at him wearily, her hands dangling limp over the arms of the chair. “Is that why you have brought me here, Tomaso? To do what you please?”

  “Only because what pleases you, pleases me.” He kissed her again, striving to please them both.

  “I am pleased.” She made a happy, purring sound. “And I feel safe here, Tomaso, for the first time since I left Monteverde. I’m not sure why, but I do.”

  “So do I.” He did, too. There was something about how the cottage had settled into the landscape over the past two hundred years or so, the oak trees and honeysuckle vines growing over it as the corners of the beams and bricks softened, that gave the old house a sense of permanence, and also a sense of sanctuary. Not even the chimneys were visible from the road, and a visitor had to know where to look to find the path to the door. In another generation or so, Willow Run would be overtaken by London’s voracious expansion, and become no more than another old house squeezed among the new terraces, but now—now it belonged to them.

  “Safe or not, you must be famished,” he said. “What would you like for your breakfast, Your Royal Highness?”

  Her smile turned bittersweet. “Let me be only your Bella while I’m here, Tomaso. And thank you, no, I’m not hungry, not at all.”

  He stood up, concern on his face. “I’ve everything you could possibly want in that basket, lass. I paid dearly for the privilege, too, having the Roebuck’s cook stop her other work to pack it for us.”

  “I’m sorry, Tomaso.” To his surprise, her dark eyes suddenly turned watery with tears, and she bowed her head. “I’m sorry you had to pay for the food, and hire the boat, and go back to Berkeley Square, and have people fire guns at you for no reason, and—and I’m so very sorry for everything.”

  “Oh, Bella.” He crouched beside the chair so their faces were level, and brushed back the tangle of curls from her cheek. “What kind of nonsense is this, I ask you?”

  “It’s not nonsense. Tomaso. It’s the truth.” She snuffled, trying to keep back the tears. He passed her his handkerchief, and she took it reluctantly, dabbing daintily at the corners of her eyes instead of her nose, where it was needed.

  “You see how it is,” she continued, “even now with your—your handkerchief. You are always thinking of how to look after me, how to please me, and yet what have I given you in return?”

  “I’m not keeping tallies, Bella,” he said as patiently as he could, which was, under the circumstances, surpassingly, amazingly patient. “I love you, and you love me, and that’s reason enough, isn’t it?”

  “But how can that be, Tomaso?” The tears clung in her lashes like dewdrops, her voice wobbling unsteadily with every word. “When I think of the risks I’ve put you through, the dangers you have faced because of my foolishness and—and ineptitude—oh, love, if anything had happened, if anything does happen, I will never, never be able to forgive myself for it!”

  “Listen to yourself, sweetheart.” Gently he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Listen to how you’ve changed. You’re scarcely the same princess that I first met, charging into Lady Willoughby’s drawing room with all guns blazing.”

  “Do not tease me, Tomaso.” She sniffed, squeezing the handkerchief into a soggy ball below her very red nose. “I am so the same. Who else could I be?”

  “When I first met you, you would have shown no more concern for me than if I were a drop of water in the Thames. All you could consider was how greatly the world—particularly the English world—had misunderstood and abused and ignored you, and how much we all owed you by way of compensation.”

  “I did nothing of the sort!”

  “You did,” he declared. “Consider that boatman with the wherry. When I first met you, you would never have asked him for his silence, pretty as you please. You would have threatened him with the darkest Monteverdian prison plus drawing and quartering if he didn’t obey you at once.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, a flash of that old haughtiness returning. “You make me sound as if I’ve become a weak and spineless little creature, fit for little beyond mewling and fawning and groveling in the chimney corner.”

  “What you’ve become is less Fortunaro, and more Bella.” With her hands in his, he raised her gently from the chair to her feet. “You’ve stopped behaving as if the sun and moon and all the stars above must rise and set around your charming small person.”

  “That is because I’ve learned they don’t.” The sadness in her voice as she looked up at him was genuine, as was the regret. “It has been a vastly humbling experience, Tomaso, to be forced to realize I am no longer the center of anything.”

  “You are for me,” he said gruffly, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Other times when he’d tried to tell her how he felt, how much she meant to him, she’d been less than encouraging. She hadn’t exactly rebuffed him—she was, after all, still here with him—but she hadn’t let him talk about any kind of lasting future together, either. “The center of things for me, I mean.”

  “Tomaso.” She smiled up at him through her tears, her nose red and her expression soft and muddled and impossibly dear to him. “No wonder I love you so much.”

  “As you should.” This was a better response than he’d hoped, encouraging enough that he slipped his hands around her waist to pull her close. She always liked that; there was never any rebuffing when it came to kissing. “Seeing as I love you, too.”

  “What a keen eye you have, Tomaso,” she murmured. “You don’t even need a spyglass, do you?”

  “I never have,” he said. “And what I can see now is that you need to rest. You’ve two rooms to choose from, you know, though you can go up the ladder if that’s your fancy.”

  But as soon as he slid his hands from her waist along her hips, she abruptly pulled away and turned her back to him, as if she suddenly could not bear that familiar touch from him. Just when he thought he truly knew her, her moods would shift like this, leaving him behind in a fog of confusion.

  “What the devil is the matter now, Bella? What have I done?”

  “Nothing, Tomaso.” She was running her hands restlessly up and down her skirts, almost mimicking what he’d wanted to do. “Nothing at all.”

  “Then what in blazes am I—”

  “No.” She turned back to face him, those same skirts fanning stiffly out around her. The coarse linsey-woolsey gown that she’d borrowed from the servant didn’t float over her body and legs the way her usual silk and muslin ones did. Instead this gown hung heavily, the thick folds ungainly and ungraceful, and he resolved that when this was done, he’d make sure s
he’d never have to hide herself away in clothing like this again.

  “We—we must talk,” she said haltingly. “We cannot put it off any longer. We must talk.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. “Talk? Bella, what have we been doing all this time if not talking?”

  “But not like this,” she said unhappily. “Oh, Tomaso, though I do not wish it, I must at last tell you the truth.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The truth?” Tom looked at her warily, so obviously bracing himself for the worst that Isabella’s resolve almost failed. “What are you trying to tell me, Bella?”

  How could she explain how dishonest she’d been without hurting him? Where, really, could she begin? “I never willfully planned to deceive you, Tomaso. Please, please, understand that. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”

  “Your secret.”

  All the expression was vanishing from his face, replaced by a flat, blank dread that made her feel sick to her stomach.

  “Damnation, Bella, you’re not married, are you?”

  “Oh, no, no,” she said quickly. There wasn’t any going back now. “You are the only one I love, Tomaso, my first and only lover.”

  “Thank God for that much. So what in blazes is—”

  “This.” She shoved aside the skirt of her gown to untie the petticoat, her fingers fumbling with nervousness as she unknotted the strings. The weighted linen fell to the floor with a muted clunk. She stepped free of the puddled petticoat and swept it up in her arms, spreading it out onto the table. She took a kitchen knife from the table’s drawer, and before she could change her mind, she began slicing into the fabric, carefully slashing a slit into the first stitched pocket. She gave the pocket a little shake, and one of the rubies slipped into her hand.

  “There.” She held the gem up to the light for him to see, the intaglio lion sparkling through the facets like red fire. “My first secret, and oh, there are so many more here to follow!”

  He whistled low, impressed. “A ruby? You have been carrying rubies in your petticoat?”

  “Not ordinary rubies,” she said, pride still creeping into her voice despite everything else. “These are the Fortunaro rubies, the royal jewels. They have been in my family since my ancestors carried them off from the emperor of Rome.”

  “Looted them, you mean.” Tom touched the petticoat, noting all the little bulges and bumps there were to mark the stones hidden inside. “They belong in the Tower for safekeeping, not in your linen. How many of these are there, lass?”

  “There are sixteen lion rubies,” she said, slipping the stone into her palm and covering it protectively with her other hand. “Then there are some lesser gems, too, still priceless, but without the same history, as well as the Fortunaro gold coins, minted from heathen gold brought back hundreds of years ago from the Holy Lands.”

  He lifted the hem of the petticoat from the table, gauging its weight. “You brought all this with you on the ship from Monteverde? And no one else knew?”

  “Only Mama,” Isabella said quickly. She couldn’t judge his mood, or his reaction, either, which unsettled her even more. “It was her idea. She said no one would think to look at me for the jewels, nor would they dare attack an English warship, with so many men and guns.”

  “Oh, they would have if they’d known.” His face was turned from her, his voice oddly impassive, as if they were speaking only of what to have for tea or supper. “English warships are attacked with considerably less provocation than a princess with a ransom in jewels tucked under her skirts. But I still cannot believe this of you, Isabella.”

  “I had no choice, Tomaso,” she said as firmly as she could. The gem in her closed hand felt cool and hard against her fingers. “These are the most important symbols of power the Fortunari have left. They could never be allowed to go to the French, or to the Trinita, either. That was the reason I came here instead of staying with my family in Monteverde, and I owed it to them to do what was right.”

  “You did,” he said softly. “But what did you owe me, Bella?”

  “That is why I am telling you—showing you!—now,” she said, her words tumbling over one another in nervous haste. “After what we have survived together, it only seemed—”

  “You should have told me before this,” he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness. “Perhaps not in the beginning, when you didn’t know whether to trust me or not, but damnation, Bella, I thought by now I meant more to you!”

  “You do,” she said, wondering how she could ever explain what she’d done so he’d understand. “But it’s more than that, Tomaso. It’s my family, and I’d sworn to Mama that I wouldn’t tell anyone, not even—”

  “Not even me.” He shook his head, struggling to hold back the full force of his temper. “Didn’t you realize that your little secret increased the danger a hundredfold? Not just to yourself, but to the Willoughbys and their staff and Lady Allen and her guests, even the prince? Hell, you put every innocent person within ten feet of you at risk because you’d sworn not to tell.”

  “You are being ridiculous.” She raised her chin defiantly, her own anger simmering now that he insisted on being so—so pigheaded. How could he not see that by confiding in him, she’d made as great a sacrifice as he had when he’d passed on a new command? “I was the one they hunted, because I am the Princess di Fortunaro!”

  “I’ll grant you were a pretty prize for the taking, Bella, but this is what they really wanted, and what they’d kill us all to get.”

  Before she could stop him, he caught the hem of the petticoat and whipped it to the floor, scattering gold coins across the old flagstones. With a little cry she dropped to her knees, scrambling to gather up the rolling coins in her hands.

  “So that is how you truly are, even now,” Tom said, looking down on her. “Always the treasure first.”

  “That’s not true, Tomaso,” she said furiously, “not at all!”

  “But it is,” he continued, so relentless she couldn’t mistake how much she’d hurt him. “So many things make sense now. Now I understand why you were so distraught when your bedchamber was ransacked, why your first concern was for jewels. Why the devil would you give a damn about your tiaras when you had these to fuss over? And now I can see why we had to return to Berkeley Square last night, even though we were nearly shot for our trouble.”

  She flushed. “You make it sound as if I’d planned it all.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “Not even you could have done that. Oh, and the river, too. No wonder you were so afraid to fall in. If you had, you would have sunk to the bottom like you’d an anchor tied to your legs, wouldn’t you? An anchor of cursed gold.”

  “So then why do you think I told you now?” She sat back on her heels, the coins in her lap, and shoved her hair back from her face. She could not believe he was saying such things to her now, and she could feel her temper rising in defense. “If you are so clever, then tell me why!”

  “What, you want me to say that, too?” He shook his head, his expression growing darker by the moment. “Then I will, Bella—no, Your Royal Highness. You’ll forget this little sojourn in England ever happened, and you’ll forget me.”

  “I will not!” she cried, her outrage spilling over. “I will not, Tomaso!

  “And I say you will,” he said, unconvinced. “Look at you. You’ll take your coins and your baubles that mean so much to your wicked old family, and you will return to Monteverde, and pretend that nothing has changed—not in your country, not in your life, not in your heart. If you have one, that is.”

  “Whatever became of our life together? Each day, each night?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it was never there to begin with.”

  “And I say it’s there still, if you will stop being so cold and reasoning and English, and admit what your heart is saying to you.” She scrambled to her feet, flinging the coins that she’d gathered to the floor as she seized his hands. “I told you my secret and broke the trust of my family beca
use I love you, Tomaso! I love you, and you love me, and you are a fool if you refuse to believe it!”

  His fingers grasped her hands, jerking her closer. “Then prove it,” he said. “Stay in England, and marry me.”

  She gasped, too stunned to answer. Not even in her most fanciful daydreams had she let herself consider such a possibility. She didn’t dare. The Fortunaro bloodlines must always be considered first. All her life she’d been trained to think of marriage as duty, as politics, as a way to cement her family’s power. Her parents would be horrified by even the idea of an English husband so far beneath her. To marry for love was unthinkable.

  Until now.

  She searched his face, searching for the words to tell him how she felt. His jaw was dark with stubble, his blue eyes were weary, and the rough, ill-fitting servant’s clothes he’d borrowed were far from his usual Navy perfection, but he had never looked more handsome or more dear to her. She pulled her hands free of his, turning away as she struggled to think. He was asking her to give up everything about her past and her life for him, a past and a life that already might well be lost to her forever.

  But in return he was offering her his hand, his heart, his name. She would forever be his wife, his Bella, Lady Thomas Greaves instead of Her Royal Highness, and be done with palaces and intrigues and tiaras and rubies sewn into her petticoat. Their children—their children!—would be free to climb the trees and play in the stream outside this cottage, free to shout and get dirty and do whatever they pleased instead of being model princes and princesses.

  And she could marry the man she loved, and be happier than she’d ever dreamed possible.

  “Marry me, Bella,” he said again, his voice a hoarse, urgent whisper in her ear. “Be my wife. I’m calling your bluff, lass, and you damned well better say yes.”

  “Why should I?” she said, clinging to the last bit of her anger as she turned to face him again. “Because you order it? Because you say I must?”