The Stolen Princess

by Anne Gracie

  “But tell me, Princess.” Tall, elegant Rafe Ramsey turned to Callie. “Do you always wear that tiara?”

  Callie’s hands flew up to the tiara. She’d forgotten she was wearing it. She smiled sheepishly, feeling rather foolish. “No, I know it looks silly. It’s just…It was my mother’s…I wore it to make me feel brave.”

  She half expected them to laugh, but instead, Rafe Ramsey simply nodded. “I wondered if that was it.”

  “Like a uniform,” Luke Ripton added. “Or a flag.”

  Their acceptance surprised her. They’d all been soldiers. She would have thought that soldiers would be scornful of such stratagems.

  And then she remembered the sword. “Where did you get that sword?” she asked Nicky. She turned to the others and explained. “One minute he was clutching a black walking stick and the next he was charging down the stairs with a sword in his hand.”

  “The sword was in the stick,” Nicky told her. “I twisted the handle and suddenly it came off in my hand and there was a sword inside the stick.”

  “Great-Aunt Gert’s sword stick,” Gabriel and Harry said at the same time.

  Callie’s jaw dropped. “Your great-aunt carried a sword stick?”

  Gabriel gave a reminiscent smile. “Never went anywhere without it. She was a most redoubtable old lady. As far as I know she never actually used the blade on anyone, but the stick put paid to a highwayman, once. The fellow was a bit cocky, imagining he was dealing with a frail old lady, until the frail old lady whacked him hard over the head and knocked him cold.”

  Everyone laughed. He lifted his glass. “To Great-Aunt Gert and her trusty sword stick.” They all drank.

  “Are we still going to London, Mama?” Nicky asked as they drained their glasses.

  Callie glanced quickly at Gabriel.

  “Not today, Nicky,” he said. “We’ll wait and see if Count Anton has any more tricks up his sleeve. He has a habit of setting fire to places, so I’ll post a watch and we’ll see. I had a word to Sir Walter about the count’s activities and he was going to question him. It seems the large white yacht we saw anchored in Lulworth Cove belongs to Count Anton.”

  “And if Count Anton doesn’t come?” Nicky persisted.

  Gabriel looked at Callie. “It’s up to your mother. Whatever she wants.”

  She did not meet his eyes. Whatever she wants. It was what he’d said earlier, over the sword: For you, I’d do anything. Just say the word.

  The way he said it sounded like a promise, an oath.

  She didn’t want to think about it. Refused to think about it. She was older now and wiser, and she knew better than to believe noble-sounding words. Or actions. But gallantry was second nature to the man. Some men were like that.

  She couldn’t stay here. She was, after all, an uninvited guest, even though he’d made her more than welcome. It was time she began her own new life. Running was only a short-term solution. She had to work out something more lasting, more durable.

  In the meantime she would arrange protection for Nicky—indeed, Mr. Renfrew already had. What could be better protection than four tall former soldiers—five counting Mr. Delaney.

  And London? She wasn’t sure what she’d do with her life yet, but she had definite plans for London.

  “Yes, Nicky, we shall go to London,” she decided. “Tibby and I need to go shopping.”

  “All of us?” Nicky said. “Jim, too?”

  Callie hesitated. Gabriel intervened. “I need to have a word with Jim in private, first. Jim?” He waved a hand toward the door, and with visible trepidation Jim went.

  “Now, Jim, I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with us,” Gabe said once he had taken Jim into the library.

  Jim sat on a chair opposite him looking small and skinny and scared. The livid mark of the count’s whip bisected his swollen face. It gleamed with Mrs. Barrow’s ointment. His head was hunched defensively into his shoulders. His ears stuck out, made larger-seeming by his severe haircut, and somehow adding to the look of vulnerability. He said nothing.

  Gabe said gently, “You told us your father had only been gone for a week or two.”

  Jim nodded, then swallowed, the action painfully visible in his scrawny neck.

  “Mrs. Barrow got Barrow to ask around,” Gabe said. “Nobody has seen your father for at least six or eight weeks.”

  “You’re not goin’ to put me on the parish as an orphan, are ya, sir? Coz if you are, I won’t go. I’ll run away.” Jim looked around the room desperately and tensed, as if preparing to flee.

  “No, we won’t put you on the parish,” Gabe assured him.

  Jim’s eyes fixed on Gabe’s. “You promise?”

  “I promise. But you must tell me the truth.”

  Jim searched his face with painful intensity. He seemed to find reassurance in Gabe’s expression, for the tension drained from his body. “Me dad’s been gone more’n two months. I reckon he’s dead. He ain’t never left me for that long afore—never for longer’n a week.” He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  Gabe passed him a handkerchief. Jim thanked him, folded it, and put the handkerchief carefully in his pocket, untouched.

  “I’ll take care of you in the future, Jim, if you agree. But I will have the truth from you at all times.”

  The boy looked at him warily. “What would you want me to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gabe said. “For the moment, I want you to keep young Nicky company.”

  Jim frowned. “You mean look after him coz bastards like that slimy yeller count are after him?”

  Gabe smiled. “Something of the sort. I want you to keep him company. You’ll have to do lessons with Miss Tibby when Nicky does. And you’ll have to do whatever Mrs. Barrow tells you. And when we all go to London in a day or two, we might take you with us. If you agree.”

  Jim’s eyes bulged. “To London? You’re not joking me are you, sir?”

  “No joke, Jim.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up. “I’ll go to London, all right! And I’ll look after Nicky and do lessons and I’ll be as good as gold, sir, just you wait!”

  Gabe laughed. “Good. Now, I think we should probably have a memorial service for your father, don’t you?”

  Jim frowned. “You mean like in a church?”

  Gabe nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Me dad hated churches and preachers, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, sir. I don’t want no church service for him.” He looked at Gabe with an anguished expression. “If you want to change your mind about keepin’ me, sir, I’ll understand, but…I couldn’t let me dad down on this. He was a good dad.” He sniffed again, and again used his sleeve.

  Gabe was touched. He ruffled Jim’s spiky hair. “No, you’re quite right to respect your father’s wishes. But I think you should do something to say good-bye him. What do you think he’d like us to do?”

  They all gathered at the beach next to Jim’s cottage that evening at dusk. Mrs. Barrow had prepared a good spread of baked meats and funeral fare. Barrow had spread the word and about twenty of Jim’s father’s friends came. They seemed to know what Jim’s father would wish.

  They lit a fire on the beach. They carried beach stones to the top of the cliff and built a cairn looking out to sea. Then, down on the beach, they dragged out a battered dinghy, ancient and unseaworthy, with a large gash in its side. The fishermen repaired it roughly, hammering planks over the hole and plastering it with hot tar to make it temporarily seaworthy.

  From the cottage, Jim brought out a number of items. He distributed his father’s things among the fishermen; his clothes, his tools, various bits and pieces from a man’s life.

  There was pitifully little.

  He gave something to everyone. To Callie he gave a beautiful stone, with a fern fossilized in it. To Tibby he gave one containing an exquisite shell.

  Jim’s father had been a carver of some talent, for there were some fine pieces of scrimshaw. He gave a whale’s t
ooth with a sea monster carved on it to Nicky.

  “Don’t show this to Mrs. B.,” Jim whispered to Barrow as he handed him a knife with a bone handle to Barrow. Barrow glanced at the knife and winked. The handle had a scandalous carving of a mermaid on it.

  To Mrs. Barrow Jim gave a lovely necklace of polished green sea glass. “It was me mum’s,” he mumbled and quickly turned away. Mrs. Barrow wiped tears from her eyes.

  To Gabe he presented another knife with a whalebone handle. Lastly he presented Ethan with a small wooden box. Ethan opened it and his eyes widened. It contained a fine whalebone chess set. “You should keep this, lad,” he said.

  Jim shook his head. “I can’t play chess. I want you to have it.”

  Ethan touched the boy on the shoulder as he turned away. “I’ll keep it for you until you can beat me at chess,” he told Jim. Jim gave him a shy grin and went back to his duties.

  After his father’s main possessions had been given away, Jim placed the rest in the old boat. “Now fill it with driftwood,” he ordered, and they all gathered wood until the boat was full. Under his orders, they pushed the old boat into the sea until it floated. Then Jim took a burning brand from the fire and turned to face the assembly.

  “Me da never did hold wi’ churches, as most o’ you know,” he said. “But he told me a story once about people called Vikings and how they done funerals. He told me he reckoned it would be a grand way to go. So, Da, this is for you.”

  He tossed the brand into the boat and the driftwood caught fire and blazed up.

  “Push!” he ordered, and the burning boat floated out to sea. They watched in silence, then one of the fishermen produced a fiddle. He started to play a slow, haunting tune, and after a moment a woman started to sing:

  Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,

  Blow the wind south o’er the bonny blue sea;

  Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,

  Blow bonny breeze, my lover to me.

  They told me last night there were ships in the offing,

  And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea;

  But my eye could not see it

  Wherever might be it,

  The bark that is bearing my lover to me.

  “’Twas his mam’s favorite song,” Mrs. Barrow sobbed to Callie.

  Rafe, Harry, and Luke stood to one side, watching.

  “That boy will make a fine man one day,” Rafe commented.

  Harry turned to look at Jim. “He already is.”

  Twelve

  Sir Walter sent word early the next morning that the count’s yacht had sailed during the night, so a short time later they set off for London. They took two vehicles; Gabriel drove his curricle and Ethan drove a traveling chaise that had belonged to Great-aunt Gert. The other gentlemen rode.

  Since no one was in a particular hurry, they took their own horses and completed the journey in a number of easy stages, stopping from time to time to stretch their legs and rest the horses. They also swapped around. From time to time Gabriel would take one of his friends up in the curricle, or they would drive and he would ride, or one of them would join Callie, Nicky, Jim, and Tibby in the chaise.

  “It’s rather fun, isn’t it?” Callie commented to Tibby, “All this swapping around.”

  “Yes, and to have such dashing escorts,” Tibby agreed. “Such a magnificent collection of men—it quite makes my heart flutter. They really are all extraordinarily handsome, don’t you think?”

  Callie smiled. “Yes, indeed.” The chaise took a bend and she caught a glimpse of Nicky, sitting with Jim and Gabriel having a driving lesson.

  Tibby followed the direction of her gaze. “He’s kind, isn’t he? The boys worship him.”

  “Mmm. I’m looking forward to our picnic in the New Forest,” Callie said brightly. “I’ve never seen so much food.” She didn’t want to talk about Gabriel’s kindness. Kindness was more dangerous than handsomeness.

  Tibby looked at her. “I must say, Count Anton was not at all as I’d expected him to be.”

  “I know. That’s the trouble. He seems too good-looking to be so evil. It makes people unwilling to believe the worst of him.”

  “Is there much family resemblance between him and your husband?”

  Callie nodded. “Rupert’s eyes were exactly the same as Count Anton’s—that pale ice-gray color. Rupert’s hair was darker golden in coloring and he was taller and broader: a big, handsome golden bull.”

  “Rupert sounds quite attractive.” Tibby made it a gentle query.

  “Yes, he was. Very.”

  “I was so worried about you. You were so young, so sheltered, and the prince so much older. It was the time I most regretted being poor; not able to afford to travel with you to be at your wedding. You must have felt so alone.”

  Callie stared out the window at the passing scenery. “You needn’t have worried, Tibby. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life.”

  “Oh, my dear, I am so glad.”

  “I fell madly in love with Rupert, if not at first sight—as you said, I was very shy and naive—but in the weeks before the wedding. He courted me, showered me with jewels and expensive gifts.” Most of them were now sewn into her petticoat. She could not regret them, at least. They would give her and Nicky a new life.

  “Rupert was charming and attentive and gallant.” She sighed, remembering. She’d been almost dizzy with the excitement of it all, the constant attention paid to her by such a magnificent golden creature. He was forty, but she hadn’t thought of him as old, just glamorous and sophisticated. Godlike.

  “It was like being Cinderella. Every day we’d go out driving in the streets of the city and he’d give me flowers and the people would wave and cheer and he would put his arm around me and kiss me, and oh, Tibby, it was like everything we’d ever talked about, everything I’d ever dreamed of. He was Galahad and Young Lochinvar and—well, you know what I mean—so romantic.”

  “My dear girl, I am happy to know it. You have no idea what torments I suffered when your father took you away. To be married to a man so much your elder, I felt sure it could not be a happy union.”

  Callie fell silent and looked out the window.

  After several moments Tibby ventured, “It was, wasn’t it? If he was everything you’d ever dreamed of…”

  “No. It wasn’t. I was playing make-believe.”

  “Oh.”

  “I learned later he didn’t love me at all. He’d never loved me. He didn’t even like me much. It was all for show, and because he was so handsome and charming and he was so experienced and I was just a stupid, dreamy, romantic, gullible child—” She broke off, the familiar, bitter taste of shame welling up in her throat.

  Tibby placed her hand over Callie’s. “I’m sorry, my dear, so sorry.”

  Callie shook her head and tried to smile. “It’s all a long time ago now. I was another person then.” She was relieved that Tibby hadn’t asked how she’d come to discover that Rupert didn’t love her. Not even to Tibby could she reveal that. It might be a long time ago, but some scars went deep. They could still cause pain.

  “You are still young,” Tibby began. “You could try again—”

  “No! I couldn’t bear it!” She took a steadying breath and said in a light tone, “I won’t ever make the mistake of marrying again. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to directing my own life, choosing what I do or wear or eat or read. I won’t give up my independence for anything.” She gave Tibby a bright smile.

  Tibby, undeceived, said nothing, only squeezed Callie’s hand.

  Callie gazed out the window, forcing composure to return. She would not cry. She had wasted a lifetime of tears on Rupert.

  Never again. Not on Rupert, not on any man.

  Not even a kind one.

  She caught a glimpse of the curricle up ahead. Rupert had been kind to animals and children, too. The way he treated Nicky was not a matter of unkindness—just insensitivity. He was ha
rd on Nicky for Nicky’s sake. He thought it the right thing to do.

  The cruelty had lain in Rupert’s inability to hide his disappointment in his son.

  Not to mention his wife.

  They entered the New Forest. It was quieter in the forest, the woods green and lush with new growth. The trees were less dense than she expected. There were even large patches of open space in which wild ponies grazed.

  In Zindaria, the forest was darker, denser. Rupert’s hunting lodge was deep in the forest. She’d only been there the once.

  The worst mistake of her life.

  He used to go to his hunting lodge often, almost every week. Sometimes for just a night or two, sometimes for longer. It depended, he’d said, on the game.

  She’d thought he meant animals.

  Women weren’t allowed, he said. In those days she couldn’t bear to be parted from him. She missed him with an ache that was almost physical.

  He’d been gone a week and was expected to stay another week.

  But at the beginning of the second week she’d been given some wonderful news. Her courses were normally as regular as clockwork and she was two weeks overdue. Her breasts were tender and a little swollen. And three mornings in a row she’d woken up feeling nauseous.

  She thought she was ill, but her maid had become all excited when she’d been nauseous in the morning. She’d questioned Callie closely, then fetched the palace physician.

  Callie remembered the joy she’d felt when she’d learned she was going to have a baby.

  She was so excited she couldn’t wait for Rupert to come home. He was desperate for a son, she knew. She’d ordered the carriage and had driven into the forest, to his hunting lodge.

  She remembered every moment of that drive. It was spring, too, with new growth bursting all around her. There were snowy wee lambs with long, waggly tails, lanky, delicate foals hovering at their mother’s side. In the forest she’d even caught a glimpse of a doe nuzzling a shy, leggy faun. The sight had brought her almost to tears.

  She’d felt joyously at one with this new precious world, fertile, bounteous, successful: she was going to be a mother.