The Barefoot Princess

by Christina Dodd

  She glanced up the stairs where the soft hush of a lady’s skirt and the gentle patter of a lady’s slippers could be heard. “I think that’s Miss Victorine now with your breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  “Do you expect me to sit here like a bloody fool and eat a meal?”

  “You’ll always be a bloody fool, there’s nothing to be done about that, and I don’t care if you starve to death.” Moving to the bottom of the stairway, she took the tray from Miss Victorine’s hands. “But right now you have to maintain a modicum of health or we won’t get our money.”

  Until Miss Victorine walked into the circle of light cast by the lantern, he hadn’t believed it possible she would take part in such a nefarious scheme.

  She looked older, he saw. A lot older. Worry wrinkles cut deeply into her forehead and her soft hair had turned completely white. Her chubby cheeks sagged and her brown eyes looked tired. She no longer cared for her clothing; in fact, he thought he recognized the shabby dress she wore as one she’d worn when he’d visited as a boy. Her plump bosom and her stiff gait put him in mind of a puff pigeon, and he couldn’t believe, he just couldn’t believe…

  With a thump, that dreadful young female put the tray down on the far end of the long table. The other end sat close to his cot, and she pushed the tray toward him until it was within his reach, but she remained far enough away that he couldn’t grab her and shake her as she so richly deserved.

  It had to be this wench who had influenced—no, blackmailed—Miss Victorine into doing this. Miss Victorine was a proper English lady. For heaven’s sake, she was fond of him!

  “Miss Victorine, you need to release me.” He spoke slowly and loudly, fearing she had lost her hearing.

  “No, dear boy, I can’t do that. Not until we get our money. But I’m so glad to have you here and have a chance to talk with you once more.” She definitely wasn’t deaf, but she had obviously descended into senility, for she clasped her hands together and smiled fondly, as if she spoke exquisite sense.

  “What money?” he asked.

  “The ransom money. Now don’t worry. We’ve already sent a message to your uncle Harrison, telling him that we’ll kill you if he doesn’t pay.”

  That contemptible girl perched one hip on the long, scarred, oak table and grinned at him.

  He knew why. The expression on his face must have been priceless. “Kill me?” Jermyn could scarcely articulate his horror and disbelief. “You’re going to kill me?”

  “Of course not, dear!” As if he were the crazed one, Miss Victorine frowned reprovingly at him. “We won’t have to go that far. I’m sure he’ll send the funds right away and you’ll be out of here in no time.”

  “You’ve kidnapped me. You’ve ransomed me.” Jermyn counted the facts off on his fingers. “And you expect Uncle Harrison to pay for my safe return?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “We wouldn’t have had to do it if you hadn’t stolen my beading machine. Beaded lace is so popular now. Why, I’ll wager you can’t walk down a London street without seeing ladies carrying beaded reticules and beaded lace cuffs and beaded bodices.”

  “Yes, beaded lace is all the rage.” The silly colorful glass beads caught on a man’s buttons. Miss Mistlewit had shrieked in his ear when he jerked free of her embrace and miniature beads had scattered all over the garden path, and he’d been lucky to escape without being forced to propose to the lovely, silly debutante.

  “Because I worked out a machine to make the lace and place the beads. It was my idea, my invention, and you took it.” Miss Victorine clicked her tongue. “That was not well done. You have a fabulous fortune already, and the village is in need. If you’re not going to care for them, surely you see that they should be allowed to do more than eke out a living.” Her old voice quavered as she made her appeal, and her faded eyes peered at him reproachfully. “I hate to be stern, but I must tell you, your father would have never allowed such a shambles to occur.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. She wasn’t making any sense at all.

  “Of course not.” The girl stood up straight, and she had the gall to look disgusted. “You probably steal so many inventions you can’t remember what you’ve done, and gloat when you think of a dear little lady living in a tumbled-down cottage with only gruel to eat unless her neighbors bring her a fish.”

  Damme, she was an insolent twit! He straightened up to shout—but although Miss Victorine’s voice was as soft as ever, it held a snap that stopped the words in his throat.

  “Now dears, you mustn’t fight.” She turned on the girl. “Amy, I will not have you parading my misfortunes as if I were a pitiful old woman. I am not. I have my own roof over my head, and that’s more than most spinsters possess.”

  Amy—that miserable creature’s name was Amy—said, “It’s really his. He could toss you out in an instant, and as fast as it’s disintegrating, that would be a blessing!”

  “That’s enough,” Miss Victorine said with crushing certainty.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Amy subsided.

  And as if he were eleven years old, Jermyn found himself gloating at the girl. He was half surprised he didn’t stick out his tongue.

  “As for you, young man—”

  At Miss Victorine’s tone, he snapped to attention.

  “Eat your breakfast.” In Miss Victorine’s smile he saw an echo of the dear lady she used to be. “I made you my scones, and they’re the best in England. Do you remember?”

  “I do.” Although he would have liked to arrogantly refuse, he hadn’t had dinner the night before, and his stomach rumbled at the smells seeping toward him from the tray.

  That girl, that Amy, knew it, too. She smiled in that catty smirking way and watched as he lifted the cover. “Yes, eat, my lord. I would hate to see you miss a meal.”

  “Amy!” Miss Victorine sounded as stern as a governess. “Mayhap it would be better if you went upstairs and rested. You’ve been up all night and you seem to be irritable.”

  It was clear Amy wanted to object, but she muttered, “Yes, ma’am.” She shot him a poisoned glare that promised retribution if he tried anything.

  And he knew just what to say to put her back up. “When you come back, bring me hot water and a razor. I need to shave.”

  She gave him a glare that would have made Queen Charlotte of England proud. “We’ve already discussed it. Once a day, you’ll have a basin of water for shaving and bathing.”

  “How generous of you,” he drawled sarcastically.

  “It’s more than most prisoners have, my lord.” Then she ascended the stairs.

  He found himself watching her, admiring the shape of her backside. Best of all, he didn’t need to be discreet about it. She didn’t deserve sensitivity or any of the niceties owed a lady. She didn’t deserve anything but a gaol and a rope tied into a noose.

  He intended to make sure she got it.

  “Isn’t she a darling girl?” Miss Victorine clasped her hands at her bosom and watched with every evidence of affection as Amy disappeared. Seating herself in the rocking chair, she added, “She’s foreign, you know.”

  “That explains a lot.” He wrestled the heavy table toward him and without pride, dug into the eggs, the fruit compote, the fish pie. The scones were as delicious as Miss Victorine promised, as delicious as he remembered, and he ate three in a row. He picked up the knife to cut the sausage…he looked at the knife. It was old and thin from much whetting…and it was sharp. Very sharp, with a lovely point.

  With a glance at the oblivious Miss Victorine, he slipped it up his sleeve.

  “Yes, dear Amy came from a lovely country called Beaumontagne. It’s very rugged there. The winters are dreadful, but the summers are glorious. The forests are absolutely deep and green, with evergreens and oaks and so many birds.” Miss Victorine rocked and smiled, not at him, but at some crazed illusion in her mind.

  “How do you know about this co
untry?” Which Jermyn vaguely recalled from lessons that demanded he learn the location of every country in Europe.

  “In my youth, I visited there. My father was quite the traveler, and after my brothers married and I…well, when it was clear I would remain single, my father planned to take me to the great places of the world.” She picked up a ball of twine and a small hand shuttle.

  The shuttle was about the length of his palm, about the width of his finger, and was made of ivory worn thin from heavy use. On one end sat a sharp point that Jermyn remembered only too well, for when he was seven he stuck it in the skin between his thumb and finger. It had hurt like Hades and left a scar he still carried.

  She shook out the tiny scrap of lace. “Only Father didn’t make it very far. We were gone less than a year when he contracted a fever and died. That was a long time ago, but I lived in Beaumontagne for six months afterward, waiting for the winter to break so I could come home.” Her gaze shifted to him, and for a lunatic she looked remarkably cogent. “Here I’ve been ever since. Do you know where Beaumontagne is, my lord?”

  “I have an idea. It’s in the Pyrenees on the border between Spain and France.” It wasn’t easy to eat with the knife in his sleeve, but he speared the sausage with his fork and ate bites off it. After all, why should he worry about manners? He had a manacle around his ankle.

  “Your geography has not been as sadly neglected as I feared.” Miss Victorine began the painstaking task of making beaded lace.

  As his appetite was met, Jermyn watched her, remembering the sound of the point across the twine, the sight of her veined and spotted hands. Now her little finger crooked in at a painful angle and the skin looked thin and parched, but she still created her beadwork without looking at her efforts.

  The thin stream of lace grew as slowly as ice melting.

  “I warned your father you needed to know more than how to dance and which goblet to use.” She smiled fondly at him.

  Jermyn’s education had been considerably broader than that, but he asked curiously, “Did you? And what did Father say?”

  “He said if you knew your place in England, that was enough for any marquess of Northcliff.” She shook her head in disillusionment. “If your father had one fault, it was an overabundance of pride.”

  “I would not say an overabundance,” Jermyn said stiffly. His father had been proud, but gracious to his tenants. He knew every man’s name who worked his estates, and personally oversaw the giving of gifts on Twelfth Night. Duties Uncle Harrison had taken over from Jermyn.

  For the first time, Jermyn wondered what his father would say about that.

  “I’m sorry. You miss him still,” Miss Victorine said with an empathy that made Jermyn shift uncomfortably. “Please don’t take my ramblings the wrong way. I feel as if I can talk with you about your father. I adored him. He was a great man. I miss him still, and it’s a comfort for me to talk about him with someone else who loved him. Of course, you loved him like a son and I loved like a son…no.” She frowned. “That’s wrong. You loved him as a son should and I loved him as if he were my son. There!” She lifted her shuttle triumphantly. “I knew I could say it correctly.”

  “So you did.” Jermyn tried to subdue a rush of affection. She was a dear old lady. He tried to remind himself that she’d help kidnap him, but that made no difference. The truth was, he, too, liked reminiscing about his father, and too few people were left who remembered him.

  Jermyn supposed he could discuss Father with Uncle Harrison, but Uncle Harrison seemed interested in nothing more than figures on a page and profit from the estates.

  That’s what made this whole “steal the beading machine” so ludicrous. Uncle Harrison might not have the title, but he certainly comprehended the dignity that belonged to the marquess of Northcliff. He would never indulge in vulgar manufacturing.

  “Perhaps if your mother hadn’t left us so soon, your education would be more rounded.” Miss Victorine seemed to be speaking to herself. “Andriana certainly had strong opinions on how you should be raised. Perhaps if your father had listened—”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Victorine, I don’t speak of my mother,” Jermyn said gently and without a hint of the rage that, even after all these years, still possessed him. “Not even to you.”

  “But dear boy, it would be better if you did! I’ll never forget how surprised we were when your father brought her back from Italy. She had such a charming accent, and she was so pretty and so kind.” With a smile, Miss Victorine settled into her reminiscences. “She adored your father and she adored you. I’ve never seen a woman so in love with her husband!”

  “Miss Victorine, please.” Angry blood buzzed in his head.

  “But I know you must have missed her. To keep such grief bottled up inside cannot be good for you.” She sounded sincerely concerned.

  He didn’t care. “Not even to you,” he repeated.

  Hearing the creak of footsteps on the stairs, he realized he’d been saved in more ways than one. He pushed his fork off the edge of the table. It clanked as it hit the floor. He sighed pitifully. “Miss Victorine, with this manacle on my ankle, I can’t reach that.”

  With a cluck of sympathy, Miss Victorine stood and moved toward him.

  As Amy stepped into the cellar, he grabbed Miss Victorine and held her against him with the knife against her throat. With a direct and dreadful glare at Amy, he said, “Let me go or I’ll kill her.”

  Chapter 5

  “My lord!” Miss Victorine’s frail voice quivered. “Dear boy…”

  Against Jermyn’s chest her body felt bony and fragile, and it trembled like that of a frightened bird in a rough lad’s grasp.

  He didn’t care. She’d betrayed him. The kind lady he remembered didn’t exist. She had been part of a plot to kidnap him. She refused to release his manacle. Now she would pay. And when he got loose, she would pay more.

  But smoothly, as if she’d foreseen this very circumstance, that disdainful girl reached into the drawer and pulled out a pistol. Her aim was perfectly steady as she pointed it at him. “Let her go or I’ll shoot you.”

  “I’ve never met a woman who’d have the guts to shoot a man,” he sneered. All the women he knew were too kind. Too gentle.

  “I have the guts,” the girl said. “Better yet, I want to shoot you.”

  That shook him. The words, and the tone, a kind of flat, plain aversion the like of which he’d never met in all of his privileged life.

  What had he ever done to deserve this girl’s contempt? And why did he even care? “Which part of me will you shoot?” he mocked. “All that’s showing is my head—and you can’t be that good with a gun.”

  “I am,” the girl said. “On the count of three, I’ll shoot. One…”

  “You’d take the chance of hurting Miss Victorine?” he asked.

  “I won’t hurt her. Two…”

  “Amy, please, let him go!” Miss Victorine begged. “He was such a sweet boy.”

  “Three.” Amy’s eyes narrowed, her finger began to squeeze the trigger.

  And he released Miss Victorine, spinning her away from him and into a cabinet.

  She landed with a thud and fell.

  The pistol roared.

  He dived to the floor.

  A shot whistled past the place where his head had been.

  Amy gave a sigh of relief. “Damn, that was close. Good thing you surrendered, my lord!”

  “Don’t swear, dear, it’s not ladylike.” And there on the floor, Miss Victorine burst into tears.

  He felt surprisingly like bursting into tears himself. It didn’t matter that he told himself Amy couldn’t have hit him. He didn’t believe himself. That sharp-eyed girl hated him, and until she replaced the gun in the cabinet, he didn’t release his pent-up breath.

  “Miss Victorine.” Without sparing him another glance, Amy hurried to the old lady’s side. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “No. No. Well, a little when he tossed me.”
Miss Victorine rubbed her shoulder. “But he didn’t want me to get shot just because you wanted to blow him away.”

  “Blow me away?” What an odd phrase to come out of that gentle lady’s mouth. He laughed shortly. He stood and dusted off his trousers, before placing the knife on the table.

  And realized at once that his amusement did not sit well with Amy. She looked at him in disdain and distaste. “How does it feel to be such a big, bad aristocrat that you have to use this dear little lady as a shield?”

  Actually, he was feeling a little ashamed of himself, but he wasn’t about to tell this virago. “I pushed her aside when you shot at her.”

  “You shoved her out of the way when you realized I would shoot you,” she answered hotly.

  “That’s not true.” He couldn’t believe how she misinterpreted his action. “Don’t you have any respect for your betters?”

  “I do. That’s why I’m going to help her up the stairs and put her to bed with a cup of hot tea. You can just sit here and…and jingle your manacle!” With her arm around Miss Victorine, Amy started for the stairs.

  “Now dear,” he heard Miss Victorine admonishing, “he wouldn’t have hurt me. He was always such a nice boy.”

  He sank down on the cot. When he was young, everyone said that, considering the circumstances, he was a nice lad.

  He had loved coming over to call on Miss Victorine. He’d adored her cakes and the fuss she’d made over him and the scent of her lavender sachets. She had been a civilizing influence on a lad knocked flat by events he didn’t understand and over which he had no control.

  He didn’t remember when or why he’d stopped his visits. It had been nothing more than part of growing up—discovering hunting and balls and women and cigars and forgetting the sea and the sky and the clouds and the earth. He’d seen them in a flash when Amy had raised her gun, pointed it at him, and said in a cool, strong voice, “Three.” He’d seen his whole life in his mind for the last time, or so he’d thought, and when he remembered that piercing moment of fear his hands shook.