Miranda Jarrett

by Princess of Fortune

  “Bella!”

  She hadn’t realized she was crying until she saw how blurry Tom’s face was as he rushed to her. In one hand he held the pistol that had killed the man between them, the acrid scent of gunpowder still ripe in the air. In the other hand was his drawn sword, and that, too, had blood on it, bright red on the silvery steel.

  “Tomaso.” She felt the tears now, sliding down her cheeks. “You came.”

  “I heard you. Tell me you’re not hurt,” he demanded, still breathing hard from whatever he’d had to do to save her. “Tell me this bastard didn’t harm you.”

  She shook her head and took a deep breath, then another, laboring to calm herself and stop the tears. That was what she needed to do to ease the tension of a difficult situation, and to behave the way a Fortunaro should. But still she longed for him to take her into his arms and hold her, just hold her, and be only a woman, not a princess.

  But of course that was impossible, especially with all the world seemingly here to watch. The narrow space seemed filled with people now, an audience of marveling, curious faces swirling behind Tom’s shoulder.

  “You are sure?” He was searching her face, confirming that she was telling the truth.

  She nodded again. She felt as fragile as spun glass, and her shoulder was aching where it had struck the wall, but she would be fine. She would be fine. “I—I hit him back.”

  “You did what?” He frowned, not quite comprehending as he hooked the pistol back on his belt, then wiped off his sword and sheathed it. “You hit him?”

  “I hit him. With that board, there.” Remembering made fresh tears start in her eyes, thinking how close she herself had come to being another lifeless body lying on the cobbles. “I—I hit him as hard as I could with the board, directly upon his chest. It hurt him, too, enough to make him swear.”

  Tom whistled low. “Then you’re more fortunate than you know. A man like that wouldn’t like to be shown up by a lady.”

  “I struck the other man, also. He jumped in the carriage, and—and I hit him in the jaw with my parasol.”

  “You did that, too?” He glanced back at the carriage, as if looking for the parasol weapon.

  “Yes.” She sniffed in quick little jerks. “My parasol was carved ivory and painted silk from Florence, most lovely, and now it is broken beyond repair, but it was quite—quite worth the sacrifice.”

  “I’ll buy you another.” He handed her his handkerchief. “I’d say it died a noble death.”

  That reminded her. “Have you seen Darden? Is he—?”

  “Darden is perfectly well.” Tom’s voice told her he’d just as soon Darden weren’t well at all, but gone straight to the devil.

  “Then where—”

  “By his carriage. He fell, and struck his head, and I had to finish things for him, which did not please him. He is…restoring himself with a flask.”

  She didn’t have to ask more after that. She understood too much already. Poor Darden, to have his one chance at real heroics end so badly!

  But Tom’s attention had returned to the dead men. “Not much to be said for these two.” He prodded a corpse’s leg with his toe. “I wish we’d taken at least one of them alive, so we could thrash some answers out of him.”

  She took a deep breath and glanced again at the body at her feet. She’d never realized that the dead still bled once they’d died, or exactly what a huge amount of blood that could be. A sudden wave of nausea rolled over her, and she pressed Tom’s handkerchief over her mouth. However wrong it was for a princess to cry in public, it would be infinitely—and ignominiously—worse to be sick to her stomach.

  “Don’t look,” he ordered quickly. He stepped over the dead man, trying to shield Isabella as he took her arm to guide her away. “Here, let’s find a way to get you back to Lady Willoughby.”

  But she insisted, steeling herself as another man rolled the body over to show the dead man’s face, now frozen into an uneven mask of eternal surprise. “I must see, Captain. I need to know who they were, and what they wanted.”

  He frowned. “With vagabonds like these, we may never know.”

  “It—it’s more complicated than that, Captain.” Conscious of the others around them, she lowered her voice and switched to Italian. “At least two of the men were from Monteverde. I could hear it in their speech, and what they said to me. They knew who I was, and they knew my family, and—and they were hunting for me, Tomaso. I am sure of it.”

  “I thought as much.” Tom’s expression hardened. “Someone forged a note to send me on a damned fool’s errand, else I would have been here to protect you.”

  “Again.” She tried to smile. “If I hadn’t been the damned fool myself, you wouldn’t have had to.”

  “I’m not going to quarrel with you, Bella,” he said, not smiling in return. “It was my duty to watch you, and my fault that I didn’t, and that’s an end to it. Besides, no princess should have to admit to being a damned fool about anything. Now tell me. You didn’t know this man, did you?”

  She made herself look at the body one last time to be sure, then shook her head. “Take me to see the others.”

  “Be certain,” he warned. “It’s not a pleasing sight for a lady.”

  “I don’t expect it to be,” she said. “But I need to know my enemies.”

  Reluctantly he led her through the milling crowd toward the carriage. Sword fights and gunshots, murder and mayhem in the broadest of daylight: Isabella doubted that such things were common on the tidy new streets of London. She shouldn’t be surprised by the numbers of the curious still hurrying to gape, as many children and women as men. Dusty tarpaulins from the construction had been tossed over the other two bodies, and several bricklayers stood with outstretched arms to keep the bystanders from coming too close. A constable in a greatcoat and an old-fashioned wig stood beside one of the bodies and dictated his observations to his clerk.

  “Ah, Captain my lord,” said the constable. “A sorry business, this. But I can assure you that there’ll be no charges pressed. I have a score of witnesses who’ve told me what happened, and all say you’re the hero of the day, not the villain. I’m told there’s a third body?”

  “Behind the wall,” Isabella said, striving to sound composed and calm, as if she faced such events every day of her life. “I wish to view the others.”

  “This is Her Royal Highness the Princess di Fortunaro,” Tom said, and an excited murmur rippled through the bystanders. “She was the target of the attack, and she believes she might know the dead men.”

  The constable touched the front of his hat to her, then bent down and flicked back the tarpaulin from the body. Isabella recognized this man as the one who’d jumped first into the carriage. His wide face bore a crisscross of scratches and light bruises where she’d broken her parasol, but what drew her eye immediately was the long slash of a sword wound deep into his chest. She remembered the blood on the blade of Tom’s sword and wondered uneasily if he’d killed this man, too. The front of his coat and shirt was stained dark with blood, as were the cobblestones on which he lay, and once again Isabella had to swallow hard not to be sick.

  “This one was the leader,” she said softly, “but I do not know his name.”

  “Nothing on him to tell us, either,” the constable said. “Not that I’d expect to find it. This lot’s too clever for that. I’ll wager no one will claim any of the bodies, either. A pauper’s grave and a dose of quicklime will be all the blessing they’ll have, or deserve, either.”

  But Isabella had to ask one more question, though she dreaded the answer. “Is there anything about his neck? A pendant?”

  “A necklace, y’mean?” With none of Isabella’s own squeamishness, the constable roughly shoved the dead man’s head to one side and ripped open the front of his worn shirt. A narrow cord was tied around his throat, and the constable snapped it free.

  “Don’t know what this is about.” He studied the crude pendant looped through the cord. “Mu
st be the sign of one of their gangs or cabals. Is this what you sought, ma’am?”

  He held his palm out to Isabella. There was the same triangle of twigs, tied with red thread, that she’d seen first around old Anna’s neck, and also worn by the murderous seamstress at Copperthwaite’s. All three were from Monteverde, and all had wished her harm.

  Yet not once before in her homeland had she seen such a necklace or symbol, or overheard anyone in the palace discuss it. Why had no one warned her of this group, whatever it might be, or the grim power it held? How had her family and their advisers been so oblivious?

  For the last years she’d been taught that the French, first with the republicans and then under Buonaparte, were her country’s worst enemy. But what if there were another, more terrifying threat, eating away at Monteverde from the inside? What if the same anarchist madness that had destroyed the royal Bourbons of France was now growing beneath the noses of those famous Roman lions, eager to devour the Fortunari in one vicious bite?

  What if, except for her, it already had?

  “Bella.” Lightly Tom touched her arm, drawing her back to the present. “Have you seen such an emblem before?”

  She nodded, a tiny jerk of her chin. She didn’t wish to tell him more here, not before so many others, and he understood.

  “Do you know its meaning, or what group would wear a charm like this one?”

  “No.” She must be strong, stronger now that she’d ever been in her life. “Not yet.”

  “With your leave, Constable, I’ll take this to Whitehall,” Tom said. “The navy has experts there who might decipher its meaning, or at least give us more clues.”

  “Then good luck to them, I say.” The constable handed the triangle to Tom, who slipped it carefully into his pocket. “The sooner we can rid London’s streets of such foreign vermin, the better.”

  “Praise the gods, ma’am, you are safe.” The marquis was ashy pale, leaning heavily on the arm of his driver. Although a makeshift bandage, patched with blood, was tied around his head, his hand still purposefully clasped the hilt of his sword as if eager to fight again. “To think that this should happen while you were with me.”

  “Oh, Darden!” Isabella gasped. “They said you’d not been wounded!”

  “I wasn’t, at least not by these rascals.” He uneasily glanced at Tom, the tension between the two men palpable. “I was on the verge of delivering the final blow to one of them—that fellow, there—when he played me most barbarously false, kicking out my knees so I fell out here and struck my head.”

  “Yes.” Tom smiled faintly. “What a pity the fellow didn’t play fair as you tried to kill him.”

  At once Darden shoved himself clear of his driver. “Forgive me if I haven’t had your advantages, Greaves, mastering the art of common brawling in His Majesty’s navy.”

  Swiftly Isabella stepped between them. “Be mindful of how you behave, both of you. You have each done me a great service, and I thank you for it.” Impatiently she shoved away the lock of hair that had slipped down into her eyes. “But do not spoil things now by strutting about like bantam cockerels to impress me, because it does not.”

  She faced the constable. “I have seen enough. You need not show me the third man.”

  “My carriage is ready, ma’am.” Somehow the marquis managed to bow with his usual flourish, even as his knees obviously threatened to buckle beneath him. “I’ll have you back in Berkeley Square directly.”

  Tom bowed, too, but with the brisk efficiency of a sailor, not a courtier. “I have a hired carriage waiting. A closed carriage.”

  “You need to recover after this ordeal, ma’am,” the marquis urged. “You’ve suffered more than any lady should have to bear.”

  “But you see, Lord Darden, I’m not a lady.” She raised her head as grandly as if she’d been wearing one of her hated, heavy crowns instead of just her bedraggled hair. This wasn’t for the two men alone, but for her larger audience, there on the pavement, and she raised her voice so they’d be sure to hear her. “I am the Principessa Isabella di Fortunaro of Monteverde, and I will not be cowed by a pack of low ruffians, no matter how far they have come to find me!”

  To her disappointment, no one cheered or really even seemed to notice. A few scraps of disinterested conversation, that was all, and as the constable’s men began to cart away the bodies, the bystanders began drifting away, too. True, most of them likely had never heard of Monteverde, but she’d thought at least they would champion her, after what they’d just witnessed.

  “You’re not one of them, Bella,” Tom said gently, reading her confusion. Sometimes she felt she’d soon have no secrets left, he understood her so well already. “These are regular English folk, not the grand ones you met last night.”

  “They’re ignorant swine,” muttered the marquis with contempt. “They should be made to show more respect to their betters.”

  “They’re free Englishmen, Darden,” Tom said, “and they’ll show respect when it’s earned. I’ve learned that in His Majesty’s navy, along with the common brawling.”

  “Dangerous ideas, Greaves,” Darden warned. “Republican ideas. Or is Robespierre now included in the Articles of War?”

  But Tom only smiled, refusing to be baited again. “Any bully can keep order on a ship through fear and force, but in battle he’d better watch his back against his own men. I would imagine the same holds true for kings and countries.”

  And even, thought Isabella, for the daughter of a tyrant.

  “Take me home, Captain,” she said, her voice no more than an exhausted whisper. Her shoulder hurt, but the ache inside that had come with this unwanted knowledge was so much worse she didn’t know how she’d bear it. “Please, please. Take me home now.”

  Tom stood before the looking glass in his bedchamber with his sword in his hand, critically studying his bare chest. He sliced the sword through the air, watching how the muscles worked. He could feel how they protested, too, after the brief skirmish in the street this afternoon. Yes, he’d won, and he lived while the three Italian men had died, but he’d been fortunate his opponents had relied more on untrained bluster than finesse, or things might have ended differently.

  He scowled, lifting the sword over his head. Being on shore for so long had cost him his fighting edge. All the practice in the world couldn’t replace that. By the candlelight, his skin looked too pale, or maybe it was the contrast with the jagged scar that cut across his ribs. Even after so many months, the flesh remained still puckered and red, twisting the dark hair on his chest into an odd asymmetrical pattern.

  Yet the scars didn’t trouble him. He knew precious few sailors who didn’t have more gruesome souvenirs than these, and there was a certain kind of honor attached to scars, anyway. What worried him lay beneath the bones and flesh, to the grim predictions that the surgeons had made about his heart.

  Today he’d tested that heart without a thought except to save Isabella—running, jumping, fighting, feeling the familiar heady rush of battle for the first time since he’d been wounded. He hadn’t hesitated or held back.

  With the sword still raised, he touched his other hand over the scar, over his heart, feeling the steady beat of his life. He’d done what he’d had to for Isabella, and his heart had followed. As straightforward and practical as he was, not even he could miss that irony. But exactly how much more could he risk for her? How much more could his heart withstand?

  He heard the quick, light footsteps in the hall outside before the knock came on his door. One of the servants, he guessed, though he couldn’t guess why any of them would come to his room now unless there were some emergency. Not taking the time to replace his shirt, he swiftly opened the door.

  “Ah, Captain Greaves.” Raising one brow, Isabella looked down at the sword still in his hand. “You have been fighting hobgoblins, yes?”

  “Yes.” He took her by the hand and drew her quickly into the room, closing the door after her. “Is there anything wrong, Bella?
”

  She raised her chin. “No more than before.”

  Yet even as he sighed with relief, he couldn’t miss the agitation that seemed to vibrate from her small figure. “Does anyone else know you’re here?”

  “No one saw me come to your bedchamber at this shameful hour, if that is what you mean.”

  “It is,” he said, trying to remind himself as well.

  “How very gallant of you.” She glided into the center of the room, her bare feet tucked into heeled mules. She wore the same light silk dressing gown that he’d remembered—how the devil would he ever forget?—from the first time he’d kissed her. This time, though, she’d pulled it tightly around her like a shroud, with her hands wrapped in the sleeves and tucked beneath her arms. “Gallant, but unnecessary. The household is all asleep by now, or pretending to be, leaving no witnesses either to Lord Willoughby’s roaming, or my own.”

  “Lord Willoughby’s roaming?” He was thankful for any distraction. She could dismiss his objections if she wished, but there was no mistaking the instant intimacy of having her here in his bedchamber. The covers had already been turned back invitingly on his bed for the night, and the single candlestick made for more shadows than light. “The earl sleepwalks?”

  “After a fashion.” She gave her shoulders a little shrug of indifference, the heavy loose braid of her hair shimmying down her back. “Each night the earl is in the habit of warming the beds and the bottoms of the parlor maids. I listen, for there is naught else to do. I hear. The countess retires to her rooms directly after dining, and drinks herself into the exact state of unconsciousness that will allow her to ignore the obvious. Is that scar the one that nearly killed you?”

  “A pretty bit of cutwork and stitchery, isn’t it?” He slipped his sword back into the scabbard on the table and belatedly reached for his shirt from where he’d tossed it over the back of a chair.

  “Don’t,” she said softly, her attention lingering on his bare chest. “Please. You and I are beyond such petty English modesties, aren’t we?”