Miranda Jarrett – Princess of Fortune (страница 9)

And yet Tom saw at once that she wasn’t enjoying the spectacle at all. Although he’d easily thwarted her attacker, the surprise and shock had shaken the princess in ways he hadn’t expected. She wasn’t accustomed to real danger like that he’d encountered all his life, and it showed. She’d turned uncharacteristically silent, for one thing, and inside the black brim of her bonnet her face had gone as white as bleached linen, her dark eyes enormous with fear and her mouth pinched. All of her imperious mannerisms had fled, and what was left made her seem very young and very, very vulnerable. She’d stopped being the grand royal Monteverdian princess, and become like any other young woman abruptly confronted with her own mortality.

Thomas held his elbow out for her to take, and when she didn’t, he gently captured her little gloved hand himself and tucked it into the crook of his arm. Following his orders, he had wanted to remove her from the store before anyone learned she was a princess. Now, with that secret gone, he realized how much more important it was for the woman herself that he extricate her from this situation as soon as he could.

“Shall we leave now, ma’am?” he asked. “The carriage is just outside.”

She nodded, and took a shuddering breath as she turned toward Mrs. Copperthwaite. “You may rise. No such ceremony is necessary.”

“Oh, but it is, ma’am!” The older woman straightened, her eager smile proof of how much she wished to gain a royal customer. “It’s not every day we have a great lady of your rank honor us with your custom. What pleases you, ma’am? What might I fetch to show you?”

“Another time, perhaps. I find I am no longer in the humor for such diversions.” She raised her chin, a bit of her customary demeanor returning. “Captain, I am ready.”

“Good day, Mrs. Copperthwaite.” Tom bowed solemnly, then led the princess from the store to the carriage. She managed her exit with a sweeping grace, her free arm angled from her body to show off the drape of her shawl, but only he was aware of how heavily she was leaning on his arm for support.

“You were brave, ma’am,” he said as the carriage drew away from the pavement. “That wasn’t easy for you, I’m sure. You did well.”

“I did not.” Unhappily she slumped back against the squabs. “I wasn’t brave. I was unwise. You said so yourself.”

“That was before, ma’am.”

“Saints in heaven, such a mortal difference.” She sighed and pulled off her bonnet, letting it drop onto the seat beside her. Even in the warm carriage, the color had not returned to her cheeks, leaving her with a drained, forlorn pallor. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I do not wish to speak of this morning again, Captain.”

“I am sorry, ma’am, but you must.” Though he was trying to be kind, there were simply too many unanswered questions about this morning to pretend it hadn’t happened. “You can’t pretend this didn’t happen. I will send for a surgeon to attend you once we return to the house if that will—”

“I told you, Captain, I am not fragile, and I do not require any of your surgeons’ attendings.” She sighed again, wincing as she rubbed her palms together. “Now I wish quiet to contemplate.”

Thomas frowned. The princess did not strike him as a contemplative woman by nature, but if that would help her recover, he could scarcely object.

“Very well, then,” he said softly. “We shall speak later.”

“Later,” she mumbled, her eyes squeezed shut. “Not now.”

Tom suspected she was only pretending to sleep, just as she was pretending to contemplate, but he would grant her that, too. He could use a bit of contemplation himself. Although he had already realized that nothing concerned with the princess would be easy sailing, even so he couldn’t have predicted the disaster they’d found in that infernal ladies’ shop.

What incredible odds had placed the Monteverdian seamstress in Copperthwaite’s? Monteverde was a tiny country. There couldn’t be that many refugees making their way to England, let alone living and working at a skilled trade in London while they plotted revenge against their former king. How much more were those odds compounded by the preposterous coincidence of the princess impulsively stumbling from the carriage into that particular shop at that particular time? Not even the most confirmed gamblers at White’s could have predicted such a sequence.

And now it would be up to Tom to guess what would happen next, with the princess herself as the stakes.

He watched her as she slept, or contemplated, or whatever it was she was doing to escape his questions. Though her face was at ease, there was a fresh wariness clouding it that hadn’t been there earlier, and he was sorry that he hadn’t been able to spare her that change. The admiral hadn’t told him much of her history, or even the details of how she’d escaped the French to come to England. He didn’t know what had become of her family. War was never a good place for a young woman, and he wondered grimly how many other things she’d witnessed or experienced that she wished never again to discuss.

And he’d meant it when he’d called her brave. When the woman had come at her with the scissors, she hadn’t fainted or screamed or tossed her petticoats over her face, the way too many young ladies would. Perhaps that kind of nonsense was bred out of princesses. True, he’d known no others for comparison. But this princess had stood her ground, with a rare courage and grace that he could understand and respect.

He studied her now, her dark lashes feathered over the curve of her cheeks. Her breathing was deep, making her mostly bare breasts rise and fall above the low neckline of her gown, and with an honorable effort he forced himself to look back to her face. She wasn’t priggish or overly modest, he’d grant her that. Earlier he’d judged her handsome at best, not pretty, but the more time he spent in her company, the more his opinion was changing. She was pretty. Too pretty, if he were honest, and he shook his head as he considered all the trouble such thoughts could bring him.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she stretched her arms before her, relishing the motion like a waking cat. “We have reached the Willoughbys’ house, Captain, have we not?”

He hadn’t even noticed the carriage had stopped. “Ah, it seems we have.” He leaned from the window, swiftly scanning the front of the house and down each side of the street. “Here, let me help you down.”

But she drew back, her chin down and her arms folded over her chest. “I should prefer you to go first, Captain. To make sure that all is as it should be.”

He nodded, understanding, and privately pleased that she’d put her trust in him. Once more he scanned the quiet square, then held his hand out to her.

“All’s snug, ma’am,” he said gallantly. “Come ashore whenever you’re ready.”

But instead of taking his hand, she slipped past him unassisted, dangling her bonnet from her wrist by the ribbons. She hurried up the steps by herself, leaving him once again feeling chagrined and in the uncomfortable position, for any captain, of following instead of leading.

Perhaps, he thought, they’d not made such progress, after all.

“How was your drive, ma’am?” Lady Willoughby was asking as the princess handed her hat to a maid. “Was it pleasant?”

“‘Pleasant’ is not the word I should choose.” The princess paused before the looking glass, patting and plucking at her hair where the bonnet had flattened it. “Unless, of course, your English definition of pleasure is to be beset by murderous anarchists. Isn’t that so, Captain Greaves?”

“We did have our adventure, Lady Willoughby,” Tom said. The countess looked bewildered, yet also clearly relieved that she was no longer the one responsible for the princess’s “adventures.” “But no real harm was done, as you can see. You are certain about not summoning a physician, ma’am?”

“No, no, no.” The princess frowned at his reflection behind hers, clearly displeased that he’d been considerate enough to ask again. “You will come with me now to the garden, Captain.”

She was leading again, and again he was left to follow, this time down the hallway through the house, and he did not like it. He did not like it at all. “Where in blazes are you going now?”

She stopped and turned to face him. “I am going to the garden, Captain,” she explained with the kind of excruciating patience reserved for small, simple children. “You are joining me. There we shall speak to one another. Then when we are done, we shall leave.”

She glanced past him, back to the hovering maidservant. “I want a pot of chocolate brought to me in the garden, a plate of toast, browned on one side only and the crusts cut away, and a small pot of orange marmalade. I will also require a basin of cooled water—cooled, mind, and not cold, or warm, or scalding, or I shall send it back—and a linen cloth for drying.”

So the old princess had returned, ready to demand the sun and the stars, and expecting to get there, too.

Not that he was above giving orders himself. “Another place, ma’am. Not the garden.”

She stopped again, so abruptly they nearly collided. “The garden is safe. The admiral said it was. There are tall brick walls on three sides, and the house on the fourth has the only entrance.”