The Barefoot Princess

  Somewhere in this world…perhaps closer than she thought.

  Lifting his weight off her, he supported himself on his elbows and looked down at her. “Woman, you drive me mad. I’ve never been in so great a hurry. I never got my boots off.”

  “Really?” She was charmed. “But you never put your feet on the bed, either.”

  “I’d better take them off now, for I intend to—and not get out for a very long time.” He watched her keenly. “You promised you would stay with me.”

  She shifted beneath him, overcome with wariness. “For a year. I promised I’d stay for a year, the length prescribed by our pagan wedding.” She thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes. Could it be disappointment? “Then…then we’ll see if I should stay forever.”

  For a long moment, he was silent. Then—“All right.” He slid from within her. Sitting up, he pulled off his boots and flung them, one after the other, against the wall.

  She flinched at the violence of the gesture. Pulling her legs together in sudden, misplaced modesty, she covered herself with the sheet.

  But his voice was calm and even when he said, “I know you, Princess Disdain. I know you’ll keep your promise.” He looked at her again, his gaze pinning her to the bed. “For at least one year.”

  Chapter 21

  Harrison Edmondson stared at the letter in frustration.

  11 May 1810

  Mon Cher Uncle,

  You must help me in my hour of need. My abductors are cruel men who whisper at night of their desire to murder me, and when I hear them my blood runs cold! They speak of torture, of cutting off my head—

  “No great loss there,” Harrison muttered.

  —of putting me in a weighted bag and sinking me in the sea, there to die a most horrible death! If you don’t pay them soon, you’ll lose your only and beloved nephew, the one remaining Edmondson other than yourself! Only through the cleverest of ruses and the kindness of their downtrodden maid was I able to sneak this plea out to you! I beg of you, come to my aid with a swift infusion of cash! I know it must be difficult to raise the gold required, but please, uncle, for my continued good health, it must be done!

  Your most loving and faithful nephew,

  Jermyn Edmondson

  The most honorable and noble marquess of Northcliff

  “Melodramatic little pustule.” Harrison threw the letter aside. Now in addition to being plagued by inept kidnappers and a missing assassin, Jermyn his almighty snot-nosed marquess was annoying him, too. The puny swine imagined his dear old uncle Harrison, the one who tended his estate and his fortune with no thanks from Jermyn, would come to his rescue. “Not likely,” Harrison whispered. Picking up the letter, he examined it again.

  Yes, that was Jermyn’s writing, all stately noble loops and sharp corners. Harrison recognized it from the infrequent communications Jermyn sent. The ones that demanded the yearly accounting be sent to him at one of his lofty estates. He never actually asked for the books, which made Harrison’s industrial activities all the easier, but bugger! how Harrison hated making money for someone else. And if something wasn’t done within the next month, all his activities of the past ten years would be revealed, and he doubted that Jermyn would be grateful.

  He doubted it very highly.

  There was something to be said for a silence broken only by the calls of seagulls, the crash of the waves on the rocks far below, and the faint whisper of the salty breeze. Nothing could match the sheer perfection of a moment gazing upon the gray cloud draped in wisps over the distant island of Summerwind and beyond that, a faint sweet promise of blue sky. A fishing vessel skittered over the swells, and in her deepest senses Amy felt the earth cradling her as it welcomed the rush of the ocean’s tide.

  In the five days that she’d spent alone with Jermyn in the cottage, a spring rain had fallen every day, Biggers had brought them their meals, and they’d spent the time inside in the bed, barely speaking, yet making promises with their bodies.

  Today for the first time the sun shone, drawing them out with a rug and a basket to picnic on the cliffs.

  “This precise spot is where I stood and looked out to sea on the day that you kidnapped me. The fog was coming in, everything was gray and dull…I had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and I wished to be anywhere but here.” He spoke softly, not breaking the peace but enhancing it with the slow, precisely chosen syllables. “Little did I know my life would change so drastically…so marvelously.”

  “You weren’t saying that two weeks ago.” Contentedly domestic, she packed their meal away in the basket.

  They sat on the rug in the midst of the spring green grass and budding spring flowers, he clad in his most informal wear, which in Amy’s opinion was not informal at all, and she wearing one of Miss Victorine’s old gowns. They made an odd couple.

  Amy imagined that would never change.

  “Pragmatic as always. Do you see that wing of Summerwind Abbey?”

  She looked down the cliffs to the solid arm of the manor that stood poised on the cliffs. “It looks precarious.”

  “Since the manor was built two hundred years ago, the ocean has cut back the cliffs, bringing the house closer to the edge.” He waved at the large windows and beautiful white stone balcony that looked out onto the ocean. “That’s the master’s bedchamber, remember? You’ve been there collecting my underwear.”

  “That’s right. You’re the swine who sent me on a fool’s errand when you could have gone yourself.” She observed his expression. “You did go yourself!”

  “I saw you there,” he admitted.

  “Did I call you a swine?” Remembering the drama with which she sneaked into Summerwind Abbey, she didn’t know whether to laugh or shout. “Louse, rather!”

  “Yes, but you must forgive me. Being a louse is my nature.”

  “It certainly is.” But she couldn’t rouse herself to heat. Apparently, sex applied often and with vigor made her as placid as a breeding mare. The thought should have upset her…but she was too serene.

  What an ever-widening circle!

  Jermyn’s arm curved around her shoulders and he drew her into him, opening his coat so that she could rest against his chest.

  She went gladly, absorbing his warmth and giving back her happiness. “Your home is very beautiful, especially the gardens.”

  “So your year will be spent pleasantly.” Jermyn whispered in a low, deep voice, as if every word was a love word.

  “Very pleasantly.” Amy rubbed his thigh to hide her anxiousness. “Although I was wondering when I can go back and visit Miss Victorine?”

  “Whenever you wish. It’s a swift voyage.”

  “I miss her.” Amy needed to talk to Miss Victorine about the situation with Jermyn. For all Miss Victorine’s vagueness, she understood human nature and she would tell Amy what to think of the devil’s bargain between them. A year together, then a thoughtful assessment and perhaps a wedding…when Jermyn took off the ropes, Amy had thought she could be happy with a temporary bond. Now she didn’t know if she had been quite wise.

  Jermyn seemed pleased with their pact. Seemingly without a care, he prattled on about the island, telling her, “Pom has set a great many plans into motion on the island. He’s hired men to repair the cottages, beginning with Miss Victorine’s.”

  “Is she happy with the changes?”

  “I understand she’s fussing about having a stove in her bedroom, but once it’s installed and she’s warm, she’ll like it. Pom ordered a huge load of coal to be delivered and distributed to the villagers, and Mertle has gone to market and bought bolts of cloth for the women. Oh, and in honor of my thirtieth birthday and my wedding, I’ve ordered a whole beef to be sent over, as well as bread and cheese and barrels of ale.”

  “You are so sweet.” And every day, Amy became more of a fool for him. More convinced he was the other half of her soul.

  “As you so plainly told me, I’m responsible for letting the village fall into such desperate st
raits.” He tilted her back to look into her face, concealed from him by her old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat. He licked his thumb, then softly ran it over her lower lip. His gaze rested on the gleam of moisture, and at once the need to be kissed drove all thought from her mind.

  He knew too well how to create desire in her. It was frightening, how desperately she wanted him. And when they were done making love, she wanted him again.

  With well-feigned impatience, he asked, “Don’t you recognize a man who’s urgently trying to impress his woman with his good deeds?”

  “No, is that what you’re doing?”

  “Most definitely.” He did kiss her, but only a swift brush of the lips, a tease that made her want for more. “Although I suspect it had lost its impact since I had to point it out.”

  “Not at all. I’m overcome with gladness at your generosity.” She meant every word.

  “Good.” Then he sat her up, his arm still around her.

  She drowsed against him in that state between waking and sleeping, balanced in that single moment between one point in her life and the next. Last week the weight of the world sat on her shoulders. Next week she would assume new duties. But now all was peaceful.

  “When I was a child,” Jermyn said, “sometimes I could just stop playing and throw myself on my stomach on the grass and stare out to sea.”

  “I used to stop playing, throw myself on my stomach and stare up at the mountains.”

  “Do you miss it? Your home?”

  A gust of wind blew in from the sea, then died, like a nudge to banish serenity. She never talked about Beaumontagne. Not to anyone. The memories were banished to a secluded place in her mind, surrounded by walls that kept the anguish in and the loneliness out.

  But she ought to share a little bit of her past with him. For all that he’d lived a life of privilege, he’d suffered his traumas and perhaps he would understand. She really thought he would understand. “I used to miss Beaumontagne. When I first went to school, I’d cry at night when no one could hear me. Then Poppa died and Grandmamma stopped sending our tuition. The headmistress threw my sister and me out into the streets and I was too frightened and confused to think about Beaumontagne anymore.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told you. We sold creams. We promised beauty.” She smiled crookedly up at him. “We did what two women alone in the world do—we wandered, and we survived.”

  “My blood runs cold at the thought of you left alone to travel the roads. Why didn’t you stop somewhere? Make a home of some kind? There must have been someplace that would welcome you.”

  She drew away from Jermyn’s arm, wrapped her hands around her knees and stared out to sea. “Grandmamma’s personal courtier found us and told us we were marked for assassination.”

  Jermyn’s face went from blankness to amazement.

  “So although I wanted to stay somewhere, Clarice said no. I knew she was right, but I hated the constant deception, the fear…and we were looking for Sorcha, too. I felt—I think we both felt—that if we could just find our oldest sister, we would have won an important battle. So we kept moving.”

  Jermyn’s eyes narrowed on her.

  After all his freely-given trust, did he not believe her now? While she and Clarice traveled together, heartless suspicion had paved every road. Yet so easily, she had grown used to Jermyn and the credence he placed in her promises and her words. She didn’t want to lose that. She didn’t want to lose him. Yet she didn’t know what else to do except tell the truth. “Godfrey said Grandmamma would place advertisements in the paper when it was safe for us to come back. Her Majesty always does as she says, and she hasn’t yet placed the advertisements.”

  “I’m sorry, but this tale your grandmother’s courier told you sounds absurd. No innocent young ladies should be subjected to such an ordeal!”

  A telling relief swept Amy. It wasn’t her he didn’t believe, but Godfrey.

  Jermyn continued, “She knew you were in England alone with no means of support. She sounds like a strong woman, and a strong woman wouldn’t have sent a message, she would have sent protection. You could have been killed—should have been killed—a hundred times over. If this Godfrey was truly your grandmother’s servant, he would never have left your side.”

  “You’re right. It does sound stupid.” She swallowed, and admitted, “And my grandmother is many things, but stupid is not one of them.”

  Why hadn’t Amy realized this before?

  Because she’d been twelve when they’d been thrown from the school. She’d had a child’s skewed perceptions of what was right and wrong. As she grew, the mere act of survival had occupied her mind while at the same time, she pushed the hurt of abandonment and her father’s death into the depths of her mind. Had she and Clarice avoided Beaumontagne when in fact they should have returned? That would be a bitter irony indeed, one that left her feeling tearful and silly.

  “Do you trust this man?” Jermyn asked. “This Godfrey? For if you don’t trust the messenger, you can’t trust the message.”

  “I don’t know the truth about Godfrey, Jermyn.” Her voice wobbled. “I was a child.”

  “You’re still a child.” Deftly he turned the subject as he nudged her trembling chin. “Only nineteen!”

  His compassion dug at her pride, and she answered, “I might have been a fool about Godfrey, but I assure you, Jermyn, I have experience enough for ten lifetimes.”

  “And you’re prickly about being young.”

  She was amusing him.

  “More than ever, I feel as if I’ve robbed the cradle.”

  But she knew how to puncture his mirth. “You are very old,” she agreed demurely.

  He pushed her backward onto the grass.

  She laughed and fought him.

  Within minutes he had her arms trapped over her head, and he kissed her while the world whirled around them. “I win!” he said against her lips.

  “Only because you used brute force.”

  “It’s better than drugs in a glass of wine,” he retorted.

  “You would think so, since you hold the brute force.”

  He grinned down at her. “But I did win.”

  “Yes, yes, you won.” She dismissed his boasting as if it were of no consequence. “Are you ever going to forget that stupid manacle?”

  “No, I think I’ll be bringing it up at inconvenient moments for the rest of our lives.”

  At his ill-thought-out words, they both froze, their eyes wide with shock. The rest of their lives?

  Their gazes shifted away from each other.

  Her mind worked feverishly. Did he mean it? Did he plan that they would be together forever?

  Sitting up, he offered her his hand and pulled her up. As if nothing important had happened, he said, “Britain has diplomatic ties with Beaumontagne. I believe they’re cordial. With your permission, I’ll have discreet inquiries made in London.”

  Her rush of excitement surprised her. In all those long years with Clarice, Amy had given up on ever again seeing Beaumontagne. Now with swift kindness, Jermyn offered her her home. “I would like that.” Belated caution made her add, “If we can not tell them why we’re asking.”

  “We can do that. No one will question my interest. There are advantages to being a marquess.” He grinned. “Besides, I’m getting good at deception. My uncle has by now received the letter I wrote him the day after we married, begging him for the ransom before the villainous kidnappers most cruelly kill me.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Today I’ll write another letter declaring that I escaped, that I’m throwing a party to celebrate my thirtieth birthday and he’s invited, and that I wish an advance on my allowance.”

  “Delightful.”

  “And when we return to the manor, I’ll give Walter a commendation for his loyalty and industry during my absence.”

  “Why?” She couldn’t believe Jermyn would praise his treacherous butler.

  “Biggers says it
’s best that we appear imperceptive of wrongdoing on his part. That we don’t want Uncle Harrison to have to buy or threaten another one of my servants into his service.”

  “All right.” She stuck out her lower lip. “But I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t worry.” The gold disappeared from his eyes and they became bitter brown and flat. “When this is over, Walter will discover a different world—the one in Newgate Prison.”

  “On one occasion, my sister and I saw the inside of a prison.” A memory she didn’t relish. “Walter won’t like that at all.”

  “My dear girl! Prison? How? Why?”

  “I’ve told you. We were peddlers promising youth and happiness to anyone who used them. We sold good creams, but they couldn’t live up to that guarantee. That was why Clarice and I fought. I wanted to give up on the dream of returning to Beaumontagne, stay in one place and make the best of our lives. She was like a mother hen, keeping me safe, holding up Beaumontagne as our shining goal when I had given up on ever returning…How odd that, with your help, I may go back.” An abrupt thought caught her attention, and she whipped around to stare at Jermyn. “Do you realize how much our lives are in tune? You may be the one to take me home, and I may be the one to change your mind about your mother’s guilt.”

  His face grew still. “Why are you still thinking of that? Forget her. If you want to make me happy, forget her.”

  “I can’t. Especially not here on your estate where her presence demands the truth be told.”

  “It was told. There’s no possible reason that would justify her abandonment of her husband and child.”

  “It seems impossible that a lady you loved so much would leave you.” Amy rubbed her knuckles under his rigid chin. “Miss Victorine doesn’t believe it.”

  He moved his head away. “Miss Victorine is a lovely lady who thinks the best of everyone.”