The Barefoot Princess

  Amy turned to watch another strange gentleman approach. He was of average height, about fifty years old and twelve stone. The bags under his eyes drooped, his cheeks drooped, his neck drooped, his earlobes drooped. He had a long body and short legs, with a jolly belly that thrust at his blue waistcoat and brown jacket and drooped over his brown plaid trousers. As if he never walked out of doors, he picked his way through the graveled paths, lifting his blue tasseled boots high.

  “Ah. Yes.” Jermyn watched Amy with amusement. “That’s my uncle, Mr. Harrison Edmondson.”

  She had expected a villain. Instead, she saw a basset hound—morose, but friendly.

  “Oh, my!” She started forward. “I should greet him.”

  “Let me walk with you.” Jermyn caught her hand and placed it on his arm.

  “Of course. I forgot. You have to introduce me,” she said in disgust. The house party had begun only yesterday. She’d met people like Kenley and Howland whom she liked, people like Alfonsine, countess of Cuvier, whom she despised. But while she found the dozens of guests to be friendly or not friendly, entertaining or dreadful bores—in other words, normal human beings—the constant barrage of rigid British courtesy stifled her so much she found herself fighting a constant fatigue.

  Yet Jermyn insisted on admiring her: loudly, publicly, and constantly. He had decided his fiancée would be a success. Since apparently she was the first female in whom he’d ever taken a public interest, his guests followed his lead…although she was not so foolish as to imagine they did so gladly. Certainly the ladies in the drawing room had proved that.

  Uncle Harrison’s eyes sparked with interest as she approached. Obviously, he’d heard the rumors about her.

  “Uncle Harrison, I have news which will no doubt bring you great joy.” Jermyn heartily shook his uncle’s hand. “This is my fiancée, Princess Amy of Beaumontagne.”

  Amy glanced at Jermyn in surprise. They’d agreed to let the rumors about her title swirl through society; she because she dreaded a return to the elaborate courtesies due a princess, he because the mystery would give her a greater cachet and ease her traverse through English society. Yet for his uncle, Jermyn introduced her with all honors…and she wondered why.

  Harrison’s avuncular display of surprise and pleasure almost convinced Amy that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. “Princess Amy of Beaumontagne!” He bowed with all the etiquette of her father’s oldest courtier. “It’s an honor to meet you. And my boy!” He pumped Jermyn’s hand. “Congratulations on finding the perfect bride. I envy you no end.”

  Amy heard no ring of falseness. Where was the Uncle Harrison she expected: oily-tongued, murderous, and deceitful?

  “It’s good to meet Jermyn’s only relative.” She gave Jermyn a wide-eyed, adoring look. “He’s such a wonderful man, and I can’t wait to hear all the stories about his childhood.”

  “He was a wild lad, I can tell you that. Always getting his cuffs filthy as he ran about stirring up trouble.” Harrison cast a roguish glance at Jermyn. “Especially after his mother…left us.”

  Jermyn’s smile disappeared.

  Ah. There he was—Uncle Harrison, the villain she expected. “Yes, I can see that without a mother’s guidance, young Jermyn would run wild,” she said cheerfully.

  Harrison’s face fell further, its drapes and folds looking like a cook’s first attempt at egg soufflé.

  She continued to chat, drawing the attention away from Jermyn. “When I lost my home and my father, I became rebellious myself. I was the despair of my sister, and when I left her, I know she must have worried.”

  “You mean when you lost her,” Jermyn corrected.

  “No, when I left her—” For the first time, Amy realized what Jermyn had thought. He had thought that her sister was dead. “I wanted to travel alone, so I left her two years ago in Scotland.”

  “Left her?” Jermyn’s voice grew quiet. His eyes grew bleak. “No. She’s your sister. Your family. You wouldn’t have left her.”

  Perhaps Amy should mention the letter she’d sent three weeks ago…but not now. Now when the hard line of his chin radiated cruelty and she shivered at the cold that radiated off of him. Yet she wouldn’t lie to him. Between them, only the truth would do. “But I did leave her.”

  Jermyn stared at Amy, at her earnest upturned face, at the supple body which inevitably moved him to desire, at the shining perfection he’d grown to worship—and he saw the first cracks in the pedestal he’d placed beneath her feet.

  “Excuse us, Uncle.” Taking her arm, Jermyn led her away from the party.

  He spoke to the guests as they walked, smiling, nodding, accepting birthday congratulations, keeping up the façade of the proud marquess. All his life, he’d cultivated that veneer, for it kept the laughter about his mother’s abandonment at bay. When he’d decided to take an exiled princess for his bride, he’d known there would be more laughter, but he hadn’t cared. For the first time, the face he presented to the world had represented his real feelings: happy, excited, superior.

  Now…now a savage sense of betrayal carried him along. This woman, this princess, had abandoned her sister? In the wilds of Scotland? She’d walked away from a member of her family?

  She’d walked away as surely as his mother had walked away from him. Without a backward glance. Without a moment of guilt. He’d been making assumptions about Amy…were any of them true, or had he been living in a fool’s paradise?

  Although Amy squirmed, he marched her along with him toward the cliffs. Toward the place where they’d sat and stared out to sea and she’d duped him into confessing his past, his fears…“My God. What an idiot I’ve been!”

  “Jermyn, listen to me, it’s not what you think.” She used a reasonable tone on him, a tone that grated on his nerves.

  “Wait until we’re completely away from the party.” He made no effort to hide his cutting contempt, and he kept his fingers wrapped tightly around her elbow.

  She didn’t listen to him. Of course not. “You think I abandoned Clarice like you think your mother abandoned you, but it’s not true.”

  “Wait,” he said again. He couldn’t bear it if any of the guests heard this…this muddle that he’d made of his life.

  “Clarice and I disagreed about what we should do with ourselves.” Amy sounded so heartfelt.

  He moved her along more quickly. They got to the edge of the cliff. He let go of her gladly, not wanting to touch her for fear she’d contaminate him.

  Amy continued, “I tried to make Clarice listen, but she is my elder sister. She thought I was still a child. She insisted we do as she thought best.”

  But as badly as he wanted nothing to do with Amy, he just as much wanted to hurt her for betraying Clarice. Clarice? Hell, for betraying him. For betraying his stupid dreams of a woman who felt loyalty where loyalty was due and returned love in full measure. Grabbing her shoulders, he asked, “Where is she now? What is she doing? Does she miss you every day? Does she feel guilty because she chased you away? Is she starving and in pain and you aren’t there for her?” He could see that she resented his questioning.

  Too bad.

  “I didn’t abandon my sister!” she said. “She was safe in that household and she was a powerful woman, a force to be reckoned with! And I saw the way Lord Hepburn looked at her. I thought he was in love and I was right. She married him. She’s a countess. She’s going to have a baby!”

  “You write her?” At least that was something.

  “Yes, I—”

  “So you know about her marriage and her child through her letters? You keep them? You can show them to me?”

  Amy’s eyes sparked, and the color changed to the green of poison. She looked like she had the first time he’d met her: hostile and bitter. “I don’t have letters. We have kept in contact through advertisements, just like I hoped to do with my grandmother.”

  “Damn you! You won’t even send a note to your sister?” Another hope dashed. Amy wouldn’t allow eve
n so feeble a connection as the written word. All those years he’d hoped for a letter from his mother…had Clarice hoped, too? “What’s Clarice going to do to you from Scotland?”

  “I don’t know.” Amy crossed her arms over her chest, shutting herself away from him. “Possibly nothing, but I’m a princess, Jermyn. Until Clarice knows that I’m married, she’ll want me to live the bright dream of being a princess in Beaumontagne. So I didn’t write because I know the price of royalty.”

  “Your father paid that price.”

  She caught her breath.

  Jermyn knew he’d been brutal. He didn’t care.

  Her voice rose. “Yes, and if called to battle, I’ll gladly fight. But I won’t sacrifice myself on the altar of an arranged marriage and that’s where princesses are sacrificed.”

  “Excuses.”

  “I’m not making excuses. I’m explaining myself, although why I’m bothering when you can’t tell the difference is beyond me.”

  “You don’t even feel guilt.” He didn’t try to temper his disgust.

  “Of course I feel guilt. I’ve had experiences that made me grow up since I left Clarice two years ago, not the least of which is the past two months.” She waved at his house where tonight they would put on their play. “But I’m not ready to fling myself off the cliff about it.”

  “You don’t dare go to your grandmother. You don’t know where your oldest sister is. And yet you abandoned your last scrap of family you have left.” He drew away from Amy as if she were diseased. She was like his mother. He’d married a woman like his mother. “Even if you keep your promise to remain with me for a year, I’ll wonder if you intend to leave as soon as soon as the time is over.”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She wrung her hands. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want that.”

  “I’ll keep my promise!” she shouted.

  He lowered his voice. “Don’t. I don’t want you. Not a flighty woman like you.”

  “A flighty woman like me?” She had the gall to betray astonishment. “Are you telling me to leave?”

  “Exactly.” Better to have her go now than to wait for the morning when he woke and found her gone.

  “What about our plan for tonight? You…you need me.”

  “Anyone can play your part. I’ll send Biggers to Uncle Harrison—he’ll perform well.”

  “But I want to know how this would end.” She stepped toward him, urgent, beautiful…toxic. “You’re condemning me for a sin I haven’t yet committed! And I…I…”

  “You what?” He lashed at her with his tone.

  “I love you.”

  The waves crashed against the base of the cliff. The seagulls wheeled overhead. The breeze carried the tendrils of her hair around the sweetness of her face.

  And he laughed. Laughed at the words he had hoped most to hear. Laughed while his heart cracked. “What an amazingly convenient moment you’ve picked to confess that.”

  “But I didn’t know it before.” She gripped his arm. “I just discovered it a few minutes ago in the garden. Kenley and Howland told me it was so, but I didn’t believe them. Then when I saw you talking to that old woman, I felt such a tide of—”

  “Manure rising in you?”

  She gasped as if he’d slapped her. Her eyes filled with tears. “Jermyn…” she faltered.

  He couldn’t stand to see her cry. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and soothe her pain, tell her he didn’t mean it, tell her that he loved her, too. But he knew better. He’d learned his lesson many years ago, and he’d learned it well. He had only temporarily forgotten it. “Pack,” he said. “Leave now. Take whatever you want. Go to Beaumontagne or wherever you wish, but don’t stay here to break my heart. You said I was stupid to distrust all women because of my mother, and I had begun to believe you.” He walked away. “I’m not so stupid after all.”

  Chapter 24

  Livid, Amy stared as Jermyn stalked away in high dudgeon, a stiff, proud figure. Yes, the marquess of Northcliff had returned.

  Turning, she wiped her cheeks on her sleeve and stalked in the opposite direction.

  Beside her, a deep voice spoke. “Where are you going?”

  She glanced at the man who had so smoothly joined her. He was the gentleman Kenley had swooned over, the dark-haired, hard-eyed fellow in the dark suit. The one who looked vaguely familiar—not that she cared right now, not when she viewed him through a red haze of fury.

  “I’m going to the house,” she said.

  “To pack, I hope.”

  “Yes, how did you know?” She stopped and turned on him, snapping like an angry dog. “I’m going to leave here, leave Jermyn and his ridiculous prejudices and his stupid opinions and his superior attitude.”

  “But you’re a princess. He’s not superior to you.” The fellow said the right things, just the sort of stuff she wanted to hear.

  “Someone should tell him that. I’m going to go back to Beaumontagne and take my position as a princess and use my authority to have Jermyn beheaded.” She drew her finger across her throat.

  “That seems a little greater punishment than he deserves for…whatever he’s done.” The stranger sounded amused.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew.” She started walking again, her arms straight, her fists clenched at her side, but she turned toward the cliffs. “All right. I’ll have him manacled to the wall in the dungeon for years while every day I’ll go down and taunt him with his helplessness.”

  “That is more reasonable.”

  “Then I’ll have him beheaded.”

  “Why?” The stranger sounded patient.

  “Because any man who judges my actions harshly deserves torture and imprisonment and…” Her steps slowed.

  His mother had abandoned him, and he decided that Amy had abandoned her sister.

  Well, she had, but not really. “I’m not going to abandon him because I’m flighty. I’m not flighty.” Dreadful word!

  “I hope not.” The stranger sounded rather grave, and he watched her as if the matter was of exceeding interest to him.

  “And I’m not abandoning him, I’m leaving.”

  “A sensible decision.”

  “Exactly. I’m making a sensible decision to leave where I’m not welcome.” She speeded up again, taking a turn toward the cottage where she and Jermyn had spent their honeymoon.

  “This is not the way to the house where you can pack,” the stranger pointed out.

  “What?” she asked absently.

  She was not flighty! Leaving Clarice had been the result of years and years of frustration and the need to show her older sister that she was a responsible adult who could survive on her own.

  She slowed again.

  Softly she said, “I do now realize I should have tried harder to talk to Clarice about our plans instead of sulking like a child.” And running away.

  Amy had been in trouble when she met Miss Victorine. She had been almost raped, and close to death from exposure and starvation. She would never tell Clarice that because she knew very well that even now Clarice would take responsibility for Amy’s suffering—and it wasn’t Clarice’s fault. It was Amy’s. She had imagined she could wander England alone on her own when in fact it had taken the sisters’ combined wit and experience to survive the rigors of homelessness. Amy had been arrogant and impetuous, and she’d paid the price.

  Clarice had been her sister and companion for years, and Amy hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she missed her. She’d come to realize what she’d lost, and she wanted to see her sister.

  Both her sisters, Sorcha as well as Clarice. She even missed that grand old dragon herself, Grandmamma. Jermyn was right. She wanted her family back again…and she would not take the chance of losing Jermyn as she had lost the others. As she had lost her dearest poppa.

  Slowly she lowered herself onto a bench outside the cottage. She wanted to leave Summerwind Abbey right now, but a heaviness of the limbs kept her in place. She was tir
ed. The quarrel must have drained her, for she felt almost faint. She wanted to be alone to collect herself.

  Yet uninvited, the stranger sat with her.

  “Oh, go away.” She was surprised to hear the peevish tone in her voice.

  He didn’t go away. “Amy, do you know who I am?”

  “Should I?” She didn’t care about him. Why should she care about him?

  “I’m Prince Rainger.”

  For all the sense that made, he might have been speaking a foreign language, one she couldn’t easily comprehend. She turned her gaze on him and stared unseeingly.

  His black hair was tossed in studied carelessness about his face—a face that was not gaunt, but worn by life and distilled into strength. His eyes were brown, rimmed by dark lashes and guarded. So guarded. Yet in their depths she saw the remnants of a lad she’d once known, and slowly she realized the truth. “Of course. I should have recognized you. But you’ve…changed.” He’d been such a spoiled boy, and now he was the kind of man who caused women to swoon and men to walk warily.

  “Seven years in a dungeon will do that.” He scrutinized her as she absorbed that information. “Queen Claudia wants you to return.”

  Queen Claudia…Grandmamma. “Is she well?” Amy asked eagerly.

  “Very well, the last time I saw her. I believe she’s indestructible.”

  “I expect so. I hope so. And…have you seen my sisters?”

  He smiled. “Princess Clarice has already scorned me as a suitor.”

  “She’s married.”

  “She wasn’t when she scorned me.” His mouth turned up in the corner as if he were painfully amused. “Then she sent me on a wild goose chase—after you. She made sure you had time to get away, and that piece of deviousness I hadn’t expected of her.”

  Amy absorbed the truth. Clarice had given Amy the chance she desired. The chance to make her own destiny. And hadn’t she done a marvelous job of it?

  The world whirled around her. She put her hand to her forehead.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m just tired.”