Miranda Jarrett - Princess of Fortune

“My father is a good king.” Her words were coming out in a rush, as restless as her pacing. “He is fair, and just, and good. I do not know why that—that woman would say otherwise, because it is not true. You must understand that, Captain. You must.”

“I put no weight in what she said, ma’am.” He was careful of what he said, too. He knew little about her father either as a king or a man, but since a country takes its character from its leader, Tom had his doubts about the King of Monteverde, no matter how his daughter pleaded for him. “Every country has its malcontents, and always has. It’s the French and Buonaparte that’s made them bold now.”

“I thank you for your understanding, Captain.” She bowed her head and spread her fingers in a graceful fan of acknowledgment. It wasn’t hard to imagine her at home in a court’s ritual formality, just as he could easily picture her in the thick of that same court’s self-indulgence and flirtation. What was difficult was seeing her so sadly out of place here in London, a bright exotic bird trapped among the dry leather spines of the earl’s library. “And I thank you also for saving me as you did. I thank you with all my soul and my heart.”

He cleared his throat, uneasy with such lavish gratitude. “I was but following my orders, ma’am.”

The wariness remained in her manner, but there was a dare there, too. “You could have followed them without risking your own life. It was all so very fast, you know. No one there would have faulted you. To have seen me die would have likely pleased them more, to see if my foreign blood was as red as this velvet.”

“Don’t jest like that,” he said sharply. “I’d no intention of letting you be murdered.”

“No?” She stopped pacing and looked directly into his eyes, though he could not tell if she were teasing, or taunting, or simply seeking the truth. “You would have been free of the nuisance of me, Captain. Has that no appeal for you?”

“None,” he said firmly. “Not only did my orders oblige me, but my conscience, as well. And no more of this talk from you, mind?”

Her smile spread slowly, lighting her eyes as she turned her face up to his. He’d never expected her to be shy, but that was there, too, an unmistakable undercurrent to the vulnerability he’d glimpsed earlier.

“You did not have to save my life, yet you did,” she said, her voice low and breathless. “I did not have to thank you, but I did. Is it such a marvel that I trust you, Captain, like no other in this whole English country?”

She was so close to him that her scent, orange blossoms and musk and female, filled his nose, so close that he could see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes, so close he could not miss the sheen of excitement on the twin curves of her breasts, there in the caress of red velvet.

It occurred to him that she expected him to kiss her. It also occurred to him that as much as he would like to oblige her—damnation, as much as he’d like to oblige himself—to do so would be purest madness, and disaster for his career.

He took a step away, clasping his hands behind his back. That was his habit from walking the quarterdeck, but for now it was also the only sure way he’d keep himself from reaching for what she was offering. Even in a wanton place like Monteverde, there had to be other ways of showing trust.

He cleared his throat again. “I am glad that you trust me, ma’am. That should make it easier for you to answer my questions.”

“Your questions.” Her cheeks flushing nearly as red as her gown, she ducked her head and turned away from him. “I had not forgotten, Captain.”

Damnation, he hadn’t intended to shame her, especially when he’d wanted the same thing. Promptly he looked away, too, his own face growing warm, and instead concentrated on a blank-eyed marble bust of Homer that stood on a pillar in the corner.

“There were far too many coincidences this morning for chance alone, ma’am,” he began, striving to be all business. “Have you contacted anyone else from Monteverde since you arrived in London? An ambassador, a friend?”

“The ambassador returned home months ago, before I’d left, to guard his estates from the French,” she said. “I do not believe Father replaced him. Everything was already too unsettled. And as for friends or acquaintances—I have not a one in London, else I would have gone to them instead of here.”

He could not imagine being so entirely adrift in a foreign country. The navy had always been there to support him even if his family and friends had not, and he marveled at the strength this small young woman must possess, forced to depend upon strangers for so much.

“Is there any reason beyond politics that someone would want you dead?” he asked. “Did you bring with you anything of great value? Gold, jewels, paintings?”

She sniffed with indignation. “Lady Willoughby could tell you that. Recall how she and her staff have searched my belongings.”

True enough. That search would have served its purpose, even though Tom didn’t like the notion of her having so little privacy. If anything of real interest had been discovered, then the admiral would likely have relayed it to him.

“Well, then, another reason. Someone who is jealous of your position or rank, or the fact that you escaped while they were forced to remain?”

“No,” she said sadly. “My life has not been so interesting as that. Besides, most Monteverdians would consider my escape a banishment, not something to be envied.”

“There is no one?” He hesitated, wishing he did not have to ask this. “No, ah, no fiancé, or lover?”

“By all the saints in heaven, of course I had no lover!” Her indignation was rising to such heights that he half expected to smell smoke where she’d scorched the carpet. “No Monteverdian princess would dare take a lover before she was wed, and before she’d given her royal husband a legitimate heir.”

“I understand, ma’am,” he said hastily. “You don’t have to say more.”

“But I do,” she insisted, “because you do not understand, else you would never have asked. To risk bearing a bastard child of impure blood, to lose all my value as a bride to any respectable royal house, to sully my family’s name, to be forced to surrender my dowry—I would not do that, Captain, never. Never.”

Oh, hell. Now he’d made a right royal mess, hadn’t he?

“I didn’t say that you had done any of that, ma’am,” he said, wishing desperately for a way to withdraw that particular question. “I was only trying to, ah, to learn if there was anyone else who might wish you harm.”

“Harm, ha,” she said darkly, and muttered some black, incoherent words in Italian that he was certain must be a curse. “I could show you harm, which is what you deserve for that. Because I know exactly what you meant. I may be a virgin, but I am not a fool.”

He felt himself flush again, something that had not happened since his voice had cracked at age twelve. But then, he could not recall ever having had any woman, young, old, or in between, speak to him so frankly of her virginity.

No wonder he was feeling mortifyingly out of his depth, and sinking fast.

“I assure you, ma’am, there was no disrespect—”

“No more of your assurances.” Suddenly she was standing between him and Homer, her dark eyes full of sparks and a fierce tilt to her chin that had nothing shy about it. She snapped her fingers before him, as if to flick away the word itself. “No more of your harms, and your coincidences, and—and no more of your ridiculous ‘ma’am’s,’ either. It is the insipid sound a nanny goat makes, and it does not please me.”

He frowned down at her. He’d always respected titles and ranks, whether it was a senior officer, or his father the earl, and he wasn’t sure why anyone would choose to do otherwise.