Miranda Jarrett - Princess of Fortune

“You can’t do this, ma’am,” said the captain in an impatient whisper as he walked beside her. “It’s not wise.”

“Then I am not wise, because I cannot see reason or cause for not entering this shop.” She was enjoying herself now, relishing the attention of the growing well-dressed crowd on the sidewalk around them, and she raised her voice so the others might hear her. “How am I to earn support for my dearest Monteverde here in London if I never show myself to the English people?”

An excited murmur rippled through the crowd, and she smiled just enough to acknowledge it. This was a part of being her that she’d missed, a part that the captain couldn’t understand, and how could he, really?

One of the footmen hurried to open the shop’s door for her, and she sailed inside. Because Mama had always insisted upon having the dressmakers and jewelers and everyone else come to her at the palace, Isabella had no firsthand experience with shops, and she gazed about this one now with unabashed curiosity.

One long room was lined on either side with pale green counters, and cushioned chairs for customers. While most of the goods were hidden away in the drawers of the tall cabinets behind the counters, special selections had been artfully arranged here and there to catch a buyer’s eye: wide-brimmed leghorn hats with silk flowers, pastel kidskin gloves, veils and ribbons and stocking and garters. Isabella couldn’t imagine having such a selection to choose from, and for once it actually did seem as if the common women might have the advantage over her and her mother in the palace.

With the gracious smile still on her face, Isabella stopped just inside the doors, waiting to be properly recognized and greeted. Every shop girl had already turned to look, as had every customer, and Isabella beamed at the attention. Surely in such a center of fashion as this she would be recognized; surely no assassins could be lurking here.

An elegant older woman glided toward Isabella, the curled ribbons on her cap floating gently around her cheeks. She dipped a genteel curtsy, and Isabella nodded in return.

But Mrs. Copperthwaite wasn’t noticing. “Good day, Captain Lord Greaves, good day! We are so honored to have you visit us—a gentleman of your heroic reputation!”

Beside Isabella, the captain bowed. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “You’re far too generous with your praise. All I did was for my country, nothing that any officer of the king wouldn’t have done in my place.”

“Oh, no, Captain my lord, I would dare differ!” exclaimed Mrs. Copperthwaite. “You are a hero, Captain my lord, and I will not have you argue!”

Mrs. Copperthwaite sighed and clasped her hands before her breasts in a way that Isabella found annoyingly overwrought. A hero, a hero, thought Isabella crossly. If this captain were such a great war hero, then why was he mired here on land, making her life so miserable?

Mrs. Copperthwaite sighed again, at last recovered. “Pray, pray, what shall you have this day, Captain my lord? How might we oblige you?”

“Nothing for me, ma’am,” said the captain. Even with the shopkeeper so shamelessly fawning over him, he was still watching out for Isabella’s safety, his eyes roving all over the counters and cabinets and other customers as he looked for danger. “Though likely my sisters would disagree.”

“Then for—for your friend.” Finally Mrs. Copperthwaite turned to Isabella with a distinctly slighter curtsy. “How might we serve you, miss?”

The shop owner’s expression was respectful enough, but her appraisal was so open—taking in everything from Isabella’s heeled slippers to the plume on her hat, and especially the un-English velvet and gold gown in between—that Isabella knew at once what lay behind it. Because she wasn’t dressed like a milky-mousy English lady, she must be a—a harlot.

“I am not this man’s mistress.” Isabella drew herself up with regal disdain. “I do not know what should give you such a ridiculous idea.”

Beside her, the captain made a growling grumble deep in his throat, and already she knew what that meant, too. He wanted her to behave.

“Mrs. Copperthwaite has said nothing of the sort.” His voice had a forced lightness to it, more warning for Isabella. “She intends no insult to you. She doesn’t know who you are, that is all.”

Isabella didn’t deign to look at him. Most likely he was right about this Mrs. Copperthwaite—if the woman wished to keep her trade, she could ill afford to make any judgments about her customers—but Isabella had no wish to admit to the captain that she’d been wrong. Royalty never did that.

“Then tell her who I am, Captain,” she ordered. “Tell them all.”

His dark brows came together, and the little muscles along the line of his jaw twitched. “That would not be wise.”

“Oh, you are too stubborn!” Without thinking, she lapsed into Italian, flinging her shawl over one shoulder, tassels flying. “Haven’t we already determined that I shall never be a wise woman, not by your preposterous standards?”

Not only was his jaw twitching, but along that same jaw a mottled red flush was now spreading from the immaculate white linen of his shirt.

“Your wisdom, or lack of it, is not my affair,” he said, also in Italian. “Your welfare and safety are. Few in London know you are here, but if you choose to announce yourself like this, in the middle of Copperthwaite’s, then I’ll guarantee the scandal sheets will be filled with it tomorrow.”

“Saints in heaven, what if they are? It will still be your duty to protect me, won’t it?”

“It will,” he said, “but you’ll also make it a damned sight more difficult. Now come, you’ve done enough damage here. Back to the carriage before—”

“Oh, Your Royal Highness,” cried a startled voice in the same Italian. “It is you! Praise the merciful Mother, it is you!”

A small, dark woman in a plain seamstress’s cap and apron rushed from behind the counters toward Isabella. Her round-cheeked face and her singsong dialect could have belonged to any woman in a Monteverdian market, and because of it Isabella smiled, touched by such an unexpected reminder of home.

But before the woman came closer, the captain lunged forward and grabbed her around the waist, jerking her back against his chest. The woman shrieked and fought him, struggling to break free as he caught her right hand and held it firmly in her grasp.

“Maria!” Mrs. Copperthwaite said sharply. “Maria, stop this at once and explain yourself!”

Still the woman plunged and kicked, while only Isabella and the captain knew that she was spewing out the vilest, most profane insults imaginable against every member of the Fortunaro family. She kept the fingers of one hand clenched tightly, and as she tried to twist around toward the captain, the light caught a flash of a polished blade. Shocked, Isabella could only stand and watch, her welcoming smile now frozen on her face.

“Drop it now.” His voice was harsh, efficient. “Save yourself, and surrender.”

“To the devil with you, you English bastard!” she cried, breathing hard with desperation as she tried one last time to twist free. “You deserve to die for defending the royalist bitch!”

But the woman’s strength was spent. The captain pried the woman’s clasped fingers open, and a sharp-bladed pair of sewing scissors dropped to the floor with a clatter. Gasps and ladylike murmurs of horrified surprise rippled through the other customers and shop girls, while the other seamstresses crowded in the doorway to the workroom they were never supposed to leave.

“Send for the constable,” said the captain. “Now.” Obeying instantly, one of the shop girls ran into the street.