The Barefoot Princess (12 page)

“Dear, I have bad news. Amy doesn’t feel well tonight. I’m afraid you have only me to entertain you.” Miss Victorine blinked at him as if awaiting an explosion of wrath.

Putting down the tray, he took her hands. “This is perfect. I’ve been wanting to spend some special time talking to you about the village.”

“I would love that!” Miss Victorine beamed.

“And would it be possible for me to get paper and ink?”

Coal slid underneath the cot, and came out with a blade of grass between his teeth.

“The days alone down here are long. Tomorrow I’d like to write down my thoughts.” Elaborately casual, Jermyn leaned over and snatched the blade out of Coal’s mouth.

“Of course, dear,” Miss Victorine said. “I’ll fetch you some paper and ink.”

Equally casual, Coal sank his claws into Jermyn’s hand.

Jermyn wrenched away. The long scratches oozed blood.

Coal smirked and licked his paw as if to rid himself of Jermyn’s flesh.

That blasted cat had a lot in common with Lady Disdain.

Chapter 13

T
hat night, Pom staggered as he left the pub. He waved as he went, his silent response to calls of “Good night, Pom!” “Good fishing, Pom!”

Everybody else in the village remained, even the fishermen who normally went out before dawn to fill their nets. But the others didn’t see the sense in going out tomorrow. They figured they were going to hang soon, anyway. Might as well enjoy themselves tonight.

Pom didn’t judge them harshly for such thinking. He understood it. He just didn’t agree with it. Until his last breath, he had to keep trying to do the right thing. He only wished he was surer what that was.

“Ye’ll be all right until I get done working, won’t ye, Pom?”

He turned unsteadily to face the pub. Mertle stood in the lighted doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. With the light behind her, he couldn’t see her expression, but he knew she was anxious.

“I’ve found me way home many a dark, foggy night, Mertle, me love. I’ll find it again tonight.”

“I know,” she said softly.

He couldn’t see her face, but he could see her silhouette and the slight thickening of her waist. “I’ll be fine,” he said softly. “We’ll be fine.”

“I know,” she said again. “Good night then. I’ll see ye in the morning.”

He frowned. “ ’Twill be a late night fer ye tonight. Ye sleep tomorrow. I can get meself breakfast and get off t’ the sea.”

“I’ll fix yer breakfast and send ye off, then I’ll go back t’ bed.” She sounded quite firm about that.

He knew why. Like every other fisherman’s wife, she knew that any day could be the day the sea claimed her man. So no matter how late she worked at the pub and no matter how early he rose, she rose with him to kiss him good-bye and wish him God speed.

He couldn’t change her mind. For her, it was the right thing, and he wouldn’t deny her that. “Then good night, love.”

“Good night, Pom.” She turned back to the pub where men hollered her name and demanded their ale. “All right, me hearties. Here I am!” She shut the door behind her, leaving Pom in the pitch dark with the fog swirling around him.

Pom felt as lost as he never was on the endless, boundless sea. He blamed his sad humor on the ale. It was unusual for him to drink too much. For one thing, it took too many pints to achieve the desired effect. For another, he always had to rise early in the morning to find the fish.

But for all his stoic encouragement to the villagers, Miss Victorine, and Amy, he couldn’t escape the truth. They were doomed. Everyone in the village was doomed. His Mertle…his heart broke when he thought of his Mertle. They shared a secret, the two of them. In the fall, they would have a babe. That was why Mertle had encouraged him to help Miss Amy and Miss Victorine.

“Pom,” she’d said, “we’re starving most o’ the winter, sitting here starving while our gracious lord steals the fish from our nets and the work from our hands. We’ve got t’ do something fer this child, and Miss Amy’s plan is a sound one. Ye think it is, ye know ye do. So let’s not play it safe. Just once, let’s take a chance t’ make our lives better.”

And Pom, desperately in love with his wife and urgently fearful for the survival of his unborn child, had agreed.

Now the plan had failed, so Pom drank too much and staggered off toward home.

That was why he never saw the attack coming. One minute he was passing the end of the pub, the next minute he was sprawled flat on his back in the grass on the side of the road, his jaw aching, a weight kneeling on his chest. A man, unseen in the darkness, held Pom’s jacket in a crushing grip around his neck.

Gathering his wits, Pom braced himself to attack.

“You’re lucky I don’t kill you,” his attacker said.

Pom couldn’t see him, but he recognized that voice. Recognized the tone, the timbre, the aristocratic accent. He eased back onto the ground, his fists slack. No matter what the provocation, he wasn’t going to hit Lord Northcliff.

Northcliff remained still, waiting for attack. Finally he said, “Well?”

“M’lord, ’tis good ye got free at last.” Reflectively Pom said, “I thought ye would do it sooner.” He heard the hitch in His Lordship’s breathing.

“How did you know it was me?” His Lordship loosened his grip around Pom’s collar.

“Ye’re the only person right now who has reason t’ want t’ kill me. Can’t say that I blame ye. ’Twas a dirty trick we pulled.”

“That it was.” Lord Northcliff took his knee out of Pom’s chest, but he still leaned close.

Pom didn’t make the mistake of thinking he could easily overcome him. The way Lord Northcliff held his body told Pom all too clearly that this was a man who wasn’t afraid of a good row. Would like a good row. “I owe it t’ ye t’ let ye take a few licks at me.”

“Let me?” Lord Northcliff chuckled with unexpected humor. “You know how to take the fun out of a fight.”

“I can’t hit ye. Ye’re the lord.”

“But you can abduct me?” When Pom began to explain, Lord Northcliff said, “No, don’t tell me you want to save my soul, or I will be forced to hit you again and that’s unfair. But I want you to do something.”

“If I can, m’lord.”

“I have a letter for my valet.” Lord Northcliff reached into his own pocket, pulled out a sealed sheet of paper, and stuffed it in Pom’s pocket. “Take it to him.”

Easy for Lord Northcliff to say. He didn’t understand that a fisherman couldn’t walk into a great house and demand to speak with a swanky valet. But Pom didn’t complain. He owed it to His Lordship to do as he wished.

“In the morning rather than fishing, go to the mainland to my estate. Biggers is an old cavalryman. He rides every morning at dawn. Catch him in the stables.”

So maybe Lord Northcliff did understand about fishermen and fancy folk. “Should I wait fer a reply?” The ground was getting cold beneath Pom’s back, but he didn’t complain.

“No, but you’ll row me over the following morning.”

Pom’s heart sank. He could explain no fish for one day, but how would he explain for two? And he and Mertle had no backup resources—they’d go hungry both nights. The child would go hungry both nights.

“I’ll pay you for your services,” Lord Northcliff continued.

“Ye will?” Pom couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

“I will.” His Lordship got off Pom. Taking his hand, he pulled him to his feet. “Do as I say and you’ll not get hurt working for me.” Without another word, he melted away into the night.

Pom smiled in silly pleasure. Perhaps their little kidnapping had gotten through to Lord Northcliff after all. He walked on, a little more steady after his contact with the cool grass and the chill earth. He wondered what the note said. He hoped it didn’t tell him to bring the constable and arrest the whole village. If Pom could read…but he couldn’t.

When he was little, he remembered learning the ABCs from Lady Northcliff. Her Ladyship had come over to the island every Thursday and taught the fishermen’s children. She’d looked like an angel, her dark hair curling around her face and her kind brown eyes. He remembered learning his first words, and how proud of him she’d been. Then she was gone. Gone suddenly and ignominiously, and no one taught the children again.

No matter what people said, he would never understand what had happened to that lovely lady.

He turned up the little path to his house and caught the slightest whisper of a familiar scent. He sensed a movement and, on edge after his last encounter, he almost struck out.

Then a female voice whispered, “Pom? Is that you?”

“Miss Amy!” He put his hand to his pounding heart. “What are ye doing here at this hour? ’Tis gone ten o’clock!”

But he feared he knew what she was doing here. She knew His Lordship was free. She wanted Pom to recapture him.

Instead she said, “I need you to go to the mainland tomorrow for me.”

“Tomorrow?” He swallowed. This was too peculiar. “Fer ye?”

“I want you to send this”—she shoved a small package tied in string into his hand—“through the post to Edinburgh, Scotland.”

“Scotland.” He furrowed his brow as he thought. “That’s a long ways away, isn’t it?”

“That it is,” she said crisply. “It’s imperative it goes tomorrow.”

In the dark, he heard her fancy words and her noble accent more clearly. He mused, “When ye talk like that, so commanding and strong, I wonder who ye are and where ye came from.” Because for all that she had come to the island wet, dirty, and half dead, he knew she hadn’t escaped from the workhouse or the prisons.

She dragged in a long breath that sounded like a sob.

“Beg yer pardon, Miss Rosabel.” He was covered in mortification. “I’m drunker than I realized if I said that out loud.”

“No. It’s all right.” She gave a sniff, and he thought she must have rummaged for her handkerchief. “Someone on the island has to know what should be done with me if…if the worst comes to pass.”

“Ye mean if no ransom is paid and we’re taken fer our crimes.” He wanted to say that right now he had greater faith in their survival than he had an hour ago, but he’d already said more words tonight than he did in a normal week.

“You won’t be taken.” In the dark, she groped for his hand. “No matter what happens, Pom, I want to tell you—I couldn’t have done this without your assistance, and I will never betray you or your kindness.”

“I know, miss.” He pressed her cold, shaking fingers. “Maybe everything will come out fer the best after all.”

“Maybe. But if the worst happens and I hang”—her voice grew stronger as she faced her fate—“I depend on you for two things. Try to protect Miss Victorine.”

“Goes without saying, miss.”

“And take this package.” She handed him another package much like the first. “Send it to Edinburgh, too.”

“What’s in Edinburgh, miss?”

She waited so long to answer, he didn’t think she would. Finally she said, “My sister. She lives not in Edinburgh, but in Scotland, and she’ll see this. It’s an ad that will run in the newspaper and tell her of my fate. I hadn’t realized it before, but she is very dear to me. After all we went through together, I would have her know of my death—and my eternal affection.”

Scotland, two years ago

“We’re princesses. When it’s safe for us to return home we’ll eat wonderful foods, wear beautiful gowns, and be respected and loved by all.” Twenty-two-year-old Clarice’s hair dripped from the rain, her lips were blue from cold, but her face shone as she huddled in her wet cloak before the meager fire in the public room of a Scottish inn.

She really believed the litany she recited. As seventeen-year-old Amy saw it, that was the trouble. They had been gone from Beaumontagne for ten years, yet still Clarice really believed they would go back to the palace in Beaumontagne and resume their old lives.

Perhaps it was easier for Clarice to have faith in a handsome prince. She was beautiful: petite, blond, curvaceous, with a face that made men turn on the street to stare.

Amy knew she wasn’t ugly, but when the two sisters stood together, no man noticed Amy. It wasn’t a matter of contention for Amy—Clarice handled the attentions she drew with ease and tact, but sometimes things turned nasty.

Yesterday they had turned nasty. Amy’s heart still pounded from their narrow escape, and she wanted to ride farther into Scotland.

The foul weather thwarted them.

She hoped it would thwart their pursuers, too.

“Sorcha will return, also.” Clarice’s teeth chattered, but she still spoke cheerfully—and softly. “We’ll dance at elegant balls and be wed to handsome princes.”

“If the choice in princes is as good as the choice in common men, it would be better to remain a spinster,” Amy said crossly. The longer they were on the road being chased by magistrates and irate customers, the less Amy believed the tales Clarice spun. She handed Clarice one of the pieces of bread the innkeeper had placed on the table. “Here, eat this.”

Clarice took a bite, then grimaced.

Amy held her piece down by the single candle the landlord had placed in the middle of the table. The bread was moldy, dotted with green specks, but the sisters were too hungry and too desperate to quibble.

Glancing around, Amy found a ladle and filled a bowl from the mutton stew bubbling in a pot hanging on the hook. “Do you remember what just happened back there? You repelled an English magistrate, stole his horse, and that’s why we had to ride through one of the worst rainstorms in British history to cross into Scotland where we hope, please God, we’ll be safe.”

“Sh!” Clarice glanced around at the empty public room. “That dreadful magistrate was beating the horse.”

Amy lowered her voice, too. “He was beating his wife, too, and if he catches up with us, he’ll hang us.”

“He won’t catch us.” Clarice’s cloak steamed from the heat of the flames, wreathing her face, giving her an ethereal guise.

“You hope.” Pulling her spoon from her belt, Amy took a ravenous bite. It was hot, greasy, and it tasted…off. As if it wasn’t mutton, but some other meat about which she dared not inquire.

She hoped it didn’t make them sick.

She knew it didn’t matter. They had to eat.

In a vehement undertone, she said, “I am sick to death of the constant travel and the furtive half lies and the awful food. If we’re not hanged, then we’ll die of exposure.”

Clarice turned stricken eyes on her. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“How could you not know?” How could Clarice be so dim-witted? Amy dropped a piece of bread into the stew and fed it to her sister.

“You’ve never said anything before.”

“Yes, I have, you just don’t listen to me.” Maybe Amy hadn’t really said what she thought, but she was in no mood to be fair. She suffered from that jittery sense, the one that she had developed in too many desperate flights from too many towns. She shoveled the food into her mouth, shoveled it into Clarice.