The Barefoot Princess (13 page)

Where was the innkeeper? Why hadn’t he returned from the kitchen?

“You think I’m your silly little sister who knows nothing.” Amy pocketed the rest of the bread. “You think youhave to shield me, but you can’t. I have to go into towns on my own to set up your arrival with the creams. I know how to find a place of employment. I know how to live on my own. For heaven’s sake, I’m seventeen years old, Clarice, the same age you were when we were thrown out of school!”

“Have I been too protective, Amy?” The rain had dried on Clarice’s face, but now moisture slid down her cheeks. Hastily she wiped it away with her red, chapped fingers.

Amy felt a pang of guilt, but she swept it aside. “Yes. Why can’t we pick out some perfectly pleasant town, stop there, and open a shop? You could sell creams, I could sew—”

“Because Grandmamma sent her messenger to warn us that assassins are after us.”

“After five years, you think they’re still after us?”

“Godfrey said that when it was safe to return to Beaumontagne, Grandmamma would put an advertisement in the English newspapers. According to the reports, Grandmamma is still alive and has gained control of the country.”

“Probably scared the rebels to death,” Amy muttered.

“Probably, but that’s not the point. She wouldn’t forget to call us back.”

“No, not Grandmamma. She would never forget anything. So maybe she’s not really in control.”

“And maybe the assassins are still after us. Remember what happened in that inn after we left boarding school?” At the memory, a hard shudder wracked Clarice.

“Yes. Yes, of course I do.” A fortnight into their flight, they woke to find a man in their dark room. He was huge, with bulky shoulders, and a cloth covered his features. The blade of his knife gleamed in the moonlight, and he advancedon them, waving it in slow circles. The girls had screamed. The innkeeper had burst in. The assassin had knocked him down as he ran out the door.

And when they explained to the innkeeper who they were and why they were being chased, he had growled, “Ye’re trouble, the both of ye. Out ye go! And don’t come back.”

He’d thrown them out in the middle of the night. It had been a lesson in reality the girls never forgot, and the next day, they had spent some of their desperate coins on knives of their own. And in fact…

Where was the innkeeper? Where was his wife? Why hadn’t they returned from the kitchen?

“But that was five years ago,” Amy said. “We’ve been careful. Nothing’s happened like it since. They’re off our trail!”

“I can’t take a chance. Not with your life or my own.” Clarice glanced toward the door. “Where is that innkeeper?”

So she, also, was aware of the passage of time.

“They’re taking an awfully long time,” Amy said.

“If one of them goes out to the stable—” The princesses had groomed the young stallion themselves.

“If the hostler goes in and tells them what a magnificent creature Blaize is—”

The two sisters looked at each other in despair.

They heard the clomping of footsteps along the passage from the kitchen.

Amy snuffed the candle with her fingertips and tossed it aside. Picking up a heavy pewter candlestick, she put her back against the wall behind the door. She nodded at Clarice, who nodded back.

The door opened with a long squeak, hiding the room from Amy’s gaze.

“There’s one o’ them, Bert. The other’s probably upstairs stealing us blind.”

Slowly Amy slid along the wall, taking care to remain silent and unobtrusive.

Their tall, bony landlady stepped into the room, wiping her hands on her apron.

Bert, slow, stout, ham-handed, followed his wife. “Nice horse,” he said. “Where’d ye get it?”

“It was a present from my father.” Smiling with all the charm in her considerable arsenal, Clarice advanced on him. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

“Yer father!” The landlady snorted. “Like ye even know who he is.”

Ignoring her, Clarice continued to walk slowly toward Bert. “It’s such a foul night, Bert. I’m very glad for your kind hospitality.”

Hypnotized by her smile, Bert reversed course and backed up—toward Amy.

In a soothing tone, Clarice continued, “You have no other guests and you did already take our coin—”

“We’ll take the rest of yer purse before ye leave, too, for we’re na keeping two o’ the likes o’ ye here. Right, Bert? Right?” The landlady turned to watch as Clarice herded Bert along.

The landlady’s eyes widened when Amy stepped out of the shadows, candlestick raised.

The landlady squawked.

Amy brought the makeshift weapon down on Bert’s head.

He dropped like a rock, thumping on the floor in a cloud of dust.

Scowling, Amy lifted the candlestick again and walked toward the landlady.

She fled, shrieking like a Beaumontagne windstorm.

Amy dropped her weapon on the table and dusted her fingertips. “With any luck, the hostler’s in the stable and there’s no one to hear her.” Then, reconsidering, she picked up the candlestick again. “But we haven’t had any luck lately, have we?”

Clarice knelt by the landlord and pressed her fingers to his neck. “He’s alive.”

“Good. That’s one less crime I’ve committed,” Amy said grimly.

“Why do they always have to be suspicious of us?” Clarice stood and pulled on her still damp gloves.

“Because we don’t talk like them and we don’t look like them.” With jerky motions, Amy tied the dark hood over her sister’s head to cover the bright strands. Donning her own gloves, she said, “Come on. We have our bellies full. Blaize has a willing spirit. We can ride farther tonight.”

Chapter 14

“A
my, dear Jermyn is asking for you.” Miss Victorine came bustling up the stairs into the kitchen where Amy sat at the table, her hands cupping her forehead. “Do you feel well enough to go down?”

“No.”
A little terse.
Lifting her head, she tried to smile. “That is—I’m afraid I’m still unwell and would hate to pass my illness on to him.”

Miss Victorine’s eyes got big. “I thought you said your illness was a female problem?”

“It is! That is, it was. But now I have a cough”—Amy hacked insincerely—“probably the result of spending too much time in a damp cellar.”

“My cellar isn’t damp, dear.” Miss Victorine sounded huffy. “With the stove it’s quite comfortable.”

“Dusty,” Amy offered.

“If you really believe it’s disadvantageous to your health to go down, then in all honor we must free His Lordship or we will have his death on our hands.”

“No!” Amy came to her feet. “No, no, no, we can’t free him yet!” If they freed him, he could grab her and subject her to more of his kisses. Force them on her, make her accept a passion she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Miss Victorine sighed softly. Putting her arm around Amy’s shoulders, she hugged her and said, “Amy, you’re not ill. You’re avoiding Jermyn. I don’t blame you. I know that it’s unpleasant when we tell him he’ll not be released—”

“
It’s
unpleasant?
He’s
unpleasant!”

“He can be cajoled.”

“Why should I cajole him?” Amy expected Miss Victorine to mention Lord Northcliff’s nobility.

Instead she said, “Because we kidnapped him and put him in my damp, dusty cellar.” Playfully she pulled a strand Amy’s hair. “Now go down and talk to the boy. Offer to read to him. You noticed that first day that he’s very handsome. Perhaps you could flirt with him.”

“Flirt?” Amy’s gaze flew to Miss Victorine’s in horror. “Oh, no. I can’t flirt with him. He’s…not to my taste.”

“Really? I thought all those sidelong glances meant he was very much to your taste.”

“You…you think that I indicated a liking…a preference…for His Lordship?” Had Amy unwittingly encouraged his attentions?

“A reluctant liking,” Miss Victorine corrected.

“I don’t want to like him.” Amy thought she’d been a shrew, but what did she know about men? Maybe they liked shrews.

“No, of course you don’t. But sometimes nature has other ideas.”

With a fair imitation of her haughty grandmamma, Amy said, “Nature does not command me.”

Miss Victorine sounded not at all like Amy’s grandmother, but she still sounded implacable when she replied, “It does. Now go on down and see what he wants. It’s not as if you have to remain there.”

Amy stared at the dark hole leading down to the cellar, then grabbed Miss Victorine’s arm. “Come with me.”

“If you insist, but my knee…” Miss Victorine winced. “It’s complaining with all the climbing up and down the stairs today. I did, after all, have to deliver his breakfast and his tea and his supper.”

“Then of course, you must stay up here. You’ve done too much today already.” Amy steeled herself to descend the stairway and face the man whom yesterday she had kissed.

Kissed! What a simple word to describe the panoramic pleasure he had shown her.

And she’d let him. That was the truth that haunted her. She had fought him, yes, but she’d fought him like a girl, not poking his eyes or slamming his throat. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him—and how ridiculous that was. He hadn’t hesitated to use his strength against her. Not that he’d hurt her; quite the opposite. He’d forced pleasure on her and showed her things about herself she had never imagined. She couldn’t imagine looking him in the eye.

Worse, she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror.

For the first time in the year Amy had lived here, Miss Victorine examined her critically. “You need some color.” She pinched Amy’s cheeks.

With her first flare of indignation at Miss Victorine, Amy flounced away. But before she descended the stairs, she turned back. “You never told me about his mother.”

“I did, too.” Miss Victorine puffed up like an offended partridge. “I said we lost her.”

“She wasn’t
lost.
She abandoned her family. At least that’s what
he
told me.”

“It looked that way. She left and was never seen again. But I never believed it.” Miss Victorine seemed to drift away. “Never believed it. She was sweet and lovely. She was kind to me. She loved her boy and she loved His Lordship.” Abruptly Miss Victorine returned to the present. “Lady Northcliff couldn’t have walked away from them.”

“Exactly what I said, but he—”

“Imagine, if you will, what it was like for that little boy to have people believe his mother was light-minded and immoral.” Miss Victorine cupped Amy’s cheek. “He heard adults gossiping most cruelly. They forbade their children to play with him because his mother’s dissipation must have been passed on to him. The children taunted him, said how awful he must be that his mother ran away from him.”

Amy’s stomach sank. “I may have said something similar.”

“Oh, Amy.” Miss Victorine’s hand fell away. “I love you most dearly, but you have a fault which you should mend. You speak too hastily and with too much candor.”

“Honesty is a good trait.”

“Not when it’s used to wound. Now bite your lips to bring color to them, too, and go to see my dear Jermyn.”

As Amy walked down the stairs, she did as she was told and pressed her teeth into her lips. She was embarrassed at herself, but she wanted Lord Northcliff to look at her and long to be loose of his chain.

At the same time she mocked herself; never in her life had she been so…silly. It was as if his kiss had stolen her stolid good sense and left her a breathless, silly girl concerned with nothing but a man’s approval.

When she stepped into the cellar, he was straightening his cot. That startled her; she had never seen him do anything that looked vaguely like a chore. He must be deathly bored. Holding the fur throw before him, he bowed slightly. “Miss Amy, if you would be seated, we have to talk.”

Courtesy. He showed her courtesy.

Why? “Talk about what?” About their kiss? She didn’t want to talk about that.

“If you would be seated,” he repeated.

She sidled over to her usual chair at the table and sat.

He sat across from her, the fur throw tossed carelessly on the table. “I need clothes,” he said.

Clothes. He wanted discuss his clothes. How deflating.

Not that she wanted to talk about their kiss, but she had thought it would be on his mind—although if it wasn’t on his mind, it certainly wasn’t on hers.

“I’ve worn the same garments for six—or is it seven?—long days now.” His shirt and waistcoat looked as if he’d tried to straighten them, but with little success. “At the rate your plan is progressing, I could very well wear them for another six.”

“I’m sure your uncle will be able to pay the ransom this time.” She was sure of no such thing.

From the way Northcliff’s teeth snapped together, it was clear he doubted he would soon be freed. “Nevertheless, I need clean clothes, and clean clothes are available to me in my bedroom on the mainland a mere five miles from here. All I need is someone to fetch them.” He bent his gaze on her. “Since I find myself unable to discuss the particulars of my linens with Miss Victorine, that someone would be you.”

“You want me to sneak into your bedchamber at Summerwind Abbey and steal your clothes?”

“
Brava
, Lady Disdain. You understand completely.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “I’ve written a list of my needs.”

“Your needs?” She could scarcely believe his gall. “How do you propose I get into your home without being noticed?”

“You’ve proved to have an analytical and criminal mind and the ability to put any plan into motion. I have complete faith that, if you had to, you could steal the silver out from under my butler’s nose as he was cleaning it.”

“Are you flattering me or insulting me?”

“I leave that for you to decide.” He shook out the list. “Now listen carefully. My linens are in the chest in the bedchamber—not the sitting room, but in the bedchamber—facing the foot of the bed. I want two clean shirts, two clean pairs of drawers, clean hose…”

As she listened to him recite, she swallowed. She supposed she could manage to walk into Summerwind Abbey without being stopped. As long as she behaved as if she belonged there, she was unlikely to be stopped, and if she was, there were three hundred servants and three hundred different tasks for a maid in a great house.

Sorting through his linens was an entirely different proposition. She knew nothing at all about a man’s undergarments, and the chances of bringing back the right clothes seemed remote. She could ask him, but his answer would involve—possibly—disbelief or amusement and—definitely—an embarrassing explanation. Better to nod and pretend she could do the task he had set her.

“—and that’s all,” he finished. “I’ve drawn a map to my bedchamber and a listing of the times my valet is likely to be about. I’d suggest you avoid him. If he catches you up to your elbows in my underwear, he’s likely to be testy and unwilling to listen to any tale you try to tell him. He is quite intelligent and very fond of me—”

“Why?”

“—and I imagine my disappearance has caused him some disquietude.” Northcliff held out the paper for her to take.

“Put it on the table and slide it toward me,” she said.

“I thought we’d progressed further than that.” He did as he was told.

She picked up the sheet, spread it out, and pretended to study the map.

“Of course, that was before yesterday when we kissed.”

She set her teeth and looked up at him. “Don’t worry, my lord. I’ve forgotten it.”

“Have you? Good for you. For myself, the heat of that kiss is burned into my memory so that in dotage when all else about my life has vanished from my mind, I will still remember the heat of your lips against mine.” In the flash of a second, the matter-of-fact aristocrat in need of clothing disappeared, leaving the primitive man stalking the woman he would take as his mate.

And he hadn’t moved an inch.

Why had Miss Victorine pinched Amy’s cheeks? She didn’t need more color. She felt the blood rush to dye her face and she could scarcely look at Northcliff with any equanimity. “Please, my lord, I don’t wish to—”

“Nonsense. Of course you do, Amy, and you want to with me.”

She flashed him a glance that scalded and abhorred.

“I know. You don’t like me. But think about it from my point of view. You’ve made a fool of me. You’ve kidnapped me, imprisoned me, made me feel guilty, made me doubt my uncle and business manager—all very uncomfortable for me, I assure you.” Northcliff was a very tactile man. As he stared at her, he stroked the old fur throw, and she found herself watching his fingers as they combed the long brown coat. They stroked and stroked again, and all the while his gaze caressed Amy’s hair so fondly, warmth enveloped her like the throw. Like his body. “I should despise you. Instead I want you. It’s all I think about, and the only thing that comforts me is knowing that having me is all you think about, too.”

“That’s not true.” The hypnotic motion kept her seated, trapping her to hear his slow, deep, seductive voice.

“Perhaps not. I have nothing to do down here except think. You have duties to occupy your mind.” His hand stopped. He leaned forward. “But Amy, I know women. I know that in the dark of the night when dreams slide under the doorsill as relentlessly as fog from the sea, you dream of me.”

Aghast at his insight, she denied it. “No!”

“You act as if you have a choice in the matter. You don’t. I don’t. Some odd quirk in our natures unites us in desire.” He sat in his chair, still as a lion waiting for its prey to step within reach. “Do you know that when you rise in the morning, I hear your footsteps over my head? I imagine you slipping out of a worn nightgown, your body gleaming pale and sweet, and donning one of your ghastly gowns. At night the floorboards creak as you ready yourself for bed, and I imagine you undressing. And all night long, every time you turn over in your virgin bed, I hear you. You have me imprisoned, but I am watching you.”

Yet his words wove a spell around her. She couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe, and desperate mortification slid easily into heady anticipation. Some remnant of good sense, or maybe it was just a virgin’s natural reluctance, kept her sane enough to say, “I’d release you if I dared, and then we’d be done with this.”

His deep chuckle caught her by surprise. “You are an innocent. We’ll never be done with
this
, as you call it. We’ll carry it with us our whole lives. Do you know how desperately I want you?”

Eyes wide, she shook her head.

“If you took off my manacle right now, I’d remain here in this dark, small cellar to make love to you.”

She had come to associate his scent with the earthiness of the cellar. “We can’t. I can’t.”

He said nothing, but his eyes were eloquent with a knowledge she longed to tap and a passion she longed to know.

“There’s too much difference in our stations. When you are freed, you’ll try to find me and punish me—”

“That’s true,” he conceded. “But you won’t die of my punishment, sweeting. You’ll beg for more. I promise, I will make you beg.”

When he looked at her, his brown eyes golden with flame, when he spoke to her, his voice slipping along her nerves like black velvet, she wanted to push him onto the cot, unbutton her gown, and discover if he could fulfill his promise. “Impossible.”

She spoke more to herself than to him, but he answered her anyway. “It’s not impossible. Think about it, Amy. Never again will you have a chance like this. I’m manacled to the bed. When the house is quiet and even the cat is asleep, you could come down the stairs and make love to me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You would never let me—”

“But I would. I’d let you take the lead, explore me as you liked, show me what gives you pleasure. I would kiss you anywhere you instructed—on your lips, on your breasts, on your—”