Princess of Fortune. Miranda Jarrett
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“Miss?”
Instantly she turned around, her heart racing in her chest. She could make out little of the English sailor’s face in the shadows, but there was no mistaking how he loomed over her, the prow of his cocked hat pointing downward as he addressed her. The long, dark boat cloak he wore made him seem larger still, but from the braid on his hat and the brass buckles on his shoes, she guessed he must at least be an officer, and perhaps what among the English passed for a gentleman. Beside him was another man with a long pigtail down his back, dressed in rough canvas trousers and a worn, striped jersey that marked him clearly as a common sailor.
And these two were to be her saviors. Oh, Mama, what have you done?
“I’m sorry to have frighted you, miss—er, that is, signora,” said the officer. “But I do need to know if you are—”
“I am the Princess di Fortunaro,” she interrupted in imperious English, drawing herself up as tall as she could. She must be brave and proud, and hide her fear for her family’s sake. “I am not a ‘miss.’ You must address me as ‘my princess.’”
“Very well, then,” said the officer heartily as he touched the front of his hat, and also obviously relieved that she spoke English. “I am Lieutenant Goodwin, at your service, my princess.”
Isabella nodded but didn’t answer. She wasn’t precisely sure what to say in return, true, but she was also waiting for him to show proper regard and respect, and to bow low to her. Wasn’t it enough that she’d made the effort to address him in his own language? But she must recall that he was English, and the English were widely known to have no manners whatsoever. Barbarians, all of them, from their Hanoverian king on down.
“You have, ah, any followers who will be joining you?” he asked, looking past her to the closed door, and cheerfully unaware of how much of a barbarian he was. “Servants?”
“No,” she said, already feeling more alone than she’d ever been before. “There are none that I can trust.”
“No abigail to tend to you?” he asked with surprise. “You’ll be the first lady the old Corinthian has ever seen, you know, there among all us hoary sailors.”
She regarded him with chilly disdain, wishing to put more distance between them. “Not a lady, Lieutenant. A Fortunaro princess.”
“Aye, aye, quite right you are,” he said quickly. “I warrant you’re ready to come aboard, my princess? We’ve already stowed your dunnage, and we’re ready to shove off whenever it suits.”
Isabella frowned. She had worked hard at her English lessons, particularly hard once Mama had decided she must go to London, but these words, these expressions—aboard? stowing? dunnage? shoving off?—had not been in her tutor’s primer. Whatever was this Englishman asking of her?
Gruffly he cleared his throat. “We cannot keep the ship waiting much longer, my princess, not if we wish to get you away safely. We’ll lose the tide.”
The ship, and the tide. That much Isabella could understand. She looked beyond the man and the longboat, and farther out in the bay she now could make out the dark silhouette of the English ship, outlined by the lights from its lanterns. At such a distance it seemed small, as insubstantial as canvas scenery for a saint’s day pageant, and hardly sturdy enough to carry her and these men clear to London.
To London.
“My princess?” The lieutenant was offering the crook of his arm to her as support, as gallant a gesture, she supposed, as an Englishman could muster. “You are ready?”
Oh, please, God, please, grant me find the courage to be strong and brave and worthy, to be a true Fortunaro princess!
She took a deep breath, holding her head as high as if she were wearing her best diamond tiara instead of a plain plush bonnet for travel. She could do this, and she would, one step at a time. Ignoring the lieutenant’s arm, she bunched her skirts to one side to lift them from the sand, and began walking—one step, then the next, and the next after that—across the sand to the waiting boat.
To her future, and to London.
Chapter Two
F or Captain Lord Thomas Greaves, all his dreams of glory and golden plunder crashed in the instant the porcelain monkey shattered against the east wall of the Countess of Vaughn’s drawing room.
Not, of course, that Tom realized it then.
“Ah, the ladies,” said Admiral Edward Cranford pleasantly in the next room, as if this were all the explanation necessary for crashing statuary. “My sister Lady Willoughby and the others shall be joining us presently.”
Thomas nodded, striving to match the admiral’s pleasantness even if it didn’t make a damned bit of sense. It was most unusual for an admiral like Cranford to summon a captain to call upon him socially like this, here at his sister’s house in Berkeley Square instead of the navy offices at the Whitehall, and more unusual still for any ladies to be included.
But Tom would overlook it. Desperation could do that to a man, and God knows he was desperate.
“You were saying you’d found a new commission for me, sir?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation back to more profitable ground. “What ship is it? When can I join her?”
Cranford hesitated, an ominous sign. “Not a commission, exactly,” he hedged. “Not a new ship, but a special assignment from the admiralty. One that is, I believe, uniquely suited to your talents and experience, as well as your rank by birth.”
Disappointment rose sharp in Tom’s throat, and he fought to keep the bitterness from showing on his face. He could guess what was being offered: a regulating captaincy in the impress service, little better than being a kidnapper, and rightly loathed in every seaport town. Or perhaps they’d granted him a plum place in one of the dockyards, sitting day after day on a tall stool at a desk and growing fat like any other countinghouse drone.
But what else could Tom expect? It didn’t matter that he was only twenty-eight, or that he was the fourth son of the Earl of Lerchmere, or that he looked and felt as fine and fit as ever, and quite sufficient to earn the ladies’ approval. What did matter was that the navy had judged him to be an invalid officer, and the navy never changed its collective mind.
For over a year he’d been landlocked, impatiently recuperating from the wounds that had nearly killed him, but he’d beaten all the odds. He’d survived, hadn’t he? He was ready, more than ready, to offer his life again in the service of his country. He was a captain in the greatest navy in the world, his dark blue uniform coat bright with gold lace and brass buttons and hard-won medals on his breast, but none of it was worth a brass farthing without a ship and crew.
“I appreciate the special consideration, Admiral,” he began, trying to keep his words civil. “But I do not believe I require any such preferential treatment. I would prefer that my record stands upon its own merits or lacks.”
The admiral puffed out his cheeks and frowned, the thatch of his white brows bristling across his ruddy-brown face. “You know it wasn’t my decision to make, Greaves.”
“But surely you have influence to change it, sir,” said Tom. He’d spent more than half his life in the navy, and he knew the peril and consequences of speaking too forcefully to a superior, yet he was struggling to keep his temper in check. How could he do otherwise, when his whole life and future were slipping from his grasp? “A sloop, a ketch, anything with a sail! Given that the country’s at war, there surely must be some suitable command—”
“Not for a man in your condition, no.”
“For God’s sake, sir, all you must do is look at me!” For proof Tom held his arms away from his sides, strong and steady and without the slightest tremor. “I’ve mended good as new—better than new! Those infernal surgeons at Greenwich said I was as close to a miracle as they’d ever seen, Lazarus himself,