The Barefoot Princess (3 page)

Chapter 4

B
y degrees, Jermyn came to consciousness. He didn’t particularly want to; he had just enjoyed the deepest sleep he’d had since he’d broken his leg. But his neck was kinked oddly and his mouth was open, dry, and pressed into the pillow. So although he fought waking, awareness came inevitably, filling his senses.

First he noticed how very much he liked the scent in his room, like clean linens overlaid with the odor of freshly turned earth. The sounds that came to his ears were rhythmic, a light clacking interspersed with a deep creaking. A warm weight rested against his side. He felt rested, really well, except…He frowned. What odd dreams he’d had, about bad wine and a boat and a beautiful girl with eyes the shade of poison—his eyes popped open. He sat up in bed.

No, not a bed. A cot. A narrow iron cot attached to the wall with bolts, with a thin feather mattress, thin sheets, and a shabby fur throw.

Beside him a huge black cat rumbled its displeasure, then settled more comfortably in the middle of the mattress.

A swift survey of his surroundings showed Jermyn a room with three small windows near the open beamed ceiling…a cellar. Gray light filtered through the glass, its feeble illumination allowing him to discern no more than still square shapes…furniture. Achest. A long table. Chairs. A small iron stove. He touched the wall beside his cot…rock. Cool, hard rock.

He still wore his clothes, although his cravat was gone and his boots were off. He wasn’t wounded or hurt. So…“Where the hell am I?” he asked aloud.

“In Miss Victorine’s cellar,” a calm, female voice answered.

The clacking and the creaking ceased. He turned to look behind his head, and a womanly form rose from a rocking chair. With daunting efficiency, she lit a lantern and lifted it, hanging it on a hook on the ceiling. It illuminated his surroundings—a cellar the size of a bedroom, full of empty wine racks and old, broken furniture—but most important, it illuminated
her,
the girl with the poison-colored eyes.

She was handsome, with a thin figure and features so proud as to be disagreeable. The color of her mouth reminded him of cherries in the spring, but her expression was reminiscent of that of his first governess when she had gazed on the small, dirty boy she had been given to tutor. Something about this girl’s air made him very well aware of his dishevelment and more than a little abashed that he’d slept in her presence. Sleeping was vulnerability, and he didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of her. “Who, madam, are you? And what am I doing here?”

“I’m your gaoler, and you’re our prisoner.” Her matter-of-fact tone made the words all the more incongruous.

“Absurd!”

At his vehement denial, the cat rumbled its displeasure and leaped toward the stairs.

Jermyn put his feet to the floor.

He heard a rattle.

Could it be…? Was that…? But no, that was impossible.

He moved again. Again heard the clank of metal against metal.

A chain? Was that a chain? Did she dare…? He extended his foot. He looked…and saw it.

He saw it, but he couldn’t believe it.
He could not believe it.
“That is a manacle.”

“So it is.”

“Around my ankle.” His chest constricted.

“You’re a bright one.” Her calm manner proved she didn’t even recognize her danger.

“Get…it…off.” Chained! He growled with fury.

“No.”

“Perhaps you didn’t understand me, girl.” He looked at her from under lowered brows. “I’m the marquess of Northcliff, and I said to
get…it…off.”

“And I don’t care who you are, you’re here and here you’re going to stay.”

A flame of pure blue rage seared all thought out of his mind. With the instinct of a caged beast, he let out a roar and leaped at her.

She jumped back, her face alive with shock.

His hands reached for her throat—and the chain jerked him off his feet. The stone floor met his outflung body with a thump that knocked the air out of his lungs. For a long, agonized moment he couldn’t breathe. Then he could, and it was worse. Painful reprisal for his rage.

His leg, his stupid leg, felt as if he’d landed on hot pokers.

And all the time he lay there and gasped like a dying fish, that female stood and watched without offering sympathy or assistance. To him. To the marquess of Northcliff, the man whom dowagers and gentle ladies adored.

When at last he could lift his head, he asked, “What have you done?”

“What have I done?” She lifted a mocking brow. “Why, I’ve kidnapped the marquess of Northcliff.”

“You dare admit to it?” Inch by painful inch, he dragged himself back onto the cot.

“Admitting to it is the least of my sins. I
did
it.”

She was enjoying herself. He could see it in the saucy tilt of her lips, the jaunty lift of her brows. He couldn’t comprehend that any woman would have the gall, the sheer unadulterated nerve to take him off his own property…He straightened. His eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. There was a man.”

“I hired him to lift you. He’s gone now,” she said swiftly. “You won’t see him again.”

“I don’t believe you.” Stretching out his leg, he rubbed the thigh, feeling the bone through material and muscle. It didn’t feel broken, but he’d wrenched it again, and his pain was her fault.
Hers
. This insolent baggage. Speaking in the condescending tone she so richly deserved, he said, “No woman would come up with a plan like this, much less be able to execute it.”

“I’m depending on that kind of thinking. Everyone will imagine you mad when you say a woman took you—if you even dare admit it.” She inclined her head to him in mocking homage.

“Women don’t have the ability to sustain a thought long enough to put such a plan in motion.”

“Actually, you’re right.” She grinned, not at all offended. “It took two women.”

“Miss Victorine,” he remembered. “You said I was in Miss Victorine’s cellar.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you trying to tell me that Miss Victorine Sprott helped you kidnap me?” He well recalled Miss Victorine. When he was a lad, he used to come over with one of the fishermen, run up the walk to her stately old cottage, and she would serve him cakes and tea, then walk with him in the garden and tell him about the plants. Everything he knew about tending flowers he’d learned from Miss Victorine—and now she had
kidnapped
him? “Nonsense!”

“Not nonsense. If you think about it, there’s a certain justice in her actions that you can appreciate.”

He straightened. “What are you babbling about?”

“Please, I beg of you. Don’t try to pretend ignorance. It does you little justice and will avail you nothing.” The girl’s contempt whipped at him.

In that moment, as he listened to her elocution, he realized what he should have realized before. She might dress like a servant, but she spoke like a lady. That was what had bothered him last night—at least, he hoped it was
last
night—at the gazebo.

She glanced up the stairs where the soft hush of a lady’s skirt and the gentle patter of a lady’s slippers could be heard. “I think that’s Miss Victorine now with your breakfast. Are you hungry?”

“Do you expect me to sit here like a bloody fool and eat a meal?”

“You’ll always be a bloody fool, there’s nothing to be done about that, and I don’t care if you starve to death.” Moving to the bottom of the stairway, she took the tray from Miss Victorine’s hands. “But right now you have to maintain a modicum of health or we won’t get our money.”

Until Miss Victorine walked into the circle of light cast by the lantern, he hadn’t believed it possible she would take part in such a nefarious scheme.

She looked older, he saw. A lot older. Worry wrinkles cut deeply into her forehead and her soft hair had turned completely white. Her chubby cheeks sagged and her brown eyes looked tired. She no longer cared for her clothing; in fact, he thought he recognized the shabby dress she wore as one she’d worn when he’d visited as a boy. Her plump bosom and her stiff gait put him in mind of a puff pigeon, and he couldn’t believe, he just couldn’t believe…

With a thump, that dreadful young female put the tray down on the far end of the long table. The other end sat close to his cot, and she pushed the tray toward him until it was within his reach, but she remained far enough away that he couldn’t grab her and shake her as she so richly deserved.

It had to be this wench who had influenced—no, blackmailed—Miss Victorine into doing this. Miss Victorine was a proper English lady. For heaven’s sake, she was fond of him!

“Miss Victorine, you need to release me.” He spoke slowly and loudly, fearing she had lost her hearing.

“No, dear boy, I can’t do that. Not until we get our money. But I’m so glad to have you here and have a chance to talk with you once more.” She definitely wasn’t deaf, but she had obviously descended into senility, for she clasped her hands together and smiled fondly, as if she spoke exquisite sense.

“What money?” he asked.

“The ransom money. Now don’t worry. We’ve already sent a message to your uncle Harrison, telling him that we’ll kill you if he doesn’t pay.”

That contemptible girl perched one hip on the long, scarred, oak table and grinned at him.

He knew why. The expression on his face must have been priceless. “Kill me?” Jermyn could scarcely articulate his horror and disbelief. “You’re going to kill me?”

“Of course not, dear!” As if he were the crazed one, Miss Victorine frowned reprovingly at him. “We won’t have to go that far. I’m sure he’ll send the funds right away and you’ll be out of here in no time.”

“You’ve kidnapped me. You’ve ransomed me.” Jermyn counted the facts off on his fingers. “And you expect Uncle Harrison to pay for my safe return?”

“Yes, dear.”

“That’s outrageous!”

“We wouldn’t have had to do it if you hadn’t stolen my beading machine. Beaded lace is so popular now. Why, I’ll wager you can’t walk down a London street without seeing ladies carrying beaded reticules and beaded lace cuffs and beaded bodices.”

“Yes, beaded lace is all the rage.” The silly colorful glass beads caught on a man’s buttons. Miss Mistlewit had shrieked in his ear when he jerked free of her embrace and miniature beads had scattered all over the garden path, and he’d been lucky to escape without being forced to propose to the lovely, silly debutante.

“Because I worked out a machine to make the lace and place the beads. It was my idea, my invention, and you took it.” Miss Victorine clicked her tongue. “That was not well done. You have a fabulous fortune already, and the village is in need. If you’re not going to care for them, surely you see that they should be allowed to do more than eke out a living.” Her old voice quavered as she made her appeal, and her faded eyes peered at him reproachfully. “I hate to be stern, but I must tell you, your father would have never allowed such a shambles to occur.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. She wasn’t making any sense at all.

“Of course not.” The girl stood up straight, and she had the gall to look disgusted. “You probably steal so many inventions you can’t remember what you’ve done, and gloat when you think of a dear little lady living in a tumbled-down cottage with only gruel to eat unless her neighbors bring her a fish.”

Damme, she was an insolent twit! He straightened up to shout—but although Miss Victorine’s voice was as soft as ever, it held a snap that stopped the words in his throat.

“Now dears, you mustn’t fight.” She turned on the girl. “Amy, I will not have you parading my misfortunes as if I were a pitiful old woman. I am not. I have my own roof over my head, and that’s more than most spinsters possess.”

Amy—that miserable creature’s name was Amy—said, “It’s really his. He could toss you out in an instant, and as fast as it’s disintegrating, that would be a blessing!”

“That’s enough,” Miss Victorine said with crushing certainty.

“Yes, ma’am.” Amy subsided.

And as if he were eleven years old, Jermyn found himself gloating at the girl. He was half surprised he didn’t stick out his tongue.

“As for you, young man—”

At Miss Victorine’s tone, he snapped to attention.

“Eat your breakfast.” In Miss Victorine’s smile he saw an echo of the dear lady she used to be. “I made you my scones, and they’re the best in England. Do you remember?”

“I do.” Although he would have liked to arrogantly refuse, he hadn’t had dinner the night before, and his stomach rumbled at the smells seeping toward him from the tray.

That girl, that Amy, knew it, too. She smiled in that catty smirking way and watched as he lifted the cover. “Yes, eat, my lord. I would hate to see you miss a meal.”

“Amy!” Miss Victorine sounded as stern as a governess. “Mayhap it would be better if you went upstairs and rested. You’ve been up all night and you seem to be irritable.”

It was clear Amy wanted to object, but she muttered, “Yes, ma’am.” She shot him a poisoned glare that promised retribution if he tried anything.

And he knew just what to say to put her back up. “When you come back, bring me hot water and a razor. I need to shave.”

She gave him a glare that would have made Queen Charlotte of England proud. “We’ve already discussed it. Once a day, you’ll have a basin of water for shaving and bathing.”

“How generous of you,” he drawled sarcastically.

“It’s more than most prisoners have, my lord.” Then she ascended the stairs.

He found himself watching her, admiring the shape of her backside. Best of all, he didn’t need to be discreet about it. She didn’t deserve sensitivity or any of the niceties owed a lady. She didn’t deserve anything but a gaol and a rope tied into a noose.

He intended to make sure she got it.

“Isn’t she a darling girl?” Miss Victorine clasped her hands at her bosom and watched with every evidence of affection as Amy disappeared. Seating herself in the rocking chair, she added, “She’s foreign, you know.”

“That explains a lot.” He wrestled the heavy table toward him and without pride, dug into the eggs, the fruit compote, the fish pie. The scones were as delicious as Miss Victorine promised, as delicious as he remembered, and he ate three in a row. He picked up the knife to cut the sausage…he looked at the knife. It was old and thin from much whetting…and it was sharp. Very sharp, with a lovely point.