my leash to hold for himself.”
She couldn’t play such tricks on Captain Lord Greaves. How could she have known that Cranford would have found even a single man in this country to speak Italian so well? Tears had started to her eyes when she’d heard the familiar, rolling words, she’d been that struck with sudden homesickness, and for one horrible moment she’d gasped aloud from the shock. But after that she’d managed to hide her feelings, the way a princess always must. She hadn’t let the captain know how surprised she’d been or how lonely she’d felt, and she certainly hadn’t revealed that she’d found him passing handsome, too.
He wasn’t like the other English sailors she’d met on the interminable voyage here, rough, ill-spoken men with dreadful battle scars and missing teeth, and he wasn’t like the sorry old warhorses the admiral had first introduced her to, either. This captain stood straight and proud, his dark blue uniform tailored to show off his broad shoulders and flat stomach. He had fire to him, too, a challenge in his blue eyes and a bite to his smile, and he hadn’t been afraid of her. That was rare, and she liked it.
To be sure, he hadn’t shown her one iota of the respect due her rank, but she could teach him that. He was English, and even an English lord like Captain Greaves could not be expected to understand the finely detailed etiquette of the Monteverdian court. But he seemed clever enough. After these last long, lonely weeks, she would welcome any such challenge, an amusing way to pass the days until Buonaparte was defeated and she could sail for home.
Behind her she could hear his measured footsteps at last coming down the hall to join her, just as she could hear Lady Willoughby’s little birdlike exclamations—such a meek and spineless creature!—as she rushed to greet him. But Isabella didn’t turn, not at first, keeping her face well hidden inside the curving silken arc of her bonnet’s brim.
His first lesson would be simple enough. She would not jump for the delight of his company. He must come to her, and be grateful for her notice.
“What detained you, Captain Greaves?” she asked at last, without turning. “You knew that I wished to leave directly.”
She knew he couldn’t ignore her, not only because of his orders, but because she’d taken care of exactly where she stood. She’d learned that from watching her mother, another of royalty’s little tricks. The sunbeams slicing through the fan light must be making the red velvet of her gown glow like a flame against the stark black and white of the marble floor. How could he possibly be looking anywhere else? It was difficult being a small woman, particularly here in England where the females seemed all to be great gangly storks, and she must rely upon such careful planning to keep attention focused on her.
And for extra emphasis, she let his silence stand for another half beat before, at last, she broke it.
“You have no answer for me, Captain?” She turned, just enough to look over her shoulder, and she did not smile. “No explanation for your delaying me?”
He bowed, his wavy hair falling forward over his brow. “Is there any explanation that would be acceptable to you, ma’am?”
“No. There is not.” She was surprised that he’d answered her question with a question, and surprised, too, that he wouldn’t tell her the obvious reason, that he’d been with the admiral. Unless he hadn’t—a possibility that annoyed her even as it piqued her curiosity. “But no explanation is no excuse, either.”
“I didn’t claim that it was, ma’am.” One of the footmen handed him his gold-trimmed hat, and he settled it squarely on his head, as if preparing for battle. “Is the carriage here, Lady Willoughby?”
“Yes, Captain my lord.” Nervously, Lady Willoughby peered out the window, just to be certain, as if the carriage might have somehow been whisked away by thieves when she wasn’t looking. “But at my brother’s request, I have kept the princess within the house until you joined her.”
“‘Within, within!’” Unable to contain her impatience, Isabella flung one end of the tasseled shawl over her shoulder. “You have done nothing but keep me within, Lady Willoughby, ever since I came here! You might as well have locked me in your darkest dungeon, behind bars of iron, for all that I have been your prisoner!”
“If that is the case, ma’am,” he said, taking her by the elbow without waiting for permission, “then we had better go without.”
She began to pull her elbow away, not liking such familiarity, but then the two footmen blocking the door parted for Isabella and the captain like Moses at the Red Sea. The door swung open, too, and they were outside, on the steps—free!—and Isabella forgot all about the hand at her elbow.
She looked up at the sky and blinked at the brightness. The London sky lacked the brilliance of the one that covered Monteverde, and unlike that perfect enameled blue, this sky was muffled by a haze of coal smoke. But it was still the sky, not the ceiling of a drawing room, and she couldn’t help smiling at the difference as the tassels on her shawl rippled in the breeze.
Yet the captain didn’t share her pleasure. “Come along, ma’am,” he said, steering her down the steps as if her elbow were the rudder on some small boat. “It’s not wise for you to stand out here in the open.”
With an unhappy little sigh, she let him hurry her into the carriage. Not that she had much choice: even with no more contact than his hand on her elbow, she was conscious of how much larger, how much stronger, he was than she. This is what he was supposed to do, watch out for her welfare, but she’d never before had to consider herself a target.
“You ordered this closed carriage, didn’t you, Captain?” she asked as she climbed inside, the leather squabs and polished brass trim warm from waiting in the sun. “After all I’ve been through, you knew I would wish for an open carriage, so I might feel the air, but you chose a closed one instead.”
“Then we’ll keep the windows open.” His glance swept over the quiet square, searching for any sign of something or someone that didn’t belong. “And I believe it was the admiral who suggested the closed carriage.”
“Open windows aren’t the same.”
“No, they’re not.” His expression was stern, all business, as he sat across from her. “I won’t pretend otherwise, ma’am. But I agree with the admiral’s choice. In an open carriage, you would be far too vulnerable to any sharpshooter with a good eye.”
She had not heard that word before—sharpshooter—but she’d no trouble deciphering its meaning. Instantly she pictured herself as she’d appear in that open carriage, a bright patch of red and black, visible from every window and every rooftop they would pass. She knew she should be grateful for the captain’s experience, but the reality behind it frightened her. Though her parents had tried to keep the worst news from her, she knew what had happened to the French royal family. A crown didn’t grant the same omnipotence it once did; Isabella had only to consider how she herself had been sent away to understand that.
Yet she didn’t want to be a villain to those who supported Buonaparte, or a symbol for the English who didn’t. All she wished was to be herself, and for the captain to be the way he’d been inside the house, bantering with her in Italian and not searching shop windows for lurking assassins with chilly English efficiency.
The footman latched the door shut, and at last the carriage rumbled to a start, the iron-bound wheels scraping over the paving stones as they left the square and headed along the city streets. She leaned forward, eager for even a glimpse of the city.
“So
