The Barefoot Princess, Page 2

  Miss Victorine had been in doubt about the whole scheme, and had needed reassurance every step of the way.

  In truth, Amy found the execution of the plan to be more nerve-wracking than she had anticipated—and it was her plan.

  “Gently. Set His Lordship down gently!” Miss Victorine commanded.

  Amy’s aching arms couldn’t hold the weight any longer, and she dropped him the last few inches. Or perhaps it was more like a yard. Whatever the distance, she refused to be sorry, even when he roused from the depths of his unconsciousness to groan.

  “Do be careful!” Miss Victorine rebuked. “He is our liege lord.”

  Amy rotated her shoulders. “A liege lord who has behaved abominably to his people.”

  “Not so dreadfully,” Miss Victorine said.

  “Abominably,” Amy insisted.

  “But our liege lord nevertheless.” Miss Victorine’s voice took on a anxious tone.

  “Not mine,” Amy said grimly.

  Pom groaned as he straightened his back. “Sit on that coil o’ rope, Miss Rosabel. We’d best get him back t’ the isle afore he wakes, or we’ll find out exactly how he shows his displeasure.”

  “The arrogant blackguard would probably upset the boat and drown us all.” Placing the greatcoat onto the coil of rope, Amy seated herself for the two-mile trip.

  “He’s not daft,” Miss Victorine said. “He won’t drown himself. But he does have a dreadful temper. What if he had shot you? What if his servants caught you and shot you? What if—”

  “Yet here we are, as planned,” Amy reassured the aged gentlewoman. “All will be well, Miss Victorine, I vow it will. Don’t lose your nerve now!”

  Stepping out of the boat into the water, Pom pushed it off the beach. Leaping in, he expertly took up the oars. “We’ll be home in a flit.”

  Home was the isle of Summerwind, another of Lord Northcliff’s possessions. Another of Lord Northcliff’s neglected duties.

  The boat cut through the waves, then out into the open water. Amy listened to the slap of waves against the boat and Lord Northcliff’s stentorian breathing. An escalating sense of urgency dogged her. She hoped Pom could find his way home, and quickly. It was too dreadful to think Lord Northcliff might awaken before she had him irrevocably bound. She had already been pinned by the direct gaze of his odd, light brown eyes, and she didn’t relish any further experience. She thought him exceedingly like the tiger she’d seen as a child. Big, beautiful, wild, and dangerous, all teeth and cruelty, uncaring of the carnage left in his wake as he fed and played.

  The sun had set and left only a fading, silvery light behind. The fog thickened around them. And something cool and soft touched her cheek.

  She jumped and swatted at it—and caught Miss Victorine’s hand.

  Miss Victorine clutched Amy’s fingers and whispered, “Lord Northcliff is so still. You don’t suppose he’s dead?”

  “If His Lordship was dead, it would be no more than he deserved,” Amy answered rather too loudly.

  Miss Victorine gave one of her birdlike chirps of dismay.

  “Lord Northcliff most certainly is not dead. Marcophilia doesn’t kill one, it knocks one out,” Amy said in a gentler voice.

  “But Lord Northcliff is all wrapped up in that sail as if it were his shroud.” Miss Victorine had been uneasy about Amy’s plan from the beginning, and now that it was in motion, she was sure the noose swung close behind her neck.

  “He’s no good to us dead,” Amy explained for perhaps the hundredth time. “We can only ransom him if he’s alive. Besides—can’t you hear him snoring?”

  Miss Victorine giggled nervously. “Is that him? I thought it was Pom huffing as he rowed.” Lowering her voice as if someone could hear her, she asked, “Did you leave the letter?”

  “I did.” Amy thought with satisfaction of the sharp knife stabbed into her carefully worded ransom letter. She wondered when the servants would find it. She estimated it would take only a day to make its way into Mr. Harrison Edmondson’s hands. And two more days for the money to make its way to the point of deposit—the crumbling castle on the isle of Summerwind.

  Amy liked the irony of having the cash come there, to the ancient home of the proud Edmondson family. She liked even better the tunnels that combed the castle and made it possible for her to retrieve the notes without detection.

  Waves caught the boat and lifted it onto the island, and as the boards scraped the sandy beach, Amy caught her breath. Almost there.

  Pom leaped into the water and dragged the boat ashore, then stepped back. With Amy’s help, he slung the canvas-wrapped body over his shoulder.

  Miss Victorine whimpered as Lord Northcliff groaned again. “He sounds like he’s in pain, the poor dear.”

  “Steady as she goes, Miss Sprott.” The fisherman stepped surefootedly over to the bow of the boat and onto shore. “Secure me boat, please, Miss Rosabel,” he said over his shoulder.

  Amy leaped onto shore and, grabbing the bow, heaved the vessel above the tide line. As she assisted Miss Victorine from the boat, the old woman said, “I do hope Lord Northcliff isn’t angry with us.”

  Amy thought he was going to be more than angry. She thought he would be livid. A man of wealth and influence wouldn’t take his helplessness with any amount of grace. And a man so obsessed with riches that he would steal an invention from an old woman would positively froth at the idea of being forced to give up a trifling part of his obscenely large fortune.

  Amy grinned. Actually, not so trifling at all.

  But she didn’t say that to Miss Victorine. Instead she declared, “You must admit that there’s justice to demanding a ransom for the return of the man who stole your idea in the first place.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know, dear, you’re right. Quite right. But the Sprotts have lived in my house for generations, and always with the permission of the marquess of Northcliff. And it’s not as if what we’re doing is exactly legal—stealing Lord Northcliff, I mean.”

  Not exactly legal? A polite way of putting it. “The marquess is nothing but an overgrown bully who commands that we pay him rent on a poor, battered house the cows would be ashamed to call home.”

  “I rather like my house.”

  “The roof leaks.”

  “It has atmosphere.”

  “Miss Victorine, that’s not atmosphere, that’s rain.”

  Pom interrupted. “If you’ve secured the boat, Miss Rosabel, His Lordship isn’t getting any lighter.” He set off through the darkness toward their maligned cottage.

  Miss Victorine walked after him.

  Amy scooped the greatcoat into her arms and followed them along the path, onto the bare, grassy hills that made up the isle of Summerwind.

  It was a pretty, bucolic island in the daylight, dotted with trees and cows. The village was set in a cove on the shore. Sprott Hall stood in a hollow surrounded by an apple orchard. And the crumbling castle, a brooding mass of tumbled gray stones, commanded the highest point on the island.

  Sprott Hall had once been a handsome home constructed of white-painted plaster. During the daytime it was possible to admire the roses that climbed the trellis around the door—and see the faded green paint on the shutters. The thatching had fallen into disrepair, and two of the glass windows had been broken in a winter gale and were patched with nothing better than rags.

  Miss Victorine had lived here her whole life, growing up and growing old in the same house, watching it deteriorate around her as her family died and Lord Northcliff paid no attention to maintaining his properties.

  Yet the old woman was the heart of the village, a kind soul who had readily given Amy a home when she’d washed up on shore, barely conscious and half frozen. Although she had told Miss Victorine she recalled nothing of why she wore a seaman’s uniform, that was a lie. She well remembered her dive over the edge of the ship when the captain and his crew had discovered their new cabin boy was actually a girl.

  Men, Amy had concluded, were all sw
ine, and it had taken most of her year on the island before she grudgingly admitted that Pom was a kind man, and that a few of the other fishermen deserved accolades, too.

  But it was Miss Victorine who had given Amy a lesson in graciousness and compassion—and sent her along this crooked path to justice.

  Miss Victorine rushed to open the door. A large black cat coiled around her ankles, and she leaned over to pick him up. “Coal, my darling boy, how are you?”

  He meowed and rubbed his head against her chin, then flung himself over her shoulder and hung there like a fur wrap.

  Miss Victorine scratched his rump. “Make sure you don’t bump His Lordship’s head, Pom. We don’t want to make him angry.”

  “Nay, ma’am, we wouldn’t want to do that.” Pom carried the sail-draped Lord Northcliff inside, and stood waiting while Amy discarded the greatcoat onto the floor and lit a lantern. The sitting room opened off the foyer, and a dark corridor led to the bedrooms. It was to the kitchen at the back that Amy made her way, followed closely by Pom and Miss Victorine. Pom bent to descend the steps to the wine cellar, the sail flapping against his thighs, Lord Northcliff unmoving.

  In the small room carved out of the rock beneath the house, Amy and Miss Victorine had created a living area for His Lordship. Not so grand a living area as existed in Lord Northcliff’s manor, but it would suffice for his needs for the three or four days he would remain here. In the small room was a bed, a table, a pitcher and basin, and a case full of dusty books. The cot had been placed under the high window where he could receive what light came in. Beneath it sat a chamber pot. A rocking chair was placed against the wall.

  And bolted to the stone wall beside the bed was an iron manacle, rescued from Edmondson Castle.

  Amy herself had ventured into the dungeons to get that manacle. She had frowned at the rust on the various implements of imprisonment. She had decided on this particular manacle, and a scrubbing with oil had proved her decision to be a good one. The manacle and the chain connected to it were not as good as she might have hoped, but—it had a key. A key that worked in the lock. Because heaven knew she didn’t want to keep Northcliff longer than necessary.

  The straw mattress crackled as Pom placed Lord Northcliff on the narrow, iron cot and unwrapped him from the canvas.

  Amy handed Miss Victorine the lantern. Not without trepidation, Amy pressed her fingers to the vein in Lord Northcliff’s throat. His heart beat strongly, and he gave off such a heat that she wondered if, on some unconscious level, he was aware of the indignity done to him and raged against it.

  Hastily she pulled her hand back. “He’s very much alive.”

  “Thank heavens!” Miss Victorine had insisted on dressing up to fetch Lord Northcliff back to her home, just as if he were a guest rather than a victim, and now she wore her finest purple cloak trimmed with a collar of aged ermine. The drooping, purring cat added an element of living elegance. She had styled her mass of white hair into a coiffure fashionable fifty years ago, and with Amy’s expert help, she had dabbed rose on her wrinkled cheeks and faded lips. A velvet beauty patch adorned her upper lip, and her gray brows had been tweezed to a thin, arching line. Now she bustled about like a hostess caught unawares. She lit the stub of a cheap candle and added coal to the fire in the small iron stove.

  Pom pulled off His Lordship’s boots, leaving his white stockinged feet dangling off the edge of the bed.

  Then, with careful precision, Amy placed the manacle around His Lordship’s ankle and snapped it into place. The crack of metal against metal made her step away and rub the goose bumps that rose on her arms. “There,” she said bracingly. “He can’t free himself.”

  “Oh, dear.” Miss Victorine stood with the candle tilted, the wax dripping on the floor. “Oh, dear.”

  Gathering the sail under his arm, Pom bowed to Miss Victorine. “I’ll leave His Lordship t’ ye, Miss Sprott. Call me if ye have need o’ me.”

  Miss Victorine gathered her composure. She righted the sputtering candle and patted Pom’s arm. “We won’t call you. There’s no reason for anyone to know what you’ve done here, and I promise we would die rather than betray you to His Lordship.”

  “I know, ma’am. I appreciate that.” Pom clumped up the stairs to the backdoor.

  Amy followed to let him out, and the wariness learned through years of poverty and deception made her inquire, “No one in the village knows what we’ve done here…do they?”

  “Haven’t a clue.” Pom tipped his fisherman’s hat, stepped out of the kitchen and disappeared into the gloom composed of fog and darkness.

  What had he meant by that? Amy wondered. Did he mean the villagers hadn’t a clue, or he didn’t know if the villagers had a clue?

  Yet she saw no use in worrying now. The deed was done, and the venture was so bold, so unusual, the surprise itself foretold success.

  That was what she told herself. That was what she hoped.

  Pom entered the pub and hung his hat on the rack beside the door. Turning, he saw every person looking at him eagerly. “It’s done,” he said.

  A collective sigh wheezed through the air.

  “Don’t tease us, gent! Tell us the details.” His wife stood with a bar rag in her hand. She tied her blond curls up in a pink ribbon, her blue eyes sparkled as if the sight of him gave her pleasure, and her handsome mouth was asmilin’.

  Pom didn’t understand why Mertle had chosen him, of all the fishermen in the village, to be her man, but he counted himself lucky to have her. He gave her the nod that meant he loved her, and added, “It went well.”

  Sitting at a table, he set his elbows on the surface and waited while she served him his dinner. He ate as if he was starving, which he always was. When he finished, he picked up the mug of ale and drank it dry.

  Then he noticed everyone still stared at him as if expecting more of a report than he had given. Words came hard for him, so with some difficulty, he said, “His Lordship’s chained in Miss Victorine’s cellar. The ransom note’s been left fer Mr. Harrison Edmondson.”

  “That bastard,” Mertle said roundly. “Get on, gent!”

  “Now we’ll see what Lord Northcliff has t’ say when he wakes up,” Pom said.

  “He won’t be happy, I trow.” Vicar Smith tapped his fingertips together.

  The vicar was an elderly man with tufts of white hair on his head and great growths of gray hair over his eyes. He had a weak chin, a strong character, and a way of stating the obvious.

  But Pom wasn’t a learned man, and perhaps it needed to be said. “Nay,” he agreed gravely. “That he won’t.”

  “Will Miss Rosabel’s plan work, do ye think?” Mertle asked.

  Pom contemplated his wife. “Don’t know why it shouldn’t.”

  “Well, I can’t approve.” Mrs. Kitchen imagined herself to be a leader in the village, and she sniffed in disparagement. “It is shameful that ye’ve taken part in this drama. Shameful!”

  The pub grew quiet under her rebuke.

  Pom clearly saw the doubts that plagued the simple folk, and struggled to express why a plain fisherman like himself had helped with such an outrageous deed. “Miss Rosabel is right.”

  “About what?” Vicar Smith asked.

  “Lord Northcliff owes us,” Pom said. “He owes Miss Victorine.”

  “Why are we taking such a chance for her?” Mrs. Kitchen demanded.

  Hands on her hips, Mertle swung away from Pom and advanced on Mrs. Kitchen. “Because she’s helped every last un o’ us at one time or another, and she’s been around long enough that she’s helped our parents, too. She’s a good woman. The best. We’d be damned fer deserting her now.”

  Mrs. Kitchen tried to hold Mertle’s gaze, but Pom knew from experience that no one could face his wife when she fixed him with that outraged stare. Mrs. Kitchen snapped her mouth shut and gazed down at her toes.

  “We’re doing His Lordship a favor.” Mertle looked around at the tavern, challenging their doubts. “Aren’t we,
Pom?”

  From the depths of his soul, Pom dragged a down-to-earth statement. “Aye. He’ll learn. He needs t’ realize he’s done a bad thing.”

  “He’s a lord,” John said sourly. “Lords don’t learn.”

  “We’ve got t’ give him a chance.” Pom hadn’t put so many words together at one time in years. But he had to do so now. He recognized how important this was. “If we don’t he’ll keep on until he’s sinned so much his black soul will drag him down to hell.”

  Chapter 3

  Clutching Lord Northcliff’s greatcoat, Amy carried it down the stairway.

  This greatcoat was emblematic of everything that was wrong with Lord Northcliff. Sewn by a London tailor, it represented vanity incarnate. Made of the finest black wool, the greatcoat cost enough to have fed the village for a year. It was long and heavy, fashioned with a plethora of capes about the shoulders, each lengthier than the first, and…Amy dropped her head into its folds and took a lingering breath. Lord Northcliff’s coat smelled of leather and tobacco, and she was transported back to the palace in Beaumontagne, to her seat on her father’s knee. There as she burrowed in his jacket for sweets, she had felt safe, beloved, cherished.

  Her heart warmed with unwilling fondness—but not for Lord Northcliff, she assured herself. For the memory of her father. Only…she hated to know that anything about Lord Northcliff reminded her of the affection that had celebrated her childhood.

  As Amy set foot in the cellar, she held the coat at arm’s length.

  Miss Victorine stood petting Coal and sadly looking down at Lord Northcliff’s limp body. “He was such a pleasant lad,” she said.

  “He’s changed.” Amy tossed the greatcoat onto the rocking chair. She couldn’t wait to be rid of it, with its intoxicating scent and its precious weight.

  “He used to coax one of the fishermen to row him over to the island.” As she gazed through vague blue eyes at Lord Northcliff, Miss Victorine whispered, “He’d come to visit me and I’d serve him tea and my cream cakes, which he called the best in the world.”