Isabella gave a quick jerk of a nod, not trusting her voice to answer. She must be brave and daring like Mama, and she must not weep and wail like a baby who’d not gotten her way. She turned each cheek for Mama to kiss, then kissed her in return, the quick brush that Mama had always preferred.
“I—I’ll miss you, Mama,” she said with a gulp, blinking back her tears. “God be with you, and with Father and Giancarlo, too.”
“Of course He will, my darling,” said Mama, her smile brilliant as she patted Isabella’s cheek. “He always watches over us Fortunari, doesn’t He? Now Romano and I must go, and so must you. Farewell, Isabella. Farewell!”
And as quickly as that, Mama was gone, leaving only the fading scent of her perfume and the click of her lacquered heels on the marble floors, followed by the fainter tapping of Romano’s stick. Swiftly Isabella turned away. She did not weep, of course, because Mama wouldn’t want that, but inside she felt as empty and abandoned as the palace itself.
She wished that when they’d said farewell, Mama had spoken less of duty and honor, and more of love. She wished that same farewell had been longer, warmer, sweeter, something for Isabella to remember on the perilous voyage to England, instead of the quick, formal parting before Romano. She wished she could admit her fears, instead of always having to be brave as a lioness. She wished—she wished for many things that couldn’t be, things that even a Monteverdian princess had no right to desire.
“Bah, Her Majesty has no heart,” muttered Anna, purposefully just loud enough for Isabella to hear. “No heart at all.”
“Enough, Anna,” said Isabella sharply. It didn’t matter that the older woman had become her lady’s maid by default, one of the last few servants who hadn’t panicked and fled the palace, or that Anna would be her one link with her old life as they traveled together. Isabella’s mother insisted that such familiarity should never be tolerated, no matter the circumstances. “It is not your place to fault my mother, unless you, too, wish to be branded a traitor.”
“Traitors, traitors,” muttered Anna, linking her finger and thumb together in the sign against evil. The gesture made her look even more like an ancient little crow, dressed in black from her stockings to the kerchief tied beneath her chin. “What does loyalty mean these days, eh, with the French devils at our gates?”
“Base-born rabble, nothing more,” countered Isabella, automatically repeating her father’s description of the tawdry French army. To her family, such upstarts were below contempt, unworthy to be even an enemy of their own ancient kingdom. “Our brave army will not waver before such a mob.”
Anna sniffed loudly, that sniff saying much about the pitiful chances she gave the brave Monteverdian army. “Your bonnet and gloves, my princess.”
Isabella lifted her chin so Anna could tie the bonnet’s silk ribbons in a bow, then took the gloves herself, unwilling to let Anna see how her fingers were trembling. Weren’t the Fortunaro women as famous for their strength as for their beauty? Couldn’t she prove herself worthy of her mother’s faith in her to do what must be done?
“Her Majesty said for you to make every haste, my princess,” insisted Anna. “Her Majesty said—”
“It is not your place to speak with such freedom, Anna,” said Isabella curtly, a perfect echo of her mother’s reprimands. “Do you see me disobeying my mother? Do you see me dawdling? Rather it is you and your clumsy old fingers that have delayed me with my dressing.”
“Forgive my clumsiness, my princess,” mumbled Anna, bobbing her head up and down by way of apology. As she did, a rough little pendant slipped free of her bodice: three twigs lashed with red thread into a triangle and strung on a black cord.
“What is that around your neck, Anna?” asked Isabella suspiciously. “You know heathen charms and talismans are not permitted in the palace.”
Quickly Anna tucked the pendant back into her bodice. “It’s naught to do with the devil, nor with the priests, my princess. It’s a family sign, that is all.”
“It still has no place here, and I do not wish to see it again. Now come, bring that lantern, so we might be on our way.”
For the last time, Isabella hurried down the marble staircase, the weight of the treasure stitched into her clothes slowing her steps. Down one flight, then another, into the dark, narrower hallway that led to the lower gardens and the beach. She’d never come this way by night, and certainly never with only a single servant holding a lantern against the darkness. Cobwebs brushed and clung to her clothes, and as she heard the mice scrambling to keep clear of the light, she whispered a quick prayer to guard her against whatever dangers might lie within the murky shadows.
Oh, that bats and rats and spiders and cobwebs might be her only threats!
“This way, my princess,” said Anna, puffing with exertion as she unbolted the last door for Isabella. “The English sailors will be waiting for you on the beach.”
Isabella nodded, holding her heavy skirts to one side as she slipped through the door. Vines had been allowed to grow over the door to disguise it, and as she shoved them aside, the lacquered heels of her slippers sank into the soft sand. The air was cooler here near the sea, and Isabella could taste the sharp tang of salt as she nervously licked her lips. At the water’s edge, perhaps thirty feet away, she could make out the dark shadow of a longboat pulled up on the shore, with men sitting waiting at the oars and two others standing aft, doubtless looking for her. Large men, lowborn and rough, speaking quietly among themselves.
Englishmen.
“Go ahead, Anna,” she said, striving to hide her anxiety as she hung back in the shadows. “Tell those men to come greet me properly.”
But Anna didn’t move, her wizened face inside the black scarf as set as a wooden mask. “You tell them yourself, my princess. I’ll go no farther, not with you.”
Isabella stared at her, stunned. “How dare you speak to me with such insolence? Come here at once, Anna, and do as I say!”
But Anna only shook her head, jutting out her pointed chin for emphasis. “I will never leave Monteverde, my princess,” she said, hissing the words like a curse, “and never with a spoiled little bitch like you.”
Isabella gasped with shock. No other servant had ever spoken to her like that; no, no other person in her memory ever had. “Anna, how dare you—”
But Anna had already slammed the door shut against Isabella.
“Wait!” Isabella grabbed the doorknob, frantically jiggling it with both hands. “Anna, open this door at once, I say! At once!”
But all she heard through the heavy door was the sound of the bolt in the lock scraping into place, and the echoes of Anna’s footsteps fading away down the hall, abandoning her to her fate alone.
“Anna!” she shouted, her fear rising by the second as she thumped her fists against the door. “Anna, come back now!”
“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