Chapter Three
I sabella stood exactly in the center of Lady Willoughby’s front hall and tried hard—very hard—to keep from losing her temper. It was hot in the airless space, with the doors and windows closed tight and the afternoon sun streaming in through the fan light overdoor. Inside Isabella’s black lace gloves, her hands were sweating, and the long curving feather on her bonnet kept tickling the nape of her neck in a most annoying fashion. The tall case clock ticked away each second with a solemn finality, counting off the wasted minutes that Captain Lord Thomas Greaves was making her wait.
She did not like waiting. She never had, and she never should, considering her rank, but she was determined to give him the benefit of the doubt for this first time. It might not be his fault. Likely the admiral was keeping him with some sort of nonsense, the foolish old man. She would be gracious, and grant the captain the favor of her patience.
But if he ever dared keep her waiting like this again—ah, she would not forgive him, ever.
“I am sure the captain will here shortly, ma’am.” Lady Willoughby gave Isabella her usual watery smile. “He seems like a very nice gentleman.”
Isabella sniffed. “He has not been brought here to be nice. He is here to keep me safe.”
Once again she looked out the long window beside the door. Lady Willoughby’s glossy green carriage with the matched grays was sitting there waiting at the curb, taunting her with the freedom it represented. She didn’t care if the others believed she was exaggerating: she was a prisoner. This was the closest she’d been to leaving this house since she’d been brought to it in the middle of the night, three weeks before, and she could not wait to feel the warmth of the sunlight and the breeze across her skin, and to see more of the city beyond this single boring square.
“I am very sorry, princess,” Lady Willoughby said, as if she could read Isabella’s thoughts, “but I cannot let you go alone. For your own good, you see. You must wait for the captain to escort you to the carriage.”
Isabella frowned, glancing pointedly at the two large footmen standing ready to barricade the door if she tried to escape.
“Oh, yes, of course, you silly goose,” she muttered in Italian, as much to irritate the other woman as to keep her own comments safe. “We cannot tax the gaolers hired to keep me caged like an animal, can we?”
“Yes, just so.” With no notion of what the princess had said, Lady Willoughby smiled again, even as she wrung her hands with despair. “I’m sure when the captain comes, you shall have the nicest drive imaginable.”
Isabella smiled in return and kept speaking in Italian. “True, true, true, quite the nicest, once you give the captain 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