The Barefoot Princess Read Free Page A

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 swine, 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.