Princess of Fortune. Miranda Jarrett

seen the little triangle made of twigs around the woman’s neck. She couldn’t, not without raising too many other questions she’d no wish to answer. But he’d listened to her, anyway, and the readiness with which he’d accepted her evasion had saddened her no end.

      How could it not? He was appallingly masculine in a rough English way, and if she were a sleek Italian lioness, then he was surely the model for the blustery wild lion that stood behind the British throne. No wonder she’d been drawn to him the moment she’d entered the drawing room, and no wonder, too, that she’d wanted to kiss him this afternoon, a giddy, foolish impulse that she’d regretted at once.

      Flirtation was not why she’d been sent on this journey. She was not here to amuse herself with the man assigned to watch over her, no matter how broad his shoulders might be, or that he alone in London had made the effort to speak her language. In the long, long lineage of the Fortunaro, she was an insignificant nothing, except for what she might do now for her family’s honor.

      As if to remind herself, she touched the jewels one last time before she pulled the muslin back in place and pressed the tacks back into the corners with her thumbs. But instead of climbing down to the floor, she slumped wearily on the chair, her hands resting on her bruised knees and her bare legs dangling over the chest.

      She liked Tom Greaves, and she trusted him, and if they’d been born any other two people in this world, then that would have been plenty. But not only were those rubies hidden in the canopy reason for someone to pursue her; for a Monteverdian princess, they were also reason to die.

      With a little sob, Isabella buried her face in her hands, and gave in to the unfairness that had become her life.