Author's Note and Disclaimer: The Patriot is not mine, nor are the characters I poached from it. If someone would like to give me the more decorative men from that, I'd happily take them, though. Original characters mine, no money being made, no need to sue. (and there will be no repetition of this in the chapters to come)
Any historical errors are my own (though there might be one or two from the film).
Warnings: abuse, adultery, same-sex relationships (though not portrayed), violence (it is war, after all)—in other words, a very adult story.
There was another version of this on LJ. It's been edited and changed from that version.
Some Desperate Glory—Chapter 1
Charles Town, May, 1778
She was the most beautiful woman James Wilkins had ever seen—and he'd seen some truly beautiful women in his thirty years. When she stepped to the gangway, the rising sun lit her hair, burnished it red-gold. She wore no hat, and a maid quickly rushed up to her with one in the same shade of green as her gown. She allowed the maid to settle the hat on her head but pushed the other woman's hands away when she went to tie the ribbons before refusing the parasol the maid carried. She stepped daintily down the gangway, the maid fluttering behind her.
James had agreed to accompany his childhood friend, Will Cameron, to meet his bride. Will had travelled through Europe the year before, and he'd met a woman, romanced her, and managed to win her hand in marriage despite, he claimed, the fact that she was a member of a minor European royal family. James privately found it hard to believe royalty would marry a daughter off to a South Carolina planter, no matter how wealthy the planter was. Royal daughters were far more valuable pawns in forming political alliances than they were at amassing wealth, and the family from which Will claimed she came didn't need his money.
"There she is," Will said, and stepped toward the ship. James had a sinking feeling as his friend approached the lovely woman he'd watched descend the gangway of The Delilah. Up close, she looked like a china doll his sister had once owned, James thought, tiny compared to his unusual six feet four, and perfectly formed. As he approached the couple, he noticed she didn't powder her milky skin or her hair. That hair, what he could see from beneath her hat, was pulled back simply, no hanging ringlets, no curls escaping to nestle against her temples, neck, or shoulders. Her silk gown complimented the pale green of her eyes, and her features were as delicate as the molded china of one of his sister Katherine's many dolls. Given her hair shaded toward a red-gold up close, he was surprised she had no freckles. Her only flaw, if one could call it that, was what looked like a stubborn chin.
"Anna-Elizabeth," Will breathed, and kissed the woman's hand. Just as Will's lips touched her hand, another woman barreled down the gangway.
"Your Highness!" she wheezed in scandalized tones. James bit back a smile. She was clearly the woman's chaperone. "Mr. Cameron!" she hissed, catching her breath. "Really!" Will dropped his fiancée's hand.
"Mrs. MacKay," Will said with a brief nod of the head. "Forgive me for being overcome at seeing Anna-Elizabeth again." The beautiful doll blushed, but James noted she had not smiled once. He found that curious. Will was considered a handsome man by the women of South Carolina, and he was capable of great charm. Surely the woman had chosen to marry him?
Will turned to James then and said, "My dear, allow me to present my close friend, James Wilkins. James, may I introduce my fiancée, the Princess Anna-Elizabeth Gabriella Antoinette Richelle du Mare of Vallée du Falcon."
James bowed deeply. She met his eyes as he rose from the bow, and she nodded her head in acknowledgement. "Your Highness," he murmured, captivated by the intelligent assessment he saw in the depths of her green eyes.
"James owns the property next to mine," Will continued. "We've known each other our entire lives."
The princess gave James a tiny smile then, and he felt a curious tightness in his chest. She said, "How lovely." Her voice was soft, and the surprisingly faint accent gave her words an attractive lilt. "Allow me to introduce my companion," she continued, "Mrs. Rachel MacKay."
James bowed slightly to the woman who curtseyed in return.
The next several minutes were taken up with Will and the princess's maid sorting out the luggage. James stood beside the princess and her companion out of the way of the docksmen and the other passengers disembarking The Delilah. The companion gave him a baleful stare, and James decided to annoy her further by saying to the princess, "I hope your journey was pleasant, Your Highness."
"Thank you, Mr. Wilkins," she replied. "It was relatively uneventful."
The companion snorted.
Will rejoined them, having overseen the transfer of the princess's trunks and boxes to a wagon along with the maid. "Shall we?" He offered the princess his hand, and she took it, allowed Will to lead her to the carriage and help her inside. James escorted the companion. He and Will sat opposite the two women facing the rear of the carriage.
As they rode the miles to Will's family plantation, James often found his gaze returned to the young woman opposite him. He surreptitiously studied the princess. She was attentive to Will's monologue about the area, looked at the landmarks he pointed out to her, but she offered no comments and asked no questions. James wondered how old she was. She looked to be in her teens, but he had learned long ago that telling a woman's age was a difficult art. There was something in her eyes, though, a sort of sorrowful shadow that intrigued him and told him she had seen things from which many young women were generally protected.
When they finally drove past the entrance to James's home, Will called his fiancée's attention to it. The house, like nearly all the others they had passed, was not visible from the road, but she seemed to strain to see it through the large, sprawling oaks and other thick vegetation that that lined the drive. That pleased James for reasons he was unwilling to consider, and for the first time he regretted his ancestors had preferred privacy to bragging in brick.
They soon arrived at Hart's Crossing, Will's home, where the Cameron sisters came down the front steps to meet them. James saw his own sister, Katherine, was with them. He stepped down from the coach and crossed toward Katy, looped an arm around her shoulders as Will descended and held out his hand to help his fiancée alight. James felt Katy stiffen, so he gently squeezed her shoulder. His sister had been in love with Will since she was a child, and James wondered why she had decided to punish herself by being there to welcome Will's bride.
After everyone was introduced, Will ushered them all inside where his mother waited in the entry hall to greet them. Helen Cameron then directed a servant to show the princess her room, and the young woman and her chaperone ascended the stairs with the princess's maid following. James and Katy followed the family to the drawing room, and a servant was sent to fetch Will's father. Watching Mrs. Cameron's sour expression as she took a seat, James wondered why she had sent a servant to show her future daughter-in-law to her quarters rather than do so herself. He wondered if, perhaps, she was not happy about her son's choice of bride.
Seated on a sofa with Katy, James listened as another servant directed luggage upstairs. Will's youngest sister kept trying to catch his eye, but James ignored her. The girl had been throwing herself at him for the last couple of months, and he didn't wish to encourage her. He needed to think about finding a wife of his own, he knew, but he had met no woman who interested him enough to court. His mother despaired that he would never settle down, but between sorting out his father's estate after his death two years before and running a large plantation, James had more than enough to keep him occupied without courting a bride. He kept a mistress in Charles Town, a widow who had begun to make it clear she would like to be the mistress of Oak Point. They would have to part ways since he had no intention of marrying the woman. He knew his mother and Will's hoped he would marry one of the Cameron sisters, but to James they were like his own sisters, and he couldn't imagine bedding them. This was likely the same reason Will had never considered James's sister Katy as a bride.
His personal life was further complicated by the war that had briefly come to South Carolina three years earlier. He, like his father before him, was loyal to the crown, and like his father, he was careful to do nothing to provoke his friends and neighbors. Nor did he openly throw in with other supporters of the King. It was getting harder to walk a middle ground, harder to refuse the oaths his fellow planters and those followers of Christopher Gadsden insisted all South Carolinians swear. He had recently had a conversation with a fellow planter, another man like himself who couldn't bring himself to support the rebels. Like James, Paul Herrington feared their lands would be forfeit if they didn't finally give in, and neither he nor James could afford that.
James sincerely hoped he could manage to quietly continue his life, farm his land, support his family and dependents, and that the war would not return to South Carolina and force his hand.
He came to his feet when the princess entered the drawing room. She had changed her travelling clothes for a gown in deep emerald green silk. Like her travelling costume, its high, rounded neck covered most of her skin, and the long, fitted sleeves and narrow skirts were not fashionable. James found he liked it, though, if for no other reason than she wasn't obviously padded or plumped to show a figure that wasn't hers. Like the Cameron men, he bowed and waited for her to be seated next to Will's mother before resuming his own seat.
As the servants brought in refreshments, Mrs. Cameron asked, "Do tell us about your family, Your Highness."
Will's princess blushed prettily and said, "Please, call me Anna-Elizabeth. I am not a princess here."
James could tell this pleased the other woman, knew that Helen Cameron considered herself at the top of the social pecking order, at least in their neighborhood, and a daughter-in-law with royal rank would diminish that. He could practically hear her considering how to hide the princess's true status.
"Do you have brothers and sisters?" Will's oldest sister, Honoria, asked.
"Two sisters," Anna-Elizabeth said. "And Jorie," she added as an afterthought.
James thought that strange until Will said, "Jorie—or, actually, Joran—is Anna-Elizabeth's brother. He's a natural son." For a moment, James thought Mrs. Cameron would swoon. Will had, in effect, just admitted that there had been an infidelity in the princess's family.
"Is your father a king?" asked Will's youngest sister.
Anna-Elizabeth murmured her thanks as she accepted a teacup from Mrs. Cameron. "No. He's an admiral in the British navy, Sir George Ramsdell."
"So your mother is a princess?" the girl asked.
"Yes," she answered. "She's the Princess Falken."
Will's father suddenly had a choking cough, and his mother looked like she might faint. The title was familiar to James, but he couldn't place the particulars. He noticed that Anna-Elizabeth's hand shook as she lifted the cup to her lips. She didn't look up, paled, and stared instead at her tea as she lowered it back to her saucer.
"I beg your pardon," Katy said, "but what is the Princess Falken?"
The princess looked across at them and said, "It's a hereditary title passed through the female line of my family. It dates to the early third century and passes to the second daughter of each generation."
"Why the second daughter?" the youngest Cameron asked.
"Our homeland was ruled by women, and men who wanted to take it thought forcing the heiress to marry them would give it to them. Changing custom to bar the oldest from the succession confused our enemies and preserved our rulers. The oldest daughters were sometimes married off to rivals to protect the future queens. The warlords and kings never understood the idea that the eldest did not inherit, and it saved us until we could negotiate treaties to remain an independent principality."
"So will you be the next Princess Falken?" Will's oldest sister asked.
"No," she said. "I would not be here if I were. The Princess Falken is not allowed to marry. My sister Ghislaine will be the next Princess Falken when our mother dies."
James's attention was caught by the desperate looks Will's mother sent his father. The princess had just admitted her illegitimacy, and James knew that the Camerons would be quickly seeking a way to break the engagement. Royalty or not, natural daughters did not marry into the families of Rice Kings in South Carolina, or, at least, they didn't marry the heirs. He eyed the princess speculatively. Surely she knew that.
But perhaps she didn't, he reflected, taking a mouthful of his own tea. It sounded as if in her homeland her illegitimacy was no barrier to the highest echelons of society.
"We don't speak of such things here, my dear," Will's mother said faintly.
The princess stiffened slightly. "I have nothing of which to be ashamed," she said quietly, and James could not have been the only one to hear the underlying steel in her voice. It was that hint of hard anger that drew his closer scrutiny.
It was her face he watched when Mrs. Cameron said, "Of course not, my dear, but such things are not spoken of in polite society—particularly when innocent young women are present."
He watched the princess survey the others in the room, and he wondered if he imagined that she paused a moment when she looked at him. "I beg your pardon if I have caused offense," she said, "but in my family, we are honest about the ways of the world."
James's lips twitched at the rebuke. It was prettily said, but there was no mistaking the criticism. Ironically, Katy was the one to come to her rescue by asking about her home country.
James and Katy took their leave of the Camerons. Will's mother protested, but both Wilkinses wanted away from the tension that had grown over the course of the late afternoon and early evening. He rode silently beside Katy, lost in thought.
"James?"
"Hmm?" He looked across at his sister.
"How could he possibly marry her?"
He was tempted to tell her exactly what Will saw in the woman and why any man would want to marry her. "Katy," he said, "she's a lovely girl, and she's—"
"She's awful!" she cut in. "She has no idea of proper conversation. I bet she can neither play nor sew, and I doubt she could manage a household."
Those certainly seemed to be the criteria by which women judged a proper wife—well, perhaps not the conversation part—but James was well aware that someone could always be hired, bought, or trained to do those things and that what a man really wanted was a woman who could please him in bed and bear him children while insuring his household remained orderly. He realized how shallow that was. Personally, he would settle for an intelligent woman who could hold her end of a conversation, who made his home comfortable, who entertained his guests, and who satisfied him in bed.
It was quite clear, however, that Will was besotted with Anna-Elizabeth. He rarely took his eyes from her, and James wondered what the princess thought of his friend. He got the impression she didn't feel for him as Will apparently felt for her, but Will had always been able to ignore the things he didn't want to see. James couldn't help but wonder why she had agreed to marry his friend.
-X-
It was several weeks before James saw either Will or Anna-Elizabeth again. He heard plenty about the two of them, though. Katy and his mother discussed them over dinner each evening, recounting and analyzing the most recent gossip. In each case, the princess was found wanting. Apparently, she treated the slaves like people rather than furniture. James saw nothing wrong in that, especially since his mother and sister certainly treated their maids with a personal fondness. The princess also declined to play the pianoforte, thus, apparently, proving Katy's observation that she was not musical. James didn't see that as a sin since his ears had been tortured any number of times by ladies who really shouldn't have inflicted their lack of talent on others. In the evenings she read novels and political treatises when the women sewed, and she dared to offer opinions on the war between England and the Colonies when the men joined them. Worst of all, his sister whispered loudly to his mother, she rode astride—in trousers, no less—until Will's father put a stop to her access to the stables. James had choked on his wine rather than laugh out loud, and that was probably a good thing.
So it was that when James escorted his mother and sister to the Collins' ball for Will and Anna-Elizabeth, he looked forward to seeing what supposedly outrageous thing she might do.
He had not imagined her beauty, he noted, bowing to her when they were reintroduced. She was absolutely lovely. Her hair was pulled back and up into a simple knot. She wore an ice blue gown of silk, though this time the square neckline exposed a considerable amount of flesh, and her skirts were as wide as those of the other women present. She wore pearls at her throat and ears. Despite her smile, her eyes were sad. James asked for a dance, and she mutely handed him her dance card. He wrote his name in the only open blank, bowed and moved on.
When he claimed his dance, he was charmed by how easily she moved through the figures. She had a natural grace, and he thanked her at the end of the dance. As he was about to move away, she laid her hand on his forearm. "Would you be so kind as to escort me to Will?"
"Certainly," he said. "I believe he's outside."
He led her out of the second floor ballroom, down the staircase, and out onto the sloping lawn. Lanterns lit a sizeable area of the garden, and a number of guests were outside taking advantage of what breeze could be found in the nearly oppressive heat of the June evening. James shortened his steps for the princess and scanned the clusters of people for Will. As they walked, the princess breathed deeply, and James was amazed she was able to do so. Most of the women he knew were so tightly laced when they wore evening clothes they could barely breathe, let alone take in a true lungful of air. "Have you settled in, Your Highness?" he asked.
She looked up at him solemnly. "Please, call me Anna-Elizabeth."
"I'm afraid that would be inappropriate, Your Highness," he observed.
"Then call me Miss Ramsdell," she offered.
"Didn't Will introduce you as du Mare?" he asked, momentarily confused. He was certain that was the surname Will had given her.
"My birth records use my father's name, Ramsdell. du Mare is the name of the ruling family, though neither Ghislaine nor I use it."
They walked further, and James continued to watch for Will. "Is there a reason you don't wish to be called by your title?"
"It seems so pretentious here, away from Europe. I realize many of you Americans see yourselves as independent and as equals, and it seems odd to hang on to remnants of royalty when I shall marry a planter, not a prince."
She said it seriously, he noted with no coyness, no attempt to draw any protestations from him. She simply stated the facts as she saw them. As a result, he offered a truth of his own. "Actually, some may talk about equality, but few truly believe it."
"Mmm," she said, and the sound warmed him. "So social stratification is as alive and well here as it is in Europe—despite the words of your Messieurs Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison?"
He was startled she knew the names. "As long as there are those who have more than others," James said honestly, "I think men will see them as somehow better or more important than those who have less."
"This war," she said, looking up at him, "is it, then, a war for independence and equality as some claim or a war to create a more localized form of tyranny?"
James decided to consider her question seriously rather than dismiss it as he knew most men would. "I suspect we will use it to institutionalize an American aristocracy. There are, however, those who think our differences with England can be settled without a war, and if that were the case, there undoubtedly would be little change in our social order. Had cooler heads prevailed, we would simply petition to change our governance so that we have home rule and representation in the English parliament. There are those who hope that at the end of this, that will be the outcome, that the King and his government will understand that we are quite capable of being loyal subjects while governing ourselves."
She traced a finger of the hand on his arm along a fold in his sleeve. "Are you one of those?"
He shook his head. "No," he conceded. "The depth of the enmity is such that it is inevitable America will be fully subjugated if the rebellion is unsuccessful, though certainly the New Englanders are dedicated to their notions of full independence. I only hope that the war is short and that it settles the matter once and for all."
The princess nodded. "All men think wars will be short, that they will settle matters, but it is rarely so. You are now more than three years into this one," she said, and he heard a note of sorrow in her voice. "Which side will you support, Mr. Wilkins, when the time comes?"
James didn't even have to think about his answer, despite the fact that he had spent the last several years walking a fine line while failing to take a definitive side. "I will be loyal to my king and country," he said. He spied her fiancé then, talking to a small group of their neighbors. "There's Will."
When he had handed her off to his friend, James returned to the house and joined a group of gentlemen playing cards. As he played, he thought of what the princess had said about independence, equality, tyranny, and war. He wondered what had caused the shadows in her eyes and sorrow in her voice when she talked of war, and he thought about what would happen when the war returned to South Carolina as well as what would happen when he was forced to play his chosen hand.
-X-
Early the next morning, James decided to go riding before seeking his bed. He changed his clothes and headed for the stables. It was but an hour past dawn, and he'd had moderate luck at the tables. He was a cautious gambler, and he probably could have increased his winnings had he made larger wagers, but he preferred not to throw his money away. If South Carolina were to be thrown into the war once more, and it most assuredly would be, he would fight. If he were to be gone from his plantation, if the war were to come to this part of South Carolina rather than just Charles Town, then preserving what money he had now might make the difference in survival for his family and dependents. He had watched some of the other planters and their sons throw away huge sums on losing bets that evening, knew many of them could ill afford it due to the blockade and the insistence of the rebels who now largely controlled the South Carolina government that goods be neither imported nor exported from or to England. Fortunes withered as the planters could no longer legally send their crops to the most lucrative markets and had to pay profiteers for what goods could be had.
Still, he'd walked away from the table with more pounds than he had sat down with, though only by a small margin.
When he arrived at the stables, he saw a woman in a riding habit the same color of the rather excellent claret he'd enjoyed the night before. She wore a small hat, rather like the one he remembered from a woodcut of Robin Hood that had been in one of his childhood story books. When she heard his footsteps and turned, he saw it was Will's princess. He nodded at the stable boy, who went to saddle his horse.
"Good morning, Mr. Wilkins," she said as he joined her.
"Your Highness," he said with a bow.
A boy led a lovely black mare out to a mounting block, and the princess walked toward it. James followed. "Pardon me, Your Highness," he said. "Do you intend to ride alone?"
She looked over her shoulder at him as she stepped on the block. "Yes," she said softly. "No one else seems to be about."
"You should at least take a servant with you," he said.
"Do any of the servants ride?" she asked coolly.
James smiled wryly. The men in the stables did, but he doubted any of the female servants did. "Point taken," he said. "It's not safe for a woman alone to ride here," he explained. What he was about to propose was wildly inappropriate, he knew, but it was better than allowing her to ride alone in a place she did not know. "Perhaps you would allow me to join you."
Ignoring him, she lifted her skirts several inches, eyed the side-saddle, and James remembered the scandalized whispering of his sister about her riding astride. He noticed she wore boots that were not unlike his own. He finally realized from her concentrated frown that she wasn't sure how to get herself in the saddle.
"If I may give you a leg up?" She looked at him, startled, and dropped her skirt. "It might be easier if I lift you," he explained.
The princess gave him a tight nod. He approached her and said softly, "Hold the right side of your skirt out so that you can more comfortably arrange it. I'll lift you into the saddle, and when I do, hook your right knee over the horn." He mounted the block behind her and put his hands on her waist. She weighed next to nothing, he thought as she followed his instructions. He fixed her skirt for her, swiftly and efficiently, having helped teach his sister when she was a child.
"Thank you, Mr. Wilkins," she softly said, color running up her cheeks. "If you would care to join me, I would be honored."
He murmured something to the stable boy who brought him his horse, and the boy nodded. "Marcus will ride with us," he said. When the lad came out on a sorry excuse for a horse, James mounted his own. He looked at the princess. "He's not exactly the perfect chaperone, but he'll do."
She smiled and then nodded at the boy. "Thank you, Marcus." From his expression, James imagined the boy blushed under his dark skin.
They set off at a walk, Marcus trailing them far enough behind that they could speak in private. "Is there anywhere in particular you would like to ride, Your Highness?"
"I'm not particular, Mr. Wilkins, but I will only ride with you if you stop calling me 'Your Highness.' I've come to realize that almost every conversation we've had at this point has generally been dominated by the issue of what you may call me."
James smiled at her stiff little speech. "And what shall I call you? Princess?"
"Please, no," she said fervently, and he laughed at her tone. "Anna-Elizabeth will do."
"That's still an awful lot of name for such a little bit of woman," he said, "and I really shouldn't address you as such."
She gave him a long look. "If you will indulge me, Mr. Wilkins," she said softly. "I have no friends here, and you're one of the few people I've met who has been kind to me."
He digested that for a moment or two. There was no self-pity there. He was not surprised that neither Will's mother nor his sisters had been particularly friendly to her. They had championed Katy for Will's wife, and the things the princess had shared about her own family had clearly put them off. She was also a most unusual female, and that would not win her friends amongst many of the women of South Carolina. "What do your friends call you?"
"Anna-Elizabeth," she said with a smile. "Jorie calls me Anna sometimes, but my youngest sister calls me Beth."
"Beth," he said, and she gave him a sunny smile. That smile did things to him, things he really shouldn't think about.
"Arianna has a tendency to shorten everyone's name. She's the one who dubbed Joran Jorie, and she has the audacity to refer to our cousin, a crown prince, as Mal rather than Maldon."
He returned her smile. "Beth suits you, but you must know I cannot call you that."
Her smile faded. "For this morning, Mr. Wilkins, I would be honored if you addressed me so. When we return to the Collins's you may return to proper address."
As he looked at her, James wondered if that was arrogance or a natural instinct to command those not of her station. "James."
She looked surprised for a moment, but then her smile returned and she nodded. "James."
They maintained a good pace, never rose above a trot for fear Marcus' horse could not keep up, and they talked. James found her charming. She was a uniquely well-informed woman, and she seemed genuinely interested in politics and economics. As they rode beneath spreading oaks dripping moss and past open fields of crops, she asked about the unfamiliar plants. She asked numerous questions about the rice, especially about the irrigation and harvest. He explained the gates that allowed them to use the rivers to flood the fields and control the amount of water and about the cutting, threshing, and milling of the grain. She asked about their markets for the crops, and it was clear she understood the economic forces and issues facing them. She asked about the slaves, and James explained that it simply wasn't feasible to run plantations the size of those in South Carolina with paid labor. He knew Benjamin Martin claimed to not own slaves, and while Martin's place was small compared to Oak Point and some of the others, James seriously doubted that Martin's people were free and paid cash wages.
He could tell Beth didn't approve of slavery. James had his own moments of unease with the institution, but he had long ago accepted it was the way things were done in South Carolina.
They rode in silence for a while, and then Beth mused, "For a group of people who endorsed a document declaring all men are equal, it seems hypocritical to then enslave men simply because the color of their skin is darker than those making the rules and the pronouncements of freedom."
"Tell me, Your Highness," he said tersely, "in your country do you bar certain people from certain occupations, from land ownership, simply because they weren't born into the right families."
She nodded almost imperceptibly, a blush stealing up her cheeks. "Touché, James."
They rode on in silence. James, noting the passage of time, turned them back toward the stables, and when they arrived, he helped Beth from her saddle. She thanked Marcus again, and they handed their horses off to stable boys and walked toward the house. Before they came in sight of it, James stopped. "Perhaps you should go on alone," he said.
Beth looked up at him. "Why?"
"There may be others up, and it wouldn't do to have us seen coming in together without your chaperone."
She studied him. "I understand my inappropriate behavior is already the talk of the neighbors," she said, dryly. "If your reputation won't bear it—"
James laughed, and he wasn't sure why he asked it, but he did. "Did Will's father really forbid you to ride because you rode astride in trousers?"
Her face flooded with color, rivaling the deep, dark red of her habit and hat. "It is far safer to ride astride than in those sorry excuses for saddles to which you colonials confine women. At the risk of scandalizing you—" she lifted her skirt's hem slightly higher than her knees, and James saw a pair of trousers of the same fabric as her habit tucked in the tops of her boots. She quickly dropped the skirt when he'd seen them. "The stories of my depravity are somewhat exaggerated."
"It's not my reputation I'm worried about," James admitted, feeling one confession deserved another.
Beth sagged. "I don't understand why everyone worries so about other people's behaviors. It seems to me, James, that one should give others the benefit of the doubt about their characters until presented with definitive evidence that there is a flaw."
What she said made sense, but it was not the way society worked. James was certain that even in her country, perhaps more so in her case since she was a member of the royal family, her behavior was expected to be better than that of others. He wondered at the bitterness of her tone, and he began to have a deep suspicion that her family had welcomed an American suitor because Beth had been compromised in some way. "What you say is logical," he conceded, "but societal rules are not always logical."
She breathed in deeply, and squared her shoulders. "No. They are not." She looked up at him again. "Thank you for an enjoyable morning, Mr. Wilkins."
"You're very welcome, Your Highness."
The princess nodded and strode toward the house. James waited long enough to allow her to gain entry and possibly reach her room before he followed her.