As the second month of the war began, the world seemed ever more determined to tear itself apart.
For those in high places—men bent over maps, ledgers and neat columns of ink—the war could still appear deceptively simple. Lines shifted across paper. Armies advanced or retreated. Losses were reported, reduced to figures that could be tallied, compared, replaced and, eventually, forgotten.
For the common soldier, it was simple in another way. His orders were clear and his purpose rarely his own to question. He marched where he was told, fought when commanded and, if he died, did so believing—or at least hoping—that somewhere beyond the mud and blood there remained some greater meaning to it all.
Yet far from the trenches and headquarters, another kind of casualty was becoming increasingly common. Quieter. Smaller. Easier for governments and newspapers to overlook.
In scarcely a month, hundreds of British merchant captains and their crews had been ruined, joined by an ever-growing number of fishermen whose boats had ventured into waters that were no longer safe. German raiders prowled the seas, sinking merchantmen, seizing cargoes and scattering livelihoods across the seabed. Contracts went unfulfilled, families lost the incomes upon which they depended, and more than a few sailors simply never came home.
The damage travelled much farther than the ships themselves. Factories employing thousands found themselves without the raw materials they required and were forced to send workers home because there was nothing left to manufacture. Warehouses emptied. Shopkeepers watched imported goods become scarcer and more expensive. Customers raged at merchants, merchants raged at suppliers, and suppliers pointed toward insurers, governments and shipping companies while everyone argued over who, precisely, ought to bear the cost.
Nobody seemed willing to pay in full.
Not without lawyers.
Not without hearings.
Not without months of men sitting around polished tables deciding whose signature had made whom responsible for cargo now resting beneath the sea.
Captain Jack Ashcroft had become one of those ruined men.
Once, Jack had possessed a very simple kind of pride. He had been master of the Black Pearl, owner of his own vessel outright—paid for in full and bought clean through the extraordinary stroke of luck provided by a winning lottery ticket. For a man who had spent much of his younger life labouring beneath other men's orders in mines, docks and ships, ownership had felt almost like divine favour.
He owed no banker for the vessel and answered to no employer aboard her. Beyond the contracts he chose to accept and the laws every captain was obliged to tolerate, the Black Pearl had belonged entirely to him.
And so, Jack had believed, did his future.
It had seemed full of possibilities then: money to be made, ports yet to be visited, risks worth taking and beautiful women to be charmed along the way. Among them had been Eleanor, the red-haired cook aboard his ship who had first been drawn into his life by money, opportunity and no small amount of Jack's own shameless charm, before eventually becoming something considerably more important—his lover and constant companion.
Then Jack discovered that he had apparently gotten her pregnant.
And not long afterward, the Black Pearl disappeared beneath the cold, indifferent waters of the North Atlantic, taking with her almost everything Jack had spent years building.
What followed proved worse in a different way.
There was no compensation waiting for him in Britain. No sympathetic official prepared to acknowledge that a man's livelihood had been destroyed by events far beyond his control and restore him to where he had stood before. There were only denials, clauses, questions—and demands.
His business partners came first. They remained painfully polite about it, but politeness did not make their expectations any less merciless. Their cargo had been entrusted to Jack. That cargo was now at the bottom of the sea. Whatever sympathy they possessed for his misfortune did not alter the fact that they expected to recover what they could.
Then came his crew, and that hurt more. These were men who had trusted him, sailed beneath him and worked to make the Black Pearl profitable. Now the ship was gone and so were their jobs, yet they still had wives, children, rent, food and lives of their own to worry about. They wanted the wages owed to them, and Jack could hardly condemn them for it.
When he finally sat down with what remained of his money, the truth became brutally simple.
He could pay them. He could honour the debts, settle the wages and make certain that everyone who had trusted Captain Jack Ashcroft was not ruined simply because he had been.
And in doing so, he would lose nearly everything he had left. He would find himself almost exactly where he had begun years earlier: poor, shipless and staring upward from the bottom of the ladder.
Once, perhaps, Jack might have accepted that. Once he had been alone. Free to fail. Free to gamble everything and begin again with nothing but his own hands.
But he was not alone anymore, and Eleanor was carrying his child. Worse, she had family in Ireland—Catholic, traditional and thoroughly capable of deciding that a daughter returning home unmarried and pregnant had brought sufficient disgrace upon the household to be shown the door. If Eleanor was to stand before them with any hope of being accepted, Jack needed to be more than some ruined sailor who had got her pregnant and then lost the only thing that had made him respectable.
He needed standing, money, a future. Preferably all three, and preferably rather quickly. And so Jack began searching for another way. Something fast, desperate, and probably something foolish.
His thoughts inevitably returned to the men who had sunk the Black Pearl, the Germans.
What bothered him most was that they had not behaved like monsters. He had expected devils because Britain spoke increasingly of Germans as though horns might grow from beneath their helmets. Instead, the sailors who boarded his ship had been disciplined men doing a job. They had seized his vessel because its cargo aided Britain, allowed Jack and his crew to abandon her, and then sent the Black Pearl beneath the waves.
They had destroyed his life almost professionally.
And Germany itself had acquired an extraordinary reputation over the previous decade. Depending upon whom one asked, it was either the greatest modern nation Europe had ever produced or some wealthy industrial Sodom run by heretics, engineers and immoral women. Its factories were said to be miracles. Its cities glowed with electricity. Its workers lived better than respectable men in other countries thought workers had any right to live. Wealth seemed to flow through the Empire in streams of coin, and inventions appeared there faster than the rest of Europe could decide whether they were useful or sinful.
The more Jack thought about it, the simpler his conclusion became.
Germany had taken everything from him, so perhaps Germany could give it back. It was not a particularly sophisticated plan. Possibly not even a sane one, but it was a plan.
Jack decided that if he could somehow reach the Germans, explain what their navy had done to him and place his case before someone important enough to make a decision, then perhaps they would compensate him. Perhaps some wealthy official, industrialist or prince would hear the story of the ruined British captain and decide that paying him was easier than arguing.
So he went.
From Britain, Jack and Eleanor travelled north to Norway. From Norway they worked their way south toward Denmark, and from Denmark they eventually reached the frontier of the enemy nation itself.
They had attempted to cross properly at first and, quite reasonably, had been refused. Jack was, after all, a citizen of an enemy nation attempting to enter Germany in the middle of a war so that he might demand compensation—and, if necessary, challenge the German state in court over the destruction of his ship. By any sensible measure, that should have been the end of the matter.
To Jack, however, the refusal was merely another obstacle, and obstacles had rarely discouraged him for long.
So, with Eleanor beside him and desperation burning considerably hotter than common sense, Captain Jack Ashcroft crossed the German border illegally with his pregnant lover in tow.
They did not get very far.
And now Jack—captain of nothing, owner of nothing—sat bloodied and beaten in a heavy wooden chair somewhere beneath German soil.
His wrists had been bound tightly to the armrests, while his ankles were separately lashed to the chair legs, leaving him enough freedom to strain against the ropes but nowhere near enough to escape them. A coarse sack had been pulled over his head and secured behind his neck, trapping the heat of every breath against his battered face. His nose was swollen and bleeding, his lip split, and with the rough fabric pressed around his mouth and nostrils, every breath seemed hotter and shallower than the last. The cellar itself was damp and unpleasantly cold everywhere except beneath the sack, smelling of mould, rust and old stone, while somewhere nearby water dripped with maddening regularity.
For what felt like hours, several men had questioned him in extremely poor English. They shouted, threatened and struck him while repeatedly demanding explanations Jack had already given as clearly as he knew how. He answered as best he could, but whether his captors simply could not follow his thick Scottish accent or had decided from the beginning that they did not believe a word he said, he could not tell.
Eventually, however, Jack heard chairs scraping across the floor and several voices exchanging a few final words in German. Heavy boots crossed the cellar, the metal door opened with a dull groan, and moments later it slammed shut hard enough to send the sound reverberating through the walls.
Silence followed.
Jack waited and listened carefully. As the seconds passed without another voice or footstep, some of his old confidence began creeping back. Beneath the sack, a crooked smile slowly spread across his battered face. The Germans were tough bastards, he had to give them that, but perhaps this was actually a good sign. Maybe all he needed to endure were a few more beatings before someone important finally came down to hear him properly—and once that happened, Jack remained stubbornly convinced that he could still talk his way into getting his compensation.
Not far away came a muffled sound of Eleanor.
She had been tied up as well, though unlike Jack she had been left uncovered and therefore forced to watch everything the Germans had done to him. Judging by the frightened sounds coming through her gag, she was considerably less optimistic about their circumstances than he was.
"Don't worry, baby," Jack called, forcing his bruised and exhausted voice back into something resembling its usual swagger. "I've got this. Just hang on a little longer, all right? We're getting out of here."
Eleanor made another muffled noise through her gag, more frantic this time, as though desperately trying to tell him something.
"And I'm still getting us that money," Jack continued. "You'll see. Big bloody house somewhere by the sea when this is finished. Proper place. You, me and the baby. I'll even let you choose the curtains."
Another muffled protest came from across the cellar.
Jack grinned beneath the sack.
"See? That's the spirit."
Then came a sudden pop.
The unmistakable sound of a cork leaving a bottle was followed immediately by a small feminine yelp of surprise.
"Oh!"
A moment later came light laughter.
Jack's smile disappeared.
The sound was so completely unexpected that for several seconds he merely listened. It was unmistakably a woman's laugh, soft and naturally musical, touched with embarrassment from whatever mishap had accompanied the cork. She laughed again under her breath, apparently amused with herself, and when she finally spoke her English carried a noticeable German accent.
"Foolish Englishman," she said. "You truly believe you are going to receive money from us?"
Jack frowned beneath the sack.
The words were threatening enough. The voice delivering them was not.
She seemed almost desperately determined to sound sinister, drawing out certain words and adding little notes of menace wherever she apparently thought they belonged, yet the result was undermined by a voice so smooth, feminine and strangely soothing that Jack found himself more confused than frightened. There was something warm and melodic in it, a sweetness that seemed naturally suited to whispering compliments rather than threatening prisoners in cellars.
"I might almost challenge you to run again," she continued, amusement still warm in her voice. "Our German Shepherds and Dobermanns would certainly enjoy another opportunity to chase you. Remarkable creatures, really—clever, disciplined, loyal. They can smell fear, you know."
She paused for a moment, apparently considering the thought.
"Lies as well, I think."
A soft little laugh followed.
"And once they catch you, they bite very hard."
Jack remained silent beneath the sack, trying to reconcile the threat with a woman who sounded far more suited to offering him tea than setting dogs upon him.
Then the amusement disappeared.
"However," she said, her tone suddenly firmer, "before we entertain the thought of letting my dogs chase you again, I would very much like you to answer my questions properly. My men have already asked you several times, and yet somehow you remain remarkably incapable of giving them what they desire."
She fell quiet for a moment, as though reconsidering the problem.
"Although perhaps…" she mused, "I have been asking the wrong person."
Jack frowned beneath the sack.
"Perhaps instead of wasting more time questioning you, I should simply have my men question your woman."
Across the cellar, Eleanor immediately gave a frightened cry through her gag.
Jack's stomach dropped.
The implication required no explanation. He knew exactly what the men had done to him during their interrogation, and the thought of them turning the same treatment upon Eleanor—pregnant, bound and unable even to plead properly for herself—sent panic tearing straight through whatever swagger he had managed to recover.
"No. Wait—no!" He surged against the ropes hard enough to make the chair creak beneath him. "Please, don't touch her! Just listen to me. This whole thing is a bloody misunderstanding. I'm telling you the truth. I swear to God, I'm not lying. You have to listen to me!"
The last words came out more sharply than he intended, almost as an order. And for a moment the woman said nothing. Then her voice changed.
"Hm?"
The displeasure in that tiny sound was unmistakable.
"You dare command me, Englishman?"
Jack's fear for Eleanor collided violently with his frustration. Hours of being beaten, shouted at and misunderstood had worn away most of his patience, and now this little woman—he could hear from her voice alone that she could hardly be imposing—was threatening Eleanor while still refusing to listen to a word he said.
"I'm not an Englishman, you crazy bitch!" he snapped. "I'm Scottish. Scottish, you understand? There's a bloody difference. We're not all the same!"
Silence followed.
For half a second Jack almost wondered whether he had finally managed to offend her into speechlessness.
Then came a small, irritated sigh.
"English. Scottish. Welsh. Irish. You British people are far too complicated."
Jack gritted his teeth beneath the sack.
"That's not the bloody point."
"No," she replied coolly. "The point is that you will stop shouting at me."
Then the light clicking of her heels began moving toward him across the cellar floor.
"English, Scottish… whatever you insist upon calling yourself, you are British," she said, her earlier amusement fading. "And I am becoming tired of this attitude of yours. The excuses, the pleading, the defiance. You speak and speak, yet somehow I still feel as though you are holding something back."
Jack clenched his jaw beneath the sack. He wanted to shout that the problem was not him—that none of them had listened properly from the beginning—but something in her tone stopped him. She was not simply questioning his story anymore. She was trying to get beneath the swagger, beneath the stubbornness and wounded pride, to see what remained when he could no longer hide behind any of it.
"I want the truth," she continued as she came nearer. "Not merely words you think will satisfy me. I want to hear it from you and believe it. How am I supposed to trust a man who remains so arrogant even while tied to a chair?"
By then she was close enough that Jack became aware of something entirely different from blood, mould and damp stone.
Perfume.
Warm, sweet and distinctly feminine. Roses, he thought. Red roses, perhaps, with something softer and richer beneath them. The scent was strangely pleasant in that miserable cellar, enough to distract him for a moment as she stopped directly beside him.
Then he felt her lean close.
"Perhaps," she murmured near his ear, "you simply need a little more motivation."
Her hand settled over his right one, soft fingers moving slowly across his battered knuckles before her nails traced down toward his fingertips.
"Your nails," she mused. "They could use some trimming."
Jack shivered as the meaning reached him.
"No—Christ, no. Listen, I'm telling you the truth. I only wanted compensation. Money, that's all—"
Her heel came down lightly on the toe of his boot.
"Be quiet."
Jack fell silent.
"You are far too loud," she added with a small sigh. "And besides, I was not actually going to do that. I am merely considering possibilities."
Her hand left his fingers and closed instead around his upper arm. Jack stiffened as she squeezed his bicep, almost experimentally. Her hand was small, but the strength behind it was firmer than he expected.
"Although," she murmured, with something almost appreciative in her tone, "I do wonder what such a tall, powerful man intended to do with the poor young woman you frightened half to death with all that shouting."
Jack said nothing.
She leaned a little closer.
"Perhaps you and your mistress meant to kidnap her. Hold her for ransom."
His stomach tightened.
"Or perhaps," she whispered, "you had something worse in mind. One can only imagine. It was fortunate there were decent people nearby to stop you before you managed to lay your hands on her."
Jack paled beneath the sack.
"What? No! Jesus Christ, no! What the hell are you talking about, woman? I wasn't trying to hurt her. I only thought she looked important enough to—"
"Silence."
The word cut him off at once.
"It does not matter what you claim now. One way or another, I will have the truth from you."
Her fingers closed around the back of his head through the sack.
"Now let us see how much of that confidence remains after this."
Jack barely had time to tense before she pulled his head sharply backward with startling strength. A moment later, warm liquid struck the sack across his face.
Wine.
It soaked through almost instantly.
Jack convulsed as it flooded his nose and mouth, coughing and twisting violently against the ropes while the woman held his head in place. The cloth clung wetly across his face, and every desperate attempt to breathe drew wine and soaked fabric tighter against his mouth and nostrils.
"How do you like it?" she asked above him, her sweet voice sharpening with forced cruelty. "A French gift. Taken from the former headquarters of the Fifth Army at Maubeuge."
Jack thrashed harder, his bound legs kicking uselessly against the chair.
"Very fine wine, apparently. You may as well enjoy it."
The bottle tipped farther.
"Drown in the pleasure of it, Englishman—or Scottishman, if you insist—just as your countrymen drown in mud and blood upon the Western Front. At sea, on land, dying by the thousands for nothing."
Jack could no longer answer. His lungs burned, his chest spasmed, and his struggles weakened until blackness began creeping into the edges of his vision.
Then, just before consciousness slipped away, the pouring stopped.
The hand holding his head released him and Jack sagged forward against the ropes, coughing violently as he dragged air through the wine-soaked sack. Every breath came ragged and shallow, followed by another fit of choking. Wine burned through his throat and sinuses, his stomach heaved, and for several moments he could do nothing but wheeze and gasp while his body shook from the effort of simply breathing.
Eventually he managed to force out a word.
"Please…"
There was nothing defiant left in his voice now. No swagger, no anger, no clever answer waiting behind it.
"Oh God… please. I beg you. No more." He swallowed painfully and coughed again. "Whatever you want. I'll tell you anything. I'll do anything. Just… no more."
Across the cellar, Eleanor made a frightened sound through her gag.
Jack heard it, and whatever remained of his composure finally broke.
"If somebody has to be hurt, then hurt me," he rasped. "Beat me. Kill me if that's what you bloody well want. I don't care anymore. Just let Eleanor go."
His head lifted weakly beneath the soaked sack, as though he could somehow look toward her through the darkness.
"She hasn't done anything. She's nobody to you. She only came because of me." His voice cracked. "And she's carrying my child."
Eleanor went completely still.
Jack's shoulders began to shake.
"She's pregnant," he repeated, more desperately now. "Please. You have to understand. We came here because I lost everything. My ship, my business, nearly all the money I had. If I go back with nothing, I've got nothing to give her. No home worth speaking of, no future, nothing."
His words began tumbling over one another.
"I thought I could fix it. I thought if I came here, found somebody important and made them listen, maybe Germany would compensate me and I could start again. Give Eleanor and the baby something. Anything."
A sob caught painfully in his throat.
"But I fucked it up."
Tears ran freely beneath the soaked sack now.
"I fucked everything up."
Eleanor stared at him from across the cellar, her own eyes filling. She had seen Jack angry, drunk, bloodied and beaten. She had watched him lose the Black Pearl and still somehow find enough arrogance to promise that everything would work out.
She had never seen him like this.
"I'm sorry, Eleanor," he choked. "God, I'm so sorry. I should've listened to you. I should never have brought you here."
He pulled weakly against the restraints, as though even now he wanted nothing more than to cross the room and reach her.
"Please," he begged again, no longer caring how broken he sounded. "I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt her. Don't hurt my baby. Please."
For several seconds, the only sounds in the cellar were Jack's ragged breathing and Eleanor's muffled sobs.
Then the bottle slipped from the woman's fingers.
It struck the stone with a hollow clatter and rolled away, spilling the last of the wine across the floor.
"Oh…"
Her breath caught, and all the theatrical cruelty vanished from her voice at once.
"Oh my… Jack."
Before he could make sense of the sudden change, she hurried toward him. Jack felt her small hands settle upon his thighs as she steadied herself, and he stiffened in bewilderment beneath the dripping sack. A moment later her weight shifted onto him—light but unmistakable—as she climbed carefully onto his lap and settled across his bound legs.
"What the—"
He never finished.
Her hands were already working at the soaked cloth around his head. She tugged it loose and pulled the sack away, exposing his face to the cellar light.
Jack recoiled instinctively. After so long in darkness, even the weak yellow lamp seemed painfully bright. He squeezed his eyes shut as tears streamed down his cheeks, blinking rapidly while the room slowly emerged from a blur of gold and shadow. Through his watering vision he could just make out the small figure perched before him.
Then her hands gently cupped the sides of his head.
Before Jack could properly focus on her, she drew him close.
His face sank into warmth and extraordinary softness, pale flesh yielding gently against his cheeks as she pressed him against her chest. Her arms folded around his head almost protectively, one hand slipping into his wet, wine-stained hair while the other held him securely against her.
The contrast left him stunned.
Only moments earlier he had been suffocating beneath a soaked sack, convinced that this strange woman might actually kill him. Now there was only warmth, the softness surrounding his face, the gentle movement of her fingers through his hair and the quiet beat of her heart beneath his cheek.
"Oh, you poor thing," she whispered, genuine alarm trembling through that beautiful voice. "I didn't mean to frighten you so badly."
Jack remained still in her embrace, too disoriented to decide whether he ought to pull away or simply let himself stay there.
The first thing he noticed was her warmth. Then came the scent of her—roses, rich and sweet without being overpowering, mingled with the softer fragrance of clean skin and golden hair. After the damp cellar, the blood, the wine and the suffocating heat beneath the sack, it felt almost unreal.
Slowly, his vision cleared.
And only then did Jack fully understand where she was holding him.
Her bosom filled his sight: two beautifully rounded breasts rising from the daring neckline of her crimson gown, pale as ivory beneath the cellar lamp and so full that the fitted fabric seemed barely equal to the task of containing them. The dress held them high and close, framing the deep hollow between them while concealing little more than modesty demanded. At the very edge of the red fabric, he caught the faintest hint of warmer pink where their sensitive tips remained only just hidden from view, as though the slightest shift might reveal considerably more.
Jack swallowed.
Or perhaps, he thought hazily, considerably more than she merely pretended not to reveal.
Resting within the valley of her cleavage hung a delicate golden chain, far finer than anything else she wore. Suspended from it was a small version of the Cross of the New Dawn: an elegant golden cross whose four arms met around a tiny heart-shaped centre, worked so brilliantly that even the weak cellar light seemed to gather there. Against her pale skin the little symbol appeared almost luminous, a miniature sun resting between the curves of her breasts.
Jack's lips brushed soft skin as he breathed.
A tiny sound escaped her—not quite a gasp, more an involuntary little hum—and his heart immediately began beating faster.
Slowly he looked upward.
His gaze travelled from the golden cross to the graceful line of her throat, then to a delicate chin and full lips coloured naturally red enough that she scarcely seemed to require lipstick at all. Above them sat a small, finely shaped nose, and then those eyes.
Blue.
Not merely blue, but brilliant, clear blue, made larger still by long natural lashes. Loose strands of golden-blonde hair had escaped whatever careful arrangement she had worn earlier and now framed her face in soft waves, catching the yellow light until they seemed almost metallic.
There was no extravagant necklace beyond the little cross. No heavy jewels. No elaborate cosmetics disguising imperfections.
There seemed to be no imperfections to disguise.
Her skin was flawless. Her features possessed an almost impossible symmetry without losing their softness, and the warmth in her expression somehow made the beauty more striking rather than less. Jack had known beautiful women. He had spent enough years around ports, taverns and sailors to know every variety of painted beauty and practiced seduction.
This was different.
She looked less decorated than finished, as though nature had simply decided to make one woman properly and then become bored with the rest.
While he stared, she closed her eyes and leaned forward.
Her lips touched his forehead.
The kiss was gentle, almost maternal, and as she bent over him her breasts pressed more fully around his face, briefly filling his entire vision with pale softness and the scent of roses. Jack's thoughts scattered again.
When she drew back, she left his cheek resting comfortably against her bosom while one hand swept a loose strand of golden hair away from her face.
"There," she murmured. "Is your poor heart a little calmer now, you sweet thing?"
Something about the sight struck Jack with almost religious absurdity.
The single lamp hung behind her head, its blurred yellow glow surrounding her golden hair like a halo. Her skin seemed luminous beneath it, the red gown framing her pale body like some sacred painting rendered considerably more scandalously than any church would tolerate.
Without thinking, Jack whispered, "Are you an angel?"
Her eyes widened.
Then she gave a delighted little giggle.
"No, silly," she murmured. "I'm the one torturing you."
Jack blinked. And he realised that the answer ought to have shattered whatever spell had fallen over him, but it did not.
Instead, at that particular moment, being tortured by her seemed almost disturbingly close to a privilege.
"What I did before is called waterboarding," she explained lightly, as though introducing him to some curious new household invention. "My husband told me about it. He even wrote the basics in his little Red Book."
She studied him for a moment, then gave his hair another gentle stroke.
"I hope you do not truly hate me for it. I merely wished to see who you were once all that bravado had been washed away."
Her fingers caught some of the wine still clinging to his hair. She looked at the red droplets upon them with idle curiosity, then touched one finger to her tongue.
A faintly pleased sound escaped her.
"Hmm."
Jack watched, fascinated despite himself, as she licked the wine from the tip of her finger. Only then did he notice the simple gold ring she wore, delicately engraved with symbols he did not recognise. Even that seemed modest compared with everything else about her. The woman needed no diamonds, pearls or elaborate paints to draw attention.
She was the ornament.
"Don't worry, brave Jack," she whispered. "You are safe now. I shall take care of you…" Her smile acquired the faintest hint of mischief. "…if you promise to take care of me."
Every sensible instinct Jack possessed warned him that there was something deliberate beneath all this tenderness. She wanted something from him. Nobody nearly drowned a man in wine and then climbed into his lap purely out of kindness.
Unfortunately, his senses had stopped listening to reason.
Her warmth, the scent of roses, the softness surrounding him and the almost hypnotic sweetness of her voice pushed everything else to the edges of his awareness. For a shameful few moments even Eleanor seemed distant as Jack stared at the woman holding him.
Then something about her face tugged at his memory, for he had seen her before.
Jack's eyes widened.
"Wait…"
She tilted her head, watching him curiously.
Recognition settled over him, followed quickly by disbelief.
"Are you… Princess Tanya?"
The reaction was immediate.
A bright smile spread across her face, followed unexpectedly by the faintest blush.
"Yes," she said, almost shyly. "I suppose I am."
Jack simply stared.
Princess Tanya.
He had seen her in magazines often enough to assume the photographs exaggerated her beauty. They had not. If anything, they had failed to capture it.
Up close, with luminous skin, golden hair, brilliant blue eyes and that impossibly curvaceous little figure, she seemed almost unreal.
Perhaps embarrassed by the naked astonishment on his face, Tanya flushed and quickly drew him against herself again, nestling his head between her breasts as though she might hide him there from the rest of the world.
"But do not worry, brave Jack," she murmured. "Princess though I may be, I shall not have you punished for calling me a bitch earlier."
Jack winced.
Tanya only smiled and combed her fingers slowly through his wine-damp hair. "Because I understand you. You are not a monster, nor some natural thief or villain. You are simply… lost."
"I—I only…"
"Shh. It is all right."
She eased him back just far enough to meet his eyes.
"You need not explain everything at once. I think I understand more than you imagine. You are a man who wants a home. A family. Safety. Stability. A life with some dignity to it, even if that life is simple. That is not greed, Jack. It is what every living creature desires in one form or another."
She bent and placed a gentle kiss upon the crown of his head.
"You did not come here because you wanted riches for their own sake. You came because you believed you had nowhere else left to go."
Something tightened painfully inside Jack, because she was right. More troubling still was how completely she seemed to understand him. Held against her warmth, listening to that soft voice, he felt a strange calm settle over him—something almost embarrassingly like childhood, the old security of being gathered close while the rest of the world briefly ceased to matter.
Then Tanya lifted his face again.
"So the question remains, Jack," she said softly. "If I take care of you, will you take care of me? Will you stand beside me against the evils of this world—as my agent, and perhaps my loyal knight?"
For several seconds Jack could not answer.
Partly it was the question. Mostly it was her.
That flawless face hovered only inches from his own, framed by golden hair, brilliant blue eyes reflecting his much larger form, and soft red lips parted ever so slightly as she waited. This was the woman Europe called a goddess, sitting alone with him in a cellar, perched upon his lap and asking for his loyalty as though he were someone worth choosing.
Some part of him felt he ought to be humbled by it. Perhaps even kneel and swear himself to her then and there.
But another part of Jack had become aware of something considerably simpler.
She was close enough to kiss—and some reckless corner of his mind had already begun wondering what it would be like to make this astonishing woman his.
His gaze dropped to Tanya's mouth, and a faint, almost roguish smirk touched his battered lips. She noticed immediately. Her blue eyes flicked toward his, then briefly downward, plainly understanding what he was thinking.
She did not move away.
To Jack, that was invitation enough.
He had scarcely begun to lean toward those red lips when Tanya moved.
The blow came so quickly that he never saw her hand.
There was only a sharp sting, the violent wrenching of his head to one side and then the tremendous crack of the slap echoing through the cellar. Jack's vision exploded into white stars. Blood flooded his mouth, one or two teeth striking the floor somewhere beyond him as his head snapped sideways before lolling dazedly back.
Before he could properly understand what had happened, Tanya's fingers were tangled in his hair.
She jerked his head backward, and the sweet, blushing princess of a moment before disappeared beneath a sudden flash of genuine fury. Her other hand came against his throat, nails pressing dangerously into the vulnerable flesh as those brilliant blue eyes burned into his.
"How dare you test me, you dog!" she snapped. "I should rip your goddamned windpipe straight from your throat!"
Jack heard perhaps half of it through the ringing in his ears. He blinked repeatedly until Tanya's furious face came back into focus, and even dazed as he was, the contrast struck him as almost absurd. Only seconds earlier she had seemed like some golden-haired goddess comforting him against her breast. Now that same beautiful face looked ready to murder him.
Jack swallowed blood and somehow managed a crooked smile.
"Yeah," he mumbled. "I probably deserved that one."
Across the cellar Eleanor gave a loud muffled cry. Whether it was outrage at Jack for attempting to kiss another woman or alarm at seeing him nearly knocked senseless, he could not possibly tell.
Then Tanya's anger vanished almost as suddenly as it had appeared.
Her eyes widened.
"Oh!"
She released his hair at once and recoiled, one hand flying over her mouth while the other came anxiously against his chest.
"Oh no. Jack, I didn't mean to hit you that hard." Horror crept into her expression. "I am sorry. You surprised me. Jack? Are you all right?"
Jack attempted what he hoped was an apologetic grin.
It came out rather crooked.
"I'm… grand."
He was not grand.
The cellar was rotating slowly around him, Tanya seemed to have acquired two identical faces, and his limbs suddenly felt remarkably distant from the rest of his body.
Then Captain Jack Ashcroft quite unceremoniously passed out, knocked unconscious by none other than a German princess half his size.
Eleanor stared in stunned disbelief.
Her astonishment only deepened when Tanya immediately began trying to wake him, patting his cheek and calling his name with growing concern. Then movement emerged from beyond the lamplight.
A boy stepped from the shadows.
Eleanor had never seen a child quite like him.
His hair was an extraordinarily pale platinum-blond, almost silver beneath the cellar light, while his eyes shone a vivid and unnatural violet. More striking still was his face. Even at his age, there was something unmistakable in it—the same handsome structure she had seen reproduced countless times in newspapers and photographs of the Iron Prince.
The boy wore a dark military-style uniform, and judging by the displeased frown upon his face, he had found very little about the preceding performance impressive.
"So, Mother," he said dryly, "I assume your recruitment of our newest agent for the Empire did not proceed exactly as planned."
Tanya waved the remark away.
"This is not funny, Imperiel. Help me."
Whatever amusement might have existed in the boy disappeared immediately.
Mother and son moved with surprising efficiency. Jack's remaining restraints were cut away and his unconscious body lowered carefully onto the stone floor. His legs were raised upon the chair while Imperiel folded his own military jacket beneath Jack's head as a makeshift cushion. Tanya knelt beside him, checking his breathing and pulse with the practiced familiarity of someone possessing considerably more medical knowledge than Eleanor would ever have expected from a princess.
For several tense minutes Tanya fussed over him like some improbably glamorous battlefield nurse.
Eventually she seemed satisfied.
"He is fine," she said, releasing a long breath. "He needs rest."
Jack was already doing precisely that. His breathing had become deep and regular, and despite the blood around his mouth he now looked strangely peaceful.
Then both royals turned toward Eleanor.
She froze.
Whatever courage she might ordinarily have possessed abandoned her beneath the combined attention of the princess and her violet-eyed son. By the time Tanya approached, Eleanor had already lowered her gaze.
Imperiel reached her first and quickly removed the gag before cutting through the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. The moment Eleanor was free, her weakened legs gave way and she dropped to her knees before Tanya.
"I'm yours, Your Highness," she said quickly. "Whatever you need. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. I'll serve."
Tanya stared at her for a moment.
Then she smiled.
She extended one small hand.
Eleanor hesitated only briefly before taking it.
Tanya pulled her upright, and the difference between them became almost comical once they stood face-to-face. Eleanor was noticeably taller, forcing the tiny princess to look upward at her, yet somehow there was no question which woman possessed command of the room.
"Then welcome," Tanya said warmly, still holding her hand, "to the German Empire."
Eleanor, utterly lost as to how her life had reached this point, did the only thing that seemed remotely appropriate.
She shook the princess's hand.
And just like that, another chapter of her life began.
Jack's future, meanwhile, appeared to be under discussion without his participation.
Imperiel stood over the unconscious Scotsman for several seconds, studying him with the severe expression of someone inspecting a particularly troublesome acquisition.
"I dislike his attitude," he finally said.
Tanya glanced toward her son.
"But," Imperiel continued reluctantly, "I suppose you may be right, Mother. There is something about him. He has the air of a ruler, perhaps. And his appearance is sufficiently acceptable."
Tanya smiled faintly.
Imperiel folded his arms behind his back and looked thoughtfully down at Jack.
"It remains a rather far-fetched idea," he admitted. "But perhaps we really could make a King of Ireland out of him."
Eleanor stared.
For several seconds she was not entirely certain she had heard correctly.
Then Imperiel looked directly at her.
"And you," he said in clear English, "would be his queen."
Eleanor's mouth opened, yet nothing came out.
She looked from the strange violet-eyed prince to Tanya, then down at Jack lying unconscious upon a German cellar floor.
They had entered Germany seeking compensation for a lost ship.
No compensation had been given.
Instead, somehow, something vastly stranger had been placed before them: an opportunity so absurd that neither Jack nor Eleanor could yet have understood its size.
Jack Ashcroft had crossed the border hoping to recover the life he had lost.
By the time he woke, the Germans were already imagining an entirely new one for him.