The Wild Princess

Nine



The Balmoral of Louise’s childhood had been neither more nor less beautiful than it was now. The early spring had teased life out of the budding hawthorns, chased away the snow, called back the larks—and yet the air still chilled her to the bone. She breathed out, and a frosty cloud puffed in front of her face before drifting away. Her fingers felt numb. Her toes, though encased in good Scottish wool stockings, stung with the cold, and her face stiffened until either smiling or frowning required a concerted effort.

Louise trudged on through the prickly gorse, up the hill smelling of sweet heather, and away from the castle her parents had built the year she turned three. It was the fairy-tale castle of her youth, complete with clock tower, turrets, woodlands, gardens, baronial outer buildings, and unlimited, deliciously clean air to breathe.

But even here, Louise could not escape her despair. Her chest felt as tight as a clenched fist, and the tears she’d fought off for days finally came, freezing on her cheeks before they could drop off. Ever since they’d arrived in Scotland, her head had hurt, her eyes burned. Now that she’d let herself start crying, she couldn’t seem to stop. Less than two weeks had passed since her wedding day, but the long hours had been the loneliest of her life. This could not go on. It simply couldn’t. She must somehow clear her head enough to think about her future.

If only Amanda were here. She longed to confide in her, to ask her advice. After walking on a good deal farther, she decided that she must write to her. Immediately. And hope she would have some wisdom to share.

Louise found a fallen tree, warmed by the sun, sat on the smooth trunk, and took out the sketch pad and pencil she always carried with her on her hikes about the countryside. As stationery, the plain white paper lacked the prestige of her usual creamy vellum with its royal crest, but she knew Amanda wouldn’t care. She began:



Amanda dear,



You asked that I write, probably believing I’d find little time, so preoccupied would I be with my new husband. I fear this is far from the reality of my situation. I shall make short work of describing what transpired on my wedding night, as even now it is painful to think of.

Lorne is not the man I believed him to be. To be blunt: his passions are directed in every way toward his own sex. He has no interest in me, in any woman, or in performing his duty as a husband. I am trying not to be bitter, but this is a terribly difficult pill to swallow. At the moment, I am trying to determine the wisest course of action. It is my hope that you will be able to help me puzzle through this dilemma. Here are my choices, as I see them now:

First, I might divorce Lorne and hope to find a mate better suited to my own passions and character. But I would need to offer specific reasons for wishing to dissolve the marriage. To state the truth would destroy the marquess. He might well be sent to prison—which is his worst fear, and I would not wish it on him. I’ve confided in Bertie, and he told me they put men of Lorne’s persuasion to hard labor, force them to sleep in damp, crowded cells with no heat, no mattress or blanket for warmth, and give them too little food to restore their strength. I imagine the harassment of the guards is most dreadful. Under such conditions, even a short term of a few years might ruin a man’s health. It is just a matter of time before a prisoner succumbs to consumption. A delicate soul like Lorne would likely wither all the more rapidly.

My second option is to maintain our charade, stay married to Lorne and pretend happiness. In time, I may convince myself that I am content with my lot. That would please Mama and silence London gossips. If I bury myself in my work for the poor and in my art, I may yet build for myself a fulfilling life. Do you remember my speaking of someday carving a life-size statue of Father to honor his memory? I still have so much to learn before attempting such a challenging project. But, married to Lorne, with no obligations or restraints made upon my time by pregnancy and children, I will be free to follow my muse, and dedicate myself to service to the poor. Shouldn’t that make me happy?

Children, though. That is what I shall miss, perhaps even more than a man’s affections. How I’d wanted a bevy of them. A squealing, kissing, hugging, drooling flock of little ones. Oh, Amanda my dear, what will I do about that? Lorne will never give them to me. Do you think I’m capable of sleeping with another man simply to induce pregnancy? I might keep my children’s fatherhood a secret. Demand that Lorne claim my babies as his, thereby cloaking them in legitimacy.

Well, I guess I’ve miscounted, because that’s actually a third option—keeping a lover on the side for pleasure and baby making. A stud as it were, no different than the stallions in Windsor’s stables. But the risk of being found out is appalling. The scandal would destroy the family. And Mama—well, she would be frantic about the royal lineage. Even bastard children may lay claim to the crown under the right circumstances.

I just feel so very confused, and hurt, and desperately in need of your advice. The idea of taking a companion lover, for the sake of assuaging my loneliness and satisfying the lust I feel when a strong man looks my way—well, that seems utterly distasteful and unappealing. I would feel as though I were giving in to the basest of animal instincts if I didn’t love the man I took to my bed. And what if he didn’t love me—even a little? How sad that would be.

Anyway, I know few men with whom I’d even want to be intimate.



Louise hesitated, her sketching pencil poised above the page. Dare she continue? She’d never been able to reveal such intimate feelings to her own sisters. But then, hadn’t she and Amanda already shared the bond of a secret even more shocking than Lorne’s?

Drawing a breath for strength, Louise set to completing her letter . . .



I can imagine you chiding me now, reminding me that, some time ago, one man was quite capable of winning my heart, soul, and body—and therefore it stands to reason there will be others. But I would argue this isn’t necessarily how life works. Sweet, blithe-spirited Donovan of my innocent youth was quite unique. I don’t know that another man could make my heart, or body, sing as he did. If we two ever were reunited by chance or design, I might again fly into his arms and be his—ignoring my mother’s, and possibly your, warnings.

Who can say why he left me and where he went? I’ve struggled these many years to answer those questions. Perhaps he loved me so deeply he left to save me worse heartache—knowing we could never marry. I suppose any number of other explanations are possible. He might have been attacked in an alley and terribly injured, or even killed. Then again, he might still be alive, wishing we could be together. If there were any way of discovering the truth . . .

But more to the point, I must look to my own future. Have you any thoughts at all on this most troubling marriage of mine? Give them to me, Amanda, please do. I need your clever mind and down-to-earth views on life to help me through this most painful predicament of mine.



Write soon, dear friend. Ever faithfully yours,

Louise



Louise closed her sketch pad. She’d post the letter tomorrow and pray that Amanda would have a solution to her problem . . . though she had little real hope.

She walked faster, drying her tears, using her riding crop to whack away at brush that had started closing over her favorite path leading away from the castle and toward the town. The farther she walked, the more determined she became to seize control of her life, to make something of it and not wallow in self-pity. Her mother, her husband, the court—she refused to let them determine her happiness, or lack of it.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Louise gasped and spun around, crop raised in front of her as a weapon against the intruder with the deep voice. Stephen Byrne stood not twenty feet behind her on the path. Yet she hadn’t heard as much as a single snap of a branch to announce his approach.

“I require no one’s permission to take exercise,” she said, sounding far too defensive to her own ears.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I beg your pardon!” She glared at the man, standing there in judgment of her. Here was a common hired hand—when it came right down to it, that’s what he was—not even a subject of the queen. A foreigner. And he was insulting her and attempting to order her about?

After delivering the royal party to Balmoral, Byrne had disappeared for a full forty-eight hours. She knew because she’d watched for him. Well, didn’t she need to discuss something important with him? So she’d asked several of the staff if they knew where she could find him, since the maids would have had to make up a room for him. They said they didn’t believe he’d stayed even one night at the castle. She expected he’d gone off on another mission for her mother, or returned to London to report to his superiors. But here he was now, hunting her down as if she were a hound that had wandered from the kennel.

“Did you just call me stupid, sir?”

He winced. “You’re an intelligent woman,” he said, as if this were a rare thing in his experience. “What happened the other day on your way north is not an isolated incident. You’re putting yourself at risk walking out alone like this.”

She laughed. “He was a college boy, drunk and politically confused. Acting on impulse and his own fantasies, John Brown says. Not part of any nefarious plot.”

Byrne stepped closer. She eyed him warily, took a step back. Only three men had ever touched her in an intimate manner. Donovan, her mother’s physician, and . . . him. After all, if being pinned to the floor of a coach by a man’s hard body as he manhandled her wasn’t intimate, what was? At that shocking moment she’d barely been aware of the existence of clothing between them.

“As it happens, that’s all true,” Byrne said. “The boy had no intent to murder. But had he not interrupted the journey and prompted us to change our route, I fear a great deal worse might have occurred.”

She raised her eyes to the pink-gray dawn sky, seeking patience, then turned away to continue her walk. The man obviously loved the drama of his job. Or else he was insane. She simply couldn’t communicate with him.

Byrne strode up beside her, nearly nudging her off the narrow path with his wide shoulders. “Listen to me, please, Your Highness.”

“You have a vivid imagination, Mr. Byrne. I fear listening to you would make me scared of my own shadow.”

He drew something from his coat pocket. “This isn’t imaginary.”

She looked down. The thing resting in his bare hand looked like a dirty little piece of twine, nearly invisible against the deep grooves on his calloused palm. She said, “I have no idea what you’re going on about or what that object might be.”

“It’s a fuse,” he said.

Something colder than the frost clinging to the dead twigs underfoot closed around her heart. She stopped walking. “As in part of a bomb?”

“Precisely.”

“And you found this here on the castle grounds?”

“No. It was on the Edinburgh road. Just north of Leicester, where we were stopped by the young idiot with the pistol.”

It took her a moment, but she suddenly understood. “That was the way Brown originally had intended to bring us?”

“Yes.” His eyes, she realized now, were not dark brown at all, as she had earlier supposed. They were as black as any she’d ever seen. As black as the night sky over Osborne House, where she’d spent long weeks searching the heavens and her soul.

“And you’ve reported this to Brown and the queen?”

“To Brown, yes. Whether he chooses to inform Her Majesty, I can’t say.”

She thought for a moment. “And it’s your belief that this was part of an ambush, a bomb meant to blow up the entire party?” Because she couldn’t imagine the Fenians being able to target just one person in an entourage as large as theirs.

Until recently, the explosions the radicals had set off were unpredictably destructive—taking out a wall here, the house of a minister there, or going off in an omnibus and killing dozens of innocent people. Only recently had the dynamiteers seemed to become terrifyingly efficient, blowing up an exterior wall of Parliament, as if to reveal the men inside as . . . what? As fools for arguing against freedom for Ireland?

“No,” Byrne said, snapping her attention back to him, “not the whole wedding caravan.” He was studying the bit of fuse, less than two inches long, rolling it between his fingers. “No, I think this was a trap meant to disrupt the journey, create panic, stop the carriages, and throw the guard into disarray.”

“Stop us? From coming here to Balmoral? Why on earth—”

His eyes darkened with such suddenness and intensity that, when they lifted to meet hers, she felt compelled to close her lips and look away. Instead she fought the urge and held his gaze.

“This,” he said, “was a trap set by experts, not by the usual Fenian volunteers.”

“How do you know?” She shook her head, laughing. “You can’t just toss about outrageous theories like this, Mr. Byrne.”

“They aren’t theories.”

“No?” She crossed her arms over her chest in a then-prove-it stance.

“I’ve found other evidence. They knew exactly how much charge to lay and how to time it to cause the most confusion. It’s my guess they weren’t planning on murdering any of the royal family. If some of her guard was killed in the attack that would be fine. But deaths in the family would result in public outrage and possibly turn opinion more firmly against their cause. What they need is leverage with Parliament.”

It dawned on her then, where he was going with this. “They intended to kidnap my mother?”

“Or you, Arthur, Leo, or Beatrice. I don’t suppose it will matter so much who they snatch, as the purpose is likely to have in their possession any royal they can ransom in exchange for Irish separation.”

Louise narrowed her eyes at him. How dare he speak of her family with such familiarity? Yet he seemed unaware of having breached court etiquette. She gave a sniff. “You don’t know my mother. She would never agree to blackmail. She’d stand the firmer in her resolve to retain her hold on the Irish.”

“You actually believe she’d sacrifice the life of one of her children for the good of the Empire?”

“I believe,” Louise said, unable to block past ugliness from her mind, “my mother would do anything in her power to get her own way. I sometimes think she imagines her personal desires as identical to ‘the good of the Empire.’ ” She swiveled on her heel and started walking again, this time back toward the castle. Suddenly, the bracing morning air and solitude of the wild hills held less appeal. Who knew what or who might lurk in these woods? Maybe the American was right to urge caution.

Byrne fell into step beside her again.

They hiked the path side by side for several minutes in silence. She was about to tell him he needn’t accompany her all the way back to the garden gate when it occurred to her that maybe she did want him here. If the Fenians had become so bold as to plan an attack in broad daylight on the queen’s caravan, why should they not lurk outside the walls of one of the family estates to pick off an unsuspecting prince or princess?

“Where are you from, Mr. Byrne?” she asked, not so much curious as disliking his silence and wary of what he might be thinking. She hoped to God it had nothing to do with what she’d looked like with her dress bodice torn half off her.

“Texas. San Angelo, a little cattle town in the western part of the state.”

“Therefore your intriguing garb?” She raised an eyebrow.

He smiled and touched the brim of his hat. “It’s practical, ma’am.”

They walked on, and she thought about him and all she didn’t know about the man. “You don’t sound like an uneducated man, Mr. Byrne.”

“They do have schools in Texas.”

She ignored his making fun of her. “Is that where you studied?”

“No. My mother was from out east. I attended college back where she grew up, in Connecticut. I’d be in New Haven or thereabouts still if it hadn’t been for the war.”

“America’s War between the States?”

“Yes.”

“You fought for the North?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t she couldn’t help prodding. “I assume that means you weren’t a traditional soldier?”

“I was under assignment directly to Mr. Lincoln.” The shadow of a smile disappeared from his lips. His chipped-granite expression warned her to tread carefully. Something about the conversation had rubbed him the wrong way.

“Your president’s assassination was most terrible,” she said. “My mother was so shocked and troubled by it, she wrote a long letter of condolence to Mrs. Lincoln . . . then doubled the guardsmen kept at the royal residence.”

“Booth was a coward and a snake,” Byrne said. “To shoot a man, any unarmed man, from the back and without a single word of warning, with his wife sitting right there beside—”

Louise jerked to a stop and turned to stare at her mother’s agent, aghast. “You make it sound as if you were there that night.”

For a long while he didn’t answer. His gaze slipped away from hers and flitted about the gorse, never staying long on one spot.

“Yes.” The word seemed to rise from the depths of his soul and poison the air around them with his bitterness. “Had I been in the gallery behind the president, I’d have stopped Booth. Instead, I heard the shot from the hallway below.”

“Oh dear,” she murmured and touched his sleeve in sympathy.

He didn’t seem to feel it, and she quickly withdrew her hand. “I wasn’t technically on duty that night. But I should have . . . should have—” He shook his head. His eyes clouded with sadness.

There was nothing she could say. Her hand moved toward his arm again, but she pulled it back with the same caution as when approaching a hot stove. “You were Mr. Lincoln’s bodyguard?”

“Not officially. I worked undercover for the Union during the war, a spy if you will. The information I gathered always went directly to Mr. Lincoln. After the war, as a civilian, I asked to be put on assignment in Washington, to continue on the president’s security detail, but I was told he needed no one else.”

“And your knowledge of bombs?”

“Part of my job was to track Confederate soldiers intent on blowing up bridges, ammunition dumps, supply lines, and other things critical to the North’s winning the war. Sometimes when I found a bomb, there wasn’t time to summon the men trained to disarm them. I had no choice but to do it myself, or else trigger the thing to save lives but sacrifice a vital road or bridge.”

“So you learned by trial and error.” It seemed to her a dangerous way to train.

“Most of the devices were pretty simple.” He shrugged and started walking again, watching the ground as his boots crunched over the frost heaves and dead leaves. She followed along, matching his strides. “They were either meant to be set off by hand and thrown, or planted and triggered by pressure. Sometimes a mechanical trip wire was used to strike a flint and light the fuse after the dynamiteers were well clear. During that time, I discovered a few soldiers from the South who were particularly creative. Their work was nearly undetectable, and the materials they used were always the same.”

He held up the twine then produced—as if he were a magician performing a sleight-of-hand trick—a sliver of gray stone.

“Flint?” she guessed.

“Good Louisiana flint. So far as I know, there’s none like it in all of England.” He looked at her, his meaning clear. She felt incapable of speech her throat had tightened so. He continued. “I believe the Fenians have recently recruited two of the best black powder men in America. I doubt that dodging their trap just once will put them off their game.”