The Wild Princess

Eleven



Louise woke to a blinding streak of ochre sunlight slashing through her window that forced her to close her eyes again. She smelled the early blooming lilacs Lady Car had arranged in a vase beside her bed the day before, and the sundried linen beneath her cheek. Urgent-sounding footsteps raced lightly across her room. A cupboard door clicked open then snapped shut.

It occurred to Louise that a terrible emergency must have arisen during the night. But when she sat upright in bed and looked around, she saw that a silver tray had been set on her bedside table, and Car was pulling Louise’s blue day dress from the wardrobe.

Louise lifted the domed lid on the sterling salver to find a generous serving of bacon rashers and thick slices of toasted oat bread. Pots of honey and dairy-fresh butter accompanied, making enough breakfast for three.

“What’s happened to make you feel the need to fortify me so?”

Lady Car turned to her, concern mirrored in her gentle eyes as she flew back across the room with Louise’s clothing. “Your Highness, I fear this morning may prove a bit more taxing than others.”

“Oh, dear.” Louise blinked, preparing herself for the worst. Another intruder? One of her siblings ill? Her mother . . . well, it could be anything if it had to do with her. “Details then. No sugarcoating.”

“Yes, well . . .” Car set royal blue satin slippers to match Louise’s dress on the floor beside the bed. “Her Majesty has sent word that you are to rise immediately and come to her as soon as you are dressed. It appears that a serious issue has presented itself. Her secretary would only say that the queen refuses to deal with it on her own.” She shrugged her shoulders in apology. “I’m sorry, that’s all I know.”

Something her mother felt incapable of handling without her? Now she was just as curious as worried.

Louise tossed off the bedclothes, struggled out of her night shift, and made a hasty job of her toilet. While her lady laced her up Louise thrust a piece of bacon into her mouth, bit into the toast, and chewed. She sipped her tea, well sweetened with honey. She’d eaten spartanly since the attack on the coach, having lost her appetite for days after. The thought that, had there been a live bullet in the young protester’s gun, she might not now be alive, had quite unsettled her.

Louise dusted the toast crumbs from her fingertips then waved off all attempts by Car to dress her hair. “No, no. Leave it loose. It will take too much time.” Anyway, she much preferred to let her long brown tresses fall down her back. Though her mother wouldn’t like it.

“I will go with you,” Lady Car offered.

“No. It might be nothing.” But if it was serious, she didn’t want to expose the poor woman to unnecessary trauma. Best she face her mother alone.

When Louise arrived, breathless, at her mother’s suite, she knocked once then opened the door and stepped inside.

Victoria was sitting primly behind her desk in a black mourning gown whose only noticeable difference from her others was a high starched white collar held together at the throat by a simple cameo pin. The queen’s expression was stern, her eyes sparking anger, but it was not Louise’s little dragon of a mother who captured her attention. Her gaze immediately shifted across the room to stop on the two men standing at attention in the middle of the crimson-and-gold Persian carpet under Victoria’s steely gaze.

Louise clapped a hand over her mouth and gasped. John Brown and Stephen Byrne appeared to have freshly arrived from the front lines of a war.

The Scot and the Raven were a bruised, bloody, scraped, and scabby mess. Their shirts and trousers might have been torn from their bodies, run over by market carts in a filthy road, and restored to their use as garments without any attempt at laundering. And they smelled. Of various forms of alcohol, if she wasn’t mistaken.

“What happened to you two?” Louise said. “Were you attacked? Are others hurt?”

Her mother lifted a small, plump hand. “My dear child, calm yourself. The injuries are of their own foolish doing. A common bar brawl, the two of them drinking themselves to irrationality. They deserve no sympathy.”

“Oh, dear.” Louise felt a bubble of relieved laughter working its way up and pressed her lips firmly together.

“It is my understanding, having already received a bill for the cost of damages, that this display was witnessed by at least a dozen men of the town.” Victoria’s face resembled a hot, red sun just before it sinks below the horizon. Her body seemed in such agitation it visibly vibrated. “By now the entire countryside will be discussing whatever personal business their drunken lips may have revealed during their scuffle. And by personal business, I mean our family’s business.” She narrowed her eyes at her daughter.

Louise no longer saw humor in the situation. Did this really have anything to do with her? Or, more likely, with Lorne. “Do you mean—”

“Neither of them admits to the exact conversation.” The queen glared at one then the other of her men. “They claim to have no memory of the argument that started them fighting. But it is clear to us they were acting inappropriately and without concern for our subjects’ respect.” When her mother reverted to the “royal we,” Louise knew she was indeed angry.

Louise let out the breath she’d been holding. Perhaps her mother was overreacting, simply projecting her own worst fears onto the situation. This might be nothing more than two men, who had drunk more than they should have, disagreeing on some inconsequential matter. Like politics. Or the weather?

At least now she understood why her mother had summoned her. Although Victoria counted Brown as a trusted friend (and perhaps more), his size and brusque manner could be intimidating even for the queen. Pair Brown’s powerful personality and figure with the dark masculine presence of Stephen Byrne, and the two of them filled the room with a male essence that was nearly overpowering. Victoria had sent for Louise as reinforcement—to provide hormonal balance, as it were.

Louise stepped to her mother’s side and laid a hand on her shoulder. She kept her tone solemn. “Gentlemen, your behavior is most reprehensible and cannot be tolerated. At the very least, you have set a poor example for the men beneath you.”

She thought she heard a smothered snicker from one of them at her last words.

The two combatants exchanged quick glances, as if considering saying something more than they’d mutually agreed upon. But in the end, they remained silent, hats clasped in swollen and bruised hands in front of them, eyes cast meekly down at the carpet beneath scuffed boots.

Louise singled out the American to study. She wondered if Byrne ever removed that leather topcoat of his, even for sleep. She’d never seen him in anything but the long duster and close-fitting dark blue canvas riding pants.

She felt a disturbing warmth travel down through her body at the vision that came to her of Stephen Byrne peeling himself out of his “uniform.” She’d experienced the strength of his taut arms and torso muscles when he had crawled on top of her in the carriage. More than once since then she’d wondered—had such proximity been absolutely necessary?

“I have made my decision,” Victoria said, jolting Louise out of an all-too-pleasant reverie. “Mr. Brown, you shall attend to my personal security, and to that of the grounds at whichever estate we happen to be dwelling—Balmoral, Buckingham, Windsor, or Osborne House.” She turned to Stephen Byrne. “And you, sir, shall be solely in charge of the security of my children and our traveling arrangements. I will inform your superiors and ask that you be given whatever support you require. But you are not to trouble yourself with my welfare, or with the property itself, unless Mr. Brown asks for your assistance.” She looked sternly to one man then the other. “Is all of this clearly understood, gentlemen?”

Brown cleared his throat. “But, ma’am—”

“That is the way it shall be, Mr. Brown. I believe Mr. Byrne has shown himself capable in ways I cannot expect of you. His wartime experience with men such as those who have designs upon our safety has already proved invaluable. Even if his only duty were to keep us informed of the Fenians’ intentions, I would want him to stay on with us.” She looked at Louise, as if for support.

Louise nodded her agreement. “I don’t see that it can hurt to have another pair of eyes inside the castle or close by the family as we travel, in case of another emergency.” Louise stifled a grin as she added, “I am sure the two of you will find ways to cooperate and not be at each other’s throats.”

Her mother allowed a whisper of a smile, as if satisfied with a task fully accomplished. But Louise wasn’t convinced of her own words as she observed the two men. The Scot stood, huge feet planted like the roots of an elm tree, eyes focused straight ahead, his expression blank. He reminded her of a naughty schoolboy who hadn’t a shred of remorse for what he’d done. When she turned to the Raven again, she thought how apt his nickname was—his black hair falling like wing feathers over his forehead, those peculiarly piercing black eyes no less intent or dangerous than those of the young man who’d wildly flung himself through the coach window, pistol in hand.

But the American, she was beginning to believe, posed a different sort of threat.

He seemed to her the emotional opposite of her beautiful, gentle husband. The black to Lorne’s white. The blazing summer to Lorne’s chill winter. And a tougher more mature version of her artist-lover Donovan. While her husband had lied to her about who he was, Donovan had deceived her by telling her he loved her then leaving without a word of explanation. But Byrne seemed as if he’d never waste the energy to devise a lie. Anyone who disagreed with him, didn’t care for him, or got in his way . . . well, that was too bad. He’d tell them what was what.

Stephen Byrne was hidebound, powerful, unnerving—and she felt drawn to him in ways she found deeply, viscerally troubling.

“Louise?”

“Hmm?” She startled, then turned to her mother, wondering what she’d missed while her mind wandered.

“The men have their instructions. Leave me now, all of you. I have much work to do.”

Louise realized Brown and Byrne had moved to the door but were standing aside, waiting for her to leave the room ahead of them, as was proper. She inclined her head to them in passing; they bowed briefly. They smelled of sweat, the lingering sweetness of liquor, and the slightly ferric aroma of dried blood. She hoped they’d bathe very soon.

Louise listened to the regular rhythm of their heavy steps, echoing behind her as she started up the stairs back to her own room. Not a word passed between them or to her. Then their footfalls began to fade as they moved farther away.

Before she passed out of hearing, she heard Brown’s guttural threat from a distance, hushed as if he intended no one but Byrne to hear. “I’ll be watchin’ ye, laddie.”

Sighing, Louise climbed the stairs to her privy chamber, paying little attention to servants as they rushed past her, preparing for that evening’s formal dinner and concert. Her comparisons of Lorne and Byrne, and even with dear Donovan, grew increasingly more disturbing.

What if the nascent love of two young people never had the good fortune to mature into what it was intended to be? It was this last scenario that pained her most deeply when she thought of Donovan. What might have become of them had they a little more time together? Their affair—or, as her mother put it, Louise’s fall from grace—was the most thoroughly poignant, thrilling, consuming relationship she’d experienced with any human being. And the only one that involved sex.

Yet their love had evaporated into the ethers without resolution. Because Donovan. Dear. Beautiful. Exquisitely tender and intoxicating Donovan abandoned her.

Why? Why did you leave me?

Louise rushed through chilly stone corridors draped in priceless tapestries depicting classical themes in rich crimson, sapphire, and jade hues. Intended to defeat the eternal Scottish drafts and dampness, they did nothing to warm her now. Back in her room, a painful lump in her throat, tears threatening, she shooed away Car and collapsed into the velvet-curtained window seat that overlooked Balmoral’s early spring gardens.

Louise hadn’t seen Lorne since they’d arrived, except at family meals. They’d barely spoken a word even then. Her body, so ready for a man’s touch just days ago, ached with need. Her womb would forever remain barren. Her heart never cry out in ecstasy.

Passion! How she yearned for it again in her life.

She let the tears she’d held back for so long come, releasing the pain, soothing her with memories of a happier time when she believed with the innocence of youth that no one could take her dreams from her. That was the year she recalled being allowed to venture into the world of commoners . . .