The Wild Princess

Fourteen



Days later, Louise watched as Donovan, the model, left with the other students for lunch. As the only adult male she’d ever seen fully disrobed, he intrigued her. The experience of studying his body in minute detail (although at an annoying distance) made her feel bound to him in a way she couldn’t explain. Even more intriguing, each time he posed for the class, he slid his sultry, heavy-lidded gaze toward the curtain hung to separate her from indecency. She imagined his eyes meeting hers through the fabric, beckoning her to step out from behind. Sometimes she did, to fetch another stick of charcoal or clean sheet of paper. But she hadn’t found an opportunity to exchange even a single word with him.

Although Maestro’s cook always prepared her lunch and let her sit in an empty classroom to eat, it seemed infinitely more appealing to rush off with the gaggle of laughing students into the streets when they went out for their meals. With the addition of Donovan to their group, their company became all the more irresistible. But she wasn’t supposed to leave the school until her driver returned to fetch her.

Louise glared at the disgusting plate of boiled mutton, dry dark bread, and stewed cabbage Cook had placed in front of her. She waited for the woman to leave her alone in the room. She heaved a sigh and poked at the gray mass. On impulse, she stood up, wiped the food off her plate and into the metal waste can already half full of paint-spattered cloths, broken ends of charcoal and pastel sticks, and discarded paper. She set the plate back on the table and peered out into the empty hallway.

Cook was humming busily in the kitchen. The fat old thing never checked on her, probably considering her a bother and an extra chore she had little time for in her day. Maestro, she knew, had left the building on an errand. The director’s door was closed. Even Amanda was nowhere in sight.

Without another thought, Louise flew down the warped floorboards, slipped out the front door and into the street.

Her schoolmates hadn’t gone far. She could still see them wending their boisterous way down the avenue. She ran to catch them up, falling into step behind the last few girls. Her mind whirred with her daring. She felt deliciously light-headed at the adventure of venturing into the streets without a keeper.

She’d become one of them now. She imagined making true and ever-lasting friends among the girls, encouraging them to do as she’d done—insist upon as complete an education as any boy received. She’d flirt outrageously with the boys, but of course be very proper about turning away advances of the wrong sort.

And if Cook missed her while she was gone?

She’d simply explain she’d not felt well and went off to lie down in one of the back rooms until the afternoon session. Maestro would never know. More importantly, her mother would never find out.

Fortunately she’d already made the acquaintance of several of the girls in the group. Mary, Sarah, and Florence were giggling and rustling their skirts as they walked arm in arm in long strides to keep up with the boys.

Mary turned and glanced over her shoulder, as if to see whose footsteps she heard behind her. Her eyes widened when she saw Louise. “Your Royal Highness, what are you doing here?”

The other girls turned and stopped walking, looking almost frightened.

“I get hungry, just like you.” Louise bit down on her lip. She sounded so stiff and defensive. She softened her tone, not wanting to appear arrogant. “I hope you don’t object to my eating with you. Please, I’d very much enjoy your company.”

“This isn’t right, Princess,” Sarah whispered under her breath, glancing around her as if worried they’d be seen. “We know the rules. You are to eat at the school. You can’t leave until your carriage comes.”

“We don’t want to get in trouble,” Florence added in apology. She looked at the other girls. “Maybe we should walk her back now.”

“No, please!” Louise cried, making people on the street turn and stare at them.

“If we do, we won’t have time to eat.” Sarah flashed Louise an irritated look. “You’re making trouble for us, don’t you see?”

Louise had never been spoken to in such an impertinent tone before. Yes, her tutors had ordered her about, and more than once Victoria had given Nurse or one of the governesses permission to slap her for her naughtiness. But commoners simply did not tell a royal person what to do.

“You won’t get into trouble, I promise,” Louise said. “It’s my decision where I eat and with whom.” She put on a cheery face. “So . . . where are we going and what’s on the menu?”

“Menu? Listen to her.” Sarah snorted.

Florence, the nicest of the three, with a sunny round face and plump figure that marked her as a lover of sweets, slipped her arm through Louise’s and started walking again. “I’m sure street food is not as fine as what you’re accustomed to, Your Highness. But come along.” The other girls had no choice but to move forward with them.

Louise shrugged. “I don’t care whether it’s fine, just as long as it’s filling. I’m starving.” Why did her stomach rumble now, when she hadn’t felt in the least interested in the food prepared by Cook?

She noticed then that a group of the boy students, jostling and play-boxing one another, had stopped just ahead of them. Donovan was watching her over his shoulder from the middle of the pack. They stood in front of a vendor’s stall near the edge of the park. It was only at that moment—while the others were buying their lardy meat pies wrapped in greasy paper to keep the warm juices from spilling out, paying with coins they pulled from pockets and little change purses—that she realized she had a problem.

Never had there been a need for her to carry coins on her person. She’d always been accompanied by an older family member or servant, who paid for whatever she wished to purchase. She had no money.

When her turn came to order she stepped back out of line and away. Not knowing what else to do she started walking along with those who had already purchased their meal and were moving into the park to eat in the shade beneath the trees.

A hand touched her shoulder. She turned.

“Aren’t you going to buy something to eat?” It was Donovan.

“I’m not very hungry,” she lied and gave him a sunny smile. He was actually speaking to her. She felt light-headed with the thrill of it.

He squinted. “That so?”

Louise shrugged.

He laughed. “I see. The little princess is out in the world on her own for her first time.” Her cheeks blushed feverishly. He scooped a few more coins out of his pocket, took her hand, and led her back to the vendor’s stall. “What will you have, Princess?”

“Oh no, I can’t let you—” He always came in the same clothes, was thinner than a lamppost. He must be very poor.

“What are you doing there, Donovan?” Sarah asked, suspicion mirrored in her bright eyes. “You don’t buy any of us pies.”

“Now there’s a thing you don’t see every day.” One of the boys poked another in the ribs. “Donovan parting with a coin.”

Two other boys slapped Donovan on the back, as if congratulating him on what Louise knew not. He pushed them roughly away and turned back to her. “It’s not a gift, Your Highness. I expect you to repay me.”

Then it would be all right, she thought. He was loaning her the money. “Of course. Yes, I will pay you back tomorrow, with a little more for your trouble. Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

The whole group ate together in Hyde Park, and she thought it so much nicer than any of the elaborate Buckingham garden picnics her mother arranged for the children of her ministers, nobility, and favored upper-class subjects. So friendly was this little group, all of them young and talking so brilliantly about their art. The sun shone down between the branches. Sparrows twittered above them. Horse-drawn omnibuses and hansom cabs clip-clopped past. Vendors sang out their wares from the streets beyond. She’d never realized the noises of the city could be so lovely.

As she ate, Louise noticed her classmates seemed to cluster around her before sitting down, almost as if trying to screen her from the prying eyes of those strolling past. She couldn’t decide if this was because they felt obligated to protect her, or they feared someone recognizing her and accusing them of doing something wrong.

After a while, though, everyone seemed to relax, and the storytelling and jokes began. By the time the midday meal was over and they’d returned to the school, they were all laughing and including her in their conversations. Louise had never been happier.

The next day Louise arrived in class, her reticule plump with coins. From the time she’d been very young, she’d received money for birthdays and holidays, and she kept a china bank into which she deposited her precious coins—money she’d never needed until now. If she liked, she could buy everyone’s meat pie all week long.

As before, she waited alone in the classroom and listened until she heard the girls taking off for their noon meal. They would join up with the boys along the way. She dumped Cook’s lunch and caught up with her new friends.

Because she wanted to remain one of them, not hold herself above her classmates by displaying her wealth, she very quietly slipped into Donovan’s hand payment for the previous day, adding another shilling for his being so kind to her. Walking alongside her, he looked down at the coins before pocketing them. Counting, she thought. For a moment, it seemed to her he was considering refusing the extra money, or maybe even all of it. But then something changed in his eyes, and a bit of his pride fell away.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. Then she knew how desperately he must need money, and her heart went out to him. His gift to her the previous day became all the more precious to her.

After that she went with the others every day to lunch. When questioned by Cook, who at last missed her, she pretended haughtiness and told the woman she’d prefer to fast until returning to the palace, where the food was more to her liking. It was what the Crown Princess, her sister Vicky, would have said.

Somehow Maestro must have soothed Cook’s feelings because nothing more was said of the matter. Even Maestro seemed weary of keeping an eye on her. He assumed an attitude of indifference to her socializing, only chiding her if she was late in returning. Instead it was Amanda who warned her away from the other students.

“Playin’ with fire, you are, Princess. You best stay away from that lot or they’ll bring you trouble.”

“And who are you to be telling me what to do?” She wrinkled her nose at the maid of all work, down on her knees, waxing the school’s hallway floor with wide swirls of her rag. “I like them. They’re fun and ever so clever.”

Amanda didn’t look up. “The girls mebbe. But a lady like you ought to beware of those boys, ’specially that Donovan. He’s mischief and more, that one.”

Louise huffed at her. “You sound like my governess. All sour pickles when it comes to enjoying oneself. Anyway, I’m learning so much more about life than I ever could cooped up in the palace.”

“About life,” Amanda muttered, putting muscle into her task. “Right.”