The Wild Princess

Fifteen



One day Donovan failed to appear at the school. A different model stood in his place, and they started all over with fresh sketches. By the end of the week, it was clear to Louise the young man had been permanently replaced.

“Where has Donovan gone?” she asked Mary when they walked out at noon.

“I’ve no idea, Your Highness. They come and go, you know. There are a lot of hungry boys. Girls too. All willing to pose for a little money.”

“He will never come back then?” When Donovan had been among them, he’d seemed just one of their lively group, although a bit special to her for his generosity that first day she’d eaten with them. Now that he was gone she missed him.

“He may, if he gets hungry enough,” Sarah said, elbowing her way between her and Mary, her eyes twinkling impishly. “But I doubt it. He’s a pretty boy. A fellow like that won’t be out on the streets for long.” The other girls giggled.

Louise frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Mary pulled her aside. “Princess, ignore them. They’re being crude. Sarah means that some wealthy woman will take a liking to Don, provide him with a room, nice clothes, and food. Then he won’t need to pose anymore.”

Louise’s eyes shot wide, despite her attempt to contain her shock. “You mean, in return for . . . favors?” She’d heard that word used when describing such arrangements between a wealthy man and, usually, a younger woman who weren’t married.

Mary shrugged and blushed. “What else?”

Louise sighed. She supposed this was another element of the adult world she’d only guessed at until now. She knew that men bought their mistresses gowns, a carriage and four, even town houses in the city if they were rich enough. But she’d never thought of women buying men luxuries.

It was then that Louise decided she must find Donovan and discover for herself what had happened to him. Wasn’t it her duty, as a friend, to at least make sure he was safe?

The next day, before everyone left for lunch, Louise approached two of the boys who had spent the most time with Donovan and asked if they had any idea where she might find him.

“He has a job with two artists,” Jacob, the taller of the two, said. “Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris.”

“Where do they live?”

“Rossetti’s garret is at Chatham Place, just north of Blackfriar’s Bridge.”

“I don’t know where that is,” she said, disappointed. “Is it far?”

Jacob and Felix glanced at each other, maybe for the first time realizing why she was asking.

Felix said, “You can see St. Paul’s Cathedral from there. But it’s not the nicest part of the city, Princess. I wouldn’t go there, if I were you.”

Louise cocked her head at him. “I can go where I please.”

“Listen.” Jacob bent toward her confidentially. “I suspect the queen thinks us a wild bunch. But Rossetti? She’d call the man immoral. Have you ever seen his paintings?”

She shook her head.

“Or read his poetry?” Felix chimed in with a grin. “Quite racy, I’d say.”

Jacob nodded in enthusiastic agreement, and Louise immediately made a mental note to find a copy of Mr. Rossetti’s poems. “I only want to see Donovan, not his employers. To repay him money I borrowed. That’s all.”

Jacob shrugged, and she wondered if he saw through her lie. “Do you want us to go with you?” he asked. “You know, for protection.”

She smiled, stopping just short of laughing. These two skinny young men from titled families, just as sheltered as she was, were offering to put themselves between her and potential danger.

“Thank you for the offer, gentlemen. I’ll have two able-bodied men from the palace to attend me.” But if she had any say in the matter, her footman and driver would go no farther than the artists’ front door.



From high in the sky, the sun shot brilliant beams down between tightly packed buildings and succeeded in burning off as much of the yellow-green smog as ever it could. Visible specks of coal dust filtered through the air like fine black snow. Louise sat in the barouche and waved a delicate pierced-ivory fan in front of her face, but it helped little.

Her heart picked up the rhythm of the horses’ hooves over the uneven paving stones. The metal-rimmed wheels of her carriage rumbled and scraped along the road. The sheer excitement of a new adventure made her feel all the more alive.

Louise amused herself by memorizing the route her driver took through unfamiliar streets, creating a map of sorts in her head. Luckily, he chose main thoroughfares, cutting as straight a line across the city as possible from Kensington High Street along the southern edge of lush green Hyde Park to Knightsbridge, through Piccadilly and then again south to the Strand, lined with its stately Jacobean mansions. She recognized the Duke of Northumberland’s house, having been there to a ball that spring, and then elegant Durham House and Salisbury House before coming to the eyesore of Westminster, the Savoy Hospital for the poor, with its sad clusters of cripples and indigents haunting the alleys around it. Fleet Street took them to a left onto Farringdon, which dumped them into a nicer neighborhood that fronted on a tiny but pleasant-looking park. Should she ever need to come back here on her own, she decided it would be wise not to get lost.

The neighborhood wasn’t as bad as she’d expected after her conversation with Jacob and Felix. In fact it wasn’t at all frightening. Rather it exuded romance and adventure with its colorful mix of artisans, street artists, and, she imagined, even poets—all set against the vibrant backdrop of shops crammed with supplies to support their talents. The lodgings seemed modest—older houses divided into multiple tenancies—but the stoops were swept and clear of garbage, the cafés charming and jammed with smiling, laughing people.

When at last the carriage stopped and the brawny footman hopped down from his perch to open her door, Louise rechecked the address she’d written down to make sure they’d found the right place. The building wasn’t marked with a number; few were in this part of the city. But one house across the street sported a placard with a promisingly close number, so this seemed about right.

“Shall I accompany you, Your Highness?” her footman asked.

“No. It’s better if I go in alone. My friend . . . she’s shy. I won’t be long. We’ll be going straight back to the school,” she informed him cheerfully. By using her lunchtime break she would be back before Maestro realized she had gone farther than the two streets to where her crowd usually lunched.

“You’re certain?” He looked worried. Should she be?

“I am.” She wasn’t.

The tremors that had started as trills of anticipation in her heart now traveled through the rest of her body. She drew a breath and told herself she had nothing to worry about. She and Donovan were friends. He was sweet, gentle, amusing to be around. Nothing he’d ever said or done in her presence could in the slightest way be construed as threatening. She had no reason to feel vulnerable.

After all, she had seen the fellow at his most exposed state—totally naked. If either of them held an advantage—it was she.

Yet, she mused as she gathered her skirts and stepped down from the carriage, he hadn’t seemed at a disadvantage while posing in the altogether on his platform. His attitude was always proud, removed. As if he owned the school, as if the students and staff were his guests, whom he chose to ignore until he dressed again and struck out with them in a companionable manner for a bite to eat.

His ability to remove himself emotionally from a situation was a trick Louise envied. There were times she would have liked to mentally absent herself from a royal reception or formal dinner. And she longed to show those around her that she was in charge. That she was not a woman whose future was to be negotiated for the purpose of others’ power, wealth, or property. She was the one who would control her own life.

“I won’t be long,” she repeated firmly to her footman.

Of course, she had no proof that Donovan would be here at all. And even if he were here, he might be asleep after spending the night out with friends or working tedious hours for Rossetti. On the other hand, for all she knew, he might have moved on to yet another job by now.

But she felt compelled to at least try to find him. She had so few real friends it seemed tragic to lose one.

Louise checked the names scrawled on little paper cards in metal slots beside the door. ROSSETTI/MORRIS: THIRD FLOOR. Three flights of creaking, splintery wooden steps later, she was facing a warped, water-stained door with functioning but rusty hinges and latch. She raised a gloved hand to knock, but the door swung open before her knuckles touched wood.

Donovan stood in long, loose muslin pants, gathered by a drawstring at the waist, riding low on his narrow hips. He wore nothing else.

She swallowed, smiled nervously. A tickling sensation traveled up from her knees and settled cozily in her stomach. “How did you know I’d come?” she asked.

He laughed and jerked his thumb toward the windows. “Do you suppose one of HRM’s carriages pulls up outside a place like this every day?”

She felt her cheeks go hot as she remembered the royal crest embossed on the barouche’s door. “I suppose not.”

He studied her, still standing in the doorway. Beyond his bare shoulder, she could see two men, each painting at an easel. A woman wrapped in a paisley shawl sat in a ladder-back chair, the illumination from a skylight above her brightening her features.

“Why are you here, Princess?”

She jumped at Donovan’s voice; he sounded more irritated than happy to see her.

“I was worried about you and wanted to see that you were well.”

“And do I look well to you?”

She blushed hotter, brought her fan up to cool her cheeks and tried to focus on his face rather than his naked chest . . . or bare feet . . . or smoothly muscled arms. “You appear in good health.”

He reached out his hand, taking hers, drawing her a little closer. “As do you,” he whispered.

She shot a worried look at the painters, but they seemed involved in their work. The noise of pots banging together in one of the other apartments mixed with the shouts of vendors down in the street. Everything seemed so normal, so unremarkably ordinary. Why should she feel uneasy?

“I am well,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say.

He still held her hand. She looked down at their touching fingers. Hers gloved. His naked and pale, long and graceful. She would sculpt a model of his hand one day, if he let her.

“Can you come back, Louise?”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Come back?”

“Another day when I’m not working. If you like. Say, on Thursday after school?” He lowered his voice still more. “Rossetti and Morris will be gone then, to the exhibition hall, setting up their paintings for display.”

She peeked over his shoulder again at the two men, so intent on their work. They probably hadn’t even noticed the carriage outside. Or her standing like a peddler at their door. She looked back at Donovan. “We’d be alone then?”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on hers. She wondered that she hadn’t already melted under his gaze, as if she were pinned beneath a magnifying lens like the one Leo, when he was little, had used for roasting flies and moths in the sun’s burning rays.

“So we could talk more,” he said. “Would you like that?”

“I would . . . yes, of course.” Then the words she’d been holding back rushed out of her. “I would so very much like for us to be friends, Donovan. We could talk about all the things that are important to us.”

He smiled. “Good. Come after class. Bring food if you like. There’s nothing here, and we might get hungry.”

“Yes, of course. Yes, I will.” A picnic in an artist’s garret—how scrumptiously romantic.

But part of her felt the tiniest bit unsure of the circumstances. Could she really do this? Come here, alone, to this common man’s part of the city, late in the day when it might soon become dark? Come here to be alone with a man in the place where he lived? As Vicky would have said: “This simply isn’t done.” Louise didn’t dare think what her mother would say.

Louise had already started backing away toward the top step when Donovan leaned out through the open doorway and brushed his lips across her cheek. An appalling breach of etiquette. She should slap him and leave. Refusing his invitation would certainly be appropriate.

“I’ll be waiting,” he whispered, his bashful gaze lingering, encouraging.

Her heart fluttered. “I’ll be here.”