The Wild Princess

Eighteen



Balmoral, 1871

Within hours after the royal family’s arrival at Balmoral, Byrne had been certain he would go mad with restlessness. Something about that day when they’d left London for the north haunted him. Something far worse than rats. The instincts of a military man warned him he’d best find out what was setting his nerves on edge before the unknown took them all by disastrous surprise. And that was why he’d left the Scottish royal estate to trace the wedding party’s original intended route.

As Byrne had already explained to Louise, and soon after to her mother, he’d discovered what he suspected and most feared—evidence that the rat incident had been a ruse, part of a larger, more deadly plot by the Fenians to kidnap a member of the royal family.

But, unlike her daughter, the queen refused to believe him. “The vermin were obviously just a cruel prank, meant to frighten poor Baby, nothing more. We shall rise above the incident and ignore it.”

Byrne shook his head in frustration. “Let me return to London. I’ll find out who among the radicals is calling the shots. If our Secret Service boys capture the Fenian officer in charge,” he said, “we may disrupt their chain of command, get other names from him, and capture key figures in the Irish Republican movement.” To his mind, a preemptive strike was critical to the safety of the queen and her family.

“Your duty is to remain with us here, my Raven,” she insisted. “Headquarters in London will look into your theories and search for this Fenian officer.”

He had to satisfy himself with sending a courier with a message to his superiors, requesting they assign men to the hunt. After seeing off the rider, he walked back inside the castle, sat in one of the dark, empty salons, and brooded. He didn’t hold out much hope of results. His experience thus far in the queen’s Secret Service had shown him how green and untried this infant branch of the government was.

His hands tied, Byrne tried to concentrate on the task of keeping tabs on Victoria’s four youngest children, traveling with her to Scotland. Arthur, at twenty-one years old, and Leopold, just eighteen, seemed far younger and less worldly than most young men he’d met. They liked to ride and hunt with companions in the court who had accompanied the queen. Mostly they seemed content to occupy themselves in ways easy for him to monitor. Beatrice, “Baby” to the queen and sometimes to her brothers, was nearly always with her mother. Again, easy to know where she was and keep her safe. But her older sister, Louise, was a challenge.

If Victoria had given him the sole task of looking after the fourth princess, that alone would have kept him busy. The woman never sat still. She often rode out from the granite Aberdeenshire castle on her own, on a mount of her choosing from her mother’s stable. With nearly fifty thousand acres of estate to explore she sometimes disappeared for half a day before he located her again. Other times she dashed off letters in support of one of her pet causes. Then she’d walk—walk alone, mind you—into the village to post them. Or she spirited Beatrice away from their demanding mother to call on neighbors. How to keep up with the princess without neglecting her siblings was beyond him.

What made his job even more difficult was her damned stubbornness. She repeatedly ignored his warnings, refused to wait for an escort before venturing out, and seemed in general to resent his presence, even though he was there for her protection.

It was almost as if she didn’t care for her own safety. As if she were daring the radicals to target her, intentionally presenting herself as a target. To save others in the family from attack? He had no idea how the woman’s mind worked.

His attempts to rein her in had become increasingly exhausting. But once again he went in search of her as he made his usual rounds through the castle, checking on each family member, passing by scores of guardsmen, stationed at close intervals along the corridors.

Byrne found Arthur and Leo playing a game of chess in the castle’s billiard room, looking very dapper and gentlemanly, dressed formally for dinner in kilts, as their mother preferred when they were in residence at Balmoral. Like nearly every other room in the castle, this one had been treated to the ultimate in Highland decorative touches, transforming it into a traditional shooting lodge. Tartan draperies and upholstery, framed clan crests, mounted stag heads, wall pennants, collections of Claddagh quaiches, pewter candlesticks, cushions with needlepoint hunting scenes. And everywhere the symbol of the thistle carved into woodwork, furniture, and worked into tapestries.

The two young princes ignored his appearance in the room, as they would any servant.

Good, he thought. At least they’re safe for the time being. He preferred they take as little notice of him as possible. That meant less chance of their remarking on his absence if he decided to ignore Victoria’s orders and slip away for a day or more.

He continued in search of Louise. Down a flight of stairs, through a long gallery lined with shields, armor, and priceless art, then into the orangerie—smelling of loam and earthy molds, warm and humid to benefit the tropical plants collected there under glass. He’d learned it was one of Louise’s favorite places, but she wasn’t there now.

Where had the woman got to?

His thoughts circled back to his darkest concerns as he continued his search.

He should just get on the train to London. Go do the job he was meant to do. Find the bastard who was hatching plots against England’s monarch. And yet . . . he had a feeling that if he blatantly disobeyed Victoria, she’d send him packing. Her dismissal would force headquarters to take him off royal protection entirely. Send him back to America. To his shattered country still reeling from civil war, scarred, mourning her lost sons, unable to heal. He didn’t want to be there, not now.

To be relieved of his responsibility for the survival of the British monarch and her brood should please him. But he felt a strange compulsion to watch over this odd little family. He felt tenderness toward them he couldn’t explain, despite their eccentricities.

Of all of them, Louise seemed the most vulnerable of the pack. As stubborn and bossy as she could be, something about the woman pulled at the threads of his soul, unraveled him inside, drew him bodily toward her. He was unable to define her hold over him. He’d fought it. But that insistent tug held strong, making him wonder all the more urgently now—where the hell was she?

Sometimes he wondered if these feelings about the princess explained his animosity toward the young marquess. Was he jealous of the man? Certainly not. Jealousy required a man to believe he had a claim on a woman. And he had no right at all to Louise. None whatsoever. And never would have.

He stopped in front of the drawing room Louise favored most often. He pushed on the door with one finger. It glided open on silent hinges. And there, at last, she was. Louise reclined on a settee by the window, a book open in her lap, her lemon yellow skirts pooling around her on the seat cushion, her rich golden brown hair spread across a needlepoint pillow.

His heart stopped.

She seemed to know he was there even before she turned her head to coolly observe him with her pretty eyes. He opened his mouth to excuse himself for interrupting her rest but she spoke first. “You are discreet, are you not, Mr. Byrne?”

“Princess?” He stepped into the room, shut the door behind him.

“I mean to say”—her eyes slipped away from his as he moved toward her—“your attitude, manners, and dress are unconventional, to say the least. But since my mother seems to trust you, and she demands loyalty, honesty and discretion, may I expect you to treat me with the same regard?”

What the hell was the woman talking about? Could this have anything to do with her faithless husband? For a terrifying moment he feared she might have discovered that he’d followed Lorne and was going to request detailed information about the marquess’s nocturnal adventures.

“Are you asking,” he began carefully, “if I am keeping secrets for you . . . or from you?”

She winced, as if stung by an invisible insect. “Not exactly. I’d simply like to discuss your ability to keep sensitive information to yourself.”

He’d never liked court word games or the witty social banter so loved by the aristocracy. Its aim was to inflate the ego of the cleverer player and poke fun at the person who couldn’t keep up with the riddles and plays on words. He was tired, desperate to make progress toward stopping the Fenians, and fast losing patience with whatever sport this woman was proposing.

“Why don’t you come right out and say what’s on your mind, Your Highness?”

She glanced at him sideways, her eyes flashing. “Americans. So abrupt.”

“We get to the point quickly. It has its advantages.”

“Yes, well, I suppose that’s true. And perhaps this is one of those times when plain talk is most appropriate.” She let long dark eyelashes drift closed over her blue eyes and folded the book shut in her lap. When she opened her eyes again and pushed herself up to sitting on the settee, she again let her gaze slide past him and out the window at the end of the room. “I have a favor to ask of you, Raven.”

He narrowed his eyes at her use of the queen’s code name. He thought he knew what was coming. She was going to ask him to turn a blind eye to her husband’s dalliances. Or, even worse, as he’d first suspected, she wanted him to spy on Lorne. He said nothing.

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if reaching inside herself for the courage to continue.

“Some years ago,” she began in the softly distant voice that might have signaled the beginning of a child’s fairy tale, “when I was attending art school in Kensington, I made many friends. They were good people and great fun to be around. I felt a delicious sense of freedom while there. No castle walls to contain me. No tutors, parents, or staff to constantly control my life. No court gossips to report my every move. I became my own person, a little canary sprung from her cage.”

“The queen allowed you to attend a public school with commoners, unchaperoned?” Knowing Victoria, he couldn’t believe that was possible.

She flashed him a mischievous smile. “Not precisely. I gradually convinced my mother that, while I was in my classes, it would be a waste of one of her ladies’ time to sit with me. Eventually a footman became unnecessary as well. All I had to do was bribe my driver to spend the day with his daughter on the other side of the city. Then I could come and go as I pleased during the day.”

“Naughty girl.” He kept a straight face, giving away nothing of the little he already knew of those years in her life.

“Yes, well, I suppose I was. As well as naïve, and foolish.” She brushed a hand through the air, as if waving away the years as well as her innocence. “At any rate, there was one particular friend, a young man not much older than I at the time—eighteen. His name was Donovan Heath. A special companionship developed between us.” Color rose beneath the ivory surface of her cheeks. She immediately stood up, tenderly clutching her book to her bosom as if it were a child. She walked with a brisk step away from him toward the window and stared out into the distance. “He became very dear to me, Mr. Byrne.”

From her protective tone, he understood she would reveal no more about the relationship. But he was fairly sure from her wistfulness and sudden high coloring that this encounter, however far it had gone, had been her first romantic experience. He’d been told by more than one lady that a woman never forgot her first lover.

Byrne held back the questions that immediately sprang to his mind. More than anything, he wanted her to continue talking. Her voice came to him as a kind of melancholy melody. Her words, lyrics heavy with emotion. He sensed this conversation was not only difficult for her; this might also be the very first time she’d spoken about this matter for a long time.

“One day, Donovan just went missing,” Louise said, keeping her back to him, her gaze reaching far and away, as if she could see out the window and past the distant hills purple with spring heather. “He gave no indication that he would be leaving London or that our friendship should end. I looked for him, of course, concerned for his welfare. London can be a dangerous place. But none of his friends knew where he’d gone.”

“He broke your heart.” The words came out before he could bite them back.

“No!” She spun to face him, her eyes bright with denial.

He watched her take a breath in an attempt to compose herself, but it didn’t seem to work. She put her book down on a table and paced in agitation in front of the window, hands clasped over her skirt, gaze fixed in fierce concentration on the carpet.

“That’s not how it was, Mr. Byrne. I was just worried about him. You see, he had no money. He depended upon others for a little work and food. He mostly slept in artists’ studios. The poor boy might have fallen sick, or been injured. Don’t you see? He had no one to go to for help, except to me.” She stopped and turned to Byrne, looking directly into his eyes, as if to force him to understand. “And he would have come to me. I am certain he would have . . . if he could.”

He now saw where this was going. “You want me to find out what happened to Donovan Heath.”

“Yes, if you can. Yes, please.” The words rushed out of her, as if she were both ashamed and excited by the possibility. “And if he is still alive, I’d like to know where he is now.”

Bad idea, he thought. Very bad. “Is that wise, Princess?”

Her eyes widened at his questioning her. “I don’t care whether it’s wise or not. It’s not your job, Mr. Byrne, to doubt my wisdom or argue my decisions. I am asking this as a favor. No, not as a favor,” she hastily amended with a dismissive flutter of her hand. A nervous gesture she shared with her mother. “I understand your mercenary nature. I will pay you well for your services. Consider it a job.”

He stiffened at her implication. “I already have a job. And money isn’t the reason I joined the queen’s Secret Service.”

She sniffed and turned her back to him. “Very well then. I shall find someone else.”

He lifted his eyes to the vaulted ceiling and shook his head. Bother. Now he’d made things worse, hadn’t he? He’d angered her. If he didn’t accommodate her, or at least pretend to, she would stop listening to him, no longer heed any warning or advice he gave. No matter how serious the issue or how dangerous the situation into which she was prepared to thrust herself.

Byrne wasn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions, but there was no other way. “I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that, in my experience, the past is often best left . . . in the past.” He watched her lovely shoulders rise and fall as she took a deep breath.

Slowly, as if the slightest movement required deliberate effort, she pivoted to face him. She blinked several times—flecks of darker blue within paler irises. And he realized, to his dismay, she was trying to hold back tears. For the first time it struck him that she might still be in love with this Donovan bloke.

He let out a breath of resignation. “All right. Listen, I’ll do what I can. And I suspect your little speech about discretion at the beginning of this conversation means you don’t want me to mention this investigation to anyone, including your mother.”

She gave a tiny nod of her head and started to raise a sleeve toward her face, as if to blot away the tears brimming over her lashes. But she thought better of revealing too much and stopped herself. “Thank you. Yes. That’s my wish.”

“There is one problem,” he said.

“And that is?”

“I’m supposed to remain here at Balmoral, watching after you, your sister, and brothers. Leaving will be interpreted as a neglect of my duty.”

“I see.” She looked so utterly bereft and disappointed he wanted to wrap his arms around her in consolation, but he planted his boots and stayed where he was. For a moment her eyes flitted about the room, as if searching dim recesses for an answer to her problem. “So you’re afraid of my mother too?”

He tightened his lips to keep from smiling. “In a manner of speaking, isn’t everyone?”

“Not always.” She grimaced, as if remembering something painful from another time. Then suddenly her face lit up. “This is what you’ll do. You will go to John Brown. Ask him to detail two of his men to watch over us in your place, just for a few days. Three men, if he wishes. Surely that will suffice.”

“May I remind you, Mr. Brown and I are not on the best of terms.”

“But if you tell him there is an urgent reason for your brief return to London. Perhaps a family emergency? No, you’ve no family in this country. Is that right?”

“Exactly.”

She tapped her chin with one finger. “I know. Your commander has ordered your return for some reason. I’m sure you can create an excuse that will sound logical to Brown. And to my mother.”

She was asking him to lie to the queen. That was tiptoeing dangerously close to treason, even if he wasn’t one of her subjects.

But the cause was a good one. London, he thought. Exactly where he wanted to be. The temptation was almost too great. Kill two birds with one stone: do a fast search for the missing artists’ model while spending most of his time tracking down the Fenian commander.

Louise must have seen acquiescence in his expression. She smiled. A tear trickled from her lashes, but this time she swiped it away quickly with her sleeve, as if it was no longer of consequence. “How much will you charge me?”

“Nothing, Princess—for the time being. I don’t mind waiting for suitable compensation.”

Her eyes latched on to his, and he felt a rush of heat through his body. What had possessed him to say that? To flirt with a princess. He hadn’t meant to step over the line of propriety. Hadn’t intended to say anything that might be construed as provocative. But he was secretly gratified by the sparkle in her eyes and upward turn of her lips.

“Yes, well, when you have arrived at a reasonable return for your time and services,” she said solemnly, “please do let me know.”

“I most surely will.” He hesitated. There was another matter. But he was unsure how much harder he dare press for information. He stepped away toward a low table and picked up a graceful figurine carved from wood—a hunting dog. Perhaps one of her early art projects? “I have the young man’s name. Donovan Heath?”

“Correct.”

He ran a finger over the smooth head of the hound, trying to appear casual as he admired the detail of the dog’s furry ruff. “And he would now be in his early twenties?”

“Perhaps twenty-three or -four, if he still lives,” she said softly.

“Can you give me addresses he once frequented?”

“Of course.”

He was hesitant, circling around the one critical question. Hoping it would seem of no more importance than the others. “And you said he had no other close friends or family in London, or elsewhere. So far as you know.”

She frowned at him, as if unable to understand why this should be of concern to him. “It’s been five or more years. Many of our friends from the school have moved on in their lives, as have I. I’m afraid you must work with the little I’ve supplied.”

“Nevertheless, giving me as much information as possible, about your relationship with your friend and others who knew him, will help.”

“Of course.” She gave him a sideways look.

“Was your mother aware of the relationship?” There it was—the one question he needed answered before this went any further.

Louise’s eyes narrowed, as if she were a wild creature that sniffed a trap. “Aware of our . . . friendship?”

“Yes.”

Her gaze drifted away from him. When she at last spoke her voice was barely a whisper, but it sliced like a saber through the silence between them. “No. I should think not.”

“You never mentioned his name to the queen?”

“Why should that matter, Mr. Byrne? I’m losing patience with you, I must say.”

“Because if the friendship seemed to Victoria a serious one, she might have disapproved. Don’t you think, Princess?”

“If you’re implying that the queen would have done anything to keep me from seeing my friend again, I suppose you’re right,” she snapped back at him. “Oh all right, yes, I did mention him to her. She knew we were friends.”

A shadow seemed to fall over the room, chilling it. He knew Victoria would have been furious with her daughter if she even guessed Louise was encouraging a personal, possibly intimate relationship with a commoner. And a destitute artist at that. There was no way she would have tolerated the notion of their becoming a couple.

He was aware of Louise’s wide-eyed gaze, studying him with something like fear. As if she were trying to decide whether he was friend or foe. Calculating the risk of honesty.

“You’re saying,” she began, “that you believe my mother might have had something to do with Donovan’s going missing?” There seemed barely enough air behind her words to propel them into the room. He swore he could hear her pulse from ten feet away. “That’s simply outrageous.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But she might have sent someone to persuade him to leave London. Out of concern for you. A mother protecting her innocent young daughter.”

Louise let her gaze drop to her hands, clutched again in front of her skirt. All the spit and fire seemed to drain from her body as he watched. Her shoulders lowered and shrank. Her color fled. “Yes. All right. Yes, I suppose she might have done something to—” She shook her head and sighed. “I actually thought as much at one time. But my friend would have got word to me, don’t you think? He would have sent a letter, a message through mutual acquaintances, something to let me know she’d frightened him off.”

“If he could have.” Byrne looked at her with meaning, wishing he didn’t have to say such things to her. Words that might or might not be the truth, but that would be guaranteed to hurt.

She blinked at him, shaking her head in unconcealed revulsion. “You don’t believe she could have done anything . . . drastic, do you?”

There was no doubt in his mind the lengths to which Victoria would go to protect her family. The only question in his mind was this: how far had her daughter’s relationship with the fellow already gone before Donovan disappeared? If Louise had taken him as a lover, and Victoria confronted Louise, who then refused to be parted from him, would the queen have been desperate enough to . . .

To do what?

She would have done whatever was necessary to scare off the young man. Threats, beatings . . . or worse. And if it was this last option, if an assassin had been dispatched to resolve the problem of her daughter’s indiscretion, then Byrne knew he’d never find Donovan Heath alive.