The Wild Princess

Twenty-two



Louise looked up from the sketch she’d been working on. It was from memory. Her father, Prince Albert.

Her heart swelled with remorse that he’d been taken so early in his life, and hers, from them. Poor Bea had still been a baby, really. Louise couldn’t imagine she had much memory of him or of their happy family times together. Since his death, Victoria had clung in desperation to her mourning gloom, and expected all around her to join her.

Louise sighed. Thank heavens for her art. It was her respite from grief.

Today she was experimenting with a series of sketches of Albert, her very first preparations for beginning his statue. But getting the contours of his face and angle from which she viewed him just right—that was a challenge. Everything had to be perfect in the final sketch before she could even begin working on the small clay model that would enable her eventually to put chisel to stone.

She flipped a page and started again on a fresh sheet of paper, moving the tip of the willow charcoal wand across the textured white surface. Gently blowing away the excess black dust. Rubbing the long edge of the twig against the paper’s grain to create shadow beneath her father’s jaw. Tenderly smoothing and redefining the lines with the tip of her middle finger or side of her pinkie.

All ten of her fingers and the heel of her right hand were black with soot, her smock filthy, and she didn’t care. It would have been neater to draw with a soft-leaded pencil, but the effect wouldn’t have been as satisfying. Gradually now, the sense of light and shadow softened, breathing life into the face before her. She loved the tactile sensation of sketching with charcoal. She became one with her art, with her subject. The separation blurred between paper and human. Between past and present. Tears trembled on her lashes.

Dear strong, wonderful man. How she missed her father.

As she continued to work, a strong and commanding countenance evolved beneath her moving hand—dark eyes, square chin with just the hint of a cleft, Roman nose, a sense of the musculature that ran up from the chest to support a proud neck and head, thick hair that was too long but somehow just right.

Lowering her hand Louise drew a sharp breath and stared in shock at the face. “Oh!” she gasped aloud.

This wasn’t Albert at all. This face belonged to another man.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

Louise gave a start and snapped the sketchbook shut. She turned toward the lounge chair a few feet away where Lorne sat, reading in the sun. They hadn’t spoken in hours; she’d actually forgotten he was there.

“No. Nothing. It’s . . . Father’s statue. The sketches aren’t working at all.”

“Perhaps if I gave a look?” His blue eyes twinkled with humor, as if admitting he’d be of no help. His hounds and horses were his passion. To his credit, he’d given up both to keep her company that day.

She ignored his outstretched hand. “No, it will come to me. I just need to focus a bit harder.” And on the proper subject.

“Ah, Mr. Byrne!” Her husband came to his feet.

Louise’s heart stopped, then stuttered to life again. She turned around to find the Raven coming around the end of the hedgerow. Why did she never hear the man approaching? It was damned unnerving.

“Back from your investigatory duties, I see.” Lorne shook Stephen Byrne’s hand. “Any luck rousting out the hooligans?”

Louise watched the two men with an uncomfortable feeling. She glanced down at the sketchbook in her lap, wondering if she dared open it—to see if she’d truly captured the American. With a shake of her head, she quickly tucked her work away in the canvas bag at her feet and brushed what she could of the charcoal from her fingertips.

“Your Highness,” Byrne said, letting a nod in her direction suffice as a bow. “I’m just on my way to see your mother.”

His dark gaze sent a shiver through her. She wished she knew what the man was thinking when he looked at her like that, the meaning behind his eyes so nebulous. “Mr. Byrne.” She hoped he had the good sense not to report his findings with regard to Donovan in front of Lorne.

In the months since their wedding, she and her husband had come to an understanding, of sorts. Louise actually found Lorne’s companionship comforting at times. He was cheerful in a quiet way, polite, intelligent, docile, accepted her mercurial nature and insistence upon running her own life. If she wanted to be alone, he left her to herself. And if she felt lonely, he often made himself available for a game of cards, reading a bit of poetry to each other, or as an escort to the ballet or opera.

She never asked what he did with his nights away from her with his friends in Pall Mall. Some days he didn’t appear until the afternoon, his eyes red-rimmed from drink and lack of sleep. He favored several gentlemen’s clubs with questionable reputations—the Albemarle and Boodles, and worse yet, the Hundred Guineas Club. She knew this only from the gossip columns but didn’t doubt their veracity. Louise decided she’d rather not learn anything more than was necessary about her husband’s mysterious habits. He cooperated in the game by only casually asking about her activities.

Married life could have been far worse, she told herself.

She broke from her reverie to see Byrne turn, as if to leave. Louise stood up so abruptly she nearly knocked over the butler table, and with it the tea service. “Mr. Byrne,” she called out, “may I have a word with you? It won’t take a moment.”

She was aware of Lorne watching her with a puzzled expression. His gaze shifted with open curiosity from her to the American.

“It’s just a small matter my mother asked me to address with you,” she lied with forced cheerfulness as she tried to draw him farther away from Lorne. “An escort for Bea to visit with a little friend of hers. I’ll walk along to keep you from being late.” She turned with a smile to her husband. “This won’t take a moment, dear. Be right back.”

As they walked, Stephen Byrne observed her from beneath the brim of his plainsman’s hat, his expression as impenetrable as ever. She crooked a finger at him, as if he were a child being called off the park swings for naughty behavior. He obliged by bending down to better hear her.

“Why have you not reported to me, sir?” she hissed.

“When I have something of significance to convey to you, Princess, I will.” He looked down on her, unblinking, as convincing a show of innocence, she was sure, as any rogue could contrive.

“Do you mean to say that in all this time, you have found nothing whatsoever? Nothing that would indicate”—she glanced back over her shoulder at Lorne, far across the garden, who seemed engrossed in his reading—“where Donovan might have gone?”

“I’ve not yet located the man.” Byrne’s expression remained blank, his gaze fixed mildly on a marble bench placed beneath a hawthorn tree.

She could almost swear from the way he refused to meet her eyes that he knew something. Whatever it was, he appeared disinclined to share with her. “If it is terrible news, I still must know. Do you understand? I want to hear what you’ve discovered. Good news or bad, I’ve paid you for the truth.”

Byrne’s eyes slowly drifted from the bench to her. She felt their weight as if they were two hot black river-stones laid on her shoulders.

“I’m not sure that I do understand, Your Highness. Frankly, if your friend left you without explanation, he probably had a reason. Perhaps he didn’t wish to hurt your feelings. Maybe there was someone else, and he took the coward’s way out.”

“No! That’s impossible.” Too late, she realized she’d shouted her objection. She lowered her voice again, not daring to look toward Lorne to see if he’d heard. “He loved . . . I mean to say, Donovan had a fondness for our conversations about art. And we had an . . . an understanding, a friendship that was very special.”

Louise sighed, tears threatening. How pitiful she must sound. Byrne undoubtedly saw straight through her. To keep up this charade was senseless. But how could she admit to him, to anyone, what she’d done? She blinked away her tears, angry with herself for caving in to emotion.

“I don’t care how insignificant whatever you found seems to you. Tell me. Now!”

Byrne grimaced, looking as resigned to his fate as a man before a firing squad. “I have contacted as many individuals as I could find who knew Donovan Heath from his days in Kensington.” He looked at her and waited, as if expecting a reaction. She kept silent, but her heart tripped, then began to race. “I spoke with your old teacher there, and later with Gabriel Rossetti.”

Louise’s pulse shifted from racing to a dead stop. Her stomach clenched; her knees threatened to give out entirely. No, no, no! This wasn’t what she’d wanted at all. He was going about his search all wrong. This was supposed to be about Donovan’s reason for disappearing and his current location. Not about her. Not about her past. Did the man have no sense of discretion?

She drew herself up and gave him her best imitation of Victoria’s haughty glare. The one she used on her ministers when displeased with them. She must remind this Raven that he was “the help,” whereas she was a royal princess who held the power in this relationship.

“Gabriel Rossetti,” she said, “was most cold and cruel to my friend. He treated Donovan abysmally. You are not to go back to that man for any reason or take his word for anything but slander.”

Byrne stared at her as if she’d ordered him to renounce walking in favor of flying. He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice to a frightening rumble that reminded her of how unpredictable he could be. “Listen, Princess. You asked me to track him down. How am I supposed to do that without questioning people, without trying to find those who knew him before he disappeared? People he might have told where he was going and why. Either you want me to do this, or not.” He took yet another step closer. “Make up your mind, Louise.”

She glared up at him, feeling the need to back away but refusing to let him intimidate her. “How dare you speak to me in that tone.” She couldn’t keep her voice from shaking even in her anger. Lorne was right. The man had no manners whatsoever. And calling her by her first name—such nerve.

“All right then.” He let out a sound from deep in his throat, rather like a growl. “Here’s what I’ve found so far. It appears that no one who knew Donovan Heath, either in London or the surrounding countryside, has any idea where the fellow has got to. He simply vanished. There are rumors, but I assume you want proof, not hearsay.”

“Why don’t you let me decide which they are.” She opened her eyes wide and tilted her head in a suggestion of challenge. “Just give me the information you’ve gathered.”

“Very well.” He removed his hat, making him look only a little less a cowboy out of one of her brothers’ penny dreadful novels. “The theories proposed by the people I’ve interviewed range from Donovan having found a rich woman to provide for him, to his falling drunk into the Thames and drowning. Some say he might have left England for Brussels, Paris, Venice, or Frankfurt in pursuit of his art. But the supposition that makes the most sense to me was voiced by Mr. Rossetti.” He stopped and studied her, his hat rotating in his hands, as if he actually were capable of being nervous.

“Go on, go on,” she said.

“Rossetti believes the boy might have either been frightened off or more forcibly encouraged to leave London, because of your association with him.”

She let his words soak in, for a moment unable to speak.

She swallowed, threw him a look of desperation, then choked out the words, “But that’s preposterous. Who would have done such a thing?” In her heart she knew what he was going to say. And it terrified her. “If you are about to accuse my mother of forcing my friend to leave the city, that’s simply outrageous.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked, his voice slipping into unexpected gentleness. His black eyes focused on her face.

“Because he disappeared before she even knew I was—” She swallowed back the damning words. “Before I told her we’d been special friends.”

“You’re telling me that Her Majesty has no way of discovering what is going on in her children’s lives unless they tell her?” He kept a straight face, but somehow she knew he was laughing at her.

“I’m sure she has her methods of spying upon us when she’s inclined. I’m just saying that, at the time Donovan disappeared, she had no reason whatsoever to be concerned.”

Byrne leaned forward, making her feel even more uneasy at his proximity. She smelled the road on him, horse and leather, and a masculine tang that sent a strange thrill through her. He said, “Explain to me, Princess, what might concern the queen more than the danger of a commoner—in fact, not just any commoner but a boy barely out of the gutter—becoming intimate with her daughter?”

Louise caught her breath and raised a hand, overwhelmed by an impulse to slap him for his insult. Before she could make good her intent, he’d grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer still.

“Your mother must have known what was happening,” he whispered in her ear. “Must have been beside herself with fear, realizing the boy would be your ruin.”

“Stop it. Stop it this instant!” She choked back tears, wrenched her arm out of his grip, and pushed herself away from him. She pressed fingertips to her burning eyes. “You must not press this issue. Whatever happened between us is inconsequential. Totally beside the point.” Her voice broke. “You must take my word that my friend had been missing for a month or more before my mother would have had reason for concern.”

Byrne’s eyes narrowed to dark slits, studying her as though trying to unravel a riddle she’d presented him. Did she secretly want him to know the truth? Was she feeding him just enough information to let him guess at what had happened—then falling back on her rank to deny him the answer? But that would be absurd.

Louise cleared her throat and looked up at him, surprised to find they still stood within inches of each other. She tried to make her feet step back, but they refused to cooperate.

“Now tell me,” she said, in as firm a voice as she could muster, “what are your next steps toward finding Donovan Heath?”

Byrne rolled his eyes, shook his head. He jammed his hat down on his head and tugged the brim low over disturbingly stormy eyes. “There are a few leads I suppose I might still follow.”

“And what leads are those, laddie?” a familiar voice thundered.

Louise felt her heart leap into her throat. How long had John Brown been lurking behind the hedge?

“You’re not discussing your search for the Fenian captain with the princess, are you?”

“No,” Byrne said. Whatever emotion he’d revealed to her a moment before now washed away from his features.

“It’s a personal matter,” she responded, giving the Scot a dark look. She felt Byrne tense beside her, as if he feared her revealing anything more.

Brown looked at her, then at Byrne. Animosity crackled in the air between the two men. “Personal,” he repeated, tasting the word for hidden flavors. After a long moment, he gave a nod, as if he’d come to a decision. “I need to discuss a matter of security with Mr. Byrne. Might I borrow him from you for a moment, Princess?”

She hesitated, unsure she dared leave the two of them alone together, but gave him a nod of approval. “I still need to finish my conversation with Mr. Byrne, when you’re done.” If anything’s left of him, she thought as she walked back the way she’d come, into the garden to where she’d left her drawing supplies, canvas carryall, and her elegant but hopelessly unavailable young husband.

Louise reached down for her sketch pad then hesitated, her fingertips tingling with suspicion. The binding was tucked low into the open mouth of the sack, half buried beneath a rag she’d used to wipe her hands. Had she stuck the pad down so deep? She stole a look at Lorne, who appeared not to have moved from his lawn chair in her absence. What if he’d seen the sketch of the American?

But perhaps it was just her imagination. The thing might have slipped of its own weight.

Loud voices disturbed her thoughts and the peace of the garden.

“Bloody hell. What’s that all about?” Lorne grumbled. He rustled his paper, looked up for a moment. “Oh, it’s just the Scot.” He turned a page and disappeared inside his newsprint again.

Louise glanced worriedly toward the boxwood hedge blocking her view of the two men. She couldn’t catch Byrne’s exact words, but she had no trouble reading the irritation in the Scot’s response.

“No! That’s my answer, laddie, and the end of it. I’d nothin’ to do with that nonsense.”

Her breath caught. Was Byrne foolish enough to propose the same theory to Brown that he had to her? That her mother, perhaps even Brown himself, had frightened off her lover?

Her heart hammering, she wondered if, all those years back, she might have dismissed her mother’s involvement too soon. Until this moment, she thought she knew the full extent of the queen’s interference in her life. Was there really a chance that one of Victoria’s henchmen had been dispatched to frighten or hurt the boy? Or worse.

Her heart sank. Unless she confessed to Byrne the rest of her story, she might never learn Donovan’s fate. But this was the part she hadn’t let herself think about in such a long time, for the pain was too sharp, too raw—and the consequences of what she’d done too utterly loathsome.

And yet, without knowing the whole story, as Byrne had so forcefully pointed out, he might be unable to find the truth. Louise weighed the dangers against the possible benefits of baring her soul to her mother’s agent. Torn, she watched as John Brown snarled words at Byrne she could only imagine were a threat. He stalked off, leaving her mother’s agent looking after him.

“Why do you bother with that uncouth foreigner?”

Louise jumped. She looked around to see that her husband had dropped the newspaper into his lap and was studying her face with a perplexed expression. “Clearly the man annoys you. I’ve never heard a civil word pass between the two of you.”

“I told you what happened at the suffrage protest, about that horrid man who chased us.”

“You shouldn’t have gone is all. It’s dangerous to be out on your own and—”

“I thought we had an agreement, you and I,” she spat. “I will do as I please, Lorne, and you will do as you please.”

“Yes, my dear, but this is your safety we’re—”

She shot him a look that instantly silenced him.

“Do as you like,” he said, holding up both hands in defeat. “I’ll be heading to a hunting party with my friends this weekend. You won’t be expected to accompany me.”

“Fine.” She turned in time to see Byrne walking away toward the nearest wing of the palace. “I’m going inside. Headache,” she blurted to her husband before rushing off.

She caught up with Byrne before he’d left the garden. “I want to apologize,” she said breathlessly. “I haven’t been totally honest with you.”

“Really?” Was that a twinkle in those bird-of-prey eyes?

She shook her head. “I know I’ve made your job all the harder.”

“You seem to delight in making my days a challenge.” He gave her a wry grimace. “Throwing yourself into the line of fire in the coach—”

“Yes, well, I explained that was an accident.”

“Of course.”

She raised a cautionary eyebrow. “Remember your place, sir.”

“Always.”

She hated when he slipped into male one-word-answer responses. She gathered up her courage. “I need your advice.”

“Good. Rule Number One: forget about past loves.”

She blinked and sucked in a breath. So he’d guessed. Was she that obvious where Donovan was concerned? “I beg your pardon?”

“I spoke with Rossetti.”

“You told me that.”

“He described surprising you and young Donovan in a compromising position. He said he expected it wasn’t the only time the two of you—”

“Stop.” She glared at him then glanced around them. No one appeared to be within hearing. “I have a different request that has nothing to do with your current task for me.”

“Are you sure?” He looked at her hard.

“Yes. We will not speak of this . . . this relationship. Either you find Donovan without digging further into my personal affairs, or you don’t. It will be however it turns out. For now, I need your advice on a matter involving my friend Amanda and her son.”

He looked wary. “Go on.”

“You may have heard that Amanda and I attended the suffrage rally.”

“I did. Just now, from Mr. Brown. Most unwise that was.”

“Possibly so, but if it’s the only way to force reform . . .” She lifted her hands to let him fill in the rest of her thought. “Anyway, I told him the rally was exhilarating, which is true. But not for the reasons he assumes.”

“Yes?”

“We were attacked.”

He scowled, straightening up. “Why haven’t you said anything about this to Brown or to me?”

“Because I was certain either one of you would have gone to my mother, and that would have accomplished nothing other than terrify her, resulting in yet another set of safety regulations for the family. Next thing we know we’ll all be locked inside the palace, day and night.”

“Who attacked you?”

She looked up at the sharpness of his voice; never had she seen him look more ferocious.

Louise took a deep breath before continuing. “His name is Roger Darvey. Amanda had an unfortunate few years after her father’s death. I won’t go into details, but Darvey picked her up off the street one day, fed her, got her bathed and dressed, then told her she’d need to repay him by doing favors for him.”

“For him or for other men?”

“Both. When she gave him the slip, he resented it. Lost income, I suspect. But she managed to elude him and stay out of sight. She hasn’t seen or heard from him in years. He recognized her at the demonstration, took after her, and chased the two of us clear back to her house. Her husband scared him off with his gun.”

“They do come in handy,” he remarked.

“Husbands?”

“Guns.” He grinned, lifted the edge of his duster to reveal the rather impressive pistol at his hip.

She rolled her eyes. “What I need to know is how Amanda can protect herself. She works at my shop, distributes broadsides she’s written for us, and has to be free to move around the city. Her husband is a doctor and can’t accompany her everywhere. Until Darvey gives up on the notion of punishing her for her desertion, I fear for her safety and that of her family.”

He thought for a moment. “I could have a word with the man.” He said word in a way that made it sound physical.

“Would you do that for me?” Did she sound too urgently grateful? Before he could answer, she bit down on her lip and added, “I’m just as worried about her son, you see. I think if Darvey can’t get to her, he might take it into his wicked head to harm the child. And if . . . if anything happened to—” She surprised herself by bursting into tears.

He reached out and took hold of her arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She produced a silk handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “It’s just—he’s my godson, you see, so very precious to me.”

He was frowning at her, clearly confused.

“I—I love children. Have always wanted . . . well, it seems I may not be able to—” She waved off the words, fearful of revealing more than she should of the desolation of her marriage. “Little Edward and I have been so very close since his birth, seeing that Amanda is almost like a sister to me. I can’t stand the thought of him being harmed by that beast of a man.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Darvey when I can, and encourage him to consider alternatives to hurting your friend and godson.”

“Alternatives?”

He smiled. “Like staying alive.”

She swallowed. “Oh, I see.”

“But I’d still be careful and not go out alone, either of you, until he and I have a meeting of the minds. And that may take some time—as you and your mother have given me plenty to keep me busy.”

She sniffled. “I suppose we are relying on you for a great deal.”

Byrne looked past her for a moment then withdrew his hand, which had stayed wrapped warmly around her arm. “I need to leave now.”

“Thank you,” she said in parting.

When she spun away to return to her seat, she saw what Byrne must have seen before he released her. Lorne stood barely twenty feet away, just at the edge of the garden gate, watching her. She looked away, unsure why she should feel uneasy as he walked over to her.

Her husband cleared his throat and touched her on the arm exactly where Byrne’s fingers had rested a moment earlier. “My dear, if you are seen carrying on with another man so soon after our nuptials, some people may not believe we’re the happy newlyweds we pretend to be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “He’s my mother’s man.”

“Is he now?”

“Yes. I have no interest in him.”

“But even if that is true, can we assume he has no interest in you?” There was an unfamiliar edge to his voice, and she wondered if his promise of guaranteeing her independence might not include every freedom. “Just remember our pact. Your freedom for my security. Don’t do anything foolish like falling in love. You’ll jeopardize both our lives.”