The Wild Princess

Twenty-three



Louise’s pride and joy, the Women’s Work Society, provided a place where destitute girls and women might learn crafts—needlework, embroidery, and the repair of fine art items—which could then be sold at the Society’s consignment shop in highly respectable Sloane Square. She hoped someday also to create a boarding school for girls that would be free to young women without family or a husband to support them. Meanwhile she was pleased that the London shop had already become a lifesaver for a dozen females of various ages, giving them a modest income for their handiwork. Barely enough to keep them off the dangerous streets, but still . . .

Amanda worked there forty or more hours each week, bringing her little boy with her, and they’d recently hired two other women as part-time clerks. Louise was hopeful of expanding soon.

As she stepped from the brougham then through the shop’s door she tried to ignore the light headache that had plagued her for hours. Her anxiety had run high for days following the run-in with Darvey. Sometimes she feared she was being followed, watched. But that might as easily have been due to her clandestine bodyguards. She suspected Byrne had assigned one or more of his men to follow her whenever he couldn’t be with her. In fact, she rarely saw the man himself. He seemed reluctant to openly accompany her on her jaunts into the city, preferring to shadow her from a distance. Why this should be, she was at a loss to understand. Perhaps he thought a more discreet form of protection would draw less attention to her.

But when she realized she hadn’t seen him around at all for days, a fresh form of worry came at her. The Fenians were desperate radicals, capable of ruthless violence. They would not hesitate to attack an agent of the queen if they saw him as a threat to their wicked plots. She feared for Byrne’s safety as well as her own family’s. And yet she, like Byrne, refused to stay shut inside Buckingham Palace. When fear of death became fear of living one’s life, the Fenians would have won. And so she went about her routine, though she felt perpetually shadowed by evil.

She found Amanda at the shop, in a gray mood not unlike her own. Whereas days earlier her friend had inadvertently destroyed items out of sheer excitement over the suffrage rally, today Amanda was a bundle of nerves and incapable of picking up any object without immediately dropping it.

“I’m so sorry,” her friend apologized after letting a second porcelain saucer slip from her fingers in less than twenty minutes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Louise watched her friend sweep up broken shards with trembling hands. “What’s wrong? You’re shaking from head to foot, dear girl.”

“It’s Darvey. I’m sure I’ve spotted him twice more, though he keeps his distance. I worry what he has in mind.”

Louise closed her eyes and swallowed to calm herself. Either Byrne hadn’t yet confronted the bawd or his threats had proved ineffective. “Come, let’s just lock up for the night. I knew I wouldn’t be long, so I asked my driver to wait for me. I’ll deliver you and Eddie home where you’ll be safe. One of my mother’s men has been detailed to approach the scallywag and put the fear of God in him.”

“Thank you. I’ll feel ever so much safer in a carriage tonight.”

Louise wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “And where is my godson? I haven’t seen him since I arrived.”

“Sleeping in the back room.” Amanda laughed. “He exhausted himself whacking away at crates and pots, pretending he was a drummer in the queen’s guard on parade. You can go and wake him if you like.”

“No, let him sleep a few more minutes while we tidy up and tally receipts. You can do the sums. Paper isn’t fragile.” She smiled affectionately at her friend. “I’ll dust up the china while I wait for you.”

A few minutes later, Amanda closed the account book and slipped the day’s earnings into a small canvas bag. “Done. Let’s wake the boy and be off before it gets dark.”

Louise climbed down from the ladder she’d used to reach the top shelves where some of the more fragile objects were kept out of reach of small hands and ladies’ bustles. “Are you still working with my tutor on your writing?” she asked.

Amanda beamed at her. “Yes, and that reminds me. I wanted to tell you what he said. He’s encouraged me to submit one of my articles to the Times, as an editorial piece. He says it’s quite good enough, better than many of the pieces by their own reporters.”

“Oh, Amanda, I’m so very proud of you!” Louise went to her and clasped her hands. “Tell me what your article is about.”

It was then—as Amanda started to explain the exposé she’d written about women of any age who, like her, had lost family property to a distant relative simply because he was a male—that Louise first heard the soft scuffling sounds. She turned toward the back room and smiled at Amanda, who stopped talking.

“What?” Amanda asked.

“I think Eddie’s up and about. Maybe we should collect him and go.” Louise glanced toward the shop’s front window. “It looks like rain, and it will be dark early.”

“Good idea.” Amanda plucked her cloak from its peg and laid it across the countertop. “I’ll go fetch him.”

But as soon as she opened the door to the storeroom, clouds of oily, black smoke billowed into the salesroom.

“Oh, Lord!” Louise cried.

“Fire! Eddie!” Amanda shrieked. Frantic to reach her son, she dove into the smudgy clouds.

Unable to stop Amanda, Louise raced outside to summon her coachman and shout out the alarm. Her cries brought a handful of people into the street. Rain started to fall. A good wetting down of neighboring houses might contain the fire. The uniformed driver lumbered down from his perch, looking as if he’d been awakened from a nap. Where the hell was Byrne when she needed him?

From inside, she could hear Amanda calling out above the ever louder crackle of flames. “Louise, I have him. I—oh God, something’s blocking—” Her voice broke off at a splintering crash from deep inside the building.

“I’m coming. We’ll get you out.” Louise turned to her driver. “Quick. Come with me.”

She ran three steps but heard no one behind her. When she turned the man was backing into the street, away from the now visible flames and sparking cinders, a horrified look on his face.

“Stop!” she shouted. “We have to get them out of there.”

Ominous creaking noises followed by another boom shook the building. A fierce burst of heat rushed out through the front door, stealing away Louise’s breath.

The coachman’s eyes widened. “I’ll be off to roust up the fire squad, Your Highness.”

“There isn’t time. We have to—”

But he was off and away.

“Go then!” she screamed after him. Coward.

A shoeblack, whose stand she passed every day, shook his head woefully at her. “Them roofing timbers done burnt through and fallen. You’ll not be gettin’ past ’em, Your Highness.”

“The hell I won’t.”

She held her sleeve across her nose and mouth and ran straight through the front room of the shop and into the glowing inferno of the storage area. The heat seared her flesh, unbearable, coming in blasts, each one sucking the breath from her lungs. Her clothing was no protection. She wondered how long before her skirts caught a cinder and ignited.

“Where are you?” she shouted. Every word released allowed burning air to singe her lungs. “Amanda!”

No answer came.

Dear Lord. Please don’t let this happen. Please don’t take them from me.

She sensed someone coming up behind her and felt a thin ribbon of relief that the coachman had a change of heart.

“Are you insane? Get out of here!” Byrne’s voice.

“Amanda . . . Eddie, they’re—” Her eyes burned and wept, and she choked on the acrid, scorching air. “Can’t . . . can’t leave them.”

Byrne grabbed her arms and hauled her down to floor level. When their eyes met she saw a storm of emotions in his—fear among them, but something else that moved her.

“Stay down where the air is good,” he shouted above the roar of the flames. He moved ahead of her but stopped at a single smoldering beam that had fallen at an angle and was now propped at one end on a soapstone sink in the far corner. Wrapping his hands within the sleeves of his leather coat to protect them, he bent low and braced one shoulder beneath the timber. He heaved upward with a grunt and threw the wood aside. A shower of sparks erupted through the blackness when it landed. In that moment of orange-gold brightness, Louise glimpsed two figures curled on the floor.

“There,” she coughed out the word. “Behind the shelves.”

Scrambling on hands and knees, she made her way to Amanda. Her friend had thrown herself over the little boy. Eddie was sobbing but his mother appeared unconscious. It looked to Louise as if a smaller timber had come down on her head just after she’d reached him.

“It’s all right, Eddie. Come here to Auntie Lou-lou.” She tucked him under one arm and drew her jacket over his head against the poisonous, broiling air.

Byrne hauled up Amanda and flopped her over his shoulder. “Go!” he shouted, his voice rough with inhaled smoke.

They crawled, staggered, and tumbled out into the street. A crowd had started to gather around the front of the shop. Three men with buckets sloshing with water raced past her; she had little hope they could do much good. Someone shouted that the fire squad had been summoned.

At a safe distance from the burning building Bryne deposited a soot-covered Amanda on a quilt supplied by one of the neighbor women. The glass display window exploded, spraying shards of glass across the street. Louise sat on the curb beside Amanda, rocking Eddie to quell his crying. Only when Amanda moaned and tried to sit up did Louise break down in tears of relief and hand the child to her.

They’d all made it out. It was a miracle. The shop would be in ruins, but the only thing that really mattered was—they were alive.

“Thank you,” she gasped when Byrne returned, having organized a bucket brigade and informed the fire squad of the location of the blaze. “Thank you for saving them . . . us.”

His coal black eyes looked more accusing than concerned now. “How did it start?”

“I don’t know,” Louise said. “The boy was sleeping in the back room. I suppose he must have knocked over a lantern.” Her chest hurt. She had to stop and cough before going on. “We’ve no gaslights. Sometimes Amanda leaves a candle or small lamp lit to soothe the child to sleep. There are no windows to let in light.”

She was sick with the realization of how close she’d come to losing them both.

“So you believe this was an accident?”

“What else could it be?”

He stared pointedly at her.

“Oh, no, it couldn’t have been the Fenians. Why would they have targeted . . .” But perhaps it was possible.

Amanda gave her a look then buried her face in her little boy’s scorched hair.

All around them, men rushed with hoses, buckets, and bowls—anything that might carry water. Others shouted encouragement and pushed a steam pumper into position. They doused not only the shop but also the neighboring buildings. If not contained, a fire like this could devastate entire blocks of the city.

Then the skies opened up and heaven released a deluge on them. Louise just sat there, soaking wet but grateful for the rain. Without it this might have been a far worse disaster.

Byrne said, “Let’s move you, Amanda, and the boy to the carriage. I’ve had your driver take it down the street out of reach of the fire.”

When they reached the barouche, her driver gave Louise a sheepish look as he helped Amanda and Eddie into the carriage. Louise supposed she couldn’t blame him for his refusal to enter the burning building, as terrifying as the fire had been. Still, she would not use him in the future.

“We should get all of you to the hospital,” Byrne said.

Amanda shook her head weakly. “No. Please, take us home. My husband will see to us.”

Louise understood. With the mention of the Fenians they all naturally wanted to be in a safe place. Or was there another explanation?

“Darvey,” Amanda whispered, turning to Byrne.

He scowled at her then shouted up at the driver, “Drive on, man!”

“The bawd. He might do something like this for revenge.”

Byrne’s jaw clenched. His neck muscles corded taut as ship’s rigging. “Tell me exactly what you saw and heard just before the fire broke out.”

“Nothing, actually.”

“No threats shouted at you or the shop? No Irish radical slogans found lying about?”

She supposed she knew what he was getting at. Why bother to burn them out if they didn’t take the opportunity to deliver their message and at least take credit?

“None,” she said.

“And you heard no sounds of someone breaking in?”

“No,” Amanda answered for her.

“Wait.” Louise laid a hand on Byrne’s arm and felt him tense at her touch. She left her fingers there for a moment, drawing strength from his presence, and he in turn seemed to relax. “I did hear soft sounds. They might have been someone moving about the room, just before we opened the door.”

“We thought it was Eddie.” Amanda drew the boy more tightly to her. He seemed cried out and had gone stone silent with shock, his face and hands smudged with soot, eyes glazed over. “But when I reached him, he was still asleep on the cot.”

“But there’s a door to the alley?” Byrne said.

Louise frowned. “Yes. How did you know?”

He ignored her question. “I agree with Amanda. This isn’t Fenian work. You had a convenient glass display window in the front of the building.” Which had exploded outward and into the street from the fire’s heat, she realized, not from anything being thrown through it from the street. “Why would they sneak in the back way and risk getting caught? All they had to do was lob one of their bombs through the front window. That’s much more dramatic. Makes a statement.”

“Then it really was Darvey’s doing?” she said, hardly feeling the jouncing of the carriage through her fury.

He nodded solemnly. “Most likely.”

“You haven’t had your ‘chat’ with him yet?” she said, not quite accusing him of slacking, but there it was.

If he heard that same tone of blame, he didn’t let it show. “Our meeting is now overdue,” he muttered darkly.

As if cued by the end of their conversation, the carriage stopped with a jolt. Louise watched Byrne duck out through the curbside door. She waited while he helped Amanda and Eddie out, observing him with a fresh eye.

He was, in many ways, quite normal in size for a man. More than a head shorter than John Brown. Broad of shoulders, but he didn’t have Brown’s horsey bones and bulk of body. If he had dressed in standard fashion—waistcoat, frock coat, and top hat—casting off that leather monstrosity and wide-brimmed hat that made him look like a ranch hand from the American West, he’d have blended well enough with any group of English gentlemen.

But Stephen Byrne, the Raven, wasn’t the sort to bother blending. And he wasn’t a gentleman, not by her or anyone else’s definition. He went his own way, made his own rules—she could see that now.

He might pretend to take orders from his commander, her mother, or even from her. But he cut a wide swath through whatever instructions he’d been given. Why, she wondered, was he even in London when he could be back in his own country? No doubt making good money as a private bodyguard for men like J. P. Morgan or Mr. Rockefeller? Why come to England at all?

Whatever his reasons, she found she was glad he had come. To say she felt safe around him wasn’t quite accurate. It was more that his presence made her worry less about other dangers because she was concentrating so hard on him. Because he was the most unpredictable of men. Because she was as intrigued by him as she was wary of what he might say or do next.