The Wild Princess

Twenty-four



Byrne had just walked out through Buckingham’s gates into the street tangled with carriages when he heard the rapid thud of hobnail boots closing in on him from behind. He swung around, instinctively thrusting his right hand through the hip-high slit in the side seam of his leather duster, but didn’t pull out the Colt.

It was John Brown. His stomach tightened. The Scot’s eyes were bloodshot, as was often the case, but they fixed on him solidly rather than sliding away as when he was drunk. Reassuring. Brown appeared sober enough to not be a danger. Hopefully.

“Where you off to now, laddie?”

Byrne kept a neutral expression. “To do my job.”

“Your job is here, protectin’ the queen’s children.” Brown planted his big feet. Beneath the hem of his kilt, his legs looked like two knobby oak limbs. “I been savin’ your skin long enough from Her Majesty’s questions ’bout where you’re at.”

“Last I knew, the queen hadn’t provided me with an office. The family’s security relies on my confronting threats wherever they appear.”

The Scot lifted his lip in a snarl. Byrne’s hand closed tighter around the Colt’s grip. “Riddles. You’re full of riddles, aren’t you, Yank? What devilment you up to now?”

Byrne considered his options then thought, What the hell. He told the Scot about the fire, hours earlier at Louise’s shop, and watched the man’s face grow darker, word by word.

“The princess is uninjured?” Byrne nodded. “And this Darvey scoundrel, he’s still abroad?”

“He is.”

“You want help?” Brown grinned as if anticipating a good fight.

“Not necessary. You’re needed here. I can handle a lone pimp.” The truth of the matter was, he didn’t trust Brown. Byrne still felt as though putting his back to the man might end messily. “Besides, Victoria might disapprove of my . . . methods.”

Brown shook his head. “Just to make things clear—you don’t owe the villain sympathy.”

“Not an ounce,” Byrne agreed.

“Good luck then.” Brown started to turn away.

Byrne let him take two steps before he decided the time was right to take a calculated risk. “Donovan Heath,” he said.

Brown froze then slowly turned to face him. “There’s that name from the past again. What about him?”

“You know him?”

“Aye, I did. What of it? Told you in the garden I had nothin’ to do with whatever happened to the boy.” Byrne didn’t miss the choice of words. Not do, did know him. As one speaking of the dear, or not-so-dear, departed.

The Scot’s eyes glowed with malice, whether toward the mentioned name or the mentioner, Byrne couldn’t tell.

“Know where I can find him?”

“Best leave well enough alone, Raven.”

Byrne stepped closer to be heard above the clatter of the street traffic and calls of costermongers shouting out their wares. “Louise wants to know what happened to the young man.”

Brown sighed, and a great wind of boozy tobacco breath spewed from his lungs. His face contorted in anger. Byrne’s fingers moved to wrap the Colt’s grip again.

“What happened is the worthless little runt ditched Her Highness. That’s the whole of it.”

Byrne nodded. “Could be. But I don’t think so.”

“Don’t matter what you think, laddie. Is what happened. Now leave it be.” Whatever token goodwill the Scot had shown him moments earlier had vanished. He was being warned off well and good.

Bloody hell, Byrne thought. In for a penny . . . “Louise was in love with the boy, or thought she was.”

“So?”

Byrne tipped his head and looked up into the other man’s eyes for any sign of deception. “She thought he was in love with her.”

“That’s what women think when a man—” Brown pressed his lips together, apparently reconsidering his words. “No doubt he told her as much. She were a sweet little lass. Innocent. She’d a believed him.” Brown almost managed to sound tender. Then he straightened up to his full, impressive height, eyes as dark as a cave. “Leave it be, Raven. Or I’ll have to—”

“Did you get rid of him?”

The only answer he got was a look meant to make him piss his pants. A look that had probably worked on others.

“I don’t take orders from you, Mr. Brown. The queen made that clear. She told me to look after her children. Louise’s safety might well depend upon someone answering her questions about this matter. Would you rather she take off on her own in search of her lover? Because if I don’t satisfy her, I’m convinced that is exactly what she’ll do.”

A sound emerged from Brown that was half growl, half moan. “She ain’t never goin’ to find him.”

“Probably not. But she won’t rest until someone can prove to her that Donovan is either dead or alive. And if alive, where he is. She needs to understand why he left her.”

Brown let his great bearish head drop back. He glared up at the coal-fouled sky. “That pretty little bairn has never been anythin’ but trouble for her mother.”

Byrne narrowed his eyes and studied what he could make out, behind the beard, of the man’s face. To what extent did this trouble reach? And what remedy had been taken to keep things quiet? Byrne felt an awful chill at the first possibility that came to mind.

“Did you, under orders of the queen, murder Louise’s lover?”

The words hung in the air between them. Brown appeared not in the least shocked by the accusation.

He laughed but then seemed to seriously consider the question, as if there might be multiple interpretations of the word murder. “No. I didn’t kill him.”

“Or send someone else to do the job?”

Brown’s features softened into what seemed a genuine smile. “You think I’m that low, Raven? A common assassin?”

“For queen and country.” Byrne shrugged.

“Aye, well, if she’d asked me to, I guess I would’ve. I hated the little creep. But she didn’t ask me.” His eyes twinkled beneath bushy brows. “I’ll admit to givin’ the boy a little fatherly advice.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Brown looked back at the palace, the sentries and a cluster of dignitaries in frock coats and top hats, arriving to do business of one sort or another in the complex of offices within the sprawling palace. “Let’s walk.”

They turned to the right and started off along Stafford Road, which immediately led into Queen’s Road, running parallel to the palace gardens and the royal stables. Brown seemed to need distance between himself and the grounds before he spoke further. Byrne kept pace in silence. The Scot crossed the street, turning left at Vauxhall Bridge Road, which would eventually lead to the river.

The River Thames, where bodies turned up daily, Byrne couldn’t help thinking. So close and convenient to the castle, winding off through the city . . . to the sea, which had swept away the guilt and evidence of many a crime before this one.

At last Brown said, “You can’t tell the princess but . . . her mother ordered me to send the boy packing.”

“I see.” If he could avoid passing this along to Louise, he would. The news might well cause an irreparable rift between mother and daughter, whose relationship was already strained.

Brown continued in a low undertone. “She was desperate, Victoria was. The lass got herself mixed up with these artsy-tartsy Bohemian types. They’re famous for experimenting with absinthe, heroin, all manner of drink and behavior worrisome to her mum. Donovan, he was the last straw, you might say. She fretted the friendship was becoming too cozy.”

This was what Byrne had suspected all along. If Louise had taken Donovan as her lover, she’d have lost her maidenhead—her ticket to a royal marriage like those her sisters Vicky and Alice enjoyed. She would have been considered “ruined,” ineligible as a virgin bride. Worse yet, if the union with a commoner produced an illegitimate child, might it not be held up as an heir—destroying the unsullied lineage to the throne? He wasn’t sure how all of that worked. Regardless, he couldn’t imagine Victoria sitting idly by while Louise had an affair with the young art student.

“What did you do to chase off the boy, John?” Byrne asked, glad they were having this discussion in public. He might actually survive the interview. “How badly did you beat him? So bad he might have accidentally died after you left him bruised and bleeding?”

“I didna touch Master Donovan.” Anger deepened the Scot’s brogue.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I do, as it’s the truth, you bloody Yank.” Brown stopped walking and turned to glare down at him. “I wanted to give him a thorough thrashin’, I tell you. But I knew if I ever put my hands on him, I would kill him. All I did was give him the money Victoria told me to take to him. It was in an envelope, sealed. I don’t even know how much she gave him, but she said it was enough for him to travel away from London and live off for a good long while.”

“That’s it?”

“Then I took him down to the docks and seen him onto a ship bound for Calais.”

Byrne still wasn’t sure he believed the man. “Was he distraught at leaving the princess?”

Brown roared with laughter. Passersby on the street turned and stared nervously. “Distraught? The lad was delirious with joy. Couldn’t believe his good fortune. He was jabberin’ on about gettin’ himself a garret of his own in Paris. No more posin’ for him. He’d be an important artist. I watched him break open the seal and peer into that envelope as if it were a bloody pot o’ gold. His eyes lit up like twinkly diamonds, they did.”

So Donovan had never been in love with Louise. Yet she still longed for him. It broke Byrne’s heart. Twice she’d loved the wrong men and received nothing but heartache in return.

“Thank you, John,” he said, meaning it. He stared down at his boots, wondering how much longer he could avoid telling the princess, if only to spare her heart.

“Then that satisfies you on Mr. Heath’s account?”

“Yes.” No. Byrne watched the other man’s eyes for signs of deception. Even now, a nagging twinge in his stomach told him something was wrong with the story. Or maybe it was just that parts of it were still missing. Someone—Victoria, Brown, Louise (all of them?)—was keeping secrets from him. Why?

If he had any sense, he’d do as Brown said: leave it be. But he felt compelled to discover as much as he could about Louise. He’d become obsessed with the woman—damn her royal hide.

The key to getting to the bottom of this moral quagmire, he thought, would be to find someone in the queen’s or Louise’s confidence. Someone in court or the family who might be willing to gossip about Louise’s wild years. Ideally, someone who also might have an idea who had smuggled a clutch of rats into a heavily guarded castle.