The Wild Princess

Twenty-six



Louise stood in the front room of her little consignment shop and looked around at the nearly empty shelves. Nothing could have made her happier.

She had proposed a Saturday Fire Sale. Amanda wrote the announcements, posted the broadsides, and ran an advertisement in the Times. The publicity brought in new customers and resulted in twice as many sales as on any previous day of business. Starting early in the morning, customers crowded into the little shop looking for bargains. They’d bought nearly everything she’d put out.

Now that she and her staff had scrubbed down the walls of the display room, the stench of charred wood was tolerable. After a good bleaching, most of the doilies, antimacassars, linens, and delicate handwork had been restored nearly to their original color. Well, close enough anyway. Pristine whites became cream, butter creams became ecru, ecru became chocolate brown. No one the wiser. Nevertheless some articles were more obviously smoke damaged and could only be sold at much reduced prices.

Now that the shop was closed for the night—Amanda having left to make dinner for her husband and little boy, her shopgirls exhausted and dismissed—Louise stayed on after dark to finish her inventory.

It seemed a miracle that the fire brigade had been able to save the building. But they had, with the help of the rain. And the day after the fire her merchant neighbors gathered round to lend a hand in making repairs. They brought with them a carpenter and crew who replaced weakened or fallen timbers to make certain the building was safe. A glazier replaced the front window for the cost of the precious glass. Others volunteered to help clean and put out at the curb anything Louise deemed too damaged to sell in the shop. No sooner was an item set out than it disappeared. Londoners were great re-users. Even the humblest of items would bring a small profit to someone on the street.

Now it was dark outside, the gaslights dimly glowing, passersby dwindling. Louise set the CLOSED sign in her new window, framed by lovely gingham curtains donated by Belle & Co, down the street, then she finished moving a half dozen large wooden picture frames to the street. Even damaged, she’d thought they might sell. Now she decided that was unlikely. If nothing else, they’d make firewood to warm someone.

When Louise returned to the shop for her reticule and shawl, she heard footsteps approach close to the front of the shop then hesitate before moving on. She turned just in time to see a shadow pass in front of the display window then stop again. A face, features obscured in the dark, peered in through the glass. She held her breath, trying to remember if she’d locked the door after stepping back inside.

A terrible thought struck her: Darvey had not yet been caught. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t return.

Before she could dive for the latch, the door swung open and a figure stepped through.

She fell back with a gasp, hand to her throat.

Stephen Byrne took off his hat and moved into the light of the only lamp still burning.

“Dear Lord, you terrified me!”

He gave her an unconcerned look then took in the rest of the room. “I saw the light on and assumed, at this late hour, someone had broken in.”

“Late? Is it?” She supposed it was. But when she worked as hard as she’d done this day, time flew.

“Where is your carriage?” he asked.

“I sent it away long ago. There was too much to do here to have a driver sitting outside waiting for me.”

“And you intended to return to the palace how?”

“That’s what hansom cabs are for, I believe.” She was in no mood for a scolding.

He shook his head at her, smoothed the brim of his hat with the backs of his strong fingers.

“You find taking a hired cab so unusual?” she said. “People do it all the time.”

“Not the queen’s daughter. Have you no regard at all for your safety? Spending daylight hours here with others to keep you company is one thing. But it’s nearly eleven o’clock. No one at the palace knew where you were.”

So he’d come intentionally looking for her, maybe was even sent by her mother.

She turned away from him, pretending to straighten a much diminished stack of aprons, handmade by a clever little seamstress whose products sold almost as soon as they hit her shelves. “I care about my safety almost as much as I care about my freedom. I refuse to surrender my ability to move about the city.”

She felt him step up closer behind her. “The rest of this can wait for another day,” he said. “You look exhausted. You can’t have had much sleep since the fire. I’ll deliver you home.”

She stiffened, a frisson of irritation creeping up her spine. “You’ll deliver me? Like a parcel?”

His voice dropped an octave lower, a shade softer. “Like a woman who needs a bath and food.”

Louise plucked a hothouse rose from the arrangement sent to her by her neighboring merchants, sniffed its fragrance, and turned to narrow her eyes at him. If he thought she’d allow him to boss her around, he was mistaken. She thrust her chin forward and stepped toward him. “And you’ll no doubt instruct my maid to escort me straight off to bed?”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea.” His eyes had focused on her face, on her mouth to be precise, in a most disturbing way.

Something came over her—an inexplicable urge to tease or put him in his place or even to shock him.

“You worry more than my old nurse.” She slipped the rose into the buttonhole in his coat’s lapel and stretched up on the tips of her toes, intending to plant a mollifying kiss on his roguish whisker-stubbled cheek.

At the last moment, he turned his head just enough to meet her lips with his. The kiss was no more than a brush of their mouths, but she laughed, delighted with herself for flirting a bit and even more so for the look of surprise on his face.

Before she could draw away, the scent of his skin came to her. The tiny follicles of ebony hair in his sideburns swam in front of her eyes, and her fingertips itched to reach up and stroke the spot just there in front of his ear. Her breath caught, and she prudently backed away.

How long had it been since she’d felt such a thrill at being close to a man? Delicious.

Half a second later, she glimpsed the warning flare in his eyes.

“No,” she breathed, instinctively raising her hands between them.

One step forward was all he needed to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her up hard against his chest. Her eyes flew wide. She whimpered as his mouth came down over hers. Unlike the other, this kiss was hard and hot and shockingly intimate.

When he released her mouth, she felt dizzy, bewildered. Perhaps her teasing had backfired?

“Don’t play games with me, Princess,” Byrne warned, his voice abrasive with emotion she couldn’t identify. “You won’t like my rules.”

He released her as abruptly as he’d seized her. She staggered away, out of breath, supporting herself against the new pine shelving. “Why did you . . . do that?”

“If you’re going to throw yourself at a man, you might as well do it right.”

“Throw? Throw myself at—” She gulped down a bubble of indignation. “That wasn’t my intent.”

“Really.”

“It was more a kiss to—well, to gently chide you. A sisterly kiss.” Did even she believe that?

He glowered at her, black eyes fierce, glittering in the brilliant flame in the lamp. “I’m not your brother.”

She was totally confused now. “You sound angry. How can you be offended when you’re the one who has behaved in such an abominable manner?”

For a heartbeat, it appeared he was vacillating between diving for the door and wringing her neck. Just in case, she stepped behind the sales counter. He tossed his hat on it and vaulted over.

She screamed when he came up just short of plowing into her and knocking her over. Byrne gripped her shoulders between his two wide hands.

“When you look at a man that way, Louise, you can’t expect him to control himself forever. What is it you really want? Tell me.”

“Want?” She shook her head, trying to come up with something acceptable, but all she could think was that she’d really like for him to kiss her again. Maybe even harder. Longer. On other places than her mouth. Oh, Lord!

Lorne had kissed her no more intimately than a tidy peck on the cheek, and only in front of others, for effect. She had enjoyed no real affection from any man since Donovan disappeared—unless you counted the occasional, brief physical contact necessary while dancing at a ball.

But wasn’t this sort of scenario what she’d imagined when Byrne appeared in her nighttime fantasies? A romantic interlude. A stolen kiss. A forbidden touch then regretful parting. And sometimes . . . sometimes she opened herself to far more intimate possibilities.

“I want you to”—she blinked up at him, stalling for time and sensible words—“to go outside and summon a hansom for us, while I finish up here.”

The tension in his features dissolved into something that was almost a smile, even though he didn’t release his grip on her. He slowly shook his head. “Liar.”

What to say to convince him? She simply couldn’t allow the man to think . . . to know that she had lustful thoughts whenever he came near her.

“Princess?” He gave her a little shake. “I asked what you want from me.”

How could she think at all when he was touching her and standing so close she could feel the warmth of his body all down her front? She cleared her throat and said, “I want you to . . . to tell me this instant what you’ve found out about Donovan.”

The amusement in his eyes faded. The flesh around his mouth tightened. “Your friend is in Paris. Or, at least, that was his intention.”

“In Paris? But this is good news. Wonderful news.” Surprisingly, she had to work at sounding excited. “It was my mother, wasn’t it? She made him leave.”

Byrne released her shoulders and stepped back to rub the knuckles of one hand across his eyes. A moment earlier he’d seemed so very animated. But now, for the first time, she realized how tired he looked. “There is that chance,” he said.

“She sent him away, didn’t she? Oh, Mother, you’ve taken so much from me—but this is . . . is . . . But she didn’t hurt him. I mean, send someone to beat him or—”

“Whatever might have transpired, it appears he’s survived. You can be happy about that.”

“Yes, I suppose I can.” But the question remained, if he was alive why had he not at least tried to get word to her? If he longed for her as she longed for him . . .

At least she had always thought she longed for Donovan. Being kissed by Byrne was affecting her strangely. She had trouble remembering what it felt like when the young artist had made love to her. Whereas she still felt the demanding pressure of Byrne’s lips on hers. She shook her head to drive away the unsettling sensations.

“Thank you for finding him. Did you see him?”

“No. A man owes me a small favor. He lives in Paris and was good enough to spend some time asking around about your Donovan.”

My Donovan? Was he still hers? Had he ever been?

“And he’s there, in Paris . . . in good health and painting still?”

“So my source tells me.”

“Good,” she murmured. “Yes, very good work, Mr. Byrne.” This was all so confusing. Perhaps changing the topic was best. “And you’ve confronted Mr. Darvey about the fire?”

“Next on my list.”

She gave a firm nod. “Excellent.” Louise took a deep breath, stepped out from behind the counter, and looked away from Stephen Byrne, not wanting to see his reaction to what she had to say next. “And once Darvey’s been dealt with, I suspect there will be very little reason for you and I to see each other.”

“I suppose not,” he said after a moment.

She’d handled that well. She was letting him know she wasn’t interested in having a lover. This was a proper and much more satisfying way of managing the incident of the accidental kiss.

Future awkwardness averted.

And yet . . . she still hadn’t answered his question. What did she want?