The Wild Princess

Twenty-nine



The pupils of his partner’s eyes had dilated, giving him a wild, frenzied look in the gaslight outside the Royal Opera House.

Rupert Clark laid his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “What’s wrong, Will? Not like you to get nervy.”

“Don’t like knives,” Will grumbled. “You only gets one chance. Takes nothin’ for a man to turn the tables on you.”

“It’ll be fine. Two of us to the one of him.”

“I s’pose. Still wish we could do him with a pinch of black beauty.”

“And how’s that gonna work in a crowd like this?” Already the opera house doors were opening, a bejeweled audience spilling out into Bow Street. “Lieutentant wants ’em to know it’s Disraeli who’s the target. We lob a bomb in the middle of that crowd, newspapers’ll get it all wrong.”

“How do we know he won’t take one of them carriages lined up yonder?” A sea of top hats and plumed heads, even now, flowed toward the long line of waiting curricles, phaetons, and cabriolets.

“Connections. In the palace. Told you afore. Now,” Rupert warned, “pay attention. We don’t want to miss him.” He found it hard to track individual faces in the crowd beneath the vaporous gaslights. The flames turned everything a sickly yellow-green in the night. The ladies’ features were further obscured by veils and dipping hat brims, the men’s eyes shadowed by top hats, their expressions masked by beards. But Disraeli, in the photograph, was clean-shaven, lean, and tall. He’d stand above most of the crowd.

“There,” came a hoarse bark from Will after they’d watched for a few minutes.

“Where?” Rupert squinted into the haze. The boy’s eyes were sharper than his.

“See those two? One on the right has no beard.”

“You get a look at his face?”

Will grinned. “He’s a dead ringer for the swell in that picture.”

Rupert hesitated, needing to make sure. He watched the pair cross the street into the park then take the same path the Lieutenant had described in his note. They’d walked it earlier in the day, checked out every one of the surrounding horse trails and wooded lanes. He’d picked out three spots, any one of which would be good for waylaying and dispatching their man.

Rupert looked back toward the opera house. The crowd was thinning. Only a few couples heading into the park by different paths, cuddling, clutching each other amorously. None of the other men resembled Disraeli. The remaining operagoers were splitting up into the last of the remaining carriages. If he and Will didn’t follow the two men soon, they’d lose them entirely.

Rupert wiped the sweat from his brow and concentrated on the two frock coats already disappearing into the darkness. “Let’s go.”

He and Will split up as planned. Rupert’s route wound to the north and came out on a rise thirty feet above Disraeli. Through the trees Rupert could hear the two men below him, talking about the opera and a woman one of them was interested in.

As soon as the pair below turned the next bend, Rupert silently slipped down through the trees behind them. Will would come at them from the other direction.

Up ahead, Rupert caught a sudden blur of motion in the dark, and his heart nearly stopped. Will had lunged at his victim without waiting for his signal. Now there was nothing he could do but make his move.

One of the men shouted, “Watch out!”

Rupert ran up behind Disraeli, who seemed so stunned by the attack on his companion he was unable to move. Rupert whipped his arm up and around the taller man’s throat, knife in his other hand. He slashed once. The diplomat sagged to the ground, gurgling blood.

“Help. Murderers! Assassins!” Screams echoed in the dark from a ways off. Will’s man was escaping.

“F*ck!” Rupert swore and took off at a run to silence the man before his cries brought the coppers down on them. How had Will let him get away?

Just over the next rise, Rupert spotted his partner. Down on top of a figure. Stabbing repeatedly into the waistcoat with his knife. Make it look vicious, the Lieutenant had said—the better to horrify the queen and her subjects. Will was doing his job with enthusiasm. No doubt the man was already done for—he wasn’t moving at all. And as for Disraeli, he’d have bled out by now.

“Enough.” Rupert grasped Will by the back of his collar and pulled him off the body.