The Wild Princess

Thirty-six



A noxious fog, thick as his mother’s New England fish chowder, obscured Byrne’s view of the street. He didn’t see the boy coming until the lad thrust a scabby head through the open window of the moving carriage in which Byrne and Princess Beatrice rode, on their way to her favorite bookshop.

Byrne had set half a dozen young crossing sweepers to watch for Darvey and report to him when the pimp turned up. Now the lad, hanging on like a monkey to the outside of the jouncing carriage, whispered into Byrne’s ear.

“Hey, you boy, get off from there!” the footman shouted down from his perch at the back of the carriage.

Byrne slipped a coin into the boy’s hand before the urchin dropped down from the side of the vehicle and darted away between rumbling omnibuses, costermongers’ barrows, and pedestrians.

“What a filthy little boy,” Beatrice said, wrinkling her nose. “What did he want?”

Byrne scowled at his hands. “Nothing important, Your Highness.” Before she could ask another question he said, “Will you be long in the shop?”

“No more than two hours,” she said. “I shall read for a while, before deciding if I will buy anything. Will you hate having to wait for me?” Her smile had just a hint of girlish infatuation in it.

“Not at all. In fact, I have some business to attend to. I’ll leave you in the care of your coachman and guard. If I’m not back by the time you’re ready to leave, they’ll take you home.” He’d replaced the usual footman with one of the queen’s guards. The man was armed and trained to protect the family. Beatrice would be in good hands.

“You needn’t hurry,” Beatrice said. “I can spend hours and hours in a bookshop. Mrs. Shrewsberry doesn’t mind, and she always has jam cakes for me when I come.”

“Good,” said Byrne, thinking what a relief it must be for the youngest princess to be free of her mother for even a few hours. Victoria treated Beatrice more like a personal maid than her child. As a result, he’d noticed, the girl had little time to herself and no friends at all her own age. Byrne’s heart went out to her.

After securing the bookshop, which closed its doors to other customers while the princess visited, Byrne waved down a hansom cab and directed it to Henry Locock’s home and dispensary. His crossing sweeper had spotted someone who looked like Darvey in the Lococks’ neighborhood.

Byrne ordered the driver to leave him a block away, paid him, and strode off down the alley behind the physician’s house. He’d arrived almost too late.

Darvey stood on a crate, at eye level to a rear window of the Locock home. He was shoving a crowbar beneath the lip of a windowpane. From his end of the alley, Byrne heard the creak as the wooden frame weakened. It gave way with a dull crack.

Byrne broke into a run, loping toward the pimp.

Darvey turned to observe him with a welcoming expression that struck Byrne as inappropriate to being caught in the act. “Took you long enough, boy-o,” Darvey called out. “Another two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I’d a been on me girl, helpin’ her remember her trade.” He chuckled.

Byrne stopped just feet away from him. “You’re coming with me.”

“Is I? Where to?” Darvey looked more amused than worried.

“I’m taking you to Scotland Yard to be held for arson and attempted murder.”

Still looking pleased with himself, Darvey shifted the crowbar from right to left hand, and pulled a knife from inside the cuff of his pant leg. “So come ahead, Yank.”

Byrne brought out the Colt. He could shoot the man dead on the spot, or take him wounded to prison. It didn’t much matter to him which.

Darvey tilted his head to one side and eyed the weapon with the air of a connoisseur. “Nice piece. So, you’re in this for queen and another man’s country? Don’t seem reason enough for a fella to die.”

“I ain’t the one dying today, Darvey,” Byrne said.

“Oh no?” The voice came from behind Byrne at the precise moment something that felt like a lamppost came down on his head.

He felt the gun leave his hand, heard it skitter across the gravely ground. The sound of metal ringing against metal came to him from the far side of the alley. He staggered to find his balance.

When his eyes focused a second later, he turned and saw two men blocking the alley’s mouth. The Colt was nowhere in sight, but Byrne suspected the iron-barred sewage grate had swallowed it up.

“Come on, Yank,” Darvey taunted. “Let’s you and me have a bit of fun before my mates join the party.”

Byrne cursed himself for assuming the man fool enough not to have brought backup. Darvey had expected this confrontation. Was it possible this entire scene had been staged for his benefit? The casing of the house from the street observed by the crossing sweeper? The daylight break-in? All of this to ambush him.

But if he hadn’t responded to the challenge, what would have happened to the Lococks? He didn’t like to think of it.

The fight started out badly.

Byrne figured that taking out one of the thugs would at least even up the odds a little. With two against one, he had a chance. He spun and rushed the bigger of the two men, a head taller and thirty pounds heavier than him. His sudden aggressive attack surprised his opponent and landed him on his back with Byrne’s head buried in his gut. The man’s skull banged back against the rock-hard ground of the alley; he went out like a snuffed candle. But the second thug was on him the second Byrne scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Byrne from behind.

Darvey had waited his chance. Now he swung the crowbar at Byrne’s kneecap and connected with a sickening crunch. Byrne managed to stay on his feet just long enough for Darvey to drive a fist into the side of his face. He went down, the pain in his knee agonizing but only a shade less than the ringing in his head.

Lying on the ground, he fended off their kicks to his ribs and face as best he could. Byrne tried to regain his feet, but they kept knocking him to the ground. His face swelled up, his vision blurred, keeping him from getting a fix on Darvey in the hope he could wrench the iron bar out of his hands.

But what he saw next took his breath away, and with it went all hope.

Out of the shadows of the surrounding buildings loomed yet another figure, this one bigger than either of the others. The man seemed to fill the entire alley. His body blocked out even the narrow strip of sunlight that managed to slant between the brick walls around them.

Oh God. It’s all over now.

He might fight off two, if he could just get hold of something to use as a weapon. But not this monster as well.

“Told you I be keepin’ an eye on ye, lad.” The voice had a wonderfully familiar ring.

Byrne looked up in time to see a distorted image of John Brown clubbing Darvey’s remaining conscious partner on the head with his bare fist. Byrne got the impression the man’s feet must have been driven inches into solid ground with the impact of the blow. The thug’s eyes rolled once, his knees buckled, he dropped to his knees as if in prayer for just a moment before keeling over, face-first.

Darvey looked around him, as if unsure of his next move. Now he was alone against one man standing, another man down. He scowled at Brown then, apparently having made up his mind, came at him in a run. Darvey swung the crowbar hard at Brown’s knees, just as he’d done to Byrne. It didn’t work this time. Because the targeted knee was a foot higher than the pimp’s accustomed angle of attack, his swing of the metal bar seemed to throw him off balance. Brown reached out, grasped the bar, and whipped it out of the man’s hand. He tossed it aside as if it were a toothpick.

“There now, son, you won’t be needin’ that. You sit yourself down over there and cool your heels before you hurt yourself.” Turning to Byrne, Brown grasped him by the shoulders of his leather duster and hauled him to his feet.

“No,” said Darvey. “NO!” He pulled a pistol from inside his jacket.

Byrne didn’t wait to see what Brown had in mind as a response. He put all of his weight on his good leg and launched himself low at Darvey. A shot went off. Byrne plummeted to the ground but took the pimp down with him.

He willed himself to turn and see if Brown had been hit, or whether Darvey was aiming now for him. But every time he tried to get his legs beneath him, his vision grayed with the pain. He felt dizzy then nauseated then surreally light-headed.

With effort, he brought his head up. His vision returned, and he saw Darvey throw his pistol at Brown’s face. Had he emptied all the chambers? Byrne wondered if he’d blacked out; he hadn’t heard a thing.

In two strides, the Scot was face-to-face with the pimp. He pulled back his arm and unleashed his fist straight from the shoulder, stepping into the punch, and drove it into the bridge of Darvey’s nose. The knuckles seemed to plow straight through skin, cartilage, bone, and brain.

Darvey’s body didn’t so much as fall over as cave in. Dead before he hit the earth.