The Wild Princess

Forty-three



Louise fairly flew through the long hallway, her mind gathering up and trying to make sense of scattered facts she and Byrne had discussed in the carriage less than an hour before. It was the logistics of the day that Byrne couldn’t verify. Where had Rhodes been in the palace, if not always with Gladstone? Or were they jumping to unsupportable conclusions? It was still possible someone else was to blame for the rats and the information leaks. After all, they had no proof Rhodes was the culprit.

While Byrne was off trying to locate and talk to Philip Rhodes, they’d agreed Louise might find out if anyone in the palace remembered seeing the secretary in or near the nursery that memorable day. She interviewed several of the queen’s guardsmen. One remembered guiding a “lost” secretary back out of the wing of private suites.

She was on her way to her own room when she rounded a corner and ran straight into Lorne. He braced her shoulders between two hands. “Ah there, darling, where are you racing to? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Have you?” Her head hummed with her news. She needed to tell Byrne what she’d learned. But how to reach him? She could send a messenger to intercept him at Gladstone’s address, since she was fairly certain that would be one of his stops.

“Yes, I have,” Lorne said. “Come have tea with me.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t now,” she said breathlessly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Everything!

She suddenly thought it unwise to reveal all she and Byrne had recently discovered. They had found one culprit, one man who well might be in league with the Fenians. But that wasn’t to say there might not be others in their midst. They’d agreed to tell no one, not even her mother, until they had evidence to support their accusations.

It seemed disloyal to not be totally honest with her own husband, but when it came right down to it, hadn’t she already been unfaithful to him in other ways?

His deep blue eyes delved into hers. “It’s rather important that we talk, dear girl. I don’t think it can wait.” It wasn’t like him to be this insistent. Had he somehow found out she’d slept with Stephen Byrne?

“All right,” she said. “Where shall we sit?”

“The Breakfast Room, I should think.”

She glanced sideways at him as they walked, puzzling over the reason for this emergency conversation. When he offered his arm, she took it with reluctance. Their charade of intimacy no longer felt even vaguely right.

“Your hair isn’t done today, again,” he said. She thought she heard censure in his tone.

“I prefer it loose.”

He smiled. “So you’ve said before. But you look like a young girl, rather wild and free.”

“Is that so bad?” She lifted a brow at him.

“Your mother was remarking she wished you would let your maid crimp and arrange it for you.”

Louise grimaced. She would wear her hair as she pleased, just as she would live her life as she pleased. She hoped Lorne wouldn’t take up her mother’s harangue about her choice of clothing and hair fashion.

“Is this what was so important—how I wear my hair?” She couldn’t hide her annoyance.

“No.” He laughed. “Oh, no, good God, it’s far more significant than that.” He waved a hand at her light-colored day dress, another departure from the more formal styles and dark hues of the times. “That’s quite pretty, my dear.”

Why, she wondered, the weak attempt at conciliatory flattery? If that was what it was.

When they reached the Breakfast Room, she saw that a pot of tea and plate of biscuits had already been laid out on one of the small, square tables draped in white damask. The Chinese decor of the room had been transplanted from Brighton Pavilion, when the property had been sold off nearly twenty-five years earlier to pay for the renovations at Buckingham requested by her parents. Priceless Oriental vases, tapestries, and Persian carpeting complemented the borrowed Brighton fixtures. Although the room itself was the size of Amanda’s entire house, it was an intimate retreat when compared to the vast formal salons of Buckingham, and she loved it.

So, Lorne had actually staged this meeting. Louise slanted him a suspicious look, which he didn’t acknowledge.

She took up the task of pouring for them, to cover for her nerves. He settled into the gilt, upholstered chair across from her. When they each had their tea, he took a breath and smiled at her.

“I have exciting news, darling,” he said.

“Yes?” She sipped and found the Darjeeling just the right temperature.

“The queen, your mother that is, has offered me an excellent position within the government.”

She smiled at him, relieved. If that was all this was about . . . “I’m so glad. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, looking away. “I want to be useful, to have a career beyond just sitting in the House of Lords.”

“Do I sense reservation in your tone?” She sipped again then put down her cup and saucer.

“Not at all. I believe it’s an ideal situation for us.”

Suddenly suspicious, she turned her full attention on him. “Us?”

“Well, yes, of course.” He picked up his cup and saucer but returned them to the table without drinking. “I believe you will enjoy the adventure.”

“We aren’t leaving London, are we?”

The corners of his lips tweaked up but never reached a smile. “I’m to be posted to Canada, as the new governor of the commonwealth.”

Louise felt her stomach drop. A weight pressed down on her chest, not unlike the crushing sensations during her last two months of pregnancy carrying Eddie. “Canada? But that’s so far from—” She closed her eyes and swallowed. So far from Stephen. She’d only just found him. Only just now understood how much she loved him. “How long before we must leave?” After all, it might be months, and plans change. She might persuade her mother that Lorne wasn’t the man for the position.

“Three weeks, maybe less.” He said it so quietly she barely heard. He seemed unable to meet her eyes.

Louise shot to her feet, fists clenched at her sides so tightly they hurt. “Why, Lorne? Why does she not put you in charge of one of our estates, or let you manage game and fisheries for the family. You’d like that—wouldn’t you?”

He stared down at his clasped hands. “She didn’t give me her reasons.”

Her skin itched with her fury. Only the tightness in her throat kept her from screaming. This whole scheme smelled of her mother’s manipulation. Why? Why send her away now?

Then it struck her. Of course. Victoria had somehow caught wind of her affair with Stephen Byrne. Or else she’d merely assumed they were lovers, or soon to be.

“She has no right to do this to me,” she spat, fighting back tears of rage. “No right!”

Lorne launched himself out of his chair and knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. “My dear, I’m so sorry. I had no idea the news would be other than pleasing to you.”

He did appear sincere. But she pushed him away, freeing herself to pace the carpet.

“Listen, darling, this will mean adjustments for me as well.” He stood and brushed off the knees of his trousers. “I shall have to bid farewell to many dear friends in London. But I’m sure we will each find new companions to our liking.”

“Don’t you understand?” She turned on him and stomped her foot for emphasis. “This is punishment, not a reward. She’s getting rid of the troublemakers in her life. Us!”

“Oh, now that’s a bit overly harsh, don’t you th—”

“It’s the truth, Lorne. She might have had her suspicions about your habits before we wed, but now she is convinced, and she’ll do anything to avoid scandal. Anything. That’s the one thing she fears. She dodged it once before, when my indiscretions—”

“Yes, the art school boy, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “That’s not such a horrid thing, dear girl. An innocent fling. More young ladies than their mothers can imagine wander before they’re wed.”

“But they don’t all have babies!” she shouted at him.

He stared at her. The room fell silent. “A child? You bore a child? What happened to it? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” His face turned a sickly moss green. “Oh dear. So it’s true. She wants you away from London and the gossip.”

“And you. I suppose she thinks that the company you’ll keep in Canada, if done discreetly, will likely stay on that side of the Atlantic.”

He smiled sadly. “Well, at least it isn’t Newgate.”

Louise bit down on her bottom lip and tried to rally her courage. But it was no use. Lost. She felt abysmally lost. She’d enjoyed a fragile glimpse of happiness. But fate had swept it away as quickly as it had come. Oh, Stephen.

She looked at her young husband. He stood, shoulders bowed, eyes filling with tears—the image of utter desolation. He was dependent upon her for his very life. If he refused the post her mother offered him and stayed in London, living as he was doing, he might well be arrested, might never survive whatever sentence he was given as punishment for loving in a way society didn’t understand.

And wasn’t she in love with a man other than her husband, and breaking the laws of morality in her own way? What a pair we are.

“I’ll go with you,” she whispered. “Don’t worry.” She stepped up to Lorne and combed his long blond hair out of his beautiful blue eyes with her fingertips, as if he were her little brother. “It will be all right, Lorne.”

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “My dear,” he said, “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

There was no other way. Her mother had won. Again.

Lorne sniffled, pulling himself erect, then shyly looped his long arms around her and held her. He was not Stephen Byrne. Could never be Stephen. But there was some measure of comfort in his embrace.

“I promise. I’ll make this up to you. Somehow, I do most solemnly promise.”

Foolish, foolish man, she thought.