The Wild Princess

Forty-five



John Brown took the note from the runner. Having made his delivery, the crossing sweeper, who couldn’t have been more than eight years old, held out his grimy little hand in a bold manner. Brown grunted his irritation and pressed a shilling into the lad’s palm.

“Off with you now,” he grumbled, stepping back inside the palace gate where he’d been summoned by the sentry.

There was no envelope, just a torn quarter sheet dirty as barnyard muck from the boy’s grip, but he recognized Byrne’s spiky hand. He stopped walking as soon as the meaning of the two brief but chilling sentences grasped him:



Accession Day plot by Fenians. Tell Her she must postpone ceremony.



Her. Victoria, of course.

Brown thrust a hand through the wiry tufts of hair at his crown and curled his lip. He had vowed to protect Victoria Regina with his life, and by God he’d do it. But Byrne must think him a miracle worker if he believed him capable of convincing the woman to not venture out on the anniversary of her taking up the crown. He went off anyway, to try.

John Brown found the queen not in her office but with Beatrice, Louise, and Arthur in the palace’s Blue Salon. “I would speak with you in private, woman,” he said.

Arthur slanted him his usual disapproving look. Beatrice pretended she was too engrossed in sorting her playing cards to notice him at all. Louise looked up at him mildly and smiled.

Victoria raised her brows and tilted her head toward him in question. He knew he sounded like a man giving his wife an order, a tone the queen tolerated from no one but him. Sometimes she even seemed to enjoy when he spoke so intimately to her. In front of others, though, he usually took care to address her with formal deference.

“She is not a woman,” Arthur said. “She is Your Royal Majesty to you, sir.”

Victoria waved her youngest son to silence. “Can’t you see we are engaged in a game of whist? Let it wait awhile, John.”

He looked down at the note, considering just handing it to her. Lately she seemed to place more trust in Byrne’s advice than in his, at least when it came to matters of security. At first, he’d resented the Yank’s influence over her, as he would any man’s. But if Byrne’s efforts made her safer, he was for it.

He held the scrap out to her.

“And what’s this?” Without laying down her cards to take the note from him she let her eyes drift over the smudged words. “What sort of nonsense is this? A plot? On my anniversary?”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Arthur scoffed.

“I expect they would,” Louise said, and Brown thanked God there was one level head in the family.

Victoria started to set down her cards then seemed to change her mind. She played one card, watched as Arthur, Beatrice, then Louise played in turn. She took the trick with a satisfied smile.

He tried again. “Mr. Byrne and I strongly advise canceling, or at least postponing the ceremony.”

The queen huffed at her remaining cards. “I can’t do that. There have been so many complaints about my seclusion since dear Albert’s death. Bertie says I really must appear in my coronation coach in our parade to the church. I have been too long a recluse. The nation must see their queen.”

“Mama,” Louise said, “please listen to Mr. Brown. If Mr. Byrne has uncovered another plot, remaining here in Buckingham or removing to Osborne House might be far wiser.”

“And do you believe we are secure here?” Victoria snapped, glaring at her daughter. “Have you so soon forgot the rats? For weeks you’ve all tried to convince me that we have enemies within. I tell you, I feel safer among the street people these days.”

“Please be reasonable, ma’am,” Brown pleaded.

“Am I to be a prisoner in my own home?” Victoria shouted. She slapped her cards down on the table. “No. I cannot disappoint my subjects any longer. They complain bitterly of my absence, so I shall show myself. A monarch must set an example, so says Mr. Gladstone. She must be strong. Accession Day will come as planned.”

Louise shook her head and gave Brown a sympathetic look. He noticed the princess didn’t look half as cheerful as last time he’d seen her. All the light seemed to have drained from her bonnie eyes. Another spat with her mother? Or was something else behind her melancholy?

“Mama,” Louise said, “at least eliminate the parade. Let your guardsmen convey you to the church in a less visible way.”

“She’s right. It’s the ceremony that counts,” Bea added, barely above a meek whisper.

Victoria laughed. “Have you not heard what I’ve just said, all of you? My subjects wish to see their queen. They have a right.” Her eyes shrank to dangerous pinpoints as she glared up at Brown, and then he knew the cause was lost. “As we haven’t room for all of London in the damn church, John, I must show myself along the way there and back.”

“This is ridiculous,” Arthur said, groaning. He shook his fistful of cards at Brown, who wished he could knock them out of the boy’s hand and give him a good thrashing. “Have we not sufficient guardsmen to protect the royal entourage? Order up a hundred Beefeaters if necessary. A thousand! Add as many from the army as you require. A handful of anarchists won’t stand in the way of the will of the British Empire.” Anarchists . . . Irish, the boy didn’t seem to know the difference.

“It’s my bloody job to see your mother’s safe,” Brown bellowed. You pompous little ass.

“Children, Mr. Brown . . . please, you are giving me a headache.” Victoria touched both her hands to her temples, as if to demonstrate. “Louise, do you agree with Mr. Brown? Must I surrender to these ruffians and give up my day of celebration?”

Brown looked hopefully to the princess, who had settled down so well after her troubled youth. Perhaps he could count on her as an ally?

“Mother,” Louise said, her voice a cheerless shadow of its usual spirit, “we all wish you safe, of course.”

Victoria leaned across the card table toward her daughter, forcing their eyes to meet. “And you, my girl, what would you do in my place, if you were queen? Would you let criminals frighten you into hiding? Would you let your own men, who claim to care for your security, worry you to death with their warnings and bully you into staying away from your subjects?”

Brown got a sinking feeling in his gut. Something was going on between these two—mother and daughter—and there was no way he was going to insert himself.

“What I would do,” Louise began, her eyes flashing with anger, body rigid in her seat, “and what you should do are two different—”

“Are they?” Victoria cut her off. “Are we really that different, Louise Caroline Alberta? You who brazenly refused to listen to your parents, your governesses, or anyone else who stood in the way of your pursuit of whatever whim struck you. You who still ignore your duties as a princess to pursue your private passions?”

A hidden message passed through the air, one Brown could not hope to interpret. Arthur and Beatrice exchanged glances, looking no less confused than he was.

Victoria continued. “Tell me, Louise, were you in my position—would you take orders from these men?”

Louise hesitated, glancing at Brown with an apologetic look. “No,” she whispered. “I suppose not.”

“Speak up, girl.”

“No!” Louise shouted, grit in her voice that made him think of ground glass. “No, Mama, I would not. I would go out to my people and let them see I was not afraid.”

There was an eruption of objections from Arthur and, remarkably, from meek little Beatrice. But Brown knew the damage had been done. He shook his head at Louise, but rather than turn away she rose to stand in front of him.

“The note’s from Mr. Byrne, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s found out something more.”

“Aye, and you should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging her like that.”

“Should I?” She looked toward her mother, busy fending off objections from her other two children. She was a small woman, plump in her later years. But what Brown saw now was a woman whose course had always been set, whose will was iron and destiny had never been determined by any of the men in her life. Not even by him.

“I think she’s already made up her mind, Mr. Brown,” Louise said. “Nothing you or I can say will change it. You know that as well as I.”

He closed his eyes. “Then God help us come Accession Day.”