The Wild Princess

Fifty-five



Louise propped herself up on the wide, wooden planks of the deck and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She breathed carefully, supporting herself with her uninjured arm as she looked around, unwilling to give up yet.

A dingy canvas canopy, shelter against sun or rain, rose above her head. The men who’d taken her were fifteen feet away, tending to the boiler and wheel. She was ten or fewer feet from the rail. If she got to her feet, or even crawled to the side of the boat before they noticed, she could throw herself overboard. But jumping back into the river, in her damaged condition, she’d likely drown before anyone else came along. Her captors likely knew this. Even if the boat had been running much closer to shore she wasn’t capable of swimming with just one good arm.

That left the only other possibility she could imagine. She must find a weapon with which to defend herself. If she made it difficult enough for these two to do whatever they had in mind, she might buy enough time for someone on shore or from among the royal party to realize she was in trouble and send help. Though, from the ominous clatter and gunfire still coming from the direction of the bridge, she guessed the queen’s guard had their hands full. It might be a while before they took a head count to see who was missing.

She scanned the deck, hopeful of finding something sharp, heavy, or pointed. Anything at all she could jab, throw, or swing in self-defense.

The only possibility she saw was a long-handled boat hook with a metal prong on one end. They’d used it to help haul her onboard. But the red-haired man had taken it with him and leaned it against the wooden housing beside him, as if to have it handy for his own use . . . or because he’d foreseen her desperation and wanted it out of her reach.

There was nothing else. Nothing at all she could put her hands on.

Heartsick, she watched the younger man take up his shovel again and stoke the boiler with four more shovelfuls of shiny black anthracite coal from an iron tinderbox. The frame on the container was sloped lower on the side facing him, making it easier for him to thrust the blade of the shovel into the mound of coal and come out in one continuous swinging motion to toss his load into the roaring flames.

Steam engines. She dragged from her brain every last little thing she had learned about the new inventions. It wasn’t much. Their fuel was coal. Without the coal the pressure would drop and the engine would stop.

But how long would that take? She had no idea.

However, she did know one thing. She didn’t want to put any more distance between her and the scene of the explosion. The farther away they took her, the less likely she’d be found.

She slid a little closer to the tinderbox. It was made of heavy, sooty black iron, almost indistinguishable in color from the coal itself except for rusty patches. On the back side of the box, facing her, was a door about a foot wide and equally high. The latch, if lifted, would allow the little panel to swing open. She guessed it was for the purpose of cleaning out the box when the coal dust at the bottom became too thick and might create a fire hazard. The engineer could either sweep it out or flush it with a hose. In fact, she could see a darkened patch on the wood boards running between the door and the side of the boat where the dust had been swept or drained over the side.

How much coal, she wondered, could she toss overboard before her captors realized what she was doing?

The constant rumble of the engine and whoosh of the paddle wheels cloaked her awkward, crablike scramble to the back of the box. She half expected coal to come clattering out through the door, instantly alerting the men to her pitiful plan, but when she lifted the latch and, holding her breath, slowly opened the clean-out door, nothing at all happened.

Her heart sank.

Just inside the door, the chunks of coal were jammed together, the weight of the load above holding them in place. She sat for an instant, staring in disgust at the stuck rocks then shook her head. In for a penny.

Using both hands, Louise clawed out chunks of coal and started throwing them as far out into the water as she could. She worked blindly, keeping her eyes on the backs of the two men. To her amazement neither the sound of her scuffling hands nor the soft plunk-plunk of coal hitting the water, drew their attention . . . until the pieces she’d already ditched in the water left enough space at the bottom of the box that the whole load shifted and, with a loud clatter, more than half of what remained shot out through the door and scooted across the deck with a choking puff of black dust.

The red-haired man spun around with a startled expression. She didn’t hesitate. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder and chest, she flung herself down on the deck. Using both arms she swept as much of the coal as possible off the side of the boat and into the river.

“Bitch!” he roared and came at her, arm raised.

He struck her once on the side of the head, ringing her ears. Louise squeezed her eyes shut, gasping at the sting of his hand against her jaw and cheek. She kicked her wet skirt around and managed to send another shovelful of coal over the side. He came at her again, cursing, this time aiming a kick at her shoulder.

“Rupert. No, hey, no!” The younger man rushed to him, holding him back from striking her again. “She ain’t no good to us dead. The Lieutenant, he’ll want her in good shape. The better to bargain with.”

Louise lay still, pressing her face to the coal-blackened boards, one arm over her head as her only protection. She barely had the strength to breathe. She hurt everywhere. Maybe, after all, she should have thrown herself in instead of the coal.

“F*ck!” She recognized the younger man’s voice.

“What?”

“Looky there.”

Louise had no idea what had caught their attention. She was just grateful something had distracted them from beating her. She peered up around her arm.

“He’s following us. Coming up fast,” the one called Rupert said. He exploded in a fit of cursing. “Must’ve seen us pick her up.”

To Louise it seemed as if a lifetime had passed since they’d dragged her out of the river, but now she realized it had probably been only minutes.

The two men totally ignored her. They started throwing as much coal as they could retrieve from the deck, and the little left in the tinderbox, into the boiler. The boat had been traveling at a modest pace but suddenly, with the added fuel, it lurched forward at the younger man’s prompt from the throttle.

Louise pushed herself up, sitting with her back pressed against the boat’s low gunwales for support. Her dress clung to her thighs and calves—a muddy, snarled mess. She grasped handfuls of ruined satin faille and crepe de chine at her waist, tearing away layer after layer of fabric as she focused on the following boat. It looked like a workboat of sorts with its high, padded prow. Although it was gaining on them, she feared the boat she was on might reach a dock before they could catch up.

At first the following boat had been too far away for her to make out who might be on it. But now she saw two heads at the helm, and two more figures on the bow.

One wore a white shirt, blousing in the wind. The man’s black hair streamed back from his face as the boat sped toward her. Tears came to her eyes.

Stephen.

He’d braced his feet wide to keep himself from being thrown to the deck as the boat jounced and banged into the tidal waves. He was looking directly toward her. Stephen was coming for her. Tears filled her eyes.

Behind her, she could hear the two Fenians arguing. She looked over her shoulder. There was almost no coal left on the deck.

“Open her up, Will. Open the god-damn throttle!”

“No.” The younger man pushed his partner away from the boiler and jabbed a finger at the gauges. “You see that? Pressure’s too high. Safety gauge has shut her down.”

Rupert grabbed the younger man by the front of his shirt and yelled in his face. “You let that engine stop, and I’ll kill you, boy.”

As Louise held her breath and watched, Will looked at the fire, then at his partner. “All right. Dump the last of the coal in. I’ll override the safety.” He removed the kerchief from around his throat and used it to tie down a lever on the face of the engine so that it couldn’t move. “Old racing trick,” he mumbled, looking nervous.

Louise glanced back at Byrne’s boat. It was lagging behind while the boat she was on thrust forward ever more powerfully. The hope she’d felt moments earlier died.

And then she heard a loud hissing noise.

She remembered Lorne telling her about a steam engine disaster on the Manchester train line. Trains and ships had the same problems with faulty pressure gauges, or with engineers who ignored them. When the pressure built too high, the engine could explode.

Louise heard someone shouting at her and looked up to see Stephen hanging off the bow of the trailing boat, waving and shouting at her. “Jump! Jump!”

She looked back at the two men. Rupert was reaching for the boat hook even as she pulled herself to standing at the cost of wrenching pain in her shoulder. Eyeing her with murderous intent, he lurched toward her. She hobbled to a spot as far behind the churning paddle wheels as she could, and threw herself over the side and into the river.

Byrne saw Louise go in . . . and under. She looked as weak as a baby bird spilling from its nest. He signaled the captain to cut his engines. Tying a line to his waist, he dove into the murky water, aiming for the place he’d seen her go down. Did she even know how to swim?

When he surfaced he bobbed in one place, treading water, looking around him for the slightest disturbance in the water’s surface. But it was so full of floating garbage he despaired of finding her. Then he heard a sharp, high-pitched cry. He turned.

Louise was not twenty feet behind him, coughing and wheezing for air. He swam to her—pushing aside half of a balsa crate, a green glass bottle. His arms closed around her. She clung to him but didn’t struggle as the drowning often did. She laid her head against his shoulder and opened her eyes wider at the sudden percussion of an explosion less than a hundred yards downriver.

“It’s over,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m here. You’re safe, my love.”