The Wild Princess

Seven



Louise settled herself on the velvet cushion inside the coach beside Beatrice. Lorne sat on her sister’s other side, next to the far door. She was glad Bea hadn’t relinquished her customary position in the middle seat. As tender as Louise had felt toward Lorne during the days before their wedding, all of her hopes and every one of her dreams had been extinguished the moment he’d told her the facts of his life and what he saw as the ground rules of their marriage.

Although her anger had waned, she still felt wounded, callously betrayed. By him and by her mother.

Victoria sat directly across from Louise, preferring a window seat that faced forward. Her youngest sons, Leo and Arthur, filled in the rest of the seat, making a party of six in the grand coach. Lenchen was staying behind at Buckingham Palace, nursing a sniffly cold, which Brown deemed a safer place for her now that the others had left. Vicky and Fritz were already on their way back across the Continent to his beloved Germany. Others in the family were busy in their own ways, and the queen hadn’t objected to their not going along to Balmoral.

“I’m sure I shall be enough company for my darling newlyweds,” she’d cooed.

More than enough, Louise thought grimly.

Through the window on her left, Louise looked out on the rolling green countryside. Eventually the air completely cleared of the horrid mustard yellow smog and coal dust that drifted over and out from the city. Louise removed her handkerchief, covered in black specks from the sooty air, from over her nose and mouth. At last, she could breathe.

She heard John Brown barking out an order to the coachman. The Scot was sitting above them with the driver—where he preferred to be, in the open air. She suspected the arrangement suited him all the better for enabling him to take sips from his flask without her mother’s knowledge.

Louise turned to her sister. Bea still looked shaken by the rat ordeal. Louise whispered to her, “It’s a long drive, Baby. Might as well catch a nap.” She scooped an arm around her golden-haired younger sister. “I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

It wasn’t long before Bea dropped off to sleep, her head resting on Louise’s shoulder as they jolted and jostled down the rutted highway.

Louise glanced across the carriage at her mother, whose lap was piled with letters she’d planned to read as they drove. Her stationery box with pens and ink and sealing wax lay at her feet, although Louise couldn’t imagine trying to write while the carriage bumped over country roads. Victoria folded her hands on top of her correspondence, to keep the letters from sliding off her knees. Louise wished her mother had been willing to transport them all on Fairy, the royal yacht. Traveling up the coast by water to Scotland was the much pleasanter way to go, faster too.

Victoria had closed her eyes to nap, or else as a ploy to cut off conversation with her newlywed daughter. Louise didn’t care at the moment. They had spoken but a few words since the ceremony; no real opportunity for intimate conversation between mother and daughter having presented itself, with servants, staff, and relations always hovering around the queen. Louise longed to ask her mother if she’d knowingly arranged her marriage to a man who was incapable of pleasing her in bed or giving her children. It was unthinkably mean.

But then, hadn’t her mother already proven herself capable of unforgivable deeds?

They had never seen eye to eye. Her mother had once complained to Vicky in a letter, which Louise had snuck a peak at, that her fourth daughter was “difficile.” The one thing they’d ever shared, when Louise was a girl, was a love of drawing. Their mutual devotion to art was the reason the queen finally gave in to Louise’s pleas to be allowed to attend art school, even though this put her daughter in touch with commoners, a dreaded situation assiduously avoided by her family.

Unfortunately—Louise had to admit—her mother’s fears proved warranted. Although that one year in Kensington had been the most exciting, enlightening, and challenging of her young life, disaster ensued. Painful images flashed across her mind, even now, in the rumbling coach, so many years later. She brought a gloved fist to her mouth and pressed hard, holding back a sob of grief . . . and guilt.

With effort Louise pushed those memories out of her mind and fixed on the budding trees and early blossoming, white-petaled snowdrops speckling the grass alongside the road. And the pain slowly faded. In a few days they’d settle in at dear Balmoral, the castle built on an ancient site by her father. It sat close to where her husband had been born into the powerful Campbell clan, and where his family still lived. As always, the castle would offer shelter from the politics and intrigue of London.

Occasionally she caught a glimpse of her mother’s agent, Stephen Byrne, riding up and down the line of carriages, his black-brown duster flapping in the wind, that strange American plainsman’s hat with the high crown and wide brim tugged low over his brow, his piercing gaze flicking toward buildings, trees, people they passed. Watching for God-only-knew-what threat.

She had to give the man credit. He, and Brown, had acted swiftly and efficiently to get them on their way north. It was no small task, herding their entourage into the waiting carriages. She’d expected outraged arguments from courtiers. But something unpredictable and dangerous shadowed Byrne’s dark eyes, discouraging argument from even the highest ranking in her mother’s court.

She looked along the seat and over her sister’s sleeping head at Lorne. His gaze was fixed on a distant point outside the far window. His blond hair feathered in the chill spring breeze. They hadn’t said more than two words to each other this day. Or the one before it. In the presence of her mother, he’d kissed her on the cheek and wished her a cheerful good morning at family breakfast. But since then he’d touched her no more than was necessary to put on a show of affection and, later, to hand her up into the carriage.

She felt more alone than ever, shut inside this rattling ebony box with her nonhusband and her incomprehensible mother. How could she look forward to a life of celibacy, in the company of a man who could only love other men? What was she to do? If this had been a conscious plan on her mother’s part, had it been intended as punishment for her daughter’s past failings?

Louise’s head began to pound in rhythm with the horses’ hoofbeats. Her throat felt raw and tightened with the effort to fight back tears. She wouldn’t succumb to self-pity. Certainly not here in front of everyone.

The queen’s carriage set a rapid pace between towns, at Brown’s direction. Eventually they slowed down as they approached the industrial town of Leicester, more densely populated than others before it along the route. Smokestacks spewed gritty steam from the factories along the canal and the River Soar, but the air remained far less foul than the choking effluvium that hovered over London.

And then they stopped.

Victoria roused herself, opening her eyes. “What is it? Why are we not moving?”

Louise leaned a little out the window to see beyond the horses that drew the carriage. “It appears to be market day. The streets are clogged with farm wagons and stalls.” Every few feet along the street a different display of winter crops lay in a cart, arranged on planks or on the ground: piles of new potatoes, purple turnips, plump rutabagas, green and red leafy chard, brilliant orange and emerald winter squashes. The air smelled of the earth, rich manure, and, more pleasantly, of pasties baking.

Farther ahead of the coach and the mounted guard, a flatbed lorry loaded with sacks of flour straddled the road, unmoving, apparently blocked by something that kept it from negotiating the tight turn.

Lorne roused himself to lean out the opposite window.

“Bother,” her mother fumed. “Brown promised we wouldn’t be caught on the road at night. This will put us off schedule for our first overnight with the baron and baroness.”

“It’s all right,” Lorne said, his voice soothing as he settled back into his seat and drew out a cigar. After a pointed glare from Victoria, he tucked his smoke away without lighting up. “They’re working to move the thing out of the way. Once we’re through the town, we’ll have open country again. Nothing to worry about, ladies.”

But with the caravan at a halt, townspeople began to crush forward in a human wave, peering into the carriages, eager for a glimpse of the royal family. As word spread, more people burst from doorways, pressing still closer. Two little girls ran up to the queen’s carriage and tossed a nosegay through the window.

“Oh!” Bea cried, waking up when the posies landed in her lap. She smiled sleepily. “Pretty.”

Another woman lofted a hand-worked doily through the window. “We love you. God save the queen!” she cried.

Victoria looked down at the little scrap of ecru tatting on the floor of her carriage. “I suppose they mean well,” she murmured. “But these people make me so nervous.”

“It’s all right, Mama,” Louise comforted her. Her mother sometimes behaved as if commoners belonged to another species. One that frightened her but she felt compelled, on occasion, to appear before.

Brown climbed down from the top of the carriage to curse the lorry driver and order him out of their way. Stephen Byrne leaned down from his horse to instruct their two footmen and closest guardsmen to ease the queen’s admirers back a few paces.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts, Louise took in only a hazy view of all that was going on outside their carriage. There seemed little reason to be concerned as, sooner or later, they’d move on.

She didn’t, at first, take notice of the young man who broke through the line of horse guards and rushed toward their carriage with something in his hand. No doubt, her subconscious whispered, another token of respect.

But when his arm thrust through the window nearest her mother, Louise could see that neither flowers nor anything else equally harmless rested in his hand. The object was solid, metallic, dark in color—with a short, mean muzzle.

A pistol!

Louise felt a physical jolt, first of disbelief then shock as she stared at the narrow, beardless face. Now only inches away from hers.

The man’s eyes, wild with intent, searched the passengers’ faces for only a moment before fixing on the eldest female in the carriage in black mourning garb. Momentarily frozen in time, Louise watched in horror as the young man’s arm swung to the left, pistol with it, to stop and point at her mother’s face.

Instinct took over, setting Louise’s body in motion. She thrust her sister aside and into Lorne’s chest. It wasn’t, then, so much a voluntary act as imagining herself transported to the space between the evil weapon and Victoria. Leaning across the gap between the two bench seats, Louise swung her arm as hard as she could at the rough wool coat sleeve stretched out in front of her, hoping to knock the gun from his grip.

Unfortunately, before Louise could connect with either arm or weapon, or even before she could push her mother out of harm’s way, she felt herself pitching forward. A brilliant, bluish white flash issued from the gun’s muzzle. She smelled a metallic tang in the air. Heard the explosion. And at the same awful moment realized she’d put her chest directly between the gun and Victoria. A blaze of heat from the ignition of powder struck the base of her throat and flew up the left side of her face.

It was as if time sped up a thousandfold—everything happening at once: men shouted from outside the carriage. Screams echoed from inside—her sister’s, her mother’s. Lorne yelled, “Assassin! Assassin!” Her two brothers threw themselves out the far door and into the street.

“She’s shot! My daughter,” Victoria screamed. “Lord, help us.”

Louise realized she was actually grasping the man’s gun, though it remained still in his grip. The hot metal seared through her glove into her tender palm. The astringent smell of burnt powder stung her nostrils. Her chest cramped with fear. Knowing she must be hit, but not daring to look down at her body, she assumed shock was probably blocking the pain but that it would soon be overcome by the severity of her wound.

Outside, someone snatched the man. She lost her grip on his sleeve and tumbled down onto the carriage floor—dazed, confused, unable to breathe.

Behind her, she heard Brown ordering the others out of the carriage. Sobbing and wailing, the queen and Beatrice fled through the far door, their skirts dragging across Louise’s face as she gasped for air, instinctively searching with her gloved fingers for the flowing wound. She must compress her hands over it, slow the bleeding until help arrived.

Why, she wondered, was time moving so damn slowly now when it had been like lightning moments before?

Then the door at her feet flew open. Byrne crawled in on hands and knees between the two seats and, quite literally, on top of her. He stayed low, holding his weight off of her but hovering inches above—as if to shield her while he examined her, head to foot.

His bright, black eyes fixed on her bodice. She followed them, taking a quick breath for courage. Her cashmere cloak had come open, and the lace ruffles over the bodice of her saffron traveling gown were blackened with powder burns. Byrne didn’t hesitate. His fingers tore into the delicate scorched fabric, opening layers all at once, straight through to her skin.

“Sir!” she cried.

“Hush,” he ordered. She did as told but closed her eyes against the indignity of his inspection. “Are you hurt?”

“Of course I’m hurt. I’ve been shot, and you’re kneeling on top of me, you bloody ox!”

From outside the carriage she heard a terrible commotion. Someone, her assailant most likely, blathering incoherently about the injustice of the monarchy and the queen’s Imperial hold over India.

Brown appeared at the carriage door beyond her feet. “Blanks,” he growled at the American. “That’s all. Just blanks in his gun. Bloody student protestor was—Good God, man!—what are ye doin’ to Her Royal Highness?”

Louise caught an irritated look from Byrne and a roll of his eyes. “How else am I to see through all these infernal layers of clothing and under things and—” He snatched a carriage robe that had laid across Lorne’s lap as they rode and covered her. Easing himself up off of Louise, he helped her to sit up then rise onto the carriage seat.

“Then I’m not shot?” she asked, only then reality sinking in.

“Apparently not, Princess,” Byrne said. “Your attacker was trying to make a point but not with bullets. Still, the powder burns have ruined your dress.”

“Even if they hadn’t, you’ve certainly finished the job,” she said ruefully, peeking beneath the shielding blanket at shredded layers of lace and fine muslin.

Brown looked relieved. “No one hurt then. All right.” He wiped the back of his hand across his barn door of a brow, dripping with sweat. “What say, Mr. Byrne, we take precautions? Change our route, just in case another loony has a wee surprise in mind.”

“Agreed. Local roads all the way, the more circuitous the better.” Byrne’s eyes hadn’t left Louise’s. They were darker than dark, solemn as Judgment Day, brimming with closed thoughts. They made her shiver. “Give me a moment to tidy up here, Mr. Brown, before the party re-boards. Have one of the princess’s ladies bring her a fresh gown and shawl.”

“Will do, lad.” And the Scot was off again, bawling out orders for a change of horses in the next town, an altered route, and a faster pace with fewer stops along the way.

Louise sat very still, trying to catch her breath. Her knees burned where they’d struck the hard coach floor. Other than that she felt no pain. Stephen Byrne sat down on the bench across from her, his long legs eating up the space between them. He stared at her in a way that reduced the panic and terror of minutes earlier to a gray shadow, but made her uneasy and mindful of her disastrous appearance.

“You’re being rude,” she said, “looking at me that way. Leave me to rearrange myself.”

He didn’t move. “Why?” he said.

“Why? Isn’t it obvious? So that I may restore my appearance in privacy.” She smoothed her skirts, happily in much better shape than her bodice.

But the dress as a whole had well and good been ruined, if not by powder burns then—as she’d already accused him—by his big hands. His big, strong hands that had touched her flesh and left it feeling pleasantly, if disturbingly, warm. She dared not meet his eyes. Dared not let a hint of cordiality into her voice or he’d know that she was feeling things she shouldn’t be feeling.

“No,” he said. “It’s not that. I want to know why you intentionally sacrificed yourself. You put your body between a gunman’s weapon and the queen.”

“You think I was being patriotic?” She laughed. Did she sound a little hysterical? “She’s my mother.”

“Of course. But you didn’t know there were blanks in his pistol.”

“No, I didn’t. And I wasn’t trying to make a martyr of myself. Or take a bullet for her. I was attempting to smack his arm out of the way, dislodge the gun. But I lost my balance and fell into his gun’s path as a result of my haste. It was quite clumsy of me.”

She felt more embarrassed than anything, what with the lingering sensations of his fingers plying open her bodice. And why was he staring at her so critically? The nerve of the man.

“That was one of the bravest acts I’ve ever witnessed,” he said, his stone-cold-sober gaze holding her eyes, making it impossible for her to look away.

She didn’t know what to say, but he gave her no time to say it. In the next second he was up and out of the carriage, making way for Lady Car who, with frightened eyes and tear-stained face, rushed in, carrying an armful of clothing.