The Wild Princess (20 page)

Byrne's stomach twisted; another shot of acid burned. It was one thing to harbor his own fears. But hearing someone else voice similar suspicions, someone who actually knew Donovan and had watched his relationship with Louise develop—that sent him over the edge. “You're accusing the queen of—”

“If I were you,” the artist interrupted, leaning toward him, as if someone else in the room might overhear, “I would have a man-to-man talk with Mr. John Brown about the convenient disappearance of Master Heath.”

Byrne went rigid. “Why Brown?”

“Everyone in London knows Brown does the queen's bidding, even when it has nothing to do with her stables. It's said the Scot can be meaner than a she-bear with cubs when it comes to protecting HRM.”

“You're saying John Brown might have done . . . what exactly?”

Rossetti returned to his painting. “Who can say? A skinny runt like Donovan confronted by a man like that? All it might have required was shouting ‘boo' in his face. Or Brown might've chased him off into the country. Or across the channel to the Continent. The chit could be anywhere.”

Bloody hell,
Byrne thought.

“Or, the Scot might have just done the easy thing.”

“Easy?”

Rossetti smiled. “I've heard it said a single blow from the Scot's fist could kill a man. Wouldn't it have been so much simpler if the loyal gillie was able to report to his queen that Donovan Heath, penniless commoner, would never again bother her daughter?”

“And if you're wrong? If he's still alive and somewhere in London?”

Rossetti shook his head. “I can't tell you where to look for him. He's not modeling, that's for certain. And I'd know if he were in the city. Maybe he found a rich woman. That would be a dream come true for someone like him. Fucking for a living. Ha!”

Byrne had heard enough. It was all he could manage to offer a civil thank-you to the artist and leave the studio without punching a hole through the wall.

He trod heavily down the steps at half the speed he'd taken them up, deep in thought. A story was emerging that he liked less and less. Worse yet, it wasn't one he could report to Louise. She'd be mortified if he told her what he'd discovered of the past she'd meant to keep hidden from him. And from the world.

Outside in the street he lit a cigar and breathed in the pungent-sweet smoke along with the coal-fire smog. His eyes burned, but somehow the air seemed cleaner outside the artist's garret than in it.

He climbed into a hansom cab and gave directions to the driver. Sitting back against the rough cushions, he closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts about what he'd just now learned. Donovan had used his employers' properties not only as a place to crash for the night but also to lure young women, regardless of their class. Byrne was fairly certain if Louise had known this about her lover she wouldn't have sent Byrne to find Donovan. She must still believe he loved her as much as she loved him. As worldly as she pretended to be, the princess at twenty-three still held on to her innocence in at least that one respect.

Ah, Louise.

If this were the case, maybe his fear that she hoped to reunite with her lost lover was true. The knot in his stomach tightened another notch. He pressed a fist into the center of the pain and closed his eyes as the hansom rolled and jounced on through London. He sucked down another lungful of cigar smoke. It didn't calm him in the least.

He thought: if Victoria had effectively chased away her daughter's lover once, and he, Byrne, brought the young man back to Louise, resulting in the couple getting together again—that would be the end of his career. Victoria's rage would know no limits. The first person she unleashed her bile upon would be him.

How had he gotten himself into this unholy mess anyway?

Despite his earnest attempts at investigation on behalf of the queen, things were becoming rather more than less complicated. A traitor lurked in the palace. Irish radicals were intent on blowing up or stealing a member of the royal family. Louise had dumped a mystery in his lap. And, most aggravating of all, he was struggling daily with unrequited
urges
because the object of his desire was a woman whose rank, not to mention marital status, meant he'd never have a chance to be with her.

He grew hard at the very thought of Louise. Her,
with
him. Touching him, kissing him, giving herself wholly to him. Indeed, God must have a perverse sense of humor to have created man's sexual organs with absolutely no regard to the practical matters of selecting a mate.

He'd best find a willing woman fast, before he did something he'd regret.

Twenty-two

Louise looked up from the sketch she'd been working on. It was from memory. Her father, Prince Albert.

Her heart swelled with remorse that he'd been taken so early in his life, and hers, from them. Poor Bea had still been a baby, really. Louise couldn't imagine she had much memory of him or of their happy family times together. Since his death, Victoria had clung in desperation to her mourning gloom, and expected all around her to join her.

Louise sighed. Thank heavens for her art. It was her respite from grief.

Today she was experimenting with a series of sketches of Albert, her very first preparations for beginning his statue. But getting the contours of his face and angle from which she viewed him just right—that was a challenge. Everything had to be perfect in the final sketch before she could even begin working on the small clay model that would enable her eventually to put chisel to stone.

She flipped a page and started again on a fresh sheet of paper, moving the tip of the willow charcoal wand across the textured white surface. Gently blowing away the excess black dust. Rubbing the long edge of the twig against the paper's grain to create shadow beneath her father's jaw. Tenderly smoothing and redefining the lines with the tip of her middle finger or side of her pinkie.

All ten of her fingers and the heel of her right hand were black with soot, her smock filthy, and she didn't care. It would have been neater to draw with a soft-leaded pencil, but the effect wouldn't have been as satisfying. Gradually now, the sense of light and shadow softened, breathing life into the face before her. She loved the tactile sensation of sketching with charcoal. She became one with her art, with her subject. The separation blurred between paper and human. Between past and present. Tears trembled on her lashes.

Dear strong, wonderful man. How she missed her father.

As she continued to work, a strong and commanding countenance evolved beneath her moving hand—dark eyes, square chin with just the hint of a cleft, Roman nose, a sense of the musculature that ran up from the chest to support a proud neck and head, thick hair that was too long but somehow just right.

Lowering her hand Louise drew a sharp breath and stared in shock at the face. “Oh!” she gasped aloud.

This wasn't Albert at all. This face belonged to another man.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

Louise gave a start and snapped the sketchbook shut. She turned toward the lounge chair a few feet away where Lorne sat, reading in the sun. They hadn't spoken in hours; she'd actually forgotten he was there.

“No. Nothing. It's . . . Father's statue. The sketches aren't working at all.”

“Perhaps if I gave a look?” His blue eyes twinkled with humor, as if admitting he'd be of no help. His hounds and horses were his passion. To his credit, he'd given up both to keep her company that day.

She ignored his outstretched hand. “No, it will come to me. I just need to focus a bit harder.”
And on the proper subject.

“Ah, Mr. Byrne!” Her husband came to his feet.

Louise's heart stopped, then stuttered to life again. She turned around to find the Raven coming around the end of the hedgerow. Why did she never hear the man approaching? It was damned unnerving.

“Back from your investigatory duties, I see.” Lorne shook Stephen Byrne's hand. “Any luck rousting out the hooligans?”

Louise watched the two men with an uncomfortable feeling. She glanced down at the sketchbook in her lap, wondering if she dared open it—to see if she'd truly captured the American. With a shake of her head, she quickly tucked her work away in the canvas bag at her feet and brushed what she could of the charcoal from her fingertips.

“Your Highness,” Byrne said, letting a nod in her direction suffice as a bow. “I'm just on my way to see your mother.”

His dark gaze sent a shiver through her. She wished she knew what the man was thinking when he looked at her like
that,
the meaning behind his eyes so nebulous. “Mr. Byrne.” She hoped he had the good sense not to report his findings with regard to Donovan in front of Lorne.

In the months since their wedding, she and her husband had come to an understanding, of sorts. Louise actually found Lorne's companionship comforting at times. He was cheerful in a quiet way, polite, intelligent, docile, accepted her mercurial nature and insistence upon running her own life. If she wanted to be alone, he left her to herself. And if she felt lonely, he often made himself available for a game of cards, reading a bit of poetry to each other, or as an escort to the ballet or opera.

She never asked what he did with his nights away from her with his friends in Pall Mall. Some days he didn't appear until the afternoon, his eyes red-rimmed from drink and lack of sleep. He favored several gentlemen's clubs with questionable reputations—the Albemarle and Boodles, and worse yet, the Hundred Guineas Club. She knew this only from the gossip columns but didn't doubt their veracity. Louise decided she'd rather not learn anything more than was necessary about her husband's mysterious habits. He cooperated in the game by only casually asking about her activities.

Married life could have been far worse, she told herself.

She broke from her reverie to see Byrne turn, as if to leave. Louise stood up so abruptly she nearly knocked over the butler table, and with it the tea service. “Mr. Byrne,” she called out, “may I have a word with you? It won't take a moment.”

She was aware of Lorne watching her with a puzzled expression. His gaze shifted with open curiosity from her to the American.

“It's just a small matter my mother asked me to address with you,” she lied with forced cheerfulness as she tried to draw him farther away from Lorne. “An escort for Bea to visit with a little friend of hers. I'll walk along to keep you from being late.” She turned with a smile to her husband. “This won't take a moment, dear. Be right back.”

As they walked, Stephen Byrne observed her from beneath the brim of his plainsman's hat, his expression as impenetrable as ever. She crooked a finger at him, as if he were a child being called off the park swings for naughty behavior. He obliged by bending down to better hear her.

“Why
have you not reported to me, sir?” she hissed.

“When I have something of significance to convey to you, Princess, I will.” He looked down on her, unblinking, as convincing a show of innocence, she was sure, as any rogue could contrive.

“Do you mean to say that in all this time, you have found
nothing
whatsoever? Nothing that would indicate”—she glanced back over her shoulder at Lorne, far across the garden, who seemed engrossed in his reading—“where Donovan might have gone?”

“I've not yet located the man.” Byrne's expression remained blank, his gaze fixed mildly on a marble bench placed beneath a hawthorn tree.

She could almost swear from the way he refused to meet her eyes that he knew
something
. Whatever it was, he appeared disinclined to share with her. “If it is terrible news, I still must know. Do you understand? I want to hear what you've discovered. Good news or bad, I've paid you for the truth.”

Byrne's eyes slowly drifted from the bench to her. She felt their weight as if they were two hot black river-stones laid on her shoulders.

“I'm not sure that I do understand, Your Highness. Frankly, if your friend left you without explanation, he probably had a reason. Perhaps he didn't wish to hurt your feelings. Maybe there was someone else, and he took the coward's way out.”

“No! That's impossible.” Too late, she realized she'd shouted her objection. She lowered her voice again, not daring to look toward Lorne to see if he'd heard. “He loved . . . I mean to say, Donovan had a fondness for our conversations about art. And we had an . . . an understanding, a friendship that was very special.”

Louise sighed, tears threatening. How pitiful she must sound. Byrne undoubtedly saw straight through her. To keep up this charade was senseless. But how could she admit to him, to anyone,
what she'd done
? She blinked away her tears, angry with herself for caving in to emotion.

“I don't care how insignificant whatever you found seems to you. Tell me. Now!”

Byrne grimaced, looking as resigned to his fate as a man before a firing squad. “I have contacted as many individuals as I could find who knew Donovan Heath from his days in Kensington.” He looked at her and waited, as if expecting a reaction. She kept silent, but her heart tripped, then began to race. “I spoke with your old teacher there, and later with Gabriel Rossetti.”

Louise's pulse shifted from racing to a dead stop. Her stomach clenched; her knees threatened to give out entirely.
No, no, no! This wasn't what she'd wanted at all.
He was going about his search all wrong. This was supposed to be about Donovan's reason for disappearing and his current location. Not about
her
. Not about
her
past
. Did the man have no sense of discretion?

She drew herself up and gave him her best imitation of Victoria's haughty glare. The one she used on her ministers when displeased with them. She must remind this Raven that he was “the help,” whereas she was a royal princess who held the power in this relationship.

“Gabriel Rossetti,” she said, “was most cold and cruel to my friend. He treated Donovan abysmally. You are not to go back to that man for any reason or take his word for anything but slander.”

Byrne stared at her as if she'd ordered him to renounce walking in favor of flying. He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice to a frightening rumble that reminded her of how unpredictable he could be. “Listen, Princess. You asked me to track him down. How am I supposed to do that without questioning people, without trying to find those who knew him before he disappeared? People he might have told where he was going and why. Either you want me to do this, or not.” He took yet another step closer. “Make up your mind, Louise.”

She glared up at him, feeling the need to back away but refusing to let him intimidate her. “How dare you speak to me in that tone.” She couldn't keep her voice from shaking even in her anger. Lorne was right. The man had no manners whatsoever. And calling her by her first name—such nerve.

“All right then.” He let out a sound from deep in his throat, rather like a growl. “Here's what I've found so far. It appears that no one who knew Donovan Heath, either in London or the surrounding countryside, has any idea where the fellow has got to. He simply vanished. There are rumors, but I assume you want proof, not hearsay.”

“Why don't you let me decide which they are.” She opened her eyes wide and tilted her head in a suggestion of challenge. “Just give me the information you've gathered.”

“Very well.” He removed his hat, making him look only a little less a cowboy out of one of her brothers' penny dreadful novels. “The theories proposed by the people I've interviewed range from Donovan having found a rich woman to provide for him, to his falling drunk into the Thames and drowning. Some say he might have left England for Brussels, Paris, Venice, or Frankfurt in pursuit of his art. But the supposition that makes the most sense to me was voiced by Mr. Rossetti.” He stopped and studied her, his hat rotating in his hands, as if he actually were capable of being nervous.

“Go on, go on,” she said.

“Rossetti believes the boy might have either been frightened off or more forcibly encouraged to leave London, because of your association with him.”

She let his words soak in, for a moment unable to speak.

She swallowed, threw him a look of desperation, then choked out the words, “But that's preposterous. Who would have done such a thing?” In her heart she knew what he was going to say. And it terrified her. “If you are about to accuse my
mother
of forcing my friend to leave the city, that's simply outrageous.”

“Why do you say that?” he asked, his voice slipping into unexpected gentleness. His black eyes focused on her face.

“Because he disappeared before she even knew I was—” She swallowed back the damning words. “Before I told her we'd been special friends.”

“You're telling me that Her Majesty has no way of discovering what is going on in her children's lives unless they
tell
her?” He kept a straight face, but somehow she knew he was laughing at her.

“I'm sure she has her methods of spying upon us when she's inclined. I'm just saying that, at the time Donovan disappeared, she had no reason whatsoever to be concerned.”

Byrne leaned forward, making her feel even more uneasy at his proximity. She smelled the road on him, horse and leather, and a masculine tang that sent a strange thrill through her. He said, “Explain to me, Princess, what might concern the queen more than the danger of a commoner—in fact, not just any commoner but a boy barely out of the gutter—becoming
intimate
with her daughter?”

Louise caught her breath and raised a hand, overwhelmed by an impulse to slap him for his insult. Before she could make good her intent, he'd grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer still.