The Wild Princess

by Perry, Mary Hart

  From inside, she could hear Amanda calling out above the ever louder crackle of flames. “Louise, I have him. I—oh God, something’s blocking—” Her voice broke off at a splintering crash from deep inside the building.

  “I’m coming. We’ll get you out.” Louise turned to her driver. “Quick. Come with me.”

  She ran three steps but heard no one behind her. When she turned the man was backing into the street, away from the now visible flames and sparking cinders, a horrified look on his face.

  “Stop!” she shouted. “We have to get them out of there.”

  Ominous creaking noises followed by another boom shook the building. A fierce burst of heat rushed out through the front door, stealing away Louise’s breath.

  The coachman’s eyes widened. “I’ll be off to roust up the fire squad, Your Highness.”

  “There isn’t time. We have to—”

  But he was off and away.

  “Go then!” she screamed after him. Coward.

  A shoeblack, whose stand she passed every day, shook his head woefully at her. “Them roofing timbers done burnt through and fallen. You’ll not be gettin’ past ’em, Your Highness.”

  “The hell I won’t.”

  She held her sleeve across her nose and mouth and ran straight through the front room of the shop and into the glowing inferno of the storage area. The heat seared her flesh, unbearable, coming in blasts, each one sucking the breath from her lungs. Her clothing was no protection. She wondered how long before her skirts caught a cinder and ignited.

  “Where are you?” she shouted. Every word released allowed burning air to singe her lungs. “Amanda!”

  No answer came.

  Dear Lord. Please don’t let this happen. Please don’t take them from me.

  She sensed someone coming up behind her and felt a thin ribbon of relief that the coachman had a change of heart.

  “Are you insane? Get out of here!” Byrne’s voice.

  “Amanda . . . Eddie, they’re—” Her eyes burned and wept, and she choked on the acrid, scorching air. “Can’t . . . can’t leave them.”

  Byrne grabbed her arms and hauled her down to floor level. When their eyes met she saw a storm of emotions in his—fear among them, but something else that moved her.

  “Stay down where the air is good,” he shouted above the roar of the flames. He moved ahead of her but stopped at a single smoldering beam that had fallen at an angle and was now propped at one end on a soapstone sink in the far corner. Wrapping his hands within the sleeves of his leather coat to protect them, he bent low and braced one shoulder beneath the timber. He heaved upward with a grunt and threw the wood aside. A shower of sparks erupted through the blackness when it landed. In that moment of orange-gold brightness, Louise glimpsed two figures curled on the floor.

  “There,” she coughed out the word. “Behind the shelves.”

  Scrambling on hands and knees, she made her way to Amanda. Her friend had thrown herself over the little boy. Eddie was sobbing but his mother appeared unconscious. It looked to Louise as if a smaller timber had come down on her head just after she’d reached him.

  “It’s all right, Eddie. Come here to Auntie Lou-lou.” She tucked him under one arm and drew her jacket over his head against the poisonous, broiling air.

  Byrne hauled up Amanda and flopped her over his shoulder. “Go!” he shouted, his voice rough with inhaled smoke.

  They crawled, staggered, and tumbled out into the street. A crowd had started to gather around the front of the shop. Three men with buckets sloshing with water raced past her; she had little hope they could do much good. Someone shouted that the fire squad had been summoned.

  At a safe distance from the burning building Bryne deposited a soot-covered Amanda on a quilt supplied by one of the neighbor women. The glass display window exploded, spraying shards of glass across the street. Louise sat on the curb beside Amanda, rocking Eddie to quell his crying. Only when Amanda moaned and tried to sit up did Louise break down in tears of relief and hand the child to her.

  They’d all made it out. It was a miracle. The shop would be in ruins, but the only thing that really mattered was—they were alive.

  “Thank you,” she gasped when Byrne returned, having organized a bucket brigade and informed the fire squad of the location of the blaze. “Thank you for saving them . . . us.”

  His coal black eyes looked more accusing than concerned now. “How did it start?”

  “I don’t know,” Louise said. “The boy was sleeping in the back room. I suppose he must have knocked over a lantern.” Her chest hurt. She had to stop and cough before going on. “We’ve no gaslights. Sometimes Amanda leaves a candle or small lamp lit to soothe the child to sleep. There are no windows to let in light.”

  She was sick with the realization of how close she’d come to losing them both.

  “So you believe this was an accident?”

  “What else could it be?”

  He stared pointedly at her.

  “Oh, no, it couldn’t have been the Fenians. Why would they have targeted . . .” But perhaps it was possible.

  Amanda gave her a look then buried her face in her little boy’s scorched hair.

  All around them, men rushed with hoses, buckets, and bowls—anything that might carry water. Others shouted encouragement and pushed a steam pumper into position. They doused not only the shop but also the neighboring buildings. If not contained, a fire like this could devastate entire blocks of the city.

  Then the skies opened up and heaven released a deluge on them. Louise just sat there, soaking wet but grateful for the rain. Without it this might have been a far worse disaster.

  Byrne said, “Let’s move you, Amanda, and the boy to the carriage. I’ve had your driver take it down the street out of reach of the fire.”

  When they reached the barouche, her driver gave Louise a sheepish look as he helped Amanda and Eddie into the carriage. Louise supposed she couldn’t blame him for his refusal to enter the burning building, as terrifying as the fire had been. Still, she would not use him in the future.

  “We should get all of you to the hospital,” Byrne said.

  Amanda shook her head weakly. “No. Please, take us home. My husband will see to us.”

  Louise understood. With the mention of the Fenians they all naturally wanted to be in a safe place. Or was there another explanation?

  “Darvey,” Amanda whispered, turning to Byrne.

  He scowled at her then shouted up at the driver, “Drive on, man!”

  “The bawd. He might do something like this for revenge.”

  Byrne’s jaw clenched. His neck muscles corded taut as ship’s rigging. “Tell me exactly what you saw and heard just before the fire broke out.”

  “Nothing, actually.”

  “No threats shouted at you or the shop? No Irish radical slogans found lying about?”

  She supposed she knew what he was getting at. Why bother to burn them out if they didn’t take the opportunity to deliver their message and at least take credit?

  “None,” she said.

  “And you heard no sounds of someone breaking in?”

  “No,” Amanda answered for her.

  “Wait.” Louise laid a hand on Byrne’s arm and felt him tense at her touch. She left her fingers there for a moment, drawing strength from his presence, and he in turn seemed to relax. “I did hear soft sounds. They might have been someone moving about the room, just before we opened the door.”

  “We thought it was Eddie.” Amanda drew the boy more tightly to her. He seemed cried out and had gone stone silent with shock, his face and hands smudged with soot, eyes glazed over. “But when I reached him, he was still asleep on the cot.”

  “But there’s a door to the alley?” Byrne said.

  Louise frowned. “Yes. How did you know?”

  He ignored her question. “I agree with Amanda. This isn’t Fenian work. You had a convenient glass display window in the front of the building.” W
hich had exploded outward and into the street from the fire’s heat, she realized, not from anything being thrown through it from the street. “Why would they sneak in the back way and risk getting caught? All they had to do was lob one of their bombs through the front window. That’s much more dramatic. Makes a statement.”

  “Then it really was Darvey’s doing?” she said, hardly feeling the jouncing of the carriage through her fury.

  He nodded solemnly. “Most likely.”

  “You haven’t had your ‘chat’ with him yet?” she said, not quite accusing him of slacking, but there it was.

  If he heard that same tone of blame, he didn’t let it show. “Our meeting is now overdue,” he muttered darkly.

  As if cued by the end of their conversation, the carriage stopped with a jolt. Louise watched Byrne duck out through the curbside door. She waited while he helped Amanda and Eddie out, observing him with a fresh eye.

  He was, in many ways, quite normal in size for a man. More than a head shorter than John Brown. Broad of shoulders, but he didn’t have Brown’s horsey bones and bulk of body. If he had dressed in standard fashion—waistcoat, frock coat, and top hat—casting off that leather monstrosity and wide-brimmed hat that made him look like a ranch hand from the American West, he’d have blended well enough with any group of English gentlemen.

  But Stephen Byrne, the Raven, wasn’t the sort to bother blending. And he wasn’t a gentleman, not by her or anyone else’s definition. He went his own way, made his own rules—she could see that now.

  He might pretend to take orders from his commander, her mother, or even from her. But he cut a wide swath through whatever instructions he’d been given. Why, she wondered, was he even in London when he could be back in his own country? No doubt making good money as a private bodyguard for men like J. P. Morgan or Mr. Rockefeller? Why come to England at all?

  Whatever his reasons, she found she was glad he had come. To say she felt safe around him wasn’t quite accurate. It was more that his presence made her worry less about other dangers because she was concentrating so hard on him. Because he was the most unpredictable of men. Because she was as intrigued by him as she was wary of what he might say or do next.

  Twenty-four

  Byrne had just walked out through Buckingham’s gates into the street tangled with carriages when he heard the rapid thud of hobnail boots closing in on him from behind. He swung around, instinctively thrusting his right hand through the hip-high slit in the side seam of his leather duster, but didn’t pull out the Colt.

  It was John Brown. His stomach tightened. The Scot’s eyes were bloodshot, as was often the case, but they fixed on him solidly rather than sliding away as when he was drunk. Reassuring. Brown appeared sober enough to not be a danger. Hopefully.

  “Where you off to now, laddie?”

  Byrne kept a neutral expression. “To do my job.”

  “Your job is here, protectin’ the queen’s children.” Brown planted his big feet. Beneath the hem of his kilt, his legs looked like two knobby oak limbs. “I been savin’ your skin long enough from Her Majesty’s questions ’bout where you’re at.”

  “Last I knew, the queen hadn’t provided me with an office. The family’s security relies on my confronting threats wherever they appear.”

  The Scot lifted his lip in a snarl. Byrne’s hand closed tighter around the Colt’s grip. “Riddles. You’re full of riddles, aren’t you, Yank? What devilment you up to now?”

  Byrne considered his options then thought, What the hell. He told the Scot about the fire, hours earlier at Louise’s shop, and watched the man’s face grow darker, word by word.

  “The princess is uninjured?” Byrne nodded. “And this Darvey scoundrel, he’s still abroad?”

  “He is.”

  “You want help?” Brown grinned as if anticipating a good fight.

  “Not necessary. You’re needed here. I can handle a lone pimp.” The truth of the matter was, he didn’t trust Brown. Byrne still felt as though putting his back to the man might end messily. “Besides, Victoria might disapprove of my . . . methods.”

  Brown shook his head. “Just to make things clear—you don’t owe the villain sympathy.”

  “Not an ounce,” Byrne agreed.

  “Good luck then.” Brown started to turn away.

  Byrne let him take two steps before he decided the time was right to take a calculated risk. “Donovan Heath,” he said.

  Brown froze then slowly turned to face him. “There’s that name from the past again. What about him?”

  “You know him?”

  “Aye, I did. What of it? Told you in the garden I had nothin’ to do with whatever happened to the boy.” Byrne didn’t miss the choice of words. Not do, did know him. As one speaking of the dear, or not-so-dear, departed.

  The Scot’s eyes glowed with malice, whether toward the mentioned name or the mentioner, Byrne couldn’t tell.

  “Know where I can find him?”

  “Best leave well enough alone, Raven.”

  Byrne stepped closer to be heard above the clatter of the street traffic and calls of costermongers shouting out their wares. “Louise wants to know what happened to the young man.”

  Brown sighed, and a great wind of boozy tobacco breath spewed from his lungs. His face contorted in anger. Byrne’s fingers moved to wrap the Colt’s grip again.

  “What happened is the worthless little runt ditched Her Highness. That’s the whole of it.”

  Byrne nodded. “Could be. But I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t matter what you think, laddie. Is what happened. Now leave it be.” Whatever token goodwill the Scot had shown him moments earlier had vanished. He was being warned off well and good.

  Bloody hell, Byrne thought. In for a penny . . . “Louise was in love with the boy, or thought she was.”

  “So?”

  Byrne tipped his head and looked up into the other man’s eyes for any sign of deception. “She thought he was in love with her.”

  “That’s what women think when a man—” Brown pressed his lips together, apparently reconsidering his words. “No doubt he told her as much. She were a sweet little lass. Innocent. She’d a believed him.” Brown almost managed to sound tender. Then he straightened up to his full, impressive height, eyes as dark as a cave. “Leave it be, Raven. Or I’ll have to—”

  “Did you get rid of him?”

  The only answer he got was a look meant to make him piss his pants. A look that had probably worked on others.

  “I don’t take orders from you, Mr. Brown. The queen made that clear. She told me to look after her children. Louise’s safety might well depend upon someone answering her questions about this matter. Would you rather she take off on her own in search of her lover? Because if I don’t satisfy her, I’m convinced that is exactly what she’ll do.”

  A sound emerged from Brown that was half growl, half moan. “She ain’t never goin’ to find him.”

  “Probably not. But she won’t rest until someone can prove to her that Donovan is either dead or alive. And if alive, where he is. She needs to understand why he left her.”

  Brown let his great bearish head drop back. He glared up at the coal-fouled sky. “That pretty little bairn has never been anythin’ but trouble for her mother.”

  Byrne narrowed his eyes and studied what he could make out, behind the beard, of the man’s face. To what extent did this trouble reach? And what remedy had been taken to keep things quiet? Byrne felt an awful chill at the first possibility that came to mind.

  “Did you, under orders of the queen, murder Louise’s lover?”

  The words hung in the air between them. Brown appeared not in the least shocked by the accusation.

  He laughed but then seemed to seriously consider the question, as if there might be multiple interpretations of the word murder. “No. I didn’t kill him.”

  “Or send someone else to do the job?”

  Brown’s features softened into what seemed a genu
ine smile. “You think I’m that low, Raven? A common assassin?”

  “For queen and country.” Byrne shrugged.

  “Aye, well, if she’d asked me to, I guess I would’ve. I hated the little creep. But she didn’t ask me.” His eyes twinkled beneath bushy brows. “I’ll admit to givin’ the boy a little fatherly advice.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Brown looked back at the palace, the sentries and a cluster of dignitaries in frock coats and top hats, arriving to do business of one sort or another in the complex of offices within the sprawling palace. “Let’s walk.”

  They turned to the right and started off along Stafford Road, which immediately led into Queen’s Road, running parallel to the palace gardens and the royal stables. Brown seemed to need distance between himself and the grounds before he spoke further. Byrne kept pace in silence. The Scot crossed the street, turning left at Vauxhall Bridge Road, which would eventually lead to the river.

  The River Thames, where bodies turned up daily, Byrne couldn’t help thinking. So close and convenient to the castle, winding off through the city . . . to the sea, which had swept away the guilt and evidence of many a crime before this one.

  At last Brown said, “You can’t tell the princess but . . . her mother ordered me to send the boy packing.”

  “I see.” If he could avoid passing this along to Louise, he would. The news might well cause an irreparable rift between mother and daughter, whose relationship was already strained.

  Brown continued in a low undertone. “She was desperate, Victoria was. The lass got herself mixed up with these artsy-tartsy Bohemian types. They’re famous for experimenting with absinthe, heroin, all manner of drink and behavior worrisome to her mum. Donovan, he was the last straw, you might say. She fretted the friendship was becoming too cozy.”

  This was what Byrne had suspected all along. If Louise had taken Donovan as her lover, she’d have lost her maidenhead—her ticket to a royal marriage like those her sisters Vicky and Alice enjoyed. She would have been considered “ruined,” ineligible as a virgin bride. Worse yet, if the union with a commoner produced an illegitimate child, might it not be held up as an heir—destroying the unsullied lineage to the throne? He wasn’t sure how all of that worked. Regardless, he couldn’t imagine Victoria sitting idly by while Louise had an affair with the young art student.