The Wild Princess (31 page)

He forgot all restraint. He ravished her body, and she seemed to delight in every touch of his fingers and mouth as he uncovered and explored each tender, yielding inch of her flesh. And when he plunged within her warmth he held himself at agonizing abeyance for as long as a man is capable, for he needed to make this moment last for her. For both of them. Because he couldn't believe it would ever happen again.

Thirty-nine

Louise lay in Stephen Byrne's strong arms, drowsy with the delicious warmth and floating sensations of a well-loved woman. Her desert landscape of an existence had been restored with the life-giving rain of this man's loving her. Impossibly, she had bloomed again.

What her legal husband had been unable to offer, this strange and wonderful man had given her. She refused to think of the consequences of what they'd done. Refused to consider what obligations her rank might demand of her in the next hour, or day, or year.
Please, let me linger in this moment for as long as possible.

In truth, she dared not move in Byrne's arms, for fear of breaking the spell. They lay entirely, delectably naked, her arm draped across his chest, her head pillowed on the muscle of his shoulder. She listened with the attentiveness of a musician to the even rhythm of his heartbeat, soothed by the rise and fall of his chest. Her fingers played with the crisp curling hairs that ranged down from his chest to his stomach and beyond. When she reached up to stroke his face, her fingertips grazed the dark stubble, and even that seemed titillating, a pleasure to be savored and inviting more kisses.

He read her interest in having more of him. “You have spent me, woman.”

She smiled, turned her head to touch her lips to his flat, muscled belly. “I will be patient. Until you are ready for more of me.”

“You demand too much of a man, Your Highness.”

She giggled, feeling drunk with her own power. When was the last time she had laughed like this? Girlishly. No,
wantonly
.

“Will you be missed?” he said.

She ran her fingers down his thigh, marveling at its hardness. “Not for a good while. But I must join my mother and sisters later, for tea.”

“Ah.” Then he was quiet for a while before clearing his throat and beginning again. “I need to ask you something.”

“Yes?” A thousand possibilities rushed through her mind. What if he asked her to leave Lorne? She didn't know what to say if he did. In her heart, she'd already taken the emotional leap away from her husband, giving herself over to Stephen Byrne. But if he asked her to leave her family, leave all she was and everything she could be to run off with him—as she'd imagined doing in her young, foolish days with Donovan—how should she answer?

His next words she hadn't expected.

“Baron Stockmar,” he said.

“What about him?” she asked. Already the luscious floating sensations were leaving her.

“While I was sleeping, I think I heard you talking to yourself. Either that or I was dreaming. You said that name. Baron Stockmar.”

She sighed. Well, this was a cruel way, indeed, to be yanked back into the bleak reality of her life. “I did. The baron was in charge of virtually our entire household while my father was alive. In particular he oversaw our education—mine and my brothers' and sisters'.”

“But he's no longer around?”

“Right.” She edged up onto one elbow to better see his face while she explained. “When I asked my mother if she could think of anyone who hated us enough to want to hurt us, she mentioned his name. The baron was a terrible man. I believe he loved power more than anything else in the world—certainly more than people. But Albert, my father, admired him deeply. The baron had been his personal adviser back in Germany, before my mother and father married. He actually coached my father to encourage the possibility of Mama falling in love with him when they met, if you can believe that.”

“In other words, he gambled that she'd accept him over other suitors?”

“Yes, and his gamble paid off.” She smiled. “Later, when Papa came here to wed Mama, he brought the baron with him. My father intended for Stockmar to bring a kind of masculine order to our lives.”

Byrne laughed. “Organizing nine children? That seems near impossible.”

“Nevertheless, the baron threw himself into the task even before most of us were born. He believed children should be educated on a strict schedule. He fought constantly with my mother's beloved former governess, Baroness Lehzen, over our education. After my parents' wedding, Mama had given the baroness over to care for us children as we came into the world and became old enough to be taught. Mama trusted her, I think, more than any other person. They were devoted to each other. The baroness tried to protect us, tried to reason with Stockmar, telling him we were only children and needed time to play. The baron believed play a waste of time.”

Stephen Byrne's fingers seemed incapable of remaining still. As she spoke he stroked up and down her back. She tried not to think too hard about the little shivers his touch produced. If she did she'd be unable to speak for the pleasure of it.

“Eventually,” she continued with no little effort, “Stockmar pressured my father to dismiss the baroness. Lehzen was sent back to her home in Germany. My mother was furious and wept for weeks at the loss of her dear friend, but the men refused to listen to her. From then on, the baron had full control over us and our tutors. He traveled everywhere with us—to Balmoral, Windsor, Osborne, and lived here with us at Buckingham. He had my father's ear in all matters.”

“But the man's no longer around. What caused his fall from grace?” Byrne said.

Louise remembered so vividly those sad, tempestuous days. “It was my father's death. When Papa contracted typhoid and died very suddenly, the shock nearly killed my mother. She was beside herself with grief. I half expected her to reach out to the baron for strength. Instead, she did the opposite.”

He smiled and hugged her. “Good old Victoria canned him.”

“Like lightning. She banished the man to Germany, just as he had done to her dear friend the baroness. He lost everything. His grand suites in our castles. His royal pension. The invitations to state banquets. All gone.”

Byrne toyed with a lock of her hair, kissed the tip of her nose. “I shouldn't wonder he'd be bitter, even though he'd brought it on himself.” He thought for a moment. “When you said his name out loud while I slept, were you thinking he had more than enough motive for vengeance? Could the baron be in league with the Fenians?”

“No. I was just recalling my mother's words. She thought his ghost might have returned to haunt us. He died in 1863, destitute.”

“He's dead?” Byrne looked disappointed, as well he might be. She suspected he'd hoped this was the missing link between their household and the Fenians. It wouldn't have surprised her to find Stockmar had planted a spy in the palace. If he'd still been alive.

“So, you see,” she continued, “he can't possibly be involved. That's a dead end.”

“What about his family? Did he have a wife, brothers, sisters, children who might wish to avenge him?”

“His wife passed away years before him. They had a son, Christian. I know him. He's a good man, successful in his own right, not the sort to hold a grudge on behalf of his father, or to use violence. In fact, I don't believe he got along well with his father at all. I can't believe he'd have a hand in any of this madness.”

Byrne frowned. “If it's not Stockmar, then it's someone else equally determined to aid the Fenians. We must identify them before they do worse damage.” He gently moved her aside and started to rise from the bed.

Louise reached out to stop him, placing her hand on his arm. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. She let her fingers slide down his arm, to his hand resting on his bare thigh, and then to the place on his body she most wished to influence—and enjoyed the intriguing effect her touch had on him. He seemed to have recovered.

“As you have no fresh leads to follow,” she said, “I don't suppose a delay of an hour or so more would matter?”

He grinned down at her. “Guess not.”

“Excellent,” she said.

Forty

Victoria released her grip on the heavy claret-velvet drapery, one of a set of five that reached from floor to ceiling above, covering the elegant bow window of Buckingham's Music Room. She looked out through the glass from John Nash's elegantly designed garden front of the palace. Above her a domed ceiling of diamond-shaped gold medallions arched, held aloft by black onyx Corinthian columns.

A lustrous ebony Steinway grand piano stood to her right. She'd left off playing a Chopin piece moments earlier when Lorne interrupted. Even now as she stepped back from the window, the young Scotish noble continued his wearisome petition, unaware she had ceased listening to his list of “needs” for the suite he and Louise temporarily occupied.

Few rooms in any of her properties were so sumptuous as this Music Room, overlooking the long swell of lush greenery across the palace gardens to the pretty pond with its resident swans. But now, gazing out through the tall window, she shuddered. What she had just witnessed beyond the crystal-clear panes proved her worst suspicions.

Moments earlier, she had watched Louise leave the wing of the palace beyond the ballroom, a location reserved for housing servants and providing extra work areas for staff. Her daughter had no reason to be there. None at all. Five minutes later, she saw her American agent step from the shadow of the same doorway.

Of her six daughters, Louise had always been the most determined, self-assured, and maddeningly independent. From early childhood, she seemed to fear nothing—from vaulting stone walls on her pony to venturing on foot into the filthy streets of London. Although Vicky, the Crown Princess, was groomed to be an empress, her first child didn't possess Louise's natural inner strength. She'd had to be molded into regal shape by Albert. Neither, thank God, did Vicky have Louise's rebellious nature, which had jeopardized the girl's welfare more than once. Victoria had hoped—
no, prayed
—that marriage would settle the girl. Now, she feared history was repeating itself.

She drew a deep breath. It didn't help calm her nerves or the increasing pain in her bothersome foot.

The Raven. Such a romantic figure he cut in his outrageous leather overcoat and black felt hat that made him look quite dangerous; she had to admit he possessed a certain allure. Louise's attraction to the man was understandable. But intolerable. It had to end. Fortunately, she'd anticipated such a situation arising.

Victoria turned to face Lorne and broke in on what now had become a plea for a new suite entirely, either in Kensington or St. James's Palace. “And how are the two of you getting along?” Victoria asked.

Lorne fell silent.

She watched confusion cloud his eyes. “Louise and I? We get along brilliantly. I love her dearly, of course.” He laughed, but it sounded forced.

Victoria tilted her head back and stared down the length of her nose at him. It was an attitude of imperial displeasure she'd cultivated and used sparingly, most frequently these days on stubborn MPs. Those who knew her well understood it as a warning.

Lorne cleared his throat. “We've become closer with each day, ma'am. I'm a very lucky man.”

“Then, as you two are such a good match, I expect before long you shall give me a grandchild to add to my collection.” She hadn't much liked her own babies, not as infants. She found newborns ugly and scary. But grandchildren could be brought to her a bit fleshed out. And once they developed personalities she doted on them.

Lorne shrank under her gaze at the mention of children.
Just as I thought,
she mused.
He's hopeless in that way too.

“Such things take t-time,” he stammered.

“Time, yes,” she said, returning from the window to the piano bench. She'd carried a file with her, in case she had an opportunity to speak with the young couple about their future. Apparently the Raven was doing her son-in-law's job for him. The time for a chat had come.

“We are”—Lorne coughed to clear his throat—“we are most happy, ma'am. And grateful for your support of our marriage.”

“I'm sure.” She brought her right foot up to rest on the bench's cushion, under her skirt and out of sight. A return of the horrid gout, she feared. She'd have to summon her physician and demand a more aggressive treatment.

“Lorne,” she began afresh, “one of the qualities I most admire in you is your dedication to public service. Having married my daughter, you know you need never work at anything. Yet as a member of the House of Lords, you have a fine reputation for working hard in Parliament and serving our people.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” He actually blushed.

“I would like to reward your dedication,” she said. “I was thinking of an ambassadorship or some other position of importance in the government.”

His face lit up, just as she'd imagined it might. Those famous blue eyes flashed. His mane of blond hair, so admired by the ladies of her court, made him look even younger. Maybe, she thought, he saw this offer as an excuse to spend more time away from his wife, to travel the Continent alone and in style, to impress other men who shared his peculiar preferences.

“I would be most grateful for any appointment that would enable me to serve the Empire.”

Now, here was where she killed two little pigeons with one boulder. “My dear marquess, I expect that, should it become necessary for you to leave London, you will take your lovely wife with you.”

She might have imagined the slightest of hesitations. But he responded quickly enough. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Even if Louise is inclined to remain in London, out of dedication to her charitable works, she recognizes the importance of a wife standing at her husband's side, as do you, no doubt.” She could tell he didn't yet understand her intentions, but she had decided it wiser not to come right out and tell the fool he was being cuckolded by a commoner even lower in society than himself, and a foreigner at that.

“Yes, she is dedicated to the Women's Work Society, and to her friends, of course.” Lorne contrived to look saddened. “I suppose she might choose to stay in London. I truly wouldn't object if she—”

“But you
would
object, Lorne. You must,” Victoria said firmly.

“I must?”

“Absolutely. You have no concept of how tongues would wag. Imagine—a royal couple, living separately, hundreds if not thousands of miles between them.”

“I suppose you're right. Scandals have built upon less.” He shuffled his feet, as if standing on too-hot sand.

“And I would worry about Louise, on her own, lonely, without your care and vigilance. She does take risks, you know, mixes with inappropriate society.” His frown deepened as she spoke. “Isn't it quite natural for a man to want his wife to be nearby? To bear his children. To make a home for her family.” She arched a brow at him.

“Of course,” he agreed. “We will travel together wherever you wish to send me.”

They had never openly spoken of his differences from other men. The thought of such a conversation was repugnant to her. But she had to let him know he must put aside his follies long enough to consummate his marriage and do his duty by bringing children into the world. She would come back to that task later. For now, she was satisfied with putting Louise at a safe distance from temptation.

“Good,” she said. “I have an opportunity for you.” She opened the file and took from it a copy of the letter of resignation she'd received a few weeks earlier, which now required her to send a replacement for the position. The post was one that promised to be difficult to fill, as experienced diplomats were likely to turn it down in favor of a more glamorous location. She handed Lorne the paper.

He blinked as he read it. His face went a shade whiter.

“I have decided to make you my new governor of the British Commonwealth of Canada.”

Despite the impropriety of sitting down before the queen gave permission, Lorne dropped suddenly and hard into the Louis Quatorze chair nearest the piano. She imagined him picturing the vast stretch of untamed, barely populated land that ranged from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. A northern land so immense it dwarfed little England, yet remained under British influence.

He finally found his voice. “I am of course honored that you'd—”

“Then you will accept?”

“I, yes. Well, how can I deny Your Royal Majesty anything?” He looked dazed.

She smiled. “Then you may pass along the good news of your promotion to your wife. You'll both begin making arrangements to travel to your new home, as quickly as possible.”