Seducing the Princess (24 page)

Henry Battenberg had been to sea with the Prussian navy. Thus, sitting in his private compartment in the train heading southwest from London and across the English countryside, he only had to look at the threatening sky to know a squall was in the making. He also knew the risks of getting anywhere safely by water in a bad storm. A ship might get caught in open water during a storm and successfully fight its way into the nearest port, but no captain in his right mind would deliberately choose to set out in raging seas.

By the time he transferred to a hired carriage and was racing toward Southsea and the ferry docks, the sky had turned a slimy greenish-black with bloody streaks.
The color of putrefying flesh,
he thought. The air felt as if the oxygen had drained out of it, leaving him short of breath. His shoulders ached with tension. Pressure built in his head. And then the rain started in earnest. And didn’t stop.

He could only hope that Louise and her American had already made it to Osborne House.

Henry rapped on the roof of the carriage to get the driver’s attention. “How much farther is it?”

“If the rain stops, another two hours, sir. If it don’t, we’ll be on the road the night long.”

“No-o-o,” Henry groaned.

“Chances are you’ll have a good long wait afore a boat goes out from Southsea, if that’s your plan, sir.” And hadn’t he already told himself as much?

“I’ll make my own chances, thank you,” Henry growled. “Just drive.”

But fellow seemed unfazed by his passenger’s curt tone. “You’ll be better off, sir, finding shelter. Not six hours ago I picked up a couple from the station, bound for the queen’s house on the island.”

Henry’s heart leapt with hope. Louise and Stephen Byrne! “You got them to the boat, and it sailed?”

“No, sir. The gent, he were smart enough to know not to try. Wind was blowin’ up fierce. I left them at the inn in the village.”

Henry swore then made a hasty decision. “Take me to the inn.”

“That I will, gov’ner.”

Henry threw himself back against the seat cushion and stretched his legs out, crossing his boots over his traveling bag on the floor of the carriage. His trip had been pell-mell, every step of the way from the docks in Dover. But he’d been reassured by his belief that Louise would have reached Beatrice by now and made sure she was safe. Something must have held them up.

The most maddening thing about this mess was realizing all that he
didn’t
know. A flirtation with a groom wasn’t the end of the world. But his last communication with Louise made it sound as if there was something more threatening about the man than his being a cad. She’d also implied that the letters Henry had sent Beatrice still hadn’t reached her. How was that possible? He’d sent dozens.

At the inn he paid his driver and gave firm instructions. “Soon as you see the least sign of clearing, get yourself back here. I’ll pay you double your usual fee to deposit me at the docks the moment the sea’s calm for travel.”

The man winked at him. “Other folks made the same arrangement. Looks as I’ll be doin’ a profitable-good business.”

Disgusted by the driver’s greed in the face of his passengers’ troubles, Henry rushed inside. The space between carriage door and the inn’s portico was only twenty feet. Nevertheless, he was soaked in the driving rain by the time he burst into the candlelit pump room. He looked around for the innkeeper.

From behind him came a female cry of delight edged with hysteria. “Henry! Oh, God, what are we going to do?” Louise threw herself at him and hugged what little breath he’d left out of him.

“Your Highness, tell me what is going on,” Henry said. “Your note told me so little.”

“I’ll let Stephen explain. He’s a bit calmer and more up to date on things. Have you two formally met? His Serene Highness Prince Henry of Battenberg—Stephen Byrne, formerly of President Lincoln’s security detail, American civil war veteran, and my mother’s one-time Secret Service agent.”

Henry raised a brow. “Quite a résumé.”

“Quite a title,” Byrne responded with a wry smile.

Henry did not ask what role Byrne played in Louise’s life, but he sensed an easy companionship between them. Perhaps spiced by something more, upon which he was too much the gentleman to remark. But he couldn’t resist one question. “What brings you to England, Mr. Byrne?”

“I enjoy travel,” the American said. “Except when it’s required by an emergency involving someone I care about. I’ve known the royal family for over a dozen years now—” He pointedly looked away from Louise. “—some better than others.” She blushed anyway, and he continued, “Beatrice is too nice a person to be involved in the intrigues of those who would harm the Crown.”

“I agree.” Henry leaned toward Louise and lowered his voice, as others were in the room and he sensed their interest. “Waste no time. Tell me, what has happened.”

Louise put her hand on his arm as yet another man burst through the door, wet from cap to boot and shaking off rain like a big dog. “We don’t know for certain yet, Henry. But come. Let’s find a quiet corner out of the way of the door and more travelers fleeing the storm.”

They took command of a heavy table near the fire where the couple must have been sitting before Henry arrived. He saw a black leather overcoat that must have been Byrne’s, laid over the back of one of the chairs.

Louise sat and beckoned to her companion. “Stephen, hot tea and biscuits until something more fortifying is available, don’t you think?”

“I’ll see to it,” and he was off toward what Henry assumed was a kitchen.

Louise looked up from beneath thick lashes. “Someday I’ll tell you the story of the most remarkable circumstances under which Mr. Byrne and I met. For now, it’s unimportant.”

“Understood. A private matter between the two of you.” He cleared his throat. “You are safe with him?”

“Utterly,” she said, and gave him a dazzling smile.

“Good. Now, about Beatrice.”

“A little from me, then the rest from Mr. Byrne,” she said, smoothing her skirts, eyes lowered. “First, I must ask why you have forsaken my sister.”

He hadn’t been prepared for such a question. “Forsaken her? I told you, I wrote to Bea of my dreams, my plans for our life together, with such tenderness…but it was for naught. It was she who stopped responding. I was confused at first, then realized it was unkind of me to press her for a commitment if she was reluctant. Clearly she was reacting to the queen’s refusal to bless our union. I felt it was kinder to let my supplications lapse, rather than cause her more pain.”

“I see,” Louise said, with equal weight to each word.

“But now in your own letter, you made me feel I still had a chance. I had hoped by mounting the expedition to Khartoum I might change the queen’s mind about me and then I could try again to ask for her blessing. Do you not think that’s possible?”

“I think,” Louise began slowly, “there stands more in your way than my mother—which is saying a great deal when one considers that the queen is a force to be reckoned with on her least aggressive days.”

Henry didn’t even attempt a smile. There hadn’t been the least hint of humor in the duchess’s tone. “This stable boy Bea has developed a fondness for—he can’t be a serious threat.”

“He’s more than a boy or regular staff, Henry. I’ve met him. He’s the son of a Scottish lord and a very charming young man indeed. Perhaps too charming.”

“Are you talking about me again?” Stephen Byrne had returned with a serving girl in tow. He carried a pewter tea service, and she a plate of plain looking biscuits that Henry hoped weren’t too stale. He was starving.

“You’re not charming as much as a rogue,” Louise teased the American. “Come sit with us, and let’s bring Henry up to date. I was just beginning to explain Mr. Gregory MacAlister.”

Louise poured dark, steaming Darjeeling tea all around. Henry watched Byrne’s face harden at the name. The American didn’t take up a biscuit or touch his tea cup. All business, it seemed.

“From what I’ve been able to learn,” Stephen Byrne began, “MacAlister is a penniless third son of landed gentry struggling to hold onto their land. He also has a very interesting but questionable past.”

Henry polished off a second biscuit that gave him a shot of energy, though the pastry was lardy and none too tasty. He sipped his tea and his stomach felt marginally fortified. “Questionable in what way?”

“As long as the family had money they sent their sons to schools on the Continent. Gregory MacAlister and his two brothers schooled at the University of Bonn. It appears one of Gregory’s closest companions during those years was a young Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert of the House of Hohenzollern.”

Louise added, “Better known as Willy in our family. He’s my nephew and the queen’s first grandson.”

“Yes, of course,” Henry said. “I know him but haven’t spent much time in his grandfather’s court. He’ll be emperor soon enough, I assume. Good Lord, the Scot ran with a rich crowd!”

“Yes. He also managed to run wild whenever he was at home in Scotland. The father had a job keeping his son out of trouble. Gregory nearly was imprisoned after beating and almost killing one of his father’s staff.” Byrne’s eyes fixed solemnly on Henry’s. “Guess who he ran to for help?”

“Wilhelm?”

“Right. So they’ve stayed in touch, swapped favors. Probably a good deal more to it than I could dig up. But it seems less than a year ago Wilhelm visited Scotland on a hunting trip and spent three days as MacAlister senior’s guest. It was soon after that Gregory decided to leave Scotland and come to London to work in the queen’s stables.”

“Not likely a coincidence,” Henry muttered, feeling a bit ill. Oh, God—Bea was at the mercy of this rogue?

Byrne nodded his head. He turned to Louise. “Do you suppose Willy influenced your mother to give MacAlister a job because he needed to get out of another sticky situation at home?”

Louise leaned back and sipped her tea thoughtfully. “I seriously doubt it. Mama hasn’t trusted my nephew since he was a child. She can’t abide temper tantrums, and he threw them repeatedly when he wasn’t given his way. Still does, I understand, although with more serious consequences for those who provoke him. No, she wouldn’t listen to anything he says.”

Henry said. “Then it doesn’t make sense. This Gregory has been living the life of a wastrel, you say, for years. Why would he stoop to the hard life of a lowly stable boy now? Why not run through the rest of his father’s money?’

“As I’ve said, maybe he became involved in another incident, like the attack on the boy that chased him to Germany,” Louise suggested. “Did you find anything like that, Stephen?”

“Not exactly. What I did find was this.” He took a swallow of tea, but glanced toward the bar as if longing for something stronger. “I made a quick run up to Aberdeenshire. He had a regular lady friend, a farmer’s daughter. Those in the village said the girl spread it round that it was only a matter of waiting until the old man died before they married. And then suddenly, Gregory appeared to no longer care about waiting. He announced their engagement, and they were to quickly marry.”

“And?” Henry didn’t like the sound of this.

“Day before the nuptials, the pair ride out on horseback. She falls and is killed.”

“Convenient.”

“Henry!” Louise gasped.

“I’m sorry, but it seems an unlikely match and not of any profit to him who needs money to sustain his high living.”

Louise pinched her lips together. “Maybe it really was an accident, exactly as it seems. Maybe the poor man was so distraught over his bride’s death, he couldn’t stay in the country where she’d died. It’s a sad story.”

“Sad for her,” Byrne said grimly. “I am more inclined to think the Scot was clearing the deck.” He glanced at Henry. “To put it in naval battle terms. He couldn’t very well have this girl knocking about, questioning him about working at the palace, expecting him to come home to her. Not if he had higher designs—such as marrying someone else.”

“Not marrying my sister!” Louise burst out in hysterical laughter. “That’s preposterous. My mother would never allow it.”

“Surely not,” Henry chimed in.

Byrne looked from one to the other of them but settled on Louise’s face. “Can you think of no situation when your mother might grudgingly endorse her daughter’s marriage to a man socially beneath herself?”

Henry watched Louise flush a violent red then just as quickly pale. She reached out to squeeze his arm. “Please, no, Stephen. Don’t even think that.”

The American kept a steady eye on her and, as if by habit and without thinking, reached out and covered her hand with one of his own. There was such tenderness in the gesture, Henry looked away, at a loss for what Louise had meant. “The queen may be stubborn,” Byrne said, “but she’s capable of learning from personal history.”

When Henry looked back, Louise had closed her eyes and was visibly trembling.

What? What are you talking about?
Henry wanted to shout at them but contained himself. Obviously an intimate message of sorts had passed between the two of them. He waited, holding his breath until Stephen Byrne turned to him.

“Gregory MacAlister has a black streak in him, Henry. He nearly killed one man for a minor offense. The fellow accused him of cheating at gambling. Also, it’s my theory he intentionally ran down the groom whose place he took in the royal mews. Then, let’s say there’s at least a chance he had a hand in dispensing with his fiancée to free himself to marry better. He wants a quick fortune—how better to achieve it than by marrying the queen’s daughter? It may seem an insane fantasy to us, but to him it’s a promising plan. If he’s anything like Willy, his school-days pal, he’s ruthless and capable of anything.”

“But murdering a woman he’s made love to in cold blood?”

Byrne rested a hand on his shoulder. “Henry, I’ve witnessed far worse. And if the man is willing to go this far to get what he wants, what do you suppose he’d do if he has set his sights on Bea and she refuses him?”

Louise closed her eyes and shuddered.

Henry looked at her then at Byrne, panic welling up inside of him until he could barely breathe. “The queen would never agree…not to marriage.”