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.”