“Did you ask Louise about this?”
She observed him with something close to horror. “No! How could I? I didn’t want to make her sadder.”
Something occurred to him. “Do you know the name of your mother’s physician?”
“I did once, I think. But I’ve forgot now. Mama dismissed him soon after all this stuff happened.” She sighed. “Do you think Donovan was sad too—that Louise didn’t have her baby? And maybe that’s why he went away?”
“I don’t know, Your Highness.” It was all he could do to answer her, his throat was so tight, his gut a mass of knots.
What did they do to you, Louise? What did they do?
If Byrne had been in a black mood before, by the time Beatrice left him in the courtyard, he was nearly blind with fury. Wicked possibilities swirled through his mind. Victoria, who had married her daughter off to a man who couldn’t possibly make her happy, had meddled in Louise’s life before. What had happened between mother and daughter that had so disturbed Louise she’d refused to participate in court functions for months after her return from Osborne House? And why—when the family, often accompanied by the entire court, traveled together—was the fourth princess banished alone to the Isle of Wight?
He could think of only one possibility.
An abortion. Performed late in the princess’s pregnancy—if Beatrice was right about her sister showing her condition. It would have been performed by the queen’s personal physician, in a location away from the London gossips. An illegitimate child, killed before it was born or, if Louise was allowed to carry to term, soon after the baby took its first breath. The thought sickened him.
He supposed that such desperate means were not so very rare in a culture where, historically, royals had a habit of murdering each other for the right to wear the crown. Victoria wouldn’t have tolerated a wrinkle in the family ancestry, if there was any way she could help it. Although she had produced legitimate male claimants to the throne of England, bastard babies muddied the waters, sometimes laying claim to what they felt was theirs. If not the crown, then a title and royal stipend for life.
Regardless of the motive, he felt shocked and disgusted at the thought of what might have happened to Louise’s baby. If Beatrice was right. If it ever existed.
Byrne took off in long strides across the courtyard. He was nearly to the palace gate when he saw Victoria’s carriage stop at the porte cochere. A footman climbed down and opened the carriage door. Victoria appeared from inside the palace, attended by her son Leo and Brown. John Brown lifted the queen in his arms up and into the brougham, then climbed in after Leo. Byrne stepped back into the shadows and waited until the carriage had moved away down the drive toward the gate.
Byrne turned and rushed through the palace doors the queen had just left. Less than a hundred yards down the hall he reached the first of the royal offices. One of the queen’s secretaries sat at his desk, just outside her private inner-office.
Byrne stopped and smiled at the man. “I hope I haven’t kept Her Royal Majesty waiting.” He smiled apologetically at the man.
The secretary squinted at him, looking confused. “Oh dear.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve just missed her, Mr. Byrne. She only now left here for her carriage. Brown is riding with her though, so you needn’t worry.”
Byrne shook his head in mock consternation. “She told me she needed my report by this morning, as early as possible.” He did his best to sound panicky. “You don’t suppose you could flag her down before they get out the gate, do you?”
The secretary was already up and out of his seat. “It must have slipped her mind to tell me you’d be here. I don’t even have it on her calendar. She’s doing that more and more often these days. Forgetting things, not keeping me informed. I’m so sorry.” He rushed out the door, his words trailing after him. “Wait right there, sir.”
Not bloody likely.
Byrne spun toward the closed door leading to the queen’s private office. He tried the knob. It turned; not locked.
Byrne let himself in.
He crossed the room that had become familiar to him over the months he’d been detailed to the palace as a member of the queen’s Secret Service. Although he’d seen a range of file cabinets across one wall of the outer office, he suspected that anything as delicate as the queen’s personal medical records would be kept by her alone, away from the prying eyes of clerical help.
He bypassed the double desks facing each other in the middle of the room. Neither had collected a speck of dust although one hadn’t been used in all of the years since Prince Albert’s death. Victoria insisted on her husband’s blotter, inkwell, writing instruments, and framed portrait of her remaining on his desk, just as they’d been while he was alive and they’d worked here together.
Sure he’d noticed a file cabinet somewhere in the room, Byrne looked around. And there it was. Between the two tall windows, a small three-drawer mahogany chest. He squatted in front of it and pulled at the top drawer. It was locked, as were the two beneath it.
Byrne drew a slim leather wallet from his inside coat pocket. It held assorted fine-tipped metal picks. He selected one. Thirty seconds later, he was into the first drawer, flipping through neatly labeled file folders A-G. He moved to the second drawer on the theory that M for Medical should be there. It was.
Shouts wafted up from the courtyard. The secretary, calling out to the sergeant at arms to stop the carriage. How many minutes before the secretary, or an angry queen, appeared at the door?
He grabbed for the folder marked Medical. His eyes skimmed dates at the top of pages, moving back through the years—1870, ’69, ’68, ’67. He slowed down. Nothing in any of them about Louise or any of the other children. In fact, there wasn’t a word on any of the pages about anyone in the family but Victoria. Frustrated, he knew the most he now could hope for was the name of the doctor who had delivered the queen’s children. Did a gynecologist do that? He didn’t know.
Beatrice was the last of the babies in the royal family, and she was now fourteen. He looked in the appropriate year, found Victoria giving birth on 14 April 1857, at Buckingham Palace.
And there it was. The baby was delivered by a Dr. Charles Locock.
Locock. The name hit him with the impact of John Brown’s fist. He didn’t even have to stop to think about why it sounded familiar.
Was it mere coincidence that Louise’s friend Amanda had married a Henry Locock?
He fumbled the pages back into order. Closed the file. Shoved it into its place. Shut and locked the drawer.
The sound of a door opening in the outer office sent him rocketing from a crouch to his feet. Footsteps approached. Hesitated. “Mis-ter Byrne?” came the secretary’s voice, sounding irritated.
Byrne dove for one of the guests’ chairs, kicked one boot up to rest across his knee, and leaned back in a posture of relaxed waiting.
The door swung open the rest of the way. “Mr. Byrne.” Displeasure tugged at the secretary’s narrow, white face.
“I hope you were in time,” Byrne said with a note of concern, flicking a crust of mud from his boot and onto the pristine carpet.
“You shouldn’t be in here when—”
“No luck, huh? Too bad.” He stood up and moved toward the door. “Best schedule me at Her Majesty’s pleasure but preferably soon. She’ll want my report before the prime minister’s speech on Thursday.”
Twenty-eight
Louise sat with her family in the queen’s opera box. Victoria loved Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, and although Louise was somewhat less fond of the performers’ silly antics she adored music of all kinds. And the songs in The Pirates of Penzance were delicious.