She stared at him, momentarily speechless. He was right. He was so very right. Hadn’t all of these reasons been behind her wishing to delay marriage?
“You will allow me to make my own life,” she said, feeling a little calmer now.
“Yes. And in return, you will protect me by being my wife in all ways but in bed. We will help each other as we can. It is the best I can offer, my darling Louise.”
He stood then, looking down on her with those beautiful eyes of his, as guiltless as a child’s, as winsome as a puppy’s. She had to look away. Her heart could take no more.
“My word,” he murmured, “you are lovely. It’s a miracle no man has yet captured your beauty in a painting.”
But one has, she thought. He did. Donovan.
“Please,” she said, her voice barely above a hoarse whisper. Please don’t reject me. “Try again, Lorne. For me.”
But when she reached out to him, he pushed her away with a look of utter disgust. “No. Not now, Louise. Not ever.” He shook his head in violent denial. “I’m sorry. So . . . so very sorry.”
And then he was gone.
Louise stared up at the ceiling over her marriage bed. Her eyes misted over, blurring the gilded cupids at each corner of the painted ceiling. It occurred to her that this was to be the first in a long series of lonely nights for her. And her appearances in public, as half of a happily wed royal couple, would be a sham. She lay back down, pressed her face into the silk pillow, and wept.
Four
Stephen Byrne rode his mount at a gallop, leather duster flapping against his road-muddied boots, up to the Queen’s Guard stationed outside the iron fence at Buckingham Palace. He presented his credentials and, when waved through the gate by the captain of the guard, rode into the yard.
Byrne adjusted the stiff-brimmed black felt hat John Batterson Stetson himself had fashioned for him when they’d met up in San Angelo, Texas—Byrne’s birthplace. But that’s not where his thoughts were today. He was relieved to see the queen’s party hadn’t yet left for Scotland. Some of the tension released from his road-weary back.
Three days after the grand celebration surrounding Princess Louise’s wedding to the marquess, carriages lined the raked gravel drive, looking like a parade of trained circus elephants—tail to nose. This was to be the couple’s honeymoon, though not a traditional one, because it included not only the queen herself but also part of her court. Starting with the largest and most ostentatious coach reserved for the queen and newlyweds to share, the carriages diminished in size and luxury to the humblest flatbed cart piled high with overflow luggage. The line of conveyances stretched around the drive, nearly to the Indian chestnut trees in the winter-ravished gardens.
Each carriage was accompanied by a driver and footman. Most appeared already to contain their passengers, but for a few gentlemen of the court who had become impatient and stood off to the side, idling about and smoking. He’d say from their irritated expressions they must have been cooling their aristocratic heels for a good while already.
He, for one, was glad the procession was running late. Catching up with the royal party on the road north would have made his task far more difficult. As it was, he thought the fuss and spectacle of the excursion to Balmoral, in the north of Scotland, ridiculous and foolhardy. He might have been amused had the situation been less serious. But things were far more grave than anyone in the queen’s entourage could possibly guess.
The journey required days of hard travel and necessitated overnight stops at the estates of the queen’s wealthiest subjects, who would then be obliged to provide lavish food, suites of rooms, and entertainment for Her Royal Majesty and her court. At least a portion of the passage might have been made easier if Victoria had agreed to use the new northern train line that she and Albert had enjoyed riding together. But she claimed now to hate the noisy, smoke-belching locomotives. So the trip up and back would be by plodding coach, through village after village after factory town, making the work of her security detail a veritable nightmare.
Aside from his feelings about the idiocy and unnecessary risk of such a trip, he had other opinions of the royal goings-on. If he were marrying—which he wasn’t, and never would—he’d damn well not take his mother-in-law and her friends along on his honeymoon. But then, the more he’d seen of the young marquess, the more he wondered if Lorne might not care one way or the other about protecting his private time with his new wife.
Nearly a year earlier, Byrne had first come to England as a member of Her Royal Majesty’s elite Secret Service, on loan from President Ulysses S. Grant’s detecting force, based in New York City. Now, as before, he did as he was commanded to do. He reported directly to the queen and never asked questions. Almost never.
To his frustration, his first assignment in England had less to do with the Crown’s security than with good old-fashioned matchmaking. “I require tactfully acquired personal information on several gentlemen I am considering as potential husbands for my fourth daughter,” the queen had told him.
“But, ma’am,” Byrne protested, “I’m sure there are other sources for such—”
“This is my preference,” Victoria said firmly, her gaze fixed on him like a leech. “You will say nothing to others of this assignment and report directly to me.”
There seemed no point in arguing.
Slowly he warmed to his task as he came to learn more about Princess Louise from a discreet distance. She was a blue-eyed beauty with a flawless oval face and long, soft brown hair. Her figure was much more agreeable to his taste than those of her sisters or mother. Somewhat taller than any of them, she lacked their classic Hanoverian bosom, which seemed perfect for the prow of a ship but less so for a lady in real life. And she was by far the best dresser of the bunch. To his mind, Louise would have no trouble at all finding a husband on her own.
He doubted she even realized he was watching, and investigating, her as closely as he was her prospective mates. He collected a detailed personal history for each gentleman as well as an inventory of assets, debts, assignations, and religious inclination. To this he added any gambling, drinking, or other addictions or obsessions Victoria might find distasteful in a son-in-law.
At first, the Marquess of Lorne was one of five men on the queen’s list and, to Byrne’s mind, by no means the most promising. He’d felt sure, once he informed Victoria of the marquess’s habitual attendance at certain disreputable gentlemen’s clubs in London—including the infamous Cleveland Street Club—as well as the gentleman-only private parties and weekend hunts in the country (no ladies allowed), she would immediately eliminate the minor lord as a contender for her daughter’s hand. Byrne had been shocked when the marquess rapidly vaulted to the top of her list.
This had awakened his curiosity.
Why would the Queen of England allow such a common—no, not even that—a questionable union? One that had the potential to result in scandal. Her three eldest daughters had married extremely well. Vicky, the Princess Royal, wed Prince Frederick William of Prussia. There was every reason to believe that “Fritz” would someday become emperor. Alice married Louis IV of Hesse and already had produced an heir and spares. Bashful Helena (known as Lenchen in the family) was only twenty-five but had presented her royal husband, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, with three babies.