Sometimes he wondered if these feelings about the princess explained his animosity toward the young marquess. Was he jealous of the man? Certainly not. Jealousy required a man to believe he had a claim on a woman. And he had no right at all to Louise. None whatsoever. And never would have.

He stopped in front of the drawing room Louise favored most often. He pushed on the door with one finger. It glided open on silent hinges. And there, at last, she was. Louise reclined on a settee by the window, a book open in her lap, her lemon yellow skirts pooling around her on the seat cushion, her rich golden brown hair spread across a needlepoint pillow.

His heart stopped.

She seemed to know he was there even before she turned her head to coolly observe him with her pretty eyes. He opened his mouth to excuse himself for interrupting her rest but she spoke first. “You are discreet, are you not, Mr. Byrne?”

“Princess?” He stepped into the room, shut the door behind him.

“I mean to say”—her eyes slipped away from his as he moved toward her—“your attitude, manners, and dress are unconventional, to say the least. But since my mother seems to trust you, and she demands loyalty, honesty and discretion, may I expect you to treat me with the same regard?”

What the hell was the woman talking about? Could this have anything to do with her faithless husband? For a terrifying moment he feared she might have discovered that he’d followed Lorne and was going to request detailed information about the marquess’s nocturnal adventures.

“Are you asking,” he began carefully, “if I am keeping secrets for you . . . or from you?”

She winced, as if stung by an invisible insect. “Not exactly. I’d simply like to discuss your ability to keep sensitive information to yourself.”

He’d never liked court word games or the witty social banter so loved by the aristocracy. Its aim was to inflate the ego of the cleverer player and poke fun at the person who couldn’t keep up with the riddles and plays on words. He was tired, desperate to make progress toward stopping the Fenians, and fast losing patience with whatever sport this woman was proposing.

“Why don’t you come right out and say what’s on your mind, Your Highness?”

She glanced at him sideways, her eyes flashing. “Americans. So abrupt.”

“We get to the point quickly. It has its advantages.”

“Yes, well, I suppose that’s true. And perhaps this is one of those times when plain talk is most appropriate.” She let long dark eyelashes drift closed over her blue eyes and folded the book shut in her lap. When she opened her eyes again and pushed herself up to sitting on the settee, she again let her gaze slide past him and out the window at the end of the room. “I have a favor to ask of you, Raven.”

He narrowed his eyes at her use of the queen’s code name. He thought he knew what was coming. She was going to ask him to turn a blind eye to her husband’s dalliances. Or, even worse, as he’d first suspected, she wanted him to spy on Lorne. He said nothing.

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if reaching inside herself for the courage to continue.

“Some years ago,” she began in the softly distant voice that might have signaled the beginning of a child’s fairy tale, “when I was attending art school in Kensington, I made many friends. They were good people and great fun to be around. I felt a delicious sense of freedom while there. No castle walls to contain me. No tutors, parents, or staff to constantly control my life. No court gossips to report my every move. I became my own person, a little canary sprung from her cage.”

“The queen allowed you to attend a public school with commoners, unchaperoned?” Knowing Victoria, he couldn’t believe that was possible.

She flashed him a mischievous smile. “Not precisely. I gradually convinced my mother that, while I was in my classes, it would be a waste of one of her ladies’ time to sit with me. Eventually a footman became unnecessary as well. All I had to do was bribe my driver to spend the day with his daughter on the other side of the city. Then I could come and go as I pleased during the day.”

“Naughty girl.” He kept a straight face, giving away nothing of the little he already knew of those years in her life.

“Yes, well, I suppose I was. As well as naïve, and foolish.” She brushed a hand through the air, as if waving away the years as well as her innocence. “At any rate, there was one particular friend, a young man not much older than I at the time—eighteen. His name was Donovan Heath. A special companionship developed between us.” Color rose beneath the ivory surface of her cheeks. She immediately stood up, tenderly clutching her book to her bosom as if it were a child. She walked with a brisk step away from him toward the window and stared out into the distance. “He became very dear to me, Mr. Byrne.”

From her protective tone, he understood she would reveal no more about the relationship. But he was fairly sure from her wistfulness and sudden high coloring that this encounter, however far it had gone, had been her first romantic experience. He’d been told by more than one lady that a woman never forgot her first lover.

Byrne held back the questions that immediately sprang to his mind. More than anything, he wanted her to continue talking. Her voice came to him as a kind of melancholy melody. Her words, lyrics heavy with emotion. He sensed this conversation was not only difficult for her; this might also be the very first time she’d spoken about this matter for a long time.

“One day, Donovan just went missing,” Louise said, keeping her back to him, her gaze reaching far and away, as if she could see out the window and past the distant hills purple with spring heather. “He gave no indication that he would be leaving London or that our friendship should end. I looked for him, of course, concerned for his welfare. London can be a dangerous place. But none of his friends knew where he’d gone.”

“He broke your heart.” The words came out before he could bite them back.

“No!” She spun to face him, her eyes bright with denial.

He watched her take a breath in an attempt to compose herself, but it didn’t seem to work. She put her book down on a table and paced in agitation in front of the window, hands clasped over her skirt, gaze fixed in fierce concentration on the carpet.

“That’s not how it was, Mr. Byrne. I was just worried about him. You see, he had no money. He depended upon others for a little work and food. He mostly slept in artists’ studios. The poor boy might have fallen sick, or been injured. Don’t you see? He had no one to go to for help, except to me.” She stopped and turned to Byrne, looking directly into his eyes, as if to force him to understand. “And he would have come to me. I am certain he would have . . . if he could.”

He now saw where this was going. “You want me to find out what happened to Donovan Heath.”

“Yes, if you can. Yes, please.” The words rushed out of her, as if she were both ashamed and excited by the possibility. “And if he is still alive, I’d like to know where he is now.”

Bad idea, he thought. Very bad. “Is that wise, Princess?”

Her eyes widened at his questioning her. “I don’t care whether it’s wise or not. It’s not your job, Mr. Byrne, to doubt my wisdom or argue my decisions. I am asking this as a favor. No, not as a favor,” she hastily amended with a dismissive flutter of her hand. A nervous gesture she shared with her mother. “I understand your mercenary nature. I will pay you well for your services. Consider it a job.”

He stiffened at her implication. “I already have a job. And money isn’t the reason I joined the queen’s Secret Service.”

She sniffed and turned her back to him. “Very well then. I shall find someone else.”

He lifted his eyes to the vaulted ceiling and shook his head. Bother. Now he’d made things worse, hadn’t he? He’d angered her. If he didn’t accommodate her, or at least pretend to, she would stop listening to him, no longer heed any warning or advice he gave. No matter how serious the issue or how dangerous the situation into which she was prepared to thrust herself.

Byrne wasn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions, but there was no other way. “I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness. I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just that, in my experience, the past is often best left . . . in the past.” He watched her lovely shoulders rise and fall as she took a deep breath.

Slowly, as if the slightest movement required deliberate effort, she pivoted to face him. She blinked several times—flecks of darker blue within paler irises. And he realized, to his dismay, she was trying to hold back tears. For the first time it struck him that she might still be in love with this Donovan bloke.

He let out a breath of resignation. “All right. Listen, I’ll do what I can. And I suspect your little speech about discretion at the beginning of this conversation means you don’t want me to mention this investigation to anyone, including your mother.”

She gave a tiny nod of her head and started to raise a sleeve toward her face, as if to blot away the tears brimming over her lashes. But she thought better of revealing too much and stopped herself. “Thank you. Yes. That’s my wish.”

“There is one problem,” he said.

“And that is?”

“I’m supposed to remain here at Balmoral, watching after you, your sister, and brothers. Leaving will be interpreted as a neglect of my duty.”

“I see.” She looked so utterly bereft and disappointed he wanted to wrap his arms around her in consolation, but he planted his boots and stayed where he was. For a moment her eyes flitted about the room, as if searching dim recesses for an answer to her problem. “So you’re afraid of my mother too?”