He trod heavily down the steps at half the speed he’d taken them up, deep in thought. A story was emerging that he liked less and less. Worse yet, it wasn’t one he could report to Louise. She’d be mortified if he told her what he’d discovered of the past she’d meant to keep hidden from him. And from the world.

Outside in the street he lit a cigar and breathed in the pungent-sweet smoke along with the coal-fire smog. His eyes burned, but somehow the air seemed cleaner outside the artist’s garret than in it.

He climbed into a hansom cab and gave directions to the driver. Sitting back against the rough cushions, he closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts about what he’d just now learned. Donovan had used his employers’ properties not only as a place to crash for the night but also to lure young women, regardless of their class. Byrne was fairly certain if Louise had known this about her lover she wouldn’t have sent Byrne to find Donovan. She must still believe he loved her as much as she loved him. As worldly as she pretended to be, the princess at twenty-three still held on to her innocence in at least that one respect.

Ah, Louise.

If this were the case, maybe his fear that she hoped to reunite with her lost lover was true. The knot in his stomach tightened another notch. He pressed a fist into the center of the pain and closed his eyes as the hansom rolled and jounced on through London. He sucked down another lungful of cigar smoke. It didn’t calm him in the least.

He thought: if Victoria had effectively chased away her daughter’s lover once, and he, Byrne, brought the young man back to Louise, resulting in the couple getting together again—that would be the end of his career. Victoria’s rage would know no limits. The first person she unleashed her bile upon would be him.

How had he gotten himself into this unholy mess anyway?

Despite his earnest attempts at investigation on behalf of the queen, things were becoming rather more than less complicated. A traitor lurked in the palace. Irish radicals were intent on blowing up or stealing a member of the royal family. Louise had dumped a mystery in his lap. And, most aggravating of all, he was struggling daily with unrequited urges because the object of his desire was a woman whose rank, not to mention marital status, meant he’d never have a chance to be with her.

He grew hard at the very thought of Louise. Her, with him. Touching him, kissing him, giving herself wholly to him. Indeed, God must have a perverse sense of humor to have created man’s sexual organs with absolutely no regard to the practical matters of selecting a mate.

He’d best find a willing woman fast, before he did something he’d regret.

Twenty-two

Louise looked up from the sketch she’d been working on. It was from memory. Her father, Prince Albert.

Her heart swelled with remorse that he’d been taken so early in his life, and hers, from them. Poor Bea had still been a baby, really. Louise couldn’t imagine she had much memory of him or of their happy family times together. Since his death, Victoria had clung in desperation to her mourning gloom, and expected all around her to join her.

Louise sighed. Thank heavens for her art. It was her respite from grief.

Today she was experimenting with a series of sketches of Albert, her very first preparations for beginning his statue. But getting the contours of his face and angle from which she viewed him just right—that was a challenge. Everything had to be perfect in the final sketch before she could even begin working on the small clay model that would enable her eventually to put chisel to stone.

She flipped a page and started again on a fresh sheet of paper, moving the tip of the willow charcoal wand across the textured white surface. Gently blowing away the excess black dust. Rubbing the long edge of the twig against the paper’s grain to create shadow beneath her father’s jaw. Tenderly smoothing and redefining the lines with the tip of her middle finger or side of her pinkie.

All ten of her fingers and the heel of her right hand were black with soot, her smock filthy, and she didn’t care. It would have been neater to draw with a soft-leaded pencil, but the effect wouldn’t have been as satisfying. Gradually now, the sense of light and shadow softened, breathing life into the face before her. She loved the tactile sensation of sketching with charcoal. She became one with her art, with her subject. The separation blurred between paper and human. Between past and present. Tears trembled on her lashes.

Dear strong, wonderful man. How she missed her father.

As she continued to work, a strong and commanding countenance evolved beneath her moving hand—dark eyes, square chin with just the hint of a cleft, Roman nose, a sense of the musculature that ran up from the chest to support a proud neck and head, thick hair that was too long but somehow just right.

Lowering her hand Louise drew a sharp breath and stared in shock at the face. “Oh!” she gasped aloud.

This wasn’t Albert at all. This face belonged to another man.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

Louise gave a start and snapped the sketchbook shut. She turned toward the lounge chair a few feet away where Lorne sat, reading in the sun. They hadn’t spoken in hours; she’d actually forgotten he was there.

“No. Nothing. It’s . . . Father’s statue. The sketches aren’t working at all.”

“Perhaps if I gave a look?” His blue eyes twinkled with humor, as if admitting he’d be of no help. His hounds and horses were his passion. To his credit, he’d given up both to keep her company that day.

She ignored his outstretched hand. “No, it will come to me. I just need to focus a bit harder.” And on the proper subject.

“Ah, Mr. Byrne!” Her husband came to his feet.

Louise’s heart stopped, then stuttered to life again. She turned around to find the Raven coming around the end of the hedgerow. Why did she never hear the man approaching? It was damned unnerving.

“Back from your investigatory duties, I see.” Lorne shook Stephen Byrne’s hand. “Any luck rousting out the hooligans?”

Louise watched the two men with an uncomfortable feeling. She glanced down at the sketchbook in her lap, wondering if she dared open it—to see if she’d truly captured the American. With a shake of her head, she quickly tucked her work away in the canvas bag at her feet and brushed what she could of the charcoal from her fingertips.

“Your Highness,” Byrne said, letting a nod in her direction suffice as a bow. “I’m just on my way to see your mother.”

His dark gaze sent a shiver through her. She wished she knew what the man was thinking when he looked at her like that, the meaning behind his eyes so nebulous. “Mr. Byrne.” She hoped he had the good sense not to report his findings with regard to Donovan in front of Lorne.

In the months since their wedding, she and her husband had come to an understanding, of sorts. Louise actually found Lorne’s companionship comforting at times. He was cheerful in a quiet way, polite, intelligent, docile, accepted her mercurial nature and insistence upon running her own life. If she wanted to be alone, he left her to herself. And if she felt lonely, he often made himself available for a game of cards, reading a bit of poetry to each other, or as an escort to the ballet or opera.

She never asked what he did with his nights away from her with his friends in Pall Mall. Some days he didn’t appear until the afternoon, his eyes red-rimmed from drink and lack of sleep. He favored several gentlemen’s clubs with questionable reputations—the Albemarle and Boodles, and worse yet, the Hundred Guineas Club. She knew this only from the gossip columns but didn’t doubt their veracity. Louise decided she’d rather not learn anything more than was necessary about her husband’s mysterious habits. He cooperated in the game by only casually asking about her activities.

Married life could have been far worse, she told herself.

She broke from her reverie to see Byrne turn, as if to leave. Louise stood up so abruptly she nearly knocked over the butler table, and with it the tea service. “Mr. Byrne,” she called out, “may I have a word with you? It won’t take a moment.”

She was aware of Lorne watching her with a puzzled expression. His gaze shifted with open curiosity from her to the American.

“It’s just a small matter my mother asked me to address with you,” she lied with forced cheerfulness as she tried to draw him farther away from Lorne. “An escort for Bea to visit with a little friend of hers. I’ll walk along to keep you from being late.” She turned with a smile to her husband. “This won’t take a moment, dear. Be right back.”

As they walked, Stephen Byrne observed her from beneath the brim of his plainsman’s hat, his expression as impenetrable as ever. She crooked a finger at him, as if he were a child being called off the park swings for naughty behavior. He obliged by bending down to better hear her.

“Why have you not reported to me, sir?” she hissed.

“When I have something of significance to convey to you, Princess, I will.” He looked down on her, unblinking, as convincing a show of innocence, she was sure, as any rogue could contrive.

“Do you mean to say that in all this time, you have found nothing whatsoever? Nothing that would indicate”—she glanced back over her shoulder at Lorne, far across the garden, who seemed engrossed in his reading—“where Donovan might have gone?”

“I’ve not yet located the man.” Byrne’s expression remained blank, his gaze fixed mildly on a marble bench placed beneath a hawthorn tree.