“Did you get rid of him?”

The only answer he got was a look meant to make him piss his pants. A look that had probably worked on others.

“I don’t take orders from you, Mr. Brown. The queen made that clear. She told me to look after her children. Louise’s safety might well depend upon someone answering her questions about this matter. Would you rather she take off on her own in search of her lover? Because if I don’t satisfy her, I’m convinced that is exactly what she’ll do.”

A sound emerged from Brown that was half growl, half moan. “She ain’t never goin’ to find him.”

“Probably not. But she won’t rest until someone can prove to her that Donovan is either dead or alive. And if alive, where he is. She needs to understand why he left her.”

Brown let his great bearish head drop back. He glared up at the coal-fouled sky. “That pretty little bairn has never been anythin’ but trouble for her mother.”

Byrne narrowed his eyes and studied what he could make out, behind the beard, of the man’s face. To what extent did this trouble reach? And what remedy had been taken to keep things quiet? Byrne felt an awful chill at the first possibility that came to mind.

“Did you, under orders of the queen, murder Louise’s lover?”

The words hung in the air between them. Brown appeared not in the least shocked by the accusation.

He laughed but then seemed to seriously consider the question, as if there might be multiple interpretations of the word murder. “No. I didn’t kill him.”

“Or send someone else to do the job?”

Brown’s features softened into what seemed a genuine smile. “You think I’m that low, Raven? A common assassin?”

“For queen and country.” Byrne shrugged.

“Aye, well, if she’d asked me to, I guess I would’ve. I hated the little creep. But she didn’t ask me.” His eyes twinkled beneath bushy brows. “I’ll admit to givin’ the boy a little fatherly advice.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Brown looked back at the palace, the sentries and a cluster of dignitaries in frock coats and top hats, arriving to do business of one sort or another in the complex of offices within the sprawling palace. “Let’s walk.”

They turned to the right and started off along Stafford Road, which immediately led into Queen’s Road, running parallel to the palace gardens and the royal stables. Brown seemed to need distance between himself and the grounds before he spoke further. Byrne kept pace in silence. The Scot crossed the street, turning left at Vauxhall Bridge Road, which would eventually lead to the river.

The River Thames, where bodies turned up daily, Byrne couldn’t help thinking. So close and convenient to the castle, winding off through the city . . . to the sea, which had swept away the guilt and evidence of many a crime before this one.

At last Brown said, “You can’t tell the princess but . . . her mother ordered me to send the boy packing.”

“I see.” If he could avoid passing this along to Louise, he would. The news might well cause an irreparable rift between mother and daughter, whose relationship was already strained.

Brown continued in a low undertone. “She was desperate, Victoria was. The lass got herself mixed up with these artsy-tartsy Bohemian types. They’re famous for experimenting with absinthe, heroin, all manner of drink and behavior worrisome to her mum. Donovan, he was the last straw, you might say. She fretted the friendship was becoming too cozy.”

This was what Byrne had suspected all along. If Louise had taken Donovan as her lover, she’d have lost her maidenhead—her ticket to a royal marriage like those her sisters Vicky and Alice enjoyed. She would have been considered “ruined,” ineligible as a virgin bride. Worse yet, if the union with a commoner produced an illegitimate child, might it not be held up as an heir—destroying the unsullied lineage to the throne? He wasn’t sure how all of that worked. Regardless, he couldn’t imagine Victoria sitting idly by while Louise had an affair with the young art student.

“What did you do to chase off the boy, John?” Byrne asked, glad they were having this discussion in public. He might actually survive the interview. “How badly did you beat him? So bad he might have accidentally died after you left him bruised and bleeding?”

“I didna touch Master Donovan.” Anger deepened the Scot’s brogue.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I do, as it’s the truth, you bloody Yank.” Brown stopped walking and turned to glare down at him. “I wanted to give him a thorough thrashin’, I tell you. But I knew if I ever put my hands on him, I would kill him. All I did was give him the money Victoria told me to take to him. It was in an envelope, sealed. I don’t even know how much she gave him, but she said it was enough for him to travel away from London and live off for a good long while.”

“That’s it?”

“Then I took him down to the docks and seen him onto a ship bound for Calais.”

Byrne still wasn’t sure he believed the man. “Was he distraught at leaving the princess?”

Brown roared with laughter. Passersby on the street turned and stared nervously. “Distraught? The lad was delirious with joy. Couldn’t believe his good fortune. He was jabberin’ on about gettin’ himself a garret of his own in Paris. No more posin’ for him. He’d be an important artist. I watched him break open the seal and peer into that envelope as if it were a bloody pot o’ gold. His eyes lit up like twinkly diamonds, they did.”

So Donovan had never been in love with Louise. Yet she still longed for him. It broke Byrne’s heart. Twice she’d loved the wrong men and received nothing but heartache in return.

“Thank you, John,” he said, meaning it. He stared down at his boots, wondering how much longer he could avoid telling the princess, if only to spare her heart.

“Then that satisfies you on Mr. Heath’s account?”

“Yes.” No. Byrne watched the other man’s eyes for signs of deception. Even now, a nagging twinge in his stomach told him something was wrong with the story. Or maybe it was just that parts of it were still missing. Someone—Victoria, Brown, Louise (all of them?)—was keeping secrets from him. Why?

If he had any sense, he’d do as Brown said: leave it be. But he felt compelled to discover as much as he could about Louise. He’d become obsessed with the woman—damn her royal hide.

The key to getting to the bottom of this moral quagmire, he thought, would be to find someone in the queen’s or Louise’s confidence. Someone in court or the family who might be willing to gossip about Louise’s wild years. Ideally, someone who also might have an idea who had smuggled a clutch of rats into a heavily guarded castle.

Twenty-five

Rupert Clark looked up at Westminster Cathedral’s soaring tower. He knew only enough about architecture to be surprised by the exotic mixture of light and dark brick work. It seemed more like something out of the Arabian Nights stories his ma used to read to him than in the middle of an English city. The cathedral was, of course, much larger than any church he’d attended as a boy. Meeting the Lieutenant here in the Chapel of the Martyrs seemed appropriate and reinforced his belief they were doing God’s work.

Although . . . he wasn’t ’specially keen to be a martyr himself.

Of course, Ma wouldn’t have approved of his methods. But results were what counted. Hadn’t she been firm in believing the South could only survive if it separated from the North? And wasn’t it just as important to the Irish to have their own governance?

So maybe God hadn’t been with them at Vicksburg after all. But He must have sorely regretted His neglect. The Fenians were giving God another chance.

Rupert led Will up the cathedral’s steps. The interior was breathtaking with its soaring ceiling, mosaics, carvings, gilded statuary, and hundreds of varieties of marble. At first he felt disoriented by the magnitude of it all. They wandered along the nave and took several wrong turns into alcoves, each with its own altar, before they came upon the chapel where the Lieutenant had told them to meet him.

Will hadn’t said a word since the runner delivered the note, calling them to a meeting. Now he followed along like a puppy dog—obedient but restless.

“Cat got your tongue?” Rupert asked. He breathed in a heady whiff of incense that had drifted from some unseen source. It reminded him of mass, back home, the priests dangling that smoking ornament that released a sweet scent.

Will frowned. “I’s just wonderin’ who this Lieutenant is.”

“Don’t,” Rupert said. “These Irish lads don’t want their names bandied about.”

“I mean, in a general sorta way. Is he a priest? Is that why we’re in a church?”

“Might be. Or he could just be clever. Safer this way, ain’t it? Away from prying eyes.”

“I guess.”

Rupert stepped farther into the chapel. The atmosphere felt cleaner here, fresher than out in the street’s stench. Here he smelled ancient wood, fresh wax, and odd aromas like the bear grease some gentlemen used to groom their mustaches or the rose water old ladies splashed on instead of taking a bath.

Fat, little crimson glass devotion candles burned in a rising bank, beckoning him toward them. He would light one before he went into the confessional. Might as well look the part.

“I don’t need to go in there, do I?” Will slanted a sideways glance toward the chapel’s altar. He’d once said churches spooked him.

“No. I’ll do it. You take on a prayerful attitude. See that old lady there?” Rupert pointed to a woman whose head was bowed as she prayed from her knees. “Do like that. Down on the kneeler, eyes closed, and no looking around. You know how to pray, don’t you?”