“The note’s from Mr. Byrne, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s found out something more.”

“Aye, and you should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging her like that.”

“Should I?” She looked toward her mother, busy fending off objections from her other two children. She was a small woman, plump in her later years. But what Brown saw now was a woman whose course had always been set, whose will was iron and destiny had never been determined by any of the men in her life. Not even by him.

“I think she’s already made up her mind, Mr. Brown,” Louise said. “Nothing you or I can say will change it. You know that as well as I.”

He closed his eyes. “Then God help us come Accession Day.”

Forty-six

Byrne whistled up another hansom cab and rode directly to the address Prime Minister Gladstone had given him. He could have taken one of Buckingham’s carriages when he’d set out earlier, but he didn’t want to mark himself as coming from the palace.

Philip Rhodes lived in Bloomsbury, a respectable area of professional families. The town house appeared to have been divided into three ample flats. He knocked at the door and an aged man promptly answered. A quick conversation established that he was the landlord/owner who let out the two upper floors while he lived on the ground level.

“Is Mr. Rhodes in?” Byrne asked.

“He is expecting you, sir?”

“Actually, I’d rather hoped to surprise him.” Byrne showed off his most winsome smile and hoped for the best.

“Well, you can knock if you like. He’s right above me. But I’ve neither seen nor heard from him in three days, which is odd I have to say. He is a man of impeccable routine, he is, Mr. Rhodes. In and out of the house like clockwork.” He chuckled. “Private secretary to his honor the PM. Did you know that?”

“So I’ve heard. I’ll give it a go then, just in case,” Byrne said pleasantly.

He climbed to the next floor. Instead of knocking, he pressed an ear to the door and listened. Nothing. The rooms had the feel of a vacuum. No living sound from within, not even the buzz of a fly.

“You may have to knock rather louder,” the landlord shouted up the stairs. “He sometimes gets involved in his little hobbies and takes no note of the outside world.”

“Thank you,” Byrne called back to him. “But I think I hear someone stirring inside.” Although he did not.

He snapped open the blade of his knife and ran it along the crack between door panel and jamb. Its tip stopped at what felt like a latch. He manipulated the blade cautiously. Heard it give. But he did not swing the door open. Ever so gently, Byrne eased the door less than half an inch. Although the light in the hallway was limited by the single window at its end, he could just make out a slender wire as delicate as a spider’s web.

Clark’s handiwork, no doubt, on behalf of his boss.

He remembered seeing such an arrangement once before. That time his sergeant had beat him to the door. Before Byrne could warn him, the older man shouldered his way into the booby-trapped shed. The explosion had killed him instantly.

Now Byrne gently angled the knife blade and then two fingers through the crack and slowly sawed at the wire, supporting it with his fingers to avoid putting pressure on whatever it was attached to. He held his breath. Sweat dribbled beneath his shirt, pooling at the base of his spine, chilling the flesh in a spot the size of a silver dollar.

At first he worried the knife might only be sliding over the wire, doing no real work. But at last the strand divided. Standing back in the hallway, as far away from the door as possible, Byrne lifted one boot and eased open the door with his toe.

The hinge creaked but made no louder complaint. He breathed again.

When he walked in he left the door ajar behind him. The single window in the combined sitting and bedroom was closed but unlatched—Clark’s means of escape after setting the booby trap.

The room was not what he’d expected of a highly organized man. No clothing remained in the freestanding cupboard, but two flannel shirts and several pairs of socks in need of darning lay on the floor. The mattress had been slit open and sagged in a deflated lump off the bed frame. A mirror that had hung on the wall, as evidenced by the less faded rectangle of wallpaper, rested with its reverse side to the room, its brown paper backing torn off and hanging in shreds. Books were stacked against one wall on the floor and on top of the dresser. It was as if all that had been deemed important in the room had been hastily removed and all else abandoned.

The landlord would not be pleased.

Byrne went first to the mirror. The paper backing appeared newer than the mirror itself, which had undoubtedly come with the room’s furnishings. In fact, as he squatted over it he could see that it already had a much sturdier cardboard backing, probably the original. So Rhodes had hidden something of value here. Something thin. Letters or money? Maps? Or plans of some sort. Maybe blueprints of a targeted building. Whatever it was, it was gone now.

His stomach churned. Why remove something you’d hidden in a presumably safe place . . . unless you are ready to use it?

He turned to the disheveled bed. More than half of the straw stuffing was gone from the mattress. Not just pulled out, totally gone. Something had been stored in its place, stuffed up inside the mattress casing.

Byrne squatted down to study the canvas sack. He thrust his hand inside, felt around. Just straw. He ran his hand along the bed frame. He stretched out flat on his belly and slid head first beneath the oak frame.

“Hey, what you doing there, mister?” The landlord, at the door.

Byrne paid him no mind.

“You’re destroying private property. Won’t have none of that, will we now? I’m fetching the bobby down the corner, I am. Mr. Rhodes he’ll be furious when he sees . . .” The voice faded down the stairwell. An outside door banged shut.

Byrne rolled to his side, letting in more light from the window, through the frame’s slats and past his shoulder. There. There it was, as he’d suspected. He licked his finger and touched it to the floorboards midway across the width of the bed. When he scooted out from beneath the frame and lifted his finger to the light, fine blue-black flecks speckled his fingertip.

Charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. Black powder.

Rhodes had stored it here. A terrifyingly powerful supply, he estimated from the portion of the mattress that had been left empty. And now it was gone.

Which meant the Fenians were about to use it. For all he knew, the bomb might already be in place.

The question was—where?

Forty-seven

Louise peered out through the window at the top of the grand staircase overlooking the courtyard. Preparation for the Accession Day celebration had proceeded with all the energy of a military campaign. Servants had prepared elegant suites in the palace for distinguished guests. A steady stream of vendors delivered meats, fish, produce, grains, vegetables in abundance to the kitchens, hour after hour, day and night. Tonight the gala dinner would place immense pressure on the staff. Extra help had been hired, trained, liveried. Two footmen would attend each guest. The concert following the banquet included performances by scores of musicians and two famous composers.

Every person allowed entry into Buckingham Palace to work there was interviewed by the queen’s security detail. No guest would be allowed inside without identification.

But it was the procession by carriage to the church the following day that most concerned Louise, despite her support for her mother’s journey across London.

“I’m sure all will go smoothly,” Amanda said to Louise’s fretting.

Louise turned to her friend with a smile. “You’re probably right. Are you sure you and Henry and Eddie won’t join the parade? He’d love it, and I can arrange for a carriage.”

Amanda grimaced and pressed a hand to her immense stomach. Louise couldn’t believe only one child grew in there. “A bouncy carriage ride then sitting on a hard bench in church is not my idea of a pleasant day.”

Louise remembered her own baby’s ponderous weight and mysterious little kicks. His movements within her told her he was healthy, full of life, but also brought heartache every time she remembered he would not be allowed to stay with her. She looked down at little Edward now, entwined in Amanda’s skirts. He was small for his age. With his brown hair and eyes so much like her own, it was a wonder to her no one had guessed the truth. Even his mouth had the same gentle bow as hers.

Yet Victoria, well aware that he was her grandson, seemed immune to Eddie’s charms. Louise wondered if her mother actually had convinced herself the baby was Amanda’s, since she’d never seen Louise holding him as an infant. Her mother had a gift for pushing to the back of her mind anything she found unable to deal with on her own terms. Whereas Louise never seemed to stop worrying about every little detail. Only while she’d been with Stephen Byrne in the tiny servant’s room had all her worries flown away, like so many doves released in a carefree burst of flight, up and into the air. Such bliss.

She sighed, aloud apparently, for Amanda turned to her with a frown. “Something wrong?”

“No, my dear friend. I’m only concerned for you. Most women I know, with less than a month before their babies are due, take to their beds. Henry still encourages you to stay up and travel about?”

“As active as I feel able, he says. It’s the new way of dealing medically with pregnancy, he says. As long as I’m healthy and have the energy, he claims I’m less likely to suffer complications and will have an easier labor. We shall see if he’s right.” Amanda’s eyes sparkled with anticipation of the blessed event.