Never in her life had she fainted, and she damned well was not . . . going . . . to . . . now.
Louise sat up so quickly that Lorne leaned away too fast, nearly falling off the mattress.
“What are we going to do, Lorne?” she shouted at him. Only one other time in her life had she been this furious with another person. “What do you imagine our life together will be like?”
He sighed. “I imagine, my dear, very little of it will be together, as you put it. If I were a man like so many others, I’d be supremely blessed to have you in my bed. But I’m not and won’t apologize for my taste in lovers.” He looked surer of himself now as he continued dressing. “My concern is what I’ve done to hurt you. I know now I cannot make love to you any more than I can to any other woman. It’s simply not in me. I’m sorry that there will be no children, at least not from these loins.”
“Then you tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do. Am I then expected to seek a lover?” she shouted at him, having recovered enough to shift from crushed to furious. How could he put her in this position? Worse yet, how could her mother have contrived such a union?
A shadow crossed Lorne’s delicate features. “I don’t know, my dear. I can’t tell you what to do.” He smoothed his shirtfront, took a shuddering breath. “If it becomes known that you enjoy the company of other men, and I do nothing to interfere, surely questions will be asked. Suspicion will fall on me.”
“Then I shall be forced to remain celibate? Be denied children? Denied pleasure in a man’s arms?”
He shook his head, as if acknowledging the unfairness of the situation but helpless to suggest a solution.
Suddenly, his face brightened. “I have something to offer you that other husbands don’t.”
“And that is?”
“Freedom.” He quirked one eyebrow and smiled, looking pleased with himself.
She scowled at him, confused.
“Freedom,” he explained, “to be Louise.” He stepped back toward the bed, took her hands again, moved his face close to hers and spoke with something that sounded like admiration. “You’ve never wanted to be like other female royals. That’s what I’ve always admired about you, my dear. You’ve lived a Bohemian life among artists and friends you’ve chosen from among commoners as often as from nobility. Amanda and her family being a case in point. You’ve aligned yourself with reformists for the rights and protection of women. You’ve built for yourself a truly independent lifestyle. All of this would be taken from you if you married any other man in our day.”
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.
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.
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