Seducing the Princess

by Hart Perry, Mary

  “Who is that? I don’t recognize him.”

  Jackson turned toward the paddock. Another horse had been brought out, and a groom was stretching the animal’s legs by leading it in circles on a long lunge line. “The fellow’s new. Here to replace Tom Feigel.”

  “Has Tom left us? Didn’t he have a good temperament for horses?”

  “One of my best, he was, Princess. But he had a bad accident and can’t work no more. I told the queen ‘bout him, and she approved of the new boy. He’s older than many of them we get from the farms round about, but the advantage is he has a good deal more experience with fine horse flesh. From up north he is.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I could tell. Has my mother met him yet?”

  “Expect she will soon enough.”

  Beatrice’s gaze strayed toward the dim interior of the barn. “I think I’d better go and see how he’s getting along, since he’s new on the job.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  But she was already striding in that direction, shutting out the stable master’s objections. She was tired of listening to people tell her what to do, or not do. After all, she wasn’t a child any more. She needed to remind the staff of that.

  She turned to the right. Three stalls down, she saw the young groom talking gently to the mare, easing a bit into her mouth. His voice was so soft and low that, at first, she didn’t realize he was actually singing to the animal in his buttery Scottish accent. He cupped the horse’s muzzle with the palm of one hand and stroked her gleaming brown neck.

  Beatrice stopped and watched, mesmerized. When he’d finished tacking her horse he led the mare out of her stall. The horse followed along with him docilely.

  “She likes you,” she said.

  The young man looked up sharply, as if surprised to see her there. “She’s a sweet lady, she is. I think she’s missed you, Princess. Seems ready to go for a ride.”

  “Well, I’ll be spending more time with her now.” She felt sorry for having neglected her horses of late, but her mother had kept her so very busy. And anyway, they did most of their riding at Windsor, where the royals had more privacy along the trails. “Here, I’ll lead her the rest of the way.” She held out her hand for the reins.

  “Very good, Your Highness. I won’t be a minute.”

  She frowned as she watched the groom dash back into the recesses of the stable. “A minute for what?” she called to him. “Isn’t Lady Jane ready?” The horse appeared saddled, bridled, stirrups adjusted. Nothing missing that she could see.

  “She is ready,” he shouted back, “but I need to get my horse. He’s further back.”

  Beatrice shook her head. What was this all about?

  She found Jackson in the yard, one boot braced on the rail of the paddock fence, watching his groom exercise the sleek thoroughbred she’d seen earlier. “Your new boy behaves as if he intends to accompany me.”

  “Princess, you can’t go out into the park unattended. You know that.”

  She did, of course. They never went for a drive in the carriage without at least two footmen, armed in recent years. When Brown was alive, he sometimes took her mother out alone, for a trot on her favorite mount. He had been a formidable man and protection enough.

  But, in Darmstadt, Beatrice had found it so refreshing to roam woods and field on her own, and then with just Henry. She hadn’t wanted an attendant along today. She yearned for another taste of that same privacy and independence. Aside from that, she more than half suspected her mother used staff to spy on members of the family and Court.

  “I will be fine on my own.”

  Jackson looked horrified. “There are those, Princess, would like nothing better than to—”

  “I know…wreak havoc on the Crown and bring down the government, using my family’s vulnerability to do so. But surely, not on Rotten Row!”

  Elton Jackson removed his tweed cap and wrung it in his hands. His whiskered, leathery face contorted with concern. “Please, Your Highness, let the lad go with you. He’ll be most respectful, won’t pester you at all. If you’ve any trouble with your horse, he’ll at least be there to help.”

  “I’ve never had trouble of any sort with Lady Jane.” The man was being insistent to the point of irritation. But she could see little point in arguing, out here in the middle of the yard for all to see. “All right then. I see him coming now. Help me mount. I’ll let him tag along if it makes you feel better, Mr. Jackson.” She sighed, resigned to the trade off. The groom’s company for a few precious hours of freedom from her mother.

  As soon as he’d seen her safely up onto her saddle, the stable master glanced behind him at the younger man, now astride a magnificent black Arabian. She thought she saw a worried look flash across Jackson’s craggy features. Beatrice knew this particular horse wasn’t popular with the family, due to his unpredictable temperament. He’d thrown more than one groom, but her mother insisted upon keeping him because John Brown had purchased him as a foal, for the queen, not long before he died.

  Just then, something else seemed to catch Jackson’s eye. Beatrice followed his gaze to a well-dressed couple, approaching on foot from the far side of the yard. At this distance, she recognized neither of them. Jackson quickly excused himself and rushed toward the pair, waving them over to the opposite side of a shed before Beatrice could get a closer look at them.

  Odd, she thought, what are two strangers doing on palace grounds? But movement closer to her robbed her of the fleeting thought.

  She turned to see the new groom walking his mount up to hers. He stood the horse and waited patiently, erect in his saddle, gaze cast at a servant’s respectful mid-distance, not meeting her eyes.

  “I hope you know how to handle that beast,” Beatrice murmured as she turned Lady Jane toward the gates. “Otherwise I’ll be the one helping you.”

  He laughed pleasantly. “I can handle myself with any beast, four legs or two. Don’t you worry about me, Your Highness.”

  His bravado was both off-putting and charming, in a strange way. Strong, hard-willed men appealed to her mother, but they had frightened Beatrice as a child. Now that she was an adult they still made her wary. She noticed the groom had strapped on a sword. She was about to object to the necessity of having an armed escort, but then Mr. Jackson might insist on a pair of the queen’s Beefeaters attending her. She’d be made a spectacle of and have to endure the stares of everyone she passed in the park.

  “I prefer riding alone,” she said when he started to bring his horse alongside hers. “But since it seems you must do your job, I’ll thank you to give me some distance.”

  He nodded but she sensed a smile not far from his lips. “As you wish, Your Highness.” He let her lead the way across the yard, then out through the tall wrought-iron gates with their gold-encrusted coat of arms, and from there across the road and toward the park’s entrance. As a child, she’d wondered if those spiky, black gates had been meant to keep commoners out, or royals in. Some days, she still wasn’t sure.

  Beatrice rode sidesaddle, as her mother had always done and insisted upon for all of her girls. Only Louise had eventually refused the polite convention and chose to straddle her horse, horrifying the Court and amusing the gentility of the city. If I had Louise’s pluck, she thought, I might even now be on my way to join Henry.

  But what if she was wrong and Henry didn’t love her enough to marry her in spite of the queen’s disapproval. Or, perhaps even worse, didn’t love her enough to stay with her always even if they did marry? If she cut her connections with her own family, and he later cast her aside for another woman, would her mother take her back? Or would she, Princess Beatrice, become one of those thousands of desperate women she’d read about in The Times, roaming the streets of London without home or income? Begging for money to feed themselves. Poking through garbage. Selling their bodies in exchange for a safe place to sleep.

  “Princess?”

 
“Hmmm?”

  Startled out of her dark thoughts, she turned toward the voice and suddenly remembered where she was and who had spoken. The groom. On his horse just behind her. And in front of her stood a horse-drawn omnibus loading passengers. She had missed the park gate and nearly run her horse into the back end of the thing.

  “Oh, sorry. I was miles away in thought.” She laughed, embarrassed.

  “Not a problem, Your Highness. Come then, follow me. I know another way.”

  He led her across a strip of grass, between two ash trees whose lowest branches forced them to duck down against their horses’ necks, and then they were in among thick foliage. Just when she thought he’d got them lost, they came out onto the carriageway that ran parallel to Rotten Row, the riding path traditionally reserved for the nobility.

  “Oh, I see, well done.” She laughed nervously, looking around, pleased that they hadn’t yet attracted the attention of other riders or occupants of the open carriages passing by, who seemed more intent upon themselves being seen than in watching her. “I’ll have to remember that short cut.”

  He nodded at her and smiled. She noticed, for the first time, his reddish gold hair, slightly longer than was fashionable in the city, so that it brushed his collar. His eyes, she could now see from this close up, were a gray-green, as alert as a fox’s as they scanned the wide path and nearby woods. He sat his mount with confidence as they rode at a relaxed pace.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Gregory, Your Highness.” “Gregory.” It suited him. Regal. A name of popes and kings.

  “Most everyone calls me Greg. Fits my current situation better, I expect.”

  He was modest after all. “And I understand you are a Scot?”

  “Grew up in Aberdeenshire. Lived there all of my life, ma’am.”

  Somehow, they’d come to be riding side by side again, and she didn’t object. Conversing comfortably with him while he followed her would have been next to impossible.

  “Why did you come to London, Greg?” She knew her mother would never have carried on a relaxed conversation with a commoner or member of her household staff. Somehow it made her feel more liberal and modern to show a personal interest in the man.

  “Adventure, I guess you’d say. There’s little for me to do up north. My two older brothers care for the farm and surrounding land, and the manor house, of course.”

  She stopped her horse abruptly and stared at him. “What sort of fantasy is this?”

  He laughed, his eyes dancing as if he’d known his last words would surprise her. “No fantasy, Princess. I’m not a peasant, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. I assumed, like most of the boys who come to work in the royal mews, you were a tenant farmer’s son.”

  “Well, we do run a proper farm on the estate, but we have a foreman to do the hiring and handle most of the actual labor. No, my dad’s a Lord, James MacAlister, and we’re an old landed family. He used to hunt with your father after your parents took over Balmoral and rebuilt her.”

  She still felt confused by his unorthodox background. “Then you haven’t sufficiently answered my question. Why come to London and why work in the queen’s stables?”

  “Why not?” He shrugged and grinned at her, revealing a captivating dimple in his right cheek. “What is the third son of a lord to do with his life except educate himself (if he’s wise), gamble and drink (if he’s not), and hunt? I was tired of living off my father’s stipend. Besides, I wanted to be useful. I love horses, and I’m good with them. So why not do something I enjoy?”

  “You could breed a stable-full of your own in Scotland,” she suggested.

  “Ah, but there’s another part to that equation.” He blushed and averted his eyes, and she realized she must have hit on a sensitive topic.

  She asked anyway. “Which is?”

  “Investing in fine horse flesh costs money. And keeping a large stable even more. My family has struggled to hold onto our property for as long as I can remember. My grandfather lost most of the family’s fortune back during Crimean War.”

  And then she understood. It was a tragic and familiar tale these days. Working as an equerry for the queen, Gregory would never earn enough to make a difference in his family’s future, but at least he wouldn’t further drain their resources. She felt badly for him and sensed his discomfort, talking about his family’s financial ruin.

  She changed the subject. “So, do you enjoy working in the Royal Mews?”

  He settled more solidly on his saddle and smiled. “Aye, I do, ma’am. I’m already very fond of many of the horses.”

  Without warning, his mount danced skittishly at a dust devil whirring in the dirt path just ahead of them. The horse snorted, eyes rolling, looking as if it were about to bolt. Beatrice gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her own reins, afraid the ebony Arabian might spook her mount. But Greg skillfully settled his horse with a firm rein and a subtle motion of his hand along the powerful horse’s neck.

  He whispered into the black’s twitching ear, “There now, fella. There now, naught a thing to fear. Tis just the wind singin’ to ye.”

  And as if by magic, the animal’s eye lost its panicked look. It snorted once more, snuffled softly then became serene and walked on.

  “How did you do that? Beelzebub is the terror of the stables.” For he was aptly named after the devil himself.

  “Giving a horse a name like that shows how little you know him. He’s a proud fellow, just misunderstood.”

  She studied the young groom, curious to learn more about him and his talents. She’d tell her mother about his masterful handling of the horse. It would impress her. The queen might arrange a quick promotion for the lord’s son.

  Beatrice was still lost in thought, focusing on her gloved fingers curled around the leather reins as they ambled pleasantly along the path, when a hand shot out and tightened around her arm. She flinched at the sudden pressure, cried out in shock and looked up into Gregory’s eyes.

  The groom’s expression had altered from gentle affection for the animal he rode to a mask of anger—eyes wide, lip curled to reveal a slash of white teeth. Her first instinct was to back Lady Jane as far and quickly away from him as possible.

  “Sir!” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free. “Release me!”

  But he held tight then shocked her further by dragging her off of her saddle. He swung her up and onto the stallion’s saddle in front of him, her back pressed tight against his chest. Before she could protest, he’d spurred his mount to a wild gallop, carrying her away.

  19

  Beatrice screamed for help but dared not continue struggling for fear of falling off the big horse while they were moving so fast. From behind them, she heard shouts. Good, she thought, someone has sent up an alarm. The police, palace guards, maybe both would hear and come for her.

  But when she craned her neck around to look past the groom’s left shoulder, behind the black’s straining flanks, no one was chasing after them. Instead, she saw two men in grimy rags attempting to drag Lady Jane into the trees.

  The truth of the situation suddenly dawned on her, all the more horrifying with the realization that she was not the one in jeopardy. “Horsenappers!” she screamed. “They have her. Stop them!”

  “I will,” Greg growled, leaning even harder forward and into her, nearly crushing her between his muscled chest and the horse’s neck as he urged Beelzebub to even greater speed. “First, I see you safe, Your Highness.” His breath rasped in her ear. “They would’ve knocked you from the saddle.”

  The heat of the man’s body radiated through her. She felt his heart hammering against her shoulder blade, his breath hot and moist on the back of her neck. She gasped for air and clung to the black’s flying mane.

  She’d heard of such outrageous assaults, but not here in the most posh part of London. Horses, dogs too, stolen from the wealthy then ransomed for princely sum
s. Thieves were so brazen they sometimes grabbed a leash right out of a dog walker’s hand and simply outran them, or snatched up small pets by leaning down from the back of a galloping horse. But the thieving of horses was most often done from an unguarded paddock or stall. Few were daring enough to attempt it in a public park.

  It took less than two minutes for the groom to race his horse back down Rotten Row, across the cobbled street and on toward Buckingham’s gates. Two guardsmen stood, arms at the ready, staring with obvious concern and confusion at the demon horse and its riders, speeding toward them. They raised their weapons. For a moment, Beatrice feared they might fire on them.

  “The princess!” Greg shouted, bringing the animal to a hoof-clattering halt before them. Beelzebub’s chest heaved like immense bellows beneath her, nostrils flaring, snorting. Dust rose up in gritty brown clouds from dancing hooves. The Scot handed Beatrice down to the guards. “See she’s safe.” He gestured with his chin to the yard inside the gate. “Thieves got her horse.”

  A soldier gave out a shout of alarm. An ear-piercing whistle blew. Before Beatrice could catch her breath or get out a word of thanks to her rescuer, she was surrounded by crimson-jacketed guardsmen who hustled her back inside the palace gates. She pivoted, trying to peer out through the iron grille then beyond the line of trees. But all she could see was the back of the brave groom, bent low over the glistening black Arabian, mane and tail flying as the pair disappeared back into the park.

  Moments later, a dozen mounted guardsmen chased after him, leaving her in a billow of dust, surrounded by growing confusion from staff who, having heard the commotion outside, began to spill into the yard as if pouring from the spouts of the castle’s many doors.

  Beatrice was only vaguely aware of questions shouted at her. She shook her head, unable to answer, incapable of focusing on anything but the line of trees that screened whatever drama might be happening beyond them. Everything had occurred so very quickly. One minute she’d been enjoying a pleasant ride. The next, Gregory was whisking her away and out of harm’s way, apparently having foreseen menacing signs she’d missed.