Seducing the Princess

by Hart Perry, Mary

  Her mother’s tight-lipped expression revealed nothing, but her eyes sparkled darkly with mischief. “I shall consider my options in the upcoming weeks.”

  Beatrice gave up trying to interpret her mother’s mood. She closed her eyes for a moment on a wave of bitter-sweet emotion. It was too late now for her to stand at Henry’s side as anything but a friend, if he let her do even that. But she could feel happy for him. Whatever honor her mother might have in mind for him, it would bring him respect in society and help build beneficial contacts.

  “Oh, Mr. MacAlister, good!” her mother’s high-pitched squeal of delight startled Beatrice out of her melancholy. “I hope my summons didn’t take you from your duties.”

  Gregory MacAlister hesitated in the doorway but stepped inside the room at the beckoning wave of the queen.

  “Not at all, Your Majesty. I’ve just come from the kitchen. Cook gave me hot tea and a fire to sit in front of while I dried out.”

  “Ah yes, you were out checking on the safety of my horses. The animals are well?”

  “They are, ma’am.” His head bowed, he shot a sideways glance at Beatrice.

  She gave him a weak smile.

  “Do you expect the weather to pass soon?” the queen asked.

  “No, ma’am, I’d say it’ll get worse before better. Least that’s what the local boys are saying.”

  “Oh, dear.” The queen breathed deeply, her button eyes fixed on the window that would have overlooked the stables if it hadn’t been shuttered fast. “I worry that my dears will be frightened or the roof fall in on them. It’s quite old, you know. Albert would have had it replaced years ago if…” Her voice dropped away.

  “If it will make you feel better, I’ll bed down with the ponies for the night,” Gregory said.

  “You’d do that?” Her plump cheeks fairly glowed.

  “If it would comfort Your Majesty.”

  Beatrice tilted her head and studied him. Such a physically powerful man, yet so gentle and thoughtful. Always eager to assuage her mother’s anxiety. And yet… Why should she doubt his sincerity? Any member of the staff would do as much, wouldn’t they? But she couldn’t help wondering at the depth of his rich brogue and his always just happening to be close by whenever they needed him.

  She’d liked that he took a personal interest in her own safety, until the moment when he’d told her of his attraction to her. That was both flattering and exciting, yes—but she’d also felt uncomfortable with the idea. Didn’t she trust him? She supposed she should. But when she heard him speaking to her mother, so intent on pleasing her, he reminded her more of a jackal than a trustworthy hound.

  Beatrice shook her head, wishing away dark thoughts. Perhaps she was just in one of her moods, thinking ill of everyone when she should be much kinder. Or maybe it was the effects of the storm. Or because Marie was still missing, and she was growing more and more frightened by her absence with every passing minute.

  She bit down on her lip, thinking for a moment before she spoke. “Gregory, there is another problem for which we might need your help before we all settle in for the night.”

  Her mother snapped her head back from the window and lifted a brow in question but said nothing.

  “It’s probably nothing at all, just some confusion about my lady-in-waiting’s whereabouts.” The queen scowled at her, silently demanding explanation, but Beatrice directed all of her attention toward the groom. “I haven’t been able to find Lady Marie Devereaux, though I’ve looked for her since late this afternoon.”

  “Impossible,” the queen bit off. “The girl can’t just have disappeared.”

  “Yes, Mama, but—”

  “And now the weather is so fierce she can be nowhere but sheltered here in Osborne House.”

  “But she isn’t, or seems not to be.” Beatrice blew out a breath in irritation. She imagined her mother preparing an accusation, though how she could blame her personally for losing her lady was beyond her. “I’ve looked everywhere. From the kitchen to the ballroom and both of our bedchambers. It’s possible she might have gone off to one of the nearby villages on the island and got trapped there by the storm, but she’s never left me without permission. She’s nowhere to be found, and no one has seen her since before the storm broke.”

  “You must let that young woman go when you find her,” Victoria said. “This is inexcusable behavior.”

  Beatrice shook her head. “It’s not like Marie to neglect her duties. I worry that she might have had an accident and be lying unconscious somewhere in the house. Maybe in a wing or room that’s not in regular use. Or somewhere outside on the property. What if she did go into one of the villages and was trying to get back before the storm…and something happened along the way? An accident of some sort.”

  “Beg pardon, ma’am,” Gregory said, looking solemnly at the queen, “but I think the princess is right to be alarmed. We should alert the staff, search both the mansion and the grounds.” He turned to Beatrice. “I believe I saw her out walking not long before the storm struck. She seemed in a hurry, as if late to meet someone.”

  “Did she now?” The queen sent a piercing glare toward Beatrice. “Do you know of any assignations between your Marie and—”

  “Of course not. She’d have told me.” But then she recalled the French girl’s odd behavior in recent weeks, how unpredictable her moods had become—sometimes distracted, other times sulking or just sad. “I’ll alert the house staff. Gregory, perhaps you can instruct the grooms and the gardener’s men to keep an eye out for her. We can’t have them out searching for her in this gale, but as soon as it lets up—”

  “I will, Your Highness. Right away.”

  “A good lad he is, that Greg,” her mother commented, as soon as he’d left the room. “Just hearing his bonnie brogue comforts me in my loss of John.”

  “It’s not John Brown we should be thinking of now. It’s Marie.” Had she actually said that? Scolded her mother.

  But Victoria seemed not to have heard her. She was gazing at the photograph of herself on her favorite horse, with Brown standing steadfastly beside her, one big hand on the bridle. Her mother’s Highland protector. To be sure, after Beatrice’s close call with the horsenappers, they’d both viewed Gregory as her protector. Yet something about the intimacy of his speech and manner, and the way he looked at Beatrice, felt terribly out of place.

  After alerting the butler and housekeeper so that they too could inform their people of the missing Marie, Beatrice rushed back upstairs to her lady’s chamber, head throbbing worse than before. Massaging her temples, she rapidly scanned the room. Nothing had changed. No piece of furniture or article within the four buttercup-yellow walls had been moved. She crossed to the nightstand and took the letter from the Bible.

  Propriety be damned—this time she read it all, top to bottom:

  Cher Marie,

  Charlotte is well. Cheerful little soul as ever. Quite the good girl.

  The nuns say she is an angel. Do you suppose they know of her paternity? As to Father Pierre, you would think he doesn’t realize the child is his. He turns a blind eye when she passes by with her classmates, not even a blush for his shame.

  She learns well, is clever enough to write letters to you on her own soon. I will send one with my own as soon as she perfects her letters. She wishes to be perfect for you. Soon we will travel to Lyon to visit my brother’s family. There she will have playmates; his children are close to her age.

  The money you have left for us, and continue to send, provides well enough. There is no need to worry. A longer letter with more news next time.

  Yours fondly,

  Adele

  Beatrice wasn’t so much shocked as she was puzzled. So, her lady-in-waiting had a child. It must still have been a baby, left in the care of this woman, when Marie first came to Court. The queen had selected her as her youngest daughter’s companion. Thinking of it now, Beatrice felt
embarrassed. She should have been the one to choose the woman who would play such an intimate role in her own life. But then her mother always had made the important decisions for the family.

  Beatrice gritted her teeth. Something had to change. She couldn’t live like this any longer. She must take a stand. But first, there was the missing Marie.

  The girl had been utterly loyal to her until this day. Now she, in her royal capacity, must be loyal to Marie and assume nothing evil of her. Having read the full letter, Beatrice now understood why Marie had kept her child a secret. Victoria would have dismissed her immediately, had she known. One of “her girls” giving birth to a babe out of wedlock was bad enough. That it had been a priest’s child was ten times worse.

  Beatrice stood very still, looking around the room, her heart rate ratcheting up, notch by notch. She’d already discovered one secret hidden here. There likely were others.

  She focused on the mahogany chest of drawers across the room then rushed to it. In a frenzy, she began pulling everything out, drawer by drawer, onto the floor.

  41

  Gregory pounded another nail into a pine board, reinforcing the shutters from inside the stable while the wind did its best to tear them off from the other side. The sound of the gale was horrendous, like a monstrous steam locomotive barreling down upon the island.

  Whack. Words! Whack. Her words! Whack. Words lost in the howling wind. His hammer hand telegraphed pain up his arm with each violent strike.

  What had the bitch shouted at him as she fell?

  Marie Devereaux was taunting him, that was clear enough. But he’d caught only a few words, ripped from her lips by the wind. Even more troubling was that final defiant glare she’d given him. She’d actually seemed pleased. How could that be? She was about to die and she knew it!

  He plucked another nail from the canvas carpenter’s pouch at his waist, impaled the slat, putting so much force behind the blow, the wood split. “Bloody hell!”

  So what now? Assuming he’d never know what the girl had said, dare he proceed as planned?

  If he didn’t follow through, he’d have Wilhelm to answer to. Strangely, the German prince’s wishes seemed less important now. Gregory’s reason for wanting Beatrice had changed in the past couple of weeks. Willy required a spy; Beatrice was merely a means to an end, as far as he was concerned. Any connection within the royal household would have done. But Gregory needed her because she was his ticket to the life he deserved. A life of privilege and ease as a gentleman. A life of unimaginable wealth that required nothing more than charming a fat old woman and her daughter. After a while, he’d be relieved of even those obligations. Once the queen made him part of the family, they’d be hard put to kick him out without creating scandal.

  Whack. You’re worrying over nothing.

  He thought about the way he’d handled Beatrice’s, and the queen’s, concerns over the missing French woman. He’d acted suitably worried, pretended to be as much at a loss for an explanation as they were. They hadn’t seemed in the least suspicious.

  But his mind kept replaying Marie’s parting words, the few he was absolutely sure he had heard above the storm surge: You’ll hang!

  Well, of course the woman had wanted to lob one last pathetic, futile threat at him. Aside from those two words, he’d understood only one more: kept.

  Kept what? Kept her promise to him? Or maybe, she was saying she’d kept her child safe. Well, that was laughable. Once the money she sent for her bastard’s maintenance stopped, there was little chance the brat would end up anywhere but in a workhouse, or on the street with the rest of Paris’s orphans.

  Clearly, Marie hadn’t confided in Beatrice or the queen that she had a child, or that he had blackmailed her into helping him. If she had, the women would have confronted him.

  “Mr. MacAlister, sir, all is nailed down that can be.”

  Gregory looked out from his darkest thoughts and down the wooden ladder on which he stood. Two junior grooms stood at its foot. “Good lads. Go on then, catch yourselves a sleep. But be ready to wake and calm the horses if necessary.”

  “Yes, sir,” the younger one said, looking more excited than frightened.

  “And the search, for the missing lady, sir?” the older boy asked.

  “Not yet. If the storm weakens during the night, we go out at dawn. Until then, we’ll see nothing in this devil’s soup.”

  The boys took off. Outside, the wind’s scream pitched higher. It reminded him of Meggie’s wail of pain when he’d felled her with the rock. He shook off the stab of guilt. The Frenchie meant nothing to him. But that other memory was the price he’d pay his life long. Meggie, he really had loved her. Still, he’d do it all over again if it meant he’d get the princess as his prize.

  He climbed down the ladder, looked along the dim alley between stalls. Horses snuffled nervously. Somewhere far back in the barn, one of them repeatedly kicked a hoof against a rail, setting up a hollow rhythm that sounded like a drum beat in a funeral dirge. All the animals were edgy, ears pricked, eyes rolling. Horse hell.

  Gregory put away his tools and strolled over to the stable door that faced the stone mansion. He rolled the door open a crack on its iron tracks, and peered across the yard in the direction of Osborne House. The rain slanted away in solid blasts, a gray wall that completely blocked out the house. Not so much as a single chimney, tower, or gable visible.

  He looked behind him. The lads were mostly all busy, bedding down. Gregory pulled up his coat collar, tugged his cap down low over his ears, and launched himself at a run, into the storm and toward where the house should be, if it hadn’t blown away.

  He was less than six feet from the servants’ entrance before he saw the stone foundation loom up before him through the maelstrom. He caught himself against the building’s wall. A sentry came to alert and shouted a challenge. The man looked miserable, standing out there in the downpour in helmet and what looked like a tarpaulin slung over his shoulders. Gregory identified himself and signaled that he wanted to access the kitchen. The soldier waved him inside, looking envious.

  Gregory shouldered open the door; the wind caught it and slammed it shut behind him. Breathing hard he stood for a moment, listening to the house. Not a sound. All had gone to their beds. He stood dripping on the stone floor, thinking about what to do next.

  Beatrice’s bedroom was two floors above the basement kitchen. Marie had told him that’s where hers was as well, just next to the princess’s. But exactly which room it was, he didn’t know.

  He removed his boots then his Macintosh and hung it on a peg by the door with others belonging to staff. Miraculously, his shirt had remained dry. His pants were soaked through from cuff to knee, but there was nothing to be done about that. In stocking feet, he stealthily moved through the servants’ parlor to the back stairs used by the staff so as not to be seen while carrying out their daily tasks.

  When he reached the floor dedicated to the royals’ rooms he padded silently along the plush crimson carpeting. The low flames of the gilded gas sconces cast a murky, mustardy light on a long row of closed doors. He was suddenly terrified that, whatever door he chose, it might be the wrong one. If caught, he had no excuse for being here. None at all.

  So much was at stake. He couldn’t afford to make a foolish mistake now.

  He froze, debating whether to take the risk and just start opening doors.

  It was at that moment Gregory saw a tiny square of color stuck to a door on the left side of the hallway. Soundlessly, he moved closer. A note. He pulled the paper free.

  Marie, please come to my room and wake me, regardless of the time. HRH Princess Beatrice

  He smiled. Puzzle solved. This was Marie’s room. If she’d kept anything she had hoped to use against him, he’d find it.

  Beatrice startled at the sound of the door latch clicking open. Marie? At last!

  She stood up from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the
bed, sorting through papers she’d found in a box in the bottom drawer of Marie’s dresser. Her heart soared with hope then just as quickly crashed when she saw it wasn’t her lady at all.

  “Gregory, what are you doing here?”

  Her mother’s groom visibly flinched, apparently not having seen her until she spoke. “I-I was just…” He looked over his shoulder into the hallway, as if wanting to turn back the way he’d come, then glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand. He laid it on the fireplace mantle. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I thought—“

  “This is Marie Devereaux’ room. Whose were you looking for? All of the grooms are rooming in the loft over the stables, are they not?” He must have known he didn’t belong in this part of the house because she was sure she saw a flash of guilt in his eyes.

  “Yes, Princess, of course.” His gaze swept the room then snapped back to fix sharply on her. “The queen,” he said.

  “What about the queen?”

  “She asked that I search for Mademoiselle. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, search the grounds and island, after the storm passes.” She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering at his brazenness, daring to enter the private domain of the royal family without permission. She was certain her mother hadn’t given it.

  “And since we can’t search outside for hours,” he continued, “and your lady has been missing this long, I thought it important I begin right away. Inside the house.” His eyes skipped around the room again, seeing to take in its dishevelment—clothing, books, papers, tossed and piled here and there, marking the trail of Beatrice’s frantic hunt. “I thought, well, if there’s any place we might find a clue to where she went, we’d find it in her room.” He smiled.

  She considered his excuse and, at last, let out a held breath. “Yes, of course, exactly what I thought.” She waved an arm across the mess. “As you can see, I’ve done my worst with this room, but I’ve found—” she hesitated, thinking of the letter revealing the child “—I’ve found nothing.”