The Wild Princess Read online

  He still held her hand. She looked down at their touching fingers. Hers gloved. His naked and pale, long and graceful. She would sculpt a model of his hand one day, if he let her.

  “Can you come back, Louise?”

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Come back?”

  “Another day when I’m not working. If you like. Say, on Thursday after school?” He lowered his voice still more. “Rossetti and Morris will be gone then, to the exhibition hall, setting up their paintings for display.”

  She peeked over his shoulder again at the two men, so intent on their work. They probably hadn’t even noticed the carriage outside. Or her standing like a peddler at their door. She looked back at Donovan. “We’d be alone then?”

  He nodded, his eyes fixed on hers. She wondered that she hadn’t already melted under his gaze, as if she were pinned beneath a magnifying lens like the one Leo, when he was little, had used for roasting flies and moths in the sun’s burning rays.

  “So we could talk more,” he said. “Would you like that?”

  “I would . . . yes, of course.” Then the words she’d been holding back rushed out of her. “I would so very much like for us to be friends, Donovan. We could talk about all the things that are important to us.”

  He smiled. “Good. Come after class. Bring food if you like. There’s nothing here, and we might get hungry.”

  “Yes, of course. Yes, I will.” A picnic in an artist’s garret—how scrumptiously romantic.

  But part of her felt the tiniest bit unsure of the circumstances. Could she really do this? Come here, alone, to this common man’s part of the city, late in the day when it might soon become dark? Come here to be alone with a man in the place where he lived? As Vicky would have said: “This simply isn’t done.” Louise didn’t dare think what her mother would say.

  Louise had already started backing away toward the top step when Donovan leaned out through the open doorway and brushed his lips across her cheek. An appalling breach of etiquette. She should slap him and leave. Refusing his invitation would certainly be appropriate.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he whispered, his bashful gaze lingering, encouraging.

  Her heart fluttered. “I’ll be here.”

  Sixteen

  To have friends, real friends—not a brother or sister or cousin required to include her in their games or make polite conversation—this was thrilling to Louise. She and her eight siblings had been isolated from the world and under Nanny’s care until the age of five, when they could be handed over to governesses for strict tutoring.

  Prince Albert’s personal adviser, Baron Stockmar, took charge of their education and allowed few breaks from their books. Of course, they must all learn to ride, hunt, dance, and behave properly in court. But as young children they were not allowed at court functions and were never, ever exposed to commoners.

  Louise recalled her parents describing the middle and lower classes as dirty, immoral, simple-minded folk who were incapable of anything more mentally demanding than manual labor. It was fine to pity or act charitably toward the poor souls, but that was the limit of contact. Even the sons and daughters of lesser nobility were considered inappropriate playmates for the royal offspring.

  However, the crowd she’d fallen in with at the art school brimmed with brilliant young people, many from decent (though by no means noble) families. Her friends had new and exciting ideas to share with her about politics, art, and the sciences. She loved her days at the school. There she learned so much more about life than she possibly could have, shut up in one of the family’s castles. In prison, as it were—waiting to be married off to a man she barely knew. During their midday meals clever Donovan, all on his own, had been teaching her so much about the way real people lived in the world. She desperately wanted to keep him as a friend. Just a friend. She dared not think of him as more than that.

  The week crept along. Louise could hardly contain her elation when Thursday came at last. As soon as her final class of the day was over, she gathered her shawl, the basket of food she’d purchased during their break, and swept down the steps, hardly noticing Amanda resting on the curb, a broom across her knees.

  “I will join my lady friends for a supper in Chatham Park,” she loudly told her driver as the footman lifted the basket from her arm and set it inside the carriage on the floor. “Please hurry. I don’t want to keep them waiting.”

  She hoped the lie had worked but could tell nothing from the expressions of either of the men. She had a sense of Amanda’s eyes fixed in a less than approving way on her as they drove off.

  This time the neighborhoods through which they passed were not new to her. But she drank them in as she hadn’t before. Each minute detail appealed to her artist’s eye. The edges of objects felt so crisp and perfectly defined she could almost reach out and touch them. Colors shone as vividly as if they were undiluted pigments, hand ground and swathed across the London streetscape. Despite the coal dust–gray air and the filth of even the finest streets, every brick mansion or stucco tenement, every statue or signpost, ragman’s horse, leather seller, drayman, smudgy-faced crossing sweeper boy, tarted-up fancy girl, greasy sausage vendor, omnibus and cab—each stood out in sharp relief before her eyes. She longed to paint them all. And although the sun was starting to dip behind the wall of buildings, and the lamplighter would soon be making his rounds of the gasoliers, the world seemed to her a brighter place than ever before.

  When the carriage neared Chatham Place, Louise rapped on the ceiling for the driver to stop diagonally across the street from Rossetti’s garret. “Park alongside those other carriages and hansoms,” she said. This seemed more discreet than pulling up directly in front of the house.

  She beat her footman Grady out the carriage door in her eagerness and peeked from beneath lowered eyelashes at the buildings across the street. Of course she would need to take a roundabout route to reach the door without her mother’s men seeing her. But at least with the carriage parked at a distance from the building, alongside those belonging to people who were strolling the gravel paths of the park, fewer of the curious would be aware of her destination.

  She took the picnic basket from Grady, who seemed reluctant to give it up. “You don’t need to accompany me,” she said, coloring her voice with a little of her mother’s imperious tone. “I shall be at least two hours. Feel free to get yourself and Berryman a meal while I’m gone.”

  Grady nodded, his expression as unreadable as ever. “As you wish, Your Highness. But might I not suggest an escort to your friends?”

  “No, thank you. I am certain they wait for me just beyond that small rise.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the path. “I prefer not to stand out, as none of them will be accompanied by servants.”

  “Understood, Your Highness.”

  Louise walked into the edge of the park, just far enough to pass behind a screen of dense laurel bushes, then cut to the left until she was moving along a path parallel to Rossetti’s street. Sheltered by the curve of the woods, she crossed the road and hurried up the stone steps, then inside the dark hallway.

  At the top of the third flight she stood breathless on the landing and turned toward the door she’d stood before earlier that week. It was closed all the way this time. The apartment behind it felt silent, unoccupied. Her heart rose into her throat. Had Donovan forgotten their special day?

  She knocked.

  No answer.

  Louise rapped harder this time, cringing at the startling echo she’d sent down the stairwell. She felt as if all the world might hear, and thus know what she was doing. Coming at dusk to a man’s private rooms, alone. How scandalous! She snickered, pleased by her boldness.

  Suddenly the door swung wide, and Donovan gave her a cheerful smile. “Sorry, tidying up. Wondered all week if you’d lose your nerve, Louise.”

  It was the first time he’d said her name, she realized. Lou-ise. It sounded lovely, almost musical spilling from his lips,
and sent a delicious tingle through her.

  She looked him over. He was fully dressed this time. Nicely dressed actually, with a striped cravat, soft gray waistcoat, white shirtsleeves and turned-up collar. Even leather shoes.

  “Class finished late,” she said by way of apology, “otherwise I would have been here sooner. And I had a little walk over from the park.”

  He nodded, as if ladies left their carriages blocks away every day of the week to hike up to his room for a picnic. Somehow that thought excited rather than upset her.

  Mama had once—just once, for she rarely discussed such things—spoken of “dangerous men.” That was when she’d been trying to argue Louise out of enrolling at Kensington. She wondered if Victoria would include Donovan among those perilous males. But that seemed silly. Such a nice fellow. Before she could change her mind, she ducked past him and into the room.

  The artist’s studio looked very different without the sun beaming down through its skylight. True, she’d only glimpsed a slice of the room that other day, most of it blocked by Donovan standing in the doorway. Now she walked around, exploring it as if it were an uncharted continent.

  Enormous windows stretched floor to ceiling and spanned the street-side wall. Along with the overhead panes they’d let in glorious golden light to paint by during the day. But now the room was cast into gloom by the overhang of the mansard roof and taller houses across the street. It almost felt as though night had fallen, although at least another hour of daylight remained.

  Louise turned to face the dim room. The furnishings were few. A horsehair divan, its nubby upholstery faded to an unpleasant dun color. Candles, the cheap sort, stank of rancid tallow and burned low from saucers puddled with waxy liquid. A small wooden table, too cluttered to be usable for meals, held a mountain of tubes and jars of pigments, vials of linseed oil, pungent chemical thinners, brushes stuck bristles-up in mason jars to dry, paint-smeared rags and palette knives, and far more paraphernalia than she could take in with a quick glance. An easel, to one side of the room, supported a canvas stretcher. The pungent odor of drying paint clung in the air, making the place smell just like the classrooms at the art school.

  The familiar tools and their odors quieted her nerves. “This is wonderful,” she breathed.

  “It’s not bad, as garrets go,” Donovan said. “The light’s good. No rats.”

  She stepped farther into the room, aware he was watching her as if she were a timid deer that might bolt at any moment. Maybe he didn’t yet know how much she really wanted to be here.

  Artists’ supplies aside, she thought, this is how ordinary people live. Sparingly. Without the new electric power to bring dazzling white light into rooms, without money to afford to turn on the gas and flame the wall sconces, or provide heat in winter to drive the damp chill from the room. There was no sign of an icebox or even a simple cupboard in which to store food. Only the single, lumpy divan might serve as a bed. That or the floor.

  Just being in this place, Louise felt adventurous, daring . . . adult. Such wonderfully heady stuff this was—this scrumptious freedom.

  “I hope you’re not cold,” Donovan said, startling her because she’d nearly forgotten he was there. “Rossetti can’t afford gas this month. After the exhibition maybe, if he sells something. So it’s candles or nothing.” He paused, looking her over. “We should save some of them, don’t you think?” Not waiting for an answer, he pinched out the flames from two wicks, leaving just a single smoking candle lit.

  Louise blinked, hoping her eyes would soon adjust to the dark. She lifted the basket to remind him of their feast. “How will we see to eat?”

  “Not a problem.” He moved the candle from its shelf down to a crate set beside the divan. A silk robe lay across the upholstered back and one arm, making her think it might recently have been used as a prop in a painting. She walked around to the other side of the easel and studied the canvas, an unfinished painting of a woman reclining on the divan. But the furniture’s dull color had been altered to a rich crimson hue to contrast with the woman’s porcelain flesh. Her body was veiled in diaphanous white gauze that seemed to float about her skin.

  Louise felt her cheeks warm as she studied the woman’s nearly nude figure. The model’s eyes seemed to seek out hers, declaring “I am not ashamed of my body—it is beautiful.”

  “Come along now, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?” Donovan took the basket from her and set it on the middle cushion of the divan. He sat down beside it and flipped open its lid. “We could use the table, but the chair is wobbly and there’s only one. It’s much more comfortable here, don’t you think?”

  “I do.” She beamed at him and perched demurely on the other side of the basket, still feeling nervous but liking the lovely strangeness of the place, so exotic and jumbled.

  When she turned again to look at Donovan he was pulling the parcels of meat and cheese, wrapped by the shopkeeper, from beneath the pretty gingham napkins she’d also bought. His gaze traveled down from her face to her hands resting in her lap. “You might want to take off your gloves, Princess. Don’t want to get them greasy.”

  She smiled, a little embarrassed that he’d noticed how new all of this was to her. She’d have to snap out of her daze and start acting like a woman of the world—the kind Donovan no doubt socialized with. “Of course, I wasn’t going to wear them while I ate.” She laughed, pulling them off by tugging on each doeskin fingertip before setting them aside.

  He laid the little parcels in a line between them and set the basket on the floor. “What do we have here? Smells marvelous, it does.”

  “Cold roast chicken.” She pointed to one. “And this one is rye bread, and this one a wedge of good Stilton cheese, and there are two apples and two pears at the bottom of the basket.”

  He peered back inside the hamper. “No beer or wine?”

  She blinked at him, ashamed for not having thought of it. “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Not to worry. My contribution.” Donovan marched across the room, fished behind the shelves, and came back with an unlabeled jug. He pulled the cork and took a long drink. “We’re lucky the boys left some. One of their customers paid for a portrait with wine and some medicines for Rossetti’s lady friend.”

  “Oh, is she very ill?”

  He shrugged. “She’s a delicate thing. Never easy to tell with a girl like that.” He leaned forward and held the jug out to her. “Have a little? It’s not half bad.”

  Louise sipped gingerly at the jug’s mouth, swallowed, and shook her head, laughing and coughing as the thick, ruby red liquid burned down her throat and made her eyes water. “It’s much stronger than the wines I’m used to, and not very sweet.”

  He laughed. “Not fit for the palace table, is it?” There was a bitter undercurrent to his tone that hadn’t been there before.

  Louise slanted a look at him then hurried to make certain she hadn’t hurt his feelings. “But it’s good. Truly. I do like it. Here, have some chicken.” She tore open each of the packages and laid out the food.

  Donovan ate hungrily and drank more of the wine. She drank along with him, wanting to show she was as good company as any other girl, and not so particular she wouldn’t drink common wine. Before long, her head began to spin and the garret took on a warm, buzzing glow that wasn’t entirely due to the lone candle’s flickering flame.

  Louise leaned back into the divan’s cushions and asked Donovan about his modeling and latest painting projects. He shared with her his goal of traveling to France, Germany, and especially to Italy. “Rossetti is teaching me to paint in his style. I want to study in Rome, to see the Sistine Chapel then visit Florence with its magnificent art.”

  “I would love to go to Rome too,” she said. “But my mother says Europe is too unstable, too dangerous for us to travel now. Although my sister Vicky lives in Germany.” And might soon become empress, she thought but didn’t say to him.

  Donovan reached out and played with a tendril of her hair that
had come loose and fallen across her cheek. He wound it around and around his finger while watching her eyes. “We will run off together, you and I. To Rome. Yes, Princess? And make love in all the most romantic places.”

  “Oh, yes.” She nodded her head in enthusiastic agreement, not sure whether they were playing a game or serious, but wanting to do nothing to discourage such a delicious fantasy.

  She lifted the jug to her lips again. The wine had begun to taste smoother. Her eyelids grew heavy with the pleasure of it. Such a lovely, lovely way to spend an hour, or two.

  When she moved the rough edge of the jug’s rim away from her mouth, Donovan’s lips pressed over hers. She held very still, liking the moist, warm sensation of his mouth on hers. The flesh around her lips and down her throat sang. She closed her eyes and savored the feeling. The jug levitated out of her hand. She heard it softly clank on the floor at their feet.

  When she raised drowsy eyelids, Donovan was reaching for the silk robe. He swung it around and over his shoulders, like a magician’s cape, then leaned toward her, easing her down onto the seat cushions.

  “What are you doing?” She laughed, shaking her head at him, confused but delighted that he wanted to be so close to her. The robe sheltered them from the rest of the room, from the world.

  “What do you think I’m doing, Princess?” he said, his words throaty and rich to her ears.

  She laughed again and shook her head. “Making me feel dizzier still, lying down like this. I think I might’ve”—she hiccupped—“drunk too much wine.” For some reason, she couldn’t stop laughing.

  He lowered his body still farther until she felt the entire length of him, fiery warm and lovely, his weight pressing down on her belly, flattening her breasts, snuggling against her hips.

  “Just close your eyes and let the wine take you away. You’re probably not used to drinking so much. It will wear off.”

  “But it is a lovely kind of dizz-dizz—dizziness.” She breathed in and out softly, humming to herself, aware of his hands moving here and there, over the fabric of her dress. His gentle touch soothed her. She imagined herself a contented kitten, lovingly petted by her master. She lay very still. Just breathing. Her eyes closed. Smiling. Sensing his hands playing with the ruffles of her skirt then tangled somewhere between the layers of her petticoats.