his desk and settled his folded hands over a rotund belly covered in a paint-smeared smock. “That is so. But he is no longer here. I haven’t seen him in years. And I believe, now, you need to leave.” He pointed his eyes toward the door, as if to provide directions for the way out.
Byrne tried again. “This is official business. A missing person’s report has been filed.” Technically. Louise’s complaint to him.
“You are with Scotland Yard? You’ve offered no identification.”
“It is not so much police business as it is the Crown’s.” He produced the simple card that served as his only identification as a member of the queen’s Secret Service. There was no badge or uniform.
The old man stared at the paper rectangle for a moment without reaching out to take it, as if it might nip his fingertips. He looked back at Byrne with a puzzled expression. “I don’t understand. By your accent I’d say you are an American.”
Byrne gave a brusque nod. “That’s beside the point.”
“The queen wishes to locate this young man?” Byrne didn’t correct him. He wanted to cloak Louise’s connection to the search. The old man tilted his head to one side in contemplation. “I’d have thought Victoria would be glad he hasn’t shown his face all these years or continued to pester her daughter.”
“He accosted the princess?” A defensive anger roiled up in Byrne’s chest.
The old man shifted in his seat, as if he sat on something with a sharp edge. “It is a sensitive matter. For a period of three months, the two young people—Princess Louise and Master Donovan—were inseparable. I tried to warn the girl off. Told her he was not the sort of boy she should be talking to, let alone going off with for the noon meal. But I suppose, while she was here at the school, she was experiencing the only freedom she’d ever known. It became a kind of drug to her.”
“She was not chaperoned or escorted on her class days?” Despite what Louise had told him, this still seemed inconceivable to Byrne.
“She was, in the beginning. But after several weeks I noticed she was merely left at the door, on her own.” He smiled as though at an affectionate memory. “You’d have to have known the princess in those days. She was headstrong, determined to do as she pleased. Somehow she arranged matters as she liked.” He shrugged. “Hard to believe, I know.”
“Not hard at all,” Byrne murmured dryly. Some things never changed. “But weren’t you personally responsible for her during the days when she was here?”
The old man coughed into his hand, looking suddenly flustered. His white-whiskered face paled. “I did my best to control the girl. But you must have heard the stories. When she was young the gossip columns called her ‘the wild one.’ Of all Victoria’s children she was the little mischief maker.” He seemed unable to keep from smiling at the memory. “Do you know she insisted upon sitting in the boys’ sculpting class? No female had ever done so before. Not in this school or any other in London. The very idea was scandalous.” His smile faded, and he retrieved a handkerchief from inside his smock to dab at his sweaty brow. “Yet she insisted upon sketching from a live model. That’s how she met Donovan, you see. He was posing.”
“Naked?” Byrne gasped out loud before he could stop himself. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to him—the naked part. Society dictated that exposing a female to the sight of a male body risked sending her into apoplexy, hysteria, madness. He’d always rather doubted the theory, since none of the women he’d been with appeared infected by such negative aftereffects. Nonetheless it was a surprise that this had been a sheltered princess’s introduction to sexuality.
The little devil. Byrne caught himself grinning.
“Yes, naked—but of course. She was right. How can any artist learn the human form through endless layers of clothing or by studying a wooden mannequin? In the end, I agreed with her.”
“So, am I to assume that this friendship that grew between the two young people was a platonic one? Since both you and, I assume, the queen knew about it.”
The professor’s gaze dropped to his lap. He shook his head slowly, avoiding Byrne’s steady observation. “Whether they did anything more than share lunch at the street stalls with the other students, I cannot say, sir. But I assume, from the way they behaved when they were together, the looks they