Page 4 of The Heir (A Young Queen Victoria Mystery #1)

J ane saw Prince rear up. She saw the princess fall. In that instant, all her breath stopped in her throat.

They will blame me.

She looked to the horizon, wondering how far she could get before they fetched her back again. Would they lock her in the Tower?

While Jane sat frozen, barely holding on to the reins, Hornsby raced past her on his bony brown mare and disappeared over the rise.

Dash was barking wildly, demanding that someone, anyone, come and see what had happened.

See what Jane Conroy let happen!

“Miss Conroy!” Hornsby hollered. “You’re needed, miss!”

Despite the fear raging inside her, Jane found herself reflecting distantly that no one had ever said such a thing to her before. She slid awkwardly from Smokey’s back and stumbled up over the hill.

The princess was sitting up on the sloping ground.

Dash stood beside her, barking like it was the end of the world.

Mud and water soaked into her skirts, and rain fell on her bare head.

Her face had turned green with nausea and blue with cold.

She blinked stupidly at the dark hillock below them and then up at Jane.

The familiar sharp young woman was entirely missing from her wide eyes.

“There’s a dead man,” said the princess.

Jane stared. First at the princess and then down the slope toward the hillock that seemed to command her attention. Hornsby had dismounted to catch hold of Prince’s reins. With the horses and the groom in the way, it was impossible for Jane to see anything clearly.

“He’s dead,” the princess told Jane. “I saw it.”

Dash whined and pawed at her skirt. The princess did not look at him. Jane, not knowing what else to do, scooped Dash up into her arms.

Hornsby had managed to calm Prince and was now leading him back up the slope. His mare remained where he’d left her, and looking between the horse’s legs, Jane could see a lumpish black shape. Hornsby glanced behind him—once, twice—as if he thought his mare might bolt or someone might be following.

“Is Her Highness all right?” Hornsby’s face was almost as ashen as the princess’s.

“I . . . I don’t know.”

Jane and Hornsby stared at each other, both understanding that they were alone with the most important person in the world, and that if anything happened to her, it was their fault.

Hornsby broke the stalemate first. “Miss Conroy, you must get Her Highness indoors. I’ll . . . deal with things here.” He took Dash from her and set him down on the sodden grass.

“There’s a dead man,” said the princess again.

Hornsby, however, was an experienced servant. He knew there was only one possible answer when one of the higher-ups spoke in this way.

“As you say, Your Highness. Now, if I may, I think it would be best if you were not on the damp grass. Perhaps Miss Conroy . . . ?”

Jane forced herself to move. She grabbed the princess’s shoulders, and heaved her to her feet.

Hornsby held Prince’s reins with one hand and the stirrup with the other.

Between them, they wrestled the princess up onto his back.

Prince danced and shuddered and seemed determined to have done with them all.

Thankfully, the princess was able to keep her seat, even though she could not seem to tear her eyes away from the green.

Hornsby boosted Jane unceremoniously onto Smokey, then handed up her reins and the princess’s reins.

“Hurry, Miss Conroy,” he said. “But for God’s sake, be careful.”

Jane gritted her teeth and urged Smokey forward.

Dash followed, issuing the occasional bark, which the horses ignored.

Thankfully, now that the horses realized they were heading back for their dry, warm stables, they were more than ready to comply with her awkward commands.

In fact, it was difficult to hold them to a walk.

If Prince begins to canter, the princess will fall again. What will I do then? She’ll break her neck this time!

The rain was increasing. Jane had forgotten to put the princess’s bonnet back on.

Rain trickled down her gray face, and she huddled in her saddle, her eyes still staring straight ahead.

She didn’t even look down at poor little Dash loping dutifully beside her, stopping every so often to shake the rain from his ears.

Can someone go blind from hitting their head? No. Don’t think it.

There were days when Jane hated the princess.

She hated her acid tongue and her determined rebellions, hated the way she constantly needled Father and the duchess.

She hated the arguments and disorder, and most of all, she hated the gleam that came into the princess’s eyes when she invented some fresh defiance.

But this dead, dazed look terrified her.

“Say something, ma’am,” Jane begged. “Please, just . . . say something.”

The princess blinked. “I . . . I’m cold.”

Now Jane could hear her teeth chattering.

Panic cracked open that much farther. The Duke of Kent had died from cold.

Jane knew that. Everybody knew that. If the princess took ill, if the princess died —even if they didn’t lock her in the Tower, Jane would be thrown out of the palace, out of her home, and left in the street to starve.

Father wouldn’t even look back. Mother wouldn’t stop him.

Her sister, Liza, might not even bother to watch it happening. Her brother, Ned, definitely would not.

“If we can go a little faster,” Jane tried.

Prince snorted and tossed his head. Jane’s words might not reach the princess, but the horse’s unease did. The princess blinked and shook her head, and some semblance of her normal self seemed to seep back into her demeanor.

The princess reached for her reins but saw that Jane held them, and frowned with annoyance.

“Give me my reins,” the princess ordered.

Jane thought she might dissolve from sheer relief.

“We must get back. I have to tell Mama. And I’m perfectly fine.” Her pinched, pained face and chattering teeth gave away this blatant lie. Still, Jane was perfectly happy to pretend.

She handed over the reins and pulled Smokey back just far enough so that the princess could take the lead. That would make things look less like a disaster. Like there was less to blame useless Jane Conroy for.

A shout went up from in front of them. They’d been spotted. Now that Jane had attention to spare, she could see the palace gardens and the yard were filled with shifting figures. People surged toward them. The duchess or Papa had grown worried, and the palace staff had been turned out to find them.

Her. They are all out to find her .

A flock of grooms and what seemed like half of Kensington’s footmen surrounded them.

Everyone was crying and exclaiming and shouting orders.

The footmen—begging their pardon, moaning over the state of them—pulled them off the horses.

They were then handed off to the flock of uniformed maids and cloaked ladies-in-waiting, who surrounded them and whisked them back inside.

* * *

Of course the duchess was there in the sitting room.

In fact, the duchess stood in the same spot by the windows where the princess had been earlier.

Father stood there with her, holding her hands as she gazed, panic-stricken, through the blurred glass.

Louise Lehzen, the princess’s governess, and Lady Flora hovered in the background.

The cluster of maids herded Jane and the princess—who hugged Dash to her chest—into the room. Lehzen charged forward to pull the princess away from them. Jane was left beside the doorway. Victoria was shaking badly. So was Jane.

The duchess dropped to her knees in front of the princess.

“You little fool!” She wrapped her arms around her daughter, wailing in grief and outrage. “I begged you! I pleaded with you! Oh, my God! She will die! She will die like her father died!”

Jane thought no one had noticed her. She was wrong. Father strode forward, brushing past the princess and the duchess. When he reached her, he raised his hand. His fingers curled. Jane blinked.

Father struck her across the face.

Jane’s head snapped back and slammed against the wall, barely cushioned by her ruined bonnet, and for a moment, she could see nothing but stars.

“Stop!” shouted the princess. “It was not Jane’s fault!”

There was silence, except for the ringing in her ears. Jane brought her head upright again gingerly. The movement hurt. The room seemed oddly blurred, as if she still peered through the rain.

The princess twisted herself out of her mother’s arms. “ I was the one who decided to gallop. Jane’s Smokey cannot keep up, and I got ahead of her. I fell because Prince was startled and he shied. Jane had no part in it! You have no reason to treat her so!”

Her jaw throbbed with pain. Her tongue was coated with a weak slime that tasted of salt and warm copper.

Blood.

She did not want to swallow but had no choice. Her kerchief had been lost somewhere, and if she moved, she would be noticed, and there would be another glare, another order, perhaps even another blow. She might topple over and this time be unable to rise.

The princess had turned to the kneeling duchess, deliberately cutting Father from her notice. “Mama, there is a dead man on the green.”

The duchess lurched to her feet. “What?”

“There is a dead man on the green,” the princess repeated. “I saw him. That was why Prince was startled. The guard should be sent.”

The duchess, genuinely alarmed, stared at Father.

Father’s expressive eyes went briefly blank and distant, as they usually did when he heard something unexpected and unwanted.

Jane’s cheek throbbed as if in answer, and she swallowed more of the slick copper taste.

He’d forgotten her, forgotten the blow and all the sins that merited it.

He was somewhere else entirely, and Jane was grateful. And she was frightened.

“Hornsby saw him, as well,” the princess announced.