The Shadow Princess

By Mary Hart Perry

As Jack the Ripper terrorizes London, Queen Victoria’s daughter is drawn into the case in this romantic historical thriller.
 
1888: A year after Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, terror mounts in the city’s slums. A killer has butchered two prostitutes, the crimes brutal even by London’s hardened standards. Rumors of the murders reach Princess Vicky, daughter of Queen Victoria and grieving widow of the German Emperor Frederick III. When her niece Princess Maud visits, she brings with her even worse news: The Metropolitan Police have a suspect. It’s Vicky’s nephew, Crown Prince Eddy. Desperate to clear her family’s name, Vicky rushes back to England.
 
Det. Inspector Thomas Edmondson believes there is a royal cover-up behind the killings. He will stop at nothing to expose the truth and bring a murderer to justice before he can kill again. But when Vicky joins him in searching for the man who will become known as Jack the Ripper, neither of them foresee the overpowering attraction that will draw together the royal and the commoner—or the danger their love puts them in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781626812345

Book preview

The Shadow Princess

The Shadow Princess

by Mary Hart Perry

Award winning author of The Wild Princess

Copyright

Diversion Books

A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004

New York, NY 10016

www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright © 2014 by Kathryn Johnson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information, email [e-mail]

First Diversion Books edition February 2014

ISBN: 978-1-62681-234-5

Author's Note

This is a novel meant solely for your reading entertainment. It was never intended as a historically accurate rendering of true events. Although some of the characters were inspired by the lives of real people, the story itself is an invention of the author’s imagination, and is therefore fiction.

However, here are a few elements of the adventure that have been borrowed from true accounts of the times…

We know from journals, and the hundreds of letters that traveled back and forth between Queen Victoria in England and her eldest daughter, Vicky, on the Continent that mother and daughter were close. But the English queen was obsessed with controlling her daughter, herself a monarch of a large and powerful country, Germany. Victoria also attempted to dominate her other eight children. No doubt her advice was sometimes helpful. Other times, as in the case of her middle daughter, Louise, and her youngest child, Beatrice, her manipulation of their lives caused great pain and disappointment. You can find out more about these two princesses in my earlier two novels: The Wild Princess and Seducing the Princess.

Jack the Ripper really did exist, and he terrorized Victorian London during the months following the death of Vicky’s husband, Fritz. It’s unlikely she, personally, had a run in with the killer, but letting her join in on the search for the brutal murderer of streetwalkers in Whitechapel seemed like an interesting way to snap her out of her mourning. The police really did suspect the queen’s grandson of being the fiend that stalked the grim environs of Whitechapel. Although he ran with a wild crowd, it’s unlikely he was the killer. Happily for England, Eddy didn’t outlive Victoria and come to the throne. His careless lifestyle and lack of respect for the crown, and his subjects, would have made him a terrible king.

The letters purported to be from the Ripper, included in this book, are copies of the actual letters received by the press and police at the time. Although many people have offered theories as to who Jack the Ripper really was (including Patricia Cornwell in her book Portrait of a Killer: Case Closed), no one has ever proven his identity. The murders simply stopped. Investigators believe this means that Jack either left London, he was captured and imprisoned for other reasons, he was sent to an asylum, or … he died. To imagine that the man was reformed and simply stopped his rampage, having had enough of slaughtering prostitutes, isn’t likely. And so I chose one of the suspects interviewed by the police in the fall of 1888, and then consulted the many theories as to the killer’s identity and motives, and came up with my own solution to these horrendous crimes.

1

The Neues Palais—Potsdam, Prussia—September 1888

Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise lifted the black netting from over her face. The mourning veil had begun to feel as cumbersome as her formal title—Her Imperial Majesty, The Empress Frederick.

She stared into the gilt-framed Baroque mirror at one end of her bedchamber, aware that her daughter—now nearly as old as she had been when she married Fritz—was watching her, worrying the lace panel of her day dress with anxious fingertips.

Look at me, Sophie. I’ve become my mother. How revoltingly drab and ancient. Whatever had happened to Vicky, darling Crown Princess of the English Court?

The reflection peering back at her was that of a sour-faced old woman in black bombazine. She wasn’t as plump as her mother, but she certainly could pass for a younger version of Queen Victoria soon after she’d lost her dear Prince Albert, Vicky’s father.

No, Mama, you aren’t old, Sophie protested, also speaking in English. She knew the language of her mother’s youth comforted her. Sophie stepped up to hug her. You’re just sad, because Papa’s gone.

Gone four months now. Frederick III, Emperor of Germany. Her mate for life, her Fritz. The only man ever to share her bed and body.

She gently pushed Sophie away, ripped off the veil. It reminded her of a sooty shroud. You are not dead. Not yet! She had to constantly remind herself of that fact. She tossed the delicate teardrop hat with its gauze veiling toward the bed, but it fell short.

Her maid rushed to retrieve the fluttering storm cloud of tulle before it reached the floor. Scooping up hat and veil, Agathe cast a concerned look at her mistress and seemed about to say something but must have thought better of it. She silently took the offending thing away to the adjoining dressing room.

Vicky turned away from the mirror’s disturbing image. So much that she’d once held dear she’d lost this past year. The man she’d respected even when they fought over their children and the empire’s governance. Her say in political affairs as Empress of Germany and Queen of Prussia. The golden future for which her father had so carefully educated her. Lost … lost … lost!

And, as if that wasn’t enough, she’d already buried two sons—Waldemar and Sigismund—before they’d even lived out their precious childhood. Wasn’t all of that enough for any woman to suffer? Must she also relinquish youth and beauty? And with them all hope for love, intimacy, tenderness. She truly dreaded the years to come—widowhood—a bitter dram that she had no power to sweeten.

Sophie, at her side, whispered, Mama. Please don’t cry. I can’t bear to see you so unhappy.

Vicky sat down on the edge of her marriage bed and drew her beautiful blonde daughter into her arms. I know. I’m sorry. I will try to be more … She shook her head and kissed Sophie’s silky brow. How could she promise a cheerful outlook when the world around her seemed so very grim?

But she drew a deep breath and bravely blinked away the tears. At least she still had her daughters. And her other two living sons. For some reason, her boys had always been more trouble than the girls. Henry wasn’t so bad, but dealing with Willy, heir to his father’s throne, had aged her considerably. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she was only forty-eight years old.

The truth was, her eldest son now held all the power but shared none of his parents’ liberal leanings or affinity for the English people and their ways. Willy, now Wilhelm II, was emperor, and she was out of a job. She had worn the crown and ruled over her adopted country, at her husband’s side, only ninety-nine days following the death of Fritz’s father. Tragically, her husband had already been sick by then; the throat cancer took him three short months later.

When Albert died, her mother had kept her crown and all that went with it, since it had passed to her directly from her uncle; the English allowed a female monarchy. Germany did not. Most worrisome of all, Wilhelm was the least suited of all her children to guide his country toward prosperity and peace.

"Mama, please, you mustn’t torment yourself and hide in your room like this. The country needs you. We all need you."

My darling Sophie, please, don’t waste your entreaties on me. I am a realist. Besides, I’m too tired to fight the inevitable. She squeezed her daughter’s slender, white fingers. The most we can hope for is that your brother won’t push Germany over a political cliff and into war. In the meantime, I will satisfy myself with finding good husbands for my girls, and hope for happier lives for you. Now leave me, dear girl. Frau Hoffstetter will be looking for you.

Sophie studied her for a moment longer then huffed in frustration and left the room to find her tutor.

Vicky was fully aware that her middle daughter had been trying particularly hard these past two months to cheer her up and bring a little light into her life. But spring had passed and then most of the summer, one season as bleak as the other. She’d watched with growing trepidation as her son scoffed at then abandoned the enlightened policies she and Fritz had only begun to put into place.

It was all so heartbreaking.

Willy had never hidden his hatred for the English, particularly for his grandmother. His arrogant outbursts and cruelty toward others, even in Queen Victoria’s Court, foreshadowed political disaster. But what could she do? Any advice she gave her son toward moderation sent him into a fury reminiscent of his childhood temper tantrums. The terrible difference being—now he was Emperor over a wide swath of Europe, and there were few men, or women for that matter, capable of standing up to him. Fewer still able to change his mind once he’d set a goal. And he was hungry to grow his empire—by any means, at any cost. She truly feared they would face a bloody future.

Mama?

She vaguely remembered her daughter leaving the room. Had it been minutes ago? Hours?

Vicky looked up from her own clenched hands to see that Sophie had indeed returned. What is it, darling? Maybe she should ring for Agathe. Her maid would shoo the girl off and suggest Vicky take a nap. What else was there for her to do but sleep? She lay awake all night, every night, felt exhausted the next day. What was the point of even living? If it weren’t for her children …

Maud has arrived, Sophie said.

Vicky blinked, momentarily bewildered. Maud? Here in Potsdam? She looked past her daughter’s shoulder to see her niece, Princess Maud, daughter of the Prince of Wales, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, in a pristine white summer gown, all flounces and tiers, her hair just a shade darker than Sophie’s, her face a bit rounder. As always her brilliant smile lit the room.

Auntie Vicky! the girl gasped, rushing forward as if to embrace her but, at the last moment, dropping to a formal curtsy with a rustle of skirts and petticoats. I’m so very glad to see you, Your Imperial Majesty.

My dear girl. She rallied a bit at the sight of Bertie’s child. Still, every word she spoke felt as painful as a glass shard caught in her throat. What a lovely surprise.

Mama, Sophie said in a patient voice, I told you days ago that Maud had wired she was coming.

Vicky shook her head. Had she? No matter. Now she’d have to put on a strong, if not entirely cheerful, front. Obviously, the Queen had sent the girl to check on her.

Victoria repeatedly had begged her to come home to recover from her loss in the bosom of family as she put it. But her mother, with her impressively substantial bosom, could be so very … well—there was no other way to put it—suffocating. She supposed her mother meant well, but the Queen felt compelled to control every detail of her nine children’s lives, and that had been a source of frustration and tension within the family for as long as Vicky could remember. No doubt that was why Bertie and the other boys in the family had been so very eager to leap into the military. But the girls, of course, had fewer chances for independence. It was either live out their lives with their mother or marry. And then their husbands had the final word on all important matters.

None of Victoria’s daughters had achieved true freedom and independence, not in Vicky’s opinion. With the possible exception of her sister Louise, who was so stubborn and impossibly Bohemian when among her artiste-friends. Louise seemed utterly unconcerned with class and mixed casually with commoners. A shocking state of affairs, as far as their mother was concerned. Frankly, Vicky thought her younger sister was taking her liberal view of society a trifle too far. But then, she had to admit, Louise at least seemed content with the life she’d chosen. Her paintings were good, but her sculptures were magnificent. Maybe she was even … happy?

Happiness was a concept Vicky wasn’t sure she understood.

Vicky roused herself from grim thoughts and looked up at the two young women standing before her. So innocent, yet … on the treacherous cusp of adulthood.

Well, you must be tired from your journey, Maud. Why don’t you get settled in. Sophie will show you around so you won’t get lost. You’ve brought your chaperone and maid with you, have you? Maud nodded solemnly. Good, then. They’ll unpack you. We’ll dine at eight o’clock, just family. You girls may chat or play cards until then. Tomorrow we’ll arrange a tour of the city and other entertainments for the duration of your stay with us.

Sophie clasped her mother’s arm with both hands as if to physically capture her wandering attention. Mama, that’s not why she came.

Oh? Why did you come, Maud dear? She gave an inward sigh, prepared for a lecture delivered in the Queen’s words through her niece’s lips. Strength to carry on! Duty and family are all that’s important! And of course, the usual reminders that she would never receive the same compassion from the people of Germany as she would back in England, where she’d spent her childhood. Thus she should return to her birth country to be swaddled in the protective arms of her family. As if that will bring back my husband or my crown.

"We need you to come to London immediately, Aunt Vicky," Maud burst out in her habitually dramatic fashion, eyes bright.

Despite the dark days she saw ahead, and her darker mood, a laugh escaped Vicky’s lips. "Oh, you need me, do you?" Preposterous! "A widowed, unseated empress is required in London. Tell me now—why do you need me?"

Maud looked at her—wide blue eyes suddenly stripped of all innocence, all playfulness. Why? Because of the murders, she said.

2

It took a moment for Vicky to grasp that last word. Murders? She shook her head, confused. Then immediately terrified. Who has been murdered?

Someone in the Royal Family? Certainly, if the Queen had been assassinated, she’d have been informed by her son’s ministers immediately. Lord knew there had been more attempts on Victoria’s life than most of her subjects were aware. Thankfully, none had succeeded. The little Queen seemed invincible.

Vicky reached out, took her niece by the hands and pulled her closer so that she could look her directly in the eyes. Maud, is this one of your silly pranks?

No, oh no, not at all, Aunt Vicky! I’m so sorry. I thought you would have heard.

Come then. She guided the girl over to the wine-colored velvet chaise by the window and sat her down. Standing over her, Vicky gazed down at her sternly. I think you had better explain.

Sophie stepped up beside her mother, taffeta underskirts swishing as whisper soft as her voice. Mama, I’ve read about them in the newspapers. They’re called the Whitechapel murders, and they’re truly horrible. She’s not making it up.

In truth, Vicky hadn’t read a newspaper in months. What was the point when there was nothing she could do about either local or world events? She was as powerless as her seamstress, cook, or even … loyal Agathe.

Maud slipped a gray parchment envelope from the satin reticule looped around her thin wrist then seemed unsure what to do with it, and so left it in her lap. I guess I’d better just start at the beginning.

Excellent, Vicky said.

Maud took a deep breath. There have been two most shocking murders recently in London. Sophie’s right, both in Whitechapel.

Violence in any large city was not uncommon. Vicky knew, as well as anyone who had lived in London, how dangerous the East End was. The district was little more than a mass of crude tenements built over cesspools. Overcrowded. Filthy and disease-ridden. Occupied by the poorest of the city’s poor. Even the Metropolitan Police, whose jurisdiction it was, ventured into neighborhoods like Huxton, Whitechapel, and Spittlefields only in numbers and, it was said, fully armed. She’d never even set foot in those horrid streets. She was sure her parents’ coachmen took care to avoid the area entirely.

Go on, Vicky said when Maud hesitated then sat down beside her.

Women have been threatened or attacked with a blade before. But most recently, on separate occasions, two were brutally stabbed to death in the street. Maud’s sweet face paled and she stared down at the paper rectangle beneath her nervously twitching fingertips. Actually, not so much stabbed, so they say, as mutilated.

I read the bodies were disemboweled, Sophie added helpfully. Turned inside out, their organs taken from—

Vicky silenced her daughter with a wintry glare. I shall have a word with your tutors regarding your reading materials, missy.

Mama, Sophie groaned, "everyone has heard about these ghastly murders. She turned to her cousin. But I really don’t see what the fuss is about. The victims, they’re just dirty old whores."

Sophie!

Sorry, I should have said ‘prostitutes.’

That wasn’t why I objected to what you said, Vicky snapped.

Ever since her sister Louise, now the Duchess of Argyll, had protested against the cruel laws that kept women dependent upon the good will of men for shelter and support—as females were unable to own property or businesses, or to even take on decently paying jobs like men—Vicky herself had become more protective of women’s rights on the Continent. It was said that thousands of females wandered London’s streets—destitute and unable to support themselves. Once there, they had only one way to delay starvation or put a roof over their heads.

Vicky shuddered to think of their desperation. She couldn’t imagine being forced to let a strange man access her body, to do with her as he willed! She turned to her daughter.

Sophie, these women can’t be blamed for what they’ve been reduced to. It’s not their choice to be poor or to have to sell their— She pressed her lips together, unable to say more in front of the two princesses. Sophie was a tender seventeen years old, Maud just eighteen. Both were so impressionable, sheltered, vulnerable.

You mean, they have sex with men for money? Maud’s eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief.

Sophie clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled.

"That is quite enough of that language, Maud dear. Vicky looked down at the envelope still resting in her niece’s lap. Is that a letter for me? Something to do with these disgusting events?"

No, it’s— Instead of completing her thought, Maud turned the envelope over and uncoiled the thin red string securing its flap. She pulled out a sheaf of newspaper clippings. I thought you might want to see these reports of the murders, in case you didn’t believe what I came here to tell you.

Vicky looked down at the ink-smudged newspaper clippings. Some were from The Star, others from the more respectable Observer or The Times. But all included chilling sketches and photographs. When Sophie reached for them, Vicky cast her daughter a warning look. These aren’t for a young girl’s eyes.

But Maud has seen them. I don’t see why I c—

Hush. Vicky flipped through the half-dozen articles, catching a word here, a phrase there. There was even a coroner’s photograph of the first victim. Undoubtedly the only photograph ever taken of the poor soul. The black-and-white image was no less horrifying for showing only the woman’s face and shoulders. Whatever the police surgeon had done to clean her up, it was still obvious she’d been cruelly beaten and slashed.

Maud, I’ll have a word with your mother about this … this collection of yours. These are totally inappropriate for a young lady. She scooped the horrid images into her lap, intending to toss them into the flames in the fireplace.

But I had to show you, so you’d understand.

Understand what? Vicky’s fingertips flew to her temples. She was fast on her way to a raging headache. Violence, in word or deed, was one thing she had never tolerated in her home. Suddenly, she felt as if evil was seeping from between the very stones in the castle walls around them, poisoning the air, stripping away what remained of her family’s dignity. Why wouldn’t the world leave her alone with her grief? Why bring more tragedy to her doorstep?

You need to understand what the awful reporters are saying. That’s why I’ve come to you. Maud reached out and snatched back one of the clippings before Vicky could stop her. She waved the obscene image of the whore’s corpse in front of her. "They have theories. All sorts of mean, ugly theories about the killer. They say he likes to do this to women. They say he’ll kill again and again if not stopped."

Vicky sighed. So? What did her family have to do with murder investigations? I assume Scotland Yard or the local police are after him, whoever he is.

That’s just it. If we don’t do something soon, people, including the police, will believe those awful newspaper articles, and we’ll be blamed.

Vicky scowled at the girl. "Oh Maud, please. That’s outrageous. What do you mean by we?"

Us, the Royal Family.

Such nonsense! Vicky shot to her feet, snatched the photograph back from her niece and tossed all of the clippings straight into the fire. She watched the papers crackle, glow orange, curl into black ash. Then she turned a chastising glare on both young women to let them know they weren’t to expose themselves to such filth again. Maud, there is no possible reason why any person with sense would seriously suspect a member of our family of having anything to do with—

"But there is, Maud whispered as tears bloomed in her pretty eyes. That’s why I had to come and ask for your help. Please— she sank down onto her knees, her skirt billowing around her on the floor, desperation making her voice break at odd moments. Please, Aunt Vicky. You must come back with me to London and help us. My brother is in so much trouble."

Vicky felt her daughter’s eyes on her, hesitant, pleading. It was at that moment she became aware Sophie must know something that she did not. Which of your brothers is in trouble, Maud? Explain.

Her niece sobbed into her hands. Sophie stepped forward and lifted her cousin by her arms then sat her down again on the settee. It’s all right. We’ll of course help any way we can.

Sophie! Vicky stood over the two girls. How could these angels, these sweet young women of royal blood know of such things? Sophie. Maud. Listen to me. It doesn’t make sense for anyone to single out a member of the Royal Family to blame for the death of these women. You’ve said yourself: the trouble is in Whitechapel. None of us would ever dream of descending into those warrens of crime and sin for even a—

Eddy does.

Vicky stared in disbelief at the girl. Crown Prince Albert Victor, Eddy to the family, was an odd sort of young man but— I’m sure you’re wrong.

I’m not. The police questioned him. They asked him where he was on the night of Mary Ann Nichols’s murder, the last day of August.

The nerve of them! Vicky felt her face flush with outrage. What right do they have to question the heir to the throne of England?

Eddy goes there, into the East End, he and his friends, Maud blurted out, her face pale and wretched. They gamble and drink and … do other things. See women. Her eyes avoided her aunt’s. He was laughing when he told me, as if it was a joke that he had been so close to where the bodies were found. I wrote to Sophie and told her I was worried, scared really. Eddy’s different, you see. He’s just— she shrugged —sometimes he seems so distant. Like he doesn’t quite connect with people, like he is off in his own world.

Now the girl had Vicky worried. Bertie had often complained that his eldest son, heir to the throne, was far from bright, neglected his studies, and had no ambition whatsoever. Was it even worse than that? Was it possible the boy was insane?

But even if he were mad, did that mean he was capable of murder? Eddy had always seemed a gentle boy, if a bit foolish and preoccupied. I’m sure you’re wrong, she said, patting the girl’s hand.

It’s not me who needs convincing, it’s the press.

Vicky thought for a moment. What about the Court Daily Registers? These official documents were submitted every morning to the press, directly from the Queen’s offices in Buckingham Palace. They reported the social schedules and whereabouts of various members of the Royal Family. Was Eddy even in London during the times of these crimes?

Not according to the Registers. But it’s done no good. They claim there’s been a cover-up.

Vicky couldn’t hide her shock. Cover-up? By whom? How?

By the Queen, or someone in the palace intending to protect her.

Ridiculous, she huffed.

Aunt Vicky— Maud’s eyes went suddenly dry and urgent as they locked on hers —you haven’t been there. You haven’t seen the panic in the city. It’s not just in the East End, it’s everywhere. Even in Court and Parliament, the Whitechapel murders are all anyone ever talks about.

But surely Eddy has an alibi for the night of the murder. The press can claim a cover-up, but facts are facts. If he was elsewhere—

Maud threw up her hands in a gesture of hopelessness that broke Vicky’s heart. The Register claims he was hunting with friends in Yorkshire on August thirty-first, the night of the first murder. And at his cavalry’s barracks after that.

There you are. Vicky drew a deep breath and managed a smile. Settled.

Sophie took her mother’s hands in hers as if to help her focus on her words. Please, Mama, listen to what she says. We’re not little girls anymore, playing a game of pretend adventures.

Maud added, I don’t know who to trust at the palace. And Grandmama won’t listen to me, so I have nowhere to turn but to you, dear auntie. I beg you to return to London with me. She took a deep breath. You see, despite the official statement from Buckingham, I know what I saw.

Vicky shuddered at the implications. What she saw?

Maud’s eyes filled with tears and she choked out her next words. "The day Mary Ann Nichols died, Eddy wasn’t in Yorkshire. I saw