A Foreign Affair (18 page)

They continued to talk in a desultory fashion of the customs of the season, and Brett left an hour or so later with an invitation from both women to call upon them the next day.

From then on, he fell into a regular pattern of calling on them, though the discussion began to focus less and less on the purely social topics that were of consuming interest to the princess and more and more on the politics of the moment or Brett’s experiences in the Peninsula, which were endlessly fascinating to the princess’ daughter.

“How fortunate you are to be a man,” Helena remarked one day after the recital of one particularly hair-raising adventure. “I should love to be able to go places and do things all on my own as you have done. To experience so many different situations and meet so many different people must be very exciting.”

“Though often most uncomfortable.” Brett’s eyes twinkled. “Believe me, hearing someone tell about a sudden summer snowstorm in the Pyrenees and living through one are altogether different circumstances. Even as I recount it to you, it seems less miserable than it actually was. But you have traveled here to Vienna from Hohenbachern and to Hohenbachern from London. You know how such journeys are always fraught with delays and discomforts.”

“Pooh. If Helena had had her way, she would not even have journeyed so far as Vienna.”

Helena gave a tiny start. She had been so involved in Brett’s stories that she had quite forgotten her mother was even in the room. “It was not the journey I minded, Mama, it was leaving the girls. And it was not even that so much as having to come here where one is so confined and restricted, where the chief activity seems to be dancing.” The words were barely out of her mouth, however, when the memory of one particular dance with one particular person came flooding back in full detail.

She glanced over at the major’s well-shaped hands with their long lean fingers, remembering the way they felt clasping her hand and holding her waist while they glided about the floor as if they were the only two people in the world, and she felt the telltale pulse at the base of her throat beating faster. She had come a long way indeed from her original distaste for such things— so far, in fact, that she was hoping for a chance to be that way with him again.

The next opportunity, however, did not occur at a ball, but during one of Brett’s regular calls several days later. The day was a fine one and the princess, remembering her resolve to talk some sense into the Austrian chancellor, had gone to pay a visit to Laure Metternich in the hopes that she would also encounter Laure’s husband.

So when Potten came to inform Helena that the major was below in the salon, she was alone; with a dignified reserve she was far from feeling, she told the butler that she would receive him. Hastily checking herself in the looking glass, which she rarely did, Helena tried her best to stifle the guilty thought that now she would have the major all to herself. Nor would she allow herself to acknowledge the pleasure with which she looked forward to being alone with him.

He was standing at the window, watching the traffic thread its way through the narrow street below, and it was not until he turned to face her that Helena saw he was carrying an oddly shaped package.

“Good afternoon, Major. I regret to say that Mama is not here, but, please, sit down.” Helena felt the color stain her cheeks at such a bold-faced lie. She did not regret the princess’ absence at all. She, Helena Devereux, who had always prided herself on being honest to a fault, was telling a lie. And worse than that, she was actually glad her mother was away.

“Good. I mean, actually, what I have is more for you than it is for the princess, though, I am sure . . .” Brett’s voice trailed off awkwardly as he thrust the package at her. Whatever was wrong with him? He had clasped diamond bracelets around graceful wrists, draped pearl necklaces around slender throats with more finesse than he handed the silly token to Helena.

With surprisingly shaky fingers, she struggled to remove the paper from a tiny fir tree decorated with garlands of brightly colored ribbon. “Oh.” Tears stung her eyes, and for several minutes she could not trust herself to speak.

“How very ... I mean it is ever so kind . . . Thank you.” She gulped, blinking rapidly against the rising tide of tears. Her mother would have smiled enchantingly, uttered gracious words of thanks, disposed herself gracefully in a chair, and ordered refreshments for her visitor. All Helena could do was stand there, tears welling in her eyes like a watering pot, cursing herself for an idiot.

But it was her very awkwardness that moved Brett to the core of his being. He had hardly known what he was doing that morning when, putting Rex through his paces, he had spotted the tiny tree almost under his horse’s hooves. He had quickly dismounted, pulled out his pocket knife, cut it, unbuttoned his tunic, bundled the tree tightly under his tunic, and re-buttoned it as tightly as he could before he was even fully aware of what he was doing.

As he rode back to the city trying to look as nonchalant as one could possibly look with needles scratching under one’s clothes, Brett had been filled with a joyful anticipation he had not known since the morning he had gotten his first pony. That feeling had lasted as he purchased a few scraps of ribbon from a peddler in the Kohlmarkt and draped them as artistically as possible over the tiny branches.

Yet in spite of all the anticipation, he had been unprepared for the sudden onslaught of emotion as he watched Helena fight back her tears. He longed to pull her into his arms, to cover her mouth with kisses. He wanted to surround the little tree with fabulous and expensive trinkets even though he knew she would not want them. Even though he loved her for being the sort of person who preferred a tree to diamonds and gold, he still longed to give her things, to indulge her every whim, to make her dizzy with excitement and anticipation the way she must have been during those Christmases in Hohenbachern. In short, he wanted her to have joy in her life, and he wanted to be the one to give it to her.

“Thank you so very much. I am afraid that I cannot stay, however. Mama has gone visiting and I have just had a note from Princess von Furstenberg requesting that I call on her immediately. But thank you, thank you.” Helena pressed his hand gratefully and then, succumbing to a cowardice she was too ashamed to acknowledge, and uttering her second barefaced lie for the day, she ran from the room, leaving him to gaze thoughtfully at the door she closed behind her.

But he was not seeing the ornate gilt scroll work that rioted madly over the door’s cream-colored surface. He was seeing instead the light in her eyes and thinking he had never felt so gratified in his life as he did now knowing that he had made her happy.

Over the years Brett had weathered his share of tears and tantrums, and managed to remain impervious to them all, but there was something about Helena’s struggle to hide her emotions that touched him more deeply than anything had in a long, long time. Her prosaic sniffs and rapid blinking lacked the drama and allure of all the tear-drenched lashes that had been fluttered at him over the years, but the very real emotion they betrayed, in spite of her best efforts to hide it, caught at his heart. She was such a serious thing, always trying so hard to follow the demanding code that she had created for herself, that he found himself wanting desperately to help her break out of the confines of her own expectations and enjoy all that the world had to offer. He wanted to help her give in to her emotions and take pleasure in them instead of fighting them or worrying about losing control over them.

He had brought pleasure to so many women, or at least there were many who claimed that he had; now it was time to do it for someone who could truly benefit from it. Nor could he ever remember wanting so desperately to make anyone else happy. Until now, his entire life had been centered around fulfilling himself, setting his own goals and striving to accomplish them, establishing his own ideals and doing his best to live up to them.

In fact, when the war had ended, he had been somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed because he had reached his goals and lived his ideals by fighting Napoleon’s tyranny. They had won. The tyranny had been stopped, and Brett had been faced with the emptiness of
what next?
Working briefly under Wellington in Paris and then taking on his duties in Vienna had undoubtedly served as a distraction, but still, at the back of his mind, he had known he would have to face
what next?
some-day.

Now
what next?
suddenly seemed so simple. He wanted to make Helena Devereux happy, and he wanted to share that happiness with her.

Chapter Eighteen

In the hectic days following Christmas, Brett was too overwhelmed with work to revisit this astounding revelation. In fact, he barely had the time to do anything except grab a hasty bite to eat in between reports. The political situation had grown even more tense as rumors poured in that the Prussian army was mobilizing in Saxony itself, and the Dutch were complaining about the ominous presence of Prussian troops at their own borders. The dispatch riders were kept busy scurrying back and forth with the reports being sent to Paris and then on to London in diplomatic pouches. In this atmosphere of heightened tension, the British agents were more active than ever, gathering information whenever and wherever they could find it. Much of the written information they obtained was in French, the language of the Congress, and Brett was kept occupied translating in addition to helping to write some of the reports being sent to London. Most of what he was given to put into English turned out to be nothing more than laundry lists or hotel bills, but the British were leaving no stone unturned.

Days of wrangling among the major powers wore on without a break until the night before the beginning of carnival when the delegates put aside their differences long enough to attend a lavish soiree at Count Razumovsky’s magnificent new palace in the Landstrasse.

Brett pressed hard to finish his work that day in time to attend the soiree, hoping that he would see Helena at the Russian ambassador’s palace that evening, for he had not seen her since he had given her the little Christmas tree, had not spoken with her since he had realized how much his future happiness was bound up in hers. He wanted to know for sure if his revelations had been an emotional reaction to a poignant moment or if they were truly the answer to the ennui that had been troubling him since the end of the war. Only the sight of Helena would resolve this question for him.

And it was with this goal in mind that Brett joined the throng crowding into the tapestry-hung salons of Count Razumovsky’s extravagant creation.

But crane his neck as he would, Brett could not catch a glimpse of Helena anywhere. The Princess von Hohenbachern was part of a merry group surrounding Metternich and Count Razumovsky, but her daughter was nowhere to be seen.

“Ah, Milord Brett Stanford, one hears that you are wearing yourself out these days laboring over your reports to England. It is good to see that you can take some time out at least to enjoy the gayer side of this Congress.”

Brett turned to find himself staring into the mysterious depths of the Countess Edmond de Talleyrand-Perigord’s dark brown eyes. She bent her long slender neck closer to him, whispering huskily, “And, L’oncle tells me that it is up to you to make your fellow countrymen understand the finer points of our language.”

“Monsieur Talleyrand is far too kind, madame. I am but a simple translator and nothing more.” Brett tried his best to picture the elegant elder statesman of France playing an avuncular role to the seductive countess, but failed entirely. Talleyrand might be many things to many people, but L’oncle? No, Brett simply could not see it.

“You are far too modest, milord.” She slipped a dainty white hand through his elbow and leaned even closer. “But tell me, it is rumored that the oh-so-heroic Lord Wellington may be coming to Vienna to replace Lord Castlereagh. Is that true? On the other hand, I have also heard that he is being sent to command the troops in America and give those colonials a taste of the man who beat Bonaparte. What do you say, milord?”

Brett prayed that the countess did not notice his start of surprise. Where on earth could she have heard such a thing? It was certainly true that Talleyrand had a well-deserved reputation for omniscience, but not even he could have known that, for a little while at least, Wellington had been ready to assume command of the troops in America. “Madame, I am but a poor scribe. My only knowledge of important affairs is secondhand at best. For that sort of information, you must consult Lord Castlereagh himself.”

The countess smiled slyly at him. “Very well, milord. I shall take your so excellent advice.” And without further ado, she glided off, presumably in search of the British foreign secretary.

The evening had suddenly lost all its promise for Brett. The lights were too bright, the air stiflingly hot, and the guests seemed frenetic in their constant quest for diversion and amusement. Thoroughly disgusted with it all—the politics, the intrigue, the flirtations, he decided to walk back to the peace and quiet of his own quarters. A long walk in the cold crisp air was bound to clear his thoughts, or at least to tire him out enough that he would fall asleep the moment he climbed into bed. And without further ado, he left the brilliantly lit palace and began walking back along the Landstrasse toward the British delegation. As he breathed in the frosty air and gazed up at the stars twinkling in the velvety blackness above him, he wished that Helena were with him. She would know how he felt, would sympathize with his disgust at the frivolity and vanity of it all, and she would revel in the clearness of the night, the purity of the fresh air, and the exercise after the stifling atmosphere of the crowded ballroom.

In fact, Helena had briefly considered attending the Razumovsky soiree, but the very feelings that had sent Brett in search of her at the Russian ambassador’s palace had kept her at home.

She had not shown her mother the little fir tree, but had taken it directly to her bedchamber, where it held pride of place on her dressing table. There she could take delight in looking at it while treasuring the memory of Brett’s thoughtfulness. She did not know how she would explain this uncharacteristic secretiveness to her mother if Brett happened to mention his gift to the princess—she would think of something if she had to—but in the meantime, she wanted to keep it to herself as long as she could so that she could savor the moment when Brett had presented it to her. No one had ever tried so hard to find a gift that would truly please her. In fact, no one had ever before paid enough attention to her even to know what would please her.