A Scandalous Adventure (19 page)

And then it was time.

The fairy tale continued as she and Aunt Magda rode to the church in a carriage pulled by four white horses. With them was an old man who looked to be at least a hundred years old, a mere memory of a man, a fragile creature dressed in the embroidered silks of a century ago. He said nothing, though he smiled constantly. Aunt Magda said he was her uncle, Baron Arnost, and would walk Susannah down the aisle. Susannah couldn't help worrying that he might be too frail to make it, but apparently he had accompanied all four of Max's sisters down the aisle at their weddings. He had become a symbol of good fortune.

When they arrived at the church, a pretty yellow building with an odd, bulbous roof atop the bell tower, Susannah helped Baron Arnost to descend from the carriage. After teetering for a few moments, he found his footing. With a beaming smile, he offered her his arm.

Which of them was supporting the other was unclear. Susannah's head was spinning with the oddness of it all. Nothing seemed quite real, neither the four white horses, nor the lace veil on her head, nor the little gnome walking beside her.

But then she stepped into the church and saw Max standing at the altar, tall and strong and solid. He was real, and nothing else mattered.

Max floated on a cloud of euphoria. Whatever might happen in the future, at this moment everything was right. Susannah, his
wife
, was on his arm, smiling and charming the villagers as they came up to offer their good wishes. Never did she put a foot wrong. She knew, somehow, precisely what should be said to everyone who spoke to her.

How did she know? She managed to make sense of even the strangest bits of Schwäbisch dialect and laughed at her own efforts to reply, enchanting everyone. And when the fiddlers began a lively polka, she looked at him with a question in her eyes. He knew the answer that had to be given and swung her, laughing, into the dance while his people cheered.

They loved her already. Josef had doubtless told them of the way she had flown to Max's rescue, and if he knew Josef, the tale had lost nothing in the telling. Except the part about where she had slept last night, of course. Josef would never mention that. But her courage? Her daring? Those the old man would have praised to the skies.

He needed to have no fear. Today in this celebration she had wordlessly told his people that she would shelter and protect them as well, and they had sworn to protect her. She had become one of them. She had in no way sacrificed her dignity or denied her station, yet she had bound herself to them. Where had she learned that? Learn it she had, however.

More than he had known, he had found his perfect countess.

In a few hours—less than that, for the sun was vanishing behind the mountains—she would truly be his.

* * *

Aunt Magda and Mama had much in common, thought Susannah. They both set the world around them into order with seemingly effortless efficiency. Ordered it, that is, in the way that they thought proper. They would have been astonished had anyone suggested a different organization.

It was not that Susannah was complaining. To arrange a wedding and a wedding banquet on mere hours' notice was a Herculean task. She doubted any royal household or any army quartermaster corps could have accomplished it. In fact, she was quite sure those bureaucracies could never have managed. They lacked the imagination.

Even here in the bridal chamber the results of Aunt Magda's care could be seen. Six gardenias floating in a shallow bowl lent their fragrance to the air. Yellow roses, gardenias—the castle greenhouses must be extensive. A fire blazed in the fireplace—less efficient than a tile stove, perhaps, but more romantic. Susannah stood before it, burying her bare toes in the fur hearth rug, and a shiver trembled through her.

It wasn't that she was cold. She was covered neck to toe in a nightgown of fine white cotton, trimmed with lace and delicate white embroidery. That would not have kept her warm, but over it she wore a robe of soft blue wool and had a cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders.

No, it wasn't the cold that made her shiver. It was the uncertainty. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. Should she stand here by the fire? Should she get in the bed? It was an enormous bed. Well, Max was so big that he doubtless needed an enormous bed. She had a momentary vision of him sprawled out on top of it. Just the thought flashing through her mind was enough to make her blush furiously.

She blinked to clear away the vision and studied the bed. There were several feather beds piled up on it, and quilts—white, with complicated stitching—on top. If she lay down on it, would she disappear, swallowed up by the feathers?

Perhaps she should stay right where she was.

She knew what to expect. Sort of. It was just as well that her sisters, Elinor and Emily, had decided that there was no point in her waiting for Mama's talk the night before the wedding. They had assured her that it was really marvelous, the most wonderful thing she could imagine.

She hadn't been entirely convinced. It all sounded awkward and uncomfortable, not at all delightful and exciting.

Except…

Except that whenever Max held her, even when she thought about being in his arms or just stood next to him, there was this unfamiliar heat flooding deep inside her, and she felt this yearning.

A small noise, a mere click, made her jump. Max was there. He had just come through the door from his dressing room and had a quizzical look on his face. She could feel herself blushing furiously. Could he possibly know what she had been thinking about?

He came over to her and took her hands in his. She smiled at the way her hands vanished in his big ones. His big, strong hands that made her feel cherished. She looked a little higher, not quite ready to meet his eyes. He was wearing a blue satin robe with velvet lapels. It looked very dashing. She started to say so, but the words froze on her lips.

He wasn't wearing anything else.

She was looking straight ahead, and in the vee between the lapels of his robe, she could see the dark curling hair on his chest. It wasn't as if she had never seen a man's chest before. She had seen his yesterday. But it hadn't seemed the same. Yesterday she had been washing the blood and dirt off him. With all the worry about how badly he might be hurt, she hadn't been able to appreciate it properly. This was different. She lifted up a hand to touch the curls.

“It's soft and sort of bouncy,” she said.

“Does that please you?” His voice sounded odd, as if he were being strangled.

She did look up at him now and smiled. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

The kiss that followed was sweet and tender, at least at the start. Then it grew warmer and warmer.

When Max broke off the kiss, Susannah couldn't restrain a little whimper of protest. He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Ah, Suse, I don't want to hurt you.”

She rubbed her cheek against his chest. She did like the way those curls felt. “Elinor and Emily—my sisters—said it doesn't hurt, not really. Well, Emily said it hurt a little the first time, but she thought that was because she hadn't been expecting it.”

“Your sisters told you…?”

She could feel a rumble of laughter in his chest. It was reassuring, somehow, so she nodded. “And they wouldn't lie to me.”

“Well, in that case, do you think we could…?” He lifted his head and indicated the bed.

Her nod was all that was required. He picked her up and carried her over to the bed, the shawl and robe getting lost somewhere on the way. When he sat her down on the edge, she discovered she had been right. She sank into a sea of feather beds and couldn't help but giggle.

He laughed as well. “I see Aunt Magda is determined that we shall be cushioned against any pebbles or peas, at least for this night.” He touched a finger to the lace at the neck of Susannah's nightgown. “Pretty.”

“That's from Aunt Magda too.”

“In that case, perhaps we should remove it. We would not want to damage Aunt Magda's nightgown.”

She shifted to allow him to lift the nightgown over her head. Then she lay back amid the billows of the feather beds and watched as he tossed aside his robe. He was magnificent. She must have actually said the word aloud, because now he blushed.

He joined her, sinking down with her into the cushioning feathers. They began with laughter and kisses and caresses. He touched her breasts and she gasped in surprise. She knew gentlemen seemed to find breasts fascinating, but she didn't know they were a source of pleasure for her too. Especially the nipples. Then he touched her in other places, even more surprising, and she gasped and cried out until a conflagration consumed her completely.

Some time later, she was lying on his chest, his wonderfully broad chest, tangling her fingers in those soft curls of hair.

“You cry out in English, you know.” His word caused a tremor in his chest. A pleasant tremor.

“Do I? Do you mind? You cry out in German. I think.” She was not really certain.

“Why would I mind? What we do, what we say, it is all ours. Only ours.”

His laughter was silent, but she could feel it deep inside him and she smiled. As she fell asleep there, with his arm around her to keep her safe, she thought she would have to tell her sisters that they had been wrong.

It was far more wonderful than they had said.

Nymburg

Prince Conrad strode down the hall. Guards sprang to attention, but he ignored them all. They looked sideways at each other, nervous. They had never seen the prince up this early in the morning. Nor had they ever seen him with such a stern expression on his face.

He marched down the marble corridors alone, with no trail of courtiers, servants, or minions waiting to do his bidding. His boots, and his alone, created an echo as he left the royal apartments and advanced on the apartments that had been allotted to the princess and her ladies. As he bore down on the door, one of the guards hastened to swing it open before him.

A wry smile lifted one corner of Conrad's mouth. Even the guards sent by Captain Staufer recognized that a prince did not wait to be announced. He stood in the center of the sitting room, waiting, while the door closed behind him.

Was she asleep, whatever her name was? The thought that she might have slept the night away peacefully while he had tossed and turned and paced the room—it was not to be borne. He had not had a moment's peace since her confession, and she was lying abed?

No, she wasn't asleep. Someone was moving around in the bedroom. Feeling no need to be courteous, he flung that door open and marched in.

There she was, as beautiful as ever, with those huge brown eyes and those golden curls. At least she looked pale and drawn, as if she had slept no better than he had. Good, he thought savagely. He wanted her to suffer too.

Her belongings were strewn about the room, and she had been piling them into the open trunk. He frowned. A servant should be doing that. Why had she not called for one? Did she think she could simply slip away from a palace without attracting any notice? She could not be so foolish as that.

She stared at him wide-eyed, looking more like a frightened rabbit than a princess. Was that what she really was? A rabbit that had been caught up in someone else's scheme? But whose scheme? Staufer's? General Bergen's? Hugo's?

She dropped into a deep curtsy, ever graceful. “Your Highness,” she said in that soft voice that he had found so charming. That he still found charming.

He shook his head to dispel the charm. She was false, entirely false. A creature of someone's imagination—his own, at least in part. He would not allow himself to be charmed by a lie.

“Why?” The word burst from him like a sob. “Why did you do it?”

She shrank back, looking down, and shook her head just a little. Her voice shook as well. “I only wanted to help. We didn't mean any harm. None of us. We were only trying to help.”

“Help? By making a fool of me? By…by
seducing
me?” He spun away, unable to look at her.

“No, please…” She began to sob. “I know you're angry, but…but the general said it could mean war…and it would only be for a day or so…and…and…and I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you!” Heaving sobs made more words impossible.

Those last words…he couldn't deal with them. Not now. But her earlier statement… “War? There is no war. What are you talking about?”

She was taking great gulping breaths in an effort to stop crying. She did not cry attractively, he noted. Her face was all splotchy and the noises she was making were not pretty. He should have been disgusted by the sight, but somehow he wanted to comfort her. She cried like a small child. “Here,” he said gruffly, handing her a handkerchief.

With a silent nod, she took it, blew her nose rather loudly, and blotted her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, still not looking at him.

He kept his face impassive, his voice cold, as he asked, “Now, what is this nonsense about war?”

“Princess Mila ran away while the general and Captain Staufer were escorting her. He said—the general, that is—he said that her father, Prince Gottfried, might use her disappearance as an excuse to invade Sigmaringen.”

Conrad snorted dismissively, but then paused. Gottfried was always casting covetous eyes in the direction of Sigmaringen. The marriage was supposed to create an alliance, but still… Then his anger returned. “Even if that was not a completely ridiculous idea, why keep it from me? Is not the prince the one to be told of threats to his realm?”

“I don't know.” Her voice was still a whisper, a fearful whisper. “There was a message when we arrived in Nymburg—they were worried. I think that is when they found out that the princess hadn't simply run away, and they weren't sure who had taken her.” She looked up at him uncertainly.

“Bergen and Herzlos!” He spit out the names. “Those two old men, forever mistrusting each other.” He ran a hand through his hair. “They will not tell me what I need to know for fear that the other will find out too. Is there no one I can trust?”

“Captain Staufer wanted to end it. He wanted us to leave.” She reached out to touch his arm. Her hand fluttered there, but then fluttered back. “I wanted to stay. I thought you might be in danger—but you might be safe if we stayed until they found the real princess.”

“Even you thought I needed to be protected? Does no one think I can be a prince?” He gritted his teeth against the pain of that thought.

“Oh no! That is not what I thought at all! I just wanted…I just wanted to stay a little longer. To pretend I was the princess you might someday love.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, you did that well enough, my princess.” Turning his head to look at her, he said, “I don't even know your real name. Who are you?”

“Lady Olivia de Vaux, Sire.” She dropped an automatic curtsy.

“Olivia.” He was trying to hold on to his anger, but a small smile tugged at his mouth. “A pretty name, that.”

For a moment they stood there, teetering on the edge of something neither one quite understood. Each one took a slight step toward the other. Her hand rose in an uncertain gesture. Offering? Pleading?

A moment later they were in each other's arms. She was hiding her face against his chest and was sobbing again. He rested his cheek on her head and rubbed her back gently. Through the soft wool of her dress he could feel the stiff corset. It seemed wrong that her garments should be stiff when she was so soft herself. He murmured words, sounds with no meaning, but full of meaning. Words of comfort. He knew now. This was what he must do—comfort her, protect her. This was his true purpose.

Her sobs slowed, and he put a hand under her chin to ease her face up. “There now. You will bruise your face on all this silly braid. I can see the imprint of it on your cheek already.” He dropped a light kiss on the mark. “Now there will be no more tears, and you will tell me about yourself.”

With his arm around her, he led her into the sitting room and seated her beside him on the sofa. “Now then, Lady Olivia de Vaux, you are English? How is it that you speak German so well?”

She lifted a shoulder dismissively. “My nurse when I was a small child was German, so I spoke German before I spoke English. And then Susannah and I had a German governess.”

He frowned, confused. “She is your sister, Lady Susannah? You do not look alike.”

“No, no.” She smiled slightly. “Her sister married my brother, Harry—he is the Earl of Doncaster—and her mother, Lady Penworth, took me in hand, so to speak. I stayed with them, and Susannah and I shared a governess.”

A flash of hope sprang up in him. “Your brother is an English nobleman, then? And your parents, they are dead?”

“No. My mother is living.” Her lips tightened into a thin line.

He ignored the expression on her face and continued his own train of thought. “You are of the English nobility, all of you. Lady Susannah and Lady Augusta as well?”

“Oh yes. Lady Susannah's father is the Marquess of Penworth. He is very important. And Lady Augusta's brother was the Earl of Greystone.”

“But this is excellent!” He cupped her face in his hands and turned her toward him. “Do you not see? An English noblewoman, the daughter of an earl—that is someone I could marry. It is not what was expected, but it would not be a mésalliance.”

But instead of responding to his feeling of joy, Olivia looked at him in despair and shook her head.

“You do not wish to marry me,” he said flatly.

The sound she made was half laugh, half sob. “There is nothing on this earth I could wish for more. But I could not let you marry me.” She raised a hand to silence him while she turned away to collect herself. “I told you my mother is not dead. She is living, I am told, in Naples these days, but her notoriety is still remembered in England. Officially, my father was the Earl of Doncaster. He acknowledged us all, at least. Unofficially, no one knows who my father was, not even my mother.” Olivia smiled bitterly. “She could not even be faithful to her lovers.”

Conrad stood up and marched stiffly over to the window. He wanted to smash something. Anything. He slammed his hand against the glass. It shuddered, but did not break. Outside, the wind ripped the last leaves from the trees.

Can I have nothing?

Turning back to her, he demanded, “Do you love me?”

“Yes, oh yes. You must know that I do.”

In two strides he was beside her again and pulling her up into his arms. His kiss was fierce, devouring. She responded with equal hunger and yearning.

When it was again time for words, he spoke hoarsely. “I will not give you up. I will find a way. You must trust me.”

“I do.”

He kissed her again, but this time their embrace was interrupted by a shriek.

Lady Augusta burst into the room, still in her bedclothes though it was almost noon, waving a sheet of paper. “What is this? What is this?” She halted abruptly and stared at the couple, still locked in an embrace. “Oh no, my dear, oh no. This is not wise. Really, it is not. And you, Sire, you should not be here at all.” Then she looked down wildly at the paper again. “And this!”

Stepping away from Conrad, Olivia led the old woman to a chair and took the paper from her hand. She returned to Conrad's side so they could both read it.

“No, O—princess!” Lady Augusta started up in protest. “He must not… You must not…” She pressed her hands to her mouth.

“Hmm?” Olivia looked back at her and smiled. “It's all right. The masquerade is over. We have told the prince everything.”

“Oh dear.” The old woman sat back down, chewing her lip. “You should not have done that. You know what the general said. He was quite insistent that you should not tell the prince anything. He will not be happy.”

“
Gott im Himmel
!
” Conrad stared at the paper in horror. “That fool!”

“What is it?” Olivia snatched the sheet to read it herself.

“Max went off on his own to hunt for the princess, with no one to help him, and your friend discovered that he was heading into a trap. So she went after him!”

“Susannah went after him?” Olivia looked up wildly. “Susannah?”

Lady Augusta rocked in her seat and moaned. “How could she do such a thing? Whatever will I tell her parents? She really should not have done it.”

“But where did they go?” Olivia tried to get a look at the letter.

“She doesn't say! She can manage to say that she went down the servants' staircase to eavesdrop, but she doesn't have the sense to say where this trap was. Damnation!” He crushed the letter in his fist.

“But Otto told Max to just wait,” Lady Augusta said, still moaning in distress. “Why didn't they do as he said?”

Conrad glared at her. “Otto said! Otto said! General Bergen has said a great deal too much. If he is wise, he will have nothing more to say.” He reached out a hand to Olivia. “Come. We will see if we can find some hint at least of where they have gone.”

* * *

Late that afternoon, the prince was pacing back and forth in his private study. He had dismissed servants and secretaries, all of whom fled with relief. They were accustomed to dealing with a prince whose most characteristic temper was a kind of shy courtesy. They did not know how to react to this sudden onslaught of demanding irascibility.

General Bergen and Lady Augusta sat in a pair of chairs off to the side. They had chosen hard, uncomfortable chairs, the ones usually reserved for unwelcome visitors, as if they sought penance. The general seemed to have shrunk since his earlier private encounter with the prince. Although his bearing was still stiffly military, his lips were pressed tightly together and he no longer seemed to dominate the room. As for Lady Augusta, she kept uncharacteristically silent, though her eyes darted from the prince to Lady Olivia and back again.

Although Olivia shared the prince's worries, she was less concerned about Susannah and Max than she was about Conrad himself. She was cocooned in the comforting cushions of the plush chair in which he had placed her, but her face showed nothing but worry.

It was the prince who dominated the room. Even the desk with its broad expanse seemed to have shrunk to an accessory. When his pacing brought him in front of the window, the late-afternoon sun seemed to seek him out to bathe him in light.

He did not notice. He stared out the window as the shadows lengthened across the courtyard garden.

A servant entered almost soundlessly, but the faint click of the door latch was enough to make them all swing about to face the intruder, who gulped nervously before he managed to speak. “Baron Herzlos and the baroness left early this morning, in some haste their servants say. They left no message about their destination, but they were seen on the road that leads to the baron's hunting lodge at Krassau.”

The general raised his head and demanded, “And Count Herzlos? Where is he?”

The servant looked at the general and blinked nervously. “I believe he is still in his office.” Turning back to the prince, he continued, “The count did not know that his son had left the castle. Do you wish…”