Rebecca Hagan Lee (31 page)

"Are you sure?" She sniffed in a childlike voice.

"I know all about these things," he lied, "trust me."

"Oh, Blake. ..." She sounded relieved, but the tears continued to fall from her luminous green eyes. "I can't find my handkerchief."

"Take mine." He handed her a square of linen. "Now dry your eyes and blow your nose. You're home and we can't have Leah thinking I've upset you again."

Cristina hadn't noticed the stillness of the carriage, but he was right, they were parked in front of her house.

The carriage door opened and the coachman reached up a hand to help her out. Blake remained seated in the corner of the coach. Cristina turned a questioning gaze on him.

"No," Blake told her, pulling her black veil from in back of her hat, concealing her face. "I won't get out. I don't want anyone to see us together yet." He jerked his head toward the closed carriage parked across the narrow street several houses down from hers. "You understand why?" he asked urgently, hoping to avoid any further misunderstandings between them.

"I understand," she told him. "I'm being watched by the secret police. And he's probably in that carriage."

"That's right." Blake leaned toward the door and touched her face with his gloved hand. "Don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

Cristina frowned up at him. She had learned that allowing someone take care of you had its drawbacks as well as its rewards. She didn't love Crown Prince Rudolf but he had been kind to her in his own way and she didn't want to embarrass or hurt him any more than Blake did. But not for matters of state.

She didn't want to be the bone of contention between two men that she sensed genuinely liked and respected one another. But she also knew that she couldn't stay with Rudolf now that she had learned there was no joy or triumph in being desired by a man she didn't desire in return.

Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face because Blake took her chin in his hand and spoke to her. "Cristina, are you reconsidering my proposal?"

"No."

"Are you sure? Because this decision can't be halfhearted."

Blake was allowing her to make a choice regardless of the effort it cost him to say the words. "If we marry, it's forever. The decision is yours."

Cristina hesitated a moment while Blake held his breath and prayed. "I've made my decision." She leaned back into the coach to kiss him. "I've chosen you."

"Then leave everything to me."

All this and heaven too.

--MATTHEW HENRY 1662-1714

*Chapter Nineteen*

His Imperial Highness, the crown prince Rudolf, left for Prague two days later after bidding Cristina a careful good-bye. Officially the emperor was sending him to review several of his army regiments, but he and all Vienna knew that this was the emperor's way of removing Rudolf from the arms of his mistress, the comtesse di Rimaldi.

Negotiations were stalemated and Austria-Hungary was caught in the middle.

No hint of scandal would be allowed to reach the ears of England's Queen Victoria, especially when everyone knew that the crown prince had met his mistress in London and that she was rumored to be half English on her mother's side.

Cristina knew who was responsible for the hastily arranged trip to Prague.

Hadn't he said he would take care of everything? She hadn't seen Blake in two days, but she knew he had been very busy carrying out his immediate plan for Rudolf's removal. She wondered how Blake had managed to gain an audience with the emperor in so short a time.

"How long will you be gone, Your Highness?" She hated to pretend, but it was important that she sound heartbroken and sympathetic to Rudolf's ears.

"A minimum of three months, liebchen. I may not be able to return in time for the child's birth."

"You must do your duty, Your Highness. You mustn't worry about me or the baby. We'll be fine," she assured him.

"But you will be alone," he protested.

"I'll have Leah."

"She's a servant."

"She's my dearest companion. So, you see, there's nothing for you to worry about. You must go and attend to your regiments and not concern yourself about me."

"You're a rare gem, Cristina. I'll miss you more than I believed possible and I shall pray every day that my absence will make your heart grow more fond of me."

"Pray, Your Highness?" Cristina teased. "Surely, you don't intend to kneel to a higher god?"

The crown prince laughed as he made his way to the front door. His views on religion were well known in Vienna, much to the dismay of his staunchly Roman Catholic father and Holy Roman Emperor. "For you, Cristina, I will even do that."

"Then perhaps you should stay," Cristina ventured, taking a huge risk. "I don't want to be responsible for corrupting a perfectly good crown prince...."

"Ah, liebchen, if only I could stay with you." He kissed her lightly on the lips and disappeared out the door and into the confines of his imperial carriage. There was a reason for the distinctive imperial carriage with its golden wheels. Soon the whole of Vienna would know that their handsome crown prince had taken official leave of the mysterious fraulein. And that would please the emperor.

Blake arrived at the little house the next afternoon. Cristina was tense and uncertain. She had been on tenterhooks since the crown prince's visit, waiting for Blake to come.

Blake recognized her nervousness for what it was and took the bull by the horns. "No greeting, Countess?"

She stood hovering near the door to the salon. "Did you think that I would fling myself into your arms whenever you decided to visit?"

"As a matter of fact, I did." He held out his arms and Cristina took a step toward them before she could stop herself. "Don't you want to? Even a tiny bit?"

She did. She let herself be held in his strong embrace. "I thought you would never come."

"I had to wait until Rudolf was out of Vienna. I couldn't follow immediately hot on his trail. This way it looks as if I'm paying a social call."

"Are you?"

"You know better than that." He bent his head to capture her lips.

Cristina melted against him. "I've missed you, Blake." She ached to feel him next to her. "Shall we go upstairs?"

Blake caught his breath at the open invitation--the first she had ever offered--then regretfully shook his head. "Not here. Not in Rudolf's house."

"Then where?" Cristina was anxious at the prospect of enforced celibacy when Blake was so near. "In your secret room?"

"No, I've arranged for you to move to an apartment on the Ringstrasse."

"The Ring? Oh, Blake, the Ring is terribly expensive. Can we afford an apartment on the Ring?" she protested.

"Spoken like a wife already." He chuckled. "And yes, my darling countess, we can afford an apartment on the Ring."

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning," Blake told her. "But we'll have to keep it quiet for a while."

At her crestfallen look, he hastened to explain, "It's these bloody negotiations. Everyone is so touchy, so damned afraid of being slighted or of slighting someone else."

"And?"

"There are still a few sticking points in the San Stefano Treaty and the Berlin Congress. I feel as if I'm walking on eggshells, trying hard not to exert too much pressure, for fear they'll break. The relations between our two empires are strained to the limits of endurance, not only by the treaty negotiations but by the Empress Elisabeth's continued visits to and support of Ireland." He massaged the tired muscles at the back of his neck, stretched his shoulders, then rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in a effort to ease the strain of hours of negotiations. "The emperor can't or won't rein her in and she sees Ireland as an underdog to be championed and protected from our government. I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I don't know how much more our governments can stand. I informed my superior of my plans to marry you and of our situation, but I've been advised by Ambassador Paget that it would be best if we marry quietly and delay announcing it until these negotiations are resolved. We can't risk alienating the emperor by embarrassing his son."

"How would our marriage embarrass Rudolf?"

Blake took a deep breath and tried to explain a part of diplomacy that was almost impossible to grasp. "It's all about appearances, Cristina. Rudolf bid you a very public farewell. He visited you during the daylight in full view of the emperor's secret police and he used his imperial carriage so that everyone would know who he was and where he was going. But he did it only to appease his father. He agreed only to review his regiments in Prague because his father ordered him to go. He gave every appearance of ending his affair with his mistress, but Rudolf has no intentions of giving you up yet. He's simply waiting for the negotiations to end before he resumes his courtship."

"What does it all mean to us?" Cristina asked.

Blake sighed. "It means you'll be moving into my apartment on the Ring."

"With you?"

He shook his head. "Not at first. I'll be moving into bachelor's quarters in the embassy."

"Why?"

"Because I'm an ambassador to Franz Josef's court and I mustn't give the appearance of stealing the crown prince's mistress right from under his nose--especially since I intend to marry you. Unless he's released you from his protection, I can't accept you into mine. It's not considered gentlemanly or honorable. And to do so here in Vienna while I'm representing Her Majesty's government would be an unforgivable breach of royal etiquette."

"That's barbaric."

"That's the way these things are done, Cristina. In this case, I've no choice but to follow the rules. Normally these things are personal and don't involve the fate of nations. They're handled in a quiet, civilized manner. But Rudolf was required to make a public farewell in order to convince the emperor and that public act will work to our advantage because by the time he returns from maneuvers after leaving you alone for three months, he'll find you gone.

There won't be anything he can do. The emperor will be informed that you've left Rudolf's house and most, if not all, of Vienna will know of the change in your status and accept the fact. And Rudolf will, too. Because he'll have no other choice." Blake explained his plan.

"Then why do we have to keep our marriage a secret?"

"Because," Blake told her, "it's one thing to steal a man's mistress and quite another to marry her. We can't risk tweaking the crown prince's nose or the emperor's and if our marriage was made public, you, as the wife of an ambassador, would be expected to accompany me to certain diplomatic functions which would include the imperial family. And in light of your acknowledged relationship with Rudolf, that would be considered a slight."

Cristina nervously bit her bottom lip. "So I'll be a wife pretending to be a mistress."

"Only until we can make an official announcement."

"When will that be?"

"Hopefully by Christmas."

"Oh."

He looked at Cristina and recognized the disappointment in her face. "I'm sorry, Cristina. I know it's not the way you wanted it. It's not what I wanted, either, but until these bloody negotiations are over it's the best I can offer. What do you say?"

"This isn't exactly what I had in mind." She tried to smile, but couldn't quite manage it.

Blake wasn't any happier about the situation than Cristina. He didn't like the idea of them living apart or the fact that most of Vienna would believe that she had, indeed, found a new protector instead of a husband. And although it wasn't the way he had wanted things to be, at least he had found a way to marry her with as few political repercussions as possible. "You can always refuse to marry me again."

"I don't want my child to be born a bastard," she said bluntly.

"Neither do I."

"Is that why you're marrying me?"

"No."

"But it is part of the reason," she persisted, hoping Blake would say the three little words that would make her feel so much better about the entire situation.

"Of course it is. It's also part of the reason you're marrying me."

"But it would make everything easier for you if we didn't get married--if I simply became your mistress, wouldn't it, Blake?"

"You already are my mistress," Blake told her. "And no, it wouldn't make anything easier, not when I want you to be my wife."

Cristina sighed. He wasn't going to say it. He'd said he wanted her, had told her he needed her, but he hadn't said he loved her. Not yet. And after Meredith, who could blame him? At least he was showing her. "What will happen once we let everyone in on our secret?"

"Nothing, I hope," Blake said. "The negotiations should be completed by that time and everything should be back to normal."

"What if someone should find out before we can make the official announcement? Would that undermine your position here?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "After the negotiations conclude, I don't think anyone will care--except maybe Rudolf. But it's a risk I'm willing to take." He paused for a moment and looked at her, almost afraid to breathe for fear she would change her mind and decide not to marry him after all. "How about you, Countess?"

"I'll risk it."

There was something in the way she answered him that made Blake offer her the other alternative--the one he'd been trying to avoid. "There is another way," he said.

"What way?"

"You could stay here, Cristina. You could wait in this house until Rudolf returns and see if he really means to obey his father--if he really has taken his leave of you or if he's simply giving his father three months to cool off and forget about ordering him to stay away from you. The negotiations should be concluded by the time he returns."

She wasn't about to consider that alternative, but she was curious. "You don't think he intends to continue to try to see me, do you?"

"I would."

"Will he?"

Blake turned and began to pace. "I don't know. But I think he might." He let out the breath he'd been holding. "I've known Rudolf for years. I've seen what happens when he tires of his mistresses. He presents them with a gift, Countess. A silver cigarette box engraved with his initial and his archducal crown and writes their name in his official "Register of Conquests." Believe me, I've seen it many times before. Did he give you a cigarette box before he left?"