The English Bride

by Joan Wolf

  "All right," Oskar said. "Now for the most important question of all: How do we manage to stay alive from now until tomorrow morning?"

  "We hide," Kurt said.

  "Where?"

  "In the woods near the Pfalz. Then, in the morning, we put on our uniforms and tell the guard at the gate that we are on escort duty. Once we get into the palace grounds, we'll go straight to the stables and wait for the Princess."

  Oskar drew in a long breath and slowly let it out. "All right," he said. "But let's get out of here as soon as possible. I don't feel safe."

  At eight o'clock the following morning, Kurt and Oskar presented themselves at the side gate the Household Guard customarily used when reporting for duty and told the sentry in the guard box that they were there to do escort duty for the Princess. The man in the box happened to be a temporary substitute for the original guard, who had gone to relieve himself, and he did not know that the original sentry had received orders from the marshal that two guards by the names of Kurt and Oskar were not to be admitted to the palace grounds.

  Unaware of how lucky they had been, Kurt and Oskar proceeded along the pathway that went to the stables. One of the grooms in the stable yard told them that the Princess was already in the manège taking a lesson from Lord Louis Hunersdorf.

  "Let's go," Kurt said to Oskar, and the two men turned and began to walk toward the building that looked like a Greek temple but was in reality the riding hall. They heard Lord Louis's voice as soon as they entered the vestibule.

  "Very nice, Princess. A little more from behind, perhaps. There! That is it! Now try to hold that while you go around the ring."

  Kurt, with Oskar following, moved to the doorway of the ring and looked in. The second- and third-floor galleries on either side of the rectangular sand ring were empty; the only onlooker to the lesson was an immense portrait of the Prince's grandfather riding a splendid Lipizzaner that hung high over the horses' entry door. In the manège itself a single horse and rider were trotting around the perimeter of the ring.

  Kurt thought that the Princess looked very small on the muscular gray stallion. She was dressed in a full-skirted velvet coat, breeches, high black boots, and a gold-encrusted tricorn hat. The only thing about her that proclaimed her sex was the long braid that rippled along her back in rhythm with the horse's swinging tail. She trotted right in front of the two guardsmen and never noticed them, so intensely was she concentrating on the horse.

  "Keep the forward," Lord Louis called as she continued down the long side of the ring. "Don't let him get behind your leg."

  The rider did not appear to do anything in response to this instruction, but the gray stallion's neck suddenly lowered and lengthened and Lord Louis called, "Good."

  Kurt and his companion waited fifteen long minutes for the Princess to finish. Kurt was so afraid that someone would come in and find them that he felt sick to his stomach, but neither he nor Oskar dared to interrupt the lesson.

  Finally it was over and the Princess was smiling and swinging down from the saddle with all the athleticism of the slim boy she resembled. She had halted not far from where the two guardsmen stood, and Kurt jerked his head toward Oskar and stepped resolutely into the ring.

  "Your Highness." The radiant face under the tricorn hat was utterly feminine, and the look she turned on the approaching strangers was completely without fear. "Yes?"

  Kurt thought in sudden panic, What if she doesn't believe us? What will we do then?

  Lord Louis, who had been standing in the center of the ring, began to walk toward them. "Who are you men?" he said, far more suspicious than the Princess of the unusual presence of two Household Guards in the manège. "What are you doing here?"

  Kurt said to the Princess, "Please, Your Highness, you must listen to us. There is a plot against the Prince's life. If you wish to save him, you must listen to us."

  At his words, all of the lovely color drained from her face. "A plot? Against his life?"

  "Yes, Your Highness."

  Lord Louis stopped beside the Princess and glared at the guardsmen. "What is going on here?"

  To Kurt's immense relief, the Princess said, "These men have something to tell me, Louis. May we borrow your office?"

  The slender, gray-haired écuyer, who was dressed in a more tailored coat than his pupil's, looked at Kurt and Oskar with hard eyes. Then he said, "All right, as long as I can accompany you."

  "Thank you, my lord," Kurt said with heartfelt gratitude.

  Lord Louis signaled to a groom to come and take the stallion, and the four of them crossed the ring, went out into the hallway, up a flight of stairs, and into Lord Louis's office.

  It was the Princess who took charge of the interview. As soon as the door had closed behind them, she turned to Kurt. "All right. Tell me about this plot."

  "Two days ago Marshal Rupnik came to see me," Kurt began, and he proceeded to recount the entire story of his interviews with both Rupnik and Hindenberg. As he was talking, all of the girlish softness left the Princess's face; it seemed to become thinner, its delicate bones more prominent, and her large brown eyes turned almost purely gold.

  When he had finished his story she asked no questions but said immediately, "Both of you come with me to the Pfalz. I want the Prince to hear this for himself."

  Even her voice was different, Kurt thought. He saw the golden eyes move to Lord Louis. "You come too, Louis," she said. "We may have need of you."

  Kurt and Oskar followed the Princess and Lord Louis up the path to the palace, in through the ground-level door, up the stairs, and through the same arched doorway that they had been assigned to guard that very evening. They went halfway along a wainscoted passageway before the Princess stopped in front of a closed door and commanded Lord Louis, "Take them in there. I will find the Prince."

  Lord Louis opened the door and gestured for the two guardsmen to enter. Kurt went first into a very pretty salon, with plasterwork designs on the painted walls. The large mirror on the wall between the windows reflected back the tense figures of the three men as they stood in silence waiting for the Princess to return.

  At last the door opened and the tall figure of the Prince filled the doorway. He came into the room, the Princess after him.

  Kurt stiffened to attention and saluted, and Oskar did the same.

  The Princess shut the door.

  "Which of you is Kurt?" the Prince said. He was in his shirtsleeves with the cuffs rolled up, and his hair was damp. Evidently he had been in the middle of washing up, and his wife's tale had disturbed him enough that he hadn't bothered to wait to put on a coat.

  "I am, Your Highness." Kurt took a half step forward to identify himself.

  The Prince's gray eyes narrowed as they moved to Kurt's face. "Tell me," he commanded, "exactly what Rupnik said to you."

  Kurt drew a deep steadying breath and proceeded to recount the entire conversation once more.

  Augustus listened with not a muscle moving in his face. When Kurt had finished he said, "Now tell me about your conversation with Hindenberg." Once again Kurt complied.

  The Prince was silent when Kurt concluded his tale, his face as calm and expressionless as a mask.

  "Hindenberg has made no attempt to speak to you?" the Princess asked her husband.

  "None," the Prince replied in a voice as calm and expressionless as his face. But one look into his diamond-hard eyes revealed the fact that he was very angry indeed.

  Lord Louis said, "Hindenberg must be part of the plot, Your Highness. There can be no other reason for his failure to warn you."

  "That is certainly how it looks." The Prince turned to his écuyer. "Louis, will you bring Emil to me?"

  Lord Louis went to fetch the Prince's friend, and the four people left in the room listened to the door close behind him. The Prince went to the window and stood gazing out. The Princess stood in front of a delicate plaster cherub on the wall and looked at her husband's taut shoulders and rigid back.

  They wa
ited in silence. At last the door opened again to admit the broad-shouldered young noble whom Kurt knew to be one of the Prince's closest friends. Augustus turned to face Lord Emil Sauder and briefly, in that deceptively calm voice, he related the plot. He ended by saying, "I want you to take a contingent of guards, go to Rupnik's office in the city, arrest him, and bring him back here to me."

  Lord Emil's dark eyes were blazing. "I will go immediately, Gus."

  Lord Emil left and once again the room was silent. For the first time since he had come in, Kurt saw the Prince look at his wife, who was now sitting on the sofa.

  "This is not going to be pretty, Charity," he said. "Do you want to stay?"

  "Yes," she said.

  He nodded. "All right."

  "These guards must be hungry, Augustus," she said. "They hid in the woods all night and then came directly to see me. Perhaps Louis could take them into the morning room and order them some food."

  The Prince looked at his écuyer. "Do you mind, Louis? The fewer who know about this at the moment, the better."

  "Of course I don't mind," Lord Louis said.

  Kurt was extremely happy to follow the écuyer out of the room. He would feel much more comfortable being at a safe distance from the dangerously angry Augustus.

  Left alone with her husband, Charity also recognized the clamped-down anger in Augustus. He had gone back to staring out the window, and she looked at his uncombed hair curling on his bare neck and something inside her clenched hard. Never before had she thought of him as vulnerable, yet now, as she stared at those tender blond ringlets, she felt how exposed he was in his royal position.

  Who knows where else his enemies might be? If Rupnik had not approached this particular man . . . if Kurt had not thought of trying to see me . . . if . . . if . . . if . . . If not for all of these ifs, Augustus would be dead.

  She shivered and hugged her arms around her as if she were cold. "Rupnik is the commander of your Household Guard, Augustus," she said abruptly. "He is sworn to protect you! If you cannot trust him, then whom can you trust?"

  He turned to face her. "I know whom I can trust, Charity." His face was grim. "My mistake was in keeping my father's ministers and not replacing them with my own men. You were right. I should have got rid of the old guard. It is a mistake I will not repeat."

  She looked into his cold gray eyes. She desperately wanted his comfort and, throwing pride to the winds, said in a small voice, "I am so afraid, Augustus."

  He responded as she had hoped he would, coming over to the sofa, sitting beside her and taking her hand. "There is nothing to be afraid of. I am perfectly safe and we will get rid of these villains before they can make any more mischief."

  She took the initiative and moved closer to him, snuggling into his arms, closing her eyes and resting her cheek against his chest. For a moment his arms tightened, gripping her hard against him. His cheek came down on her head, and she felt sheer bliss. Then his head lifted, his arms loosened, and he said, "There is no need to upset yourself, my dear. All will be well."

  His voice sounded stiff. His body was rigid. His loose arms rejected her. She drew away and moved to the farthest corner of the sofa. "I'm sorry," she said in a subdued voice. "I didn't mean to be a baby."

  Because she wasn't looking at him she didn't see the involuntary way his hand reached toward her. After a moment he got up and resumed his post by the window. They remained together in silence until Lord Emil returned. He was alone. "Where is Rupnik?" the Prince demanded. "Were you too late to catch him?"

  Lord Emil said grimly, "Yes, Gus, we were too late. When he saw me coming with the guard, he killed himself."

  16

  Lord Emil had better luck catching Hindenberg, who, when brought to the palace, swore to Augustus that he was not a party to Rupnik's plan. When the Prince confronted him with Kurt and Oskar, however, he collapsed and fell to his knees, begging for mercy.

  Augustus turned him over to the Chief Justice of Jura for a trial whose outcome was in little doubt. Charity voiced the general opinion of all of those who cared for Augustus when she pronounced, "I hope they hang him. A man like that, a man who would betray his own sworn prince, does not deserve to live."

  "I could not agree with you more, Your Highness," Lord Emil said heartily. He, the Prince, Charity, Lord Louis, and Lord Stefan had gathered in the Princess's sitting room after Count Hindenberg had been led away. Everyone was drinking coffee.

  The Prince looked at his wife and shook his head in sorrow. "Can this bloodthirsty woman be the same sweet and charitable girl who has worked so hard to open shelters and health clinics for Jura's poor?"

  "I most certainly am the same person," Charity replied vigorously. "And this same person also wants to know if Duke Anton was involved in this heinous plot."

  Her question was greeted by a significant silence. Everyone looked at the Prince.

  He was frowning into his coffee cup. "I don't know," he replied. "I would like to think that he was not, but I don't know."

  "Arrest him," Lord Stefan recommended. "It is the only way to insure your safety, Gus."

  The Prince shook his head. "I have absolutely no evidence against him."

  "Lord Stefan is right. You must do something to insure your safety, Your Highness," Lord Louis urged.

  "I am doing something, Louis," the Prince replied. "I am appointing Lord Stefan to be my chief minister, Lord Emil to be my new marshal, and Count Viktor Rozman to replace Anton as my official ambassador to Austria." He moved his gray gaze to Charity. "I have learned my lesson. From now on I will have only my own people around me."

  "So Anton will go free?" Lord Stefan said in a flat voice.

  The Prince leaned back in his chair. "Franz will hold him in check, Stefan. Believe me, he will not want his father involved in any nefarious schemes to overthrow me. He will keep a close eye on Anton."

  "I don't trust Franz," Charity said. "How can you consider him your friend, Augustus? Look what he did to you. He ran away with your intended bride a week before your wedding."

  The Prince was still holding his coffee cup and now he lifted it in a flourish to her. "And in doing so, he did me the greatest of favors."

  Lord Stefan raised his cup as well. "He did all Jura a favor, Your Highness."

  "He most certainly did," and Lord Emil's cup was also lifted into the air.

  "To Princess Charity," Lord Louis said with a smile as he raised his own cup to his favorite pupil.

  Charity blushed and laughed as the men toasted her with their delicate Sevres coffee cups, and the subject of Franz was dropped.

  The dark mood cast over the Pfalz by the conspiracy of Rupnik and Hindenberg quickly dissipated under the excitement of getting ready for Jura's national holiday, Ozbald Day. This anniversary was celebrated annually to honor the Battle of Ozbald, the country's great sixteenth-century victory over the Turks. It would be the first official celebration of the holiday since the war, and Augustus was anxious to restore all of the traditional functions that had been in abeyance for over a decade.

  A week before the anniversary date, Julia's palaces began to fill with the country's nobles who were pouring into the city in order to attend the festivities that Augustus had planned. On Saturday morning, exactly four days after the Rupnik-Hindenberg plot had been discovered, the Prince received a note from Eva Zais stating that she was in Julia and asking him to come see her.

  He stood in front of the pier glass in his dressing room and held out his arms so that his valet could put on his blue coat. He had been given the note when he returned from his morning ride, and his mind had been completely preoccupied ever since he had read it.

  I have to see her, he thought. It would be unforgivably discourteous not to see her.

  "Is there anything else I can do for you, Your Highness?"

  "What?" For a moment he looked blankly at his valet. Then he said hastily, "Oh, no, that will be all, Hans. Thank you." Once he was alone he walked to the window and stood s
taring out at the gardens, thinking of Eva.

  After a moment, he brought himself up short and told himself that he was married, that he could not expect to resume his comfortable affair with Eva with Charity living right here in the palace with him. It would not be right. It would be a sin.

  Augustus certainly knew enough history to be aware that most princes were scarcely paragons of morality. A sovereign's duty was to produce a legitimate heir; what he did after that was not judged too harshly. But Augustus was a young man who held himself accountable for all of his promises, and he knew that to betray his promise to Charity was wrong.

  He leaned his forehead against the window glass, closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the clamoring demands of his celibate body.

  I will pay a visit to Eva. I am certain that is all she is expecting. She knows that I am married. She will understand that anything that was once between us must be over.

  He drove a pair of Lipizzaners, with only a groom to accompany him. The Zais Palace in Julia was one of the newer edifices, built in the last century in the neoclassical style. The Prince alighted quickly and told his groom to drive the horses around to the stables in the back. The last thing he wanted to do was to advertise to the world that he was here.

  It never once crossed his mind that Eva would not be at home.

  A servant opened the front door of the palace before he reached it, and, as he stepped into the marble-floored hallway, she was standing there waiting for him. She had cut her hair, and the sun shining in through the fan window over the door lit its pale gold like a halo. Her face was in shadow, so he could not see the color of her eyes, but he knew that they were green.

  "Your Highness," she said, and sank into a graceful curtsey. "How kind of you to call. Will you be pleased to come in and partake of some refreshment?"

  "Thank you," he said. His mouth was dry and his heart was thudding. "It is good to see you again, Lady Zais." He followed her into a salon that he had never seen before and that appeared to be decorated with Empire style furniture and many busts of Roman emperors. He scarcely noticed his surroundings; his senses were too filled with the scent of her familiar perfume.