‘Captain Middleton, I have a message from the Empress.’ He paused and looked down at the floor for a moment. ‘Her Majesty would like you to meet her in the stables.’ He delivered his message in the expressionless tone of a man who had trained himself not to react to his mistress’s caprices.
Bay, though, could not hide his surprise.
‘Now? She wants to meet me there now?’
‘I am not precisely sure when the Empress will be joining you, but I think her intention is that you should wait for her there.’
The Chamberlain bowed from the waist in the continental manner, signifying that there would be no further conversation, and left the room as quickly as he could. Bay followed him into a corridor that appeared to lead to the servants’ wing.
‘Baron Nopsca!’
The Chamberlain turned round to face him. Although the corridor was dimly lit, Bay could see that the other man’s face was white and sweating.
‘The stables? How do I get there?’
Nopsca’s face sagged with relief. ‘My apologies.’ He gave Bay directions, and then said, ‘But it is a cold night. And it is possible you will have to wait. Her Majesty can sometimes be unpredictable. One moment, please.’
Nopsca disappeared through a door and came back a few moments later with a footman, who was carrying a decanter filled with a colourless liquid on a silver salver. He poured out a generous glass for Middleton and one for himself.
‘Schnapps. In Vienna we call it the sentry’s friend. It is very good at keeping out the cold.’
He raised the glass to his lips and emptied it. Bay followed suit, enjoying the hot rush of alcohol as it caught the back of his throat.
The Baron blinked and smiled faintly. ‘One more, I think.’
Bay did not refuse. There was a kind of desperation about the Baron. They held their glasses aloft for a moment and the Baron said with a broader smile, ‘To the Empress!’ Bay repeated his words and felt the schnapps working its way down to his knees.
‘Goodnight, Herr Captain, I hope that your wait will not be too long.’
* * *
On his way to the stables, Bay caught sight of his reflection in a speckled pier glass hanging in one of the Great Hall’s many alcoves. He stepped towards it, unable to resist admiring the splendours of his uniform. Just as he was adjusting his cape to the requisite angle, he caught a flash of white in the corner of the mirror and heard the sound of voices. It was Liechtenstein and Esterhazy. They were speaking German in a low tone but Bay heard his own name spat out by one of them, followed by a harsh laugh. Bay did not dare turn round; he did not want the Austrians to think he had been eavesdropping. It was hard to see them in the foxed and wavy glass; the white shapes kept shifting and buckling. At one point the two white shapes merged into one as if the two men were locked in a fierce embrace. Bay squinted at the glass but it was impossible to make out exactly what was going on behind him. At last the white mass separated into two distinct shapes and he heard the sound of boots and spurs clanking up the great stone staircase. Bay felt a little unsteady, the schnapps was catching up with him. Had he really seen Castor and Pollux in a distinctly unfraternal embrace? He dismissed the idea as an alcohol-induced hallucination. He had been in the army long enough to know that such things took place in the barracks among the men, but between two officers? He brushed the thought away.
He found the stable easily. Like the house, it was a baroque confection – the bas reliefs on the ceiling were equal to the ones in the Great Hall. There were twenty or so animals in the stalls, and Bay felt calmer as he breathed in the familiar smell of horse and hay. He walked down the aisle between the stalls, wondering why the Austrians shaved their horses. He thought the barbering looked unnatural; it offended his notions of the respect due to such noble animals. But then the Austrians, he was beginning to see, cared a great deal about the surface of things – the gold braid on their uniforms, the precise order in which people of different ranks should go into dinner; even the halters around the horses’ heads were made of silk rope. He thought of the impossible narrowness of the Empress’s waist in her riding habit, her unrelenting carriage. She always looked immaculate, even after a long and muddy day in the field. She was a woman who cared about the way things looked, and yet she had asked to meet him here. What would Lichtenstein and Esterhazy, the ex-King of Naples and even the Emperor himself make of that?
The chestnut horse in front of him switched its tail irritably, kicking out against some unseen demon. The stable clock started to chime, it was ten o’clock already. Bay thought of the hired chaise and wondered how long he would have to wait. The excitement he had felt on receiving her summons, boosted by Nopsca’s schnapps, had now began to subside into a feeling of giddy unease.
When, at last, he heard her voice behind him, Bay hesitated a moment before turning round. He wanted to see her face and yet he wondered what he would see there.
The Empress was smiling. She was wearing a velvet cloak with an ermine-trimmed hood over her evening dress. As he turned to look at her, she pushed back the hood and he saw the diamond stars, shining in the chestnut mass of her hair. Behind her was the Countess, sniffing audibly, her nose red from the cold.
‘I have kept you waiting.’ This was not an apology, but a statement of fact.
Bay bowed, he could think of nothing to say. The Empress turned to Countess Festetics. ‘Captain Middleton must be cold. Can you ask Nopsca to bring us something warm to drink?’ The Countess looked at her for a second and then left the stables.
The Empress looked around her for a moment and then waved a white hand towards the horses in their stalls.
‘Do you really think I need new horses, Captain Middleton?’
Bay swallowed. ‘I think, Ma’am, that you need ones that are worthy of you.’
‘Worthy? But these are the best horses in Austria.’
‘Perhaps, but they are still not good enough for you.’ Bay moved a step towards her. ‘You are the finest horsewoman I have ever seen. You should have the best.’
She moved a little to her left to stroke a horse’s muzzle, and the light from one of the stable’s sconces fell across her face and made the diamonds in her hair sparkle. She put her hand under the horse’s mouth and let the animal nuzzle at her fingers.
‘Does it matter so much? These are good horses. Perhaps I should be content with what I have.’
‘Perhaps, Ma’am. We should all be content with what we have. But you deserve perfection.’
She shook her head faintly. ‘You sound like a courtier, Captain Middleton.’
Bay felt the sting of this.
‘But I am not flattering you for the sake of some advancement. I speak the truth as I perceive it. If you dismiss what I say as flattery, then I am sorry for your sake, not mine.’
She looked up at this, pleased.
‘Well, no one from Vienna would speak to me like that. But if you are not a courtier, then why are you here?’
Bay said very quietly, ‘I think you know why.’
‘Because I am the finest horsewoman you have ever seen?’ she said.
‘I came because you asked me to.’
She smiled. ‘How very obedient. My sister would be surprised.’
Bay looked down at the straw at his feet. The two things he fancied he knew in life were horses and women. If any other woman in the world had asked to meet him in the stables, alone, at night, he would have been in no doubt as to what was expected of him. At some point he would put his hand on the woman’s waist and it would begin. Here, though, any such action seemed impossible. The Empress was not like any other woman. There was her position, of course, her husband the Emperor, as well as the cavalieri serventi, but it was not just her rank and status that made him uncertain. He had not seen that slackening, the wide-eyed stare that told him when a woman wanted to be touched.
‘Tell me something,’ the Empress said. ‘Why do they call you Bay?’
He looked up. ‘It was w
as the name of a Derby winner that came in at odds of a hundred to one. After the race my friends started calling me Bay. I suppose they think I am a lucky man.’
‘And are you?’
‘Sometimes. With a good horse and a clear field I feel as lucky as any man in the kingdom.’
‘And now? Are you lucky now, Bay Middleton?’
She was looking straight at him and Bay stared at her, searching for permission in her face for what he wanted to do. She was standing just out of arm’s length. To kiss her he would need to step forward. But to move towards her now would make his intentions quite clear – if she recoiled he would not be able to pretend that he had meant nothing by his actions. He wanted to act, to end the uncertainty, to bring that cool, pale face next to his, and yet he knew that if he did, he was lost.
‘Lucky and unlucky,’ he said slowly.
She shook her head. ‘That is a courtier’s answer. I want to know, what does Bay Middleton make of his current situation?’
As she spoke, the horse behind her gave an enormous snort and flicked its tail out of the box, swiping the Empress’s sleeve. She started forward in surprise and Bay put out his hand to steady her. His hand touched the smooth white skin of her shoulder and before he could think about what he was doing, he was putting his hands behind her head and pressing his mouth to hers. For a moment she was rigid and then he felt her hand on the back of his neck. Her kiss was like a sigh. Bay could smell violets, brandy and the faint musk of her hair. Her head felt heavy in his hands. Behind them the horse whinnied.
At last she pulled away and turned her head to the side. Bay could not see the expression on her face. He took one of her hands in his and said in a low, urgent voice, ‘I have taken a liberty. You must forgive me. It was a moment’s madness. You are so beautiful and so near. I could not resist.’
She smiled and put a finger against his lips.
‘There is nothing to say…’
Bay saw the creases at the corner of her eyes and leant forward to kiss her again, but as he did so he heard a cough, a masculine clearing of the throat, and looking up, he saw Baron Nopsca, accompanied by the Countess, with two tankards on a salver. The Empress saw the look on Bay’s face and turned around. She did not falter.
‘At last,’ she said lightly. ‘Poor Captain Middleton, you have been freezing to death. What have you brought, Nopsca? It smells wonderful.’
‘It is called negus, Ma’am.’
Bay took the tankard that Nopsca offered him and had a sip of the spicy liquid. It was little more than tepid and Bay wondered how long the Baron had been standing there watching them. The man’s face was impassive; if he had seen anything, he was too well trained to show it.
The Empress liked her negus. ‘The coffee here is terrible but this is quite good. I think I shall have this every night, Nopsca.’
She turned to Bay and extended her hand. ‘Thank you so much, Captain Middleton, for all your help. I am looking forward very much to riding one of your horses. I feel sure that we will get on very well together.’
‘Undoubtedly, Ma’am.’ Bay pressed his lips to her fingers just a little longer than he should.
‘Goodnight then. Where are we hunting tomorrow?
‘With the Quorn, Ma’am. The finest hunt in the three counties.’
‘Then I have much look to forward to, Captain Bay Middleton.’
Bay found the way she said his full name as intimate as the kiss that preceded it. He looked to see if the others had noticed. Nopsca had already turned away but Festetics was looking straight at him. As he caught her eye, she smiled and gave him an unmistakeable wink before following her mistress out of the stable.
The Empress’s Correspondence
Bay slept in the chaise on the way back to Melton Hall, as soundly as he did after a successful day’s hunting. The chase was over for the day. There would be time for doubts tomorrow, but for now he closed his eyes, revelling in the memory of the Empress’s head in his hands, his mouth upon hers.
But while he slept, the woman who was occupying his dreams was wide awake. She was standing by the window of her bedroom looking out over the snowy fields bathed in moonlight. In the corner of the room Countess Festetics was also awake. She was thinking not of love but of her bed. The Countess was exhausted but she could not retire until she was dismissed, and she knew from long experience that when her mistress was excited, she simply forgot to sleep. Festetics yawned as loudly as she dared and the Empress turned around.
‘How you startled me, I had forgotten you were there.’
‘Forgive me, Majesty, it has been a long day.’
‘But a good one. I thought the dinner went off very well.’
Festetics smiled. ‘I had a very pleasant companion, certainly. Captain Middleton is so gallant, he could almost be Hungarian.’
‘You must see him ride and then you will be convinced that he was born a Magyar.’
The Empress was wearing a lace nightgown and her hair was loose over her shoulders. Her face softened with pleasure when she talked about Middleton. Festetics thought that she had not seen her mistress look so happy for years.
‘He is certainly as devoted to you as any of your subjects. At dinner he praised you at every course. I think you have quite dazzled him.’
The Empress wound a great lock of hair around her hand.
‘I did not expect this,’ she said quietly. Festetics moved closer to her and put her hand on the other woman’s.
‘No one desires your happiness more than I do, Majesty. But I beg you to be careful. You know that Nopsca and I serve only you, but there are other people here who do not love you as we do.’
The Empress tossed her head and her hair shifted heavily. ‘You know, Festy, I have spent all my life being careful. I have been watched and measured and judged since the age of fifteen. Observed as closely as a wild beast in a menagerie. From the moment I married I have been … scrutinised.’ She leant forward and the hair fell around her face.
‘Do you know that on the day of my wedding, my mother-in-law told me that my teeth were so crooked that when I smiled in public I should always keep my mouth closed? I didn’t open my mouth for months.’ She smiled then, revealing teeth that were a little crowded, the two incisors pushing out a little. They jarred with the symmetry of her features, giving the mournful perfection of her face a wolfish quality.
‘But I am not scared now.’ She bared her teeth at Festetics and then, seeing the alarm on her lady-in-waiting’s face, she said, ‘Oh, don’t worry, I am not going to bite anyone. But,’ her voice became serious, ‘if I see a chance of happiness, even a small one, I will take it.’
The Countess bowed her head.
‘My only desire is to protect you, Majesty.’
The Empress squeezed her hand. ‘Yes, I know. Now go to bed. I don’t need you any more tonight.’
The Countess curtsied. ‘As Your Majesty wishes.’ She was just at the door, thinking of the bed that awaited her at the other end of the corridor, when the Empress called after her, ‘I need some writing paper, I only have a couple of sheets left and I want to write to the Emperor tonight.’
Dearest Franzl,
I have just read your letter of the 15th. You complain that I am a wretched correspondent. But you see, liebchen, I have been so busy that I really haven’t had the time to write you the long letter that you so richly deserve. There has been so much to attend to here, and, of course, I have been hunting almost every day. Long hard days where we ride for hours without stopping, when I get home I am so tired that Festetics and Nopsca have to carry me to bed. I sleep so well here, I close my eyes and then, oblivion.
Tonight Maria and Ferdinand were here for dinner, with the Spencers – an English milord with a red beard and many acres and his wife, who has a red nose. Maria is happier here than she was in France but she thinks always of what she has lost. I think Ferdinand is more resigned to his lot. Of course they are still short of money; I believe that Maria relies very
much on the generosity of Baron Rothschild. She is pressing me to visit the Rothschilds with her. The stables at Waddeson are, apparently, quite magnificent. Sadly my horses are quite inadequate to the hunting here. But I have a very able advisor in Captain Middleton, who has promised to find me some animals better suited to the conditions. You are always urging me to make friends among the English – I think I shall become very popular among the horse-breeding fraternity!
It was so easy to write to Franzl tonight, she felt buoyant with happiness. Sisi could not suppress a frisson of pleasure as she wrote Middleton’s name for the first time. There was no need to mention him really, but she could not resist the urge to bring him into her letter, under her husband’s nose. Of course Franzl would not notice; it would take a great deal more to make him look up from those stacks of boxes and feel a flicker of jealousy. But she felt that by writing down Middleton’s name she had given warning.
You would be so happy to see your Sisi now. Festetics says that she has never seen me looking so well. The nervous exhaustion that kept me to my bed last summer has gone. What a fine idea this hunting has been. Of course, I miss you very much, but it is doing me so much good to be here. I think of you now poring over your boxes, and it pains me to think of you being alone, but I know you with your great generous soul would much rather that I was here and happy than in the spirits that I was in last summer. So please, dear Franzl, do not press me to give you a date for my return. I am happy here, and as you know, I have not had much happiness since the day we met all those years ago in Bad Ischl. Of course it would be the pinnacle of my happiness if you were to join me here, I think that you would enjoy the hunting enormously. Alas, I know that your devotion to duty means that you are chained to your desk, the father to your people but never perhaps the husband to your wife.
Please kiss my darling little Valerie for me. I would so much like to have her here with me, but I don’t want to deprive you of your little dumpling. I know how much comfort she brings you, so I will put aside a mother’s needs so that you can have her by your side.
The Fortune Hunter Page 17
