Princess in Love

by Julianne MacLean

  Leopold reined his horse to a skidding halt and paused to look around and gain his bearings.

  Violence and madness surrounded him in all directions. Men were shouting and running, driving swords into the bellies of their enemies. Everywhere there was mud and blood and smoke from the guns. The acrid smell of death filled his nostrils, but the allies were winning. Only a few brave French grenadiers remained to fight to the death, while most were escaping in a headlong rush to save themselves.

  Leopold could barely see through the shifting smoke from the guns, but that did not stop him from recognizing at a distance that distinctive blond head of hair, hatless now, as the future emperor of Austria galloped into a mob of red-coated English infantry fighting against the blue-uniformed members of the Imperial Guard.

  His Highness swung his sword bravely and knocked down four French Guards with expert precision before a bullet struck him in the shoulder. The impact knocked him onto his back in the saddle.

  With a red-hot surge of panic and no time to think, Leopold spurred his horse into a gallop and shot like a bullet toward the mob of fighting men. He kept his eyes fixed on the archduke, now rolling off his horse and sliding from the saddle to the ground. His boot twisted in the iron stirrup as he fell.

  The archduke’s white horse reared up as a cannonball whizzed by, then he bolted in a mad dash toward the British right flank.

  Leopold shouted “Yah, yah!” and galloped faster through the smoke and chaos to chase after Joseph, who was being dragged by the boot along the blood-soaked field.

  At last Leo reached the frantic animal and grabbed hold of the bridle to gentle him and pull him to a halt.

  A second later, Leo was tossing a leg over Goliath’s rear flank and leaping to the ground to free the archduke’s foot from the stirrup.

  He dropped to his knees beside Joseph, who was still breathing but unconscious. Leopold unbuttoned the archduke’s coat to assess the damage. His white shirt was drenched in blood.

  Leo withdrew his knife and ripped through the fabric where the bullet had entered near the shoulder joint. With fast-moving fingers he untied Joseph’s cravat and used it to stanch the flow of blood while glancing down at his leg, which was twisted and mangled.

  “We need help here!” he shouted, lifting his gaze and looking all around, but his voice was just one more desperate plea among the piercing roar of fighting men and the continuing racket of muskets and cannon.

  Joseph moaned. Leopold looked down at him.

  “Your Royal Highness,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

  Joseph’s eyes fluttered open. He winced in pain. “My leg…”

  “I’m quite sure it’s broken,” Leopold explained to him, “and you’ve been shot in the shoulder. Try not to move. An ambulance cart will be here soon.”

  His heart was racing with fear and dread as he lifted the silk neck cloth to take another look at the wound. It was still bleeding profusely.

  Leopold covered it again. “We need help!” he shouted, louder this time, feeling more and more powerless with every passing second as the blood continued to pour from the wound. He could do nothing but wait for assistance, which might not come in time.

  Joseph’s eyes blinked open again and he looked up at Leopold. “Tell me what is happening. Have we won the battle?”

  Leo looked around for his men and saw that the battle was nearly won. His mounted regiment was now chasing the Imperial Guard from the field.

  “Yes,” he replied. “It is a tremendous victory. Napoleon’s army is crushed.”

  The gunfire began to subside. The disturbing roar of the shouting men grew quieter. Leo could hear the sound of trumpets signaling the victory.

  “Make sure they are harsher with him this time,” Joseph managed to say, though it cost him dearly to breathe deeply enough to get the words out. He grabbed hold of Leopold’s arm and pulled him closer. “Don’t let them send him back to Elba. He must be imprisoned or sent to St. Helena. That is where they should have sent him the first time.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree.” Leopold gazed desperately about the battlefield, searching for help while the neck cloth soaked up more and more blood.

  All the sounds of the battle grew muffled in his ears, as if he had just plunged his head into a barrel of water. The pop of the musket fire seemed very far away, and the whole world spun to a dizzying halt.

  Looking down at the man Rose had married—a good man; an honorable and courageous soldier who was bleeding to death before his very eyes—he cursed this damnable war and prayed that this would be the end of it.

  God! Please, God, stop the blood. He pressed firmly against the wound and shouted again, “Help, goddammit! The archduke of Austria has been shot!”

  Joseph’s hand squeezed Leopold’s wrist where he held the fabric in place. “Do something for me,” he said.

  Leo quickly nodded while his heart pounded like a heavy mallet in his chest.

  “Tell Rose I love her, and that no woman could ever have made me as happy as she has made me these past few months. Tell her that my world, my life, was not complete until she entered it.”

  Leopold clenched his jaw against the urge to utter a wrathful oath to curse God for this.

  “No,” he said. “You will tell her yourself.”

  Joseph gazed weakly at the sky. “Promise me, if the worst happens…”

  “I promise,” Leopold replied, if only to ease the archduke’s mind. “But it won’t be necessary, because I am going to get you out of here.”

  Leo’s eyes lifted just as two medics came running toward him with a stretcher.

  “Is this the archduke?” one of them asked.

  Leopold exhaled with relief. “Yes. He has been shot in the shoulder and his leg is broken.”

  “Thank you, General. If you would please move aside…”

  They took charge of the situation and assessed the wound at Joseph’s shoulder, then glanced only briefly at his leg, which seemed a lost cause.

  “You must take him to the Montgomery Inn in Waterloo and send for the very best surgeon we have,” Leopold said. “That is an order. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the medic replied as he eased Joseph onto the stretcher.

  Joseph had fallen unconscious by now, which was a blessing as he was awkwardly shifted about.

  Leopold watched them go, then took off in a sprint toward his horse and swung up into the saddle. He galloped swiftly back to his regiment and found the first man who was done with the fight and whose horse appeared fresh and strong.

  “You there!” he shouted to the young private. “I have an important errand for you!”

  The private saluted. “I am at your service, General.”

  “You must ride back to Brussels immediately and go straight to the hotel on rue Montagne du Parc, where you will deliver an urgent message to Rose, the wife of Archduke Joseph of Austria. Tell her that her husband has been gravely wounded in battle and was taken to the Montgomery Inn in Waterloo. She must go to him, and you must escort her there. Do you understand this? Do you have it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now go!” The young soldier wheeled his horse around, but Leopold shouted to him again. “Wait!”

  The private reined in his mount.

  “Tell her we were victorious, and that her husband fought bravely and proved himself to be a great hero.”

  “I will tell her, sir. Is that all?”

  “Yes.” With a sinking heart and a painful surge of deep anguish for what Rose was about to endure, Leo watched the rider gallop away.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  It had been an unbearable two-hour carriage ride from Brussels to Waterloo, and by the time Rose arrived, twilight had settled over the town. The streets were teeming with wagonloads of wounded soldiers being taken to God knows where, for the casualties had been enormous. There was an estimated total of fifty thousand dead counting both sides, and many more injured.

  Her heart wa
s focused on only one man, however: her husband, who might very well be among the dead by now if she had not reached him in time.

  When the coach finally arrived at the inn, she did not wait for a servant to open the door. She opened it herself while the wheels were still turning and leaped onto the street. With a quick glance up at the sign to ensure she was in the correct location, she gathered her skirts in her fists and ran to the door.

  Inside, the inn was packed with wounded men lying on the floor of the taproom and along the walls in the center hall. Many were bandaged, bruised, and bloody. Some were weeping for their mothers.

  “I am looking for my husband,” she said to the first civilian she came to—possibly the innkeeper’s wife. “He is Archduke Joseph of Austria. I was told he was taken here.”

  Let him be alive …

  The woman’s eyes widened. She quickly curtsied. “Yes, Your Royal Highness. We have been expecting you. He is upstairs. Please allow me to take you to him.”

  They skirted their way through a narrow winding path between the bedrolls laid out on the floor, and climbed the stairs to the top.

  The woman led Rose to a room at the end of the corridor and knocked gently with one knuckle upon the door. “The princess is here,” she said.

  Rose heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor and heavy footsteps. Then the door quickly opened.

  To her utter shock and dismay, there stood Leopold, covered in dirt and grime. His chin was splattered with blood, but he was in one piece, thank God. She sucked in a breath at the sight of him.

  Words spilled out of her mouth in a sudden rush of gratitude and relief. “Thank you for sending the message. I will be forever in your debt. How is he?”

  Leopold thanked the innkeeper’s wife, then invited Rose inside and closed the door behind them. “See for yourself.”

  She entered the room where a hot fire blazed in the hearth, but stopped dead at the sight of her husband lying unconscious on the bed. She was instantly whisked back to the moment she returned from England to find her father on his deathbed. Her stomach lurched suddenly and threatened to bring up her lunch.

  “My God.”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Leopold explained as she moved closer to the bed and beheld Joseph’s pale countenance. “But we were able to retrieve the bullet. Now it’s just a matter of time while we wait and pray that there will be no infection.”

  She sat down in the chair beside the bed and laid her hand on top of Joseph’s. “Has he been awake at all?”

  Leopold spoke plainly. “He was briefly conscious on the battlefield after he was shot.”

  Rose was intensely aware of Leopold moving slowly around the foot of the bed and taking a seat on the opposite side.

  “He had a rough time of it, Rose. Do you wish to know all the details? It won’t be easy to hear.”

  She met his gaze directly. “Of course I wish to know them. Surely you know me better than that.”

  “Forgive me,” he replied. “I had to ask.”

  She fought to bring her breathing under control. “No, Leopold, you are the one who must forgive me. I apologize. It has been a stressful day, but worse for you, no doubt.”

  The sound of a man downstairs screaming in pain reached them through the floorboards. They both fell silent until the torture came to an end and it was quiet again.

  “Tell me everything,” she said to him in the warm, flickering firelight. “I must know exactly what happened. Were you there?”

  * * *

  Leopold hated the fact that he had to describe all the horrific details to Rose, but knew that he must. She deserved no less than the truth, and God knows he owed her that. He drew in a breath.

  “I saw him from a distance. It was at the end of the day, and we had finally gained the upper hand. The full force of the allied army charged forward to crush the last French advance, and your husband was as brave as any man I ever saw. He galloped into a mob of French troops and saved the lives of more than a few British infantrymen. Then a bullet struck him and he fell from his horse, but his foot was caught in the stirrup and he was dragged.”

  “Good heavens.”

  Leopold paused to give her a moment to digest the information. “I saw it happen, so I pursued him and brought his horse under control. I dismounted and freed his foot from the stirrup, but I could see that his leg was badly broken.”

  She glanced down at Joseph’s leg, but could make out very little of its condition beneath the cover of the sheet. “Then what happened?”

  Leopold kept his eyes fixed upon hers. “I opened his coat to inspect the bullet wound. There was a lot of blood so I removed his cravat and used it to apply pressure while I shouted for help.”

  Her gaze fell upon her husband’s ghostly face. She was fighting tears. Leo knew it because he recognized and understood everything about her. He knew that her heart was gentle, vulnerable, and compassionate, but she was also strong. She could—and would—weather any storm.

  Her troubled eyes lifted to meet his, and he nearly tumbled headfirst into the extraordinary beauty of those deep blue irises. An ocean of memories came flooding into his head suddenly. His heart broke at the thought of what they had been to each other not so long ago, before all of this madness.

  “You told me he was conscious,” she said. “Did he speak to you? Was he in pain?”

  Leopold cleared his throat. “He was in a lot of pain, yes, but he withstood it and asked me to deliver a message to you. He made me promise.”

  She lifted her chin as if to prepare herself for something that would no doubt break her heart. “Tell me.”

  Leopold slowly repeated Joseph’s message, word for word, while Rose watched him with frowning, stricken eyes. When he finished, she gave no reply. All she could do was stare at him in silence while he nearly broke down, for they were words he wished were his own.

  Tell her I love her … that she made my life complete …

  He could not speak of such things, however. Not now, not ever again. He had to accept it, no matter how difficult it was. She was another man’s wife, and he would no longer insult her honor by imagining there was hope.

  Rose leaned forward and kissed her husband’s hand. She took a moment to gather her composure. “What about his leg? You said it was broken.”

  “Yes, the doctor found three breaks, but he was able to set the bones back into place. By God’s grace, your husband was not conscious for that.”

  She wet her lips. “It will heal?”

  Leopold swallowed uneasily. “We cannot yet be sure. At the very best, he will require months of convalescence and will likely use a cane.”

  “And the worst?”

  He hesitated. “It was a bad break, Rose, and the shinbone penetrated the skin. It is wrapped as well as it can be, but again, we must pray that there will be no infection.”

  “If there is, could he lose his leg?”

  Leopold nodded somberly.

  For a long time they sat without speaking in the dimly lit chamber while the fire blazed and crackled in the hearth, and Joseph lay as white and still as death.

  “Perhaps I should leave you now,” Leopold said, knowing his duty was done. He had ensured Joseph received the very best medical care and had arranged the reunion of husband and wife. Rose was here with him now, and it felt wrong for Leo to remain at the bedside when he knew damn well it was a selfish act, for how many times had he dreamed of seeing Rose again, one last time? Imagined hearing the sound of her voice and breathing in the intoxicating fragrance of her perfume?

  Her eyes held his.

  He could barely move.

  “Please do not go,” she softly said. “I am sure you are needed elsewhere and you’ve already done so much for us, but I want very much for you to stay.”

  She said it as if it were a burden she was placing upon his shoulders, which was ridiculous, for he cared for no duties outside of this room.

  The truth was … he would do anything—he
would sacrifice every moment of his entire future—for one more hour in her presence. Even if they did not speak a single word to each other, he would be content.

  “I would be happy to stay,” he replied. “I just wasn’t sure…”

  He wasn’t sure if she wanted him here. He feared she was still angry with him. That she hated him.

  Rose shook her head, as if he were a complete and utter fool for doubting his welcome.

  “If you think I bear any ill will toward you, Leopold, then you are wrong, for you were my guardian angel today. What would have happened to Joseph if you had not been there? I cannot bear to think of it, and I am so grateful for what you did.”

  His aching heart rejoiced at the sound of those words upon her lips. Perhaps he had redeemed himself just a little in her eyes, which was a task he had considered impossible a few short days ago.

  Though it was not why he had done it. When he galloped after Joseph’s runaway horse, he had already considered his reputation a lost cause—in her eyes and everyone else’s. What he’d done today was a matter of honor, and above all, an act of love.

  Rose cared for her husband. Leopold was therefore compelled to save his life and bring him home to her.

  He could not say any of that, however. “It’s what any dutiful soldier would have done,” he replied.

  “No,” she argued. “You are too modest. I believe your actions went beyond duty. I also believe…” She paused. “I beg your pardon, Leopold, but I must speak from my heart. I believe you might have been thinking of me, for you left your regiment and abandoned the fight to save him, did you not?”

  Leopold cleared his throat. “I did abandon it, yes, because I am always thinking of you, Rose. You are in my heart at all times. You were in it when I was riding after your husband.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and color rushed to her cheeks as she fought against the emotion she was trying so hard to conceal.

  God, how he loved her. Too much to do this to her.

  “But I really had no choice,” he continued. “Your husband is the future emperor of Austria. Let us leave it at that.”