Instead, he had been accosted by the Princess Bagration, and though she was one of the women who had been expressly mentioned by Wellington in his instructions before Brett left Paris, Brett could not suppress the vague feeling of unease he always experienced in her company, or of being put off by the naked desire he read in her eyes every time she looked at him. He knew it was unreasonable, for, after all, he himself had cast admiring looks at hundreds of beautiful women, but all the same, it made him acutely uncomfortable. And her obvious intriguing only made it worse.
Not wishing to run the risk of further encounters with her, Brett left the reception early. As he walked back to his quarters, he consoled himself with the thought that the Princess Bagration, who was as voracious as she was shameless, would no doubt find some other hapless young man whom she considered equally as attractive and would soon forget the very existence of Major Lord Brett Stanford. He even allowed himself to hope that somehow her promise to contact him had merely been an impulse and nothing more, a flirtatious ploy on the lady’s part to attract his attention at that particular moment, for whatever reason, and then forgotten as soon as the moment and the impulse had passed.
Unfortunately, the lady was as good as her word, and the very next day, a messenger appeared at the British delegation bearing a heavily scented missive inviting Brett to call on her at the Palm Palace later that very day.
Brett took the note, read it, and nodded carelessly to the liveried servant.
“The princess awaits your response, milord.”
Clearly, a written response was expected, and just as clearly, Brett foresaw all the possible compromising conclusions that could be drawn by someone reading a note written in his hand to a woman who was rapidly becoming as notorious for her political scheming as she was for her many lovers. No matter how innocent his note might be, it would not look that way to anyone else. Brett nodded casually to the servant “Very well. Take me to your mistress.”
Undoubtedly there was very little that could shock those who were in the service of the
Naked Angel,
but Brett was certain that he caught a flash of alarm in the man’s eyes before his face resumed its wooden expression. “But certainly, milord. if you will be so good as to follow me.”
What, Brett wondered, for the hundredth time as be followed the man through the narrow streets to the Palm Palace, did the Princess Bagration want with him? Such persistence on her part seemed to preclude any possibility that it was simply physical attraction that drew her to him. His natural wariness, sharpened by years of campaigning, only reinforced his suspicions that what she required of him was something more than what Charles Stewart crudely referred to as
the Bagration’s insatiable desires
where men were concerned.
Climbing the palace’s left-handed staircase toward the princess’ apartments, Brett turned the question over and over in his mind, but still could come up with no satisfactory explanation for the summons that left him in a position of frustrating uncertainty. Obviously, Brett had been unable to do any sort of research before his visit and was left to seethe with frustration over his lack of preparation while the servant wait to inform his mistress that the response she awaited was actually there in person, pacing the parquet floor in her elegant anteroom.
Meanwhile, Brett cursed himself for a fool. Courageous though he might be, and accustomed as he was to leading his men into dangerous situations, it was as foreign to him as it was unacceptable to enter into any confrontation without reconnoitering thoroughly before engaging in any actions. He always took the time to prepare himself mentally so that he could anticipate the enemy’s state of mind. In this case, the enemy had caught him off guard and he was going to have to deal with it without any time for reflection.
After nearly half an hour, the sharp hurried click of heels told him that his questions were soon to be answered. Brett stopped his pacing and turned, ready to follow the servant, when, to his great surprise, he recognized the round genial face of Alexander, tsar of all the Russias.
“Your Highness, I...”
“Good morning. Major.” The tsar smiled at Brett in the friendliest of fashions. “It is refreshing to see a fellow military man among all these courtiers and diplomats. We military men are accustomed to action rather than these endless discussions which are as pointless as they are vexing. I trust you can encourage your fellow Englishmen to proceed with the forcefulness and dispatch that has characterized their conduct in the Peninsula.”
“Of course. Your Highness. I shall do ...”
“Very good. I count on you then.” And the tsar disappeared out the door and down the stairs as rapidly as he had appeared, leaving Brett even more amazed and mystified than he had been before.
“Ah, Major, so good of you to come. I had not expected your presence so immediately, but then you English are always so punctilious.”
Brett, who had been staring bemusedly after the tsar, jumped and tuned around to see his hostess, still en
negligée,
her blond curls hanging loose around her shoulders, gliding across the room to greet him. Calling on all his training as a soldier, Brett drew one deep steadying breath and awaited developments.
“Come. Sit beside me.” Princess Bagration sank onto a nearby sofa and patted the damask-covered seat close to her, far too close to her for her guest’s comfort or peace of mind.
Reiterating to himself that he was there to serve his country, Brett gingerly took his place beside her, hoping against hope that she could not see how tight his collar felt or the beads of sweat that he could feel starting to gather on his forehead.
The princess was a beautiful and alluring woman, and the fact that she was obviously on intimate terms with the most powerful man in Europe only made her all that much more dangerous to a man who had no experience in the constantly shifting world of political intrigue and diplomatic alliances. No matter how demanding the conditions were on the Peninsula, no matter how dire the situation, he had always been sure of which side he was on and of its motives. Here he was sure of nothing except that it behooved him to exercise extreme caution.
“You have no notion what a relief it is to be able to relax and enjoy a frank conversation with a simple soldier.” The princess ran a hand through the riot of golden curls that framed her softly rounded face. “I adore Alexander, but his enthusiasms can be utterly exhausting, and when he is at one and the same time a ruler and a friend, it can be very complicated indeed. Which is why I wish to speak with you. When I call you a simple soldier, I do not mean any disrespect. All that I mean is that you, like me, are merely a subject of one of the nations gathered here, not a ruler or a diplomatic representative. We are both forced to bow to the whims and the passions of those who are redrawing the map of Europe. It is a relief to know that an ill-judged or misspoken word between you and me will not decide the fate of nations, whereas an ill-judged or misspoken word between them, or between one of us and them . . .” She shrugged her shoulders with an air of resignation that, nonetheless, allowed the negligee to reveal even more of the smooth white skin than it had before.
While her words might echo his thoughts to an uncomfortable degree, they still did not answer his question. Why was be here? Brett remained silent, trying to look thoughtful as he fixed his gaze on the elaborate pattern on the parquet floor, on the ornately decorated porcelain stove in the comer, anywhere, but on the enchanting mouth, the slender neck, the sparkling eyes that smiled up at him seductively from underneath half-lowered lids.
The princess laid a hand on his arm. “Alexander is most concerned about Castlereagh’s position in all these discussions. He is a passionate man himself, and he simply cannot fathom the impassivity of your foreign secretary. Ah, Castlereagh, such a beautiful face, like an angel, yet so unrevealing, so unemotional. It drives us Russians mad.” She wagged a playful finger at Brett. “You English are all so cold. We can none of us tell what you are thinking.”
“Perhaps we are not thinking anything at all, Princess. Perhaps we are simply lost in admiration of your beauty.” This time he did allow himself to look at her, scrutinizing every detail, from the pulse at the base of her throat to the way she caught her full lower lip in her sharp white teeth. He had known enough women to have developed a sixth sense for when they were after something, not to mention a lively sense of self-preservation. And this woman was definitely after something.
“If you, dear Major, could perhaps convince Castlereagh to meet privately with Alexander, informally, someplace away from all the pomp and ceremony that surrounds them . . .” her voice trailed off suggestively.
And away from the prying eyes of interested parties,
Brett added silently.
“Somewhere where they could become better acquainted without the inevitable pressure of people around them. Perhaps here.” She laid a pleading hand on his shoulder. “I would be most happy to volunteer my apartments for the cause of better understanding between your country and mine.”
“You overestimate my influence. Princess. As you so correctly stated, I am but a simple soldier, here to act as secretary and messenger for my delegation. The foreign secretary does not know me from a score of other young men assigned to the delegation for the very same purpose.”
“You are far too modest. Surely someone who was chosen by Wellington himself is not so unimportant, so lacking in influence as you claim to be.”
Brett froze. How did the Princess Bagration know that he had come to Vienna at Wellington’s behest? He had not told anyone that Wellington had expressly asked him. So how did she come by this knowledge? Was nothing secret in this city? “I do not know why you should think such a thing. Princess. Truly, I have not the slightest influence with either Wellington or Castlereagh, and I am very much afraid that you have wasted your time and your effort.”
“Oh, not at all. I have enjoyed our conversation immensely. In fact, I am hoping that now you know your way to the Palm Palace, you will continue to call on me. I find the English fascinating, though stiff, very stiff. You, Major”—she let her band drift slowly from his shoulder down his arm—”are not stiff. In fact, you seem delightfully human and approachable, which is why I chose you. Please think about what I have said, and if you cannot convince your oh-so-reserved foreign secretary to call on me and Alexander, perhaps you can visit me regularly and I can explain things to you and you can in turn explain them to him.”
“Perhaps.” He did his best to sound noncommittal.
“If you cannot get away from your duties, you might write me a note so that I do not think you find my company distasteful. I am very sensitive by nature, you know.”
He was certainly not going to write anything, Brett resolved, no matter how innocent it seemed. Any correspondence could be portrayed in a compromising light given the right innuendo. “I beg your pardon. Princess, but my time and my life are not my own. If I do not haunt your doorstep, believe me, it is duty rather than inclination that keeps me away. And it is duty now that forces me to bid you adieu.”
He rose, lifted the hand that still clasped his arm, bowed over it, and was gone before she could frame a response.
Pursing her full red lips in a moue of frustration, the princess also rose and returned to her boudoir to continue her much interrupted toilette while Brett, his mind seething with a turmoil of conflicting possibilities, hurried back to the British delegation where he spent the next several hours at his desk capturing his thoughts in reports to Wellington and Castlereagh before the impressions he had received during his visit to the Palace began to fade.
Chapter Seven
Meanwhile, a few streets away in the library of one of the palaces on the Braunerstrasse, someone else was examining her own impressions. Helena was curled up in a comfortably upholstered bergère reading the pamphlet
Saxony and Prussia
recommended to her by the Princess von Furstenberg. As she read, however, the old enmities and various political complexities that the pamphlet was trying to explain receded into the background and the memory of intensely blue eyes alight with interest in a dark angular face took their place.
Who would have thought that the sort of man who could win her mother’s approval would also have been the type of man to admit to her daughter that it was
because I held beliefs much like yours that I joined the cavalry?
And who would have thought that someone who could dance and flirt as divinely as her mother claimed Major Lord Brett Stanford did would even care that Prussian territorial ambitions could be as destructive as Napoleon’s wars had been.
Or at least he had seemed to care. He had certainly spoken eloquently enough about the depredations of the French army in the Peninsula, and seemed to sympathize with her concerns about the Prussians taking over the rest of the German states the way they wanted to take over Saxony.
But perhaps he had just been doing his best to charm her as he had charmed her mother. If the major was as adept as her mother seemed to think, he would know that the way to win Helena’s approval was to be as knowledgeable and interested in topics that were of concern to her just as he knew that dancing and flirting were the way to win her mother’s. Perhaps he was actually no different from her mother’s many other gallants who were irresistibly fascinating to women because they focused all their energies on learning what was particularly appealing to them. The fact that in Helena’s case, her interests were serious and political rather than frivolous and social might make a man who discussed them appear to have more substance than those who confined themselves to the social. But perhaps he was just more clever. A truly clever man would be able to charm all types of women while her mother’s gallants only charmed women who were bent on enjoying themselves, women like her mother.
Helena had always scornfully dismissed her mother’s admirers as self-satisfied cicisbeos, for whom the game of flirtation was far more compelling than the actual people involved in it. For them, flirtation was more about power, about establishing the superiority of their own graceful appearance and captivating manners than it was about using them to bring happiness and pleasure to another person. Helena had considered this self-absorption to be the height of vanity, and the men ruled by it to be ridiculous rather than attractive. In the early days she had painted out this self-absorption, this emptiness to her mother as the cause for her mother’s dissatisfaction with all of her romantic affairs, but the princess had refused to listen and Helena had finally given up.