But while the courtiers who came away from the windows in groups appeared like those at any European court—the ladies fluttering fans across their square-cut necklines; the gentlemen showing a fine leg encased in a white silk stocking, snuffbox in hand—they were decidedly different in temperament. There was no sly looks or puckering of mouths as their eyes swept over the new arrivals. Their gazes were steady, their talk low and serious in tone. And Alec supposed that perhaps this was to be expected, given war was on their doorstep and not hundreds of miles away.
In a piece of well-rehearsed theater, the courtiers silently took up their positions either side of a dais which had upon it a single over-large chair—a throne. With its padded cushions of blue velvet trimmed in gold braid, and a high wooden back that reached almost to the ornate ceiling and was carved and painted with the coat of arms of the House of Herzfeld, its purpose here was clear.
Only the Margrave of Midanich was permitted to sit on this ceremonial representation of his power, and this throne had been wrenched up out of the glittering audience chamber at Friedeburg Palace. Here at the
Schloss
Rosine it was a potent symbol of support for an alternative Margrave, recognized by the assembled nobles, the hundreds of troops marching up and down the parade ground outside, and, Alec guessed, by thousands of their countrymen out in the towns and hamlets across the country, as one Prince Viktor Fredrick Leopold Rosine Herzfeld.
And just as Alec and Selina were wondering where the occupant of this elaborate throne could be, out from behind the crowd stepped a woman in black velvet and white silk, with luxuriant dark hair and bright eyes. She was not in the first flush of youth, but she was beautiful, and glowed with vitality. Facing them, her wide panniers disguised her condition. It was only when she placed a hand on her rounded belly under her breasts that it became obvious. The Countess Rosine, widow of Margrave Leopold, and now wife of General Müller, was heavily pregnant.
The Countess walked a little way up the center of the room and stopped and waited for Selina and Alec to come to her. It did not take a court usher to announce her presence, or the crowd parting, the ladies curtseying and the gentlemen bowing as one, for Selina to know who she was. It was her smile and the light in her eyes when she looked upon Alec that told her here was his ex-lover, and, contrary to her fears and his, she was very pleased to see him.
Alec bowed and Selina curtseyed, and when the Countess Rosine put out a plump hand for Alec to take, he kissed her fingers. He then stepped away, but not before Selina caught the private smile exchanged between the pair. The years peeled back for the couple, and for one moment it was as if the Countess and the English diplomat were again the young lovers in the grotto. The moment came and went in a blink, but the smile lingered. It was a smile that recognized a past shared, and yet there was no animosity and no regret, only one of lasting affection. It fascinated Selina. But what surprised her more was that she was not jealous of this woman. Her overwhelming feeling was one of relief, that with this smile she knew the Countess still cared for Alec, and thus she would never do him any harm. Everything would be all right. They would be protected here at
Schloss
Rosine, if for no other reason than the Countess cherished the past she had shared with Alec.
So when the Countess orchestrated time alone to talk with him, Selina accepted the ruse and went off on the arm of one of the courtiers, to sip mulled wine and to look at the portraits of Rosine ancestors gracing the walls between the full-length mirrors.
The Countess Rosine spoke over her shoulder and immediately liveried servants appeared with trays of refreshment for the assembled courtiers. She waved away the tray, gaze never leaving Alec, though she did take a moment to look at Selina as she strolled off with the Court Chamberlain.
She had seen from first glance the Englishwoman was very pretty, her hair an enviable mass of vibrant light copper curls that would do as they pleased no matter how many pins were applied. She saw, too, that she was young, possibly a decade younger than her ex-lover, thus much younger than she, and around the same age as her son. With a twinge of envy, she returned her gaze to Alec, rested a hand on her belly, and offered him her arm. They would take a stroll up the gallery, so they could be alone and not overheard.
At the far end of the room by a window, the Countess turned her back on the view and faced Alec. They spoke in German, her native language.
“At the risk of sounding trite, a great deal has happened in the ten years since we last saw each other.”
Alec smiled.
“Not trite, Your Highness. But an understatement.”
“Call me Helena.”
Alec lost his smile. “That would not be—
politic
, would it—Helena?”
She laughed behind her fan. “No, it would not!” She lowered her fan and lifted her lashes to look into his eyes. “But there was a time when politics was the last matter on your mind…”
He lifted an eyebrow. “That was hardly my fault.”
“I cannot believe you have returned. So many times did I think of writing to you—but… What to say? How to explain…” She shrugged, smiled and sighed without knowing it. “Men age beautifully. Well, some men do. You have. But you always were the handsomest of men, even when you were much younger and so-so—virile. I dare say that about you has not changed.” When he blushed crimson she laughed harder. “Ah! Yes! That I did forget. You English are so self-effacing. It is delightful!”
Alec rubbed the stubble on his cheek and muttered through his embarrassment, “I don’t feel particularly
delightful
. The journey and the reason I am here have taken their toll.”
“Yes. I imagine they have,” the Countess said seriously, all humor extinguished. “Our country has been in and out of a war since before you escaped to England. And this war, the war which will end all wars, has been particularly brutal. But before I speak of that, before my son, and my husband, return at any moment from reviewing our troops, I wanted these few minutes with you alone to apologize for what I put you through—”
“Apologize? To-to
me
? What you put me through?” Alec repeated, incredulous. “Your Highness—Helena—you have nothing to apologize for, surely?”
“Yes. I do. If not for me you would not have been thrown in Herzfeld’s dungeon and been forced to endure—
Verdammt
! I promised myself I would not be teary, and here I am weeping within seconds of my confessional. It must be this wretched pregnancy.”
Alec caught up her hand and kissed it swiftly, and said with a sad smile. “If anyone is to apologize I must. And now I’m the one being trite. If not for my lust-fueled recklessness you and your son would not have been banished and—”
“That is simply not true. No! It is true, but it was not your recklessness that got us banished,” the Countess confessed. She sniffed back her tears. An indulgent gleam came into her eye and she smiled crookedly. She fluttered her fan. “It was
my
recklessness. And that was intentional. Oh, I very much wanted you as my lover, from my first sighting of you. Leopold knew this, and he indulged me as he always did. But this time it was different, because you were different. For the first time when taking a lover I allowed my feelings to get the better of me. Now
that
, Leopold did not like at all. He was an
understanding
older husband, but he could also be a jealous one. But because he wanted our son, and me, to be safe, and he knew my plan would work, he let our affair continue.”
“Plan?”
“Yes, plan. My plan to have myself and my son banished from court.”
“You
wanted
to be banished?”
It was news to Alec and his surprise ripened the color under her cosmetics. She had hoped that after all these years he might have figured it out for himself and she would not need to explain her calculated subterfuge, but she had not counted on—or perhaps she had just forgotten over the years—that this man lived by a code of honor and expected his friends to do likewise. It seemed it had never entered his thoughts that he had been duped by her and the Margrave Leopold. He had taken their passionate affair at face value: A couple so in lust with each other that satisfying their physical appetites was paramount to everything and everyone else in their lives. There was a grain of truth in that, of course, but he would never have betrayed her. There was no ulterior motive in his actions, just pure lust and enjoyment, and for her that had been a powerful aphrodisiac, and she had been flattered. But aside from enjoying him carnally, she had other reasons for engaging him in a very public affair which became a court scandal, and so she told him.
“Yes. I wanted to be banished. More importantly, I wanted Viktor to be sent away with me. I knew that if I did not get my son away from court, away from Ernst, he would be in great danger. Leopold knew this also. But I could not simply leave court and come here to live with our little boy. That would only make Ernst suspicious, and he would think I was plotting against him. Leopold and I had to make him believe he was the one who had instigated our banishment, and with Leopold’s blessing. He had to be convinced his father was furious with me, that he no longer cared, and that he was intent on punishing me through our son.”
“And so you used Ernst’s friendship—or put more correctly, his obsession—with me, as the catalyst for your banishment?”
“Yes,” she confessed guiltily.
“Well that at least answers the question and tempers my hubris, as to why you singled me out, when you could easily have had the pick of any man at court,” Alec stated with a huff of annoyance at such duplicity, to think he’d been a pawn in the high-stakes game between the Countess and Leopold on the one side, and Ernst on the other. But he could not be angry for long. He smiled down at her, and bowed. “I am all admiration for your ingenuity.”
“Do not think for a moment any man would do. I very much wanted you for my lover, make no mistake. From the first moment I saw you in the corridors of Friedeburg. You were so-so—”
“—gullible?”
“—manly, and young.”
“Yes. Which made me gullible, Your Highness. No matter. I don’t regret our affair, just the outcome, particularly for myself. Though now that I know our discovery in the grotto was precisely as you had planned it, and you achieved your objective in having yourself and your son banished here, I can finally absolve myself of a decade of guilt.”
The Countess looked stricken. “You have been feeling guilty for that long? No!”
“No. Just the occasional twinge now and again. Perhaps, if I’d known I was your lusty pawn, I’d have been more circumspect and not felt the need to purge my soul as easily as I did.”
She saw him glance down the room and fix momentarily on Selina who with the Court Chamberlain stood before a portrait of Ivan, General Count Rosine, the Countess’s grandfather. A number of nobles fluent in French had joined them in conversation.
The Countess itched to ask him about his titian-haired beauty, but first she needed to make him understand why she had shamelessly used him, and then done nothing to save him from Ernst and torture in the Herzfeld Castle. If she was truthful with herself, it was she who had a decade of guilt weighing on her shoulders, which she now wished to unfetter with a confession.
“You and I know of what Ernst is capable. I could not afford to take the chance that upon Leopold’s death he would turn on my son, seeing him as a rival for his throne.”
“But isn’t that precisely what has happened?” Alec quipped.
“It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you know it!” the Countess retorted.
Alec bowed his head. “Forgive me. Yes, I do know that. And I do not blame you for wanting to spirit Viktor away. He was much better off growing up here, away from the Court: Out of sight, and thus out of mind, to Ernst.”
The Countess nodded, relieved he understood. Unconsciously, she rubbed her belly with a soothing hand when she felt the baby move. “Yes. He was able to have a childhood, and be tutored and groomed for the position he would one day inherit.”
“Inherit?” Alec was surprised. “I thought Viktor excluded from the succession because of his birth?”
“He was, and it would have stayed that way but for two reasons. I will tell you the second reason first. In the last years of his life, Leopold had a change of heart and mind,” explained the Countess. “You will understand immediately when you see my son. He is the image of his father, and grandfather. A true Herzfeld. For Leopold that was a strong incentive to recognize Viktor in the succession.”
“What ruler would not want a son in his image to succeed him?” Alec stated. “Particularly a man with Leopold’s arrogance and bearing. He must have thanked God daily, and you, for providing him with at least one son who not only looked like him, but who was in full possession of his faculties!”
“Yes. I see that you do understand,” the Countess replied with relief, oblivious to the hint of irony in his tone. “But for the longest time Leopold did not want to admit that his children by his first wife were not sane, that they were in fact as mad as their mother. Leopold had married the princess and impregnated her before it became obvious she was insane. It helped that she also suffered from a condition which meant she lacked body hair, because that
unspoken truth
became the reason used why she kept to her rooms. So when Joanna began to exhibit the same symptoms as her mother, Leopold used the
unspoken truth
as an excuse to lock her away, too. At first, as you know, Ernst’s bouts of insanity always occurred at Herzfeld, when he was with Joanna. But after the-the
hell
you were put through at the castle, these are not revelations to you, are they?”
“No, they are not,” Alec stated quietly. He had no wish to relive those moments, nor did he want to discuss them with her, so he asked, “Leopold died at Herzfeld, and not at Friedeburg?”
“Leopold went to Herzfeld to review the troops, and to present Ernst with the Midanich Minotaur, the country’s highest military honor. I went with him. He had not been in the best of health for several months, but he was determined to confront Ernst. He had been receiving reports, secret reports, from within the castle that Ernst was relying more and more on Joanna to tell him what to do. But the situation was far worse than we thought possible. Seeing his son in that state… Leopold’s health deteriorated further…”