Sisi, page 24
VIII
Geneva, Switzerland
September 1898
“NO, HE’S NOT COMING.” THE bartender stares at Luigi and shakes his head once. “The Duke of Orléans has changed his plans. Wanted to go hunting…and I don’t think it was for wildlife. The man loves his women, from the sound of it.” The barkeep smirks, holding up a cup to make sure it has reached an appropriate luster.
Luigi could cry out in agonized frustration; the French pretender has evaded him. After everything he has planned. After his plotting of the Great Deed. Now what is he supposed to do? His entire errand appears foolish—his life’s purpose is suddenly rendered null. How unjust it all is! These nobles can simply change their plans from one day to the next on a whim. They know that their gilded coaches will carry them from town to town, country to country, as if miles mean nothing. But how is Luigi to track the duke down when he has only his blistered feet to carry him?
But then, as soon as he is pierced, he is saved. He looks down on the bar counter and sees, beside his soup, the newspaper. The front page bears the photo of a beautiful, dark-haired woman, her fine-featured face flashing a coy, timid smile. Below the image sits the headline:
EMPRESS ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY IN GENEVA!
HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY HONORS THE HÔTEL BEAU RIVAGE WITH A VISIT
The Hôtel Beau Rivage. Why, that’s just up the avenue. The nicest, most decadent hotel in town. The one with the snobbiest porters and most dismissive patrons filing in and out of its doors. Empress Elisabeth. The most beautiful woman in the world. Wife to Emperor Franz Joseph, the most powerful man in Europe.
“Even better.” Luigi whispers the words. Who is the Duke of Orléans, when Luigi can have Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary instead? He can’t believe his own great luck. His heart begins to race, his blood churning so wildly that he has to force himself to remain calm. It’s just his secret. At least, for now, though soon enough, the whole world will know.
CHAPTER 8
Easton Neston House, Northamptonshire, England
Spring 1876
That evening Sisi insisted, over the disapproval of her entire household, on keeping her plans to host a small dinner party.
“But is it wise after your fall, Your Majesty?” Ida asked.
“Perhaps Your Grace ought to retire early tonight to let your body recover from the shock?” Marie Festetics added.
“I shouldn’t even have told you it happened,” Sisi answered, sighing, as her ladies suggested yet again that she postpone the dinner party. “I should have known you’d be as disapproving as Franz. Lord, I definitely will not be telling him.”
In truth, the spill had left Sisi without so much as a scrape. If anything, it had added to the heady sense of pleasure with which she’d left the day’s ride. She and Bay alone had lasted the entire hunt. The difficult English terrain had thrown its worst at her; her horse had struggled while she had prevailed, even excelled. Now, as twilight settled over the gardens and evening crept in through her opened bedroom windows, as the servants downstairs clamored and hustled about in their preparations for the evening meal, Sisi felt spent but exultant.
Sisi greeted her guests that evening wearing a simple, tight-fitting gown of black and white, rose and camellia petals laced through her hair, pearls trimming her collar and wrists. She suspected that her most radiant adornment, however, was her smile. She was happy, and she knew that it showed. “Lord Spencer, welcome to Easton Neston. How can I thank you enough for the splendid day we had today?”
“It is Your Majesty who must be thanked. I don’t think Northamptonshire has been the center of so much chatter and excitement ever before.” The nobleman’s fair skin was kissed a soft pink by the day’s sunshine, almost matching his beard and sideburns.
“And Lady Spencer, good evening.” Sisi turned, smiling warmly to the noblewoman before her. “Welcome to Easton Neston.”
“Thank you, Empress Elisabeth.” Lady Spencer curtsied, her manners gracious, though more reserved than those of her affable husband.
At the last minute, Sisi had decided to invite Bay to dinner, mentioning it to him only after the hunt had ended. When he arrived now, dressed once again in his tidy officer’s uniform, his face more relaxed than it had been when he’d greeted her at luncheon the day prior, Sisi felt her cheeks flush warm, and she couldn’t help but smile at him, remembering the afternoon they had passed together in the countryside. “Captain Middleton,” she said, nodding at him as he bowed before her, “thank you for joining us.”
“What did I ask, Empress? That you call me Bay.”
“Very well, Bay, welcome,” Sisi said. “Please allow me to introduce you to Countess Marie Larisch, and this is Countess Marie Festetics, and my attendant Ida Ferenczy.”
Bay nodded at each of them in turn before turning back to Sisi. And then, with an easy grin, he said, “So many beautiful ladies, I think I might have to visit Easton Neston with some regularity, Empress.”
Dinner was a casual, festive affair, with the distance from Vienna and the court allowing Sisi to eschew the formal procedure and etiquette that encumbered such gatherings in Austria’s capital. Rather than holding to the imperial rule that allowed a diner to speak only to those seated immediately to his or her left and right, Sisi allowed the talk to flow freely, along with the food and the wine. Before long, the conversation turned into quick-paced banter between Spencer and Bay. Sisi called for more wine as the meat was cleared, and by the time dessert was served, Spencer was chiding Bay good-naturedly on some of his recent practical jokes. Bay cast repeated glances in Sisi’s direction, attempting to exculpate himself in front of his hostess, but Spencer proved relentless.
“I’ll tell you the most challenging thing about sharing your lodgings with Bay Middleton,” Lord Spencer said, wiping his bright beard with his napkin before taking a large gulp of wine. “It’s that you never know what you’ll find under your sheets.”
Sisi and the other ladies lowered their eyes in appropriate modesty at the remark. Sisi helped herself to another drink, laughing into her cup.
“Come now, Spencer, you make me sound like a villain!” Bay said, glancing apologetically toward Sisi. He spoke informally to Spencer, even though the older man was his senior in military service and a member of the peerage, while he himself was not of noble birth. And without even an inheritance, if the rumors were true.
Nevertheless, it was clear that Bay was a special favorite of Spencer’s and that the casual rebuttal from his subordinate not only didn’t offend the earl but in fact cheered him on. “Well, you are a villain, Middleton, so I can’t very well make you sound like something that you already are. But no, ladies, ladies, I don’t mean to be vulgar.” Spencer lifted his hands, turning first to Sisi and then to his wife with a look of exaggerated contrition. “It’s nothing so uncouth as it sounds. Simply that Captain Middleton here is a great joker.”
“Oh, we know that well at Althorp, John,” Lady Spencer said, allowing a modest chuckle to escape her thin, aristocratic lips.
Her husband continued, less restrained now. “Bay loves to alarm his friends by planting little surprises for them so that, after a long night of port and billiards, when they lay their heads down to rest, they don’t know what awaits them. What was it you did to poor George Lambton? Was it a dead frog you put in his bed when we were in Leicestershire?”
“A toad,” Bay said, his cheeks flushing scarlet as his eyes darted to Sisi. “But I can promise you this: the toad I put in that bed was a lot better looking than any other creature that George has had between his sheets.”
A peal of scandalized but hearty laughter rose up from around the table, and Sisi laughed the loudest. Such talk would never be appropriate in Vienna—or even in Hungary, for that matter. These English had such a jovial way of ribbing and jesting with one another; there was an ease about their gatherings that she hadn’t enjoyed since her childhood in Possenhofen.
“Now, then, Bay, has Doggie Smith ever forgiven you for the prank you pulled in Combermere?” Spencer asked. “The time you swapped out his riding jacket for the lady’s coat?”
Bay propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands, chuckling to himself. “Must you undo me like this, Spencer? I was hoping not to entirely offend the empress.”
“Has he? Has he forgiven you?” Spencer rapped the table with his knuckles, guffawing. “Come now, Bay, you must tell the empress what you did to the poor chap. I insist; otherwise I’ll ship you back off to Ireland as punishment for disregarding my orders.”
Bay protested, but when Sisi also insisted, he relented. “I’ll tell you, Empress, but only if you promise to believe me when I say that he deserved it.”
Sisi cocked her head to the side, smiling at Bay. “I’ll decide that once I’ve heard.”
Bay nodded. “Doggie is a friend of ours who—”
“Was a friend of yours! Perhaps no longer,” Spencer said.
Bay smirked. “Was a friend of mine who…How shall I say this, Spencer?”
“He takes great pride in his appearance,” Spencer said, providing the words, looking at Sisi and then his wife as he tipped the wine decanter toward his glass.
“Indeed,” Bay said, nodding his agreement. “By the way, Spencer, save some wine for us, won’t you? Anyway, Doggie is a man who is always well turned out. And likes to point out the superiority of his own appearance to anyone else’s.”
Lady Spencer chuckled knowingly. Sisi listened, growing merrier with each passing minute in Bay and Spencer’s company.
“So on our final afternoon at Combermere, we were to hunt, and there was a certain lady scheduled to join, a lady in whom Doggie…Captain Smith…had expressed an interest.”
“Ah, yes. Wasn’t it Marjorie Thurston?” Spencer asked.
“It was,” Bay replied.
“Marjorie can ride well enough,” Spencer mused aloud, “but it’s not as though she’s—”
Bay interjected, “She’s nothing compared to you, Empress.”
Sisi blushed at this, then asked herself why Bay’s approval had brought out this response.
Bay continued. “Anyhow, given Marjorie’s presence that day, I knew that Doggie would wear his scarlet jacket and take great pains to look his best. And so I bribed Doggie’s valet to let me swap out Doggie’s very well-tailored and well-fitted riding jacket with…”
“With the exact same jacket, only made for a woman!” Spencer howled, leaning forward to erupt in good-natured laughter.
“Don’t forget the bows, Spencer.”
“The bows!” Now Spencer was practically clutching his sides, his face turning crimson as he devolved into hysterics.
“John, really.” Lady Spencer raised a hand to her brow, scandalized, but she smirked at Sisi as if to say that this hilarity was a regular occurrence between her husband and Bay Middleton.
“It was quite a nice jacket,” Bay said, shrugging as he drained his glass of wine. “The bows down the front really gave Doggie a bit of flair.”
Spencer was choking, he was laughing so hard. “He had no choice, you see? No gentleman would dare go out riding without his jacket. He’d already sent everything else with his valet to be cleaned, having saved his best coat for the final day with Marjorie. And no one had another one to lend to him—Bay had seen to that.”
“But how did he fit into it?” Larisch asked, flashing her merriest smile as she leaned toward Bay. Sisi bristled slightly at the young girl’s advance, suddenly aware that she felt a proprietary possessiveness over Bay and that she didn’t want her pretty, young attendant diverting his attention. She sat up straighter.
Bay answered: “It was a bit…snug.” He winked at Larisch. “I fear it had ripped down the back before the afternoon was over.”
“And what did the lady think?” Sisi asked, angling her body to face Bay, noting with satisfaction that, as she did so, his attention was pulled from Larisch to her.
“Oh, she liked it well enough. Asked where he had had it made. Said she fancied one exactly the same for herself.”
After dinner the group retired into the drawing room, and Spencer entertained the party with a recap of the day’s hunt. “Truly, Empress, you have impressed even those of us who began the day’s event feeling confident of your skills. And those of us who were skeptical”—Sisi did not miss how Spencer threw a teasing look toward Bay—“well, those individuals, you have completely won over.”
Sisi forced herself not to smile too broadly. “You are too kind, Lord Spencer. I can’t remember a day in which I enjoyed myself as much, perhaps ever.”
“I marvel,” Spencer said, holding out his port glass for a refill. He looked from Sisi to Bay. “Only the two of you left at the end, out of hundreds. Bay, I think you might have finally met your match.”
Bay, meeting Sisi’s eyes, flashed half a grin as he answered, “Indeed I have.”
The next day dawned clear and mild, and Bay greeted Sisi in the field with a warm smile rather than a cold scowl. “I am to be your pilot once more, Empress, if you’ll have me.”
“Gladly.” Sisi felt her stomach tumble as Bay lifted her into the saddle, his strong hands holding tight to her waist before taking her feet and guiding them into the stirrups.
Once more, they found themselves far out in front of the pack after the first half hour of the chase. They loped happily across a field, granting their horses a brief respite as the hounds struggled to regain the lost fox scent. Bay moved his horse close to Sisi’s so that they rode side by side. “How did you learn to ride so, Empress?” Bay asked.
Up ahead of them, the hounds had their snouts pressed determinedly to the ground, sniffing through the underbrush for the lost trail. Above them, large clouds slid slowly across a bright sky, like lazy white sailboats manned by phantom crews. Sisi inhaled, marveling at the beauty of the English countryside all around them. At the early buds that colored the branches with shoots of green. At the fields that rolled across the horizon in slopes of soft, fertile earth. She turned to Bay. “How about when we’re alone out here, you call me Sisi?”
Bay cocked a single eyebrow, a restrained smile lighting his red-cheeked face. “If you insist?”
“I do.”
“Right, then. How did you learn to ride so well, Sisi?”
Sisi smiled, liking the way her name sounded on his English tongue. “It was when I was a child,” she answered. “My father always joked that, had we not been born a duke and duchess, he and I could have been circus riders.”
Bay considered this in silence. A few paces away, the hounds were still scouring the ground, desperately trying to locate a hint of the fox. “I will confess,” Bay said a moment later, “I so look forward to my time in the hunting fields. I long for these months all year. I was desperately afraid I’d have to hang back for you when Spencer told me I’d be your pilot. Or, even more dreadfully, I feared that I’d have to keep to the road with you, leaving the fields and brooks and fences to the others.”
Sisi gasped in mock indignation. “Keep to the road?”
“I see now that my fears were unfounded,” Bay said, quick to undo any offense.
“I knew I’d win you over eventually,” Sisi said. “Even when I heard the things you were saying about me.”
Bay allowed his mouth to fall open, a look of raw mortification. “But…Your Majesty…you heard?”
Sisi nodded.
“But…if you don’t mind my asking so…how did you hear? You had only just arrived to England.”
Sisi shrugged, her face expressionless. “My spies.”
Bay gasped. “Then you do have spies? Spencer and I were wondering, but I thought surely—”
Sisi couldn’t help but laugh now, and she covered her lips with her gloved hand. “I’m only joking. Goodness, I don’t have spies with me. Who do you think I am?”
“The Empress of Austria-Hungary.”
“No spies in my retinue. Sorry to disappoint you.” Though Larisch might have been a spy, considering how effective she’d proven at tracking gossip.
“Then how did you hear?” Bay asked.
Sisi threw him a sideways glance, allowing herself half a smile. “I guess you were speaking so loudly of your unhappiness that news of it reached my household.”
“Well, now I’m dreadfully embarrassed.”
Sisi chuckled at his blush. “At least you didn’t replace my riding coat with something that didn’t fit. Or put a toad in my bed. I suppose I should feel fortunate in comparison.”
—
The hounds never reclaimed the fox’s scent, but Sisi and Bay stayed out for hours, racing across the countryside on their own and leaping the hedges and fences as if they were giving frantic chase. When they returned, hours later, Sisi’s legs burned, and her lungs felt scrubbed clean by the fresh country air. She could have ridden for hours more, had the sun only been willing to remain high in the sky.
Back at the stables, Bay helped her down from her mount, and she paused a moment, taken aback by his expression as she landed on the ground opposite him. “Bay? What is it?”
“Nothing, Empress…Sisi.” But he looked at her so intensely that she shifted, all the while keeping her hands in his own.
“Tell me, what is it? Why do you look at me as if I’ve grown a second head?”
“It’s just that…” Bay swallowed, apparently struggling for the words as his eyes continued to scour hers.
“What?”
“Your eyes.”
“Yes, what about them?” She blinked.
“They are hazel, aren’t they?”
Sisi nodded.
“Well, right now they appear as if they are full of fire.”
—
Nighttimes most often found Sisi back at Easton Neston, pleasantly fatigued and ready for sleep. Late at night, after supper—a meal Sisi usually ate in private with Valerie, unless the Spencers invited her to a more formal dinner—and after she’d had her limbs massaged and her clothes sorted for the next day, she’d dismiss Ida and Marie and Franziska and Larisch, and she’d curl up with a journal. She wrote nightly that spring, noting, as she flipped back through the pages, how often Bay’s name appeared—in every entry, usually more than once.
