Sisi, page 27
Sisi ignored the remark, allowing her son to move farther down the line, noticing out of the corner of her eye how Rudolf lingered before Marie Larisch for several moments too long.
Finally the carriage carrying Lord Spencer and Bay arrived at the palace. As the horses halted before them, Sisi forgot protocol and glided forward to greet her final guests. “Bay!” She called out, aware that she practically cooed the name, so happy was she to utter it again.
If the emperor picked up on Sisi’s too-familiar tone, he made no acknowledgment of it, but offered a formal smile and courteous nod as he met the two Englishmen, inquiring after their journey and welcoming them to Gödöllő.
Rudolf, on the other hand, greeted her mother’s guests with tight-pressed, unsmiling lips. “Lord Spencer, it is a pleasure to have you here. Welcome. And Captain Middleton.”
Bay surely sensed the hostility in her son’s icy tone, Sisi thought, shifting uncomfortably as the two men stared at each other.
“Crown Prince Rudolf, an honor to meet you.” Bay offered a slight, measured bow.
Rudolf continued: “We’ve certainly heard enough about you, the commoner who can outride England’s nobles. I only wonder, what does that say about England’s nobles?”
Bay ignored the remark, turning back to Sisi with his bright, strong-featured smile. “Heavens, it’s good to see you.”
Sisi smiled, looking only at Bay even as, beside her, she felt her son’s frame stiffen with fury.
The next day officially began the hunting party, with the group taking their mounts after lunch and riding off into the fields and woodlands around the palace. Though nothing like the size of the groups in Northamptonshire, they were a large enough assembly, with Sisi and Larisch, Franz and Rudolf, Nicky and Rudi Liechtenstein, and of course Spencer and Bay.
It was a mild September day, and Bay professed to be enjoying himself throughout the afternoon, but Sisi couldn’t help but admit that, for her, the day was missing something; it was uneventful and unexciting compared to the breakneck pace and exhilarating obstacles of riding across the shires. With Franz present, it wasn’t Bay who helped Sisi in and out of her saddle, and she missed the jolt of delight she’d received in those moments, however fleeting they had been. Because of the density of the woods, the hounds proved entirely unable to pick up any scent long enough for the horses to work up to a good gallop. As a result, the entire pack of riders remained close together all day, not splitting up as the stronger, more skilled riders disappeared out front. The smaller size of the party, in allowing them all to stay so close together, in fact led to a more cramped feeling.
As a result, Sisi had almost no time with Bay. Rudolf, who had consumed too much wine during luncheon and at the previous night’s dinner, was uncomfortable in the saddle and blamed his horse, uttering curse words with liquor-steeped breath and kicking the animal repeatedly with his spurred boots. Nicky remained at Sisi’s side throughout the hunt like a jealous shadow, refusing to be shaken and speaking only in Hungarian, a language that he knew Bay and Spencer could not understand.
Nor did the night afford the same carefree camaraderie that Sisi had enjoyed in Northamptonshire. Given the presence of the emperor, the evening began with the necessary ritual, the Feuersitzung, or “fireside session.” During this ceremony, all present were to sit around Franz Joseph, waiting until he addressed each guest personally with some form of chatter or greeting. No one could speak until addressed directly by the emperor. Sisi caught Bay’s eye at one point during the sitting, hoping he sensed her apology for the stilted and tedious nature of this house party.
Dinner didn’t improve things. Sisi longed for the laughter that came from Spencer and Bay exchanging good-natured jabs and quips, and she attempted to draw them into remembering their time together in Northamptonshire, but the two Englishmen seemed cowed by the formality of the setting and all of the rules that struck them as impenetrable and entirely foreign. Rudolf was sulky, glowering at Bay throughout the meal, and Nicky dominated the conversation with talking—or, more precisely, boasting—about his past Hungarian hunting seasons with Sisi. He, more than anyone but Rudolf, seemed to sense that Bay stood high in the empress’s esteem, and Sisi understood that, as long as Nicky was around, she would get absolutely no time to enjoy Bay’s company.
—
“Larisch, I need you to do me a favor.” Sisi was dressing for dinner the following evening, and desperately hoping that the group’s third night together would prove less unpleasant than the previous two had been. She had dispatched Marie and Ida on quick errands to Valerie’s nursery, sending them out from her bedchamber so that she might steal a moment alone with Larisch—she knew that the other two ladies would never approve of the topic she now raised.
“A favor? What’s that, Empress?” Larisch stood in front of the full-length mirror, inspecting her own appearance as Sisi finished her toilette.
“I wish for you to charm Nicky Esterházy tonight.”
Larisch cocked a playful eyebrow, taking a strand of Sisi’s pearls off the dressing table and twirling it in her hands. “Why is that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m just finding him tiresome. I need a break from him.”
“I think I know why,” Larisch said, flashing a round-eyed smile, her singsong voice dripping with meaning.
“Oh?” Sisi sat up tall in her chair, indulging in the girl’s playfulness. “And what do you think you know?”
“I think you want more time with Brave Bay Middleton.” Larisch erupted in giggles as Sisi threw a look at the door, making sure that neither Ida nor Marie had reentered to hear this. She turned back to the young girl, savoring her easy, lighthearted brand of frivolity for the moment.
“Empress, I see it every time he walks into a room.” Larisch leaned close to Sisi, breaking protocol by placing her own hand atop the empress’s.
“What do you see?” Sisi asked, allowing her attendant’s presumptuousness to go unchecked. It was nice for once to speak so candidly.
“Why, Empress, you bloom whenever Bay is present.”
Sisi absorbed Larisch’s words, noting how they kindled a small but strong heat somewhere deep within her belly. “Perhaps I do want a bit of time with Bay,” she admitted, her voice quiet.
Larisch smiled, her large eyes lively with the thrill of the conspiracy. “Then I shall get it for you.”
“You don’t mind?” Sisi asked. “Diverting Nicky for just a bit?”
Larisch shook her head, still clutching Sisi’s pearls in her hands. “Not in the slightest. Nicky is very handsome. I may be married…” Larisch scowled, but it was only a moment before the buoyancy returned to her expression. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to fall in love, as long as it’s just for a little while.”
Sisi nodded at this. “Well, then,” she said, “thank you.”
“Anything for you, Your Majesty.” Larisch squeezed Sisi’s hand before holding the pearls up against the empress’s neck for consideration. Sisi was reminded in that moment of a complaint Marie Festetics had recently made, when Sisi had pressed her and Ida on several occasions to confess why they both disliked Larisch so fiercely. Ida had refused to comment, but eventually Marie had capitulated: “I have the feeling that she is insincere. As if she has a talent for acting.”
But wasn’t that precisely what Sisi needed her to do now?
—
The evening was, as a result of Larisch’s charms and collusion, a more upbeat affair. Following dinner Franz became involved in a conversation with Spencer and Rudi Liechtenstein comparing English and Austro-Hungarian politics, noting how each kingdom had faced a dissatisfied but strong minority in the Irish and the Hungarians, respectively. Ida and Marie Festetics tried valiantly to lift Rudolf from his surliness, offering to join him in a game of cards. Larisch, acting upon Sisi’s request, had attached herself to Nicky Esterházy, begging the handsome nobleman to play piano duets with her and peppering him with nonstop questions and compliments.
Slowly, over the course of the evening, Sisi and Bay slid toward two chairs by the window until finally they sat, partly removed from the rest of the assembly, as Larisch’s piano playing and singing provided a pleasant barrier of noise for them. Sisi breathed out slowly. It felt like such a relief to be near Bay once more. In some ways, the past few days had been even harder for Sisi than the months since her departure from England. Having Bay so close and yet being denied the carefree, candid rapport that she had previously enjoyed with him had been excruciating.
She had to be mindful, now that she had a few moments with him, not to appear too eager. Even when they weren’t speaking, there was an unmistakable magnetism between them, and Sisi knew it. Larisch had pointed it out. Ida and Marie Festetics had noticed, too. “Be careful, please, I beg Your Majesty,” Marie had whispered earlier that day, when she’d noticed Sisi staring in unabashed delight upon Bay’s arrival to luncheon.
“Whatever did you mean by your warning at lunch, Marie?” Sisi had asked later, still smarting somewhat.
“I mean no offense. I simply…I only wish the best for Your Majesty.” It wasn’t as barefaced as how Larisch had put it, but it was the same message. You bloom whenever Bay is present.
Rudolf’s mood indicated that he had noticed, as well. Nicky’s insistence on always being at Sisi’s side meant that surely he had noticed, too. It seemed the only one who hadn’t sensed the attraction was Franz.
“What do you think of all of this?” Sisi asked, keeping her face calm and her voice low. She wanted, at last, a conversation just for her and Bay.
Bay weighed his words a moment before answering. “It’s certainly different…than Easton Neston. I understand, now, what you meant.”
Sisi breathed out a stifled laugh. “Yes, it is.”
“The fact that they must fold every dinner napkin in such an elaborate way, as if it’s a matter of state importance. And that the fold must be done according to strict guidelines that only two living people know!” Bay repeated this piece of mealtime trivia he had gleaned from that evening’s dinner, about the top secret “Imperial Fold” of the Habsburg linen. “I feel terribly disruptive simply for sitting down to the table and unfolding my napkin.”
“And if you think this is something, you should see what it’s like in Vienna. This is relaxed by comparison.”
“I shudder to think that this is relaxed.”
“The Feuersitzungen are, to me, the worst part of it all.”
“What?”
“The silly ritual at the beginning of the night,” Sisi clarified. “When Franz holds court, and we all sit around him, and he makes idle chatter with each of us, one by one. It’s just so…unnatural.”
“I actually don’t mind that part of the night,” Bay said, leaning toward Sisi with a quizzical smile.
“Really?” Sisi shifted in her chair. Something about the way Bay looked at her prompted her to glance around the room to make sure that no one else was watching. Satisfied of that fact, she turned back to Bay. “And why is that?”
“Because I take that opportunity to watch you. Even though you look bored and unhappy, you are as bewitching as ever.” Bay paused, eyeing her intently. She wished they were alone in the room now—wished Bay could lean all the way forward and pull her into a kiss. When he spoke next, his voice was low and intended only for her: “I could watch you forever.”
The next morning Lord Spencer remained in bed, complaining of the beginning of a cold, and Franz and Rudolf decided not to ride, pleading paper work and a headache, respectively. As the pared-down party readied their mounts for the day’s ride, Sisi asked Bay to help her into her saddle, ignoring Nicky’s protestations as she did so.
They set off into a gray, blustery afternoon. Larisch, still committed to her imperial assignment, positioned her horse beside Nicky’s early on. One of the hounds picked up a scent and took off, the hunters giving chase behind. Though neither Sisi nor Bay spoke about doing so, they found themselves, somehow, alone in the woods.
They rode side by side, an uncharacteristic silence between them. Sisi wanted to enjoy this stolen time with him; she wanted to laugh and tease and feel the familiar glow that Bay’s company stoked within her. But, even though the others weren’t with them, the realization that they would soon be found served to dampen her spirits and prevented her from feeling as if she truly had Bay to herself. She retreated into a gloomy, restless reverie.
Bay spoke first. “You’re…you’re different here.”
She heard his words and thought about them. Eventually, she nodded.
“Less at ease,” Bay said, glancing at her sideways. Her stomach seized; he really was impossibly good-looking, his scarlet coat a dash of bright color against the browning woods of the Hungarian autumn.
Just then their horses both halted, as if startled by something up ahead, and Sisi clutched her reins. Had they come upon one of the packs of wild dogs that the servants and local peasants always spoke of with such terror? But no, it wasn’t a pack of dogs. There, ahead of them in the shadowy distance, two figures stood pressed up against a tree, intertwined in an embrace. Sisi narrowed her eyes, the blood draining from her face as she tried to determine what, exactly, she looked upon. The scrim of branches and brush obscured the view, but Sisi heard a familiar sound—the bouncy giggle of a young lady. Within a minute, the laughter turned to a low, amorous sigh. Sisi stiffened in her saddle, certain, even at this great distance, that she recognized the taller of the two silhouettes. Nicky had discarded his riding coat. Another noise followed, this one the low, throaty groan of a man. Then the lady’s dark hair became entirely obscured by the brush.
“Let’s go this way,” Bay whispered, redirecting both his horse and Sisi’s off to the side, his quick movement making plain that he, too, had seen what was occurring up ahead. Before they could be noticed, and before Sisi knew what was happening, Bay trotted them both behind a small copse and in the opposite direction. The two woodland lovers continued their liaison, unaware and uninterrupted.
—
That night, without offering an explanation, Esterházy announced that he was cutting short his time in the hunting party, declaring his need to leave the very next day. Sisi noticed how Larisch blanched at the announcement, but she kept her eyes downward, her full lips pressed in uncharacteristic silence for the remainder of the evening.
Sisi offered no protestation and did not ask Nicky to reconsider his early departure. She wanted him gone. She didn’t know what precisely had transpired between her lady-in-waiting and the nobleman in the woods, but whatever it was, she, Sisi, felt partly to blame. She had meant only for Larisch to flirt with the man—to distract him and charm him. But she knew that Larisch was an unabashed coquette and that Nicky, a bachelor, was nearly mad with his unrequited attempts to win Sisi’s attention; she felt sick with the realization that she had practically pushed the girl into his arms.
Sisi remained in bed the entire next day, feeling heavy with guilt and leaving her chambers only for a brief visit to Valerie’s nursery. She avoided Larisch for fear that she’d have to ask the girl what had happened. Or worse, apologize for her role in making Larisch think that it was all right that it had happened. She avoided Bay, for he had seemed so mortified when they had discovered the illicit meeting together. However, Larisch seemed to recover her cheerful, carefree demeanor within a matter of days, and Sisi decided that the damage must not have been too terrible.
The mood lightened noticeably with Esterházy gone, and over the next few days, Sisi and Bay managed to take a few solo rides together. For the first time since his arrival at Gödöllő, Sisi found herself truly savoring Bay’s company. They spent hours together galloping across the fields and leaping the ditches at their old breakneck speed. When they grew tired, they allowed the horses to walk, and Sisi enjoyed the feeling of fatigue, looking around at the auburn and gold of the autumn, savoring the free, unchecked manner in which Bay chattered to her about her form and the challenges of a Hungarian countryside versus an English one. Out there, with fields and woods between them and the palace, Sisi found the old Bay, and he found the old Sisi.
Her only source of sadness was how quickly these days passed. She dreaded the moment when the sun would begin to sink toward the western horizon each afternoon. Sisi noticed how both she and Bay took far longer than they needed to in returning to the palace, allowing their tired horses to tread impossibly slowly back to the stables at the end of each outing. When Bay helped her down from her saddle, they would linger, pausing opposite each other, his hands around her waist for longer than was necessary. Sisi wondered, each night, if he would kiss her. She also wondered what she would do if he did. Here, in her home, where her husband and son awaited her at the dinner table. Would she have the power to resist Bay, if he finally did what she longed for him to do?
But Bay never forced Sisi to make that decision, because he never kissed her. He never spoke to her of wishing to, either. Instead, all he did was look at her with an intensity and a longing that caused her to blush deeper than any kiss ever would. She didn’t need him to voice his desire—his light eyes spoke so plainly of it. And they only seemed to grow more desirous with each passing day. Sisi didn’t know how long they could go on like this before being found out. But—found out in what? They weren’t doing anything wrong, were they?
After several weeks had passed like this, Bay announced at dinner one night that he couldn’t possibly come all this way and not see Budapest. He would go to the capital the next day, he declared. Sisi smarted at this, disappointed to hear that Bay had decided on these plans without first telling her. He had only a few more days in Hungary; why would he want to miss even an hour in her company? But Bay was adamant—so much so that she wondered if perhaps there was something he wasn’t telling her. All he said, when she probed him further, was that he had heard marvelous things about the Hungarian capital and he simply had to see it.
