Their Foreign Affair (Scandalous Family--The Victorians Book 3), page 9
“Then a hotel or an inn and to sleep for the night,” Adam said shortly. “We are both tired.”
He said nothing more until they arrived in Munich, and very little after that, except to find a cab and direct it to a hotel he knew. They separated in the foyer of the hotel and a concierge showed Ann to her room.
By then, all Ann wanted was a soft pillow and a warm blanket. She was exhausted. She removed all but her pantalets and camisole, let down her hair and was asleep after two soft inhalations.
Behaving in unconventional ways was exhausting.
The next morning, Ann did not wait to find Adam in the dining room. She was a woman of ill repute, according to the papers. Flouting convention would only confirm to everyone what they already presumed. Ann could tell by the sideways glances that she had been recognized by all the staff in the hotel.
She calmly asked for a table of her own and ordered tea and toast and asked for an English newspaper, if such was to be had.
A copy of yesterday’s Times newspaper came folded upon the tray alongside the narrow, upright teapot. The teacup was a beautiful red and gold Limoges.
Ann nibbled the toast and drank a lot of the tea while she examined the front pages of the Times. She had little appetite to begin, but even that fled as she worked her way through the speculations and admonishments the prickly, tradition-bound newspaper offered.
The Times insisted she was a disgrace to the family and to Britain, and a ruined woman beyond redemption, who would be lucky if Filip deigned to marry her after this. Her only saving grace would be to marry Adam as swiftly as possible.
Ann pushed the newspaper away with a grimace. They implied that marrying Adam would restore her reputation, in the same paragraph which claimed there was no redemption possible for her.
Even the Times was indulging in hysteria.
What had Adam said about the German couple in Leipzig? That they were judging her merely to feel better about themselves.
Yet it was difficult to meet the gazes of everyone in the dining room with her chin up, even if she did know the truth. The weight of public opinion pressed down upon her, making her head ache and her heart to work far too hard for sitting at a table and sipping tea.
Adam entered the dining room just as she was finishing her tea. He touched the back of the chair opposite her. “May I sit with you?” he asked. He added in a lower tone, “You have every reason to say no. I was surly last night.”
“And I am surly this morning, for the very same reason,” she replied. “You’d best sit with me, for you are the only company I am worthy of sharing right now.”
“I’m not sure if that is a compliment.” Adam glanced at the waiter and raised his brow and chin.
The waiter scurried over and took his order for breakfast with a bow and a nervous smile. His gaze shifted to Ann and away.
Ann sighed.
When the waiter had left, Adam said, “We are growing more notorious by the hour.”
Ann put her chin on her fist, a very unladylike posture, and scowled. “The Times says we should marry, you and I, in order to win everyone’s approval.”
“Then let’s not marry,” Adam said, leaning forward so he could lower his voice. His brows came together. “Besides, if I marry you, then you cannot marry your Duke, which is the entire point of running away, isn’t it? To decide if you should or not.”
“Well, yes, but it has all grown rather complicated…”
“Everyone else is making it complicated,” Adam replied. “Nothing has changed for you. You are merely taking time to reconsider your decision to marry him.”
“It does sound simple, put that way,” she admitted.
“Running the breadth of Europe to avoid curious journalists and angry citizens merely makes it…challenging.” His shoulders shifted. A shrug.
Ann pressed her lips together, containing her smile. It did not seem appropriate to be amused at the situation. Only, it was amusing, when Adam said it. “You do not seem shocked by the newspaper calling for us to marry. Does that mean it is not just the staid old Times insisting upon it?” Ann asked.
The waiter arrived with Adam’s croissant and coffee. Adam did not speak until he had gone again. “The most sensational paper I read yesterday suggested we had already married.” He shook his head. “No, I was not shocked.” He ate hungrily, while Ann finished the last cup of tea she had poured from the odd-shaped pot.
When he had finished, Ann said, “Where should we go, now?” She glanced around the room. “Everyone knows who we are, here.”
“Yes,” he said. “Modern newspapers are our undoing, I’m afraid. They are reporting our movements the very next day and every time they do, they include the photograph of you.” He drummed the table. “I had a thought last night, when we arrived in Munich, only it is…”
“Shocking? Is anything more shocking than what I have already done?”
“Dangerous,” Adam replied. “For you, at least, although if I am with you, that will ameliorate the danger to a great degree, but it will not negate it entirely.”
Ann caught another speculative stare sent her way. She adjusted the position of her chair and her shoulders so she was not looking directly at the man at the table just beyond Adam’s shoulder. She brought her gaze back to Adam’s face. “I think you had best tell me your idea.”
He rested the fingers he had been drumming, placing them flat upon the tablecloth. “It is Tuesday, today. The Orient Express stops at the central station at noon, on its way to Vienna, and then on to Constantinople.”
“The doorway to the Orient…” Ann breathed.
“I know my way around Constantinople,” Adam continued. “We have business interests there. In the east, no one will care who we are. They will not recognize you at all, for you will have to wear a head shawl and veil over your face, there.”
Her heart leapt and strummed. “How very exotic…but why is it dangerous?”
“A woman in the east attracts danger just because she is a woman,” Adam replied. “As I said, if you are with me, it will negate most of the usual dangers. Yet, because you are with me, you will automatically be marked as European. That will draw attention of its own. Perhaps the wrong kind of attention.” His gaze was steady.
Ann swallowed. “But no one will recognize me there?”
“If they do, they will not care,” Adam assured her. “Most likely, the news has not reached that far, yet. It is a minor squall in a western teacup which holds no great interest for those in the east, who have their own concerns.”
“It sounds heavenly,” Ann admitted. “I already grow tired of notoriety.”
Adam nodded. “The Orient it is, then.” He got to his feet. “I will settle with the hotel, then we can go to München Hauptbahnhof.”
“München Hauptbahnhof?” she repeated, tripping over the pronunciation.
“Munich Central Station,” Adam replied. “It is where all the major routes across northern Europe stop, including the Orient Express.”
And that still was not warning enough for either of them, a fact which Ann would remember ruefully, later.
CHAPTER NINE
The train station in central Munich was a vast building, with branches and wings and platforms in all directions. Whistles blew constantly, trains huffed and steamed, and people scurried everywhere.
Ann looked about the enormous station with interest. No one appeared to pay them any attention, which was a relief. While Adam arranged for the purchase of the tickets, she enjoyed being overlooked and ignored. She stared at passers-by, instead. There were so many of them and most were clearly not Prussians, judging by their clothes and coloring, and the languages they spoke to each other.
Adam returned to her side with the valise in hand and two tickets in the other. He put the valise down and examined the big sheets. “The Orient Express has its own platform, over there.” He pointed to a big arch on the far other side of the cavernous station. He pulled out his watch and checked the time. “There is just under an hour before the train departs, but we must be aboard well before then.”
“It is already here, then?”
“It arrived shortly before ten o’clock, which is exactly when it was expected, the clerk told me. The train is highly reliable.”
They moved across the station, weaving between travelers and well-wishers, station staff and people carrying baskets of wares they offered for sale by singing out at the top of their voices.
“They sound like the newsboys in London,” Ann said, as they passed a man who appeared to be selling brightly colored ribbons and embellishments made from the ribbons. “I wish I could understand what they were saying.”
“Like the newsboys, they’re merely touting their goods,” Adam replied. He made an irritated sound as he stepped around another seller. “They’re not supposed to be inside the station, but there are so many the station staff find it easier to ignore them. There will be even more on the Express platform.”
“Why is that?” Ann asked curiously. She was glad that Adam was with her. The farther they travelled, the stranger things became. She would be quite bewildered, even here in Munich, and now they were heading toward even more exotic lands.
“The sellers believe everyone travelling into the east must be rich beyond compare.”
Ann glanced at him, startled. “But neither of us is rich.”
“I am merely a businessman, travelling to inspect my carpet business,” Adam said, his tone one of agreement.
“Are carpets the business interest you have in Constantinople, then?”
“One of them,” Adam admitted. “Spices, too—especially those from even farther east. The silk road once passed through Constantinople and goods still make their way over the mountains from China, even though shipping is reliable, these days.”
They moved through a very wide and tall arch into another wing of the station, with a domed roof. Ann came to a halt, her eyes widening, for it was as if she had stepped into a different world.
A very long train was pulled up alongside an equally long platform. The platform was also very wide. It needed to be, for there were sheds and small buildings at the back of it, where railway officials stood behind desks and counters.
Between the buildings and the train were even more people than had been in the main section of the station. They were densely packed into the elongated space. Trolleys loaded with trunks were everywhere, most of them with two men hauling on the handles to roll the trolleys along. Small mountains of stacked crates and trunks, and smaller hills of valises and boxes hunched upon the platform, too.
An extremely well dressed couple, whom Ann judged were upper class by their clothing and possibly English, too, walked along the platform escorted by a conductor with a great deal of braid on his uniform and cap. Behind them came one of the trolleys with their luggage. The trunks and valises all carried the same family crest, gilded and gleaming.
There were more travelers moving along the platform in the same direction, escorted by railway staff in the braided uniforms.
And everywhere, sellers held out their baskets of wares and trays of goods, calling out to the travelers as they passed.
The train itself gleamed with care. The carriages were all painted a deep maroon color, with black frames around the windows and black curved roofs. Every window sparkled. Ann spotted a man cleaning the outsides of the windows, a pail of soapy water beside him, moving swiftly along the length of the train as he progressed.
Through the windows, Ann saw a great many more people inside the train, moving along the length of the carriages. The closest carriages, the last ones, were not for passengers. They had no windows and the big doors on the sides were open, revealing more trunks and chests and crates.
“Oh, my…” she breathed.
Adam turned back to her, alerted by her exclamation. He smiled at her expression. “This is but a small rendition of what lays ahead,” he warned her. “Wait until we reach Constantinople. Then you will understand.”
Ann gripped a fold of her skirt and realized her hand was damp. “It is…chaotic.”
“Only until the train leaves. Then order resumes. You have dined with peers and royalty. You will be at home among these people.” His mouth gave a little twist.
“As you are not?”
“Well, I do know how to bring a waiter to the table, now.”
Ann gave a laugh that shook with more than amusement. “I suppose we’d best step aboard as they requested.”
Adam’s smile smoothed out and grew warmer. “Once the train departs, we can relax.” He held out his elbow. “Shall we?”
She slid her fingers under his elbow, against the smooth fabric of his jacket. She wore no gloves, as every other woman on the platform did. Gloves were the evidence of a lady. She would have to acquire a pair that were not long white satin.
Adam led her along the platform, heading for one of the gilded and braided station staff. The man touched his cap brim as Adam approached. Adam spoke in German and held out the tickets.
The man took them and turned them around to read them. “Thank you, sir,” he said in French. He had identified Adam’s accent. “You and your wife have adjoining berths, on the third carriage. Schmidt, here, will show you to them. Schmidt!” he called, raising his voice.
Another official, a great deal younger than the first and wearing slightly less braid, hurried up and gave a stiff bow of his head. The first thrust the tickets at him. Schmidt bowed again and spoke to Adam and held out his hand. Adam handed the valise to him.
Ann presumed Schmidt had requested they follow him, for the man turned on his heel and strode down the platform.
“Enjoy your journey, sir. Ma’am.” The conductor touched his cap brim once more as they moved away.
Ann waited until they were a few steps beyond the man, then murmured to Adam. “Your wife?”
“His presumption, I assure you,” Adam breathed, also using English.
Ann’s attention was caught by one of the sellers, who waved his goods at her. “Oh, gloves!”
Adam glanced at the seller. Then he turned and went back to him, bringing Ann with him.
“But, the train…” Ann said. “The valet…Herr Schmidt.” For Schmidt had turned back to wait for them.
“Both will wait,” Adam said. “There is time.” He stopped before the seller, who smiled happily, knowing he had an eager customer. The seller turned over the pairs of gloves upon his tray, while holding the tray up for Adam to inspect them, his other hand planted beneath it.
“My sisters both fuss about gloves all the time,” Adam added, as he examined each pair the man shifted aside. “And you have none. That brown pair, there.” He repeated himself in German and the man picked up a dark brown pair of soft kid gloves and held them out toward Ann with a smile.
The color of the gloves matched the brown specks in her tweed suit. Ann took the gloves and smoothed her thumb over them. “They are lovely.” The stitching was so fine she could barely detect it. The suede was as soft as it appeared to be.
“And the rose satin pair, there,” Adam told the man. “For the evenings,” he added.
“With a travelling suit?” Ann pointed out. “Just the one pair is enough, Adam, really…”
“The evening gown is in the valise, remember?” Adam told her.
“Oh.” She frowned. “In that case, I will need needles and thread to repair and adjust the gown, if I am to appear in it again.”
“I am sure there is a man selling just that, somewhere along here,” Adam said, handing coins over to the glove seller.
Schmidt did not seem troubled by their extended pause. As Adam moved slowly along the platform, Schmidt followed patiently. Other sellers hurried up to Adam with their trays and baskets out. They’d seen him purchase something and suspected he might be amenable to buying even more. They gathered around him, gabbling in German, waving their goods in front of him.
Ann shrunk closer to his side, as the sellers pressed in around them.
“Des aiguilles et du fil?” Adam told them. “I don’t know the German for it,” he added to Ann.
Enough of the sellers knew enough French to be disappointed, but one small man stepped forward, holding up a heavy basket, looking very pleased.
“Ah,” Adam said, and drew Ann forward. “Select what you need.”
There were dozens of spools of silk thread in the basket, in a range of glorious colors. Tucked to one side were packets of needles, all of them the same brand as the needles she bought at home. It was a touch of the familiar, and vastly reassuring in this sea of novelty. Ann swiftly chose a packet of needles and two spools of thread—one that she guessed would be the best match to the cream satin in the valise, and the other a darker color that would be useful if the tweed she wore needed repairs, or if Adam’s clothing required it.
“That is all?” Adam asked her as she stepped back.
“It is all I require,” she assured him.
He plucked a pair of silver embroidery scissors from the basket and added it to her small bundle, then pulled more coins from his pocket. The seller and he exchanged swift German. Ann sensed they were bargaining. Then Adam shook his head and handed over more coins. The last he held up to the man. “Danke vielmals.” He added it to the coins on the man’s palm.
The man bowed his head and backed away. The other sellers all gathered around them once more.
“Here, give me the spools,” Adam said. “I will put them in my pocket until we find a basket you can store them in.” He ignored the gabbling of the sellers, as Ann handed him the thread, the needles and the small, beautiful pair of scissors.
One of the more enterprising of the sellers watched what they were doing, then pushed forward and waved a small leather reticule at Adam and pointed to his pockets.
Adam laughed. “I’m not sure why I bother transporting goods across Europe. These fellows are an international bazaar all by themselves.” He switched back to German and bargained with the fellow.
It was not the only purchase Adam made. Ann realized they were the center of attention upon the platform as eager sellers pressed in around them. Adam seemed almost happy as he picked out small items and purchased them—a lace handkerchief for Ann, the leather reticule to hold the thread and her new gloves, a comb for her hair, and soap in a small travelling box, and more.
