Princess in Love (23 page)

Oh God. Not another letter. It seemed as if her life were constantly swinging back
and forth like a pendulum whenever a letter arrived.

“I am not sure I want to read this,” she said. “I’ve already made up my mind about
my future. All I want to do is put all this behind me. I cannot bear for anything
to stir up my feelings again.”

Alexandra and Randolph looked at each other as if they were discussing the matter
with their eyes and wondering how to convince Rose to reconsider.

“Fine,” Rose said, taking the letter from her brother. “I will read it if you think
I should.”

Turning away from them, she unfolded it as she walked to the window.

“Would you prefer to be alone?” Alexandra asked.

“No, I want you both to stay.”

Then she began to read.

Dear Rose,

I know there is nothing I can say to excuse what I have done. I was wrong to have
kept so many secrets from you. One day soon, however, you will at least know the truth.
Everything will be revealed in the trial, but I have learned you will not be here
to witness it. This morning I was told you are leaving today.

I write to plead with you not to marry the archduke, for I will go mad if I lose you
to another man. That is selfish, I know, and I struggle to cling to what honor I have
left and let you go, for you deserve better than to live with what I have become in
the eyes of this great nation—a traitor to the crown.

Yet honor means nothing to me if I cannot have you. Please do not marry another. You
are mine, and I will not accept the loss of you.

Do not go. Stay. Wait for me. I will find a way to be with you. Whatever it takes.

Always,

Leopold

Rose fought against the tears that flooded her eyes, but they were not tears of woe
but of anger. Why had he done this to her a second time? Why did he lead her into
a world of passion and hope when he was again hiding something from her? Something
that would eventually tear them apart?

“I am so angry with him,” she said to Randolph. “He asks me to wait for him and admits
he is being selfish. He cannot accept defeat. That is his problem. He has always been
ambitious. He wanted your crown.” Her eyes shot to Alexandra. “It was only when he
lost you to Randolph that he decided he wanted
me
again. Was I just a consolation prize? Or did he truly want to ruin us?” She paused
and fought to gather her composure. “At the same time, I am ashamed to admit that
it kills me to think of him locked up in prison facing the worst, believing that I
despise him, because despite all the lies, I do believe our affair was real. The passion
was not a trick. It couldn’t have been.”

Alexandra approached and laid a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “I am sure that
it was not.”

None of them spoke for a long moment while Rose stood at the window, looking out at
the white winter cityscape and wrestling with the confusing chaos of her feelings.

At the heart of it, there was sadness.

This was a chapter of her life that would soon be over. She would leave this place—the
home that she loved—and abandon all her dreams of a life with Leopold Hunt, supposed
hero and gentleman. She must instead try to embrace a new future with a man who deserved
her love and fidelity. It was the right thing to do. She knew it in her heart and
mind.

Turning to face her brother, she said, “I wish to leave now. Where is Nicholas?”

“He is out front overseeing the loading of the coaches. He is waiting to say good-bye.”

A few minutes later, she was standing in the front hall with Nicholas, fighting against
all thoughts of not seeing him again for a very long time.

“I want you to do something for me,” she said as she opened her reticule and withdrew
a small velvet bag. “You must return this to Lord Cavanaugh. These were gifts from
him, but I don’t feel right keeping them now.”

The bag contained the gold medallion that had once belonged to Leopold’s ancestors
and the diamond and ruby brooch he had given her for Christmas.

“I will return them.”

She gazed down at the floor and swallowed hard over the sorrow that was clenching
her heart in a tight fist. “Can you do one more thing for me?”

“Of course.”

“Tell him that I read his letter and I thank him for it. Tell him I do not wish him
ill, and that I hope his sentence will be fair. Say good-bye for me, and inform him
that it is not likely we will ever see each other again.”

Still with her gaze lowered, she paused.

“Is that all?” Nicholas said. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, then looked up at her brother. “This is difficult. I will miss you terribly.”

He gathered her into his arms and held her tightly until her departure could no longer
be delayed.

Then she walked out of the palace and did not look back as she climbed into the coach
with Randolph and drove away.

PART IV

Love and War

Chapter Twenty-three

For all the future days of his life, Leopold knew he would never forget the harsh
and merciless reality of the moment when he learned that Rose had done it. She had
walked down the aisle of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and married Archduke Joseph,
eldest son of the Austrian emperor.

Leopold was a cavalry officer in the war against Napoleon. He had charged boldly into
murderous enemy lines in Spain and on the battlefields of Leipzig. He had witnessed
more horrors than he cared to remember, but nothing struck him so deeply or devastatingly
as the knowledge that Rose had given her heart to another and all hope was lost.

She would not change her mind and come home to him now, nor would he be released from
this dark hellhole in the earth, miraculously restore his reputation, and gallop across
national borders to reclaim her before it was too late.

She was lost to him now, married to another man, while he was becoming something akin
to a caged tiger … wounded and ravenous and angry enough to rip a person apart.

Namely the archduke of Austria. If not for him, Rose would still be in Petersbourg,
and Leo might still have a chance to repair the damage.

But she was lost to him now, and part of him hated her for abandoning him so quickly,
for not trusting him or believing in him.

How could she have married another? Had she already lain with Joseph?
Oh, God in heaven, help me
 … He couldn’t survive the thought …

Some days, the jealousy was like a sharp sword in his gut. He felt shackled to these
walls. The betrayal burned so searingly in his brain that he cursed Rose for every
word she spoke when she came to confront him here. Other days he nearly collapsed
with grief at the loss of her and despised himself for such weakness.

He hated the powerlessness, the excruciating torture of this frustrating confinement,
interrupted only by the humiliation of standing trial while his father was found guilty,
stripped of his title and property, and sentenced to death.

Leopold had never considered himself a vengeful man, but a wretched violence was kindling
inside of him and burning very deep in his core. He continued to imagine what he would
do if he could escape and meet the archduke again. Perhaps he would grab him by the
throat and fling him into the Danube. Or casually elbow him into a well when no one
was looking.

They were morbid thoughts, all of them, but somehow they mollified the bitter monster
inside of him, which was born from his grief and despair.

And his regrets.

If only he had exposed his father’s treason when he first returned from England. If
only he had confessed everything to Rose.

He could only blame himself.

All this is my own doing.

With that thought hammering relentlessly in his brain, he woke one morning and smashed
his table and chair to bits and pieces. After that, he had only his cot to sit on.

He tried to sleep. It wasn’t easy, for he was never at peace.

Days turned to weeks, and by the end of February, the verdict came down. Leopold braced
himself for the sentencing.

In the end, the court ruled that he was innocent of the charges of murder, for he
had known nothing of it, but was guilty of treason in addition to a number of lesser
charges.

He, too, was stripped of his title of marquess, and Cavanaugh Manor was seized by
the crown.

His mother was also charged with treason, for she had known of the plot but had never
revealed it. However, the court was lenient toward her for she had not spoken to her
husband in more than ten years and everyone knew she openly despised him. She was
sentenced to time already served in prison, but was stripped of her title of duchess.
Naturally the scandal would ruin her socially, but Leo knew she wouldn’t care about
that. She never enjoyed moving about in society, and was happiest in the country,
and she had her own money.

But Leopold regretted every moment of her suffering. He mourned all that she had lost
in her life—her husband, who had never been faithful to her, and her two daughters
who had died of typhoid early in life.

Now the disgrace and downfall of her only son.

Leopold had stood at the rail for the reading of his sentence and had borne it bravely—even
the final word that he would be spared the hangman’s noose but would spend the next
twenty years of his life in prison.

If he lived that long. The odds were not good for such longevity at Briggin’s.

Hence, he prepared to enter a new chapter in his life, an exceedingly dark one that
made him wonder if he might have been better off at the scaffold, for the lonely years
ahead of him seemed a much crueler punishment.

But on March 31—less than five weeks into his twenty-year sentence—a royal visitor
arrived to convey news of a most shocking turn of events, and an offer he simply could
not refuse.

Chapter Twenty-four

Vienna

“You will not believe it,” Joseph said to Rose as she entered the palace after her
usual morning ride through the park.

Feeling refreshed from the exertion of a fast gallop, she pulled off her riding gloves
and hat and handed them to the butler.

“Believe what?” she asked, recognizing the alarm in her husband’s expression. “Has
something happened?”

“Napoleon has reached Paris,” he said. “He has taken back the throne.”

Rose halted on the carpet. “Good God. King Louis fled Paris only a week ago. What
will it mean for France? For all of Europe?”

Joseph stared at her with uncertainty, then motioned for her to follow him into the
library. “There is no question about it…” He shut the door behind them. “Bonaparte
cannot be trusted to keep the peace. All the allies expect the worst.”

“It hardly seems possible,” she said. “A month ago he was still sitting on Elba. How
could he escape and muster an army so quickly?”

“Speed and recklessness have always been his greatest strengths, but there is more.”
Joseph paced the room. “Napoleon’s former marshal, Murat, who is regrettably still
King of Naples, will soon begin an invasion of the Papal States. If that occurs, he
will have broken his agreement with my father, and it is very likely that Austria
will go to war. I just spoke with Metternich, and he anticipates that we will be sending
our troops to Italy very soon.”

“Are you certain we should be fighting Murat in Italy, when Napoleon will no doubt
be marching north to reclaim what he has lost?”

Joseph nodded. “I share your concerns, Rose, but it is difficult to predict what he
will do. What matters is that we are all on the same side. All the great powers here
in Vienna have formed a new coalition that will not be broken. We have promised one
another not to negotiate separately with Bonaparte. We will present a united front
against him.”

She collapsed into a chair. “That is good news. Is there any chance that the coalition
might march on Paris and simply throw him out before he gathers more forces?”

“He has already gathered an enormous army, I am afraid.”

She thought of Leopold that night in the orchard and remembered his prediction that
Napoleon would escape from Elba before the year was out. How right he had been …

“What about Wellington and the tsar?” she asked. “What are their intentions?”

“Wellington intends to march to the Low Countries where he will be joined by the Prussians.
The Russian army is still in Poland and a terrible distance away.”

“Have you heard from my brother?” she asked. “I am certain Randolph will commit troops
to the campaign.” After walking her down the aisle a month ago, Randolph had left
Vienna and returned to Petersbourg for the birth of his first child, which could happen
any day now. Rose was constantly awaiting news.

“Your foreign minister has already verified a commitment from Petersbourg,” Joseph
said. “I expect your brother’s army will march to Brussels and meet Wellington there
as well.”

Rose stood up. “I see. That is very good.”

But who would command the troops, she wondered, when one of their greatest war heroes
was currently rotting away in prison for high treason?

Joseph hurried to the door. “I must go now,” he said. “There is much to do and much
to discuss with the other foreign ministers. I will see you at dinner and tell you
everything I can about what is happening.”

She watched him go. “Be careful, Joseph. The world seems suddenly unhinged.”

He paused at the door to regard her with both worry and affection.

A moment later he was gone, leaving her alone to think about armies and soldiers—and
how life could spin so wildly out of control in the space of a single heartbeat.

Such twists and turns did not surprise her, however, for she had come to expect them
in life.