Masks and Shadows (38 page)

She had never felt anything like this. It was completely inappropriate. Utterly mad.

But she couldn't seem to make herself stop.

She glanced at the clock that stood in the corner. Only two more hours until dinner.

“Well, let's hope that Niko likes this one.” Sophie turned to the mirror and held the blue gown up before her, frowning speculatively. “He's going to see me in it tonight.”

“When?” Charlotte asked—then bit her tongue. It was one thing to fantasize madly about herself. It was another thing to have to consider her little sister's fantasies. “I mean—you don't have to answer that.”

“Why not?” Sophie spun around, grinning. “I'm sneaking into the opera tonight!”

“What? How?” Charlotte stared at her. “Why?”

“‘How' is easy enough. I am one of the Princess's ladies-in-waiting, remember?”

“Yes, but . . .” Charlotte's heart sank. “Sophie, think how awkward it would be for you. To sit in the same box as the Princess, to see—”

“Why shouldn't I?”

“You said the Prince . . . Oh, never mind.”

Charlotte looked down at her fingers, spread across the ruffled cover of Sophie's bed.
Bought by the Prince
. She winced. When she looked back up, Sophie had lost her mischievous grin.

“I know,” Sophie said, “Niko doesn't want to sit between me and Her High-and-Frozenness in public. That's all right. He explained it to me. He doesn't want me to have to pretend to be anything less than what I really am.”

Then why has he kept you in hiding?
Charlotte thought. But she did not ask the question. There were too many layers of pain and complication in this palace. She had no right to probe at the open sores.

Instead, she stood up and laid a hand on her younger sister's shoulder.

“I'll stay in with you tonight,” she said. “I'll plead a headache.”

“And miss Herr Haydn's new opera? Lotte, you've been talking of it for the past week.”

“It wouldn't be the greatest loss I could imagine,” Charlotte said lightly.

The greatest loss would be the hours missed. How many hours did she have left before Signor Morelli left Eszterháza for another grand tour, another noble visit or operatic engagement? How many chances did she have left to listen to music at his side, absorbed in the beauty and sharing it with him? How many chances to look up and find his dark eyes fixed on her—perhaps, accidentally, to brush hands, or . . .

Charlotte let out her held breath. “Don't concern yourself, Sophie. I won't mind it at all.”

“You won't have to. I wouldn't miss tonight's performance for the world!” Sophie turned her head and rested her pointed chin on Charlotte's hand. “I'll have to miss all the rest of the visit, but I can't miss this. Niko's been planning it for ages. Months! It's not just the opera. There's some secret—it's a great mystery, very exciting—”

“A secret?” Charlotte felt a twinge of shadow—the Princess's warning whispering through her. “What sort of secret?”

“That's just it! He won't tell me, no matter how much I tease him. All he'll say is that it's a great surprise for his guests. Of course, he thought he would only have one guest, the Archduke, but now that they're all here . . .” Sophie sighed. “He says it's going to make his name in history. How can I not be there to share it with him?”

“It must be a great event indeed,” Charlotte said slowly. “Sophie—”

“Don't even try to talk me out of this, Lotte! I'm determined to see it myself.”

“But—”

“Don't worry, silly. I won't sit in the royal box. I'm not entirely lacking in sense, you know! I'm going to sit with the officers, instead.”

Charlotte frowned. “How?”

“With my husband, of course. Remember him?” Sophie stepped away and clapped for her maid. “Friedrich has done nothing but gamble and drink and ogle actresses from the first day we arrived at Eszterháza. It's about time he finally does something worthwhile.”

“So you'll go to the opera with him as your escort,” Charlotte said. “Has he really agreed to this?”

Sophie shrugged. “I've sent him a note, telling him he had to do it. I told him it was Niko's express desire.” Her cheeks flushed; she wouldn't meet Charlotte's eyes. “Well, it should be his desire, even if it isn't.”

“And the Prince—have you told
him
?”

Sophie turned to look at her, her eyes bright. “I think it will do Niko a great deal of good to catch sight of me unawares,” she said. “Watch him for me, Lotte. Tell me exactly how he reacts.”

Sophie's maid hurried in from the outer chamber, carrying combs and pins. Charlotte phrased her next words carefully, watching her sister's glittering excitement.

“Sophie—dearest—I don't think this is a good idea.”

“Of course it's a good idea! I've been plotting it ever since last night, while you were probably off flirting with that freak.”

“Sophie!” Charlotte's cheeks burned.

“Ha. I knew it. And after you promised me not to.” Sophie shook her head.

“It's not—it's only—”

“Don't tell me, Lotte. I promise you, I don't want to hear, or to know anything about it. Just as long as you don't do anything stupid in public to embarrass me . . .” Sophie took a breath and turned around to let her maid reach the buttons behind her neck. “Remember, Lotte, for once in our lives you truly have no moral superiority over me.”

Charlotte sighed and stepped back. “I never thought I did,” she said softly.

Sophie's high, chattering voice followed her out of the room, issuing instructions to the maid. Charlotte closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, taking a deep breath.

She wasn't looking forward to the evening, after all.

Carlo paced up and down the corridor outside his room. One more hour left before dinner. This was his first free moment in a day full of rigorously scheduled entertainments for the imperial guests, but he was too irritated and weary to settle into anything useful.

The worst had come in the midafternoon. Alternately bored and horrified, he'd had to sit with the rest of the court through an hour-long display of folk dancing by ferociously smiling local peasants so thin they'd looked to topple in the next strong wind. Two had been called up at the end for an interrogation on their health and happiness; at the conclusion of their set speeches of gratitude and contentment, Prince Nikolaus had smiled with rich satisfaction and tossed the leader a jingling velvet sack. The gesture might have meant more, Carlo thought, if the money hadn't been worked off their frail backs in the first place.

Still, it had spurred his first truly kind thoughts about the Empress and Emperor when he had seen their exchange of speaking looks. Empress Maria Theresia had been struggling against her magnates for nearly forty years to abolish the miserable state of serfdom in the Hungarian lands. From all appearances, her co-regent shared in her disgust—and the tactless, single-minded Emperor, by all accounts, was far less willing to accept political compromises than his mother. Prince Nikolaus and his fellows would have a hard battle to fight against imperial reforms in these coming years. The Empress might still be the most powerful figure in the land, but she was also an aging woman; it would not be long before her son inherited sole control and the whole empire shook beneath his plans.

For now, though, Carlo shook his head impatiently and swung around at the end of the corridor. He had one hour of freedom. He would not waste any more of it in thoughts of tiresome aristocrats. He should exercise his voice; catch up on his vast correspondence; even take a nap. He should pin down his next destination after Eszterháza. He should stop pining after the one particular aristocrat who never tired him—the one he could surely never have.

He glanced at his pocket watch and sighed. Fifty-eight minutes left to wait.

Princess Marie Elisabeth Esterházy frowned at her two companions, as the pale light of early evening spilled through the windows into her spacious sitting room.

“No details at all?” she asked. “You have no idea what will happen tonight?”

Monsieur Jean shrugged. “Your Highness, we've told you all we know.
Something
—the culmination of all this frantic plotting—will take place during the celebrations at the opera house.”

“But you still don't know any of the details?”

“Signor Morelli is not involved,” Jean said easily. “I'm certain enough of that. And as for the Baroness . . .” He glanced at Asa.

“There were no letters hidden in her room,” Asa said, without looking up from her embroidery. She snapped one end of her thread off with her teeth, and sighed. “Nothing with that seal. Nothing suspicious.”

“And she would never put her sister in danger.” The Princess tapped her bejeweled fingers on her knee. “What a pity. I really thought they might have been the ones. It would have made so much sense! Perhaps our Herr von Born is not so subtle as I'd thought.”

Jean coughed. “Shall I go to the Prince now, Your Highness? Summon him to you, to hear all that we've learned?”

“No.” The Princess's face tightened. “I don't think that would do the slightest bit of good. In fact, it would be entirely counterproductive.”

“But—”

“If we had tangible evidence to present, I might tell him. Possibly.” She pressed her lips together. Her gaze turned inward a moment . . . and then she sighed. “No. Herr von Born may be masquerading around the palace grounds and plotting his political heart out, but the opera house tonight will be full of officers and surrounded by Her Majesty's own Hungarian Bodyguard. There will be a guard even at the royal box. There is no more protection that we could possibly put into place.” She snorted. “And at any rate, Nikolaus would never call off such a grand performance merely on the suspicions of his wife and her servants. He wouldn't even think twice about it.” She drew a sudden breath. “And yet, perhaps . . .”

“Your Highness?”

“
Yes
,” the Princess breathed. “I shall write a note, now, begging him to call off the performance on my bidding, to assuage my sensible fears. I'll tell him I'm certain of disaster for our imperial guests, if the performance does take place . . . and I'll keep a copy for myself. It will be a note that will shame him afterward when he recalls it, if anything does go wrong. Then he shall be forced to account to the Empress for his decision to ignore my warning and thus put her in danger . . . as he most certainly will ignore my warning. Oh, how perfect!”

“Your Highness,” Asa murmured, as she began a new thread, “perhaps, still, it would be better for you not to attend the opera tonight yourself, for your own safety. If you say you have been taken ill, or—”

“No.” The Princess's eyes hardened. “I am Nikolaus's consort, whether that stupid little girl realizes it or not. This is my place, and the risk that I must take. And if it succeeds, and I can look him in the face afterward, before the Emperor and Empress, to confront him with how little account he has taken of me . . .” She drew a deep breath. “If it succeeds, then perhaps I may finally be free of this palace after all. Forever.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Hundreds of wax lights filled the opera house. Set in mirrored sconces, they shot sparkling reflections off the glittering array of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies worn by the courtiers throughout the audience. For a moment, as she stepped into the royal box, the brilliant light blinded Charlotte. She paused and put a hand out to the gilded rail.

Far below, the orchestral musicians warmed up with a myriad of different melodies and scales competing in strings, warm brass, and high, fluting woodwinds. Ahead of her, the Empress and Emperor had already taken their seats in the first row of the box, overlooking the crowded auditorium of nobles, officers, and local gentry. The Prince helped the Princess to her seat at the end of the first row with charming gallantry, while the Archduke seated the Prince's niece in the row behind. The rounded, frescoed ceiling soared high above them.