Chapters (68)
- Cover
- Dedication
- 1853
- PART I
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- 1854
- PART II
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helene shouldn’t think like that, of course. Mother had told her too many times to count: it didn’t matter if they liked each other. It only mattered that they were both suited for their roles.
Helene knew it was true. But she also wanted him to like her. To see her and immediately understand that they were meant to be. She wanted it more than anything.
When Helene looked up again, Sisi was watching her closely, eyes sly with mischief, pencil poised above her diary. Poems, Helene knew. Poems upon poems upon poems. Sisi must have written a thousand of them by now. She used to read them all to Helene, even sometimes the scandalous ones. Helene remembered the lines:
See how she hurries to her lover in the moonlight …
We exchanged hot kisses, sultry, like a full moon night,
We think nothing of the approaching morning …
That one had filled Helene with an unnamed longing she hadn’t even known existed. It was before Franz, before the letter that had changed everything—and when she’d tried to imagine herself with a lover in the moonlight, his face was all shadow, undefined. Now she imagined the face in the little portrait, Helene hurrying toward him, him thinking nothing of the approaching morning.
Guilt fluttered across her happy thoughts. Sisi was playing with fire, she reminded herself. Helene wasn’t supposed to encourage her.
“You know it’s because of your poems that Mother wants to send you to the asylum.” She kept her voice low to keep from waking Mother.
“Well, if that little picture starts talking to you, let me know. I’ll take you into the madhouse with me,” Sisi joked back, all lightness.
Helene rolled her eyes, amused despite herself. And then, an olive branch. “I’m happy you’re coming with me.”
Sisi quirked a half smile and a raised eyebrow in the direction of their sleeping mother. “She wants to keep an eye on me, that’s all.”
Helene shook her head. “I wanted you here.”
Sisi’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“I talked to Mother about it, and she agreed.”
“What did she say?”
Helene pursed her lips. “That the emperor’s three brothers will also be there and … well, something about how a piece of sausage sometimes falls off the plate and into the dog’s mouth.”
“And was I the sausage or the dog?” Sisi raised an eyebrow.
Helene affected an exaggerated shrug. “No telling.”