BooksBarbecue
Back The Empress Save as PDF
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. 1853
  4. PART I
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. 1854
  42. PART II
  43. THIRTY-SEVEN
  44. THIRTY-EIGHT
  45. THIRTY-NINE
  46. FORTY
  47. FORTY-ONE
  48. FORTY-TWO
  49. FORTY-THREE
  50. FORTY-FOUR
  51. FORTY-FIVE
  52. FORTY-SIX
  53. FORTY-SEVEN
  54. FORTY-EIGHT
  55. FORTY-NINE
  56. FIFTY
  57. FIFTY-ONE
  58. FIFTY-TWO
  59. FIFTY-THREE
  60. FIFTY-FOUR
  61. FIFTY-FIVE
  62. FIFTY-SIX
  63. FIFTY-SEVEN
  64. FIFTY-EIGHT
  65. FIFTY-NINE
  66. SIXTY
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A little ways behind them, Helene could see Mother looking satisfied. The offer of the handkerchief must have looked especially gallant from afar. And perhaps it was. Perhaps the doubts were simply Helene’s worries getting in the way. She couldn’t expect love to spark like a wildfire at first sight, could she? No, love would grow with time. An offered handkerchief wasn’t an insult; it was a seed. Polite conversation was another. They’d keep tending their garden and it would grow.

It had to grow.

The thought made her bolder, and she reached out with two fingers to gently touch Franz’s arm. “Thank you for walking with me.”

SEVENTEEN

image

IF SPATZ WERE WITH THEM, SHE WOULD ACCUSE THE PARK of harboring fairy magic.

Elisabeth could picture it: the way her eyes would light up, the way they’d both peek under bushes and into the hollows of trees, searching for the telltale flutter of fairy wings. They’d trace their fingers along the trunks of trees and press their faces shamelessly into the bark. They’d breathe in the green smell of the moss-covered rocks, the cool air cast off by the streams. Elisabeth wished she could show her sister this place; she’d love it inordinately.

This park was the perfect place to fall in love—all poetry and possibility. And that’s precisely what Helene was doing across the way. Elisabeth couldn’t hear their conversation, but she could see her sister speaking to Franz, Helene handing him the handkerchief she’d spent so many hours on. Elisabeth’s heart ached. Oh how she longed to fall in love like that.

Behind her on the path, Mother and Sophie were deep in conversation.

“Don’t worry, Sister. Franz will ask Helene for her hand.” Sophie’s voice was warm and confident.

“Because all the men in this family do what you say?” It was a joke, but Mother was bad at them.

Elisabeth glanced behind her as Sophie touched her sister’s arm. “Because he knows it is the right thing to do.”

Oh, how Elisabeth wished she could so easily know the right things to do.

“Ah, and thank you for leaving the vagabond at home,” Sophie said.

Elisabeth’s defensiveness rose like a tide. Certainly, her father was an odd man and unfaithful husband, but he didn’t deserve such a label. Elisabeth knew the court hadn’t been impressed with her father’s book, especially the jokes about censorship from the crown. But Sophie shouldn’t be so humorless—not with a son like Maxi, who Elisabeth imagined would find her father’s jokes riotously funny.

“Oh, Sister, please! The last thing my husband wants to do is put his trousers on to travel,” Mother joked back.

“He really should move in with my Karl at Auhof.” Both women laughed.