Rebecca Hagan Lee (38 page)

"No, Your Royal Highness," Cristina informed him. "I never intentionally pitted you against him. I didn't know how to tell Blake about the baby. And after hearing about Lord Ainsford's scandal, I was terrified that the same thing would happen to us. I had nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. So I used you to get away from London."

"I've been wrong about you from the beginning, Cristina. I was wrong to assume you were interested in pursuing an affair with me. I was wrong to assume that you could be purchased for mere jewels. And I clearly misjudged your passion for Blake." The warmth returned to Rudolf's clear blue eyes when he smiled at her. "You love him very much."

"Yes."

"Then I suggest you catch him before he leaves the embassy for London."

Cristina's eyes sparkled with tears of gratitude. "You've seen him?"

Rudolf shook his head. "No, but I make it a point to know my rivals'

whereabouts. It's one of the few advantages of being crown prince. He's taking the midmorning train out of Vienna."

"Oh, no!" Cristina breathed. "I must get to the embassy. I must see him before he leaves." She searched the room for her muff and coat. "Leah! Bring my coat and muff and call a fiacre. Hurry."

"Take mine," Rudolf intervened.

"What?" Cristina was too preoccupied to listen closely.

"Take my carriage, Cristina," Rudolf offered again. "It's parked right outside and my driver knows the quickest route to the embassy. I can get a cab back to the palace."

"Oh, thank you!" Cristina flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, then grabbed the muff Leah handed her and struggled into her coat.

"Godspeed, Cristina." The crown prince blew her a kiss as she raced out the door and into the waiting carriage. He would miss her, but he didn't love her.

He wanted her, but there were other beautiful, more willing women waiting for him to favor them with his affections. And there was a most charming young woman waiting for him back in Prague....

Yes, he would miss Cristina Fairfax, but he doubted it would be for long.

His guilty conscience was at rest.

Cristina instructed Rudolf's driver to take her to the British Embassy as fast as possible, but on a day like this speed seemed impossible. The Ring was crowded with holiday makers showing off their Christmas finery and enjoying the entertainments provided by the emperor and the court musicians. It was carnival time in Vienna and the air was filled with delicious aromas and the music of Herr Strauss.

On any other day the excitement in the air and the frenzy of activity going on around her would have thrilled her, but today the carriage ride a few short blocks down the Ringstrasse seemed to take an eternity. Cristina sat on the edge of her seat, impatiently urging the driver forward through the jammed boulevard. She glanced out the window in a futile attempt to gauge the flow of traffic head of them, and met the hard gaze of the passenger in the cab next to hers.

Cristina sucked in her breath, suddenly and inexplicably afraid. That face was no stranger to her. She knew those fanatical gray eyes. She had first seen them that long ago morning in the coffeehouse. And she had seen them many times since that morning. They belonged to the man who had dogged her every step for months.

The man she had thought was a member of the secret police.

She watched in horrible fascination as he opened the door of his cab and hurled a plain brown-wrapped package in her direction. Warning bells sounded in her brain. She screamed for the driver to stop while she frantically snatched at the door handle on the opposite side of the vehicle, trying desperately to escape the confines of the cab. The brown-wrapped package bounced off the side of the imperial carriage and rolled under the gold, painted wheels.

The explosion was deafening. The carriage door came free at the moment of the blast and Cristina was hurled onto sidewalk by the force of the explosion.

She instinctively reached out to break her fall and screamed in pain as a bone in her arm snapped and she thudded to the pavement.

Fragments of wood and glass rained down on her as she huddled, helpless, on the slushy, cold cobblestones. Somewhere nearby a horse screamed in agony, its tortured cries echoing her own suffering against a backdrop of lively Vienna.

She opened her eyes. Thick smoke stung her eyes and the acrid smell of gunpowder mingled with the stench of blood and scorched horseflesh made her gag. She tried to raise herself on one arm and failed. She fell back to the cobblestones as her body protested the additional abuse. She was covered by a mass of cuts and bruises that throbbed and bled and her whole body ached. She fought the pain and the nausea that threatened to choke her, willing herself to stay awake until help arrived.

The crunch of footsteps on the broken glass penetrated the ringing in Cristina's ears and she focused her gaze on a pair of black boots just inches from her face. Bright spots of blood stained the toes of the shiny boots and the white slush on the pavement. Cristina turned her head to follow the path of the dripping blood and found herself staring into the barrel of an Austrian Cavalry Service revolver. The man leaning over her dripped blood onto her velvet muff and tiny crimson dots of it splattered the sidewalk. Cristina could see his wound. A fragment of black metal had ripped through his coat and pierced his left side. Forcing herself to ignore her pain, Cristina stared past the gun so that she might look into the face of the man behind it. She knew him. He had followed her around for months and he had looked her in the eyes before throwing a bomb beneath the wheels of the crown prince's beautiful imperial carriage and causing the devastating carnage around her. She watched as he pulled the hammer of the revolver back with his thumb and heard the sound of the chamber clicking into place. The quiet click seemed deafening to her as she focused all of her remaining energy on the man who would be her murderer. And there was no doubt that he intended to kill her. His fanatical gray eyes sparkled with an inner light as he smiled a grim smile and spoke to her for the first time. "Auf Wiedersehen Fraulein Comtesse di Rimaldi."

"Von Retterling!" A name rang out over the horrible chaos and the man standing over Cristina whirled to face a fellow cavalry officer. "You are wounded."

Von Retterling stared at the man in amazement, then realized he held his revolver pointed at Cristina's head.

"The horses," he lied as someone mercifully ended the painful screams of the mortally wounded horses with two quick gunshots. "I was going to shoot the poor horses when I saw the young woman lying here. So young, so beautiful, and so badly injured ..."

"It's all right, von Retterling. We will take care of the young woman, but first let us take you to the ambulance. That wound must be attended. You can do nothing for the woman."

Retterling fastened his gaze on Cristina's face, then allowed himself to be led toward the ambulance inching its way through the hysterical masses. From the looks of her, she would soon die: he might as well take care of himself.

There was confusion all around Cristina as the emperor's police and mounted regiments questioned the witnesses and removed the wreckage of the carriages, carcasses of the horses, and the bodies of the dead and wounded. Cries of

"anarchist" rang through the city as word of the tragedy spread. Mounted soldiers patrolled the streets trying to calm the people who feared for the life of their crown prince. The strains of the Strauss waltzes ended abruptly as the maestro ended his concert and the bells of St. Stephen's Cathedral began their mournful toll for the dead.

Cristina tried to raise herself on her good arm, to scream at the police and tell them they had helped the man who had tried to murder her and had left her lying on the street--the man who had caused this destruction--but found she didn't have the strength to do more than lift her head.

"Try to lie still, frau." A kindly gentleman leaned over her, trying to comfort her when she screamed in pain and clutched at her belly. "I am Herr Doktor Kraus. We will be taking you to a hospital as soon as the ambulance wagon arrives."

"Retterling," Cristina whispered in a croaking voice as the abdominal cramps ripped through her, warning her that the precious life she carried was in danger.

"Ssh." Herr Doktor Kraus placed a finger to her lips. "We will do the best we can and try not to injure you further."

"Retterling," Cristina mumbled again. Her pain filled brain screamed the name at her, warning her to remember the name of her would-be assassin while several pairs of strong hands lifted her onto a canvas stretcher. She cried out at the jarring motion as they shifted her from the frozen ground to the stretcher until the pain became so intense she fainted, forgetting everything except the name embedded in her brain.

"What the bloody hell is going on outside?" Blake demanded of Cason, his assistant, as he hurried down the wide stairs of the embassy, valise in hand.

"There's been some sort of bombing, sir," Cason answered, stepping away from his observation point at the large window facing the Ring. "The crown prince's carriage was involved. The people are saying an anarchist made an attempt on the crown prince's life. The soldiers believe the anarchist escaped with injuries."

"How is Rudolf?" Blake asked. "There will be hell to pay if he was injured."

"The crown prince wasn't in the carriage, sir," Cason informed him. "The soldiers have been patrolling the street announcing that the crown prince was not in the carriage at the time of the explosion and that he is safe at the Imperial Palace."

Blake stepped to the window Cason had vacated. "Well, they'll soon have this mess cleared out of the way. They'll find an anarchist somewhere, hang him, and sweep the whole incident under the rug as if it never happened.

Nothing must interfere with the routine of Gay Vienna during carnival," Blake commented cynically.

"You're probably right, sir. There are plenty of Serbs and Croats to choose from. Still, it's sad that such a tragedy occurs on the eve of a new year."

Blake frowned and started to turn away from his view of the carnage when a length of copper-colored hair hanging over the side of a stretcher caught his eye.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and gooseflesh pimpled his arms at the sight. "Oh, no," he groaned in agony, "it can't be. Merciful God!

Cristina!" Blake dropped his valise where he stood by the window and was out of the embassy in second, running down the Ringstrasse like a man possessed.

"Wait!" Blake came to a halt beside the stretcher and seized the arm of the short, plump man standing next to it.

The man jumped as his arm was roughly seized from behind and quickly turned to face his assailant. "Herr, I beg you to let go of my arm. I am a doctor."

Blake studied the sympathetic face and the genuine look of surprise, then released his tight hold on the doctor's arm.

Freed from his hold, the doctor turned away from Blake and began supervising the loading of the ambulance.

"Where are you taking her?" Blake demanded roughly, unable to tear his eyes away from the bruised and battered face of the woman lying so still against the canvas.

"To the hospital. She needs immediate care."

"No!" Blake's objection was instantaneous. "No, she can get much better care at home. The hospital will be too busy to give her the care she needs."

He didn't like the idea of Cristina lying in a dingy hospital ward with nothing but strangers to care for her. "We have an apartment just down the street and someone to give her the constant care she needs. Take her there."

The doctor hesitated. "We cannot take the ambulance. You will have to find some other means of transportation--and very soon, because I fear the child is coming."

Blake drew in a sharp breath, aware that the early arrival of the baby could endanger both the child and the mother's lives. "I'll find a carriage or wagon or something and find a specialist for her as soon as possible."

"There is no need to find a specialist."

"Yes, there is." Blake's tone of voice brooked no argument. "The child shouldn't be born for another month. I want her to have a specialist in childbirth cases."

"I am such a specialist," the doctor assured Blake. "I am Herr Doktor Manfred Kraus and I will accompany you and your wife." He stepped away from Blake and gave the ambulance driver instructions in rapid German before turning back to Blake. "I told the driver to take the other patients to the hospital. I asked the others to stay and help with your wife."

"I don't know how to thank you...," Blake began.

"There is no need to thank me." The doctor understood that the man before him was a strong man unused to expressing his deepest emotions. "The driver of the carriage and the footman were killed. It's a miracle your wife survived the blast," he explained. "I was down the street. I had just delivered a child and was walking home when the explosion knocked me to my knees. I got up and down the street where I found your wife lying in the snow on the sidewalk."

"Thank God you found her."

"I am afraid it may be too soon to thank the All Highest. ..." The doctor's voice drifted into nothingness when he realized he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

Blake read the meaning behind the doctor's words and what he read filled him with terror and galvanized him into action.

"I'll see about a vehicle." He spoke brusquely to keep the fear out of his voice.

"Sir!"

Blake whirled around and spotted his assistant seated next to the driver of the embassy-supply wagon.

"Cason." Blake breathed softly as relief swept through him in the form of perspiration dotting his brow. He clenched his fists tightly by his side and said a prayer as the wagon inched its way through the remaining debris and rolled to a stop beside him.

"I realized it was the countess as soon as you bolted from the embassy, so I brought a wagon. I knew you wouldn't want her taken to a hospital," Cason explained. "We've put the stableboy's mattress and several blankets in back for her."

"Ever efficient, Cason." Blake struggled with his brimming emotions before he suddenly thrust out his hand to clasp the other man's in friendship.