Sweet as the Devil (15 page)

Her expression brightened, her scowl disappeared, and she looked Jamie over with an appreciative eye. “I’ve heard of you, Blackwood.”

“And I of you, Principessa,” he said, his face neutral. “You weren’t expected until tomorrow.”

“I chartered a train. The French can be quite accommodating.” She smiled. “One needs sufficient money of course. Now, you will find Ernst for me?”

“Certainly. Unaware of your change in plans, the prince accepted an invitation to dinner,” Jamie lied, when Ernst was no doubt in his favorite London brothel with his favorite courtesan at this time of night. “I’ll see that he’s here within the hour. Allow me to introduce Miss Sofia Eastleigh,” he added, politely drawing Sofia forward. “She’s the prince’s daughter—only recently discovered.”

Principessa Antonella Gilamberti-Thun surveyed Sofia with the bold scrutiny given to those of exalted title and family. “Born on the wrong side of the blanket I’d warrant from the looks of you,” she noted with a raking glance down Sofia’s boyish garb. “But you have your father’s coloring, I’ll give you that.”

“Miss Eastleigh is fully legitimate,” Jamie asserted, knowing Ernst had no wish to conceal his daughter’s identity. “I’m afraid Prince Ernst’s marriage to the Princess of Bohemia was tainted.”

“You don’t say,” Antonella cooed, her pink lips curving into a sunny smile. “So that ungodly bitch Marie wasn’t Ernst’s legitimate wife.”

“I’m afraid not.”

She laughed. “How utterly charming. Although,” she added with a small frown, “darling Rupert would have suffered disgrace. Alas, poor boy, he suffers no more.” She softly sighed, all her indignation and wrath suddenly gone like so much thistle down on the wind. “A comfortable chair if you please while I wait for Ernst,” she decreed, holding out her hand to Jamie. “You’ll see to my champagne?”

“Of course.” He helped her down from her perch. “You’ll find the library has the most comfortable chairs.” He waved over Ernst’s butler.

“Come, darling.” The principessa shrugged off her sumptuous cape, and as a servant jumped to catch it before it landed on the floor, she crooked her finger at Sofia. “Come, you odd little thing—you must tell me how it feels to suddenly be a princess.”

“Appalling.”

Antonella glanced up at Jamie. “You have an unwilling princess on your hands?”

“So it seems. Excuse me.” He turned to speak quietly to the butler hovering at his elbow, giving him instructions for fetching Ernst.

“Nevertheless we shall muddle along, won’t we, Miss Eastleigh?” The principessa offered Sofia a dazzling smile.

“I’m not inclined to muddle along,” Sofia replied tersely. “Nor do I wish to be here.”

“Oh ho? Stubborn and unwilling. Ernst must find you charming. Ah, finally, the champagne. You’ll join us, Blackwood?”

He nodded. “This way, Principessa.” Turning, he took Sofia’s hand with a faint bow. “Your servant, Miss Eastleigh.”

“Like hell,” she muttered under her breath.

Whether he did not hear her comment or he chose to ignore it, Sofia could not decipher. Dragging her along, Jamie followed the principessa, who was in turn following a servant bearing her ’74 vintage on a silver tray.

Sofia scanned the hallway down which they passed with an eye to possible egress should the opportunity present itself. But all she saw were portraits of racehorses or racing yachts lining the walls—the decor wholly male, as was the faint scent of tobacco in the air. And with Blackwood’s firm grip on her hand, even a door yawning wide to the outside would have been useless.

A flunkey opened the library door as they approached it, another carried in the champagne, and the small group—all with divergent ambitions—entered Ernst’s inner sanctum.

“Ah—Ernst’s cologne—it smells like home.” Antonella inhaled the redolent scent of the sea. “Ernst should knight that perfumer. I don’t know how Rampolla does it, but the man’s a genius. You’ll love our picturesque seacoast, my dear.” The principessa reached out and patted Sofia’s arm. “It’s the most sublime scenery in the world.”

The wealthy principessa clearly adored her home, and rather than be rude, Sofia politely said, “I’m sure it’s lovely.”

“An understatement, my dear. Tell her, Blackwood. You live on the coast as well. Is it not the most magnificent seascape?”

“Indeed, Principessa. Please, ladies, make yourselves comfortable.”

Playing host in the prince’s absence, Jamie saw that the ladies were seated, champagne was poured, and the servants dismissed. After which, Sofia found herself left out of the conversation much as she’d been at dinner. The principessa and Jamie fell into a free and easy discussion of mutual acquaintances at the court in Vienna and in their duchies.

Not that she hadn’t been initially included in the conversation, particularly by the principessa, who had peppered her with questions. But tired after a long day and an oppressive evening, Sofia wasn’t inclined to relate her life story for the entertainment of a stranger. Furthermore, the large leather chair she’d curled up in was so soft and cozy she found herself struggling to stay awake.

When she eventually dozed off, Antonella waggled a finger in Sofia’s direction. “Is she some child of the streets in those curious, outsized clothes?”

“No. Miss Eastleigh changed from a dinner gown into a friend’s clothes—for travel and riding. We’ll be leaving London tonight.”

“We?”

“Miss Eastleigh and I, the prince as well.”

“Leaving? What destination?”

“My estate in the Highlands.” Jamie wasn’t concerned with disclosing that information since the principessa didn’t know the location of his property.

“Ernst knew I was coming and yet he’s leaving?” Her gaze narrowed. “It has to do with Rupert, doesn’t it? Rumors abound that he was murdered. All Vienna is abuzz. There’s some danger?”

Jamie gave her a restrained smile. “Forgive me. I can’t answer without the prince’s approval.” The less said the better. Any small rumor could lead Von Welden to them.

Antonella lifted her champagne glass in Sofia’s direction. “She doesn’t wish to go wherever you’re going, does she?”

“No.”

“But you’re not giving her a choice.”

He shook his head.

“She looks like him.” Antonella smiled. “She’s obstinate like him. And yet, Ernst needs an heir, doesn’t he? You needn’t look surprised. The fact is well-known in our part of the world. Other duchies, mine included, face the same threat, having been dragooned into the Habsburg Empire over the centuries on one pretext or another. Fortunately, I have three sons.”

The principessa had been married very young to an elderly noble. But she was also rich and titled in her own right, her principality won long ago by an ancestor in the employ of Venice. At the height of its power, Venice controlled all the trade from the East, and many an Adriatic pirate gained his fortune and titles under the flag of the Venetian Republic.

“You’re to be congratulated on your sons, ma’am.”

“Indeed. I was fortunate as well that my husband died while I was still young.”

There was no way to politely reply to such frankness. “Would you like more champagne?” Jamie inquired, leaning forward to pick up the bottle.

“How gallant, Blackwood. But surely you’re no novice. You know how aristocratic marriages are arranged.” A mischievous light appeared in her eyes. “Except for Ernst’s, apparently. He married some pretty young thing, didn’t he, and said fie to his parents.”

“Not for long.” He refilled the principessa’s glass.

“Hence the Princess of Bohemia.”

“Hence the princess,” he agreed, setting the bottle down and leaning back in his chair.

“Marie was a self-righteous prig with a penchant for priests who dispensed sexual favors and doctors who dispensed laudanum. She was quite ugly, poor thing.” Antonella shrugged. “But then anything can be bought for a price. Rome included.”

Another comment impossible to answer.

A small silence fell.

“Do you know who murdered Rupert? You do, don’t you?”

Merde.
He should have spoken up, made some innocuous reference to current gossip, steered the conversation toward some harmless subjects. “I couldn’t tell you if I knew,” Jamie gently replied. “Again, a topic best left to Prince Ernst.”

“You do your job well, Blackwood.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“So then,” she brightly said, “I seem to be involved in some interesting contretemps.”

“Not interesting, ma’am—dangerous.”
She is a severe inconvenience.
“I suggest you return to the safety of your duchy.”

“I’m sure you do.” Her smile was playful. “But I’m no more likely to listen to your advice than is Ernst’s lovely daughter.”

“Then I’ll refrain from further suggestions. If you’ll excuse me,” he added, rising to his feet, several more pressing matters than deflecting the principessa’s questions on his mind. “I must see to a few things.”

“Go, go. . . you’ve been more than gracious. I’ll finish this champagne and wait for Ernst to answer my questions.”

But the moment the door closed on Jamie, Antonella leaned over and prodded Sofia’s hand lying on the arm of her chair. “Wake up, wake up.
Wake up!
”

Startled, Sofia jerked upright and, still partially dazed, tried to recall where she was and who the woman was staring at her.

“You must tell me everything you know about this whirlwind trip north.
Vite, vite!
Blackwood might be back soon.”

The name jolted Sofia fully awake and memory flooded back. “When did he leave?”

“A minute ago.”

In a flash Sofia was on her feet and striding toward the door.

“Don’t bother,” Antonella advised. “He won’t let you go.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“You naive child.” The principessa had lived her entire life under the watchful eyes of bodyguards.

“I’m not in the least naive,” Sofia brusquely retorted. Jerking the door open, she skidded to a halt.

Two very large, armed men stood on the threshold.

“I’m sorry, miss—orders,” one of them politely said.

Slamming the door shut, Sofia stamped back, cursing Jamie with a bitter outpouring of profanity. After a last pithy defamation of his mother’s character, she dropped into her chair, leaned her head back, shut her eyes, and silently decried her fate.

“Blackwood’s excellent at what he does,” the principessa unnecessarily pointed out. “Very efficient and capable. He’s saved Ernst from assassination many times. From what I gather, you’re in some danger. Surely you don’t wish to be on your own at night in London with ruffians on the prowl.”

“I’d manage,” Sofia muttered without opening her eyes, feeling sulky and mad as a hornet.

“How very courageous you are.”

Pushing herself up in the chair, Sofia opened her eyes and looked at the principessa with mild disdain. “I’m at home in the streets. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps not entirely. But then you may not understand why I maintain a personal army.”

“Touché. You have your life, I have mine, and never the twain shall meet.”

“That may very well be. But our differences don’t explain why you choose to spurn your father’s interest in you.”

“Recent interest,” Sofia crisply corrected. “And he fails to recognize that I have a life of my own. A very good one.”

“But in the streets, my dear. Surely not.”

“I’m an artist.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. Perhaps it was the principessa’s benighted ignorance of what Sofia conceived as the real world, or perhaps it was the principessa’s faintly raised brows. “My work commands large sums. I live well. And a title means less than nothing to me.”

“But your father needs you.”

“Now
he needs me. He didn’t for twenty-three years.”

“Ah—you’re angry at him.”

“Not in the least. I’m indifferent. Why shouldn’t I be? I don’t know him.”

“Perhaps you two could come to some agreement. Without you, Ernst will lose the duchy that’s been in the Battenberg family for over a thousand years.”

“Certainly we’ll come to an agreement, won’t we, my dear?” Ernst amiably declared, walking into the library. “Good evening, my darling Antonella. How was your trip?”

“Tedious of course. But now that I’m here, all is well. Blackwood tells me you’re traveling to the Highlands with all speed.”

“The destination is still under discussion,” Ernst replied, bending to kiss his lover’s cheek as he reached her chair. “We could go anywhere.”

“Your hair’s wet.”

“It’s raining a little,” Ernst lied, when in fact he’d washed quickly before leaving Madame Declaire’s brothel. “A sprinkling of rain—no more.” Well aware of Antonella’s impetuosity, he’d had one of his men at the station, watching for her arrival in the event—like now—that she arrived early. “Would you care for more champagne, ladies?” he inquired by way of a diversion, preferring not to dwell on the weather.

Antonella held out her glass, Sofia shook her head, and Ernst busied himself with pouring himself and the principessa a glass of champagne. Then taking the chair on the other side of his lover, he smiled at her. “Ask me what you wish about our little difficulties. I can see you’re anxious to do so.”

“All of Vienna is speculating about Rupert’s death. Blackwood tells me that you and Miss Eastleigh are in some peril, but he’ll say no more. He also suggested I return home.” She smiled. “I won’t, of course.”

Ernst went on to explain Von Welden’s part in Rupert’s murder as well as his offer to buy the duchy of Dalmia. He had full trust in Antonella. She had enemies of her own—detractors who questioned her competence to rule and wished to oust her and her appointed ministers. Once those plotting her removal gained power, they thought to control the duchy through a regency since her sons were still minors. He finished by saying, “So we’re all currently in transit. Sofia and I are to retreat to safety”—he smiled at Antonella—“and you, too, my darling, should you choose to join this dangerous game. At which point, Jamie and his men will track down Von Welden and see that he takes leave of this earthly coil.”