The Accidental Empress (19 page)

“It’s time.” A short priest enters the antechamber, his silken robes aflutter with the haste of his gait. After the requisite bow, he stands tall and rattles off their instructions.

They both nod. He rises from his chair, standing beside Sisi. She takes his outstretched hand and squeezes it, one last gesture of support.

“Are you ready?” he asks her.

“I am. And you?”

“Is one ever ready to divide his empire in half?”

“Franz,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You are keeping your empire whole.”

Franz looks forward, his lips pressed together in a tight line. When his eyes slide back toward her, he holds her gaze. Her breath stops short, fearful of what he might say next. And then he sighs, asking, “But what of us?”

Chapter Five

IMPERIAL RESORT AT BAD ISCHL, UPPER AUSTRIA

AUGUST 1853

“Duchess Elisabeth, would
you do me the honor?”

Sisi stared up into the broad, smiling face of Count Grünne. The officer, dressed in his starched uniform and clean-shaven, stood over her.

Sisi couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that the hand held out toward her was an invitation—inexplicably—to dance. “I . . . I beg your pardon, sir?”

Helene fidgeted in the seat beside Sisi, avoiding her sister’s eyes as she had done all night. On Helene’s other side, Ludovika watched, her face stitched tight in nervous confusion.

In reply, the count merely waved his gloved hand and offered a grin. “May I have this dance, Your Highness, Duchess Elisabeth?”

“Oh, but I . . . I don’t know the steps to . . .” Sisi’s words trailed off as the cluster of nearby violins struck up a waltz. Men and women paired off, taking their places in the middle of the hall.

In truth, Sisi had never before danced at a cotillion. Had never even
been
to a cotillion. The only partner with whom she’d ever stood up was her dance instructor back at Possenhofen, the stern Herr Hausmann, who appeared at the castle for irregular visits, trying to wrangle her and Helene into some familiarity with waltzes and quadrilles and polkas.

“I would look foolish.” Sisi demurred, feeling her cheeks glow with a conspicuous blush. Even more painful than Count Grünne’s expectant stare were the curious stares that had landed on her from around the hall. Courtiers and ministers and attendants all looked on, their lips whispering behind gloved hands and fans that offered little concealment. And there, across the crowded room, Franz Joseph sat, watching. Bach and Sophie hovered beside him, with Sophie alternatively chattering with passing courtiers and looking out over the floor as if to supervise the dancing.

The uniformed advisor leaned closer to Sisi now, his hand still extended. He arched an eyebrow as he spoke: “I will help you.”

Sisi rose, giving her hand but no reply. As Grünne directed her toward the center of the dancers, she felt as if the fixed eyes of the entire gathering could have scorched a hole in the silk of her gown, such was the intensity of their collective observation.

Grünne leaned close, his manner like that of her dance instructor. “Forgive me, Duchess, but I must put my arms on your waist.” Sisi blushed as he did so. “And now, we commence.” His feet began to step to the three-count tempo, and she followed. Grünne’s hold on her was so firm that, after a few steps, she realized that she could have picked her feet up off the floor entirely and he would have carried her through the waltz.

“The archduchess asked that I dance with you.”

Sisi looked into Grünne’s eyes for the first time now. “I beg your pardon?”

Grünne smiled. “Come now. Surely you know that everyone in this room was waiting.”

“For what?”

“Why, to see you dance, of course.”

“But . . . why?”

“Because the emperor plans to ask you to close the ball with him.”

Sisi swallowed hard—certain that, if Grünne had not been holding her upright, her legs might have given out beneath her.

This was not how she had intended the night to pass. Earlier, following her ride, she had collected her warring, mangled emotions and had returned to the Kaiservilla resolved: Franz was Helene’s betrothed. She, Sisi, was here to support Helene, her beloved sister, and that was precisely what she would do.

Entering their chamber, Sisi had found Helene in bed, wrapped in covers with the shades drawn.

“Néné.” Sisi hovered on the threshold of the room.

Her sister looked up, a noncommittal glance, before turning her pale face away.

“Oh, Néné, forgive me. Please.” Sisi flew to her sister’s side. “It was nothing, Néné, just a ride.” Sisi perched herself on the edge of the bed, tenuous. Uncertain whether Helene would tell her to leave. But Helene did not.

“He knew that you don’t enjoy riding. He was merely being a courteous host.”

“Courteous indeed.”

“Please, it was nothing more than—”

“Stop.” Helene held up a hand, silencing Sisi. “Just stop, won’t you? It’s not your fault,” her sister said eventually, but her voice had an edge to it. “I know that he asked you to accompany him.” Her black eyes held Sisi’s now and, though they were eyes into which Sisi had stared her entire life, they looked different somehow. Inaccessible, veiled and impenetrable.

“Yes, but, Helene, it means nothing,” Sisi lied, taking her sister’s limp hand in her own. It would
have
to mean nothing. She would do everything in her power to steer Helene into Franz’s attention and affection. She would make this right for her sister, somehow. As much as it pained her.

Helene had listened, quietly, as Sisi had described their ride in the blandest of terms. For Helene’s benefit, Sisi left out all mention of the smiles they’d shared; of the ease of their companionship and conversation; of the fleeting moments in which her skin had touched his; of the tense, fraught manner in which Franz had left her.

Helene had slowly thawed beside Sisi, listening to the story of the afternoon. Sisi’s repeated assurances that it all meant nothing. As the minutes passed, her black eyes had softened, slightly.

Sisi ached from the inside, comforting Helene with these omissions, coaxing her with half truths. She hated misleading her beloved sister, but she also ached because she knew she was forfeiting the claim that she had come to feel she had over Franz.
But it is a claim to which she is not entitled
, she kept reminding herself.

And so, when eventually Néné had accepted Sisi’s emphatic declarations that it all meant nothing, Sisi could have collapsed in relief. Néné had agreed to make another effort; to win the fiancé that she had come here for. She had even agreed to dress for her part.

Sisi was certain that she herself looked plain in a pale, rose-colored frock beside her sister’s elegant ivory gown ornamented with elaborate ostrich plumes. While Sisi had fashioned her hair in her customary loose braids and combs, Helene had allowed Agata and Sisi to wreath her head of dark hair in a delicate crown of ivy. She looked regal in silver slippers and kid leather gloves.

Outside their bedroom window, the sun set over the castle complex and adjacent hills. As they finished dressing, the moon rose over a clear night, with just the faintest hint of the crisp air that nipped on the heels of summer. It was the perfect evening for Franz’s birthday celebration. And, Sisi had decided, it would be the occasion for Helene to finally assume her role beside the emperor. Reconciled, the girls had left their bedchamber that evening hand in hand.

And yet, when they had arrived in the dinner hall, Sisi had been ushered to the seat beside Franz. Helene, a stunned look on her face, had been seated at the opposite end of the room, farther away from the emperor than the boiled cabbage. Where Sisi should have been.

The dinner had been a terribly uncomfortable affair, with Franz turning constantly to Sisi, seeking her opinions on everything from the food to which sort of music she enjoyed for dancing. It had been too much. Sick over the unwanted attention, Sisi had barely touched her food. She had not been able to bear glancing down the table to where her sister sat, flanked by the pinch-faced Countess Esterházy and the humorless Count von Bach.

And now, here she was, dancing opposite Franz’s aide-de-camp, a confidant of the emperor who warned her that he was merely the introductory act. That Sophie, recognizing her son’s clear preference, had begged this seasoned officer to guide the nervous and inexperienced Sisi through her ballroom debut.

When the song was over, Sisi turned to make her way back toward her seat, but was forced to pause in her steps.

“Elisabeth?” Franz stood before her, wearing an expectant smile, like the one he’d shown her earlier that day, on their ride.

“Yes?” Sisi paused before him, her heart protesting against the suffocating cages of her ribs and corset. Oh, how she hated wearing this vile thing! Suddenly, she felt as if she could not breathe, and her hand clutched her abdomen.

Franz, oblivious of her discomfort, or perhaps mistaking it for an appropriate measure of well-mannered timidity, kept smiling. “Would you do me the great honor of dancing?”

Sisi, her mouth dry, her eyes wide with panic, looked from Franz to Grünne. Then she looked back toward Helene, and her mother. Sophie. Every set of eyes in the hall watched her. Young women, women whose names Sisi did not even know, had splintered off into clusters of two and three to watch and whisper.

Franz smiled at her, undistracted.

And so, seeing no other option before her, Sisi gave him her hand and forced herself to smile.

The violins began, and two dozen couples filled in the space to the left and right of the emperor and his chosen partner.

Sisi moved her feet in time with his, following Franz’s lead, as she had done with Grünne. Franz did not hold her as tightly, did not lead as assertively as her previous partner, but the song was clear and upbeat, and she grew more comfortable as the steps unfolded.

“You do me a great honor, Cousin.” Sisi swayed with him, very much aware of his hand on her waist. Aware of the different emotions that chased one another, wrestling and fighting within her. How happy she was to be standing this near to him. How natural it felt to be close to him. And yet, how far from natural this whole assembly truly was. How probing and curious were the eyes affixed on her from around the hall, causing a swell of discomfort, the urge to flee and hide. And then there was the guilt. The awareness of her sister who sat, watching, her hopes surely crushed by this latest blow.
It wasn’t supposed to be me.

“Once again, Elisabeth.”

Her eyes slid upward, toward his. “Hmm?”

“You are lost in thought, once again.” He watched her with an appraising smile. “Won’t you share?”

“It’s simply that . . . well, you do me a great honor. But I’m not certain why.”

Franz continued to look down at her, his features alight, his auburn hair catching the flicker of candlelight that glowed around them. “Isn’t a man entitled to dance with the lady of his choosing on his birthday?”

Sisi avoided Helene’s eyes as their steps took them gliding past her seat. No one had asked her to dance. Not once. Sisi swallowed hard, hating herself, yet soaring on the elation of Franz’s attention. How was it possible to experience such conflicting feelings at the same time?

“I think . . . I very much hope”—Franz’s voice interrupted these thoughts of hers—“that it shall be a happy birthday for me. A birthday to remember.”

Sisi looked into his eyes but found it impossible to hold his stare. To ask him what he meant. As her gaze slipped away, she caught a glimpse of Sophie, who watched with her own eyes narrowed. And then, inexplicably, Sophie flashed a broad smile. But it was not a look of delight. It was a communication. A message:
Everyone is watching you. Smile! You’re standing opposite the emperor!

Sisi reacted with a valiant effort at a smile. Her lips quivered. And then, abruptly, the song came to an end.

How could she return to her seat, how would she face Helene? But there were footmen surrounding her, bearing baskets full of flowers—roses, poppies, edelweiss—which they held out toward the emperor. The music had stopped, its sound replaced by the tittering of whispers that filled the hall. It took every speck of her willpower to remain in place rather than to flee.

The whispering ceased as Franz plunged his hand into this fragrant pile of petals and grabbed two fistfuls of blooms. Sisi looked on, as did the rest of the court. It was so quiet now that she did not know if anyone in the room even breathed. There was some ritual being performed, but she could not comprehend its meaning.

And then, Franz took his full hands and bowed before her, dropping the petals so that they rained down in a fragrant shower at her feet, dappling the pink of her simple gown. The entire court erupted in uproarious applause as Sisi looked on, dumbly.

What was this? Why was everyone clapping? Why were people calling out her name? Unsure of what to do, but certain that to weep in public was the worst of her options, she mumbled: “Cousin Franz, please, excuse me.”