The Accidental Empress (27 page)

Franz turned from his mother toward his bride, the worry plain on his face. When he spoke, his tone was decidedly softer than Sophie’s, yet it carried with it the tinge of an urgent entreaty. He had been trained for this—he would never have imagined running from a formal receiving line, and his bride should not have, either. “Elisabeth . . . do you think you can manage it?”

Sisi took a moment before answering, gulping in small sips of air. Eventually, she nodded.

“Good girl,” Franz said, a look of relief breaking across his features. “I promise, once this is over, we have only the banquet and the dance left.”

Sisi shut her eyes, willing herself to breathe. This was only her first day as empress, and already she felt as if she would never make it.

That night, the evening of her wedding, Sisi was happy to put her troubling thoughts aside: to forget the months of training; the lectures by obsequious attendants and her disapproving mother-in-law; her failure at the Kissing of the Hand ceremony. She had muddled and fumbled her way through the day, but at least now, it was over. She was Franz Joseph’s wife. And she was certain that protocol would be the furthest thing from her new husband’s mind this evening.

Her mother and Aunt Sophie led her from the wedding ball to her new suite of rooms shortly after midnight. There, the two women, in solemn silence, had helped Sisi out of her wedding gown, unfastening the pearl clasps and peeling away the layers of silk, hoopskirt, petticoat, and corset. Sisi had flushed red as she had stepped out of the gown, her body revealed before her mother-in-law’s inquisitive gaze.

Agata was the one servant whom Sisi had been allowed to keep, after much begging. She now stood on hand, plucking out the dozens of combs and pins and pearl strands woven into Sisi’s dark golden curls. Finally, she helped Sisi into the delicate satin sleeping gown that had been commissioned especially for this night.

“I’ll go and get him.” Sophie slipped from the bedroom, leaving Sisi alone with her mother and Agata.

Sisi felt as if, at last, she could exhale. “I wish she had left long ago,” Sisi sighed, once the door was securely shut on Sophie.

Ludovika frowned, the skin between her eyebrows crinkling like white paper. “I suppose you shall have to get used to her company, Sisi.” When Ludovika took her daughter’s hand in her own, the flesh was cold. Ludovika’s eyes pleaded as she spoke to her daughter. “Allow her to help you. Obey her. Please do not set yourself up as a rival.”

Sisi’s eyes looked to the floor. “Please, Mother. Not now. Not on my wedding night.” There was enough weighing on her mind about the night to come without having to fret over her new husband’s mother.

“All right, all right.” Ludovika nodded. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“This way, Empress Elisabeth.” Agata gestured with her hand, a somber look on her face as she and Ludovika helped Sisi up into the massive four-poster bed. Sisi slid in where the heavy covers had already been peeled aside, where the holy water had already been splashed by a priest, blessing the imperial newlyweds even as they slept—or didn’t sleep.

“I suppose this is it.” Sisi felt so overcome by a throng of emotions that she could not resist reaching out to take her mother’s ice-cold hand once more. It felt like an urgent request:
Please, don’t leave me.

Ludovika was perfectly composed, taking the empress’s outstretched hand and doing something illegal: kissing it. Agata bowed and slipped from the room, leaving just the empress and her mother alone in the candlelit space. Ludovika settled quietly into a nearby chair as Sisi burrowed into the plush bed and waited for her husband to knock.

As the wait continued, Sisi’s stomach coiled more tightly into a tangle of nerves. It was her first night as empress, her first night in her new bedchamber in her suite of imperial rooms. She looked around from the large bed, with its deep pool of down pillows and immaculate canopy of icy-blue silk, at the space that was now to be her home.

It was nothing like Possi. Whereas Possi had been familiar in its shabbiness—with its threadbare sofas, its chipped porcelain—everything about the Hofburg Palace was gilded and gleaming and fine. The walls, filled in with creamy silk brocade, were pierced by sparkling floor-to-ceiling windows that opened out over the imperial gardens. The furniture, polished and buffed, creaked when Sisi sat on it, giving her the impression she was always about to break something. Chairs and end tables had been arranged in a small, tidy seating area before the bay of windows, and an imperial-sized armoire had been loaded with the dresses she had brought with her, plus the many, many new ones which she’d received.

Adjacent to her bedchamber, her suite continued into a bright, airy sitting room, where she was to receive her most intimate guests. Here, silk-embroidered settees and armchairs huddled around a varnished tea table, and the high ceilings were painted with pastoral scenes that looked more likely to have occurred in the Garden of Eden than Vienna.

Beyond that room was an unnecessarily large hall, from which Sisi would dictate correspondence, read her mail, and accept guests of a less intimate variety. She would do so, all the while surrounded by the many faces of the Habsburg sons and daughters whose likenesses stared out at her, occupying every spare inch of the wall in their gilt portrait frames.

Their additional apartments included a dressing room, a mirrored room, a dining room, and an anteroom. It was surely a suite fit for an emperor and his bride. Now, Sisi thought, she just had to get used to the idea of being that bride. Her stomach tumbled at that thought—that
she
was Franz Joseph’s empress. That all of this was hers. That
he
was hers.

Finally, a knock on the door to the bedroom. Sisi’s eyes darted toward the entrance of the room, her heart hammering against her ribs. Ludovika stood up from the chair, flattening her skirt as she threw a sideways look at her daughter.

“Come in,” Sisi called, tousling her hair one final time so that it tumbled down around her shoulders, just as her husband liked it. She threw a glance at her mother, then back toward the soft sound of the knocking.

Franz pushed the door open, carrying with him two glasses and a half-empty pitcher of brandy. He didn’t wear his uniform, but rather a cream-colored dressing robe and leather slippers. Sisi smiled at the sight of him, at the intimacy of this simple act of appearing before one another in their sleeping clothes. Immediately, her stiff shoulders softened, just slightly. Franz looked tired but happy.

And then, behind him, Sophie entered the bedroom. The woman’s eyes landed squarely on the reclining frame of her new daughter-in-law. Sisi nearly gasped in horror at being spotted in her marital bed by her aunt, and she slid down into the bedcovers, turning her head so that her flushed face was concealed by her hair.

“Sophie, shall we?” Ludovika crossed the room in several brisk strides. “I think they are entitled to some privacy, at last.” Sisi could have leapt up and hugged her mother in gratitude. But she stayed still, cowering in her bed. The two women left, the heavy door silencing the whispers that passed between them as they did so. Sophie threw one more gaze toward Sisi, before shutting the door.

Finally, they were alone. An emperor and his empress. A groom and his bride. Silence filled the room.

“Good evening, Your Royal Highness.” Franz walked closer, his eyes fixed on Sisi’s reclining figure, and Sisi resisted the urge to pull the bedcoverings even higher around her shoulders. Her silk shift suddenly struck her as embarrassingly insufficient. How she longed for a woolen nightgown!

Sisi took a deep breath, forcing herself to answer him. “Good evening, Franz.” How strange it was to look upon him. He was the man, the emperor, for whom the day’s feasts and parades and crowds had been assembled. He was the center of this entire empire. And yet, here he was: her husband. Appearing before her on their wedding night in his bedclothes, like any other man might do. Sisi felt dizzy with the twin emotions of love for this man and quaking fear at the position he held. At the position that she, his partner, was now expected to assume.

“Don’t you look cozy in that big bed?” Franz walked toward her, his slippers sliding across the floor. He paused before her. “Join me in a toast?”

Sisi took the glass he held aloft and allowed him to fill it with brandy. She noticed, as he poured the drink, that it was not only her hand that trembled.

“To us,” he said, pressing his glass to hers. She could not bring her eyes to meet his.

“To us.” She nodded slightly. They both drained their glasses. Franz sat slowly onto the edge of the bed, kicking his slippers off. He was still, silent for a moment before turning to look at her. She willed herself to look at him now. As she caught sight of his blue eyes, the involuntary trembling of her frame subsided. Just a bit.

“So, Mrs. Habsburg-Lorraine.” Franz paused, refilling her glass and his, too. He kept a respectful distance between her reclining body and where he sat, his posture stiff, on the edge of the bed. “What did you think of your wedding?”

Sisi’s head spun at the question. “So many people,” she answered honestly, sipping her second glass of brandy. “I shall never remember all their names, and I’m sure I shall offend more than half of them before we’ve been married a month. That is, the
other
half . . . those whom I have not already offended today.”

Franz laughed at this. “Too many people indeed.” He finished his drink and leaned toward her, his breath sweet with the scent of it. “I much prefer the size of this crowd.” Slowly, Franz pulled the covers down, revealing more of her silk shift and her barely covered body. He sat frozen for a moment, and Sisi did, too. Leaning forward, he kissed her bare shoulder, resting his lips against her skin.

“Alone at last,” he whispered, breathing onto her neck and causing goose bumps to rise involuntarily to the surface of her flesh.

“Alone,” she answered, nodding. Still seated, he took her empty glass and placed it with his on the bedside table. She stared at him, breathless. He had never been more handsome, and she had never been more terrified. Suddenly, the crowds lining the Viennese streets and the cathedral and the palace halls seemed manageable.

“May I join you?” he asked, his face suddenly bashful. Sisi gulped, nodding.

Franz moved slowly, scooting himself up onto the bed so that he was now beside her. He faced her. His voice with a slight tremble to it, he asked: “Are you afraid?”

“No,” she answered. A lie. One that she had been prepared for and schooled in, just as she had been schooled in the protocol of a Habsburg wedding day. The wedding night was something to be endured. The bride’s most important task in the entirety of the wedding celebrations was to please her husband on the night of the wedding. Especially when that man was the Habsburg emperor.

“Good.” He studied her facial features before letting his eyes move toward her body, her figure reclining on the bed. “Neither am I.”

Franz leaned forward and kissed her lips now, gently, but with a deliberate firmness. Sisi closed her eyes—he had not kissed her like this since their evening in the garden at Bad Ischl. She remembered how pleasant it had been that night, and noted how pleasant it was now, as well.

Franz sidled his body closer to hers, as he moved more fully onto the bed. He pulled his lips from hers and spoke, his face just inches from hers. Sisi opened her eyes and saw that he looked at her.

“I’ve wanted to hold you like this since the moment I beheld you. Do you remember when you first arrived at Bad Ischl?”

“Of course I remember.” She traced the contours of his face with her fingers, his light eyes visible in the glow of candlelight. She found herself, suddenly, less nervous. If this was supposed to be something to be endured—tolerated—then why was she enjoying his closeness so much?

“You didn’t even know it was me, the first time we met. That
I
was the emperor.”

“But I noticed you, Franz.”

“Did you, Elisa?”
Elisa.
So that was to be his name for her? Sisi smiled, approving of it.

“Of course, Franz. I noticed how dashing you looked in the uniform. I thought surely you were some imperial guard.”

“Would you have loved me, even if I had been a guard?”

Sisi smiled, nodding. “Of course. Perhaps even more.”

“Come now, you don’t like all of this?” Franz waved a hand, gesturing toward the oversized bedroom, at the windows that opened over their imperial gardens and grounds.

Sisi considered the question. “I find it . . .”

“Yes?”

“A bit, oh—”

“A bit what?”

“Excessive.”

Franz laughed, kissing her nose, still holding her in his arms as he spoke. “Perhaps it is. But it’s all yours now. Remember that, my love. There is nothing you cannot have.”

Sisi swallowed, thinking this over as he kissed her.

He pulled his face away, looking down at her now, his eyes holding hers. “I remember how I felt my hopes dashed when your mother explained that you were the younger sister.”

Sisi sighed, thinking back over the battle they had fought to be together. “Do you believe that my heart broke, as well? When I learned that you were my sister’s fiancé.”