The Accidental Empress (31 page)

“Would you like me to tidy those papers, as well, Empress?”

Sisi turned from her trunks to the pile of papers on her rosewood desk. The majority of the stack came from Europe’s various ruling families and aristocracy: wishes for a happy wedding, a blessed marriage, a child-filled home. Letters that—as onerous a chore as it was—had to be answered. But at the bottom of the pile awaited two precious notes.

“Ludwig!” Sisi smiled as she said the name aloud, recognizing her cousin’s familiar handwriting. “Agata, you remember my cousin Ludwig, don’t you?”

“Of course, Empress. How could I forget Ludwig?”

Sisi smiled; it was a well-known fact that all of the female servants at Possi had favored her charming cousin. Ludwig, several years younger than Sisi, also came from Bavaria, where he happened to be the crown prince.

“Oh, I’m delighted to hear from Ludwig.” Sisi sighed. “Summertime always makes me think of him.” Ludwig was a kindred spirit of sorts, and had been since their childhood. He’d often spent his summers staying in their household at Possi.

The second note came from Helene, surely detailing the return trip from Vienna and whatever other news she had from home. Sisi’s heart soared. “Oh Agata, notes from both Ludwig and Néné! Can you oversee the rest of that trunk by yourself? I’d like to get to my letters.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Agata nodded, riffling through a pile of silk scarves.

“Good. Then I shall take these into my office and find Herr Lobkowitz to help me on my responses.” Sisi hopped up from bed. Looking for her slippers, she peeked under the bed.

“Agata?”

“Hmm?” The maid was elbows deep in silk.

“Agata, where are my slippers?” Sisi squatted beside the bed, her corset pinching her stomach as she peeked under the bedframe. “The red velvet ones I brought from Possi?”

Agata averted her gaze, suddenly staring into the trunk before her.

Sisi narrowed her eyes, fluent, after all of their years together, in her maid’s body language. “Agata—what is it? The red slippers?”

But the maid had assumed an air of stubborn and frustrating reticence. Just then, Countess Esterházy swept into the room, her hands filled with even more letters necessitating replies. Sisi clenched her jaw but barely acknowledged the woman’s entrance, instead keeping her eyes on her maid. When she spoke, it was quietly: “Agata, what is the matter? I’m asking you where my slippers have gone—have you seen them while unpacking?”

“Slippers?” Countess Esterházy interjected without invitation. “Does Your Highness refer to those tattered red . . .
clogs
?”

“Yes,” Sisi answered, stiffening to a stand as her gaze met that of the countess. “The slippers my father gave me for my fifteenth birthday—the very same ones I brought from Possenhofen.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with them,” the countess said, staring directly at Sisi.

“In that case,” Sisi continued, a feeling of irritation nagging at her, “have you any idea where they might have gone?”

“The archduchess has ordered me to . . . dispose of them.”

Sisi’s pulse quickened, but she forced herself to remain calm. “Dispose of them?”

“Get rid of them. When I was packing up your apartment in Laxenburg.”

Sisi walked slowly toward Countess Esterházy. “And why would she order you to do such a thing?”

Countess Esterházy pointed toward one of the immense volumes on Sisi’s bedside table, the book titled
Ceremonial Procedure for the Official Progress of Her Royal Highness, the Most Gracious Princess Elisabeth.

“Surely by now Your Majesty has come to the section on slippers?” The countess lifted a lone eyebrow, her facial features spreading into a servile grin.

“Please be so kind as to refresh my memory, Countess Esterházy, on what that
book
says about slippers.”

“Yes, of course.” The countess stood undaunted, braiding her long fingers together before her waist. “Etiquette dictates that the empress is not to wear a pair of slippers more than once.”

“And why is that?”

The countess exhaled a short puff of laughter. “Why, they would get dirty, of course. The empress cannot be seen in
dirty
shoes! The archduchess believed that, now that the honeymoon was over, you ought to begin abiding by court procedure. You are, after all, an example to the entire palace.”

“Countess Esterházy.” Sisi’s voice trembled with the threat of tears, but she did not wish for this woman, with her condescending grins, her whispered quips, to relish such a display of weakness. “Please excuse me, Countess Esterházy. I’d like to rest. You are dismissed.”

Countess Esterházy bowed, her lips still curled upward in a smile. “As you wish, Your Majesty.” She turned to walk slowly toward the door. “If Your Majesty should require me for anything, I shall be sitting along with the Countesses Paula and Karoline, just outside your door.”

“Yes, I know.” Sisi forced a smile, even though her tone was far from jovial.

With Countess Esterházy gone, Sisi ran to the bed and collapsed, her face pressing into the pillows. Her eyes burned hot with tears of frustration. One of the last remaining pieces of her former life—gone! And without her permission or knowledge.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Agata approached the bed, her voice meek. “I wanted to tell you. Really, I did. But I never got a chance alone in the bedchamber with you. Not without that . . . woman . . . in here with us.”

Sisi turned and looked at the maid. “Oh Agata, you know how I loved those slippers! I wore them all over Possi.”

“I know,” Agata said, her own eyes welling with tears.

“And all because of some silly rule. Who cares how many times I wear my slippers?”

“I know, Your Majesty.” Agata reached forward, breaking protocol as she took Sisi’s hand in her own. She sat herself on the edge of the bed. “But you mustn’t allow yourself to get this upset.”

“Oh, but it makes me so terribly homesick.” Sisi wept, squeezing the maid’s hand.

“Of course, Sis—Empress. But please, try not to weep like this. It can’t be good. Not in your condition.”

Sisi looked at the maid directly now, her tears momentarily halted. She wiped her cheeks.

The maid’s face had flushed a deep burgundy. “Your Grace, surely you have noticed . . . ?” Agata paused.

“Noticed what?” Sisi leaned forward.

“Your Grace.” Agata lowered her eyes. “You didn’t bleed this month.”

Sisi paused, thinking about this. When had she experienced her last monthly courses? Now that she asked herself, she realized that she did not remember. She had been so preoccupied since her arrival in Vienna that this fact had completely slipped by unnoticed.

“You’re right, Agata.” Sisi frowned, puzzled.

Agata’s lips spread into a smile, her round cheeks like two red apples. “Madame, you’re carrying a baby.”

“A baby?” Sisi gasped, her hand rising to her opened mouth. “But we only just got married.” Surely she and Franz had been performing the marital act with regularity since the wedding. And she had noticed that her breasts had felt tender, a fact that she had attributed to the painfully constricting corset. But pregnant, so soon? The thought shocked her. And yet, she could not deny that it also filled her with delight.

“A baby?” Sisi said it again, as if to confirm her condition. “Agata, I’m pregnant . . . I’m going to have Franz’s heir!” Sisi leaned forward, pulling Agata into a hug. They both laughed, tossing aside any concern for protocol.

“A baby.” Sisi said it again, nodding. She placed a hand over her flat stomach, where the baby had not yet betrayed any sign of its existence. But somewhere inside there grew Franz’s child. Perhaps a boy, the next emperor of Austria.

“Oh Agata, I am so happy. Forget the slippers. Forget the letters I must write to England and Bohemia and Prussia. I must write Mamma and Helene at once!” She hopped up from the bed and ran to her desk, overjoyed at the news she’d now be able to share with her family back in Bavaria. Perhaps Mamma would even return to court to help Sisi with the confinement and the labor.

Standing over her desk, Sisi quickly scrawled:
“Dearest Mamma, I am thrilled that you shall be the first to know—”

And then a thought struck Sisi, and she paused her writing. “Agata?”

“Yes, Empress?”

“Agata, how did you know that I . . . well, that I was expecting a child?”

Agata’s facial expression confirmed Sisi’s sense of dread.

“Does she . . . do others know?”

The maid’s shoulders sagged. “Empress, I’m so sorry.” The maid looked stricken. “It was Countess Esterházy. She came in, snooping around each morning, after you’d gone to breakfast. I told her not to concern herself with the bedding. That it was my job, as chambermaid. But she always found a way to be in here. Always talked about something she had to do . . . court procedure.”

“So she’s been checking my sheets?” Sisi clenched her teeth, attempting to remain calm. Forcing her pulse to slow its rapid pace. “It’s not your fault, Aggie. I should have expected as much.” She took the note in front of her and tore it up, her hand rending the paper apart in two swift, angry motions. She refused to let this upset her; not when she had so much about which to be joyous. “Change of plans, now.”

Sisi scrawled a quick note, which she handed to her maid. “See to it that this is delivered to the emperor. He may meet me in the imperial chapel. I shall go there directly to pray for my baby. Tell him to come at once.”

“Yes, Empress.”

Sisi grabbed her rosary beads and her devotional book and swept from her bedroom, pausing to examine herself in the mirror first. She forced herself to smile. She looked tired, yes. But whether it was her imagination, she did believe that there was a glow to her cheeks, a new warmth in her honey-colored eyes. She was to have Franz’s baby! Surely this would bring them close in the way that she had craved. Surely he would be happy with his choice of bride, seeing how quickly she had conceived. Forget all the snooping ladies—this was something she and Franz would share together. She clasped her hands and giggled, sending up a private prayer of gratitude for such blessed news.

In the antechamber sat her ladies-in-waiting, their forgotten embroidery projects languishing in their laps. Several guards stood nearby and Sisi found the group engaged in the usual palace activities of gossiping and flirting.

The Countesses Esterházy, Paula, and Marie all stood to attention upon Sisi’s entrance. Karoline of Lamberg remained seated, whispering to a nearby guard: “I would never take a Russian for a lover—the stench of vodka makes me ill.”

“Well, then, lucky for me I never drink the stuff,” the guard answered Karoline.

Countess Esterházy cleared her throat and the two of them ceased their banter as the guard stiffened to attention.

“Your Majesty,” Countess Esterházy said, and all four ladies lowered their eyes, curtsying with well-rehearsed—if not entirely authentic—submissiveness.

Sisi folded, then unfolded her hands, assuming an artificial air of imperiousness. “Ladies, I am off to the Habsburg Chapel. We shall go pray for—His Majesty the Emperor.”

Karoline of Lamberg, a gossipy brunette, and Paula of Bellegarde, the ash-blond waif who stood beside her, exchanged an insinuating glance. Countess Esterházy, who was so much older than these women that she could have been their mother, flickered a knowing grin. Only Marie Festetics, the Hungarian countess, kept her pale eyes discreetly down on the floor, and Sisi made a mental note that perhaps Marie was the one lady whom she could trust among her attendants.

“As you wish, my lady.” Karoline nodded with a sugary grin. “And how is Her Majesty feeling this morning?”

Sisi’s heart dropped; Countess Esterházy must have told them. All of her ladies-in-waiting knew she was carrying Franz’s child. Which meant these guards surely did as well. And Agata had plainly told her that the servants’ quarters were abuzz with the news. Was nothing to be private? Would she and her husband be the last two people in the palace to know their own personal affairs?

Sisi clutched the folds of her skirt in a tight grip, maintaining her composure as she said: “Let us go.” She led the ladies through the palace to the nearby church, her own assembly of imperial guards trailing them closely.

The quiet, stony chapel was cooler than the warm day outdoors. The space was empty, reserved for members of the royal family. The domed room was marble and bright, the walls painted with scenes from the lives of the saints, as well as subtle reminders of the Habsburg family’s magnanimity—and power. Inside, the scent of burning incense struck Sisi as more potent than usual, even repugnant, and Sisi remembered her mother’s confession that pregnancy heightens a woman’s sensitivity to smells.

Sisi dipped her fingers in the basin of holy water and crossed herself, kneeling on the creaky, velvet-covered pew before the altar. Clutching her rosary beads to her lips, she kissed the cross and began to give thanks for the baby she carried. From the main nave of the church came the muffled sounds of the organist practicing for the midday mass, and the music lulled Sisi into a tranquil, pleasant vigil. Oh, how her life would change once she had given birth to the heir of the Habsburg line! How had she been so lucky to conceive so quickly? She, who had been warned by her aunt so many times about the disasters of barrenness?

The whispers that issued from the pew behind her soon distracted Sisi’s prayers, and she turned her head to throw a barbed look at Karoline and Paula. They bowed their heads and returned to silence. But within moments, they were giggling again.

“Ladies.” Sisi turned, attempting but failing to mask her irritation. “If you won’t pray, then I ask that you take this pouch and go give alms to the beggars outside the gates. You are distracting me.”

“We’ll pray, Your Majesty.” Karoline lowered her head in exaggerated contrition.

“Sorry, Your Grace.” Paula followed Karoline’s example. Sisi exchanged a knowing glance with Marie, who seemed as put off by her companions’ behavior as Sisi was.

“Elisabeth!” Another voice soon distracted her, this one a familiar and welcome sound. Franz burst through a side door into the chapel, the pounding of his military boots reverberating off the cold stone walls.