Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MERANIA, AUGUST 1782
E very shop in Merania was closed, every business shuttered. There would be no trade or commerce this day, and none of the daily round of chores.
It was a day of celebration.
Her open carriage pulled to a halt before St. Barbara’s Church, and Melisende craned her neck to look at the clocktower. It towered above Merania’s skyline, uncaring of the people who passed through its great shadow, and the bell tolled the day’s celebration. Almost as great a day as her own coronation had been.
Her heart skipped a beat as a figure rose from another open carriage near the sundial. He wore a powdered tie wig, a dark coat with a wide red collar, and a distinctive red and white striped sash across his chest, decorated with many medals. Melisende swept into a deep curtsy, balancing the scepter of state in her arms and the large jeweled crown on her head, hoping the heavy ermine cloak of her office wouldn’t tip her over onto the boots of the one man who could still take all this away from her.
“Your imperial majesty,” she said to Emperor Joseph II. “We are so honored.”
“I came to your ceremony. Didn’t seem civil to miss your husband’s.” The emperor held out his elbow. Melisende took it gratefully and hauled herself to her feet. Gin clicked her teeth and the ladies in waiting gathered Melisende’s train so it didn’t drag on the stones of the piazza, though they had been swept in honor of the day. The emperor’s guard fell in around them as the other occupants of the carriages disembarked.
The emperor hadn’t been nearly this affable when she’d come to Vienna with the patent in hand and demanded an audience. It would have been within his rights to confiscate the patent and throw her in a dungeon somewhere—Schonbrunn Palace, the emperor’s beautiful home, didn’t have dungeons, but he had to have prisons somewhere. After all, when his predecessor had come marching down the mountains of Merania to put down the Peasant’s Rebellion once and for all, some clever ancestor had hidden the patent and drawn the map for the very reason that they expected the emperor to revoke his gift. Frederick had reduced the grand dukes of Merania back to vassals, and the dream of self-sovereignty had been over.
Joseph had allowed her and Philip an audience in the grand salon of the palace, and he’d read the document with his own eyes, examining the ancient imperial seals.
“So you are prepared to take the throne?” he’d inquired, looking at Melisende over the old vellum while she crouched on the rug in a curtsy, wishing her knees would stop shaking.
“My father is, your majesty. Albrecht Meinhardin. He is the rightful grand duke.”
“But this says the honor goes to the bearer.” Joseph tapped the vellum. “Doesn’t it?” He showed his secretary, who’d peered at the ink and nodded affirmation. “The bearer is granted sovereignty and the title of grand duke.”
“Bearer.” Melisende had sat back on her heels, blinking. “Of course. I suppose Carinthia knew that? It would explain why he was desperate to have the document in hand.”
“Well, you came bearing it, so that’s you.” The emperor turned to another secretary. “Draw up the documents recognizing Melisende Meinhardin the rightful grand duchess of Merania. We shall invest her with the powers of territorial sovereignty and all due authority. Arrange the ceremony of investiture before she leaves,” he advised. “I want her back taking Merania in hand as soon as possible. The previous dukes drove it to a deplorable state. Hardly any customs coming out of there at all, and I’ve heard they’ve not supported my Edict of Toleration.”
“I plan to, Majesty.”
“See that you do.” Joseph sniffed. “I am still your overlord, technically. Territorial sovereignty means you will not go against my rules and policies.”
“Certainly not, when we see alike on so many issues. You are a truly enlightened ruler, Majesty.” She curtsied again, hearing her knees creak, still feeling the cold of her night in the dungeon.
So Melisende had left Vienna a grand duchess in name, and after the ceremony at Meinhardin castle, where she sat on the Stone of Destiny beneath the canopy of state and the archbishop placed the crown on her head, the robe on her shoulders, and the ancient golden scepter in her hand, she was Melisende, the Grand Duchess of Merania in truth.
Now she stood in her regalia before the cathedral of her country, with the Holy Roman Emperor holding her arm. Joseph turned to greet her father as he climbed down from Melisende’s carriage.
“Duke,” Joseph said cordially. “It is good to have you back.”
“It is good to be back, Majesty.” Her father bowed, leaning on his cane, one side of his mouth curving into a smile. He was weaker after his illness and tired easily, but he swore over and over that seeing his daughter take her rightful place in Merania had healed his heart.
“It is good to see you healing as well, cousin.” Melisende greeted Rudolf as he climbed from the emperor’s carriage. He still wore one arm in a sling—it had taken him weeks to recover from a collapsed lung, thanks to Carinthia’s sword—but he was regaining his color and vigor. Life in Vienna agreed with him, the operas, the balls, and the courtesans.
“The regalia suits you, Duchess.” Rudolf bowed over Melisende’s hand.
“Don’t forget it.” She turned to the last occupant of her coach. “Ready?”
“You’ll allow me to sit near the aisle, I hope.” Magret leaned on a footman as she descended the carriage, her pregnant belly making her clumsy. “And there is a chamberpot behind a nearby screen.”
“Of course,” Melisende said fondly.
The old ache was receding now that she had reconciled with her sister. That had been the most difficult meeting, stopping in the capital of Carinthia on her way to Vienna to deliver the news to Magret that Melisende had killed her husband. She’d asked not to be announced but came in quiet to her sister’s private rooms, where she was supervising her sons at their lessons. Melisende had three nephews, seven, five, and two, whom she’d looked upon for the first time. Magret vowed her fourth child would be a daughter, now that Carinthia couldn’t berate her for bearing a useless girl.
Melisende had stood in silence at the door of Magret’s bower for a long while, simply watching the sister she hadn’t seen in ten years. Magret had early gray in her hair and frown lines pinching her mouth. She’d been stabbing at her embroidery as if wielding a weapon. Magret had always hated embroidery.
She looked up and met Melisende’s eyes. A long, breathless moment elapsed.
“He’s dead,” Magret said flatly.
Melisende had simply nodded, not trusting her voice.
Magret had closed her eyes and sighed. It was a long, relieved sigh, as if the weight of years were falling from her. “Then we’ve been released. Praise God in heaven.”
Melisende had gathered a picture of Magret’s marriage when her sister came to visit for Melisende’s coronation, then wedding. Carinthia was as cruel a husband as he’d been a careless ruler. Magret had thought her birth and status would gain her, if not love, at least respect. But Carinthia was a man who respected nothing but his own ambition.
Things were better in Carinthia now with Magret as regent, governing while her eldest son grew into his title. The sisters had a friendly argument going on about who owned a certain mountain pass and which of them was obliged to support the convent that hosted travelers. But they were sisters again.
“I remember your mother’s coronation.” Her father stepped forward to kiss Melisende on the cheek. “What a day that was.”
“You know my mother approached your wife about marrying Melisende to me,” Joseph said. He’d mentioned this when Melisende came to Vienna, then again when he came to her wedding. “She was greatly in favor of the match.”
“An unimaginable honor.” Albrecht bowed. It was well-known that Joseph had never seen himself as a man suited for marriage, and then, after his first wife had died young, he’d been cold to his second young princess, who also died prematurely. His formidable mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, had continued to push for a male heir, as Joseph had only daughters. Melisende shuddered to think that, but for her doting father, she too could have been married as a political pawn. And then she would never have met Philip.
“But I sense you’re happy with your Englishman,” the emperor said, turning to face the front of the church as their procession fell in line.
“Irish,” Melisende murmured. “And yes, we are very happy.”
Gin had the ladies in waiting sorted and gave Melisende a wink signaling they were ready to go. That, too, had been a revealing conversation as they all sat in the solar after the great melée, tending wounds.
“So. How are we to deal with you?” Melisende had asked her loyal servant as she cleaned and bound the wound on her back.
Gin shrugged. “I likes wearing the boy clothes. On the street, they’ll cuff ye do they think yer a colt, but they don’t meddle wit’ ye like they does with the morts. An ’tis a sight easier t’ move about in this rig, aye?”
Melisende nodded, patting the buckskin of her breeches, sadly soiled with filth and blood. “And now?”
Gin rubbed her nose and watched Bruyit, who sat on the other side of the solar holding a poultice to his head. “But ’e can’t court me unless I’s in a skirt, I guess.”
“You’ll draw a great deal less attention or censure, that is true.”
“Then I dunno,” Gin said, staring across the room with longing.
Melisende sat on her heels. “What if it happens I brought two servants with me from London,” she said. “One is a lovely girl, Ginny, one of my ladies in waiting. And one is a boy, Gin, a cousin who looks remarkably like her, who runs errands for me from time to time?”
Gin’s mouth widened into a grin. “I can do that?”
“They’ll call you a monster, or worse, does anyone find out,” Melisende warned. “The world is not kind to women who don’t keep their place.”
“Unless they’rin a high place, like yours’n,” Gin said.
“Not even mine. You should hear the insults the French have for Empress Catherine of Russia.”
Gin sat up, holding her shoulder. “Well, I’ll give a knock to th’ead o’ anyone who tries t’ top you, mum, and Bruyit’ll follow me up, I don’t doubt.”
So it was that Ginny ran Melisende’s chambers as her chief lady in waiting, bossy as she’d ever been as a hallboy, and now and again the boy Gin came back to the palace with reports of doings in town. Philip had been offering instruction in effective ways of gathering information and had been hand-picking certain palace guards to groom in the skills of espionage. He had taken charge of Merania’s defense with admirable competence, and he left the tasks of administration and diplomacy to Melisende.
“I don’t know if Melisende recognizes how fortunate she is in her marriage,” Magret murmured as they processed inside in the church. “Having found a man of honor, intelligence, bravery, and skill, not at all difficult to look upon, and who adores her utterly.”
“Careful, Magret.” They passed through the arched stone of the narthex into the larger nave. “I won’t share.”
“You never have,” Magret said, but without rancor. They paused, waiting for the occupants of the church to recognize their presence and scramble to their feet.
The great organ struck up, and Melisende paced up the aisle. Above her the Gothic arches soared to the ceiling, the stained glass shedding a beatific light. Philip stood before the altar, dressed in the suit he’d worn for their wedding in this same church, the coronation chair empty and waiting for him.
He met her gaze and smiled as he’d smiled when he watched her walk on her father’s arm up the aisle to the altar to say their true marriage vows: as if he’d waited his whole life for this moment. For her.
He’d spent last night in ritual seclusion at the Prince’s Castle, their first night apart since the other ritual night before their wedding, a Catholic wedding this time, presided over by the archbishop and observed with a mass. They were well and truly married in the sacrament of the holy church, a union only death could sunder.
And there was no limit to their marital relations now.
Philip smiled as Melisende took her place at his right hand while the archbishop stood to his left. He held her gaze while the rest of them settled, the emperor taking his own chair to the side, a solemn witness.
“You’re enjoying this,” Philip observed. “Grand duchessing.”
“I am.” She beamed back at him. “I confess I had a moment of panic when I saw his majesty the emperor. I feared he’d come to tell me I was doing it all wrong and he was going to take Merania away from me. But he hasn’t yet.”
“No one will,” Philip said. “You were born for this. Trained for it. Made for it.”
“I certainly hope so.” She held out her hand to him, and he took it. This man whom she trusted with her happiness. With her life.
“And I,” he said, “will go so far as to say I was made for you.”
Her heart squeezed, near to overflowing. “To be my duke consort, certainly.”
He curled his hand around her fingers. His eyes gleamed as blue as the summer skies over Merania. “To be yours, my lady Melisende.”
“It means the world, Philip. That you are here with me. That you support me. Rule with me, at my side. Not very many men would take that position with such dignity.”
He nodded, adopting a supercilious look. “I am extremely enlightened. In fact?—”
She stopped his words with a kiss.
She would be doing a great deal of that in their life together.
And Philip never objected. Instead, he kissed her back.