Chapter 15 #2
He grew still. “Is it because of what happened the other day? You must let me explain. I know what it must have looked like to you, but it meant nothing at all, I swear. I was ordered to throw a party for the Tsar, so I did, inviting all those cocottes for his pleasure alone. It’s his custom to pick one from among them.
But the entire company bores me to tears.
As for that other woman, confound her! She is Princess Bagration, his mistress. I don’t know what devils prompted her—”
Pippa clasped her hands over her ears. “There really is no need to tell me about it, Your Imperial Highness.”
“But Pippa, you must let me expl—”
She pulled herself up. “Anna. My name is Anna. Anna Braun.”
He inhaled sharply. “I understand you must be shocked and upset, and we must talk. But your insistence on being someone else ceases to be amusing. I have many questions. How the devil did you become a palace maid? What happened? Where on earth have you been the entire time? Do you know what I endured to find you?” His fingers tightened around her.
Pippa grew as stiff as a wooden board in his arms. “I beg your pardon. You appear to mistake me for someone else.”
She felt him grow still. “So you will insist on keeping up this ridiculous charade even now.”
“Your H-Highness—”
“I told you not to call me that.” His voice was sharp.
“Yes, Your Highness. I mean, no, Your Highness. I mean—“Her voice petered out. “Please forgive me, Your Highness,” she whispered wretchedly.
He was silent. Then, in a soft voice: “So it is to be like that?”
Pippa battled the overwhelming urge to cling to him and burst into tears.
He waited one more beat of a moment for her to respond, but she remained obstinately silent. “Very well, Anna Braun, chambermaid. If you insist on playing this game, then I shall play along. Let us see which of us tires first.”
He released her abruptly. Pippa nearly tumbled to the ground again from the sudden release. She looked about, disoriented.
“I suggest you had better go about your business, chambermaid. Pull back the curtains,” he ordered. His voice had turned cold, distant. Indifferent, exactly like an archduke would talk to a servant.
She stumbled to the window and pulled back the heavy brocade curtains.
The first pale rays of daylight crept into the room.
She turned and found him lounging in the chair in the corner next to the ceramic oven, his arms crossed, regarding her with a hooded, brooding expression.
He was wearing a loosely tied banyan, and his hair was dishevelled, his chin shadowed by stubble, and even in that state breathtakingly handsome.
Prince Lucifer. Never had a name been more apt.
Her heart clenched. She tore her eyes away and stood indecisively in the room.
He waved a hand. “Go ahead. Clean the room.”
“N-now?” According to Frau Benedikt’s instructions, she wasn’t supposed to be cleaning the room in his presence.
He lifted a supercilious eyebrow. “When else?”
Pippa turned and turned down the blankets.
Her mind worked feverishly, and her hands shook.
Pull yourself together! She was the chambermaid Anna.
She must pretend she did not mind in the least that he was sitting there, like a dishevelled fair Adonis, watching her every move through half-closed, sleepy eyes.
If she did not push him from her mind, she would fail miserably at her tasks.
Pippa recited the square numbers under her breath.
Her father had taught her it was the most efficient way to focus.
“Eleven squared is one hundred and twenty-one. Twelve squared is one hundred and forty-four. Thirteen squared is one hundred and sixty-nine…” She moved her lips without a sound and, indeed, like a miracle, her mind calmed.
Curse it, how many pillows did he have? Four, five—then two more he had tossed on the floor…
And they weren’t small either, but big, bulky, and rectangular, covered in two different fabrics: simple linen and heavier brocade.
She stripped off all the covers and set them aside, then tugged at the bedsheet.
It resisted. Once more she pulled, but it was a hopeless task.
The sheet was firmly tucked beneath the corner of the heavy, unwieldy mattress.
The bed was too large, and she assumed that under normal circumstances there would have been a second chambermaid to help her lift it.
But she was all alone, and lifting the mattress on her own…
She could go to the other side of the bed to untuck the linen from the far corner—which would bring her once more into dangerously close vicinity of the Archduke, whom she was trying so very hard to ignore.
“It is stuck,” he observed quite redundantly, clearly delighted at her dilemma. He stretched out his legs, crossed them at the ankle, and folded his arms behind his head, eager to see what she would do next.
Her fingers cramped around the sheet. She had one other option left, and that was to crawl onto the bed to the other side. She lifted herself onto the bed. Fourteen squared is one hundred and ninety—
“Stop!”
She froze. She was on all fours squarely in the middle of his bed.
It was a most awkward position, to say the least. She turned her head towards him, and he was regarding her, the corners of his mouth twitching.
Then he said something she had never thought she would hear him say, even in her wildest dreams.
Smoothly, softly, with a sweetly angelic smile playing about his lips: “Lie down.”
She gasped. “But Your Imperial Highn—”
“Put that pillow under your head.” He pointed to one of the pillows.
She stared at him. “But…” She reached out and reluctantly took the pillow.
“Put your head there.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, she did as he bid.
“Good. Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” He stepped up to the bed, and her entire body tensed. “Relax, I won’t hurt you,” he murmured. Then, “Open your eyes.”
To her own surprise, she hadn’t noticed that she had screwed her eyes shut. She opened them.
“Now, tell me. What do you see?”
She stared right up at the canopy, an intricately carved design with figures. “Tell me exactly what you see. It is the first thing in the morning I see, and the last thing before I fall asleep. Every. Single. Blasted. Time. I lie in this bed.”
She frowned. “A naked child—oh. He must be Cupid targeting his bow at—Narcissus and Psyche, possibly,” she muttered. The passionately embracing couple could be anyone, really. The implications of the design did not pass her by, and she blushed hotly. He followed her gaze.
“Interesting. I always thought it was Persephone and Hades,” he said conversationally.
“About to consummate their marriage. Though she doesn’t seem willing in that depiction.
Not that it is of any significance, for it is beside the point.
If you would direct your gaze further to the left of the canopy. ”
She did as she was bid.
“And now tell me what you see.”
“There’s nothing in particular,” she blurted out. “Mere ornamental carvings, flowers and the like.”
He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Take a closer look. Must I indeed exert physical effort to point it out?”
She looked, confused, at the canopy, and could, for the life of her, not see anything peculiar.
He sighed, got up, and ambled over to the bed.
She immediately tensed. “Relax, I won’t touch you.”
She held her breath as he leaned forward, so that his breath brushed her temples. “Spiderwebs,” he breathed. “And a thick layer of dust.”
“Oh,” she said weakly. He was right. In the left corner was a thick, fat spiderweb, with no doubt the offending creature hiding as well, and possibly a dead fly or two hanging in its threads. And all the elaborate carvings were coated with a fine layer of dust.
“Quite atrocious, wouldn’t you agree?” His face hovered right above hers; she could count the fine blond eyelashes, the silver flecks in his blue eyes, and the faint lines of laughter at the corners.
Pippa shot up. If he hadn’t had the frame of mind to jump back in time, she would have collided with him, and that would not only have been rather painful but also a bloody affair—for his nose.
“I’ll clean it for you immediately.”
“Do so,” he said dryly, “for I have nightmares of having that spider fall into my open mouth as I sleep.”
It was easier said than done, for Pippa wasn’t tall, but the canopy was, so she stood up, yet even then she couldn’t reach the corner of it.
How on earth was she to clean it? She jumped once, twice, but even then she didn’t quite reach.
She would need a ladder, or a long stick, or a duster attached to a long stick…
She jumped again with the cleaning cloth in her hand.
He grinned. “Take all the time you need; I shall wash up in the meantime.” He turned to the washstand with a whistle and dipped his hands in it.
“Oh, and another thing.”
Pippa stopped jumping and glared at him.
“The water is quite cold,” he complained. “I can’t possibly wash myself in this. You must fetch me a new pitcher immediately.”
He made her fetch two more pitchers of water; the first was too hot, the second too cold, and then he had her fetch a new bar of soap, for he wanted calendula soap, not lavender soap, for he did not want to smell like a blasted woman.
And another set of towels, for he had already wiped his hands on the first, so he could not possibly wipe his face on it.
The second towel was too scratchy; did she want him to irritate his face with it?
She had to fetch another, fluffier one. After she had figured out how to attach her duster to a stick, she dusted and wiped the entire canopy, getting entangled in the heavy brocade curtains that hung from it, nearly toppling from the bed more than once.
She was hot, her face red, the cap had slipped off her head, and she was quite out of breath, and she was still struggling with getting the bedsheets changed, when the tapestry door opened, and the valet entered.
He froze in the doorway when he saw Pippa. “What in heaven’s name—”
“Ah, Drimmel. Just in time for my morning shave,” the Archduke said, wiping his hands on the towels.
“Get yourself out of here, girl,” Drimmel hissed at Pippa.
“Do you see that girl, Drimmel?” the Archduke asked as he wiped his hands on the towel.
“Indeed, Highness. With my apologies, she is new and has yet to learn the etiquette of the place. She will be sacked on the spot.”
“No, no, she is to stay,” the Archduke said airily. “By my express order.”
“But, Highness—“
“Her name is Anna. Anna Braun,” the Archduke informed him. “She is a chambermaid. Remember that,” he said with faint irony.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness.”
“Good. Get another maid to help her change those sheets. She is too small to lift that mattress on her own.” He glanced into the antechamber, where Henni was lifting a bucket. “You there.”
She dropped the bucket and hunched over; her head lowered.
“What is your name?”
“Henni, Your Imperial Highness.” Her whisper was barely audible.
“Henni.” He snapped his fingers. “Excellent. Look at me, child.”
She lifted her chin, her eyes round as saucers as she met his gaze.
“From now on, you are to help Pippa—I mean Anna—change the sheets and any other hard labour that she cannot perform on her own.” He flicked a glance at the slop bucket. “Find someone else to do this work. I want neither of you to touch it.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness.” Henni curtsied.
And that was how Henni, the lowest scullery maid in the Hofburg Palace, was unexpectedly elevated to become a personal chambermaid of the Archduke Leopold.
At least that was one positive thing to have happened that morning, Pippa thought darkly.