Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
She was in somewhat of a dilemma, Pippa mused, as she readied the washstand the next morning. It was a crushing moral dilemma with no resolution in sight.
She knew the right thing to do was to withdraw, to accept their difference in status.
Yet it was difficult, so difficult!
She’d tiptoed into the room, avoiding the creaking wooden board, and navigated herself through the dark room with more self-confidence than she had before.
Only to find that the room was oddly silent; there wasn’t even the sound of breathing. Tiptoeing to the window, she carefully drew the curtain aside a crack, and blinked at the empty bed.
The bedsheets were rumpled, and several pillows were thrown carelessly on the floor.
Clearly, His Imperial Highness was feeling better today and had seen fit to rise.
Pippa was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.
She plumped up the pillows and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground.
My dearest little dove,
I find myself much restored this morning, thanks to your gentle care, far more effective than any physician’s.
I must assure you it was not delirium speaking last night.
My mind was clear, and every word I uttered was in earnest. I would move heaven and earth to find a way.
All I ask is that you trust me and believe in the constancy of my love for you.
Yours most fervently,
Klemens
“What nonsense,” Pippa whispered, but she kissed the note and pressed it to her heart.
“Drimmel says His Imperial Highness has left early to travel to Schonbrunn.” Henni entered with an armful of fresh sheets. Pippa slipped the note into the bodice of her dress. “Some meeting with the monarchs.”
“Ah, so that’s where he went.”
Together, they changed the sheets and cleaned the bedroom.
Then, Pippa entered the study.
Pippa thought she had understood Klemens’ personality, but no matter how well one believed one knew a person, there would always be something elusive.
She still did not understand why he affected a dual personality, or what he hoped to gain from leading a double life.
Was the image of Blonde Lucifer meant to distract from his genuine interest and vocation, that of natural science?
And the student Klemens, what of him? She was certain that this interest was not feigned.
But why keep it a secret? It was considered virtuous for the upper aristocracy to devote themselves to higher learning. So why the pretence?
And why on earth was the man suddenly incapable of keeping his room clean?
Pippa stared aghast at the mess that unfolded before her.
The Archduke’s study was as chaotic as one might expect from a man who led the life of a dissolute rake and who, whenever the fancy took him, dabbled in the natural sciences.
She had always known Klemens to be neat and tidy, a man who even made his own bed in the mornings and who had an excessive sense of cleanliness, with his nightly bathing.
Now she understood where that passion came from, for the water carriers cursed at their nightly plight of hauling heavy buckets of steaming water up the palace stairs.
It was easy to indulge in daily bathing when other people had to haul the buckets for you.
But this, this disaster that had exploded before her. What on earth?
“A pigsty would be cleaner.” She shook her head. A suspicion crept over her that he might have created the mess on purpose, to tease her and to keep her in his rooms for as long as possible.
She heaved a suffering sigh. “By my calculation of chaos per square metre, this will take at least two hours and twenty minutes to clean.” She recalculated. “Reduced to one and a half hours if one factors in the power of panic and the pressure of time.”
There were scraps of paper everywhere. Books, maps, loose sheets; the wastepaper basket overflowed with even more crumpled paper. He was clearly cutting his own pens, for the evidence lay on the table, a heap of feather quill stubs and a penknife.
With a sigh, she knelt to collect the papers. The cleaning took longer than expected because she unrolled each paper ball to peruse it. After all, she was supposed to spy for Agent August. She had to deliver something. But the contents of the papers were mathematical calculations.
“Differential equations,” Pippa muttered.
She pulled a book from under a pile of papers, Traité de mécanique céleste by Laplace.
It appeared he was working on calculating the elements of a planet’s orbit.
An interesting pastime for an archduke. This was not the occupation of a dilettante, but a challenging scientific pursuit for a serious-minded intellectual.
Her gaze skimmed the figures, and, noticing he had made some small errors, she reached for a pen to correct them.
She must have been at it far longer than she intended, for when she finally lifted her head the afternoon sun glowed warm and golden across the windows.
A jolt ran through her. She had entirely lost track of time.
She smoothed out the papers that might prove valuable later and set aside another pile of discarded work.
After an hour of cleaning and perusing paper snippets, she stood and stretched.
Her eyes fell to the corner behind the desk; there were still papers there.
She bent to pick them up and noticed a loose panel in the desk’s side that did not appear to be a drawer.
A secret compartment. What if it contained important documents?
She pushed the panel aside and reached in.
There was a hidden shelf inside, filled with books.
Voltaire. Rousseau. Wollstonecraft. Texts the police would not wish to find on an archduke’s shelf.
Her fingers stumbled over another, a slim leather-bound volume. She drew it out.
“The Undeniable Right to Freedom: A Treatise on Mathematical and Natural Law,” Pippa whispered. “By Professor Basil Cranwell.”
She knew it well. In that treatise, her father had argued that man’s right to freedom was as self-evident as a mathematical equation, inherent in the very laws of nature; to deny man his liberty was to deny reason itself and the logic of geometry.
His thesis seemed simple, even obvious, yet when he published it, he’d been young and naively idealistic, hoping to contribute to the spirit of Enlightenment.
It was not kindly received by the Crown.
He was dismissed in disgrace when it emerged that his sympathies lay with the radical Whigs.
Worse still, when the Jacobins adopted his words and twisted them to justify revolution and bloodshed, chaos followed, and Professor Cranwell fell into deeper disgrace.
He had no choice but to go into self-imposed exile on the Continent, taking his half-orphaned daughter with him.
She was not surprised that Klemens had a copy of his book; surely this one must have been given to him by her father.
She turned the book in her hands. She also knew that Klemens had not agreed with her father’s political standpoint.
Klemens was no radical; that she knew for sure.
It would not be received well if the secret police discovered that an archduke of Austria was reading such texts.
She would keep this copy. It was one of the last things left that she had of her father.
She replaced the remaining books, slid the panel shut, and made certain it was properly closed. Really, the man had to be more careful.
She knelt behind the desk to retrieve a pile of paper and realised it was a stack of discarded newspapers. Not only from the past few days but also the most recent, from that very morning.
Pippa’s face brightened. “Eureka.”
This was a treasure beyond gold. If there was something Pippa lacked, it was political knowledge and information pertaining to current events.
She settled on the floor, unfolded the newspaper, and read Die Wiener Zeitung.
“Their Excellencies dined in the Redoutens?le. The Tsar was gracious. The Empress, despite her poor health, made an appearance. Bah.” She turned the page.
Was there nothing more substantial, no political commentary that would help her understand the current situation?
There was a list of visitors, musical performances, an entire page of empty praise for the emperor, and, aha, here was something: “A conference was held between representatives of England, Russia, and Austria in the State Chancellery.” She turned the page. “What. Nothing more? That is it?”
Her legs were beginning to fall asleep. She shifted and lifted her gaze. She shot up with a yelp.
In the armchair by the window sat the Archduke himself, legs crossed, watching her with an amused expression.
“It is no use reading those,” he said in a lazily amused voice, “if your intention is to learn about politics. Newspapers are heavily censored, my love.”
“When did you come in?” Pippa stammered, completely forgetting to add the required ‘Your Imperial Highness.’
Klemens seemed to notice, a spark of satisfaction crossing his face.
“It was a good ten minutes or so ago. You cannot imagine how delighted I am, after a most tedious afternoon dealing with all sorts of crowned idiots, to find you sprawled across my study like this. I always found it charming that you had the ability to engross yourself in your activity to such an extent that you would remain oblivious to anything that goes on around you. I see that has not changed.”
Pippa folded the newspaper and smoothed her skirt with dignity. “I was trying to understand what is happening these days. It is frustrating to be so close to the events they report and not to understand any of their significance.”
He nodded. “You always had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Come here.”
She took one, two steps towards him.
“Closer.”
Another step.
“Closer yet.”