Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
He had intended the meeting to be a briefing on the current position and the steps to follow. The room was stuffy and filled with officers, and he was getting too hot in his uniform as well.
The map spread in front of him on the table outlined Europe, both the old order and the new Europe the congress was so busily failing to construct.
It had been a difficult day. He’d had a shouting match with Schwarzenberg, whom he normally respected, but in one crucial matter they were at odds, and that was with regard to the deployment of troops to Bohemia. It was only after much persuasion on his part that Schwarzenberg agreed to his scheme.
“Very well,” he’d snapped, “we shall do as you suggest. But you will be the one to inform the Kaiser, mind you.”
This was then followed by a more than unpleasant meeting with the Emperor himself, who insisted on being updated on every single thing.
Metternich had sat, as always, in the corner, with crossed legs, dangling his quizzing glass, that perpetual suave smile hovering over his lips as he dropped random comments into their conversation.
Pest and Pestilence.
After that, he’d been summoned to Aldingbourne’s town house, and Julius had, in an unusually cool voice, asked him whether something had occurred between him and his sister.
She seemed oddly withdrawn and quiet, and not her usual self.
She appeared to be, in short, unusually blue-devilled.
Julius had asked, in so many words, whether he had anything to do with it.
Confound it. What was he to say to that?
For one moment, he’d almost given in to the temptation of telling him that he’d caught his sister breaking into his study and asking whether Julius knew that she was as unreliable and untrustworthy a woman as he’d always assumed women were.
But even he realised that this would come across as bitter, disillusioned, and accusatory, so he’d merely shrugged.
“I haven’t the vaguest notion what might beset her, old friend. ”
Julius had given him a long, levelled stare. “I chose you for my sister because I believed, and I still do, that you two will deal famously together. There is not a more loyal soul in this world than Evie. If you cannot make her happy, you do not deserve her.”
For the first time in their twenty-year acquaintance, Georg found himself fighting the urge to take a swing at him.
He had given Julius to understand, in terms that left little room for misinterpretation, that the matter was between himself and Lady Evangeline, and that his assistance in it was neither sought nor required. Then he’d spun on his heel and left before he managed to say something even less civil.
He’d gone straight to the War Council to summon his men for the meeting. It was a tedious, drawn-out and arduous affair.
When the sun streamed through the window, a glint caught his eye, and he narrowed his eyes. There was a reddish-golden gleam behind the squat-faced, heavy-set officer in the back of the room, who sat with crossed arms, staring at him.
There it was again. Georg squinted, and for one second wondered whether his mind was still sound.
For peering from behind that officer was a little, sleepy face he knew all too well, framed by auburn curls.
Evie.
It took the wind out of his sails so thoroughly that for the first time in his career, he had completely lost his thread.
Weber, the officer he’d sent to accompany her outside, was guarding Evie and her maid in the adjoining room.
They were in the midst of a lively conversation, sitting at a table by the window as if this were a common Gasthaus, when he strode in. In front of them was a plate with a Guglhupf cake and a bottle of wine.
Weber jumped up so quickly that his chair fell over. “Sir.”
“Drinking during working hours will have you arrested and court-martialled, Weber,” Georg ground out.
Weber paled. “I wasn’t drinking, sir. The glass is Lady Evangeline’s.”
Evie lifted her glass at him. “So dramatic. Would you like some wine, too? It’s a rather fine Hungarian red which was meant to be a present for you, anyhow.” She glanced ruefully down at the half-eaten cake. “As well as the cake. A bribe to make amends, so to speak.”
He gave his head a short jerk towards the door, and both Weber and the maid instantly left the room. Then he scowled down at her. “Why are you here, Evie? How did you even get in here? Does Julius know you are here?”
Evie folded her hands on the table. “One question at a time, if you please. Why am I here? As I said, to deliver cake and wine. How did I get in here? Through the main door. Does Julius know I am here? No, he does not. I am not a child who needs to report to him about every move I make about town.” She paused for a moment as if to think.
“And it is none of his business, anyhow. He is neither my father, nor the man I am about to marry. Now, would you like some wine and cake? Even if not, pray stop hovering over me. It does make me feel rather timid and alarmed.”
He sat down heavily in the chair that Weber had just vacated across from her. “You just walked in here through the main door?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t fly in through the window. Not unless I’ve grown wings overnight, which you can plainly see I have not. Although, now that I think about it, I might try that approach next time.”
“Evie!” His voice was louder and sharper than intended.
“Pray don’t raise your voice at me.”
He had indeed been raising his voice at her. He never raised his voice at anyone, not even in the midst of the most frenzied battle. He was renowned for his coolness and his nerves of steel.
He pulled a hand through his hair, unnerved. Aside from his mother, no other person alive had managed to rattle him so thoroughly as she.
Evie remained entirely calm. She poured some wine into an empty glass and held it out towards him. “Here, drink this. You seem rather on edge. The cake is rather good, too. I had Julius’s cook make it especially for you.”
“This is not a joking matter. This is neither a ballroom nor a tea house to walk in and out of at will. This is the Imperial War Council. Any lesser man who walked in here unannounced would have been shot for espionage. And you have already proven yourself capable of exactly that. Since the moment I met you, you have prevaricated to the point that I truly do not know who you really are. Who is Lady Evangeline Stafford-Hill, really? Certainly not the lady I first believed her to be when we met at that inn. You could have easily put me right, yet you insisted on keeping up the charade for an entire fortnight. For what purpose, mind you? For a while, I allowed myself to be persuaded that I had misunderstood you. Only to find you, not a full day after our betrothal, breaking into my study and my personal strongbox, no doubt on Metternich’s orders.
If it had not been for Aldingbourne who kept insisting on the integrity of your character, I would have dissolved the engagement myself. ”
Evie grew pale with fury. “Now that you have expressed such a succinct summary of my character, I know where I stand in your esteem. I am truly glad that we have the opportunity to settle this matter once and for all. So let’s return to the very beginning.
While it may be true that I allowed myself to get caught up in the moment back then, I believed it to be for the best not to reveal my true name at the inn.
Back then, I did not even know who you were, and as you surely know by now, my sole intent was to help my companion, Miss Honeywell.
But we must backtrack a bit, here. Do you know what the real reason for my trip was?
No? It was to find you. Because I thought that after twenty years of being engaged to someone, it was about time I knew what my betrothed looked like before we publicly announced our relationship.
I thought it would be the thing to do, you know, to get to know one’s betrothed.
” She wiped away angry tears from her cheeks, and Georg thought she had never looked as beautiful as she did now.
“I was taken entirely by surprise when the man I was looking for all this time was there at the inn. I decided to stay under cover because I did not entirely trust you. I wanted to observe you and see who you truly were, to see whether we could get along, whether we could l-like each other. Without you knowing who I was. Because had you known who I was, you would have, no doubt, behaved very differently towards me from the very first. I wanted to know what you were truly like. Is that so wrong? Is that such a crime?”
A taut silence stretched in the room.
Just when she got up, no doubt thinking he would never reply, he said, “I suppose not.” There was a note of ruefulness in his voice. It hardened once more as he continued. “Nonetheless, this doesn’t change anything about the fact that you are not supposed to be here.”
He strode to the door, ordering Weber back in. “Take her ladyship home and make sure she doesn’t get lost on the way.” He emphasised the word lost.
Weber looked at her. “My lady?”
Evie crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “I am not finished talking to His Excellency.”
“Oh no, we’re most definitely done here.”
“We are not.”
“There is nothing more to talk about.”
“You have no idea.” There was a definite mulish streak about her mouth.
“Evangeline!” Now he actually roared.
“If you want to get rid of me, you will have to carry me out yourself.”
Heaven help him, he was going to do just that. She was driving him to madness.
Weber jumped back. “I believe it is best to give you more privacy—”
“Evie, I really do not have time—”
At that moment, his aide-de-camp Schneider burst into the room. “I heard shouting, Your Excellency. All the way to the end of the corridor. Is everything all ri—Lady Evangeline!” He came to a full stop. “Why on earth are you here?”
He placed a weary hand over his eyes. “That, my dear Schneider, seems to be the question.”
“I would tell you, but you don’t seem at all inclined to listen.” Evie glared at him.
“I would if you, for once, would stop spewing forth nonsense and get to the point.”
“Schneider.” Evie addressed his aide-de-camp directly. “Your field marshal is most obnoxious and unreasonable, did you know that?”
“Erm.” Schneider looked helplessly at him.
“Get her out of here, Schneider.”
“Yes, Your Exc—”
“I really cannot abide men who claim they know everything and are not in the least inclined to listen to those who might know better. And who, furthermore, have a tyrannical disposition and are not in the least willing to see reason when the situation demands it. I have seen these traits in your personality from the very first, sir, and I must say I cannot say I like them.”
“You have been rather true to my first impression as well, sugar poppet.”
Evie grew pale with rage. “Schneider!”
Schneider stood to attention.
“Your field marshal is a tyrannical, despotic, thick-witted, bovine, beetle-brained, chuckle-headed bottle brain!”
Schneider’s jaw dropped.
“I have taken a profound dislike towards you, to such an extent that I find myself forced to call off this betrothal. I no longer wish to marry you. Not ten horses, not a hundred, could drag me to the altar with you.”
He registered the words with the same cold precision with which he registered any battlefield development. She was clearly throwing a tantrum, however magnificently delivered, and deviating from the matter at hand. This tactic was called diversion. One had best ignore it.
“Could we possibly discuss this in a more private setting?”
“No, we can’t.”
At that, something snapped in him. His entire breeding as a gentleman, the painstaking discipline for which he’d been famed throughout his career, abandoned him entirely.
He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of oats.
Then he strode out of the door and down the corridor, with a shrieking, flailing bundle that was Evie on his shoulder, past the astonished officers who jumped aside in evident shock, with Schneider hurrying after them, wringing his hands.
Never mind the talk that this would create.
Never mind that he was behaving most irregularly and would, most likely, regret it most heartily the next day.
But, by God, that woman made him see red.
By the time he reached the staircase, she’d stopped shrieking.
“Let me down, Hartenberg,” she said in a more reasonable voice.
Over his dead body.
He tightened his grip on her.
“If you let me down and we can manage to talk reasonably, I will tell you about the Widows’ Circle.”
He came to a full stop, thinking he’d misheard.
“And the list. You do want to know about the list, don’t you?”
Schneider came to a full stop next to him, panting. “What do you mean, Lady Evangeline?”
“The list you both were looking for.” She made a vague movement with her arms, which was awkward since she was hanging over his shoulder. “You know, the one the agent called Hofer got shot for.”
He stilled. She could not possibly know about it.
She could not possibly know about the list. About Hofer.
He swerved on his heel and strode towards the next best door. The men inside jumped up.
“Out,” he barked.
They hurriedly left the room.
He set her down carefully.
Schneider closed the door.
“And now, Evie, tell me how in hell’s name you know about the list,” he grated out.