She let go of him and dropped to the ground, stunned.
The Archduke, dazed, wiped the ice-cold water from his face. He stared at her, water dripping from his hair, as if she were the most impossible apparition.
Pippa set the bucket aside, stepped up to the table, and with a firm yank, pulled the tablecloth off. Then, she stepped up to the woman and draped the cloth over her body.
Lord Pumpernickel’s drunken laugh sounded from behind her. “Hehehe, did you see that? Now that’s what I call a neat trick. Yank and pull and not a single glass fell to the ground. Best trick I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Marvellous! Do it again!”
But Pippa ignored him and knelt down next to the woman, who was shaking with her entire body.
“Are you well?” Pippa hadn’t the faintest idea who the woman was and truly, she cared little for her, but one thing she knew for a fact: here was a woman whose heart was broken. Just like hers. And that she could not bear to ignore.
The woman looked up at her with enormous eyes, black streaks of kohl running in rivulets down her cheeks. Her long, sensitive lips were pulled down tragically. Her pale hazel eyes filled with unutterable sadness. “You know, all those years, no one ever cared to ask me that,” she whispered. Then she threw her arms around Pippa’s neck and burst into tears.
It was different from her previous weeping, which had been dramatic and for show. This time, she seemed to cry genuinely, softly, like a child.
Pippa patted her back helplessly.
Behind her, she heard the Archduke’s exasperated voice. “Kovacz, where in hell’s name have you been? Get that accursed woman out of here.”
A man knelt next to her. “Let go of her. I’ll take over from here.” Pippa looked up—straight into Kovacz’s face.
He recoiled. “Merciful Heavens! But what? But how? How how, how can this be?” He jumped up and pointed his finger at her. “Fräulein Cranwell? Here? But-but-but in the name of all that’s good and holy, how?”
Pippa looked at him with resignation. It really should come as no surprise that this Kovacz was none other than Klemens’ friend and servant, whom she had known as Marek. She really should have recognised him earlier, when he had come down the stairs with Klemens—that is, the Archduke—but she had been too fixated on Klemens—that is, of course, the Archduke Leopold.
“But, but Your Imperial Highness—Fräulein Cranwell—How—What—Why—” Poor Kovacz stuttered. Then he pulled himself together. “She was here all the time?”
She felt a firm grasp on her upper arm gently pulling her away from the weeping woman.
“Pippa.” The name fell from his lips, hoarse, unbelieving.
There it was. Finally. How she had yearned for his voice to say her name. There was a dull ache in her heart.
Pippa steeled herself. She pulled her arm out of his grasp and tilted her chin up, looking straight into his familiar, sky-blue eyes.
“My name is Anna Braun, Your Imperial Highness.Please forgive me for intruding. I’ve been sent to clean up the room.” She spoke with a broad Viennese dialect and dipped into a curtsy.
“Anna Braun?” he echoed.
“Yes, Your Imperial Highness. I am a juniorDienstmagd, and I would like to sweep the floor and clear away the broken glass, if you please.” She dropped into another curtsy.
“Splendid lass,” the drunken Lord Pumpernickel proclaimed. “Better than all the other bits of muslin combined. Yes, sweep up the mess, right under my feet too, then do that trick again, will ya? The one with the tablecloth. This time with more bottles on’t.”
The Archduke threw an irritated glance at the Englishman, then turned back with a frown at Pippa, who had picked up her broom and proceeded to sweep the floor vigorously.
His Imperial Highness watched her, entirely out of his depth. Then, as if awakening to the specifics of the situation, he ran a nervous hand through his wet hair, straightened the banyan and firmly tied the belt about the waist.
“There has been this, uh, situation,” he began, glancing at the woman, whom Kovacz was ushering back into the bedroom so she could get dressed. “It is a delicate matter of sorts and not at all what it appears to be?—”
“Delicate matter, harharhar,” Stewart intervened. “Why don’t you just tell the truth? That you had the finest hussies of all Vienna in your quarters, dancers and actresses and courtesans, each one prettier than the last, ripe for the plucking.” He kissed his fingers. “Dancing and singing. We spent a splendid night indeed.”
A dull red climbed the Archduke’s neck. “It’s really not like that?—”
Pippa’s stomach twisted. She clenched the broom and swept resolutely, ignoring him as if he had never spoken.
“No, no, it never is,” Lord Pumpernickel chuckled. “That’s what we men like to say when we run out of excuses, lass. Bear that in mind.”
Drunken men and children did speak the truth, it shot through poor Pippa’s mind, as she swept with a fury that would have cleaned out hell itself.
