Then Pippa recognised her. She was Klemens’ twin sister, the woman he’d sat next to at the gala supper.
Up close, Pippa could see that she really wasn’t beautiful at all, at least not to the conventional standards of beauty. Her mouth was too wide, her lower lip too full,her nose too stubby, and it was clear her straight hair refused to curl. Yet there was something lovely about her; her eyes were large and grey, and the corners crinkled when she smiled, and her movements were graceful, as if she were a dancer.
“You are the archduchess.” Pippa attempted to struggle up, but her soft hand pushed her back. “Your Imperial Highness.”
“Marie Madeleine,” she replied in a soft voice. “But drop the Imperial Highness. I can’t bear it. You can call me Mimi.” She rose and came to tuck at the blanket. “Are you feeling better now? You have been sleeping nonstop for nearly three days. Doctor Philips said it would be like that. He also said I should give you medicine when you awake.” She pulled at the cord next to the bed. “And that you must eat something and sleep more.”
“Three days!” What would Frau Benedikt say? Pippa struggled into a sitting position, aware that she was wearing a nice, new nightgown. “But why am I here? Where am I? Why am I not with Henni and the others in the attic bedroom?”
“Henni—who is she?”
Pippa explained she was her friend and fellow maid.
Then it hit her. She tore her eyes wide open in horror. “Oh no! I must have fainted smack in the middle of the gala dinner!”
Mimi giggled. “So you did. It was quite a spectacle. Nearly all the other footmen toppled over in horror, like dominoes.”
A sick feeling of horror spread through her. FrauBenedikt would kill her. That was the end of her career at the palace. “Wa-Was the Emperor very upset?”
Mimi waved her hand. “It happens to the best of us, you know. Even to the hardiest soldiers, who have to stand still under the scorching sun for hours on end. It happens that one or more faint. I daresay the Kaiser did not even notice. They brought you out quickly and with little ado.”
“But why am I here?” Pippa insisted.
She leaned back, studying her with an amused smile on her lips. “You were brought here by my brother, of course. The Archduke Leopold.”
“Ahhh,” Pippa said for the second time, leaning back in her pillows with an exhale. Her head hurt.
“Aren’t you going to ask why?”
“I’d rather not.” She clenched her eyes shut.
“I shall tell you anyhow.” She folded her hands. “He was uncommonly distressed at having found his chambermaid—now turned into a footman serving at his table at the gala supper; you can imagine my surprise at having discovered that some of our footmen are actually women!—a delicious situation, wouldn’t you say?—anyhow, what was I saying? Oh yes. He was uncommonly distressed at having found that she had fainted right behind him, and he did not even notice until she was carried out swiftly by the other footmen. There was a delay in serving the ices, you see, and he turned to see when they would be served.”
“So that was how it happened,” Pippa muttered.
“So he went after you.”
“No!” Pippa stared at her in horror.
“Yes.” The Archduchess batted her eyelids at her. “He fairly stormed after you, with me in tow, of course, for I knew something was afoot, and found you unconscious in the antechamber. They’d placed you on the bare floor right next to the table with the champagne cooler.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not a nice place to recuperate, if you ask me. So he picked you up and carried you here.” Her eyes gleamed. “In his arms. Personally. All the way. To this chamber.”
Pippa lifted the blanket to hide behind it.
She leaned forward. “Did you say he did so personally?”
She laughed.
Pippa threw the blanket off and scrambled off the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I must return to the servants’ quarters, of course. Frau Benedikt must be furious.” She stood barefoot in her shift, and looked around for her clothes. There weren’t any. She was in one of the elegant bedrooms with tapestried walls and gilded mirrors, and had been sleeping in a four-poster bed. “She will kill me.”
But the Archduchess would have none of it. “Relax. Get back into bed.”
“But I must leave. Where are my clothes?”
“You are still ill. You are to remain here until you recuperate entirely.”
