Pippa stepped to the wardrobe by the wall to see whether her clothes were there, when the Archduchess’ tone turned sharp. “Get back into bed. It is an order.”
Pippa’s shoulders dropped. She crawled back into bed.
Mimi smoothed the blanket about her. “There. Why not right away? You are to stay here until further notice.”
“But Frau Benedikt?—”
“Frau Benedikt has been informed. You are no longer working under her jurisdiction, but under mine.”
“You mean to say I am no longer to be Klem—I mean, Leopold’s chambermaid, but yours from now on?”
“No, you are to be my companion.”
Pippa blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I need one most urgently. Louisa, the girl who served me before, got married, you see. I am quite bereft without my companion!”
“What does a companion even do?” Pippa drew her brows together.
“Oh, all sorts of things. Read to me, advise me on clothes, go shopping with me.” Her eyes danced with mischief. “Do many things with me I’m not allowed to do on my own.”
Reading she could do. But advising on clothes? Shopping? “What sorts of things are you not allowed to do on your own?” Pippa asked cautiously.
“Pretty much everything.” She returned to her seat by the window and smoothed her white muslin dress under her fingers. “I can’t make a step outside these quarters without a companion, a chaperone. You are heaven-sent. Klem is content that you are looked after, and I am delighted to have someone at my side. So you see, it serves all our purposes.”
Pippa tugged at her blanket with agitatedfingers. Of course, being a companion was so much better than a regular maid sweeping the palace floors. There was no question about it. It was a much-coveted position that a girl like her could only have dreamt of. Many women aspired to becoming a ‘court lady’; in fact, it was a position strictly controlled by the court that was only available to women of the highest aristocracy. That the Archduchess herself was offering such a position to her, Philippa Cranwell, a commoner, was unheard of.
She shook her head. “With all due respect, Your Imperial Highness, I don’t see how this is possible. I am neither a noblewoman nor accustomed to the workings of the court. I fear it shall bring you great discredit to hire a commoner like me for such a high service, for I have neither the education, connections, nor breeding for such a position.”
“No education, hmm? Since you are trying very hard to put yourself in the worst light possible, why don’t you tell me what it is you do well?” She picked up her embroidery again.
“What I do well?” Pippa thought for a moment. “I am rather good with numbers, and I enjoy mathematics.”
“I am not surprised. You can do my accounting books,” the Archduchess replied. “Most excellent.” She set down her embroidery. “Now that we have settled that, you must drink your medicine,” she indicated a glass and a paper satchel with powder next to it, “and sleep. For a companion who is ill is of no use to me at all.”
And with a last nod, she left the room.
Mimi forcedPippa to remain in bed another day, and would have insisted on a second, but Pippa refused. She wanted to start her new duties as companion to the Archduchess as soon as possible.
Instead of her old servant clothes, she was given lovely, fine muslin dresses in green, blue and pink, with matching shawls. Pippa had never worn anything so fine. She turned in front of the mirror to admire a dark blue day dress, simple but elegant.
“It suits you to perfection.” The Archduchess stepped back and surveyed Pippa with satisfaction. “Here, take this pink Kashmiri shawl for a contrasting colour. I want my companions to look their best. Your first function today is to attend tea with me this afternoon.”
Tea with the highest circles! The notion alone struck terror in Pippa, for she would not serve them in safe invisibility, but sit with them at the same table and, Heaven forbid, make conversation. She would have loved to run out of the room, the palace, Vienna itself, screaming, but she had no choice but to obey. “Yes, Your Imperial Highness,” she muttered, which earned her a rebuke from Mimi.
“I told you not to call me that,” she reminded her.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Then there was tea.
When the high aristocracy had tea, it was not restricted to a modest affair of an hour, but extended to an indulgence that lasted the entire afternoon. Nor was it merely tea, but a whole parade of sweet and savoury pastries, sandwiches and confectioneries, placed in elegant silver tiered salvers from which the refined ladies helped themselves with gloved hands, nibbling a little on each treat before setting it aside on their plates.
Pippa, whose appetite had inconveniently revived with her health, would dearly have loved to devour the lot at once, but she knew that would not have been a ladylike thing to do. So she folded her hands in her lap and forced herself to listen to the conversation.
“She must be an exceptional beauty.” Lady Emily Castlereagh set down her teacup with a clink. “And he must be terribly, hopelessly in love with her. For no one would even dream of daring to enrage the Emperor in such a manner unless desperation prompted him to thisact.” She leaned back, with an excited gleam in her eyes. “The desperate act of a man in love!” Lady Castlereagh wore bright feathers in her untidy hair, and Pippa could not decide whether it looked like that intentionally or whether she had simply forgotten to comb it. She had rosy apple cheeks and a lively, cheerful personality.
“I disagree,” said the lady with soft brown curls, who sat next to her. She was an exquisitely beautiful lady, dressed in a soft blue robe that flowed like water about her limbs. “It is but politics. He is trying to escape Metternich’s political machinations by claiming it is love. And it might be a clever move on his part.”
