“The question of repositioning the troops is, naturally, a logistical and diplomatic tightrope. It is understood that every precaution must be taken.” There followed a lengthy, stretching silence. “Precautions must be taken,” he repeated, his voice slowing until the words simply withered away.
Evie peered around the broad shoulder of the gentleman seated before her.
Hartenberg was staring directly at her.
Her breath stopped. What now? Should she smile? Wave? Do nothing at all? She pulled her mouth into a tentative smile.
His hand on the table, motioning at the map, had gone perfectly still.
“Sir?” an officer beside him prompted.
Hartenberg gave his head a sharp, involuntary shake. He turned aside abruptly and lifted a finger. An officer stepped forward, and he whispered something into his ear. The officer stepped aside and Hartenberg turned back to the map. “As I was saying, gentlemen, the repositioning of troops is contingent upon the prevention of a possible resurgence of aggression. If you look here…” He pointed at the map.
Discreetly, an officer made his way towards Evie. “If you will follow me, my lady,” he murmured, and indicated the door.
Caught.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He had intendedthe 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 hislips 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 She seemed oddly withdrawn and quiet, and not her usual self.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 commonGasthaus, when he strode in. In front of them was a plate with aGuglhupfcake and a bottle of wine.
Weber jumped up so quickly that his chair fell over. “Sir.”
