Page 103 of A Touch of Charm
And then Andre’s breath hitched. That night that seemed like so long ago, it was Mary who’d been caught, too.
At first, he walked. Yet, his heartbeat quickened and by the time he reached the stairs, he took two at a time. He rushed upstairs and saw a door open. He followed it and saw little Mary wrapped in what seemed like a tablecloth with a doily over her head. Alone.
Phew! Relief washed over him when she smiled at him.
Her room was a full nursery stuffed with toys, a rocking horse, and lovingly decorated with frilly curtains. In the back of his mind, he wondered why his sister had a nursery if she was only pregnant now, but sadness washed over him, and he realized it hadn’t been a room as much as an unfulfilled dream.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Andre asked.
“I’m trying to dance to the music, but I don’t know how,” she said, tugging at the sash at her waist.
Andre remembered his sister, Anna, when she was a little girl. She also put doilies over her head and wore shawls, pretending to be a princess dancing at the balls in Vienna.
The music swelled, and he counted. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
Mary eyed him with an innocent vulnerability that shattered his resolve to only pay her a short visit and return downstairs.
So he reached out, took a long and deep bow, and offered his hand. “May I have this dance, Miss Mary?”
She beamed at him and hopped onto his feet just as before; the doily fell off her head, and she hugged his stomach. “Thank you, Andre.”
“It is my honor and greatest pleasure, Miss Mary.” He spoke with all the pomp he could muster.
And so they went through the room, the dolls sitting on the bed being the onlookers, and the milk and biscuits on the side table taking the place of a buffet with punch.
But when the music died downstairs, Andre heard the metal clinking on the glass.
An announcement.
Whatever it was, he felt he didn’t belong and wished to reach for Thea, pull her out and into his arms. But he couldn’t love his princess and remove her from this world he’d only known from the margins. For as long as Andre could remember, he’d been with the Habsburgs, just not one of them.
“You ought to go to her,” Mary said. “I saw the bouquet of roses.”
“My sister prepared them,” Andre muttered. “Now, I’m here to dance with you.”
“But isn’t Thea waiting downstairs for you?”
Andre dropped his shoulders, and Mary stepped off his feet. “She’s in love with you. I know it, she told me.”
She told me, too.
“Don’t you wish to marry her? Shouldn’t you announce your engagement downstairs?”
“I do, very much, but it’s not that simple.” How could he ever explain the hierarchy of aristocracy to the child without a title? And how could he tell her that he was a bastard himself? Otherwise, he’d be the Habsburg offering for Thea’s hand now. She was holding court among the cream of the crop of the ton, while he just couldn’t get past the fact that he was the bastard who wanted to marry her more than he wanted to breathe the air that kept him alive. Just for a little while longer, he wanted to allow her to shine and remain shielded from the scandal their union would surely cause.
Andre tried to hear what was going on in the ballroom downstairs. He went closer to the open doors to the balcony of Mary’s chamber, and there was barely a sound emanating from the ball.
“What do you think is going on downstairs?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know. All I can hear are the crickets chirping.”
“Crickets? The little beetles?”
Crickets were not beetles, but considering Mary’s grimace, Andre thought it better not to tell her about the distinctions of insects. He remembered Anna’s dislike of the smaller crawling creatures, while he and his brother liked to see them hop in Tuscany and follow them around the cypress trees. Anna preferred kittens and puppies.
“I don’t hear any crickets. Beetles don’t make sounds,” Mary said matter-of-factly.
“Then what do you think this sound is?”
