Page 254 of The Ladies Least Likely
“Someone Princess scorned, of course.” Natalya lifted a hand, and the neckline of her loose morning gown slipped down one rounded pink shoulder. “She would not leave her current keeper for him, so he threatened all of us.”
“And we needed a bribe to pay off the magistrate,” her aunt said. “Regrettable, but it seems to be rather a recurring item in our household ledger, I’m afraid.”
“But to sell my sketches means…” Harriette struggled for air. “It will be known that I drew these. Everyone must think I’m Renwick’s mistress.”
Which she wasn’t. She was simply his lover. The woman who had done all sorts of unnamable things with him, to him. Who had learned just that morning, riding in the quiet interior of the coach, that when she unbuttoned the flap of his breeches and put her lips on his manhood and drew him into her mouth, she could reduce the Earl of Renwick to the same shuddering, helpless mass of sensation that she became when he put his mouth on her. It was a very gratifying discovery, and the heat spreading across her face and bosom intensified at the intimate memory of what had followed that exploration of lips and teeth and tongue.
“No wonder Franz Karl wants to kill him,” she whispered. There was no doubt that a woman who drew a man in this state had crossed every line of propriety. To anyone who saw it, Harriette had clearly shamed the man she was promised to in marriage.
“As it happens, we never expected Fritz to come here,” Princess replied. “Wasn’t he supposed to go to Shepton Mallet to collect you and your mother? Our condolences, by the way. Black washes out most women, but it becomes you,Liebelein.”
“His name is Franz Karl,” Harriette snapped. “What am I to do?”
“The question is whatIwill do, Duchess,” came a voice from the hall behind Harriette. He spoke in German, but Harriette knew the language; her aunt had ensured she learned it.
She stiffened and turned, knowing at once who it was she looked upon. He wore a suit of green velvet with white trim and silver stockings pulled up over his knee. He had curly brown hair which she thought might be a wig. His features were soft and round, his brows thick and dark, and a look of blazing disdain shot from his haughty brown eyes.
“I will deal with your lover as honor demands,” he said, sneering. His lips were plumper, redder than Ren’s. His features were almost womanly, but his outrage was purely masculine. “I will run him through. And then you will return with me to Löwenburg and make me the duke I deserve to be.
“You understand me,ja? Yes, I see that.Gut. It will make things easier. You need no longer fret about ‘what am I to do,’” he mocked, affecting a high voice as he imitated her. “I shall tell you exactly what to do.” He gave her a thin, unpleasant smile. “And you shall do it.”
“Franz Karl.” The Countess of Calenberg rose with a sigh. “I see you have my brother’s penchant for dramatics. Do come in, if you can manage to behave yourself. Ladies, I think I may ask youto give us a moment? Leave the tea, dear,” she said when Sorcha reached for the tray.
Her friends filed out, each one pausing to hug Harriette or kiss her cheek, making a deliberate show of affection and solidarity. Even Chima pressed her hand, giving her a pleading look, and Harriette unbent enough to press her cheek against the other girl’s. Franz Karl ignored Abassi entirely and nodded stiffly to each of the women, as if it pained him to extend the most basic courtesy. He stepped forward to block Princess, who came last, holding herself with an imperious air.
“And you are the upstart serf calling yourself the Princess of Galicia and Lodomeria?” he said in heavily accented English. “You had best have a care with your claims. Her Highness Maria Theresa is the ruler of Galicia and Lodomeria, and she could have you beheaded for the imposter you are.”
Princess gave him a brilliant, regal glare and sailed out the door with her chin lifted.
“Ill done of you, nephew,” the countess murmured in German. “You will be wise to leave friends here in England.”
“Why should I?” He strode arrogantly into the room, as if it belonged to him, and threw himself into Natalya’s chair, the one upholstered in hand-painted chintz. “I am a duke of Prussia. England need bow to me.”
“You are a duke of nothing,” Harriette said sharply. “And if you challenge the Earl of Renwick, I—I will have you brought before the House of Lords with a suit for murder.”
He raised one eyebrow in a condescending gesture. “I do not expect you to have the least comprehension of honor, cousin, given what I know about you.”
Harriette lifted her chin, imitating Princess’s lofty mien. “I am an artist. There is nothing dishonorable about that.” How dare he sit when both she and her aunt were still standing? The rudeness of the man made her seethe.
Apparently it nettled her aunt as well. “Get up, you sullen, naughty boy, and make your bow to your aunt,” the countess commanded.
Franz Karl raised himself and with utmost insolence made the shallowest sketch of a bow. “Countess,” he said, his tone dripping with derision. “Calenberg doesn’t exist anymore, weren’t you aware? It is only due to my grandfather’s efforts that you were even granted a living from the estates.”
“I owe my position to my elder brother, the Duke of Löwenburg,” the countess replied, “and that would be Harriette’s grandfather, not yours.”
“The title ought to have gone to the second brother when the first had nothing but a daughter,” Franz Karl spat. His eyes lit with passion for what Harriette guessed was a much-defended cause and an oft-rehearsed wrong. “Instead he changed the law to make a worthless girl his heir, and the next worthless girl to come after.” He applied his insolent look to Harriette. “And then,” he added, as if it were a footnote, “her father had mine killed so there would be no further contention.”
Harriette, in the act of taking a seat in the small chair beside Melike’s worktable, fell onto the cushion. “My father didwhat?”
She knew nothing of her father and had never asked. Her mother had never spoken of him, other than to say he was killed in the wars, whereupon she fled her homeland.
“That is a lie, Franz.” The countess positioned herself behind the tea tray and began pouring, adhering to the basic rules of decorum even if her guest could not. “Harriette’s father was a prince of Bohemia, a man of noble blood and principles, and he never saw your father as a rival.”
“You speak the lie,” Franz Karl snarled. “My father was poisoned. And her father, this so-calledprince—” He stabbed a finger in the air in Harriette’s direction— “he was the only onewho stood to benefit. My father’s death ensured he could keep Löwenburg from the one who should rightly inherit it. Me.”
He clenched his hands on his thighs. Harriette noted that her cousin’s hands were smooth and soft, rounded like the rest of him, and adorned with many rings. She wished she had not left her sketchbook in her valise. The one thing Franz Karl could give her, besides the head-ache, was a model of interesting hands.
“He didn’t steal the title, you little fool,” the countess said. “When Harriette’s father died in the wars over Silesia, my brother the duke was within his rights to make his daughter, Harriette’s mother, the heir. She had to flee Löwenburg because of your father’s treachery, and he frightened her so thoroughly that even after his death she dared not return, for fear what his followers might do to her or, worse yet, to Harriette.”
