“Don’t worry. It won’t be long, and then I shall be back to collect you.” He smiled and skimmed a warm thumb across her cheek. “I told you last night I’m not letting you go. Nothing on earth will stop me, not even an angry prince.”
She shivered and wished she felt as confident. Rupert was not an individual to cross, and she feared what might happen to Nick if they were caught.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said. “I don’t know how I’ll bear it until you return.”
“It’s going to be torture for me as well. Just remember that I love you.”
He bent and kissed her, claiming her lips with a sweet, wild desperation that neither of them could contain. Moments passed, his touch everything she would ever want and more. His arms trembled with the force of his passion, but somehow he found the strength to end their embrace.
Just then, the call of a nightingale sounded from the other side of the hedge.
He stiffened, obviously aware what the sound meant. “I’ll return for you,” he said. “Just wait for word from me.”
They shared one last, quick kiss, and then he was gone.
A moment later, Ariadne—who was talking very loudly about how much she adored gardens—walked slowly through the gap in the hedge. She was followed by Mercedes and the baroness.
The older woman stopped and looked around, a suspicious glint in her eye.
But Nick was gone, not even a trace of his footsteps remaining on the hard ground. Ariadne and Mercedes both looked relieved to find Emma alone.
“Oh, hello, Baroness,” Emma said in the most cheerful voice she could muster. “Don’t you just love a good maze?”
The next few days were some of the longest of Emma’s life. In an attempt to take her mind off Nick, she joined in the holiday festivities arranged by her host and hostess.
During the day, the ladies met to enjoy a variety of activities: painting, embroidery, poetry reading, and crafting. They fashioned all sorts of holiday decorations that their hostess had the servant hang from the fragrant holly- and fir-draped mantels and banisters. To add to the festive mood, a great Yule log had been carried in and now blazed hotly in the main drawing room fireplace.
As for the men, they rode out nearly every morning to try their hand at pheasant and partridge hunting, returning with braces of birds to be served at that night’s dinner. When they did not venture out, they played billiards and cards, the pungent scents of tobacco and liquor wafting from whatever room they had commandeered.
On more than one afternoon, joint outdoor winter activities were arranged for both the ladies and gentlemen, including sleigh rides and an ice-skating party at a nearby pond.
Sigrid’s daughters were given the rare treat of joining the adults for the skating. Much to everyone’s surprise, King Otto volunteered to teach the two young girls how to navigate the ice, a few guests remarking that he seemed as carefree as a child himself in those moments.
But Emma knew better, now subjected to Otto’s daily efforts to further their acquaintance.
It wasn’t that he was a bad man, she decided, though his grating laugh still sent a shudder through her every time she heard it. No, it was simply that they had virtually nothing in common. As she had surmised from their first meeting, he was rather arrogant and vain and spoke only of matters that interested him, with scant regard for her preferences.
He loved to hunt; she hated it.
He thought reading plays and stories to be an absolute waste of time; she thought owning a collection of taxidermy animals to be appalling.
He believed sea bathing to be a dangerously unhealthy activity; she thought he ought to take baths more frequently and wear far less cologne.
But she merely smiled and demurred, letting him think she was satisfied by his compliments on her figure, her face, and whatever gown she was wearing that evening. Other women would likely have been flattered, but she found his words shallow and practiced.
Yet even if she were not in love with Nick and planning to elope with him soon, Otto would have left her cold. She shuddered to think how she would have felt were she still destined to be Otto’s bride instead of Nick’s.
As for Nick, she heard nothing, every day worse than the one before. Ariadne and Mercedes did their best to cheer her, but she couldn’t ever truly relax, worried as she was that Nick would not find a way to carry out their plan.
She would leave notes for Rupert and Sigrid, she decided, to be delivered after she and Nick were safely out of reach. She could only imagine Rupert’s fury and her sister’s dismay, but under the circumstances, it could not be helped.
If only Rupert had listened to her when she had asked to be released from the engagement, none of this would be necessary. She hated the bitterness her elopement would cause, the fracturing within their family. But she loved Nick and, no matter the sacrifice, she would do everything in her power to be with him, to be his wife.