Page 168 of The Ladies Least Likely

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 what I will 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 Lowenburg 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 you to 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 Lowenburg,” 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 did what ?”

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-called prince —” He stabbed a finger in the air in Harriette’s direction— “he was the only one who stood to benefit. My father’s death ensured he could keep Lowenburg 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 Lowenburg 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. ”

“My father fought for Prussia and for right!” Franz Karl’s eyes blazed with what Harriette feared was a touch of fanaticism.

“You hated him because he took the side of King Frederick, who forced you and your husband from Calenberg when you refused to concede. Her father—” Again he pointed his pampered finger in Harriette’s direction “—fought for a Silesia that no longer exists, either. His death was well-deserved and ought to have come much earlier. It would have spared the rest of us more loss and pain.”

Harriette carried the dish of tea to the seated man. The liquid trembled in the delicate cup. Her head swirled with these revelations, and she didn’t know which to latch onto first. Her father was a prince of Bohemia? Franz’s father and hers had been on opposite sides of the wars?

“Tea, cousin? I assume these accusations are the reason my grandfather and mother arranged our marriage. To put any rivalry to rest.”

He took the tea with a begrudging air, clearly not pleased by the reminder of their betrothal.

Harriette returned to her seat, her hands shaking.

She had known none of this history, and she called herself a fool for never asking.

Why had she never pressed her aunt? Why had she never demanded answers from her mother?

Her heart ached anew for the woman she had known so little about and whom she had now lost the chance to know better.

She had thought her mother contemptible for sitting in dark rooms nursing resentment for what she had lost, when Harriette was inclined to face forward and make the best of things.

But her mother had lost a great deal, and she had found sympathy in Mrs. Demant, but not Harriette.

“I would like to hear more of my father,” Harriette said.

“A self-righteous murderer,” Franz Karl replied. “I forbid you to speak of him in my presence. Or place his image in my house.”

“You forget it is my house,” Harriette said. Had she ever consoled herself, in darkest night, with the hope that she would get on with her prospective husband? So far, she could see very little potential for amity between them.

“And speaking of houses.” She turned to her aunt. “How did he get here? Is he staying under your roof?”

“ Mein Gott, nein . No,” Franz Karl said.

“Dietz and I have rooms in a hostelry. It does no credit to our dignity, but it provides a roof, and we have no intention of staying long. Once I have dispensed with your lover, I think we will return home to Lowenburg,” he said to Harriette, as carelessly as if he were asking for another lump of sugar in his tea.

“We will be married in a church there, and I will have my investiture. I look forward to wearing my ducal robes before His Highness Frederick the Great.”