The Accidental Marriage by Sally James Read Free Book Online

morning, so I’ll go out straight away and see what I can find. We both have white gowns, and if we made military style sashes of blue and silver perhaps that would do. I cannot imagine every single lady will be wearing the same colours. Heavens, there are almost two thousand people attending! A thousand olive wreaths,’ she said, laughing again. ‘Unless the men are wearing them too. But I doubt any but the Prince Regent would agree to look so ridiculous.’
    ‘Hush!’ Fanny said automatically. She was always uncomfortable when anyone said disparaging things about the Prince, though Julia knew she despised him and his Carlton House Set.
    ‘Do you think there are any live trees in the Prater or the Augarten that we can rob, or don’t they grow here? And I promised to take the girls to see the Victory Parade there this afternoon.’
    ‘If you can find some material, I can do the sewing. We mustn’t disappoint them.’
    Julia nodded. They were going with the Pryce girls and their governess, Miss Jenkins, and at the suggestion of Mrs Pryce, they had brought a picnic.
    ‘I’m told there will be twenty thousand veterans,’ Mr Pryce told her. ‘It will take hours for them all to pass. But I suppose it’s an historic occasion, and the children ought to see it.’
    The younger girls were most interested in the colourful uniforms. It meant nothing to them that these men had fought in one of the recent battles against Napoleon, at Leipzig, one which had been a great victory for the Allies, and when Napoleon’s last ally, Saxony, had deserted him. All they knew of the defeated Emperor was the threat often used by nursery maids, that if they did not behave well ‘Boney’ would come and spirit them away.
    * * * *
    Frederick smirked as he handed Fanny into the carriage that was to take them to the Metternich mansion in the Rennweg. ‘I knew you would find a way if I insisted,’ he said.
    ‘It was Julia’s idea. She found the silver gauze shawls and I made them into overskirts, and cut up my blue dress for the sashes.’
    Julia touched the tiny spray of olive leaves which had been all she’d been able to find, which she had fixed into her hair. It was a wonder Frederick had not objected to the lack of proper wreaths. But he was looking excited, and she wondered whether he was expecting to meet his Russian inamorata there.
    There was a long line of carriages waiting to set the guests down at the entrance to Prince Metternich’s summer palace a short distance outside the city ramparts, and Julia was able to admire the long low lines if it, and the classical porticoes. It was half an hour before Fanny and her party were able to pass up the long flight of red-carpeted stairs to the ballroom, in a specially built pavilion, also pillared in the Classical style.
    Frederick disappeared, to Julia’s disgust, but Fanny’s hand was soon solicited for the polonaise. Julia wandered through one of the many archways into the garden. It was still amazingly warm for the middle of October, and she didn’t need any wrap. Hearing the faint sound of an orchestra she walked on through the garden, passing a temple to Apollo, partly hidden by the profuse greenery, and came eventually to a small alcove where the musicians were playing.
    She found a stone bench and sat down to listen. For several days now she had scarcely ever been alone. During the daytime, if she were not teaching the children or taking them for walks in the Viennese parks, she was with Fanny, trying to keep up her sister’s spirits. Or she was searching the shops for silver gauze, she recalled, and glanced down at her own overskirt. It really didn’t look like a last minute, cobbled together affair. Frederick had passed no disparaging remarks, so it must be satisfactory.
    Was Frederick’s behaviour, his pursuit of other women, normal with married men? Until now she had believed that Fanny did not care, but her sister clearly still loved her unsatisfactory husband, and