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lose his crown. If I refuse, eight hundred years of Hapsburg-Lorraine rule will be ended with the unwillingness of an eighteen-year-old girl. And still my father is asking me to choose.
    I have never loved him more than I do now.
    I look at the faces assembled around the room, then at the long council table gleaming red and gold beneath the chandeliers. I had not imagined this to be the place where my marriage would be decided. I had imagined it would happen in my late mother’s quiet study, or in the eastern terrace with its frescoed ceiling of angels.
    “Your Highness, we need your answer,” Metternich says. Because tomorrow there shall either be a wedding or a war .
    My stepmother’s face is pale, and next to her, Adam Neipperg looks murderous. But I cannot allow myself the luxury of considering either of them. I know my duty to my father and my kingdom. My eyes burn, and though I feel my stomach rise, I will the word to come. “Yes.”
    Metternich leans forward. “ Yes to what, Your Highness?”
    “To …” I breathe deeply. “To the marriage with the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.”
    There is a moment of silence while everyone comprehends what has just happened. Then they all begin talking at once. Adam Neipperg, who has been so dear to me since his return from our campaign against Napoleon last year, bangs his fist against the table and shouts, “I stand firmly against this!”
    “There is nothing to stand against,” Metternich retorts, and the two men rise from their seats. But Metternich is no match for Adam, who is the opposite of the prince in every way. At thirty-four, Adam has experienced more war than peace. He was part of the Blockade ofMainz, and at Dolens, after his right eye was taken by bayonet, he was left for dead on the battlefield. Despite these wounds, he recovered, and now he wears a silk patch over his eye. There is no woman in Austria who has not heard of Adam’s daring feats, so when he leans across the table, Metternich backs away.
    “Enough,” my father says, and when no one can hear him, he shouts, “ Enough !”
    Both men sit down, and I avoid Adam’s gaze.
    “This council is dismissed. The answer has been heard, and no one is to speak of it. Count Neipperg, Prince Metternich, please stay.” The other men push back their chairs to leave, and when my stepmother rises as well, my father puts a hand on her arm. “You should be here. For Maria,” he adds.
    I watch the chamber empty, and when there are only the five of us in the room, it suddenly becomes real. I will never be regent for my brother Ferdinand. Who knows whom the task will be left to, but I will not be here to guide him. Instead, I am to marry the man who stripped our kingdom of its wealth and slaughtered more than three hundred thousand Austrian soldiers, a man whose taste for the lavish, crude, and unrefined is known throughout Europe. I look down at Sigi, and my tears dampen his fur.
    “Maria,” my father begins, and I realize how pale and drawn he looks. He has been struggling with this knowledge for two days. “I want you to know there was nothing any of us could do.”
    But there is nothing anyone can say to remedy this. “Yes. I understand.”
    “Whatever you need, whatever you want to take with you to France, you shall have.”
    I swallow my pain and try to sound grateful. “Thank you.”
    “The French court will be very different from Austria,” he warns. “Prince Metternich can explain—”
    “Everything,” the prince says eagerly, and I realize that of the five of us assembled, only he is excited. I wonder what his role has been inthis marriage, and whether my father might find a handsome payment from the French if the prince’s accounts were exposed. “Over these next three months—”
    “Is that when the marriage is to take place?” I ask him.
    “Yes. But first there will be a ceremony here.”
    “Then Prince Metternich and Count Neipperg shall be escorting you to the border,” my