April Wind
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Magic Flutes
Copyright: Eva Ibbotson
"I have to congratulate you, then," said Guy Farne, blocking Tessa's way to the lorry. "You certainly took me in, in a most impressive way. You know, I actually believed what you said."
"What I said?" repeated Tessa, completely bewildered. She put down the basket and stared at him. Only yesterday, they had embraced in celebration after the triumph of The Magic Flute. Now here he was, banishing the opera company from Pfaffenstein, looking at her as if she were a slug crawling over his shoe.
"Your remarks about being a republican," he replied, his eyes flashing emerald with contempt. "About art making everybody equal. Doesn't your own hypocrisy ever sicken you?"
It was worse than the moment he had found out she was the princess. For Heaven's sake, I thought we had gone over this, I thought we understood. A hot flush spread over her cheeks as she remembered their conversations on the ramparts and at the wild strawberry place, his admiring eyes as she confronted her colleagues about their refusal to work with her. He was as changeable as an April wind, blowing hot one moment and cold the next. It was more than her broken heart could bear.
"What … have I done? Why are you like this?"
"Oh, you've done nothing. All is as it should be," he jeered. "Sixteen quarterings – or is it thirty-two? An impeccable lineage, rejoicing all around."
"I cannot help my lineage!" How often must she repeat this for him to understand?
"It doesn't happen to be your lineage that I am referring to."
Once again, Guy's mood shifted; his voice lowered, his eyes softened, and he looked down at her with a most disconcerting touch of pity.
This was the last straw. Tessa was tired, hungry, and sore from packing up heavy stage props; she had been subjected to endless rounds of aristocratic ceremony by her aunts; she was losing her home; the Opera Company might go bankrupt without Guy's patronage; she had hurt Maxi's feelings and, last but definitely not least, had her heart broken by the selfish, cold-hearted, insufferable man standing before her. Enough, she decided, was enough.
"Mr. Farne."
As he turned to go, she summoned all the authority of her Schönbrunn training to call him back and, regardless of his contempt for rank, it stopped him in his tracks.
"Yes, Your Highness?" He cast a sardonic look at her over his black-clad shoulder. She raised her chin and glared right back.
"I was under the impression that we were friends," she told him, quietly but firmly, the racing of her heart audible to no one but herself. "I don't expect you to treat me like a princess – I never expected that, Heaven knows, nor wanted it – but I would prefer you to treat me like a fellow human being. I cannot read your mind, Mr. Farne. If I've offended you, the least you could do is tell me why."
He threw back his head and barked a laugh, heightening his resemblance to a wolf or a fox as the sunlight caught his shower-wet black hair.
"Why, your engagement, of course," he said.
Tessa's brown eyes widened in shock. Only the aforesaid training prevented her mouth from falling open. She leaned against the side of the lorry, trembling … with laughter.
"May I ask, Your Highness, what you find amusing?"
Even Guy's disagreeable attitude could not silence her now. It was too absurd. Whatever had possessed her to kiss Maxi on the forehead during that ill-fated boat ride?
"You … you must have misunderstood something, Guy," she said, wiping her eyes. "I'm not engaged to anyone. Especially not to Maxi."
"Aren't you?"
Something in his tone made her look up. Her last laugh stuck in her throat as she caught sight of his eyes. Normally green, at this moment they were blue – a clear, celestial blue, blue as the moment he had told her about Nerine; tasted the strawberries; held her in his arms on the night of the opera. She knew exactly what that color meant.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the blue faded back to a fierce, bitter green. Again, Tessa knew why. She might not be engaged, but he was, and she must not interfere.
"Forgive me," he said softly. "I should not have assumed … "
"No, you shouldn't have," she agreed. "But I forgive you."
He raised a hand as if to touch her face, but drew it away at the last moment, and she was grateful. The last thing her bursting heart needed was for him to touch her right now.
"Goodbye, Tessa," he said, using her Christian name at last. "Take care of yourself."
"Goodbye, Guy."
And without a hug, without even a handshake, he bowed to her and strode away, his coat billowing behind him in the wind.