Table Of ContentDEAR READER,
I remember the day I discovered the Hapsburgs. After reading all of Mary
Stewart's, Victoria Holt's, Phillippa Carr's, and Catherine Gaskin's books I
discovered Evelyn Anthony. I was searching the stacks of the public library for
more of her wonderful romantic suspense when I came across a book that
changed my life. That book, The Archduke by Michael Arnold, was a historical
novel written in the form of a diary kept by Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-
Hungary during the last year of his life, documenting the events leading to the
tragedy at Mayerling.
I was ten years old and that wonderful discovery was the start of my lifelong
romance with Rudolf and all things Hapsburg. I read everything I could find on
the Hapsburgs, especially Rudolf and his parents, Emperor Franz Josef and
Empress Elisabeth. But the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a distant memory and
reading material was hard to come by. I persisted, learning to painstakingly
translate German and French word for word with French-English and German-
English dictionaries because the only material on the Hapsburgs I hadn't read
hadn't been translated into English.
Three years after college graduation and marriage, I pulled out a notebook and
began to write one. My first romance novel, Whisper Always, was born.
I've written five other romance novels since I wrote Whisper Always --all set in
the American West during the 1870s and I sold all five of them before I sold
Whisper Always. I built a reputation as an Americana writer, but I never forgot
my love for the Hapsburgs or European royalty and history. My fascination with
the Hapsburgs and my writing of Whisper Always made my American books
possible. And now it's enabling me to tell the stories I want to tell--stories that
take place in other times and settings on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
In Whisper Always, I wanted to tell the story of a man and a woman who fell in
love and made mistakes in and unforgiving society. I wanted Rudolf to be part of
that story because history has always regarded him as weak instead of a world-
weary and disillusioned crown prince forced to wait until his father's death in
order to do the job he'd been born to do. I wanted to show the human side of the
crown prince. I used Rudolf to bring my hero and heroine together and he
provided the opportunity for them to risk everything for love and to learn how to
trust. I like to think that had they actually lived, Blake and Cristina would have
trust. I like to think that had they actually lived, Blake and Cristina would have
done the same for him.
Had he lived, Rudolf would have ascended the throne in 1916 at the age of fifty-
eight, and World Wars I and II might have been avoided. Rudolf's misfortune
was to be heir to an absolute monarch who lived to be eighty-six and whose
reign lasted sixty-eight years. Rudolf tired of the wait on January 30, 1889, at the
age of thirty.
A small portrait of Rudolf sits on my desk and looks down on me as I write this.
I hope Whisper Always has treated him fairly. He wasn't much for displays of
sentimentality, but I think he would have liked Blake and Cristina and enjoyed
the role he played in bringing them together. I hope you do, too.
REBECCA HAGAN LEE
June 1999
Titles by Rebecca Hagan Lee
SOMETHING BORROWED
GOSSAMER
WHISPER ALWAYS
WHISPER ALWAYS
Rebecca Hagan Lee
JOVE BOOKS. NEW YORK
ISBN: 0-515-12712-4
Copyright (c) 1999 by Rebecca Hagan Lee.
For enduring and understanding my lifelong obsession with the Hapsburgs, for
taking me to see the Lipizzaners every time they're
touring nearby, and for watching Mayerling over and over again
without complaint.
For always believing I could do it and for making it possible, I dedicate this
book to you, Steve.
With love.
Part One
Avarice, ambition, lust, etc., are nothing but species of madness.
--BENEDICT [BARUCH] DE SPINOZA 1632-1677
--BENEDICT [BARUCH] DE SPINOZA 1632-1677
Prologue
Winter 1854
Everleigh, Sussex, England
The black-haired waif huddled closer inside the blanket, staring out the window
of her bedroom at the shimmering gabled roof and chimneys of the magnificent
country house across the way. She often sat there in the early morning hours,
dreaming of the day when she would live at Willow Wood. She hadn't yet
worked out the way she intended to catch the eye of the heir to Willow Wood,
but she would. She must. It wasn't enough to be the daughter of a country squire,
she had to be something--someone--more. She moved back from the window so
she could see her face reflected in the glass. At ten years of age, she already
showed the promise of great beauty. A beauty she didn't intend to see wasted on
a farmer or the son of a squire or any of the lower branches of the aristocracy.
She was destined for greater things. One day she would be the marchioness of
Everleigh. And her beauty would be her most valuable tool.
She tightened her grip on the blanket. She shivered in the chilly air, but that
couldn't be helped. Her bedroom was freezing cold in the winter and
suffocatingly hot in the summer. Her father strutted around the village,
pretending to be a powerful man, a force with whom to be reckoned in the
district, but she knew better. Her father was a mere country squire. A country
squire with a pitifully small income. Lord Everleigh was the real power.
Everleigh, whose only son was a couple of years her elder. Everleigh, who had
given refuge to his younger brother's widow and his nephew. She watched them
from her perch in the window, watched as the two boys raced across the fields
on finely bred horseflesh. She'd already met the nephew and begun weaving her
spell around him. But at ten, she hadn't yet learned enough to control him.
That's why she often sneaked out of her bedroom and carefully spied on the
occupants of the room across the hall where her governess entertained her father
occupants of the room across the hall where her governess entertained her father
every Thursday night. It thrilled her to watch and listen as plain Miss Franklin
wheedled and cajoled her father into submission. He might rule the other rooms
of the house with a beefy fist and a leather strap, but her father was just a
quivering mass of groans, grunts, and sighs in the bedroom across the hall. And
the fact that he surrendered his will to a governess every Thursday night gave
her hope. She could see all the opportunities, the possibilities out of such
weakness.
There was sweet satisfaction in knowing her father could be so easily controlled.
And if her father could be controlled, so could other men--richer men, more
powerful men. She stared at the boys. One day, she promised herself--one day
she would have everything they had. One day she would own them both. She
simply had to bide her time and watch and learn. Manipulation was the way of
the world. The strong manipulated the weak. She was strong and she intended to
do more with her life. She had no intention of being meek and mild like her
mother, turning the other cheek while her husband fornicated with the governess
beneath her very nose, or of bowing and scraping to ladies of the peerage.
Her aspirations went far beyond that. She intended to rule. And she was willing
to hide in the wardrobe in a cold, dark bedroom every Thursday night to learn
the necessary talents that would give her power over men. She had already
learned a great deal, and she regularly practiced what she'd learned on
Everleigh's nephew. Every day Jack surrendered more of his will to her.
Eventually his cousin would, too.
She thrived on the thrill, the exquisite power of conquest.
If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares
The mist is dispelled when a woman appears.
--JOHN GAY 1685-1732
Chapter One
