Chapter 489: The Proposal Part II
Shortly after having his meeting with Karl, Bruno departed for his home in Tyrol. There was no reason to extend his meeting beyond business. At least not in the Hofburg where he was only just barely welcomed as a result of Karl’s forgiveness.
But others in that ancient palace still bristled at his presence. And frankly, Bruno never felt comfortable in the halls of old monsters; men whose power had been won by more subterfuge and skullduggery than history cared to admit.
Thus, he was on the first train out of Vienna, and it was not long after Karl and Bruno’s meeting that the Archduke of Austria returned to his cousin, Sophie von Hohenberg. Sophie was the eldest child of the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.
While Franz Ferdinand had once been heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, his marriage had been morganatic, permitted, but politically disqualifying. His wife, born of Bohemian nobility, ensured that their children would inherit neither title nor succession rights.
Their assassinations in Sarajevo in 1914 at the hands of Young Bosnia, backed covertly by the Black Hand and the Serbian government had sparked the Great War in both this life and Bruno’s previous one.
The royal couple left behind children too young to comprehend the consequences. Sophie, barely on the cusp of adulthood at the time, had been the eldest.
In the years since, Karl had done everything he could to protect Sophie and her brothers. But that protection, however well-meaning, had an expiration date. As Sophie neared full adulthood, the threats became more real, and Karl could no longer guarantee their safety.
That was why he had sought out Bruno. Sophie knew this. She had sensed what her cousin was planning. And though she waited patiently for a word, she had convinced herself that Bruno would decline.
A man like him was powerful, calculating, and always strategic, naturally he would have no reason to accept. I mean how could he? She and her brothers quite literally had no title, no wealth, no legitimacy to offer him.
So when Karl knocked on her chamber door and entered with a face not of defeat, but joy, she was caught off guard.