The Annals of Cheskovscha

Adam Dumphy

Description

Marriage by proxy was not uncommon in England during World War I. Couples separated by great distances and for long periods of time found comfort in this real if not physical sacrament. It did, however, lead to some unlikely unions.

Among the Royals it was different. Victoria’s numerous progeny were already checkerboarded by marriage across the length and breadth of Europe that all might continue to enjoy the privileges they were accustomed to. And their marriages for political or hereditary reasons had already produced many most unlikely couples such as a nice English girl wed to a cretin with a drool and vice versa.

Also the dislocation of people and populations resulting from the war left the status of most royal families uncertain as to who were still alive and if they were still enjoying the royal life style.

In an attempt to reestablish the age-old royal lines and royal prerogatives, proxy marriages were strongly encouraged by the Court. So it was that an English Viscount on a Grand Tour and caught behind enemy lines when the war began, simply assumed his other honorary position inherited from his grandfather, that of Colonel of the Second  Regiment of the Swedish Christian Grenadiers and became a neutral and safe from internment.

He, and a Duchess by birth, also a Countess by marriage and a “Lady” in England were united at long distance in the bonds, or perhaps the bondage, of matrimony to protect her under his neutrality.

When they fictionally meet in a fictional Duchy on the Rhine a delicate situation results. It did not however interfere with their discovery and purloining of a German decoding machine for their country’s Secret Service.

And a happy marriage.

Sujets

• Romance
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 02 juin 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781467096256
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Annals of Cheskovscha
(Courtship of a Married Couple)
by
Adam Dumphy

 
AuthorHouse™
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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.
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This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
 
© 2006 Adam Dumphy. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
First published by AuthorHouse 5/25/2006
 
ISBN: 1-4259-3157-X (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4670-9625-6 (ebk)
 
 
 
 
Printed in the United States of America
Bloomington, Indiana
 
 
Contents
Chapter 1  
Chapter 2  
Chapter 3  
Chapter 4  
Chapter 5  
Chapter 6  
Chapter 7  
Chapter 8  
Chapter 9  
Chapter 10  
Chapter 11  
Chapter 12  
Chapter 13  
Chapter 14  
Chapter 15  
Chapter 16  
Chapter 17  
Chapter 18  
Chapter 19  
Chapter 20  
Chapter 21  
Chapter 22  
Chapter 23  
Chapter 24  
About the Author:  
 
For
Irene
THE ANNALS OF CHESKOVSCHA
Part One
 
Chapter 1  
Perhaps it was the near certain knowledge that this Benefit Ball would be the last for some time, perhaps the last ever, given by the Grand Duchy of Cheskovscha that made it seem so brilliant, so very memorable. For the tragedy of Sarajevo, only two days before, hung like a shroud over every mind. And the fear of the reaction of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his Duchess made continued peace problematical.
For the Duchy, a little pocket of Cheskovschans, encircled by the great stretches of Serbs, must of necessity share the same fate as their Serbian neighbors. Did it matter to the Emperor of the Dual Monarchy, to the Kaiser, to the Caliphate or to the Czar that the Cheskovschans were not Serbs? They were definitely not.
What they were no one knew for certain. They were only themselves. A tall, fair race, sensitive, artistic, and intelligent but marked unquestionably by the persistent recurrence of the dark, rich, red hair so noticeable and remarkable in their women.
That unusual chestnut red which seemed like reflected sunlight as seen through a darkened mirror was such a dominant gene that it overwhelmed the numerous strains of dark haired invaders. Invaders from east and west and north and south who had at regular intervals over the centuries conquered and ruled over the Duchy briefly.
Easterners said, and were both envious and proud of the fact, that the Cheskovschans were a pocket of Ukrainian Circassians, driven west in the eleven hundreds by wars and famine to settle in the sheltered valley by the great river. And there to flourish, becoming the trading center of Mittel Europa and with the great wealth they had accrued to become the reflection of Paris in the Balkans.
Westerners said, and were both envious and proud of the fact, that they were descendants of Frankish Knights of the Second Crusade, driven north after the debacle at Acre.
Northerners, both proud and touchy, said they were, of course, Vikings from the Nordic strains that had gradually filtered up the Vistula to other lesser Prussian rivers to the Danube to become the picked troops of the Sultanate at Constantinople.
And the Turks just occupied without worrying about origin.
All admitted with regret that the Cheskovschans were independent of anyone just now and militant about the fact. And of course both Austria-Hungary and Bismarck’s Germany considered that unquestionably the Duchy belonged to each of them. The Checko’s freedoms had been so brief in the past, and so hard won, from the Turks only within the last forty years for instance, that no one but they themselves believed in it. And their flourishing so brilliantly as a result of their location on a junction of the two rivers, the Cheskovscha and the Danube, that they were a ripe plum to be picked off by any, at any time.
And how could they resist the might of any conqueror, comprising a half hundred square miles only, mainly one large valley but mostly just the gracious city of Cheskovscha-Regal ruling over its seven bridges and nine hills?
In any event the Hall of Mirrors in the Cheskovscha Summer Palace had never sparkled so brilliantly under the glow of a hundreds of cut glass chandeliers, only recently electrified, a wondrous thing. The banks of flowers along every wall matched exactly the tints of the rose and gold tapestries lining the massive stone walls. And the gilt of the painted ceilings and arches high over head were never more sultry. The music and laughter and conversation were also brilliant and gay and if there was an undercurrent of desperation to the gayety who could blame them?
The Ball, a yearly event, was announced this year as a benefit for the St. Boniface Hospital for Sick children in Cheskovscha Ducal. It was actually a benefit for the court beauties of the Duchy that they might, each year, be displayed to the world and admired. For against the background of black-suited gentleman, were the formal gowns of Cheskovscha’s beauties and pride, unquestionably the handsomest women in all Europe. Nor were they in subdued colors but to set off their own glowing skin and auburn coiffures there were no pastels, but rather gowns in scarlet and emerald and purple and gold.
The lights reflected on bare shoulders and arms white as creamery cream, décolletage to the extreme over magnificent bosoms, tiny waists, skirts so full that each had to turn and be helped to edge through the great double doors to the ballroom.
Green eyes and blue, grey and melting brown, but all through the company was the auburn tint of hair that was a hallmark of Cheskovschans. They twirled with their partners around the great room in the slow stately valsette of the country looking like bejeweled candle snuffers from the great Mosques of the East. Turning right, turning left, bending back, bending forward, but only slightly forward, that what should not be further revealed by the low cut gowns, was not.
And they were freely and unhesitantly admired. The burghers of the town had lined the streets to watch and admire the arrival of the fortunate few who were invited to dance at the Ball. The great windows of the north and east walls were still, at this late hour, lined with admirers standing and peering over one another’s heads. From the balcony the haute monde of every country in Europe and Asia mingled in elbowing ease to see and to be seen. Perched stiffly on straight chairs about the west wall were the Matrons of the Duchy. Not chaperones as the women at this affair were not children needing chaperones, but the blossoms of the regime who allowed little chaperoning. The Grand Dames were observing and enforcing the edicts that five hundred years of an almost unnatural vanity demanded. And if the Grand Dames showed some wrinkles in the still slender necks or some excessive padding beneath their tightly corseted waist they were still gowned as dramatically if not more so than the dancers.
Jewels sparkled there to cover wrinkles and cascaded from ear lobes and necks onto breasts in graceful if affected elegance. All were smiling and vivacious… Well perhaps not everyone. Seated in the very center of the row of Matrons was a slender woman with the flaming hair of her clan. Obviously although she could have displayed as straight, slender shoulders, full bosom and tiny waist as any there she did not. Her gown was of auburn to match her hair but a subdued auburn in a heavy brocade so rich as to stand alone without stays or petticoats. But it was high necked with sleeves to the wrist as became a matron and proclaiming the fact that she was married and not available to dancing and flirting.
Not that plenty of the beauties on the dance floor weren’t married in some degree or another, but she in several ways was quite different from the others. The soul of the Duchy she was its young Duchess, an acknowledged beata, a young woman married to an octogenarian for reasons of inheritance, and as a result she was held separate from the others as if by chains of sterling silver.
As she sat perfectly still, the grey eyes so calm and pleasant, who could know that beneath the stiff, widespread skirt her toes were dancing to the music, And behind those grey eyes in her mind she was twirling left, twirling right, with those before her. Still to the outward eye she sat quietly silent and alone in a crowd. Not that she was often left unattended or lacked for admirers, for earlier in the evening she had been the center of a larger circle than any one there. And these men, young and old, she had fascinated and charmed with practiced ease. But it was now late in the evening and the liaisons for the after-ball affairs, whether clandestine or legitimate, had by now been arranged. And since she could not continue the evening at one or another of the justly famous late night bistros of the city, The Cafe International, The Lido, The Chez Paris or the Leopard’s Spot, she was of necessity alone.
It might have been that a sudden surging of envy or despair was the cause that made her stand so suddenly. At any rate she turned away from the dancers to hide moisture at her eyelids and so suddenly that a German General Officer coming from the secluded corne