Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.
A grand masquerade themed around the changing seasons was being prepared, which struck Franz as strange. After all, in theory, such an event posed a security risk.
Besides, masquerades always brought to mind the dissolute habits of the old nobility. Though there was only a mask between people, it could still magnify the filth and depravity in some hearts without limit.
Masquerades were also often used for conspiracies. Austrians usually didn't hold banquets the way the French did; they preferred to use masquerades as a cover.
Now, however, the royal family of the Austrian Empire was planning to do just that. It was enough to make anyone wonder. Franz didn't understand Sophie's reasoning, and he didn't believe her political instincts could have grown so dull.
There could only be one truth: love had made her lose her head.
Franz did the math. Maximilian was already seventeen, and his younger sister Maria Anna was fourteen. Both were old enough to discuss marriage.
Still, Franz frowned. Meeting potential partners at a masquerade seemed far too unreliable.
What Franz didn't know was that, in Sophie's eyes, he was an unreliable man. And in her stereotyped view, unreliable men were always looking for love in equally unreliable places like this.
But Sophie had never imagined that Franz would send a stand-in to the masquerade she had so carefully planned.
In truth, Franz had no interest in it at all. And since it was a masquerade, the risk of his stand-in being exposed was reduced to a minimum.
The young nobles of Vienna had a wonderful time, and the event really did give some of them the chance to fall in love freely.
Sophie, however, was not at all happy. Franz had sent a stand-in, his second son Maximilian had nothing but