The Archduchess Hedwig von Habsburg of Austria stared out the window of her family's palace, lying in her bed beneath a cascade of silk and moonlight. Her nightgown shimmered faintly in the dark, but her eyes were fixed on the glowing lights of Vienna—a city that, in the past year, had become the soul of the German Reich.
She had no idea what was happening this very night across the continent in Lisbon. All she knew was what her father had told her earlier that day: she was to marry the exiled King of Portugal, Manuel II, who now lived in England.
He was only seven years her senior—a remarkably small age gap, by dynastic standards. She had never met him, only seen photographs and heard whispers.
