The Secret Diary of a Princess a novel of Marie Antoinette by Melanie Clegg Page A

and the Viennese hairdressers hired at great expense fussed and cajoled and whispered as they smoothed cherry red rouge on to her cheeks, sprayed her with violet scent and pinned her powdered hair on top of her head with diamond stars. She looked up as I entered the room, but barely seemed to see me.

    'Carolina?' I went to her and took her hand in mine, shocked by icily cold it was. 'Did you sleep well?' I did not know what else to say.  

    'No.' She sighed. 'I didn't.' A careless hairdresser tugged at one of her long blonde ringlets and she immediately slapped their hand away. 'Don't touch me, you imbecile!' she hissed, turning on them. 'Leave me alone!'

    The door opened and Christina swept in, dressed to impress in deep blue satin and a gorgeous sapphire necklace. 'More tantrums, Carolina?' she enquired, with one elegantly plucked eyebrow raised. 'Come now, it is not so bad as all that.'

    'Easy for you to say!' Carolina instantly replied, clenching her fists in her lap. 'Because of course Mama's precious favourite couldn't possibly be sent away to marry a complete stranger!' She glared at Christina for a moment before very deliberately turning her back.

    'Really, Carlotta.' Christina gestured for the servants and hairdressers to leave, which they did in great haste, although I suspect that they all tried their best to listen outside the door. 'I do wish that you would stop making these absurd and really quite disgraceful scenes.' Her eye fell upon me. 'Really, I do not know where you and Antonia have picked up such dreadful manners.'

    I stared at her open mouthed. 'But I haven't even done anything!' I protested.

    'Don't be so childish, Maria Antonia!' Christina snapped, unfurling her painted fan. 'And shut your mouth please. There is no need for you to stand gawping like a maidservant!'

    'For God's sake, Christina, leave Antonia alone!' Carolina snatched up a bottle of scent and seemed about to throw it when the door opened again and Amalia walked in, taking in the scene with one quick glance and immediately bursting into laughter. 'Oh, Christina, you never do learn do you?' she murmured, taking our elder sister by the elbow and swiftly steering her out of the door before she had quite realised what was happening. 'Why don't you go and bully some maids or something instead?' She closed the door and turned the key in the lock before turning back to Carolina with an enquiring smile curving her rosy red lips.

    'Thank you,' Carolina muttered, putting the scent back on her table and then stretching her shaking hands in front of her. 'She makes me so furious. You can have no idea.'

    Amalia smiled and went to kiss Carolina's forehead. 'Oh, I think that I can entirely understand. Remember that I have had to endure her for rather more years than you.' she said with a laugh before lifting up Carolina's chin with her fingers and frowning a little. 'Oh dear, you really do look quite the tragic heroine, my dear. Why so pale?'

    'It is all so totally insupportable,' Carolina said, picking up a pair of precious diamond bracelets and clumsily clasping them on to her wrists. 'I don't want to be married and leave Vienna forever and yet, somehow, I find myself unable to resist. I want to kick and scream and bellow and make a fuss and yet somehow here I am after all, sitting here, waiting to be married to a boy that I have never even met.'  

    'But of course,' Amalia replied, calmly picking up a ivory backed hair brush and some discarded pearl headed pins and setting to work on Carolina's half finished hair. 'Mama isn't lying when she says that she raised us to be obedient to her in all things. I expect that I too will be unable to resist when the time comes.' She brushed out a long flaxen tress and then pinned it into place. 'Even though I have more to lose than you.' She paused then and placed her hands on Carolina's shoulders, meeting her gaze in the mirror.

    'Why can't you just run away with Karl?' Carolina asked as I caught my