D F Skertchly

The Last Princess D F Skertchly

Publisher Marketing: Born into the halcyon life of the Austrian royal court, Princess Marysa meets her prince charming at a dinner she is hosting for her father. It is love at first sight. Rudolf, an officer in the Imperial Hussars, wastes no time suing for her hand. They become engaged. She is sixteen and the year is 1913. A ring is bought ... but war breaks out. Rudolf dashes off to Serbia with her ring in his pocket, and Marysa has to be satisfied with rare, totally inadequate, letters. On his first home leave, she demands her ring, and then coaxes him into marrying her before he returns to the war. Bored and unhappy, Marysa flits around trying to be patriotic. She works briefly as a nurse, but faints when handed a leg and decides that this is not suitable work for a princess. The war is lost, the empire is lost, Austria becomes a republic and Rudolf goes into exile with the emperor, sending Marys, now pregnant, to England for safety. For seven years Marysa hears nothing from him and, assuming he is dead, she has an affair and becomes pregnant - and she is in this state when Rudolf reappears. Marysa, abandoned by her lover, moves to Belgium where she has several affairs, and when the war comes and the Nazis invade Belgium, she becomes involved in the underground. She is arrested by the Gestapo, tortured and is sent to Auschwitz, and ends up in Buchenwald. She is found alive in a mass grave, but close to death. It is an Army nurse who initiates a search for Rudolf; but he has begun a search of his own. Perhaps miracles do happen.