The Secret Life of Lady Julia (14 page)

Stephen helped a portly woman in a fur-lined cloak out of the coach. She was crying, tears flowing over her red face as she clung to his hand. Her neck was bruised where her missing necklace had cut into her skin. Her maid followed, crying hysterically, her mouth bloody. The pitiful sight started several other women wailing too, realizing the danger they had all been in.

Julia stared at the pistol, then at the blood on the grass, and tasted bile. She felt light-headed but resisted the urge to faint. An arm came around her, holding her upright, and she was bundled toward a bench. “Sit down,” a man ordered in French. “I doubt I could catch you if you fainted.” He pressed a flask into her hands. “Drink,” he commanded, and she did so. Her eyes watered and she coughed as the heat of the spirits crept down her throat and through her limbs. He patted her back. “Well done,
mademoiselle
. Very well done,” he said. “This could all have ended rather badly, if not for you. If you were not English, I would compare you with Joan of Arc.”

She looked up at the gentleman leaning on an ornate cane, wearing a heavy cloak lined with thick fur. His sharp eyes took in her face, her clothes, everything, in a single sweeping glance.

“
Merci, monsieur
,” she said as she handed back the flask, and her voice came out a hoarse croak.

He pursed his lips. “
You
are thanking
me
?” He looked around. “Now that the excitement of the afternoon is over, I believe I shall go back to my lodgings and enjoy a hot cup of something well laced with brandy. I suggest you do the same,
mademoiselle
.” He bowed and walked away with a heavy limp.

Stephen came to find her, his face filled with concern. “I’m quite all right,” she managed. “Is everyone . . . ?”

“Yes, thanks to you.” He looked around the park. “Five of these people are actually Austrian policemen, all sent to snoop for secrets, and yet they were of no bloody use at all for anything else, it appears.” He held out a hand and she took it, surprised at how wobbly she felt. He tucked her hand under his arm and smiled, and she read pride in his eyes, admiration, and felt her cheeks flame. “The lady in the coach wishes to thank you,” he said, leading her in that direction.

“It isn’t necessary,” Julia said. “I just want to—” She wanted to go home and hold her son, kiss his soft curls, curl up and sleep, thankful it was over and everyone was safe. She looked at Stephen. “You weren’t hurt?”

His mouth quirked to one side in a wry grin. “No. You were very brave.”

“Was I? Foolish, perhaps,” she murmured.

“It’s what James might have done, if he’d been here,” he said, scanning the activity in the park as they walked toward the coach. “It seems I am beholden to yet another heroic Leighton.”

“James?” She felt her heart contract.

A liveried servant bore down on them over the grass, a man who had been on the coach. “Madam, the countess is most grateful,” he said stiffly in accented English. His eyes roamed over Julia as if she were one of the wonders of the world.

Like James.

“She begs you to name your reward,” the servant said, taking out a notepad and a stub of a pencil. He beamed at her hopefully, his brows raised in readiness.

Julia stared at the end of the pencil. Did he expect—hope—that she would ask for rubies, diamonds, emeralds? A king’s ransom in gold? Wasn’t that what the highwayman had demanded? She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.

His face melted and his jaw dropped. “But my lady is the wife of the Bavarian ambassador! You must!”

There was blood on the gray November grass, bright as roses.

Julia felt tears spring into her eyes. “The man I shot, is he—” she began. Stephen and the servant both turned to look in the direction the thieves had fled.

“No, unfortunately, they all got away,” the servant said. “There are men looking for them, have no fear, dear lady.”

“I’m not afraid!” she said fiercely. She was relieved. She had not taken a life. She turned to Stephen. “I must get back. Dorothea will be waiting and I have duties to see to.” She simply began walking, ignoring the quivering of her legs.

Stephen caught up with her. “Are you quite all right?” he asked. “You’re as pale as a sheet.”

“Yes,” she said. “At least, I think so. I have never shot anyone before.”

He chuckled. “You did very well. What did Prince de Talleyrand say to you?” he asked.

She looked up at him in confusion. “Who?”

“The gentleman with the cane. He’s the French ambassador. Lord Castlereagh refers to him as the Old Fox.”

She blinked at him. Bavarian countesses, the French ambassador—was there anyone in Vienna who hadn’t been in the park this afternoon?

She swallowed, tasted the brandy on her tongue. “He thanked me, and gave me brandy to drink, said it would calm my nerves.”

He guided her homeward in silence, too stunned, perhaps, to speak of ordinary things now.

The palace came into view, yellow light spilling out over the blue shadows of twilight. She would go in, ask for a hot bath, see her son, and do all the ordinary things that needed do be taken care of. Dorothea wanted a pattern book from Paris. She wanted pastries ordered from a little café where she had taken coffee with Peter Bowen . . . She glanced at Stephen Ives’s shadowed profile, felt the warmth coming from his body next to hers in the chill evening, watched the way their footsteps marched together. Had she fallen in with his pace, or he with hers? Like soldiers, marching, as he might have marched with James. She realized that he had not told her what he’d wanted to say to her, that the events of the afternoon had interrupted him. That conversation had been the point of their excursion, the reason why they were in the park at all. It suddenly seemed very important to know what he wanted to discuss.

“What did you wish to speak to me about, my lord?” she asked as they reached the steps of the palace. She held her breath, hoping it was a task that would take her mind off the events of the afternoon, something mundane and dull and—

Stephen turned to look at her in the soft blue light of the evening, his eyes in shadow. “I—” he began, then swallowed audibly. “I wanted to say—oh, bugger it!” He pulled her into his arms, and his mouth descended on hers, his lips warm against her wind-chilled skin. His mouth slanted over her as if he were starving. Surprised, she held onto his lapels and allowed the kiss, felt relief in it, the antithesis of fear. Their warm breath rose around them, misty in the cold. He kissed her until they heard footsteps coming along the street toward them and he was forced to stop, and reluctantly stepped back. She stared at him in the light from the doorway, too stunned to even nod as Stephen tipped his hat to the passerby. She raised her gloved hand to her lips. Why on earth would he—

He brushed a lock of hair out of his face and watched the figure disappear into the twilight. “We’d better go inside.”

She hurried up the steps and into the warm glow of the foyer. Servants arrived at once to take their coats. “I must see Castlereagh,” he murmured to her. “Make a report of what happened. Go upstairs and rest. I shall see you at dinner.” He paused. “No wait, I have an official engagement this evening. Later, perhaps? Or at breakfast?”

He looked boyishly eager, his eyes and cheeks and lips bright with the cold, and the kiss.

She nodded, still unable to trust her voice not to shake. It had been the stress of the moment, the aftermath of the frightening events in the park. He’d wanted to soothe her, offer her his thanks. It was the shock that had made him kiss her like that.

He was probably mortified he’d gone so far, kissed a ruined lady, a servant.

But when she met his eyes, she read his desire to kiss her again—a warmth in his eyes, a longing that made her breath catch in her throat and stick there. He turned to the servants, asking them to fetch tea and sherry and send it upstairs to her room at once, before he strode off down the hall toward the ambassador’s study.

“Was it cold outside, miss? Cook says it’s going to snow tonight. He says his bunions are never wrong,” the footman said, and chuckled.

Was it cold out? She felt hot all over. Couldn’t they tell he’d kissed her?

But everything was perfectly normal, exactly as it had been when they’d left, scarcely two hours earlier.

How was that possible?

Chapter 21

T
homas arrived at the dowdy inn on the edge of the city just as Donovan screamed as they dug the bullet out of his leg. The valet had sent a tavern wench to fetch him, and she’d babbled the incoherent message that the Irishman was dying.

It turned out the shot had simply ruined Donovan’s boots and buried itself in his calf muscle, but missed the bones and vital tendons. He was laid out on a table, writhing in pain as they removed the ball.

“A pint of rum. Half on the wound, half down his gullet,” the rough surgeon said, and the barkeep had laughed.

“Aye, listen to Hans. He’s the best vet in town!”

“Vet?” Donovan moaned, and fainted. Thomas winced as he watched them pour the rum into the wound and bandage it.

“What the hell was he doing?” Thomas demanded, looking at the blank faces of the men who sat around the scarred table that had served as a makeshift operating theater.

Another man came into the circle of lamplight that surrounded the table, wiping his hands, his face freshly shaven, his clothing clean, an eagle among vultures. “A robbery in the park, gone wrong.” He made it sound like a child’s prank, a skinned knee.

He held out a hand to Thomas. “My name is Erich. I’m glad to meet you at last, Herr Merritt, even under such circumstances. I have been waiting for a chance to speak to you for some weeks, and you have refused all my invitations. I am sorry it took this to bring you here.” Erich looked down at Donovan’s unconscious form without an ounce of pity in his gaze.

Thomas felt unease prickle at his scalp. Of course, he should have recognized the man from Donovan’s descriptions. Vienna’s King of Thieves, and his merry men, though not one of the mongrels surrounding the table looked merry in the least. They were downtrodden, whipped dogs. He didn’t bother to take the man’s hand. “You’re Donovan’s Robin Hood,” he muttered. “Is this how you thought it best to get my attention, to shoot my valet?”

Erich’s lips quirked as if Thomas had said something funny, but his eyes remained cold. He repeated the comment to his fellows in German, which Thomas didn’t understand, and there was a brief round of forced laughter at Thomas’s expense.

“I didn’t shoot him. A woman did, in the park. She had a pistol in her purse.” He indicated a seat. “Is this a usual habit with English ladies? Come and sit down, have a drink.”

Thomas’s skin prickled again. “She was English?”

Erich shrugged. “She was with an English officer, so I assume she was. Anyone you know?”

Thomas frowned. Would the lady who owned the watch, such a sweet, sentimental token of love, carry a pistol? It didn’t fit. Lady Castlereagh herself would be well guarded, with a whole platoon of crack shots, meaning she wouldn’t need to carry a gun. “No.”

Donovan stirred, groaning. “Give him the rum now,” the vet ordered, and took a swig from his own pint of grog. The tavern wench propped his head on her shoulder and fed him sips of rum.

“Merritt. You came. I wasn’t sure you’d bother,” Donovan muttered. “Shall I make the introductions?” His face was white and drawn with pain. A slick trail of rum flowed over his chin.

“We’ve all met,” Thomas said. “What the devil were you doing? Do you even know which end of a pistol the bullet comes out of?”

Donovan managed a pained smirk. “Someone’s got to earn a living. Did Erich tell you?”

“Tell me what? That you’ve traded your valet’s coat for a bandit’s mask?” he said. “It doesn’t suit you, Patrick.”

Donovan smiled wanly at the use of his first name. “Ah, so we’re friends again. You’ve barely spoken to me for weeks, and after I made all the arrangements you wanted.”

Thomas frowned. “What arrangements?”

“You were looking for an English lady,” Erich said. “Donovan told me you wished to return something to her.”

Thomas gave him the most aristocratic glare he could manage, damning the criminal for his impudence without saying a word, though his heart hammered against his breastbone.

Erich grinned, all teeth and malice, and Thomas half expected them to drag the poor Englishwoman out of the back room, bloodied and broken. Instead, the thief merely took a place across the table from him. They stood facing each other and Donovan lay between them, a living, battered border between the worlds of good and evil. Thomas wondered which side of the border his valet resided on now. “Sit, drink,” Erich invited him again, but he remained standing, his posture stiff.

Erich snapped his fingers and the wench brought him a glass of schnapps. He quaffed it at a gulp, and she poured another.

“I shall tell you what I know, then,” Erich said. “All the English ladies with the British Embassy have apartments on the second floor of the palace on the Minoritenplatz. The ambassador and his wife live on the third floor, and the first floor serves as offices and reception rooms. There, I have given you something you wanted. Does that help you?”

Thomas kept his expression blank. “Not at all. Why should it?”

“The watch. You said you wanted to return it, wanted to find the lady,” Donovan reminded him, as if he were an idiot, the rum taking effect now. “Well, she’s likely in there, on the second floor, now isn’t she? You’ll have to get inside, at night. Erich thought you might climb through a window on the second floor.”

Climb through a window?
“Why?” Thomas asked again.

Donovan tsked drunkenly. “Because you can’t simply walk up to the door and pay your respects, demand to see what’s-her-name who lost the watch with the bloody huge diamond on the case. Especially since the diamond is long gone, and there’s bound to be some awkward questions ’bout that. ’Sides, Lord Stewart is in there. You remember him, don’t you? Good friend of your brother’s, better friend of his wife’s?”

Thomas felt his legs turn to water, and he took the offered seat at last. He felt the thief’s eyes on him, and kept his expression flat. Stewart. He’d heard that he was in Vienna, had known he would be. Donovan was quite right. It was a reason to steer clear of the British Embassy altogether. But the watch was in his pocket, waiting.

Erich simply began talking, as if Thomas had agreed to something he hadn’t. Yet.

“There is a wide ledge around the second floor. You can get in at the back, where there aren’t any guards, because those rooms are right above the stables, where the guards are housed. If you’re careful, they won’t see you in the dark.” He grinned. “Are you careful? Donovan seems to think you are a master thief indeed.”

He wasn’t. He’d climbed trees and hills, but never walls
. Thomas folded his arms over his chest, tried to look like he knew exactly whet they were talking about. “Go on.”

“Once you are inside, you can find the lady, or leave the watch where it will be located and returned to her by someone else, if you prefer,” Erich said. “The staff will probably be blamed for the loss of the diamond. You’ll have to be careful after that.”

“After that?” Thomas asked.

Erich smiled coldly. “A favor for a favor, Herr Merritt. I have given you something you want, now you must give me something I want. The English guard their palace as if the crown jewels of England were inside.” He smirked. “If they are, I want you to bring them out.”

Thomas gaped at him. He could charm a lady, purloin her earrings, slip a ring off her finger in the heat of passion, but he wasn’t a housebreaker. He glanced at Donovan, who knew that he had dared to lie, to increase his stock with this man by embellishing tales about Thomas’s skills as a thief. His valet just shrugged, then winced at the pain.

“They want the Order of the Garter Lady Castlereagh was wearing as a hat at the Emperor’s ball,” he said.

“Tiara,” Thomas corrected him. “I have no idea where, or even how—” he began.

Erich laughed, a low mirthless growl. “But you are English, raised in a noble home. You know the kinds of places where English lords hide their valuables, do you not?”

“ ’Course he does,” Donovan said. He grimaced as he tried to sit up, then fell back, too drunk or in too much pain. “It will be the easiest thing in the world. Erich’s lads will create a distraction so you can slip inside. Once there, leave the watch and take the hat. Simple as that.”

Simple as that. So was a hanging.

“And if I don’t?”

Erich sighed, took a pistol out of his waistband and laid it on Donovan’s chest. “We’ll have to shoot you, my friend. We’ll shoot you in the leg, like Donovan here. Then we’ll leave you where the authorities can find you. The Bavarian ambassador wants the man who attacked his wife. There’s a warrant out for a man with a bullet in his leg, and a substantial reward. He won’t care if it’s the wrong man. Everything about this damned conference is all for appearance anyway, truth and justice be damned. And since you don’t speak any German to defend yourself—” He shrugged expressively and ground his thumb into Donovan’s wound, making the valet scream. “Meanwhile, Herr Donovan would be entirely expendable.”

“God, Merritt, do as he says!” Donovan panted, clutching at Thomas’s hand, leaving a smear of grime on his skin. Tainted, Thomas thought, staring at the mark, just like Donovan or Erich. As bad as they were.

Thomas met Erich’s cold smile, and felt a bead of sweat roll down his back. He had no choice. He couldn’t let Donovan die of stupidity, since that’s what this whole thing amounted to. When—if—they got out of this, he’d . . .

What? Dismiss the fool without references?

Erich’s glare was burning a hole in his forehead. Planning a suitable punishment for Donovan would have to wait until he’d saved his life.

“Tomorrow night,” he said, feeling as if he was sitting on a shifting pile of sand in a snake-infested river.

“Tonight, I think, would be better,” Erich said. “There’s no moon.”

Thomas had no argument for that logic. He nodded, a brief jerk of his head, and Erich extended his hand, his smile cold. This time there was no choice but to take it.