Vienna Waltz (21 page)

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Authors: Teresa Grant

Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Mystery & Suspense

BOOK: Vienna Waltz
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“A carriage tried to run us down. Do you remember?”
“Got hit. Stupid—”
“Hardly stupid. You got me out of the way and managed not to get yourself killed. For both of which I’m exceedingly grateful.”
“Should have been quicker.”
“You’re the one always saying not to waste time on regrets. Hold still a moment, darling. Your head’s bleeding.”
Malcolm might be too hard on himself, but at least he wasn’t foolhardy. He stayed still while she finished examining his scalp. Though blood matted his hair, it had stopped flowing and the wound did not appear serious. She helped him sit up. “Are you dizzy?”
“No.”
“Liar.” She retrieved his beaver hat, which had rolled into the corner by the door, brushed it off, and returned it to him. “Do you think they were trying to kill us or just scare us?”
“I don’t know, but we certainly could have been killed.” He settled his hat on his head. “Either way, it could have been a trap by the man who spoke to me last night and sent us to the tavern, but why—”
“Send us somewhere we could obtain real information.”
“Quite. I think it’s more likely Axel sent word after we spoke with him. There would have been time to arrange for the carriage while we were interviewing the others and then talking to Heinrich.” He pushed himself to his feet, almost steadily if one didn’t look too closely, and reached down to help her up. He tucked her hand through his arm, but she wasn’t the one he spoke to. “Tania, what the
hell
had you stumbled into?”
21
“Y
ou think Tatiana Kirsanova discovered some sort of secret conspiracy that threatens the Congress?” Lord Castlereagh stood at the desk in his study, drumming his fingers on the polished mahogany.
“That’s what the evidence suggests.”
Castlereagh fixed Malcolm with the stare he used across the council table. “The evidence is that Princess Tatiana visited a tavern in a less than savory part of town and asked questions about a group of men meeting there.”
“Foreign men meeting about something so secret someone tried to kill Suzanne and me when we got too close to it.”
“The carriage could have been an accident.”
“Believe me, sir, I know the difference.”
Castlereagh strode to the windows and stared out across the rain-drenched square at the lodgings of his half brother, Lord Stewart, Britain’s official ambassador to Vienna. “These men could be dealers in stolen artifacts. We know Princess Tatiana was one herself.” He turned and regarded Malcolm, the gray light from the window at his back. “We have matters to consider that are weightier than personal feelings. But I’m not insensible of the strain the princess’s death has placed upon you.”
“Believe me, sir, I’m perfectly capable—”
“For God’s sake, Malcolm.” Castlereagh took two impatient steps toward him. “Suzanne isn’t here. We can stop pretending. I know what Tatiana Kirsanova was to you. I won’t say I approve your relationship with her. But I wouldn’t be human did I not make allowances for your feelings for her.” Castlereagh, notorious through Vienna for his surprising fidelity to his wife, tugged a crisp shirt cuff smooth beneath the well-cut superfine of his coat. “And I believe I am human, whatever some of my detractors in the House of Commons may say.”
“Sir.” Malcolm clasped his hands behind his back. “I learned long since to put my personal feelings aside when it comes to matters of policy.”
“My dear boy, you’re desperate to believe there was some good in Princess Tatiana, and that she thought more of you than of all the others she played against one another.” Castlereagh crossed to Malcolm and gripped his shoulders. “Desperate enough that you’ll grasp hold of any shred of evidence. Desperate enough that you’ll overlook the fact that Tatiana Kirsanova was an unscrupulous adventuress who lived by her wits. Who took a string of men to her bed, including Napoleon Bonaparte. Who occasionally gave us worthwhile information but was no more loyal to us than to anyone else and had the morals of a—”
Malcolm jerked away from Castlereagh’s hold. He stopped himself, hand raised, a split second before he struck the foreign secretary a blow to the jaw.
Castlereagh regarded him steadily. “Point taken, I believe.”
“Your pardon, sir,” Malcolm said, appalled. “I—”
“It’s all right, Malcolm. I provoked you to it. Deliberately.”
“And proved your point to admirable effect.” Malcolm rubbed his hand. “But granted I’m not the most clear-sighted person where Tatiana is concerned, of all the people we have access to, I best understand the workings of her mind. You ordered me to discover who killed her.”
“I’m beginning to question my judgment.” Castlereagh moved back to the desk and folded the London-couriered copy of the
Morning Post
that lay atop it into neat quarters. “You’ve been talking to Adam Czartoryski.”
“I thought talking to our fellow diplomats was the point of the incessant round of entertainments we endure in Vienna,” Malcolm said, mindful of the secrecy he owed Czartoryski.
Castlereagh set the newspaper aside and aligned the papers on his ink blotter. “I should have known Czartoryski’s veneer of liberal principles would draw you in.”
“I think it’s more than a veneer.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Castlereagh spun round to face Malcolm. “If Czartoryski has his way, we’ll be facing a Russian empire that reaches its tentacles west through Poland.”
“Czartoryski wants freedom for his country, with its own constitution. In our concern about Russian influence, we’ve rather lost sight of what the Poles want.”
“Dear God, you sound like the Opposition talking at home. Czartoryski was trained in intrigue in the court of Catherine the Great. He can be as ruthless as anyone in Vienna, and he’s pushing Tsar Alexander in a ruinous direction.”
“With all due respect, I’m more worried about Count Otronsky and his dreams of Russian empire.”
“That’s because Otronsky doesn’t pull the wool over your eyes by going about quoting Locke and Paine.”
Malcolm gave a short laugh. “You seem to think I’ve lost perspective about more than just Tatiana.”
“Not entirely. You’re still the best brain I have at my disposal. Just try to remember the truth may take you places you don’t wish to go.”
Malcolm drew a breath. The air smelled of damp and candle smoke. “If Tatiana did stumble upon a plot, I presume you want to learn what the plot was. Unless—”
“Yes?”
The sound of rain lashing the window echoed through the room, punctuated by a faint hiss from the porcelain stove.
Malcolm stared at the blue tiles of the stove and the flickering flame within. He turned his gaze back to the foreign secretary. “Unless, of course, you already knew of this plot.”
“What the devil—”
“My mysterious source warned me to trust no one.”
Castlereagh’s lips whitened with an anger he had not displayed when Malcolm nearly struck him. “You’d trust your mysterious source over me?”
“My dear sir, you’ve always said you value my tendency to question everything.”
Eithne’s maid was setting a Vaughn family tiara on her mistress’s head when Fitz came into the room. At the sight of his reflection in the looking glass, every muscle in Eithne’s body tensed.
“That will be all, Mary,” she said, as the weight of her tiara settled against her scalp.
Mary, who had grown up on Eithne’s father’s estate and had been with Eithne since she was a bride, smoothed the lace at the neck of Eithne’s gown and twitched her sash straight, then curtsied and withdrew.
Eithne sat very still, conscious of Fitz’s gaze upon her in the mirror.
“You look lovely,” he said. “I’m sorry, I know I’m late.”
“Your costume for the Carrousel was sent round this afternoon.”
“I’ll dress quickly.”
“Fitz.” Eithne turned round on the dressing table bench, smoothing her heavy embroidered skirts. “I don’t know if this makes it easier or harder for you. But I know.”
“Know?” His gaze moved over her face.
“That you were Tatiana Kirsanova’s lover.”
He went as still and cold as an image carved in ice. Then he took a half step forward. “Darling—”
“Don’t.”
“Oh, Eithne.” He seemed frozen to the spot. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“Which doesn’t alter the fact that you did.” She got to her feet, conscious of Fitz’s mother’s sapphires heavy round her throat and the matching earrings swinging from her ears. “I still remember the day we met. That evening at Almack’s. I’d had my toes trod upon by one too many recent undergraduates, and then I turned round and saw you coming across the room toward me. I thought you were the most handsome man I’d ever seen.”
“Eithne—” Her name was a harsh rasp upon his lips.
“But that wasn’t when I fell in love with you.” She picked up one of her embroidered evening gloves from the dressing table and began to pull it on. The French kid was smooth and cool against her skin. “A fortnight or so later my brother and I met you riding in the park. Johnny hung back to allow us time to talk. You told me you’d taken up fishing to give you something to share with your stepbrother. So many people resent intrusions into their family, and here you were, looking for a way to make it easier for him. I thought then that you weren’t just the handsomest man I’d ever met but quite possibly the kindest. I wrote in my diary that night that I was sure I’d love you forever.” She reached for her second glove. “It’s amazing how long I went on believing that.”
She saw Fitz swallow, saw the thoughts chase themselves through his brain. “And now?”
“I can’t believe I was ever so naïve as to believe love existed.”
He took a step toward her, then checked himself. “I have no right to ask anything of you. Least of all that you believe I speak the truth when I say I can’t imagine a life without you.”
She tugged her gloves smooth. “You’re used to me, and change is difficult, particularly for men.”
“Don’t, Eithne.” His voice slammed against the silk-hung walls with sudden force. “Call me any names you will but don’t cheapen what I feel for you.”
“Why not? You’ve already cheapened it yourself.”
He strode forward and stopped, a handsbreadth from her dressing table. “My God, do you really think that of me?”
“I think you cared deeply for Tatiana Kirsanova. Perhaps I’m giving you too much credit, but I’d like to believe you wouldn’t have acted as you did if your feelings weren’t engaged.”
Fitz scraped a hand through his hair. “I did love her. Or I thought I did. But it was entirely different from—”
“The comfortable, prosaic, domestic love you feel for me?” The words were like acid on her tongue.
“Of course not. But there’s no denying we’ve—”
“Grown used to each other.” The unaccustomed rage drained from her body, leaving her winded. Perhaps this was how prize-fighters felt after sparring. She dropped back on the dressing table bench. “Even all the time you were in the Peninsula, it never occurred to me that you would—Perhaps it should have done.”
“No.” He crouched down beside her, his gaze level with her own. “There wasn’t anyone else. Though I don’t expect you to believe me.”
His eyes had that expression that always tugged at her heart. She was disgusted to find that it was still so. And at the same time oddly relieved. “I do, though I fear I’m being a fool.” She reached out and pushed his hair off his forehead, then pulled her hand back.
“Never that, Eithne.” He reached for her hand, then he, too, let his own fall to his side. “I’m the one who wasn’t worthy of your trust.”
She plucked at the satin of her gown. “It must be horrible for you. Losing her.”
“I—Yes.” He drew a rough breath. “Thank you for understanding.”
“I seem to be able to hate you and yet at the same time—” She shook her head. “I told Suzanne I knew about the affair.”
His gaze shot to her face.
“Oh, I’d worked out that they’d already discovered the truth. I knew they were bound to do so. You should have realized that, Fitz. You can be far too naïve.”
“Malcolm suspects—” Pain swept over his face. “I never thought one of my closest friends could think such a thing of me.”
“How could he not?”
Fitz’s gaze froze on her face. Cold horror filled his eyes. “You aren’t sure, are you?”
She looked back at him. The man she had loved and trusted without question now seemed as much an illusion as a prince in the fairy tales she read to her children. “How
could
I be sure? I’ve been so willfully blind in so many ways.”
“But you must know I’d never—”
“I can’t finish that sentence anymore.”
He pushed himself to his feet. “I never wanted to turn you into—”
“A cynic? More a realist. My dear, are you really sure you can say with confidence that you don’t suspect me?”
Blanca adjusted the diamond clasps on Suzanne’s black velvet overdress, then twitched her slashed sleeves so they fell to show a glimpse of the white satin beneath. “You look like a princess.”
Suzanne laughed. “I’ll look more like a lady-in-waiting when I’m in company with all the other
belles d’amour
.”
Colin, sitting on the carpet with his wooden blocks, stretched up his arms to Suzanne. “Pretty.”
“Thank you, darling.” Suzanne scooped him up. A twinge ran through her shoulder, though it was already much improved since last night. She pressed a kiss to her son’s forehead. “I’m glad you appreciate all the time it takes to create an elaborate toilette. It’s an excellent quality in a gentleman.” She glanced at the clock on the escritoire. “I’d best get Malcolm. The carriage will be round soon.”
Malcolm had dressed first and then gone to the attachés’ sitting room to review some papers while Blanca helped her into her Carrousel finery. Suzanne gave Colin to Blanca, picked up her long veil, and made her way down the passage to the sitting room. She turned the handle without knocking, but as she started to push the door panels open, a sound turned her blood to ice. A cry of naked anguish, sharper than a sob.
She eased the door shut and waited the length of several heartbeats, her mouth dry and her chest tight with bitter acknowledgment. At last she drew a steadying breath and rapped loudly on the door panels. “Malcolm? I’m dressed at last. The carriage will be round in a few minutes.”

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