Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (27 page)

When she returned
to the drawing room, Lizzie was slightly alarmed to see a group of young men all gazing at Henrietta as if not merely dazzled but stunned. Admittedly, Henrietta had that effect on most people. If she noticed it at all, she thought they were rude for staring.

“You have an extraordinarily beautiful family,” Mr. Grassic observed, standing beside Lizzie.

“You mean Henrietta,” Lizzie said candidly. “She is fifteen years old. By the time she’s seventeen, I suspect she’ll need a bodyguard.”

Mr. Grassic smiled. “She’s a most charming, unaffected child. They all are.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie said, smiling with genuine pleasure. “In England, society would find them far too…
much
for civilized company, but here in Vienna, things seem rather more relaxed. Mrs. Fawcett is very brave to have us all.”

*

Vanya, having learned
from Mrs. Fawcett that Herr Schmidt had simply disappeared from the inn during the night—“At any rate, he was nowhere to be found this morning,” the redoubtable lady had informed him while supervising the disposal of furniture to accommodate her afternoon at home—gave up looking for him in the streets around the police building and went home.

He could have gone in and inquired or even sought an interview with Baron Hager, the police minister, but he suspected Schmidt didn’t want that kind of attention drawn to himself. Vanya certainly didn’t want to get the man into any more trouble. At least, not unless he gave Vanya any.

“You are coming this afternoon?” Mrs. Fawcett had called after him as he’d left him.

“Sorry, I can’t,” he’d replied hastily and not entirely truthfully.

“The Gaunts will all be there.”

He was almost tempted. The desire to see Lizzie again, even if only to feel her cold glare of contempt on his face, was undeniably strong and when put with the prospect of whatever chaos the children and dog would produce, the pull was almost irresistible.

“Then I’ll do them a kindness and stay away. Au revoir, Madame!”

Her voice drifted after him as he grabbed his hat from the hall table. “Well, I insist you come to my masquerade ball on Monday.”

“You’re very kind!” he called back noncommittedly and bolted.

He decided to go home and write notes to a few friends and, later, to visit Princess Bagration and find out what the rumors were among the Russians and their relations with members of the British delegation. People were usually happy to gossip to him about Blonsky, hoping for some wild or entertaining reaction to take back to the rumor mill.

Misha had left two letters for him, propped up in front of the invitation cards on the mantelpiece. One scented epistle was clearly from Sonia. He threw it on the table and with a groan, tore open the other bearing the tsar’s seal.

His Cossacks weren’t good at escort duty. They enjoyed showing off and gathering a crowd, and if anyone was ever foolish enough to attack the tsar, they’d slaughter him—or her—on the spot without a qualm. But they weren’t stupid. They knew taking the tsar to balls and performing tricks for his friends were trivial, pointless and beneath them as seasoned, skilled warriors. As a result, they were even harder than normal to keep in line on such occasions.

But this wasn’t an escort order. It was a personal summons to the tsar’s presence. Vanya threw it down with irritation, before realizing that, in fact, a visit to the tsar and his minions at the Hofburg might be extremely useful. Giving his uniform a halfhearted brush down with his hands, Vanya left his rooms again and walked round to the Hofburg.

His first indication that something was wrong came, inevitably, from the courtiers and hangers-on who swarmed around the tsar’s ornate public reception room. Those nearest the door all stopped talking as Vanya entered. No one greeted him but, instead, drew back out of his way. Blonsky’s friends, perhaps, he thought with a curl of his lip, though as he looked around him there was no sign of his old enemy.

He did glimpse the tsar, seated at his desk while some heavily braided officers and secretaries hovered nearby. One, whose name Vanya didn’t even know, caught sight of him, murmured to the tsar and walked forward. The tsar didn’t raise his head.

“Colonel Savarin, this way, if you please,” the braided functionary requested with cold civility. Vanya followed him across the room, puzzled that he was not being conducted to the tsar but to a chamber beyond, which turned out to be a bare apartment containing one large, empty desk with one chair on either side of it.

“Wait here.” The braided stranger left again, closing the door firmly behind him.

Vanya frowned at the discourtesy and paced around the room. Up until now, he’d been used to seeing only the affable side of Tsar Alexander. He’d found the “old soldiers together” camaraderie a bit irritating, certainly, but he’d got used to taking the Imperial favor for granted. It seemed he’d finally done something to annoy His Majesty, though he couldn’t imagine what. Even when he and Blonsky had fought their infamous duel, the tsar hadn’t shut either of them in a room and deliberately left them to kick their heels ignored for more than a quarter of an hour.

Well, since no one had told him he was a prisoner…

Vanya swerved away from the small window and strode to the door. He was about to wrench it open and go in search of His Majesty, when it opened from the outside and he had to jump back to avoid a collision.

The Polish Prince Czartoryski, whom Vanya had always regarded as a friend, stuck his head in the door, looking harassed.

“Colonel, watch your back and do nothing foolish,” he said urgently. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Bottom of what?” Vanya demanded, scowling.

But Prince Czartoryski straightened and stepped back, and finally the tsar himself entered the room, closely followed by the braided secretary and Blonsky. Two soldiers waited outside the door.

At sight of his old enemy, Vanya knew this was serious. Almost worse, although Vanya bowed, the tsar offered no greeting, merely looked coldly down his nose.

“Where were you yesterday evening?”

Vanya blinked. “Lady Castlereagh’s. I met Your Majesty there.”

“You left early,” Blonsky uttered. “Before His Majesty.”

“Yes, I did,” Vanya agreed, staring at him.

“Where did you go?” the tsar demanded.

“I rode outside the city, to an inn where friends of mine were staying.”

“British friends?” the tsar inquired.

Vanya raised his brows. “Yes, as it happens. For the most part.”

“You see?” Blonsky said triumphantly.

“Then you don’t deny it?” the braided man blustered.

“Why the devil should I?” Vanya demanded “Are the British no longer our allies? Did we declare war at Lady Castlereagh’s and no one thought to tell me?”

The tsar smacked his palm on the back of the chair in front of him. “Damn it, there is no place for levity here and you would do well to recognize the fact!”

“I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” Vanya said mechanically. “Perhaps if you tell me what the problem is—”

“What happened to your face?” the tsar interrupted.

“I got in a fight,” Vanya said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “Or at least,” he added, gazing directly at Blonsky, “I was attacked. On the road to the inn.”

As soon as he spoke, he knew he’d made a mistake. He just didn’t know what it was. For instead of looking shifty as he’d done in the coffee shop, Blonsky smiled and lifted his gaze to the tsar’s.

“You see, Sire?”

The tsar’s fingers gripping the side of the chair showed white. “How long have you been betraying me, Savarin?”

Vanya’s lips fell open. “I have never betrayed you.” He was too surprised for there to be more than simple sincerity in his words and tone. Perhaps it was this that made the tsar finally look at him.

“And yet the paper is now in the hands of the British,” Blonsky observed.

The tsar’s fair lashes swept down over his blue eyes and he swung away from Vanya as if the sight of him hurt.

“What paper?” Vanya demanded.

“Do you take us for fools?” the braided man demanded.

“Right now, yes!” Vanya said unwisely. “What is it I’m supposed to have done?”

“You were supposed to stop when the Imperial Guard requested it,” the tsar spat. “You were supposed to submit yourself to a search, not half-kill them and go on your merry way.”

Vanya closed his mouth, gazing at Blonsky with something like awe as he began to understand. “That’s really quite clever,” he allowed.

Blonsky had got himself out of any potential charge by getting in a far greater one against Vanya first. Pretending his men had been on the road to stop him passing some paper or other to British allies in the inn.

“You’re under arrest, Savarin,” the tsar said bitterly. “For treason.”

“Am I to have no defense?” Vanya demanded as Blonsky opened the door to admit the soldiers.

“Yes, you will have your say,” the tsar said tiredly. “But not now. I can’t look at you right now. Escort the colonel back to his barracks where he will remain under arrest until we send for him.”

“Your Majesty, his Cossacks will just free him,” Blonsky said. “Might I suggest my own regimental barracks, instead?”

Vanya laughed. “I certainly won’t escape there.”

The tsar nodded and swung away.

“Sire,” Vanya said urgently. “It isn’t me you want. It’s the Englishman.”

The tsar paused without turning back to face him. “What Englishman?”

“I don’t know yet, but he has to be—”

Blonsky laughed, drowning out anything else, and the tsar didn’t stay to listen. “Your sword, Colonel Savarin.”

As the soldiers waited, Vanya slowly drew his sword, but he was damned if he’d surrender it to Blonsky. The man’s tongue was practically hanging out for it. Instead, he stepped back and turned, presenting it to Czartoryski.

“I mean it,” he said. “There’s an English paymaster at the bottom of this.”

Czartoryski took the sword with a distracted click of his heels. “We’ll investigate,” he promised.

But, of course, it wasn’t down to Czartoryski’s investigations or anyone else’s. It was down to the capricious will of the tsar, and right now Blonsky was whispering poison in his ear.

Czartoryski nodded, turned on his heels and followed the tsar.

“Take him to the barracks, lock him up,” Blonsky commanded. “I must say, Vanya, it will be a pleasure to have you with us again. Almost like old times.”

It was a threat as well as a reminder. It crossed Vanya’s mind, as he strolled to the door with his escort, that he’d never survive this imprisonment. Blonsky couldn’t afford to let him live in case the truth made more sense than Blonsky’s lies. Besides which, childish enmity had been turned into something much deeper and more dangerous by the duel they’d fought two years ago. Blonsky wanted Vanya dead.

As Vanya crossed the main reception, the occupants stood back as before and watched him in utter silence. No one, even supposed friends, would speak to the traitor for fear of contamination.

Except Boris, who burst into the room just as they were leaving. For once, his normally calm friend’s eyes were wild, boiling with fury and helpless frustration. “My God, it’s true! But who the hell gave you to Blonsky?”

“His Majesty,” Blonsky snapped. “Stand aside!”

Boris, breathing deeply, stared at Vanya, who smiled and shrugged, more to comfort his friend who was clearly thinking much as he had about Blonsky’s custody. Only Boris couldn’t know that Vanya had no intention of staying in anyone’s custody right now.

“I know you didn’t do this, Vanya,” Boris said intensely.

“You’re obsessed with a legend that was never real,” Blonsky sneered and pushed Vanya onward with a contemptuous shove between the shoulder blades.

Vanya added it to his list for payback; it was the only way not to thump Blonsky now and find himself in chains. He walked on with an insouciant wink at Boris.

Outside, the courtyard, usually bustling with the Austrian Emperor’s soldiers and servants, was almost empty. Only a courier stood by his horse on the other side of the yard, idly talking with a groom while he waited, presumably, for whatever he was to carry.

“So how am I travelling the ninety miles to your barracks?” Vanya inquired. “Tied across a saddle? Discreetly chained to a coach shared with your watchful self and a loaded pistol? Walking?”

The rumble of wheels and a vaguely sad clopping of hooves drawing closer gave him a clue. Through the open outer gates, a sorry looking horse pulled a battered vehicle behind it.

Blonsky’s lip curled. “In the supply wagon. With the rest of the meat.”

Vanya laughed, watching the wagon’s approach. “That does make your day, doesn’t it, Sasha?” Which, in the end, was Vanya’s prime motivation, too: he refused to give Blonsky his day.

Without warning, he seized each soldier by the belt and swung them into each other with a crash that would have made his own eyes water had he not been already sprinting across the courtyard, not for the wagon, or even the gates, but for the courier and his horse.

“Shoot him!” Blonsky screamed over the chaotic scuffling and shouting.