Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (34 page)

“He mustn’t kill him,” Lizzie said in horror. Her gaze sought and found the pitilessly observing face of the tsar. “Your Majesty, Vanya mustn’t kill him! Please!”

The tsar glanced at her. A tiny smile flickered across his lips and then he returned to watching the fight.

Lizzie could no longer see it. She’d been drawn too far away, beyond the terrace door, in fact, to shadows at the side of the house, where a little gate led around toward the front.

Frowning, Lizzie tried to tug free and, for the first time, looked at her companion, Mr. Grassic.

F
rom surprise and
sheer instinct, Lizzie jerked away from him, but found her arm held with calm, inexorable strength. Which at least made her brain start thinking again of more than male stupidity and the pointlessness of Vanya dying, either by Blonsky’s sword or the tsar’s justice. What was the point of being exonerated from treason if you then committed murder in public?

But then, what was the point of her beautiful plan to have the tsar witness Grassic buying documents from her and forcing him to confess his accomplices, if all the tsar witnessed was her indiscretion with Vanya, and she then conducted the business without anyone at all seeing? At least Grassic would still have the document on him.

So, she took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. “You’re right, of course. I don’t wish to see. Shall we conclude our business, Mr. Grassic?”

He paused, his free hand on the gate latch, now that she’d stopped struggling, and gazed at her through the darkness. Although she couldn’t make out his expression in the gloom, she had the impression it was surprised, even admiring.

“Let us just move—”

“I’ll be more comfortable when it’s done,” Lizzie said firmly. “No one is paying us attention whatsoever.”

“Then give me the document.”

Lizzie drew her hand free of his arm and opened her reticule. Extracting the thickly folded paper, she held it out to him. While he pocketed it, she said, “My recompense?”

Gravely, he handed over a small purse, which couldn’t have contained anything like the kind of money James had been promised. As she tucked it away in her reticule, she extracted the spare hairpin before closing the little bag.

“Let’s go inside,” she said lightly, turning back toward the light.

His fingers closed around her upper arm, sudden, intrusive, controlling. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. Come with me.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“I have a new plan now. This game is ending, yours and mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we need to leave. Both of us. My business is coming under far too great scrutiny to last beyond the sale of what I have. Many people will be after my blood. While you need to escape social ruin. Let us do so together, go to a new city. Together, we would be unstoppable.”

Lizzie blinked. “Social ruin?”

“You were discovered by half of Europe’s elite rulers and their wives, in the arms of a Russian traitor. There is nothing for you left in respectable society, unless you accept the offer of the poor and ridiculous cousin. Or the libertine Austrian captain.” His free hand insolently pushed up her chin. “What, were you hoping for an offer from your other cousin, the Russian traitor? It was notable by its absence, was it not?”

Come with me
, he’d said. Not
Marry me
. It shouldn’t have hurt; it didn’t matter. And she wouldn’t let it.

“Mr. Grassic. You are, without doubt, the most unprincipled and repellent creature I have encountered in my life, and I have no intention of going beyond this gate with you.”

*

“Stop,” the tsar
commanded.

Vanya had Blonsky on the ground, straddled him, one hand to his throat, the other raising the sabre high for the kill. In the lust of battle, Vanya had almost forgotten who he was fighting, where and why. He could have been in the icy wastes of Russia, fighting the French. It was as if his body took over from memory without troubling his brain for orders. The tsar’s command barely penetrated, until it was repeated, and a voice he knew and trusted said urgently, “Vanya!”

The red mists began to clear; his sword arm held still. Staring down at Blonsky’s dazed yet terrified face, it was as if the last twelve years had never been. Was he really still fighting this same, childish battle? Right down to the audience of avid, blood-thirsty males, old enough now, surely, to know better. He couldn’t blame it all on Blonsky. It wasn’t even about Katia any more, if it ever had been.

Irritated, he leapt to his feet and lowered the sword.

“Take the traitor,” the tsar instructed. As the soldiers closed obediently on Vanya, the tsar added, “Not him! Blonsky. Arrest Major Blonsky for treason.”

Vanya turned to face the tsar. “You read it?”

“It was a surprise to me,” the tsar admitted. “Of course, I never truly believed in your guilt.”

“Clearly,” Vanya said sardonically.

“And this makes a lot more sense. Even without the proof. We old soldiers should trust each other.”

“Proof?” Blonsky blustered, springing to life again suddenly in the hold of his guards—his own slightly baffled men. “What proof? You can’t possibly have proof of treachery I never committed!”

The tsar waved a document in the air. “This!” he thundered. “This agreement between you and Grassic, arch trader in information!”

Blonsky scowled and then his eyes began to widen with recognition. “But…but where did you get that?”

Of course, there was only one place it could have come from and the knowledge was written on Blonsky’s stained, white face.

“I got it from Grassic,” Vanya spelled it out for him. “He swapped it.”

Blonsky turned eagerly to the tsar. “There! You see? Savarin gave Grassic something for this! Savarin is guilty! Ask him what he gave Grassic for this supposed proof of my guilt.”

“I’ll show you,” Vanya said, looking around him. “Where is Grassic?”

“He took Miss Gaunt into the house,” Reinharz volunteered.

More than unease, a spurt of positive alarm had Vanya charging into the house. A female squeal at the sight of his bloodstained sabre, reminded him to put it away. Mechanically, he cleaned it on his handkerchief first, while scouring the ballroom with his urgent gaze. But this was no time for discretion.

He raised his voice. “Where is Miss Gaunt?” he demanded. “And the Englishman, Grassic?”

The excited hubbub died away. People exchanged glances and shrugs but no one spoke up. Striding forward, he eventually found Mrs. Daniels and Minerva. “She isn’t with you? Did she come in?”

A blood curdling scream suddenly rent the air. It came from outside. In a wild mixture of intense fear and fury that he’d never known before, Vanya barged back across the ballroom to the terrace door, just as Lizzie walked in leading Grassic by the hand. Blood streaked across her fingers.

With a roar, Vanya seized the Englishman’s collar, wrenching him away from her, pulling back his fist. “What have you done to her?”

“Nothing!” Grassic said bitterly. “The little bitch stabbed me in the hand!”

Vanya hit him anyway for that. Over the fallen body, and the shocked gasps and cries of the guests backing away from the scene, his gaze met Lizzie’s. A smile flickered across her rather anxious eyes. “With a hairpin,” she admitted. “I didn’t expect it to cause so much bleeding. You didn’t kill Blonsky.”

He began to smile, just because she was there. “I will if you like.”

Her gaze flashed around the room at Mrs. Fawcett’s most interested guests and color rose to her cheeks. “I don’t like,” she muttered.

Minerva brushed past him, put her arm around her cousin in comfort and support.

The tsar and Boris entered behind Lizzie and Mrs. Fawcett bustled over to meet them.

“Such goings-on,” their hostess said comfortably. “So what have we learned? That Mr. Grassic here buys and sells information to everyone, promoting distrust and endangering the whole Congress? That Colonel Savarin is innocent—”

“Not necessarily,” one of the tsar’s older aides pointed out. “Blonsky says Savarin gave Grassic something. Best see what it is.”

Grassic, who’d staggered to his feet once more, fended Vanya off with both hands. “Keep that madman away from me!”

“Then be so good as to empty your pockets, sir,” the tsar said with dignity.

Grassic lifted his chin. “While I have every respect for Your Majesty both as a sovereign and as a man, I believe I owe you no obedience, certainly none that impugns my honor.”

“Nevertheless,” said quite another, very English voice haughtily as its owner eased his elegant way through the crowd. It was Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Minister. “Nevertheless, I believe you must do it. If you don’t, I will most certainly have you arrested on suspicion of treason while the whole matter is thoroughly investigated.”

Grassic curled his lip. “On your own heads be it. The documents in my possession incriminate the very people who accuse me.” He removed a few folded papers from inside his coat and all but threw them at the British minister.

“What are these?” Castlereagh murmured, unfolding the first.

“That,” said Grassic smugly, “is what Miss Gaunt stole from her uncle and sold to me for a few schillings.”

“My niece stole nothing from me,” Mr. Daniels said with dignity. “Though I confess I thought I was doing the right thing by buying information from Mr. Grassic in the past.”

“Then what is this?” Lord Castlereagh asked without emphasis, still holding the document in front of his eyes. “What direct meeting did
you
have with M. de Talleyrand?”

“None,” Lizzie said unexpectedly. “If you pass a candle over the top, you’ll see I’ve written something on it. In lemon juice. It’s a trick my brother learned somewhere.”

With a glance of reluctant amusement, Castlereagh accepted the candlestick someone passed him and waved the paper above the flames for a few moments.

“Ah, there it is,” he observed, and read out, “This is a forgery designed to trap Mr. Grassic. It was entirely invented by me, Elizabeth Gaunt, the 25
^th
day of October, 1814.”

Vanya began to laugh. “Nicely done, Lizzie! Apparently great minds think alike.”

“You forget, I also have what
you
sold me!” Grassic snarled. There was a wildness in his eyes now that Vanya hadn’t seen before, as if he’d never imagined being in the situation where other people were flim-flamming
him
. He took out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat and blood from his face.

Castlereagh bowed to the tsar and passed the remaining documents to him.

“The supposed orders from Your Majesty to me,” Vanya said. “Except, as you’ll be aware, you never gave me any such orders, and neither of us were in the places stated in the orders—ever, I suspect.”

“And the letter to Bonaparte?” Castlereagh asked, as if fascinated.

“The part in Russian explains it.”

The tsar’s scowl vanished. “Let me read it to you.
This letter is a lot of nonsense composed by Ivan Petrovitch Savarin purely to confound the Englishman, Grassic.
”

Into the general laughter, Lizzie cried, “Minerva!”

And Vanya saw that he’d been unforgivably careless. Grassic’s physical cowardice had fooled him. There must have been a penknife wrapped in the handkerchief he’d used to wipe his face, for he now held the weapon to Minerva Daniels’ throat.

Dragging her in front of him as he moved across the ballroom, Grassic said, “No one should come near me if they want the girl to live.”

Vanya began to calculate distances and times, to go over in his head the likely places he could intervene between here and the street… And then everything changed again as, quite unexpectedly, a pleasant looking young man who seemed too stunned even to move, suddenly acted, punching Grassic ruthlessly in the side of the jaw and snatching Minerva in his arms. The knife clattered to the floor as Grassic staggered into a pillar. Vanya grabbed him before he fell and, this time, didn’t let go. Boris searched his pockets, while Vanya twisted his arm up behind his back until he yelped.

Meanwhile, Mr. Daniels said warmly, “That was excellently well-done, Corner! Perfectly placed! I can’t thank you enough.”

And when Vanya glanced again at Minerva he saw her gaze locked with her cousin Lizzie’s. Lizzie closed one eye and Vanya wanted to laugh. So this was the unsuitable young man Minerva had chosen.

“Well, at least you’ve done someone a favor,” Vanya murmured to Grassic.

“So
now
Vanya is vindicated,” Mrs. Fawcett pursued.

“Colonel Savarin is a true Russian hero without a stain on his record or his character,” the tsar pronounced. Miraculously, a glass had appeared in his hand. “A toast! I give you… Vanya!”

“Vanya!” echoed all the gentlemen, especially the Russians, while the ladies clapped their hands with apparent delight.

Lizzie stood alone, faintly smiling, but the frown tugging at her brow troubled Vanya, until a crash of glass made her jump. The tsar had thrown his crystal glass into the fireplace, though fortunately for Mrs. Fawcett, the other Russians forbore to emulate him for once. Instead, they all looked expectantly at Vanya, who felt laughter rise.