Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (8 page)

“A stupid drunken brawl,” Blonsky snapped. “We each imagined we were defending rather than disgracing our respective regiments.” He pushed himself off the pillar. “You’ll get your evidence,” he snarled and walked away. It would have felt better if he hadn’t suspected the spy had already melted into the crowd moving in the opposite direction.

L
izzie, on her
latest foray through the ballrooms and the riding school, had found no trace of Johnnie. She did see her cousin James mooning after Madame Fischer, in the company of some men she instinctively knew to be unsavory. She even began to approach, to extricate him and warn him to stop making a cake of himself over the Viennese beauty, before she remembered she shouldn’t even be here.

Instead, she decided to leave the riding school and return to the main ballroom where she could keep her eyes on her aunt. Only where the devil was Johnnie?

Perhaps he’s been arrested over the other necklace or for something else entirely.

On this unhappy thought, she swung abruptly away from the sight of James, leading Madame Fischer towards the dance floor, and cannoned into the hard body of a military stranger in a scarlet domino cloak.

“Oh goodness,” she exclaimed, flustered by the force of their meeting. “I’m sorry!”

The officer, steadying her with a hand on either arm, said, “Don’t be. I’m not. I’ve been trying to speak to you all night.”

Something about his foreign voice sounded familiar, but though she peered up at him in the dazzling white light of the candles, the mask made him a mere stranger with black hair, steady, lazily smiling dark eyes and sculpted lips.

“Why?” she demanded, surprised by the unexpected tug of attraction. After all, she’d been gazing at masked military men for most of the evening and none of them had even momentarily distracted her from her mission.

The smile in his dark eyes intensified, spreading to his lips. “To ask you to dance, of course.”

“I don’t dance,” she said hurriedly and added the excuse she’d been using all night. “I’m looking for my aunt.” She began to slip away from the polite hands which hadn’t quite released her, but although he let one hand fall away, his other slid down her cloak-covered arm to the fingers holding the domino closed around her.

“Why not?” he countered. “Why come to a ball not to dance?” When she opened her mouth to reply, he said it for her with quiet humor, “To look for your aunt. I know. Dance with me and I’ll restore you to your aunt immediately.”

It was, she knew, time to pull away into the crowd, forcefully if necessary, particularly since the orchestra had struck up a waltz. But as his fingers drew hers into his hand, his arm was already circling her waist.

There was nothing rough or coercive about it. She could still have got free quite easily and left him standing there looking just a little foolish. In fact, she tried to tell herself that was the reason she gave in, but in truth, something about his familiarity, about his voice and his person, all made her want to dance with him. He was a tall stranger in a mask, a foreign officer with his own life story far removed from her own, and he intrigued her.

And then the music, melodic, rhythmic and insistent, inspired her to recklessness. Or it might have been the novelty of the stranger’s embrace. She’d only ever waltzed with Michael and her sisters; it was much too fast a dance for a country neighborhood.

“I’ve never waltzed in public before,” she said bluntly. “I’ll stand all over your feet.”

“No you won’t,” he said with certainty, spinning her onto the dance floor.

She gasped, more with fun than fear. His head lowered slightly. “The mysterious Mademoiselle Noire should not watch her feet as she waltzes.”

“Gauche?” Lizzie suggested ruefully.

His eyes lit with laughter. “Sadly. And then you don’t really want to draw attention to your outdoor shoes.”

“Oh dear. You have found me out.” She squared her shoulders and confessed, “I wasn’t invited.”

“You’re in good company,” he excused.

“You, too?”

“Sadly, I was bidden.”

“Why sadly?”

“Your way is more adventurous,” the stranger pointed out.

“Aren’t you tired of adventuring?” she asked curiously.

He blinked. “Why should you think that?”

“Perhaps you have not been a soldier for very long,” she guessed.

“Six years. Or is it seven?”

“Really? Then you must have fought Napoleon.”

“All over Europe,” he said flippantly. “And I see your reasoning. Maybe you’re right and I should settle down.”

“Oh no,” she said with a quick frown. “Sometimes I wish I were a man and able to adventure about the world. Though I doubt I’d have made a very good soldier.” She sighed. “Women are so hemmed in with respectability. Unless they wish to be ostracized.”

“It isn’t fair, is it?” he sympathized. “I’ve behaved badly all my life and no one has ever ostracized me.”

“What did you do?” she asked, intrigued.

He laughed. “I can’t tell you that.”

She found herself returning his smile. “Because of my respectability?”

“And what’s left of mine.”

“But I’m the one intruding on the Emperor’s ball. Here,
you
are the respectable one.”

His breath of silent laughter seemed ridiculously familiar, but she couldn’t catch the memory.

“I never thought of that,” he said solemnly. “I shall tell all my friends. So tonight, the adventure is yours.”

Reminded of the true purpose of the evening, she cast another rather guilty look around the riding school, searching for anyone who might possibly be Johnnie. Some plainly dressed man, hiding a hint of scruffiness beneath an all-enveloping domino. The trouble was, all the men she could see, including her dancing partner, wore their cloaks open, or even dangling off one shoulder like her current dancing partner.

“Who are you looking for?” he asked. “Perhaps I can help.”

“I doubt it.”

“Then it isn’t really your aunt.”

“Not
just
my aunt,” she said cautiously.

“I sense an intrigue.”

She let out a peel of laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t
intrigue
!”

“Why ever not?” he asked outrageously. “It’s one of the more fun and comfortable forms of adventuring. I suppose it comes down to respectability again.”

“I suppose it does,” she said with a twinge of regret. “Though to be honest, I’ve never yet encountered a man I wished to intrigue
with
.”

“Mademoiselle, you cut me,” he mourned, drawing her hand with his to his heart in mock injury.

She laughed. “No, I don’t. We don’t know each other at all.”

“That is a large part of the fun in intrigue.”

“I suppose you have a great deal of experience in that area,” she allowed. Behind the mask, she was sure he was a handsome man. He was certainly charming in some indefinable way she couldn’t help liking.

He said, “I suppose I do.”

Catching an unexpected note of genuine regret in his voice, she peered up at him more closely.

He drew in a sudden breath. “Don’t do that or I’ll kiss you in the middle of the ballroom. Too blatant for intrigue.”

“
And
for respectability,” she scolded, although she felt a flush rise through her body to her cheeks as her wayward mind wondered how it would feel to be kissed by a masked stranger.
This
somewhat unconventional masked stranger who continued to gaze down at her, a faint, incomprehensible smile playing about his lips. She wanted, suddenly, to look away, but refused to give in to such cowardice.

Rather breathlessly, she said, “You should know I have no intention of either.”

“Either what?”

She lifted her chin. “Kissing or intrigue.”

His lips curved. “You could try one and if you liked it, move on to the other.”

Laughter caught at her breath, perhaps in shock. “No, I couldn’t. You’re forgetting the respectability.”

“But I thought you wanted an adventure?”

“Not like that,” she said with dignity, although she may have ruined the effect by adding, “And certainly not with you. I suspect you’re far too risky a proposition.”

The smile died on his lips. “Why do you say that?”

“Because after tonight, after this waltz, we’ll never see each other again.” She was too used to speaking her thoughts as they occurred; she hadn’t cleansed the unexpected regret from her voice.

And he caught it only too clearly. She saw the leap in his eyes and it caused an immediate commotion within her, like a flock of butterflies rising in her stomach. Even though she recognized it for what it was: a rake’s triumph at the prospect of conquest. Worse, she couldn’t make herself mind.

“Why should you think that?” he asked softly.

She shrugged, striving for carelessness. “Because even if we do, we won’t know it. We won’t recognize each other.”

“Of course we will. There’s an infallible way to ensure we do.”

“What is that?” she asked unwisely.

“No two people kiss the same way.”

For the first time, she missed a step. Heat surged through her so quickly she was glad of the mask to hide her flushed cheeks. She tried to introduce a haughty lift to her eyebrows, but already his arm was falling away from her back. The music had stopped and before her rather dazed eyes, he bowed over her hand, kissing the tips of her fingers in the continental fashion.

And then another voice intruded, speaking in jovial French. “Vanya! I might have known it would be you who finally persuaded the mysterious Mademoiselle Noire to dance!”

Startled, Lizzie’s gaze flew to the man addressing her partner. She beheld, unmistakably, the Tsar of all the Russias, an unworn mask dangling from his wrist. Speechless, she sank into a deep curtsey. Any number of thoughts flitted through her brain, not least of them that despite her efforts at concealment, she’d been noticed enough to have a nickname coined by such an important personage. And yet, somehow more important was the fact that now she knew her stranger was called Vanya. It had a pleasing, exotic ring to it. It suited him. And like the tsar himself, the name had surely to be Russian.

Mr. Vanya straightened and inclined his head smartly to his monarch. “Sire.”

“Won’t you introduce me?” It wasn’t really a request. The tsar had commanded.

“To the best of my ability in the circumstances,” Mr. Vanya said smoothly. “Sire, allow me to present Mademoiselle Noire. Mademoiselle, His Majesty, the Emperor of Russia.”

“Enchanted,” the tsar said, smiling as she curtseyed once more. He even took her hand to raise her. “Perhaps I might hope for this dance.”

He was, she supposed, dazzling, and she knew this was the most flattering invitation she would ever receive. And yet, all she could think of was how to get out of it. The evening was confused enough and she still hadn’t found Johnnie.

“Perhaps a later dance, Your Majesty,” suggested an aide in a green domino—surely the one who’d been dancing earlier with Minerva? Another aide, an officer from his fine moustache and fabulously braided uniform, stood on the tsar’s other side, his gaze locked in some kind of silent communication with Vanya. The civilian aide said, “Your Majesty is promised to the Queen of Bavaria for this one.”

The tsar frowned, as if he was quite prepared to slight the queen for Lizzie’s sake.

Mr. Vanya said, “Then I am saved.
I
promised to return Mademoiselle to her aunt, under pain of death.”

It smoothed the Imperial brow. The tsar even laughed, as Vanya drew her aside, her hand through his arm.

Behind them, the tsar said, “Who the devil is her aunt anyway?”

“I’ve no idea,” his aide replied and laughter bubbled up in Lizzie’s throat.

“Oh goodness, I almost had a tale to tell my grandchildren! That I danced with the Tsar of Russia!”

“Now you have a rarer one,” Vanya said. “You
refused
to dance with the Tsar of Russia.”

“No, I didn’t. You and his aide refused to let me. He is excessively handsome, isn’t he?”

“So I’m told.” Vanya swerved in the other direction. “If we hurry, we’ll catch him before he reaches the Queen—”

With a squeak of protest, she tugged him back toward the exit from the riding school. “Don’t dare!”

“As you wish,” he said gravely.

She eyed him with mingled amusement and disapproval. “Mr. Vanya,” she began.

His black eyebrows lifted and her breath caught, carrying her on a quite different thread that led her back to reality.

She said abruptly. “He called me Mademoiselle Noire. So did you. Have I been noticed?”

“Oh yes.”

“But why? People rarely notice me anywhere and this time I’ve gone out of my way to appear insignificant!”

“I doubt the first is remotely true and in this place, where everyone is trying to be noticed by everyone who matters, trying to be insignificant is significant in itself.”

“Wrong strategy,” she said ruefully, as they entered the covered walkway between the buildings. The cool air and the sweet scent of the orange trees were soothing. As, curiously, was the dark sky beyond.

And then, coming towards them, she saw the unmistakable figures of Aunt Lucy and Minerva, escorted now by Uncle Jeremy. Lizzie gave a quick, instinctive tug to free herself and hide, but Vanya’s hand closed over hers in warning, or perhaps comfort. He was right. Rushing away would only draw more of the kind of attention she wished—
needed
—to avoid. She only hoped Vanya hadn’t picked up who she wished to flee from.

Carefully, she kept her gaze on the end of the walk, on the ballroom ahead, as if searching for someone there, as her family advanced toward her. Her heart beat hard in her breast.

As they passed, Aunt Lucy said pleasantly, “Colonel Vanya.”

Oh no, he knows them!

“Madame. Mademoiselle,” Vanya murmured with a polite inclination of his head and then they were passed. From the corner of her eye, she realized none of them had actually looked at her. Relief was intense and lasted the rest of the way into the ballroom. “There,” Vanya said. “People generally only see what they expect to.”