Vienna Waltz (25 page)
Authors: Teresa Grant
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Mystery & Suspense
“She was very concerned last night,” Malcolm said. “Terrified of losing you.”
Fitz grimaced as though the tea was bitter rather than weak. “The shock made her forget for the moment. She’ll remember.” He put the cup down and pushed the tray aside. “We have more important things to talk about than the sorry mess I’ve made of my life. Tatiana started pacing again. I wonder now if perhaps her tension had nothing to do with the duchess. If it was because of whomever she was to meet later that night. Nothing I said seemed to calm her down, so finally I—” He swallowed. “I took her in my arms.”
“And then? For God’s sake, Fitz, I know she was your mistress. Did you make love to her?”
“No. She pushed me away, actually. She said she didn’t—that is, that she hadn’t—”
“That she hadn’t taken the required precautions? She wasn’t prepared with a sponge?” said Malcolm, whose own wife used them regularly.
Fitz flushed and nodded. Then he frowned, caught by memories he couldn’t look away from much as he might wish to do so. “There was one thing. After she pushed me away, she said at least that was one mistake she’d never made. Finding herself with child. But that one couldn’t be too careful. Malcolm—you don’t think perhaps she did have a child long ago? Could that be why she was so careful to take precautions?”
Malcolm would like to have said he’d have known, but that was laughable. Tania’s face swam before his eyes for a moment, bright with familiar mockery. “I don’t know. She never said anything about it to me. But then there was a great deal she didn’t tell me.”
“Why the new questions about the night she died? Have you learned something?”
“Tatiana had discovered an assassination plot.” Malcolm told him about the letter he’d received the previous evening.
“Good God.”
“She said nothing about it to you?”
“No. But could that have been what she was so keyed up about that night? She was going to confront someone?”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
Seated on the bed, Colin in her lap, Suzanne watched her husband as he recounted his conversation with Fitz. She nearly interrupted at one point, but she forced herself to stay quiet until he had done.
“I know that look in your eyes,” he said. “Something Fitz told me means something to you.”
“Possibly.” Suzanne got to her feet, swinging Colin in the air. “I need to call on the Duchess of Sagan, darling. I’ll explain if I’m right.”
With Blanca’s advice she chose a Vitoria cloak of Pomona green sarcenet and a French bonnet of green velvet and white satin (she was, after all, calling on one of the most fashionable women in Vienna, though the purpose of the visit was not social), kissed Colin, and then walked round to the Palm Palace.
After their last interview she wasn’t sure Wilhelmine of Sagan would be at home to her. She hoped the duchess’s anxiety about her letters would work in her favor. Sure enough, the footman who had taken her card to the duchess returned and showed her into a salon hung with rose-colored silk and bright with autumn sunshine.
“Madame Rannoch.” Wilhelmine greeted her with a hand clasp and a light kiss on her cheek. “I’d have thought you would be lolling in bed this morning, relishing last night’s triumph, as I trust Doro is doing.” The duchess stepped back and scanned Suzanne’s face. “How is Lord Fitzwilliam?”
“Chafing at being confined to bed on weak tea and toast. Dr. Blackwell says he should make a full recovery.”
“I’m so glad.” Wilhelmine’s face showed genuine relief. “A piece of good news to share at my musicale this evening. I hope you and Monsieur Rannoch will be there. I’ve discovered a wonderful new talent to present.”
“We look forward to it.”
“Yet you had something to say to me that couldn’t wait for this evening.” Her gaze shifted over Suzanne’s face. “Perhaps your visit isn’t entirely social?”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve made a discovery I thought you would wish to hear.”
Fear radiated from the duchess’s petite frame, but she held her head high. “Sit down. Please.” She waved Suzanne to a sofa carelessly strewn with cushions. The salon was elegant but furnished with an eye to comfort.
Suzanne sank down on the sofa and began to strip off her gloves. Half the trick to bluffing was stating one’s case with the assurance of certainty. “Duchess, do the papers Princess Tatiana had that so worry you concern a child you bore out of wedlock?”
25
W
ilhelmine slumped back in her chair, gaze shattered. “You found the letters.”
ilhelmine slumped back in her chair, gaze shattered. “You found the letters.”
“No.” Suzanne laid a second amber-colored glove atop her reticule, beside the first. Blanca’s careful inquiries at Princess Tatiana’s dressmaker’s had yielded no result. “Not yet.”
“Then how—”
“I couldn’t work out what it could be that so frightened you.” Suzanne tugged at the ribbons on her bonnet and lifted it from her head. The lace edging obscured her view, and she needed all her senses to judge Wilhelmine’s reaction. “With most women one would think the papers were love letters, but you’re admirably comfortable with your love affairs. You have no husband whose jealousy to fear. And your birth and fortune give you an assured position in society.” She set her bonnet on the sofa and smoothed the green velvet ribbons. “Then it occurred to me that a child was the one thing in your past you might want to hide away.”
Wilhelmine got to her feet and strode to the window, her jaconet skirts whipping about her legs. “Hiding her away was what caused all the tragedy.”
For a moment, self-hatred scalded Suzanne’s throat at what she was doing to the woman across from her. “You have a daughter?”
The duchess nodded, gripping the window ledge. “When I was eighteen—No, I should go farther back. My parents’ marriage—it was not a love match. My father was a great deal older than my mother, and from the first he had other interests. My mother soon developed them as well.”
“Not uncommon in aristocratic marriages.”
“By the time Doro was born, they virtually lived separate lives. My mother’s lovers were often part of our household. Not long after Papa died, Maman ended her affair with Doro’s father and began a liaison with Baron Gustav Armfelt.” Wilhelmine’s voice turned flat as she said the name. “A former cavalry officer and quite as dashing as all one’s images of cavalry officers. He could be wonderfully witty, and his smile shone as bright as his collection of medals. My sisters and I were entranced. All except Doro, though he was kindest to her. He said she was an exceptionally intelligent child. He taught her himself and encouraged Maman to engage tutors for her. With her he was quite paternal.”
“But not with you.”
Wilhelmine turned to face Suzanne, hands taut on the windowsill behind her. “One day I was pouring a cup of coffee in the morning room and caught him watching me. I met his gaze in the mirror and went hot all over. I think he was the first man who saw me as a woman.”
Suzanne waited in silence, afraid to breathe for fear of stemming the confidences.
“To have a worldly, sophisticated man adore one at the age of eighteen—I was a fool, of course, but at the time I thought I was the most fortunate woman in the world, and no one had ever loved as we did.” Bitterness dripped from Wilhelmine’s voice. “Of course we were discovered. By my mother. In bed.”
Suzanne could not control her indrawn breath.
“Quite,” Wilhelmine said. “Late one night Maman noticed someone had taken a candle. She went to see who was abroad at such an hour and found her daughter in the arms of her lover. She slapped me. Her sapphire ring drew blood.” Wilhelmine put a hand to her cheek, eyes dark with memories. “As I grow older, I begin to appreciate the horror it must have been for Maman. At the time, I was wholly focused on myself. I already suspected I was pregnant.”
“And in an impossible situation.”
Wilhelmine pushed herself away from the window and paced across the room. “Only the year before, my sister Jeanne had found herself with child. She was just sixteen. Her lover was a violinist from our father’s private orchestra who taught us lessons. She fancied herself madly in love. They ran off together, but Jeanne was dragged back. Papa disinherited her in a fit of temper just before he died. She had to give the baby up, of course, though he’s well cared for. I should have seen then—”
Suzanne had met Jeanne, now Duchess of Acerenza, and Pauline, the fourth Courland sister. Both were separated from their husbands and shared a house in Vienna. Jeanne and her lover of many years, Monsieur Borel, seemed more comfortable together than many married couples. “I don’t think one learns from one’s own mistakes at eighteen, let alone from a sister’s,” Suzanne said.
“No, I suppose not.” Wilhelmine whipped her shawl closed about her. “After Papa died, our guardian had Jeanne’s lover arrested and executed.”
Suzanne drew a sharp breath.
Wilhelmine shot a look at her. “It sounds barbaric, doesn’t it? But remember, we still have serfs in Courland.”
“There are still slaves in British colonies.”
“Very true. Our enlightened world isn’t very enlightened in some ways.” The duchess tugged at her shawl. “Gustav, being a baron, of course wasn’t thrown in prison. Maman hastily contrived my marriage to Louis de Rohan, who had an ancient name but had been forced from France during the Reign of Terror. Like your family.”
“And if he was like my family, he fled without much of his fortune.”
“And spent the intervening years accumulating debts. He was so eager for my dowry he was quite willing to overlook my tainted state. I went to Hamburg alone to have the baby. Though Gustav was with me when she was born, I’ll give him that. We named her Adelaide Gustava Aspasia, but we called her Vava from the first. Maman insisted we give her to Gustav’s cousins in Finland to raise. I was too weak and tired to protest.” Wilhelmine stared at a pink-skirted porcelain shepherdess on a nearby console table. “I haven’t seen her since.”
“She’d be—fourteen now?”
“Fifteen this January. She’s supposed to be told the truth of her birth on her fifteenth birthday. At the time she was born, that seemed centuries in the future.” Wilhelmine touched her fingers to the crystal girandoles on a candlestick, setting them tinkling against each other. “Louis had no objection to my continuing my affair with Gustav. The three of us drifted across the Continent indulging ourselves with my fortune. I was young enough to find it amusing until I got tired of watching them fritter away my money. I lost my patience with Gustav first. Or perhaps it was just that it was easier to get rid of him. Louis I had to actually divorce. It was years before I realized the enormity of the mistake I’d made in sending Vava away.” She turned her gaze to the window. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I gave away the most important thing in my life.”
Colin’s soft skin and baby smell flooded Suzanne’s senses. Her nails bit into her bare palms. “You were little more than a child yourself.”
“I should have been stronger.” Wilhelmine locked her hands on her elbows. “Doro doesn’t know. Maman told my sisters I was recovering from a carriage accident.”
“I won’t tell Doro any of this if I don’t have to.”
“Thank you. That’s more consideration than I deserve.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.” Suzanne got to her feet and went to Wilhelmine’s side. “Prince Metternich was going to help you get Vava back.”
“He promised me. Gustav died recently, which seemed to simplify matters. Dear God, I sound heartless.”
Suzanne touched Wilhelmine’s arm. “You’ve little enough reason to mourn for him.”
“To own the truth, at times I find it difficult to remember his face. But I’ll never forget Vava’s.” Wilhelmine swallowed, eyes bright. “At first Metternich thought it would be easy.” She gave a harsh laugh. “As though anything at the Congress has been easy.”
“Austria has no control over Finland. Prince Metternich would have had to go to—”
“Tsar Alexander. Yes, one can’t but appreciate the irony, though things weren’t so bad between them then. The tsar had made Gustav governor of Finland. Prince Talleyrand once got Tsar Alexander to intervene with Maman to get Doro for his nephew.” Wilhelmine passed her hand over her forehead. Strands of her burnished gold hair had slipped free of their pins and clung to her skin. “I thought—Metternich thought—that the tsar might use his influence with the Armfelts to get Vava returned to me.”
“It must have seemed straightforward.”
“Metternich genuinely did try. He even told me he would make the safety of Russia depend on it.” Wilhelmine gave a twisted smile. “Yes, I know, quite shocking that my petty difficulties threatened to intervene in the business of the Congress. But in the end Metternich was unable to make progress, and his relationship with the tsar continued to deteriorate.”
“So you went to the tsar directly.”
Wilhelmine’s mouth tightened. “Yes. Tsar Alexander offered his assistance.”
“In exchange for your giving up Prince Metternich.”
“He didn’t say so in so many words. But he did say if I valued his friendship I’d have nothing to do with Metternich.”
“And he began to visit you at eleven in the morning. The hour you had previously reserved for Prince Metternich.”
Our hour,
Metternich had called it. Suzanne had been at Count Stackelberg’s ball, where the tsar had made a very public point of telling Wilhelmine he would call on her at that hour. Suzanne could see Wilhelmine in her clinging red gown, a gold circlet set with a Courland heirloom emerald round her forehead, sinking into a curtsy before the tsar. Tsar Alexander seizing her hand and pulling her to her feet. Suzanne was not overly fond of Prince Metternich, but she had felt a stab of sympathy at the stricken look on his face that night.
Our hour,
Metternich had called it. Suzanne had been at Count Stackelberg’s ball, where the tsar had made a very public point of telling Wilhelmine he would call on her at that hour. Suzanne could see Wilhelmine in her clinging red gown, a gold circlet set with a Courland heirloom emerald round her forehead, sinking into a curtsy before the tsar. Tsar Alexander seizing her hand and pulling her to her feet. Suzanne was not overly fond of Prince Metternich, but she had felt a stab of sympathy at the stricken look on his face that night.
“And with his encouragement I made some quite appalling criticisms of Metternich in public.” Wilhelmine’s hands fisted on the folds of her gown. “My actions were not honorable.”
“How did Princess Tatiana learn of this?” Suzanne asked.
Wilhelmine paced back to the window. “After I broke with Metternich, his affair with Princess Tatiana resumed. I didn’t realize it at first—I was too preoccupied with my own concerns—but I can understand. He was lonely, unhappy. They’d been lovers before. It never occurred to me she’d be so brazen as to form liaisons with him and the tsar at the same time. Even I wouldn’t do that, and God knows I understand the allure of risk.”
“Princess Tatiana found letters you’d written to Prince Metternich?”
“I never should have committed the words to paper, but I was so desperate to get Vava back, I threw caution to the wind. And I trusted him.”
“Princess Tatiana stole one of the letters?”
“She must have done. I don’t think Metternich would have knowingly betrayed me.”
“How did you learn Princess Tatiana had the letter?”
“The last night I saw her. The night she was killed. I was furious over her refusal to return the Courland casket. As I told you, I lost my temper. Probably because my nerves were so worn from the anxiety about Vava.” Wilhelmine pressed her fingers to her temples. “I threatened to make public that Princess Tatiana was dealing in looted art. I was arrogant enough to think that would put her in her place. Instead she laughed at me. That’s when she told me she had the letter.” The duchess’s hand closed, hard, on the white-painted windowsill.
“You must have been terrified.”
Wilhelmine met Suzanne’s gaze directly, but the sunlight was at her back, leaving her face in shadow. “I told you it would have been a bit extreme to kill over the Courland casket. Now you’re thinking that this is something one might kill for. And it’s true. Protecting the secret of a child born out of wedlock. Knowing that if the truth became public I might lose all chance of ever getting her back. I was angry and frightened enough that perhaps I would have been capable of killing. But as it happens, I didn’t.”
“Have you told anyone about Tatiana having the letter?”
Wilhelmine glanced out the window and tapped her fingers on the ledge.
“Prince Metternich?” Suzanne asked.
“I went to him at the chancellery directly from Princess Tatiana’s that night. I was so angry I accused him of giving her the letter deliberately to hurt me. He protested that I could think such a thing of him. He went to fetch the letter to prove I was wrong.” Her gaze clouded. “He keeps my letters in a box in a secret compartment in his desk, tied with white ribbon.” She shook her head at her former lover’s actions. “He undid the ribbon and went through the letters. One was missing. He was so angry he hurled a crystal paperweight to the ground and smashed it. He swore she had stolen the letter. He promised upon his honor he would recover it for me.”
“Have you spoken to him about it since?”
“At the opera the night before last. He again gave me his assurances that he would recover the letter. He said it was the least he could do.”
Suzanne smoothed the Spanish fringe on her cloak. Some of the fine silk threads had twisted into knots. “I can’t claim to know Prince Metternich well or to understand him. But it’s obvious he’s still in love with you.”
“I almost wish—But one can’t govern one’s heart. I own, the depth of his rage surprised me. I was shocked when he smashed the paperweight. He’s usually so fastidious.”
“What time did you leave him the night of the murder?”
“About midnight.” Wilhelmine’s gaze jerked to Suzanne’s face. “But—”
“You don’t think he was angry enough to have killed Princess Tatiana.”
“One doesn’t like to think of a man one has been intimate with doing such a thing.”
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