Authors: Teresa Grant
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Mystery & Suspense
Vienna Waltz (3 page)
“And Madame Rannoch—?” Alexander’s gaze slid to Suzanne.
“I insisted on accompanying Malcolm. I’m sure you can appreciate a woman preferring that her husband not pay such a call alone.”
The tsar stared at her for a moment. His gaze shot back to Malcolm. “Why the devil—”
Before he could finish, the door from the passage swung open. “Tatiana—” said a light, firm voice.
For the second time in ten minutes, a man stopped short on the threshold, staring down at Princess Tatiana’s body. He, too, wore a greatcoat, this one tan. He was shorter and slighter than the tsar, with golden hair that curled round his elegant features. He, too, was unmistakable to anyone at the Congress of Vienna.
It was Austria’s foreign minister, Prince Metternich.
2
M
etternich slammed his hand against his mouth. His gaze went from Tatiana’s body to Alexander, and then to Malcolm and Suzanne. Suzanne had never seen such utter bewilderment on the urbane foreign minister’s face.
etternich slammed his hand against his mouth. His gaze went from Tatiana’s body to Alexander, and then to Malcolm and Suzanne. Suzanne had never seen such utter bewilderment on the urbane foreign minister’s face.
Malcolm stepped toward Metternich. “There’s been a terrible tragedy, Prince. Princess Tatiana was murdered, seemingly in the last hour or two.”
Metternich, who normally moved with a fencer’s grace, crossed to the princess in two jerky strides. The cold reality settled in his eyes, like a wound so painful one’s senses refuse to acknowledge it. He lifted his head, his gaze hardening. “What the devil are you doing here, Rannoch?”
“I received a message from Princess Tatiana saying she had information for me.”
“And you?” Metternich’s gaze snapped to Alexander, who ha pushed himself to his feet. The foreign minister and the tsar regarded each other, incalculable rivalries taut between them. The tension between the two of them at the negotiating table was known throughout Vienna. They had reportedly come close to blows in a private interview a month since. All three of the beautiful women who lodged in the Palm Palace had connections to both men. Princess Tatiana was the tsar’s mistress and had been Metternich’s lover in the past. Princess Catherine Bagration, also presently assumed to share the tsar’s bed, had borne Metternich an illegitimate daughter over a decade ago. And the tsar was commonly assumed to have played a role in the recent spectacular end of Metternich’s love affair with the Duchess of Sagan. Now one of those three women they shared lay dead between them.
Suzanne stared at the tableau, struck by the sheer unreality of the situation. A beautiful, brilliant woman sprawled on the floor with her throat cut, and two men who had loved her—three, if one included Malcolm, and she had a desperate, gnawing fear that he should be included—stood over the body. That in itself was strange enough. When one took into account that two of those men represented two of the victorious countries deciding Europe’s future at the Congress, and the third man was a diplomat in the employ of yet another triumphant country, the scene was well-nigh fantastical.
In the crossfire of jealousy and recrimination, Tatiana herself had almost been forgotten. Suzanne looked down at the dead princess. Beneath her carefully applied rouge, her skin had a faint bluish tinge. Her eyes, artfully lined with blacking, were frozen open in shock. She had crumpled on the carpet with no sign of a struggle. As though whoever had killed her had taken her unawares. As though it was someone she had trusted. Someone who perhaps had been able to embrace her as a lover.
Metternich drew a breath. The mask of Austria’s foreign minister settled over his features. “Did Tatiana ask you to come here?” he asked the tsar.
“How dare you—”
“I mean tonight. Specifically. Or was it just chance that you walked in?”
“I don’t see what the devil—”
“Because she sent me a note,” Metternich said. “Asking me to call at three in the morning and specifying that I be sure to use the front entrance.”
Alexander’s eyes widened. “She sent me a note saying the same. Only she said to use the side door.”
“Damned odd. Rannoch?”
“She sent me a message asking me to come at a quarter to three,” Malcolm said.
Alexander scrubbed his hands over his face. “Are you saying she wanted us all here at once?”
“Or the killer did,” Malcolm said.
Metternich met his gaze for a moment. “Precisely.”
“Either way,” Alexander said, “it makes it clear none of us killed her.”
“Not necessarily.” Malcolm was still looking at Metternich. His voice was even, but his face was like bleached linen. “Any of us could have killed her and then come back. Or in my case, I suppose, never left.”
“Except that I was here with you,” Suzanne said. “So we’d have to have killed her together.”
Metternich’s gaze shifted to her. For a moment she felt he was stripping her bare, cutting through layers of gauze and satin and linen in a way that had nothing to do with amorous intrigues. “I haven’t known you long, Madame Rannoch, but you strike me as a very loyal wife. I suspect there’s little you wouldn’t do for your husband.”
“I wouldn’t kill for him.”
“But would you lie?”
Malcolm moved to Suzanne’s side. “Keep my wife out of this, sir. If you have accusations to make, make them to my face.”
“Your wife is unfortunately in the middle of it, Rannoch. And I don’t know enough to make any accusations. Yet.”
“Why the hell would Tatiana have sent for you?” Alexander was staring at Metternich as though they faced each other across a stretch of green with pistols in their hands. “You’ve had little contact with her in recent months.”
“Have I?” Metternich raised his brows. “Who told you that? Tatiana herself?”
“She—” Alexander’s cheekbones whitened. For a moment, Suzanne thought he would lunge across the room and seize Metternich by the throat.
Metternich smoothed the cuff of his greatcoat. “And you, Rannoch?”
“The princess is—was—a friend.” Malcolm’s voice was clipped.
“A word that can cover a multitude of sins.”
“You forget, Prince,” Suzanne said. “Malcolm came here with his wife.”
Metternich regarded her again with that same appraising, razorsharp gaze. “I forget nothing, Madame Rannoch.” He spun away and strode through the door to the front of the house. “Annina!” he called in the voice of one used to command.
Alexander took a step after him but checked himself, perhaps aware of the risks of advertising his presence in Princess Tatiana’s rooms. He frowned at the closed door panels, then looked back at the dead princess. A spasm crossed his face, but he seemed unable to look away.
Malcolm’s gaze had gone to the murder weapon. Suzanne could see him studying it, analyzing the spatters of blood on the carpet, the angle at which the dagger had fallen, recreating the crime in his mind. Keen appraisal with a weight of grief beneath.
After perhaps five minutes, Metternich returned, holding a chestnut-haired woman by the arm. She wore a linen nightdress with a green damask dressing gown hastily thrown over it, and her hair fell down her back in a long braid. She too froze on the threshold. “Madame.” She flung herself down beside Princess Tatiana.
Malcolm moved to the woman’s side and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Annina.”
“Monsieur Rannoch?” Annina looked up at Malcolm in bewilderment. She must, Suzanne realized, be Princess Tatiana’s maid. And Malcolm was obviously no stranger to her. His fingers tightened on Annina’s shoulder. Their gazes met and held for a moment.
“Who’s been to see the princess tonight?” Metternich demanded.
“No one.” Annina straightened her shoulders and dashed tears from her eyes. She looked to be in her midtwenties, a few years younger than the princess. Her face was delicate, but she had the sharp eyes of a woman who has seen much of the world. Suzanne, who had seen more of the world in her one-and-twenty years than most people knew, recognized the signs. “That is, no one I saw before I retired for the night.”
“Which was when?” Metternich asked.
“Just after ten. She said she’d have no further need of me. I read in my room and then went to sleep.”
“Was she expecting anyone?” Metternich asked.
“She—” Annina’s gaze slid round the room, settled on the tsar for a moment, darted back to Metternich.
“She was dressed for visitors,” Suzanne said, looking down at Princess Tatiana’s satin and tulle gown, cameo jewelry, and the ringlets and coils of her hair. “Had she been out this evening?”
“No.”
Which in itself was unusual. In Vienna these days, quiet nights at home were a rarity. “I saw a man leaving the palace earlier.”
Annina fingered a fold of her dressing gown. The green damask edged in black lace looked to be a castoff of the princess’s. “I didn’t hear the bell. My bedchamber is near the princess’s, some distance from the salon. She could have let him in herself. Or he could have entered on his own.” As the three men presently in the room had all done.
The tsar had dropped down beside the princess again. “It’s gone.”
“What?” Metternich’s voice was impatient.
“Her necklace.”
Tatiana’s cameo necklace was half-obscured by blood. “I think—” Suzanne began gently.
“He means her locket.” Malcolm was looking down at Tatiana’s face, his eyes dark with an emotion Suzanne could not put a name to. “She always wore it, though it was often tucked into her bodice.”
Alexander touched the bodice of Tatiana’s gown, then snatched his hand back as though burned.
Annina reached inside the tulle-edged satin of Princess Tatiana’s bodice. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “It’s gone. She was wearing it earlier. Monsieur Rannoch is right. She never took it off.”
“What was in the locket?” Metternich asked.
“I don’t know, Your Highness.” The gaze Annina turned to Metternich was as steady and implacable as polished armor. “I never saw it save when it was round her neck.”
Metternich gave a quick nod of dismissal. “See that the doors of her rooms are secured and assemble the rest of the staff. I’ll speak with you again presently.”
Malcolm helped Annina to her feet. Her legs seemed not quite steady, but she held her head high. She fixed Metternich with a gaze like a lancet. “Find who did this.”
“I intend to do so,” Metternich said. “And I seldom fail.”
Annina opened her mouth as though to say more, then gave a quick nod.
Malcolm squeezed her hand and walked to the door with her. He pushed the door shut behind her and rested his palm against the panels for a moment. But when he turned back to the others, his gaze was cool again. “I assume you’ll want us all to stay here until we can give a statement to the authorities.”
“God in heaven.” Alexander’s head snapped up from contemplation of his dead mistress. “You can’t call in—”
“A common constable?” Metternich surveyed the tsar. “You’d find that inconvenient?”
“A number of us would find it inconvenient.” Alexander pushed himself to his feet.
“You’d prefer there be no investigation into the death of a woman you claim to have loved?”
“Of course not.” Alexander dug his fingers into his hair. “But—”
Metternich took a step forward. He and the tsar faced each other across the princess’s body.
“Might I remind you, Your Majesty, that we are on Austrian soil?” Metternich’s voice was soft, but his tone was the tone of a man who had ordered armies across Europe. “Princess Tatiana’s murder will be dealt with by the Austrian authorities.”
Alexander looked down at Metternich from his superior height. The tsar outranked the foreign minister. Russia had played a more powerful role in vanquishing Napoleon than the vacillating Austria had done. But as Metternich had pointed out, they were presently in Austria, and the machinery of the Austrian government was at Metternich’s fingertips.
“Your authority doesn’t extend over the Russian delegation,” Alexander said. “Or the British delegation, if it comes to that.”
“True.” Metternich looked from the tsar to Malcolm. “If either of you suspect your compatriots of complicity in Princess Tatiana’s murder and attempt to protect them, there is little I can do. You must act according to your consciences. But I will manage the investigation as I see fit.”
He moved to the door. “I’ve learned enough for tonight. I advise you all to return to your quarters.”
“You don’t wish us to give formal statements?” Malcolm said.
“Not yet.” Metternich held the door open. “I know where to find you.”
Tsarina Elisabeth closed her door in the Amalia wing of the Hofburg and leaned against the cool, white-painted panels. Her heartbeat thudded in her brain like a Beethoven crescendo. For seconds she was unable to move, afraid that moving would mean thinking, and thinking would mean remembering the events of the evening.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but she could not blot out the images. The memories were even worse than present reality. She opened her eyes and forced herself to look down at the skirt of her gown. Her cloak had fallen back and splotches of crimson showed against the figured ivory silk of her skirt.
She drew a breath that shuddered against the laces of her corset. Then she tugged at the ties on her cloak and cast it aside. She reached for the tapes on her gown, desperate to be free of it. She would strip it off and burn it. But even as she tugged at the first tape, so hard it tore off in her hands, she realized the remnants of pearl-beaded fabric among the ashes would betray her.
Damn this life in which there was no privacy.
She ran to her night table, grabbed the ewer, and poured water on her skirt, heedless of the amount she spilled over the parquet floor. The crimson spread and faded to pink. She tugged up the hem, stiff with pearls and silver embroidery, and rubbed at the spots, crushing the fabric, pulling threads, knocking pearls loose on the floorboards. She seized a cake of lavender soap and scrubbed it over the stains.
Other books
Intensity by S. Briones Lim
Seed of Evil by David Thompson
The Heart of the Matter by Muriel Jensen
Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
Alice-Miranda to the Rescue by Jacqueline Harvey
Plague by Michael Grant
Harmful Intent: A Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels/Dawson Hughes Novel by Nike N. Chillemi
Mortal Mischief by Frank Tallis
Blackjack Villain by Ben Bequer
Conquest: Edge of Victory I by Greg Keyes