Vienna Waltz (35 page)

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Authors: Teresa Grant

Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Mystery & Suspense

BOOK: Vienna Waltz
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“My family,” Suzanne said. The words were flat as tempered steel.
“Yes.” Images flooded his brain and cut at his soul. “It wasn’t until I stumbled across you in the Cantabrian Mountains and heard the story of your family’s death and the destruction of your home that I realized what must have happened. It was criminally negligent of Tania and me not to have foreseen how events might play out.”
A cool mask settled over his wife’s features. She sat very still, as though afraid if she breathed she’d shatter in pieces. “You couldn’t have known the French officer would react so violently. You had to do something to protect the gold.”
“The actual gold shipment ended up falling into the hands of bandits, so it never reached Wellington. Irony on top of bloody irony.”
“Civilian casualties are a fact of war.”
“One should never learn to tolerate them.” He saw Suzanne as he’d first seen her in the Cantabrian Mountains, hair tangled, eyes vibrant, face smeared with blood. “It shouldn’t have taken seeing you to bring home the truth. The truth of those nameless victims who suffer every time Castlereagh and Metternich redraw a border. There’s real blood behind the bloodless decisions being made in Vienna’s council chambers.”
“Dear Malcolm.” Her gaze moved over his face as though he were retreating into the distance. “Always so compassionate. So that was why—”
He studied her drawn face. “Why what?”
She drew a breath that had the scrape of a dagger against rock. “Why you asked me to marry you so chivalrously when you found me. You were trying to make amends.”
“No. That is, yes, in a way, but that wasn’t—” He looked at the woman he had taken under false pretenses. “What’s the use? I should never have offered for you without telling you the truth. It was criminal of me to entrap you in a marriage to a man you had good reason to hate.”
“Malcolm.” She curled her hand over his shoulder. A dozen unspoken words raced through her eyes. “Surely you know I could never hate you.”
“That’s because you’re much too good a person, sweetheart. It doesn’t lessen my crime. I should have told you the truth, seen that you were looked after, and let you make a life for yourself. Instead I behaved no better than Radley.”
She gave a harsh, incredulous laugh. “You can’t compare yourself to—”
“No? Radley took advantage of your predicament to get you in his bed. I did much the same by making you my wife. I had no right to take advantage of you.”
“Take advantage of me—”
Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. “You gave me your name, your fortune, your protection. All when by your own admission you’d never thought to marry.”
“Because I knew what a poor bargain I made.”
“Dozens of matchmaking mothers and their daughters would disagree with you. Clever, handsome, wealthy, connected to Britain’s most powerful families—”
“Liable to disappear in the middle of the night at a moment’s notice, ill-equipped to share a home, let alone a life, dangerously likely to disappoint—”
“You’ve never disappointed me, Malcolm.”
He stroked his thumb against her cheek. “Liar.” He’d seen the look in her eyes when he retreated behind his habitual mask.
She squeezed his hand and pulled it away from her face. “No time to dwell on that now. None of this explains why Tatiana was threatening to reveal to me that you were behind the attack on Acquera. What did she want?”
He shook his head.
Suzanne fingered the brim of her hat. “Tsarina Elisabeth came in last night when I was talking to Adam Czartoryski. She told me what’s in the letters Tatiana took.” She leaned forward, put her lips to his ear, and whispered a short account of what she’d learned from the tsarina.
A few brief words that could shake a nation. “No wonder she and Czartoryski were so desperate to recover the letters,” Malcolm said.
“And if Tsar Alexander had known, he’d have been desperate as well. Darling. I don’t think you were the only one Tatiana was blackmailing. I think she summoned you and Metternich and the tsar that night because she was planning to blackmail all of you.”
“Why in God’s name would she—”
“Not for money. For something she wanted.”
He checked his instinctive denial and forced himself to sift through the facts. “Dear Christ. I should have seen it.”
“Easier to see the pattern when one’s standing a few feet off. Could Talleyrand be behind it?”
“You think Talleyrand was using Tania to blackmail Metternich, the tsar, and me?”
“You have to admit, he’d have a great deal to gain from all of you. Or—” She twisted the satin ribbons on her hat between her fingers. “We know she was still in contact with Bonaparte.”
“God in heaven.” For a moment Malcolm heard his sister’s silvery, mocking laughter echo in his ears.
“You don’t think it’s possible?”
“I think it’s entirely possible—that’s the hell of it. Difficult for a man who’s ruled so much to accept that he’s powerless. If Bonaparte thought he had a way to force concessions on Metternich and the tsar and Castlereagh, if he even had delusions about a return to power—”
“You don’t think he could be successful—”
Malcolm drew a breath. “With Metternich’s tendency to think kingdoms are clay when it comes to the Duchess of Sagan and what you told me about the tsar—God knows. The one thing I’m sure of is that even if I’d acceded to Tania’s demands, I could have brought no influence to bear on Castlereagh.” He clasped his hands together and stared down at them, rubbing the place where he normally wore his signet ring. “I knew she was capable of blackmail. But somehow I never thought—”
“That she could use it against you?”
He could hear his sister’s ironic, affectionate voice.
Dear Malcolm, your illusions will be the death of you. I think you even have illusions about me.
“Utterly deluded of me. Blackmailing me is no worse than blackmailing anyone else. But I thought—”
“That she cared for you.” Suzanne gripped his hand, her touch warm and firm. “I think she did, Malcolm. I saw you together, remember. If what was between you hadn’t been so palpable, I wouldn’t have been—” She bit the words short. “But that’s hardly of any account now. Your sister was a complicated woman, but I do think in her fashion she loved you.”
“Perhaps. We’ll never know.”
“You don’t know what pressure she was under when she wrote you this blackmail letter.”
“Pressure from Bonaparte?”
“Well, no, I suppose in that case she’d have been driven by dreams of glory.”
“Very like Tatiana.”
“Bonaparte gave her the Courland casket. Perhaps there’s more to it than an art treasure. Something hidden inside it?”
“It’s probably with her papers.”
“Which we have to find. Addison and Blanca are still checking all the tradesmen she might have trusted, talking to the servants of the friends we’ve been able to think of—”
Malcolm stared at the circle of light the candle cast on the stones of the wall. “I keep trying to think which of her friends we could be forgetting—”
Suzanne froze. “I saw Schubert last night. He said the last time he saw Tatiana she told him sometimes enemies could be more useful than allies. She was about to blackmail two of the most powerful men in Vienna. Two of the most powerful men on the Continent. And her brother, who she was well aware could be a formidable antagonist. She’d know you’d all try to recover the papers. She’d know you’d think of all her friends, anyone obviously connected to her. She’d be too clever to hide it with them. But her enemies—”
The triumph of a puzzle piece locked into place glinted in his wife’s eyes. “Darling, I think I know where to look.”
35
“M
adame Rannoch. Suzanne. Thank goodness.” Wilhelmine of Sagan, clad in a jaconet muslin round gown, came forward as the footman showed Suzanne into the duchess’s rose and gold salon in the Palm Palace. She pressed her scented cheek to Suzanne’s own. “You find us quite running out of sisterly confidences.”
Dorothée stood behind her sister. Her face was shadowed as though she had received difficult news, but she came forward and gave Suzanne a hug as well.
Wilhelmine waved her sister and Suzanne to the sofa. “We owe you a debt of gratitude,” the duchess said, pouring Suzanne a cup from the Meissen chocolate service that stood on the sofa table. “If it weren’t for you, I doubt Doro and I would ever have had the conversation we were just engaged in.”
“Willie—” Dorothée said.
“A bit late for caution, Doro. Suzanne already knows more of my secrets than you do. Or more than you did, at any rate.” Wilhelmine handed Suzanne a pink-flowered cup. “I’ve told Doro about Vava.” Her voice was steady, but the cup rattled against the saucer in her grip.
“I’m glad.” Suzanne took a sip of the rich drink. It lingered, bittersweet, on the tongue. “Troubles are sometimes more easily borne when shared.”
“I can’t believe I
liked
Baron Armfelt.” Dorothée scowled into her own chocolate cup. “It’s beastly that you had to bear this alone, Willie. Though I don’t suppose I’d have understood it properly until I had children of my own.” Her gaze darkened. Suzanne could see her remembering her little daughter, who had died last spring. “There’s nothing worse than losing a child.”
Wilhelmine reached across the sofa table and squeezed her sister’s hand. “At least Vava is still alive.”
Dorothée looked up and met Wilhelmine’s gaze. A silent understanding passed between the sisters. Despite the painful subject matter, there was an ease between them that Suzanne had not seen in all her weeks in Vienna.
“But I don’t imagine this is a social call any more than the last time you called on me,
ma chère
Suzanne.” Wilhelmine settled back against the cushions on the sofa across from the one Suzanne and Dorothée occupied. “Have you been to see your husband?”
“Earlier this morning.”
“He’s well treated?” Dorothée asked. “That is—”
“He’s not kept in a dungeon.” Suzanne set her cup on the table. “Duchess—”
“Wilhelmine.”
“Wilhelmine. I don’t think you were the only one Princess Tatiana was holding information over. And I think I know where to look for it.”
Wilhelmine went still. “Where?”
“When was Princess Tatiana last in your rooms?”
“What’s that to say to—Good God, you don’t think she hid them
here?
”
“I think Princess Tatiana knew that a number of very powerful people would be trying to discover where she’d hidden the papers. And the Courland casket. She’d know they’d look in her rooms. She’d know they might think to search the lodgings of any of her friends.”
“So where better to hide them than with an enemy,” Wilhelmine said.
“That was my thinking.”
“Princess Tatiana was at your salon the Wednesday before she was killed,” Dorothée said. “I remember her standing there, by the stove, talking with my uncle.”
Wilhelmine sprang to her feet, the light of the chase in her eyes. “Where to begin?”
“It would have to be somewhere she could hide it easily in company,” Suzanne said. “But somewhere she could count on being secure.”
They opened the cabinets, turned back the carpet, pulled the cushions from the sofas, looked in the stove. Suzanne reached up the chimney, scraping her knuckles and turning her arm quite sooty. In the library they pulled the books from the shelves and removed every drawer from the desk. Wilhelmine snatched up a crumpled paper stuck behind a drawer and muttered that it was a good thing
this
letter hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands. In the duchess’s bedchamber—“She could have slipped in here during the evening, it was empty,” Wilhelmine said—they pulled the feather bed from the bedstead, rummaged through the wardrobe and chests of drawers, turned open hatboxes and portmanteaux.
“Damnation.” Wilhelmine dropped down on the edge of the bed, face flushed, hair slipping from its pins. “I was so sure you were right.”
“So was I.” Suzanne rubbed her hands, still not quite clean of soot. “I was so proud of my own cleverness. Princess Tatiana even told Schubert that sometimes enemies could be more useful than allies.”
Dorothée flopped down on the chaise longue. “Of course, it isn’t as though Willie is the only person the princess might have thought of as an enemy. Though it does seem so convenient. This way her box would have been in the Palm Palace within easy reach.”
Wilhelmine sat up straight. “Oh, good God. Could the wretched woman—I’m not the only resident of the Palm Palace Princess Tatiana might have considered an enemy.”
“Princess Bagration,” Suzanne said.
Wilhelmine stirred the fringed bed curtains with her kid-slippered toe. “The question is how the devil we’re going to manage to search her rooms.”
Suzanne frowned at her black-tinged nails. “Clearly a diversion is called for. Do you think—?”
“That I could outwit Catherine Bagration?” A smile curved Wilhelmine’s mouth. “Can you doubt it?”
“Willie.” Dorothée went to her sister’s side. “If Princess Bagration realizes what you’re after—if she finds the papers herself—you’ll have to be careful.”
“I always am,
chérie
.”
“You always say that. But I don’t know that the stakes have ever been this high.”
Half an hour later, hair pinned and combed, gowns smoothed, scent plashed on, faces rouged and powdered, the three ladies crossed the Palm Palace to Princess Bagration’s rooms.
The princess’s footman had mastered the mask of impassivity required by his profession, but even he could not entirely conceal his surprise at seeing his mistress’s rival at the door, accompanied by her sister and the wife of the man whose arrest was the talk of Vienna. In a world of diplomatic intrigue, the Duchess of Sagan calling on Princess Bagration was as daring a move as any made by Metternich or Talleyrand.
The footman left them in an elegant entry hall and went to speak to his mistress. Suzanne was already considering what to do if Princess Bagration was not at home to visitors. (While they’d been repairing the damage to their hair and gowns, Wilhelmine had said she gave even odds on it.) To her surprise and relief, the footman returned after less than five minutes to say that the princess would be pleased to receive them.
The Naked Angel, as she was called in Vienna on account of her low-cut gowns, greeted them in a salon filled with jewel-toned Turkey carpets and gleaming mahogany furniture, rich with the smells of lemon oil and spicy potpourri. She came forward in a soft stir of signature white India muslin, trimmed with Valenciennes lace. Shaking the princess’s well-groomed hand, Suzanne was keenly aware of the hastily pinned tear in the cuff of her spencer and the soot marks concealed by a zephyr scarf Wilhelmine had lent her.
Wilhelmine shook the hand of the woman who was her rival for the affections of two of the most powerful men in Vienna. “I know. I’m the last person in Vienna you expected to have call on you. Very likely I’m the last person in Vienna you
wanted
to have call on you. No sense pretending this isn’t awkward. But I find myself in the hellishly uncomfortable position of being in need of your help.”
Princess Bagration gave a rich laugh. “Hardly the last person, Duchess. Think of how crowded Vienna is just now. You must know your words could not but intrigue me. Please do sit down.”
The ladies disposed themselves about the room, Suzanne and Dorothée on the sofa, Wilhelmine and the princess in matched green and gold damask armchairs, like a pair of rival queens met to negotiate a treaty.
“Whatever our differences, we know each other too well to prevaricate,” Wilhelmine said. “You must have heard that Madame Rannoch’s husband was arrested yesterday.”
“Duchess—” Suzanne protested on cue, flushed with embarrassment.
Wilhelmine waved her hand. “My dear Madame Rannoch, you must permit me to handle this. I am far wiser than you in the ways of the world.”
“I was never more shocked than by the news of Monsieur Rannoch’s arrest.” Princess Bagration turned her gaze to Suzanne. This, Suzanne realized, was the reason the princess had received them. Like the rest of Vienna, she was agog at the news of Malcolm’s arrest. “My deepest sympathies, Madame Rannoch.”
“Thank you,” Suzanne said. “I can only hope the misunderstanding is cleared up quickly.”
“People are being dreadful,” Wilhelmine said in her blunt way. “You could cut the tension with a knife at Doro’s dinner last night, and at the Burgtheater the gossips were doing their worst. Whatever you think of Monsieur Rannoch’s possible guilt—and I for one am convinced he’s innocent—poor Madame Rannoch deserves none of this. It is already difficult enough for her to have her husband facing these accusations.” Wilhelmine fixed Princess Bagration with the gaze that could command salons and drawing rooms across the Continent. “I have come to enlist your aid.”
Princess Bagration adjusted a fold of her gold-embroidered shawl. “You find me most sympathetic. But I’m afraid I don’t see what I can do.”
“Oh, come, Princess. Let us dispense with any pretense that either of us wields less power than we do. If we are both seen to publicly support Madame Rannoch and to dismiss rumors and idle speculations, the buzz of comment will dim to a whisper. Do you doubt we can do it?”
A gleam of challenge entered the princess’s light blue eyes. “I must say, you intrigue me.”
“But of course. What could be more a triumph than diverting all Vienna from the topic of the day? Especially from such a particularly intriguing scandal. And who would have guessed that we would do it in concert? Of course, if you don’t wish to assist me, I shall have to do it on my own. I can understand that you might fear to risk your reputation.”
“On the contrary.” The princess straightened her spine, her aquamarine earrings flashing. “I never shrink from a challenge.”
Wilhelmine smiled. “I thought not. I have always admired that in you. Now we must put our heads together about how best to handle this. If you will grant me a moment in private, Princess, I have some thoughts to put to you, and I know Madame Rannoch will be embarrassed if we speak in her presence.”
“Duchess—” Suzanne protested.
“No, no.” Wilhelmine waved an imperious hand. “You must allow more experienced heads to consult over this matter. I know you survived a war, but Vienna is its own battlefield, and Princess Bagration and I are veterans. I’m sure you and Doro can amuse yourselves while the princess and I talk.”
Two of the greatest rivals in Vienna left the salon arm in arm. Dorothée stared fixedly at the pink satin ribbons on her slippers. The moment the door clicked closed, she burst into laughter. “Dear God.” She pressed her fingers over her mouth. “I forget quite how masterful Willie can be.”
“No time to be wasted.” Suzanne was already on her feet. “I’ll do the stove. Check beneath the sofa cushions.”
She managed to get less soot on her hands this time, but the stove yielded nothing. Nor did the sofa or the striped satin chaise longue by the windows.
“This is the room Princess Bagration entertains in,” Dorothée said, “but perhaps Princess Tatiana slipped out during the reception and hid the box in a different room.”
“Perhaps.” Suzanne stood in the center of the room, recalling Princess Bagration’s reception three days before the murder—what a lifetime ago that now seemed. She could see Tatiana Kirsanova in blood red sarcenet trimmed with jet beads that flashed in the candlelight. Tatiana and Malcolm had sat in the chairs by the window, their heads close together, the fringed edge of her skirt trailing over the gleaming black leather of his shoe, her leg just brushing his own. Odd to remember the dagger stab she had felt at the sight, in light of what she now knew about their relationship.
The princess had had a richly worked shawl of black and red draped over her arm. Its generous folds could easily have concealed the box. The chairs Tatiana and Malcolm had been sitting in had oval backs and spindle legs—no possible hiding places. But then Count Nesselrode had joined them and fallen into conversation with Malcolm. Tatiana had got to her feet and strolled across to the window. She had paused by the pianoforte, unoccupied for the moment. She’d leaned across to look at the sheet music—
Suzanne ran to the pianoforte and reached into the compartment beneath the folded-back lid. Nothing on the right.
“Suzanne,” Dorothée said. “I think I hear footsteps.”
Suzanne could hear them, too, and a buzz of conversation. Wilhelmine had her voice raised to warn them. Suzanne darted round the side of the pianoforte and reached into the compartment on the left. Her fingers touched cool wood that did not belong to the piano. She pulled out a rectangular box and dropped it in the capacious reticule Wilhelmine had lent her, seconds before the door opened to admit the duchess and the princess.

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