Vienna Waltz (6 page)
Authors: Teresa Grant
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Historical, #Romance, #Historical Romance, #Mystery & Suspense
“No, you’re right,” he said in the crisp voice he’d use to outline a policy option to the foreign secretary. “You know next to nothing about her background, and you’ll need to if you’re to help me investigate.” He braced his hands on the bed behind him. “Tatiana was the daughter of a minor prince from northern Russia. She came to St. Petersburg at eighteen and married Prince Kirsanov, who was four decades her senior and from a considerably wealthier and more powerful family. She became a fashionable St. Petersburg hostess. Kirsanov died when they had scarcely been married two years. The bulk of his fortune went to his son from a prior marriage, but he left Tatiana enough to set up her own household. She took to spending much of her time in Paris.”
Suzanne dropped a handful of hairpins into their porcelain box. If control was what he needed, she could match him. “Did her stepson resent her? Were there other stepchildren?”
“Several, I believe, though Tatiana didn’t talk about the family much. Are you suggesting they could have been behind her death?”
“Family often turn out to have the strongest motives when it comes to murder.”
“Very true,” Malcolm agreed, his voice a model of cool dispassion, “but I don’t think Tatiana saw herself as much a part of the Kirsanov family. She even preferred her girlhood style of Princess Tatiana to calling herself Princess Kirsanova. The Kirsanov children had most of the family fortune and seem to have cheerfully ignored her. None of them is in Vienna.”
Suzanne pulled a silver comb through her tangled hair and forced herself to view Princess Tatiana simply as the subject of an investigation. “Was she a Bonapartist or a Royalist when she lived in Paris?”
“Tatiana was a Tatiana-ist. She had friends among Bonaparte’s court and friends among the Royalists.”
“She was dealing in information then?”
Malcolm nodded. “She was an agent for Talleyrand.”
Suzanne twisted her head round to stare at her husband. “Princess Tatiana worked for the
French
foreign minister?”
French
foreign minister?”
“Off and on for a number of years. Talleyrand’s always had excellent sources of information, and Tatiana was connected to powerful people in a number of countries.”
“But you said she worked for the British in Spain.”
Malcolm leaned back on the bed, resting his weight on his hands. “It was Talleyrand who sent her to us.”
“Talleyrand sent an agent to work with the British when they were at war with France?”
“He’d quarreled with Napoleon and resigned as foreign minister. He was still advising Napoleon, but he was afraid Napoleon had overreached himself. Sending Tatiana to us was a sort of peace offering.”
“He was talking to you behind Napoleon’s back.”
“And to the Austrians and the Russians as well, I think. Survival tactics.”
“Some would call it treason.”
“If he’d got caught. Talleyrand’s rather good at not getting caught.”
“Was Princess Tatiana working for Talleyrand in Vienna?”
“I think she brought him information occasionally. But for all Talleyrand’s efforts, France isn’t one of the major power brokers at the Congress. Tatiana thought we could offer her more in terms of money and power.”
Suzanne tugged at the comb. The wind had wreaked havoc on her hair during their escape over the roofs. She picked at a snarl that had once been a ringlet, but a knot of dark hair still came away with the comb. “Her affair with Prince Metternich was some time ago, wasn’t it? The gossip isn’t very specific.”
“When he was in Paris for Marie-Louise’s marriage to Bonaparte,” Malcolm said. If Tatiana’s affair with the other man bothered him, he gave no sign of it.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s marriage to Austrian Archduchess Marie-Louise had taken place only four years ago, yet that had been a different world, in which Napoleon had ruled a vast empire and Bonapartist France and imperial Austria had been allies. Hard sometimes to remember that Austrian Emperor Francis, host of this Congress to divide up the remnants of Napoleon’s empire, was also the father of Napoleon’s young second wife, Marie-Louise, and the grandfather of their small son. These days political alliances broke up as quickly as love affairs.
Suzanne dragged the comb through her side curls. Her eyeblacking had smeared beneath her eyes. Or perhaps that was the strain of the evening already showing up. “And when Metternich and Princess Tatiana saw each other again in Vienna at the Congress—?”
“At the moment, Metternich has eyes for no one but the Duchess of Sagan.” Metternich’s obsession with the beautiful duchess was the talk of Vienna. She had recently broken off their love affair, but Metternich plainly remained besotted. “But it’s obvious he’s still very fond of Tatiana. As he is of Catherine Bagration.”
Princess Catherine Bagration, the Duchess of Sagan, and Princess Tatiana Kirsanova. The three beauties who resided in the Palm Palace, all three linked to both Metternich and Tsar Alexander. “Given the number of women in Vienna,” Suzanne said, “one would think Metternich and the tsar could find inamoratas who hadn’t shared the other’s bed.”
In the looking glass, she saw Malcolm’s mouth tighten. “I rather suspect that’s part of the attraction. Metternich and Alexander compete in everything, whether it’s women or who will draw the borders of Poland.”
Suzanne set down her comb. “Was Princess Tatiana involved with the tsar before they came to Vienna?”
“Their affair began when Alexander was in Paris last spring at the time of Napoleon’s abdication. Though there may have been something between them in Russia years ago.”
Malcolm spoke in the same cool tones he had used to describe Princess Tatiana’s affair with Metternich. That seemed to be what was enabling him to get through from moment to moment. Suzanne watched him in the glass for a moment, then blew out her candle, moved to the bed, and climbed beneath the coverlet. “Did Princess Tatiana have enemies?”
“Everyone at the Congress has enemies.” Malcolm shrugged out of his dressing gown and slid under the covers beside her. Though they were talking about Princess Tatiana, something had eased between them. This, she had learned early in their marriage, was the place they could communicate best, putting their heads together over a shared problem. This and sometimes when they reached for each other in their darkened bed, where words weren’t necessary at all.
“Other former lovers?” Suzanne was pleased with how cool she managed to keep her voice.
“A great many, I suspect. But I hadn’t heard of any being particularly jealous.”
“She never mentioned to you that she was afraid?”
He shook his head, though in the light of the single candle she caught the flash of anger in his eyes. Berating himself for not having seen the danger to the princess coming. “Tatiana was one of the least fearful people I’ve ever encountered. She had that in common with you.”
Suzanne drew her legs up beneath the coverlet and locked her hands about her knees. She wasn’t sure what she thought of her husband comparing her with Princess Tatiana. “Her lovers’ wives would have had reason to be jealous, though goodness knows both Princess Metternich and Tsarina Elisabeth must be inured to infidelities by now. And Princess Tatiana and Catherine Bagration were rivals for the tsar’s affections. Could a woman have killed her, do you think?”
“I’m not sure,” he said in the quick, taut tones of an investigator. “I want to get a medical opinion from Geoffrey Blackwell tomorrow. On that and a few other details.”
Suzanne stared at the shiny green and gold threads in the silk coverlet. “Do you think she really summoned all of us this evening—you, me, Metternich, the tsar? Or was her killer trying to arrange an incident?”
“To set the tsar and Metternich at each other’s throats? It’s an interesting possibility. I wish I could have got a look at the handwriting on the notes they received. But the killer snatched up a dagger that was already in the room. Which suggests a crime of impulse rather than something planned.”
“Was the dagger an heirloom?” Suzanne conjured up a memory of the antique gold hilt studded with rubies and emeralds. “It looked old but more Spanish than Russian.”
“I’m not sure,” Malcolm said. “She may have acquired it in the Peninsula.”
“The use of the dagger suggests it was a crime of impulse, but someone searched the room where she was killed. She could have been killed because of some piece of information she’d uncovered.”
Malcolm nodded. “You might call on Dorothée Périgord and see what you can learn.”
“We’re going to a dress fitting tomorrow.” Dorothée, Comtesse de Périgord, was Prince Talleyrand’s niece by marriage and his hostess at the Congress. She was also one of the few true friends Suzanne had made in Vienna.
Malcolm reached out and pinched the candle out between his fingers. “Do you think you can sleep?”
“If I can sleep with gunfire in the distance, you’d think I could manage it now.” Suzanne settled back against the pillows. “Malcolm.”
“Mmm?”
“Her locket being gone suggests the motive could be personal. Do you know what’s in the locket?”
“No.” The single word held sterling certainty. But it rang just a shade too bright. Or was she imagining things? For all her skills at reading people, sometimes she couldn’t be sure, even with Malcolm. Especially with Malcolm.
“Was the locket a gift from a lover?” she asked.
“Perhaps. It obviously meant a great deal to her.”
The bed creaked as Malcolm dropped back against the pillows, inches away from her. She could hear the controlled intake of his breath, but she knew he wasn’t sleeping, either. She stared up at the dark frame of the canopy. Her muscles screamed at the night’s exertions, but it was her mind that would not be still. Malcolm had agreed to let her help with the investigation. He had answered her questions about Princess Tatiana with every appearance of frankness, had volunteered information of his own, had speculated over the mystery with comforting ease.
And yet she was quite certain that her husband was lying about something.
6
M
outh dry and head throbbing from less than two hours’ sleep, Suzanne stepped into the yellow-papered salon Lady Castlereagh had appropriated as the breakfast parlor. The welcome smells of hot coffee and buttered toast greeted her. The room was occupied by two ladies and a gentleman. Eithne Vaughn, wife of one of Malcolm’s fellow attachés, was stirring milk into a cup of coffee. Malcolm’s cousin, Aline Dacre-Hammond, was, as usual, bent over a notebook of mathematical equations, the frilled cuff of her morning gown dangerously close to a plate of melting butter and toast crumbs. The Honorable Thomas Belmont, another attaché, had a newspaper spread before him, but he was leaning forward to recount a story.
outh dry and head throbbing from less than two hours’ sleep, Suzanne stepped into the yellow-papered salon Lady Castlereagh had appropriated as the breakfast parlor. The welcome smells of hot coffee and buttered toast greeted her. The room was occupied by two ladies and a gentleman. Eithne Vaughn, wife of one of Malcolm’s fellow attachés, was stirring milk into a cup of coffee. Malcolm’s cousin, Aline Dacre-Hammond, was, as usual, bent over a notebook of mathematical equations, the frilled cuff of her morning gown dangerously close to a plate of melting butter and toast crumbs. The Honorable Thomas Belmont, another attaché, had a newspaper spread before him, but he was leaning forward to recount a story.
“—heard at least three different versions on my morning ride in the Prater,” he was saying as Suzanne opened the door. “A Belgian attaché told me Talleyrand discovered the body when he arrived for a late-night supper with Princess Tatiana. An Austrian guardsman said the Duchess of Sagan and Metternich heard screams and came running into the princess’s apartments to see what was the matter, which is interesting because I didn’t think Metternich had spent the night with the duchess for some time. And a waiter at the café where I stopped for coffee told me the murderer made his escape through Catherine Bagration’s rooms and surprised the tsar there along with Princess Bagration and Julie Zichy, which would horrify poor painfully virtuous Countess Zichy.”
“It’s dreadful.” Eithne turned her gaze to the door. “Suzanne, have you heard? Tatiana Kirsanova has been murdered.”
“I can put Tommy’s rumors to rest.” Suzanne stepped into the room. “Malcolm and I discovered the body.”
Eithne dropped her silver coffee spoon to clatter against the Meissen saucer. Tommy sat back in his chair. It was Aline who looked up from her book and spoke first. Her gaze, which usually seemed to be fixed on some distant point only she could see, snapped to Suzanne’s face. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, love, but thank you for asking.” Suzanne smiled at the younger woman. Aline had come from England a fortnight ago to stay with Malcolm and Suzanne. Of all Malcolm’s large and often bewildering family, she was the one Suzanne felt most comfortable with, perhaps because Aline was too eccentric herself to pass judgment on others.
“Unfair.” Tommy never lost his equilibrium for long. “We have a firsthand witness to the latest scandal in Vienna within our own delegation. You can’t hold out after that, Suzanne. Be reasonable.”
“Tommy.” Eithne reached for the coffee pot, poured a cup, sloshing a few drops into the saucer, and held it out to Suzanne.
Suzanne sank into one of the shield-back chairs and took a fortifying sip of coffee. Strong and hot, with that rich flavor only Viennese coffee possessed. Cradling the warm porcelain in her hands, she related the version of events she and Malcolm had agreed to. Eithne’s blue eyes went wider and wider. Aline listened with an attention she normally gave only to abstruse quadratic equations. Tommy’s eyes narrowed, and at one point he let out a whistle. But he gave no sign of disbelief. He was a good test of the story. Tommy was a very clever man and a good agent himself. Not that Suzanne had any doubt of her abilities to dissemble, even on next to no sleep.
“How dreadful.” Eithne drew the folds of her Lyons scarf about her shoulders. “To think I saw her in the Prater only yesterday. I never thought Vienna would prove—”
“A danger to life, as opposed to borders and marriages?” Tommy tossed back a swallow of coffee as though he wished it were laced with brandy.
“We’re in a civilized country.”
“Define civilized,” Aline said.
“But who on earth would—”
“Someone driven mad by jealousy or lust or greed.” Aline jabbed a loose strand of ash brown hair behind her ear. “All the common motives.”
“It’s frightening to think there’s such a madman running about.”
“The most frightening thing is that he’s probably very little different from the rest of us.” Tommy turned back to Suzanne. “I’d give a monkey to have seen Metternich and the tsar confronting each other. Bold woman, the princess, to invite her lover and her ex-lover at the same time.”
Eithne shot him a warning look.
“It’s all right,” Aline said. “I may be unmarried and not quite twenty, but I’m not easily shocked. You can’t be, growing up in our family. I sometimes think we never really progressed beyond the last century. Very Devonshire House. None of us is quite sure who his or her father is.”
Eithne’s eyes widened again, not at the facts, Suzanne suspected, but at the way Aline had so blithely stated them.
“Excellent training for Vienna.” Suzanne speared a piece of toast and began to butter it.
“You’re a wonder, Suzanne,” Eithne said. “I think I’d have taken to my bed.”
“I doubt it. You’re much stronger than you admit, even to yourself.” Eithne might look like a Dresden shepherdess with her guinea gold ringlets and English rose prettiness, but Suzanne had glimpsed the steel beneath her porcelain façade more than once. It was one of the things that made her likable instead of an annoying paragon.
“This will give Baron Hager an excuse to poke into all our dirty linen,” Tommy said. “Without having to try to slip his agents in among the boot boys and dancing girls. As if things weren’t complicated enough with the tsar’s stubbornness on Poland and Prussian troops in Saxony.”
“And as if everyone weren’t suspicious enough to begin with,” Aline said. “You’d think—”
She broke off at the opening of the door. Lord Fitzwilliam Vaughn, Eithne’s husband, stepped into the room, face drawn with worry. “Belmont—oh, there you are, darling.” His gaze softened as it rested on Eithne. “Suzanne. Miss Dacre-Hammond. Forgive me. I’m afraid I have some unfortunate—”
“It’s all right, Fitz,” Eithne said, “we know. About Princess Tatiana. Suzanne and Malcolm were there last night. They discovered the body.”
Fitz darted a quick look at Suzanne. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, and possessed of elegantly boned features, he looked the part of the perfect English gentleman. But in Suzanne’s view he had rather more imagination than one generally expected of the type, in addition to a very kind heart and genuine chivalrous impulses.
“The princess had asked Malcolm to call on her,” Suzanne said. “It was unfortunate and distressing, but we’re both fine.”
“Thank heavens you didn’t encounter the murderer.” Eithne glanced up at her husband. “Do you want some coffee, darling?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t stay. Castlereagh wants us both in his study, Belmont.” Fitz crossed to Eithne’s side and bent to touch his fingers to her cheek. Her gaze met his in a moment of wordless communication.
Suzanne stared at the lip rouge–smeared rim of her coffee cup. Some couples could say things with their eyes that she doubted she and Malcolm would ever be able to put into words.
Malcolm made his way down a chestnut-lined avenue in the Prater, the park at the heart of Vienna. Sunlight shot between the thick branches. The weather was still unseasonably warm for November. Leaves of gold and russet and pomegranate red scuttered across the avenue and crunched underfoot. A glorious, gilded world that laughed in the harsh face of oncoming winter. Not a bad metaphor for the Congress itself.
He paused before one of the brightly painted cafés that lined the avenue. A number of people were clustered at the wrought iron tables that spilled out of the café’s doors. Attachés in well-cut coats, bonneted ladies with paper-wrapped shopping parcels beside them, students bent over piles of books, soldiers in the brilliant uniforms of several countries, artists with sketch pads. He heard fragments of at least seven languages as he threaded his way between the tables.
Annina Barbera, Tatiana Kirsanova’s maid, sat at a table a little to the side. Though it was not yet noon, she had a glass of red wine before her. Her gaze was fixed on the vase of blood red geraniums on the table. Malcolm watched her for a moment, then dropped into a seat across from her.
She looked up with a wintry smile. “You haven’t lost your instincts for tracking people.”
“I know you rather well. Well enough to know you’d be in need of fortification and a change of scene.” And he had met her at this café more than once to pass on messages to Tatiana or receive information from her.
Annina grimaced. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and her lids were swollen. Fatigue, no doubt, but he also suspected she’d been weeping most of the night.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The raw pain, sharp as a fresh sword cut, bit him in the throat. “Sorrier than I can say.”
“So am I.” Annina’s fingers tightened round the stem of her wineglass. “She wasn’t the easiest mistress, but she was generous. And loyal in her way.”
Malcolm signaled a waiter, resisted the pull of wine, and ordered coffee. His head ached and his eyes protested from lack of sleep.
“You look as though you got into a tavern brawl after you left the Palm Palace last night,” Annina said when the waiter had moved off.
Malcolm touched his fingers to the bruise on his cheek. “Spot of trouble on our way home.”
She stiffened. “Connected to the murder?”
“Almost certainly. The question is how.”
“Your wife—”
“Is good at taking care of herself. And me.”
Annina gave a faint smile. “I was told to leave the Palm Palace until this afternoon. Baron Hager’s men are searching the princess’s rooms.”
Malcolm went still, his gaze on her face. Hardly unexpected, but he felt his blood chill as though a gust of wind had ripped through the park.
Annina slid a hand into the pocket of her gown. To a casual observer, it would have looked as though she was just arranging her skirts. Malcolm reached beneath the table and took the ribbon-tied packet she was holding out. In Vienna, one never knew when one was being watched. Any seemingly casual passerby who wasn’t an agent for Baron Hager was likely to be an agent for one foreign power or another.
“All the letters in your hand that I could find last night before Prince Metternich and Baron Hager got to them,” Annina said as he took the papers from her beneath the table. “The princess kept your letters together.”
He drew a breath and found the air singularly sweet. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’ve been a good friend to me. And it’s what she would have wanted.”
Malcolm slid the papers and their precious, dangerous contents up under his coat. Very nearly all he had left of Tatiana. A life reduced to—No. No time to think on that now. “Did you find anything else?”
“No.” Annina twisted her wineglass on the black metal of the table. “She was always careful about burning papers. She had yours tucked in a secret compartment in her dressing table, along with some old love letters from Prince Metternich that I left for Baron Hager to find. Anything else valuable she kept in a box that was hidden in a hole in the floorboards under the carpet in her dressing room. I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but it’s hard to keep secrets from one’s maid.” Annina hesitated a moment. “That box is gone.”
Malcolm’s fingers stilled on the Bath superfine lapel of his coat. “It was taken last night?”
“I’m not sure. I hadn’t seen it for a fortnight. I looked for it after I found your letters, while Prince Metternich was still with you and the tsar. It was gone then. The murderer might have taken it. Or the princess might have moved it. If so, Baron Hager’s men will find it if it’s in her rooms. They’re tearing them apart.”
Foolish to dwell on what secrets that box might contain and how they might relate to him. “What’s to happen to her rooms?”
“The rent’s paid through the month. They asked me who her heir was. I said probably her stepson?” She looked at Malcolm in inquiry.
“I expect so.” Malcolm laid a silk purse on the table.
Annina stared at it. “I didn’t ask for a handout.”
“No. But I thought you might accept a gift from a friend. I can help you with a reference as well.”
Her shoulders straightened. “I’ll manage.”
“Very ably, I have no doubt. But the offices of a friend can still prove helpful. There are a number of tiresome things about my family, but my name is rather useful.”
Annina gave a half smile of acknowledgment and tucked the purse into her reticule. She was nothing if not practical. As Tatiana had been.
The waiter returned and put a cup of steaming black coffee before Malcolm. He took a sip. Strong and bitter, it went right to the fuzziest part of his brain. He leaned back in his chair and regarded Annina. “I’m not Baron Hager.”
“Meaning I can trust you?”
“I want to find out who did this to her, Annina.” Rage coursed through him. At the wanton violence that had ended Tatiana’s life, at his own inability to stop it. He tightened his grip on the coffee cup. “Tell me what happened last night. What you know of it.”
Annina twisted her fingers round the stem of her wineglass. “She was expecting someone. A gentleman.”
“She told you?”
“No. But I could tell from the gown and jewels she selected. Your wife pointed out as much last night. The princess had me spread out a half dozen gowns, and she tried on four of them. She changed her jewelry twice. And she had me take all the pins out of her hair and rearrange it three different times.”
Other books
No Place for Nathan by Casey Watson
Blood Guilt by Ben Cheetham
Paradigm by Stringer, Helen
Nothing Like Love by Abigail Strom
Anew: Book One: Awakened by Litton, Josie
Ritos de Madurez by Octavia Butler
A Dream of Desire by Nina Rowan
Desert Rogues Part 2 by Susan Mallery
DELIVERANCE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense by COLE JACKSON
Girl with the Golden Voice by Carl Hancock