by Vienna Waltz
“Do you think she was expecting him last night?”
“I did at first. Until—everything else. Finding her like that, and you and Prince Metternich and the tsar being there. But I still think—She was dressed and in the salon just after ten. You say she hadn’t summoned the rest of you until three?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t like her to sit idle for so long. She was expecting someone earlier in the evening.”
A quarrel had broken out at a nearby table between an attaché from a German principality—Lichtenstein? Leyen?—and an Austrian lieutenant. Insults rippled across the tables.
“Had Tatiana seemed different in any way lately?” Malcolm asked.
Annina’s brows drew together. “No. Yes. That is—there was a sort of tension about her. Like a string for the piano that is wound too tightly.”
“Do you think she was afraid?”
“You knew her as well as anyone. She was never afraid. This was the way I’ve seen her when she was about to wager a great deal at the gaming tables.”
A Belgian had rushed into the quarrel between the German and Austrian. Voices rose, all three speaking in their native tongue.
Malcolm curled his hands round his coffee cup. “What do you think she was gambling on?”
Annina shook her head. “You knew more about her work than I did. But whatever it was, the risk and reward were great.”
The German attaché pushed back his chair. A wineglass shattered on the pavement.
Malcolm swallowed the last of his coffee. “Thank you, Annina. You need only send word to me in the Minoritenplatz should you remember anything else. Or should you have need of me for any other reason.”
She gave a twisted smile. “I can look after myself.”
“So could Tatiana.” His nails cut into his palm as he set down the cup. “But we’re none of us immune to danger. Go carefully.”
Annina nodded. But as Malcolm rose to leave, she said, “Your wife. How much does she know?”
Malcolm hesitated. A waiter had rushed forward to sweep up the broken glass. Inside the café, the violinist had changed to a melody in a minor key. Last night in their darkened bed he’d wanted to pull Suzanne to him and bury his anger and loss in the warmth of her body. But it would have been an appalling invasion to use her so thoughtlessly. And God knew he of all people had no right to make such demands on her. “As much as I could afford to tell her.”
Annina’s eyes widened. “Which means—?”
“Not nearly everything.”
“But enough to stop her suspecting?”
“Oh, I doubt it. My wife’s a very clever woman.” Malcolm drew a breath and tasted the bite of oncoming winter in the air. “But hopefully what she suspects isn’t anything near as bad as the truth.”
7
Prince Adam Czartoryski slowed his horse to a sedate walk as he reached the wide, chestnut-lined avenue, thick with pedestrians, riders, and all manner of carriages. Chaises, calèches, berlins, coupés. He bowed to the lovely, fragile Empress of Austria, whose high color and translucent skin sadly betrayed her consumption. He exchanged greetings with pretty Julie Zichy and impetuous Alfred von Windischgrätz, agreeing that the news about Princess Tatiana’s death was shocking.
He forced himself to nod civilly at Lord Stewart, Castlereagh’s half brother, tooling a showy four-in-hand as though his were the only carriage in the avenue. He listened to a catalogue of the latest scandals, including some outrageous speculation on the princess’s murder, from the courtly Prince de Ligne. All the while he schooled his features to convey that he was about nothing more than a morning ride. For once he had cause to be grateful for the training of his years in the Russian court. He had become adept at hiding his real feelings.
He glimpsed Malcolm Rannoch on the other side of the avenue, on foot, walking quickly, his face a tight, composed mask. According to some of the rumors, Rannoch had discovered the princess’s body. He’d been close to Princess Tatiana. Her lover, some said. Poor devil.
As though aware he was being watched, Rannoch turned, regarded Adam for a moment, and inclined his head. Adam returned the nod. The sunlight shot beneath the curling brim of Rannoch’s hat, and Adam noticed a dark bruise on the other man’s cheekbone. Surprising that didn’t figure in the rumors.
It was as he watched Malcolm Rannoch turn down a side path that Adam finally saw her. In an open calèche of green and white, one of the carriages Emperor Francis had ordered for his royal guests. A coachman in smart new yellow livery (also ordered by the emperor) drove the carriage, and two ladies-in-waiting accompanied her. He guided his horse across the avenue, forcing himself to stop and nod and exchange more greetings along the way.
At last, he drew up beside her calèche. “Your Majesty.”
“Prince.” Elisabeth’s voice was level, but beneath the white satin brim of her bonnet her eyes were blue-shadowed with fatigue and worry. The familiar, impossible impulse to sweep her away from all danger and intrigue swept through him. Twenty years and he was still fool enough to think he could do it.
He bent over her gloved hand in the Austrian fashion and raised it to his lips. An excuse to touch her. And the opportunity to murmur words for her alone. “I’ll get them back for you.” He could feel the warmth of her hand through the soft kid of the glove. “I swear it. You have nothing to fear.”
She leaned forward, and as he lifted his head her gaze met his for a moment. Her mouth curved in a smile that went right to his heart, but her eyes were cold with terror. “You’re a loyal man, Adam,” she said. “And a shocking liar.”
“Monsieur Rannoch.” The deep voice rang out across the path Malcolm had taken to escape the crowded avenue. Malcolm turned his head to find himself looking at Baron Hager, Vienna’s chief of police.
Hager crossed the path to Malcolm’s side. “A fortuitous meeting. I planned to call on you this afternoon.”
“Baron.” Malcolm inclined his head, wondering just how much a matter of chance the meeting truly was. Had Hager followed him or had him followed? Hopefully he and Annina had managed the exchange of papers adeptly enough. “Of course you’ll want to question me about last night.”
“Precisely. Perhaps we could sit for a few moments?” Hager gestured toward a wrought iron bench along the path. “I understand you were the first to discover Princess Tatiana’s body.”
“My wife and I.”
“Ah, yes. The charming Madame Rannoch.” Hager flicked back the tails of his coat and settled himself on the bench. “A sad pity she had to witness such a sight.”
“Quite.” Malcolm sat beside the baron on the sun-warmed metal. “Fortunately my wife is an intrepid woman.”
“You were paying a social call on the princess?”
“She sent me a note asking me to call on her. I’m sure Prince Metternich told you as much.”
“Perhaps he did mention it. There’ve been a great many details to keep track of,” said Baron Hager, quite as though being a master of detail weren’t his stock in trade. In addition to the police force, hundreds of agents reported to him, from members of Austria’s most powerful families to former slum dwellers now employed as scullery maids and boot boys in the lodgings of various delegations. “Why did the princess wish you to call?” Hager asked.
“I don’t know.” And the knowledge that he had failed her would live with him forever. “Sadly I never had the opportunity to speak with her.”
“But you knew it was a matter of some urgency? Obviously you didn’t let it wait until the sun came up.”
Malcolm recounted the story he and Suzanne had agreed upon the previous night about Tatiana’s message reaching him at Baroness Arnstein’s. “Princess Tatiana made it clear she wished us to call last night.”
“Both of you?”
Malcolm swallowed. No sense in straying from the agreed-upon story, whatever light it put him in. “Her note was written to me. My wife insisted on accompanying me.”
“A great fri
end of the princess as well, was she?”
“She preferred not to have her husband pay a call on the princess alone late at night. I could scarcely argue with her.”
Hager regarded Malcolm through narrowed eyes. “Might I ask how you received that rather spectacular bruise on your cheekbone?”
“Three men attacked my wife and me on our way home from the Palm Palace last night.”
Hager’s eyes widened. If he had known of the attack, he was an excellent dissembler. But then dissembling was his stock in trade, as it was Malcolm’s. “Common footpads?”
“I don’t think so. But the one man I tried to question was killed by a confederate before I could learn more. Have you had word of a body in an alley somewhere between the Schenkengasse and the Minoritenplatz?”
Hager shook his head.
Malcolm nodded. “Then his confederates must have moved him.”
“You lead an eventful life, Monsieur Rannoch.” Hager shifted his position on the bench, perhaps so the angle of the sun gave him a better view of Malcolm’s face. “Princess Tatiana supplied information to a number of delegations at the Congress. I assume that was at least part of your connection with her?”
“As a fellow professional, you can hardly expect me to answer that. But I advise you not to jump to conclusions.”
Hager crossed one booted leg over the other. “You’re a clever man, Rannoch. A fellow professional, as you say. Did you notice anything in particular when you came into Princess Tatiana’s salon last night?”
The smell of blood, like a punch to the gut. The pallor of her face, her clouded eyes. The chill of her skin when, against all reason, he had felt desperately for a pulse. “At first merely the obvious. That the princess had been killed in a brutal fashion. Later—Someone else had been in the room.”
“Whoever killed her.”
“Quite. But that person, or perhaps another party, had gone through the princess’s escritoire. I imagine you noted it yourself.”
“The room appears to have been searched. Well but rather hastily.” Hager leaned against the curving back of the bench. He had been a cavalry officer before a riding accident forced him from the military. For a moment, Malcolm felt as though the point of a cavalry sword pressed against his throat. “I imagine Princess Tatiana could have made things rather difficult for you with your wife.”
“You can scarcely expect me to discuss either lady with you. But if that were the case, surely I would have contrived not to bring my wife with me when I called on Princess Tatiana.”
“Perhaps. In many ways, it’s exceedingly fortunate for you that you did so.” Hager adjusted the brim of his hat. “I hear Tsar Alexander has set the funeral for tomorrow. At the Russian embassy chapel. Wants it done quietly, before the rumors flying round the city grow any worse. But I imagine all Vienna will be clamoring to attend. Are you planning to be in attendance, Monsieur Rannoch?”
Malcolm schooled his features not to betray his shock of surprise. Of course Tania’s funeral would be planned by others. Of course he would be at best a spectator. “Should space permit, naturally I would like to pay my last respects to the princess.”
Hager regarded him in silence for a long moment. “Naturally.” The baron flexed his gloved fingers. “Oh, there’s one other thing,” he added, as though it had just occurred to him, though Malcolm suspected he’d planned every twist of the interview from the outset. “I understand Princess Tatiana was in the habit of always wearing a locket on a gold chain, sometimes tucked into the bodice of her gown. Her maid says the princess was wearing it last night, but we didn’t find it on her body. Being such a good friend of the princess, would you have any idea what that locket contained?”
Malcolm looked into Hager’s eyes, conscious of the sun falling clear and bright across his face, and put into practice every trick of deception he had learned in his years in intelligence. “None at all, I’m afraid.”
Dr. Geoffrey Blackwell adjusted the slide under the microscope, then cursed as the opening of the door sent a draft through the room that ruined his careful alignment. “What the devil—Oh, it’s you, Malcolm.” Blackwell pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I’m glad you’ve come.”
“Sorry I disturbed the experiment.” Malcolm closed the door.
Blackwell waved a hand. “Thought it was one of the other damned fool attachés wanting patching up after a night’s drunken brawl or worried about the French pox.” A military doctor, Blackwell was theoretically spending his leave in Vienna, but the British delegation were still quick to call on him for medical attention. “I’m sorry,” he said, taking a step toward Malcolm. He cleared his throat. “Sorrier than I can say.”
“You’ve heard about Tatiana?”
“I imagine all Vienna has heard by now.” The shock of the news, offered by his landlady’s daughter as no more than the latest scandalous gossip, washed over Blackwell again. Damned foolish. This was no time to give way to emotions. Especially when he prided himself on being above them. He moved to one of the frayed tapestry chairs by the stove and waved Malcolm to the chair opposite.
The light from the windows fell across Malcolm’s face as he dropped into the chair, revealing a bruise on his cheekbone, shadows beneath his eyes, and a dark wasteland in the eyes themselves. “Suzanne and I found her,” he said.
Blackwell drew a sharp breath. He had known Malcolm since the latter was a baby. Blackwell’s father was a distant cousin of Malcolm’s ducal grandfather, and Blackwell had grown up with Malcolm’s mother and aunt. He remained closer to Malcolm’s family than to his own, who were baffled by his decision to become a military doctor instead of following his father and brothers into the army itself. Through the years, home on leave, he’d had glimpses of Malcolm’s less than idyllic childhood. He knew just how much hurt lay behind that bruised gaze. But he also knew that Malcolm had learned to hold his feelings close. Blackwell did much the same himself. So he simply said, “I’m sorry.”
Malcolm nodded. His hands were curled round the chair arms, his gaze fixed on his fingers. “Castlereagh wants me to investigate.”
Damn Castlereagh, though Blackwell could understand the foreign secretary’s reasoning. And Malcolm might do better with a task. “So you’ve come to me for information. What did you find when you went into the room?”
For a moment, Malcolm’s face held the memory of a glimpse into hell. “Her throat had been cut. With a medieval dagger that she kept in the salon. The cut was left to right.”
“So the killer was right-handed. Which doesn’t narrow your field much. Though it means Suzanne couldn’t have done it.”
“Could a woman have done it?”
“I suspect any man or woman with an ordinary degree of strength could have done it.” Blackwell shut his mind to a memory of Tatiana the last time he had seen her, champagne glass in her hand, mouth curved with ironic laughter, face glowing with life. A bloody, senseless waste. But Malcolm was desperately trying to hold on to his self-command, and Blackwell wouldn’t help the lad if he broke down himself. “How did her skin look?” he asked.
“Blue tinged. And her lips and nails were pale,” Malcolm added in a swift, expressionless voice.
“Did her skin blanch to the touch?”
“No.”
Blackwell nodded. “Most likely she was killed more than half an hour before you arrived but less than three hours. I’m sorry I can’t narrow your field more.”
“Anything helps.” Malcolm loosed his fingers on the chair arms as though with an effort of will. “The blood had sprayed everywhere. The walls. The carpet. But if the killer stood behind and then dropped her to the ground and flung the dagger away—”
“He—or she—might have managed to avoid the worst of it,” Blackwell concluded, matching Malcolm’s tone. “Enough to make it home in the dark and then sponge out the evidence.”
“And of course if the killer put a greatcoat on after the murder, that would have covered any bloodstains.”
Malcolm kept his gaze on the coals glowing in the stove. “Tsar Alexander and Prince Metternich.”
Blackwell sucked in and released a breath. “It seems a bit redundant to tell you to go carefully. But tangling with royalty entails risks even you don’t normally run, lad.”
“When one is investigating a murder, the lovers of the victim are obvious suspects. Of course, so is the person who discovers the body, which doesn’t put me in a very favorable position. I suspect Metternich would have taken me into custody last night if Suzanne hadn’t been there to say we’d arrived at the Palm Palace together.”
Blackwell noted that Malcolm didn’t actually say he and Suzanne had arrived together but made no comment on it. He stretched his legs out toward the warmth of the stove. “How’s Suzanne taken it?”
“Intrepid as always. She’s insisting on helping me.”
“You’re a wise man to agree.” Blackwell glanced sideways at Malcolm, his distaste for interfering warring with the instincts of affection. “I suspect this is far harder on Suzanne than she’s letting you see.”
Malcolm started to speak, drew a rough breath, then at last said, “Suzanne and I’ve found our way to a marriage that works after a fashion. It’s a delicate balance. We’re both trying to keep it that way.”
“Delicate balances have a way of tumbling about one’s ears.” Blackwell studied Malcolm’s face, seeing the awkward, bright-eyed boy with the all-too-keen understanding, overlaid by the scars of the man he had become. “Believe me, I know how difficult and potentially disastrous emotional entanglements can be. God knows I’ve always steered well clear of them myself. But you’ve gone this far.”
“And I should have the guts to see it through?” Malcolm turned his gaze back to the red-orange glow of the coals. “I look at Fitzwilliam Vaughn and Eithne sometimes. Five years married and still living in each other’s pockets. I’d roll my eyes, save that I’m struck by the wonder of being so sure of another person. But then Fitz has a wonderful capacity for believing in things.”