by Vienna Waltz
“He found Tatiana’s body. He and his wife.”
“Dreadful. Particularly for Madame Rannoch.”
“Given her husband’s relationship with Tatiana. The impertinent puppy was in love with her himself.” Alexander stopped before the gilded door to his box. A bewigged footman at once stepped forward and opened it.
“You can hardly suspect his motives the night of the murder, given that he had his wife with him,” Adam said as he followed Alexander into the box’s anteroom.
“Assuming they really did arrive at the Palm Palace together. There was something damned suspicious about the whole thing. I had Otronsky talk to Madame Rannoch at the Metternich masquerade. He agrees their story is dubious, though he couldn’t catch her in a falsehood.”
Adam grimaced. He deplored Count Otronsky’s rising influence with the tsar. Otronsky’s combination of belligerence and romanticized dreams of Russian grandeur seemed calculated to push Alexander in precisely the wrong direction at the Congress.
Alexander paused, one hand on the crimson curtains to the box itself. “I loved Tatiana, Adam.”
Adam touched the tsar’s arm. For all that had passed between them, for all the layers of disagreements and betrayals, personal and political, at times Alexander was still the friend of his youth. When Adam had been a young man exiled to an alien court and Alexander an heir to the throne with an increasingly unstable father, it had often seemed they had no one but each other. They’d sat up late at night in the darkened recesses of the palace, poring over Voltaire and Locke, dreaming of a Russia with its own constitution, designed on the finest liberal principles. They’d been going to remake the world. “I know.”
“You heard Catherine Bagration’s accusations last night? That Tatiana was an impostor?”
“I heard of them.”
“Do you believe them?” Alexander’s voice was rough and raw, the voice of twenty years ago. Once he had relied on Adam’s opinion in nearly everything. These days he asked for it less and less in personal matters.
“I don’t know enough to determine what to believe or disbelieve. But even if she was born with a different name to different parents in a different country, she was still the woman you loved.”
“If she lied about her birth, what else might she—” Alexander shook his head. “Catherine’s always been jealous. And when she’s jealous she can be spiteful. She’s done her best to turn me against the Duchess of Sagan.”
“Without success.”
“I don’t listen to lies,” Alexander said, almost defensively.
Even in the days before his own love for Elisabeth—so difficult to remember those days—Alexander’s love affairs had baffled Adam. To love more than one woman at a time seemed—unnecessary. Overcomplicated. And a contradiction to the word “love.”
“Wilhelmine of Sagan has won your confidence,” Adam said.
“She is in need of assistance. I am endeavoring to render it to her.”
“And your association with her angers Prince Metternich,” Adam added, perhaps unwisely.
“Metternich’s an arrogant fool. If he wasn’t man enough to keep Wilhelmine, that’s his problem.”
Adam studied Alexander’s face, trying to remember when it had grown so hard. “He sent Baron Hager to question you about the night Princess Tatiana was killed?”
Alexander gave a curt nod. “I told him the truth, of course. I have nothing to hide.”
“Alex—” Adam took an impulsive step forward. “Sir, do you have any idea why Princess Tatiana asked you to call on her that night?”
“None,” Alexander said in a flat voice. “It wasn’t particularly unusual for me to call on her at that hour. Naturally I suspected nothing.”
Adam returned the gaze of the man he had once felt he knew better than anyone. “Naturally.”
Wilhelmine of Sagan lifted her opera glasses and willed her heart to still. It had been beating a mad staccato ever since her interview with Suzanne Rannoch at the rehearsal for the Carrousel that afternoon.
“I’ve been remembering my youthful madness.” Dorothée slipped into the seat beside her.
Wilhelmine raised her brows.
“Adam Czartoryski,” Dorothée said.
Wilhelmine trained her opera glasses on the box across the theatre where Tsar Alexander was taking his place beside Tsarina Elisabeth. Adam Czartoryski sat in the row behind. “You’re a married woman whose husband is far away, Doro. You’re in a far better position to amuse yourself with Prince Czartoryski now than you were as an unmarried girl.”
Dorothée shook her head. “I don’t think Adam Czartoryski is the type for amusements. More important, I don’t think I should like to be an amusement.”
Wilhelmine studied her younger sister. She forgot, sometimes, what a child Dorothée still was. And yet her sister’s expression stirred an unexpected welling of envy. Envy of something she could scarcely remember. If she had ever known it at all. “Oh, Doro. You always expected too much. It will doom you to disappointment.”
The thud of a walking stick signaled Talleyrand’s arrival in the box. A few moments later, the first notes of the overture sounded, almost as though Talleyrand had cued the start of the performance. Wilhelmine wouldn’t put it past him for a moment.
The first act passed in a blur. She was in no mood for the tangled love lives of fictional characters. Figaro and Susanna were fools to think marriage would bring them happiness. Count Almaviva was doing what all husbands did. At least they hadn’t got to the long-suffering countess yet. If the woman were sensible, she’d stop bewailing her lost love and take Cherubino to her bed and have some fun. God knows he’d have more stamina than her husband.
Guests began to pour into the box almost the moment the curtain fell on the first act. Dorothée was besieged by adoring young attachés, and Talleyrand’s attention was claimed by Baron Hardenberg. Wilhelmine started to get to her feet when someone dropped into a chair beside her.
Without so much as turning her head, she knew who it was. She would know the smell of his shaving soap and the starch he used in his shirts anywhere. She stiffened. “Prince Metternich.”
“That bad?” he said in a dry voice. “I assure you, I have no intention of importuning you with any more tiresome pleas. I merely wished—”
“What?” Impatience tinged her voice.
“To assure you that all will be well.”
Wilhelmine turned to look at the face she had so often seen across her pillow. Even now she could not deny his good looks, from the golden curls falling over his forehead to the finely molded lines of his mouth. He returned her gaze, his own hot with memories.
For a moment she, too, was caught by the past. The way his fingers had toyed with her garter and slid up her leg, the brush of flesh against flesh as she pulled his shirt over his head, the roughness of his breath as his mouth claimed her breast. Had she ever loved him? Or had she merely enjoyed basking in his adoration? “I don’t know what you mean.”
His gaze remained steady on her own. “I know you have little use for me. But let me at least render you this service.”
The look in his eyes took her back to the time she could have taken comfort in his arms. And yet he had made her promises in the past that he hadn’t been able to keep. “You can’t—”
Something in Metternich’s expression stopped her. She turned and saw that Alfred von Windischgrätz had come into the box. “Alfred.” Wilhelmine extended her hand to her current lover.
“Windischgrätz.” Metternich rose and sketched a quick bow in his direction. “Duchess. I trust you will enjoy the rest of the opera.”
“My love?” Alfred kept hold of her hand but glared after Metternich with the gaze of a soldier who has spotted the enemy on his terrain. “Was he plaguing you?”
“No. Merely paying his respects.” Wilhelmine got to her feet and unfurled her fan. She loved Alfred, but she couldn’t trust even him with her current predicament. Besides, Alfred thought like the brilli
ant cavalry officer he was, and a saber cut could not solve this problem. Violence had already made the situation infinitely worse. She suppressed a shudder and slid her hand through his arm. “Shall we find some champagne, darling?”
“Herr Rannoch.”
The voice stopped Malcolm as he followed Suzanne and Aline down the corridor that ran behind the boxes. He turned to see Franz Schubert making his way through the press of people.
Malcolm shook the young man’s hand and presented Aline, who said, “You compose? How splendid. There’s something quite magical in turning numbers into sound.”
Schubert flushed. “Thank you, fraulein. The kapellmeister—Herr Salieri—gave me private lessons when I was in the imperial choir, and he’s been kind enough to continue my instruction now I’ve left.”
“Salieri is much talked of at the Congress,” Aline said. “When I arrived in Vienna people were still agog at the concert he organized with the hundred pianos. And—” She bit back what she had been about to say. Malcolm caught the appalled look in his young cousin’s eyes. Aline was not one to gossip, but the hothouse atmosphere in Vienna affected everyone.
“I know.” Schubert met Aline’s gaze directly. “There are still rumors about Herr Salieri regarding Mozart’s death.”
“Vienna is full of rumors,” Aline said. “The more scandalous, the wider currency they seem to receive. Though I must say, the ones about Salieri and Mozart strike me as excessive enough to be worthy of the plot of a particularly improbable opera.”
“Quite.” Schubert grinned at her, in a moment of youthful camaraderie. Then his gaze moved back to Malcolm. “I saw you in your box during the first act. Princess Tatiana meant to be here tonight.”
“She loved Mozart,” Malcolm said. Tatiana’s voice giving a mocking rendition of “Voi che sapete” echoed in his head.
“We were talking about the opera that last day I saw her. My mind wasn’t working properly when I met you yesterday—I was in shock. But seeing the opera brought it back.”
“Yes?” Malcolm drew Schubert a little to one side, into a gap between a pier table and a pillar. Suzanne and Aline followed.
“It was after she told me she’d discovered something disquieting. She recovered her composure, I gave her the music I’d brought, and we were talking about the opera tonight. She knew how I was looking forward to it. She said as a girl she wanted to be Susanna and in recent years she fancied herself as the countess, but now she thought she identified more with Figaro. I asked if that was because he was so clever. She said perhaps. Then she bent down and picked up a piece of the comfit dish she’d smashed and said she could understand Figaro’s rage when he learns the count is plotting to take Susanna. He’d thought the count was his friend and ally and look how he repays him.” Schubert’s gaze moved over Malcolm’s face. “Could that have been the disquieting news? That she realized she couldn’t trust someone she’d thought she could rely upon?”
A dozen possible scenarios raced through Malcolm’s head. “It could indeed. Thank you, Schubert.”
Schubert gave a shy smile. “The second act will be starting. You should return to your box.”
“We have a spare seat,” Aline said. “Do join us.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t—”
“Excellent idea.” Malcolm put a hand on Schubert’s shoulder. “It’s the least we can do.”
They made their way back to the box. Malcolm pulled the door of the box to, about to follow Suzanne, Aline, and Schubert through the curtains from the anteroom to the box itself, when he felt someone grasp the door handle from the corridor behind him.
“Rannoch.” The voice, coming through the crack in the door, was low and urgent. Not the voice from the garden last night, though he couldn’t place it otherwise. “Listen.” The man spoke French with a good accent, though not that of a true native. “There isn’t much time.”
“Who—”
“Who I am doesn’t matter. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“For—”
“Don’t play dumb. It’s not who killed Princess Tatiana that’s important, it’s what she was about to discover.”
“Which is what?”
“You have to ask the right questions. Why did Princess Tatiana go to the Empress Rose tavern the day she died?”
“Why—”
“Take the gifts you’re offered, Rannoch. Don’t be greedy. I risk a great deal simply to tell you this much.”
“If—”
“Trust no one. You can’t be sure who in Vienna may be involved in this. Tatiana learned that to her cost.”
Malcolm reached out and squeezed Suzanne’s hand. Her fingers twined round his for a moment. She was behind the curtains of the windows that ran along one side of the grand salon, empty now as the waiters had taken a break during the second act. The door to the anteroom was a few feet off. Adam Czartoryski was in a convenient niche in the corridor, watching the door that opened from the corridor onto the anteroom. Whichever door the mysterious man seeking Tatiana’s papers used, they should have a view of him and would be able to follow him when he left. Malcolm released his wife’s hand and pushed open the door to the anteroom.
It was in darkness, startling after the brilliant candlelight of the grand salon. Malcolm pushed the door shut to protect Suzanne. Even as he paused to get his bearings, he sensed a presence in the shadows.
“I have a pistol drawn, Rannoch.”
“So do I.”
“But mine is pointed at your head. I had a glimpse of you as you opened the door. Turn to the wall. Tilt your pistol to the ground. I’m not taking any chances after last time.”
Malcolm complied. It was the voice from the Metternichs’ garden—definitely different from the man who had spoken to him in the box just now—but he still couldn’t place the accent.
A flint scraped against steel. A single candle flared to life. “You have the papers?” the clipped voice asked.
“You have the payment? I’m willing to humor your desire for secrecy, but should you try to take the papers without payment, I’m a very quick shot. And quite accurate, even when I fire while whirling round.”
Paper slapped against a demilune table to Malcolm’s right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a stack of British banknotes.
“Put the papers beside them,” the uninflected voice said. “Then you can pick up the banknotes.”
Malcolm pulled Suzanne’s dummy papers from inside his evening coat without haste, held them out so Uninflected Voice could see they were letters, and then set them on the polished wood of the table. Keeping in character, he reached for the bundle of banknotes and began to count them.
Uninflected Voice gave a harsh laugh. “Trusting, aren’t you?”
“Is anyone in Vienna fool enough to be trusting?”
“You have a point. Count the money if you will but don’t turn round. I still have my pistol trained on you.”
Footsteps sounded against the parquet floor. A hand shot into Malcolm’s peripheral vision, reaching for the dummy letters. At the same moment, the door from the grand salon swung open.
“Just in time, I see,” said a deep voice. “If you hand those over to me, this will be much simpler.”
Malcolm spun round to see a man in the doorway from the grand salon, a black silk scarf tied over his face. In one hand he held a pistol. His other arm was wrapped round Suzanne, a knife at her throat.
19
Suzanne’s gaze flickered toward Malcolm with warning and apology. The knife was just above her collarbone. Fear and anger scalded Malcolm’s throat.
“The papers,” the masked man said again. He wore a gleaming black evening coat over an ivory and gold brocade waistcoat, and thick, dark hair showed above the scarf that covered his face. He spoke French, though it did not seem to be his native tongue any more than it was that of Uninflected Voice or the man who had spoken to him in the box earlier. “Put them in my pocket. And drop your guns. Both of you.”
Mal
colm let go of his pistol, gaze trained on Suzanne. Uninflected Voice, revealed to be a stocky, brown-haired man, lowered his hand, as though to do the same, then brought it up in a lightning motion and fired.
The masked man staggered and cried out. Suzanne spun away from him. Blood spurted from her shoulder. Malcolm caught her in his arms, dropping the banknotes.
Uninflected Voice grabbed the letters from the table, snatched up the banknotes, lurched across the room, and flung his shoulder against the window. At his second try, the frame gave way and the glass cracked. He sprang out of the window in a hail of broken glass and splintered wood. Masked Man raced after him, just as the door from the corridor burst open. Adam Czartoryski stepped into the room and froze on the threshold.
Suzanne pulled out of Malcolm’s arms and darted to the window. Malcolm ran after her to see Masked Man push himself to his feet on the cobblestones below. Uninflected Voice was almost out of sight on the lamplit street. Masked Man staggered after him, dodging through the crowd who were running out of cafés to stare up at the broken window.
Malcolm pulled his wife back from the window as a gust of cold wind cut through the broken glass.
“Malcolm—” Suzanne protested.
“No chance of catching them.” He pushed her into the nearest chair and pulled out his handkerchief.
Czartoryski was at the window. “I got a glimpse of the brown-haired man going into the anteroom, but I didn’t recognize him. What in God’s name—”
“The first man was an Austrian, I think. I’d swear I’ve seen him round the chancellery.” Malcolm pushed Suzanne’s lace and silk puff of a sleeve down off her shoulder.
“He only winged me,” she said. “I was stupid.”
“We weren’t expecting someone else to show up in search of the papers,” Malcolm said. Thankfully she spoke the truth about her wound. The bullet had hit a blood vessel, but the blood was already starting to clot. He bound his handkerchief tight round her shoulder.
“It was just like Prince Czartoryski interrupting the first meeting. This man was very quiet coming into the grand salon, but I heard the opening of the door,” Suzanne said, as Malcolm tied the ends of the handkerchief. “Of course I just thought it was an opera-goer in search of a drink, so I stayed still behind the curtains. He had the pistol trained on me by the time I realized what was happening. A few years ago, I’d have tried to get away. Before I had Colin.”