Teresa Grant - [Charles & Melanie Fraser 01]

by Vienna Waltz

Suzanne rested her chin on her knees. “Of course, if it was Talleyrand one would think Tatiana might have discovered the truth at any time these past ten years.”

  “And I can’t imagine Talleyrand killing to keep an illegitimate child secret. He’s already rumored to have several of them. But if he thought Tatiana had become a liability—”

  “You like him,” Suzanne said.

  A faint smile flashed in Malcolm’s eyes. “I still remember the first time I met him. I was riding in my mother’s carriage in Hyde Park. He treated a boy of five with surprising seriousness. Yes, I like him. That doesn’t mean he didn’t kill Tatiana.”

  Suzanne frowned over the puzzle of Tatiana’s parentage for a moment, then shook her head. “It’s still most likely Tatiana’s death has to do with Otronsky’s plot. Did Hager believe you?”

  “He wouldn’t admit that he did. I can only hope he believed me enough he’ll be on his guard.”

  “Could—”

  A rap on the door forestalled her. “Sir? I’m sorry, but this may be important.”

  It was Addison’s voice. When Malcolm bade him come in, he nodded to Suzanne with his usual punctilious formality, then turned to Malcolm. “There’s a message for you from Lisl at Café Hugel. She says she has an important package for you.”

  “Thank you. That could be important indeed.” Malcolm got to his feet and stretched out a hand to Suzanne. “Come with me?”

  She smiled into his eyes, warm and less guarded than usual, and put her hand into his own.

  Malcolm led his wife to Café Hugel by a circuitous route. He kept his gaze on the cobblestones of the winding streets, but he was acutely conscious of the pressure of Suzanne’s gloved hand curled round his arm. The pain of Tatiana’s death still hung bitter in his throat, and a dozen different questions, including what awaited them at Café Hugel, clustered in his head. And yet—He had confronted the seemingly impossible choice between every warning engraved in his brain since the age of twelve, everything he owed to his family, and everything he owed to his wife. A choice he had feared would destroy him. Now he wondered how it had ever seemed to be any sort of choice at all.

  Of course there were still things Suzanne did not know about Tatiana and his work with her in Spain. Perhaps—He cast a quick glance down at his wife. The green velvet brim of her bonnet, the dark ringlets curling against her cheek. She looked up at him, as though aware of his regard. He smiled, forcing back any further impulse to confide. He had to live with the choices he had made. He might not deserve Suzanne, but they had bound their lives together for better or worse. What they had was still built on an unstable foundation. Some revelations would tear it down completely.

  Instead of going in the café’s main entrance, he led Suzanne round the side, and they slipped through a door to the kitchens. The smell of butter-rich pastry greeted them. Brigitta, a round-figured, fair-haired girl who was taking a tray out of the oven, nodded at him and called, “Lisl.” A moment later Lisl, auburn-haired, disarmingly pretty, and brilliant at listening for information and passing messages along with discretion, emerged from the pantry, an enamel tin in one hand, a baking spoon in the other. “Thank God,” she said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be in the Minoritenplatz.”

  She took them up a back staircase to a private room with white woodwork and violet trellis wallpaper. Two small figures sat at a gateleg table in the center of the room. One was Heinrich, the potboy from the Empress Rose. The other was a girl, a few years older and a few inches taller. Judging by her straight brown hair, wide cheekbones, and smattering of freckles, the two were related. Lisl had brought them cups of chocolate that appeared largely untouched.

  “You’ll be quite safe here,” Lisl said, more to the children than to Malcolm and Suzanne, then withdrew and closed the door.

  Heinrich and the girl sprang to their feet.

  Malcolm crossed the room to them. “Thank you for seeking me out. You’ve learned something?”

  Heinrich nodded. “This is Margot. My sister. She works at the Empress Rose, too.”

  Malcolm inclined his head. “I’m Malcolm Rannoch and this is my wife, Suzanne.”

  Margot dropped a curtsy. “Sit,” Malcolm said. “Please.”

  “And don’t let this lovely chocolate grow cold.” Suzanne stepped between the children and touched them both on the shoulder with her usual disarming warmth. “Stories are always told better with fortification.”

  Heinrich gave her a shy smile, dropped into his chair, and reached for the chocolate. The girl did likewise but cradled the cup in her hands instead of drinking.

  Malcolm and Suzanne sat opposite them.

  “Margot was out on an errand when you came to the tavern yesterday,” Heinrich said. “I told her I’d talked to you. She waited on the gentlemen we were talking about in their private room. When she was in the room they didn’t always speak German.”

  “Did you recognize the language?” Malcolm asked.

  Margot shook her head.

  “Was it this?” Malcolm tried a phrase in Spanish, then Italian, then Polish, then Russian.

  “That’s it,” Margot said.

  “You’re sure?” Malcolm repeated the Russian again followed by Hungarian.

  “No, the first one,” Margot said.

  Malcolm exchanged a look with Suzanne. A dozen thoughts and speculations raced through his brain. “What did the gentlemen look like?”

  “There were four of them. It was hard to see much. They only lit a single brace of candles. They were about your age, sir. One had dark hair—thick and straight—and dark eyebrows. He seemed to be the leader, and I got the best look at him. One was short, with hair like straw. Two of them had brown hair, but one was thinner than the other.”

  “You have a painter’s eye,” Malcolm said.

  “Or an agent’s,” Suzanne added.

  Heinrich leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It’s serious, isn’t it?”

  “Very, I’m afraid,” Malcolm said.

  Heinrich nodded, hesitated, then said, “The red-haired lady who came to the tavern—she’s the princess who was murdered?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw a sketch in a newssheet. That’s when I told Margot it was mortal serious.”

  Malcolm studied the young, intent faces before him and found himself thinking of his son. “You can’t go back to the Empress Rose, either of you. My wife and I were attacked after we spoke with Heinrich. The people behind this won’t leave any loose ends. Whom do you live with?”

  “Ourselves,” Margot said. “Mama died when Heinrich was born and Papa died of a fever last winter.”

  “I’m sorry.” Suzanne reached across the table to touch Margot’s hand. “But it makes matters easier.”

  Malcolm nodded. “We can find you both a place with the British delegation in the Minoritenplatz.”

  Margot cast an uneasy glance at her brother. “We don’t need—”

  “You’ve done us a great service,” Malcolm said, “at considerable risk to yourselves. Let us at least repay you this far. You’ll be paid well, and we can see that you’re protected. Do you need anything from your rooms? If so, let me send someone to fetch them.”

  Margot studied him, then looked at Suzanne. “You’re not an ordinary lady and gentleman.”

  “We’ll take that as a compliment,” Malcolm said.

  27

  “Rannoch.” Adam Czartoryski looked up from his table in a window alcove at the Three White Lions Café. “You’ve learned something?”

  “No. That is, yes. But not about the letters.” Malcolm dropped into the chair across from Czartoryski. Even now he wasn’t sure about the wisdom of this course of action. He was gambling a great deal on his sense that Adam Czartoryski was someone he could trust. If he was wrong, there were implications not just for himself but for the fragile peace on the Continent. God knows he’d been wrong to trust before. He’d trusted Tatiana.

  Czartoryski’s gaze flickered across h
is face. “What?”

  Malcolm leaned back in his chair and regarded the Polish patriot who was Tsar Alexander’s friend and adviser. And Tsarina Elisabeth’s former—and perhaps current—lover. Through the years a number of people had tried to determine who Adam Czartoryski really was and where his loyalties lay.

  A gust of wind from the opening of the door ruffled the stack of papers on the table. Adam slapped his hand down on them. “You’re trying to decide whether to trust me.”

  “Isn’t that what everyone in Vienna is trying to decide about everyone else? Except for the people they’re actively plotting against.”

  Czartoryski frowned out the window. A calèche carrying two ladies in plumed bonnets was rolling over the cobblestones. “When I was sent to the Russian court as a virtual hostage, I spent my first months sure I could trust no one. Finally I decided I had to take the risk or my life would be unbearable.”

  “Whom did you risk trusting?”

  “Alexander.” Czartoryski reached for his cup and stared into the cooling coffee. “In the end, one could argue that I was the one who betrayed him.”

  “As I hear it, you betrayed him over something for which he had no proper regard himself.”

  “All too true. Loyalties can’t be neatly aligned so they never collide. And one can feel the deepest friendship for someone and at the same time despise his actions in part of his life.” Czartoryski took a sip of coffee and grimaced, though perhaps not at the bitter taste. “Castlereagh and Metternich and Talleyrand don’t trust me. They think I have too much power over Alexander. That I’m pushing him to be intransigent on Poland. But to the Russians I’ll always be an outsider, adviser to the tsar or no.” He returned the cup to its saucer and wiped away a trace that had sloshed over the side. “For what it’s worth, Rannoch, I’ve trusted you and your wife with secrets I’d share with few people.”

  A waiter brought Malcolm a cup of coffee and replenished Czartoryski’s cup. Malcolm cast a glance about. The nearest tables were empty. A violinist had started up a Hungarian folk song, plaintive, poignant, and loud enough to drown out conversation.

  Malcolm curled his hands round the warm porcelain of his cup and cast the die. “Apparently Tatiana got wind of a plot just before she was killed.”

  “A plot to do what?”

  “To assassinate someone. She hadn’t been able to discover who the target was. Or the identities of the plotters.”

  “Dear Christ.” Czartoryski’s gaze narrowed. “You wouldn’t have come to me with this if you hadn’t learned more.”

  “Apparently the plotters spoke Russian.”

  For several seconds the two men stared at each other, the implications thick as candle smoke in the air between them. Czartoryski picked up his cup, then set it down untasted. “You’re asking me if my colleagues in the Russian delegation could be involved in a plot to assassinate someone.”

  “Yes.”

  Czartoryski picked up a small silver spoon and stirred his coffee, though he had added neither sugar nor cream. “You’ve considered that I might be involved in the plot myself?”

  “Of course.”

  The spoon clinked against the porcelain. “And?”

  “One can never be sure, of course. But I like to think I have some wit as a judge of character.”

  “I’m flattered.” Czartoryski set down the spoon. Droplets of coffee spattered on the white tablecloth. “For me to even discuss this with you could be construed as treason.”

  “So could my bringing it to you.” Malcolm blew on the steam from his own cup. The vapor dispersed in the air. “Have you read Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale?”

  “About a king driven insane by jealousy?”

  “Yes. But I’ve always thought the real heroes of the play are the courtiers who prevent tragedy by going against the orders of two different kings.”

  Czartoryski gave a faint smile. “I’m a Pole first and foremost. I always will be. But while Alexander and I may not be the friends we once were, I owe him my loyalty.”

  Malcolm drew a breath, disappointment sharp in his throat.

  “And,” Czartoryski continued, “I’d hardly be serving him well if I didn’t investigate the possibility that someone in his delegation was involved in a plot that might bring ruin to Russia. Not to mention to the entire Continent. Tell me what you know.”

  Malcolm spared a brief smile for Czartoryski and recounted Margot’s description of the four men.

  Czartoryski listened with a deepening frown. When Malcolm finished he sat back and took another sip of coffee. “The descriptions are vague. But the dark-haired one she calls their leader. It could be Dmitri Otronsky. Unlike many of the delegation, he actually is Russian by birth. I suppose any of us could have spoken Russian, thinking the tavern staff wouldn’t recognize the language. But the hair and dark brows sound like him.”

  “I had the same thought. Do you have any reason to think—”

  “That Otronsky’s plotting to assassinate someone? Hardly; I wouldn’t have kept quiet about it. But Otronsky’s hungry for power. He prides himself on the fact that his family have served the tsars for generations, though they haven’t been as powerful of late. He has dreams of Russian imperial glory. And personal advancement. He’s worked his way into the tsar’s inner councils in quick order. He’s also made a point of pushing his very lovely sister in Alexander’s way.”

  “Not precisely the actions of an honorable brother. But it’s a leap from prostituting one’s sister to assassination.”

  “It’s more than that. Otronsky seems to grow more militant each day. He’s become a close friend of the tsar’s brother Constantine. In itself not an argument of stability or sense.”

  Malcolm nodded. Grand Duke Constantine had cut a belligerent swath through the Congress, going so far as to strike Alfred von Windischgrätz with his riding crop in the midst of a parade (which nearly led to a duel between the two men until cooler heads compelled Constantine to apologize). “I imagine Otronsky approves Grand Duke Constantine’s new post.”

  “Quite,” Czartoryski said with a look of distaste. The grand duke had recently left Vienna, sent by his brother to command the Polish army in Warsaw. “Constantine’s one of the last people I’d have wished upon my poor country. His presence there makes it more likely Alexander will impose a military solution.”

  “Which might give you the closest thing you’ll get to a free Poland.”

  “Under Russian military command. And it could well plunge the Continent back into war, which wouldn’t be good for any of us. But I think Otronsky sees war as an avenue to power. If he had his way, Alexander would annex Poland, enforce Prussia’s takeover of Saxony, and march out of the Congress daring Metternich, Castlereagh, Talleyrand, and the rest to do their worst.”

  “And you think Otronsky may have decided to help his case along by taking action against someone he disagrees with? Or to push the tsar along the course he advocates?”

  Czartoryski shifted his coffee cup on the tabletop. “If anyone in the Russian delegation is capable of it, he is.”

  “Who? Who would he further his cause by killing?”

  Czartoryski cast a glance about. The Hungarian song had come to an end, followed by a smattering of polite applause. He waited until the violinist launched into a gypsy melody, filled with convenient bursts of fortissimo. “I think Alexander and Prince Metternich would have come to open blows more than once if it wasn’t for Castlereagh.”

  It was Malcolm’s turn to stare at his companion. “You think Otronsky might be planning to assassinate the British foreign secretary?”

  “Without Castlereagh the Congress would lose one of the strongest forces against Russian expansion.”

  Malcolm reached for his coffee and took a sip, so quickly he nearly choked. Czartoryski’s words made sense, though he wasn’t used to thinking of Castlereagh as a victim. British arrogance, perhaps. “Of course, there’s another man who has a way of turning every meeting of the Big Eight
on its head. And who’s been even more effective than Castlereagh at checking both the Russians and the Prussians.”

  “Talleyrand,” Czartoryski said. “An interesting possibility.”

  Malcolm leaned back in his chair. “Addison, my valet, is skilled at tracking. I’ll have him follow Otronsky. Perhaps we can learn whom he’s meeting with.”

  “I could go to Alexander with what we have.”

  “Without proof? Based on the word of a British attaché? I fear the tsar would laugh in your face. Besides—”

  “What?”

  “There’s another possibility.” Malcolm chose his words with care. “That the tsar himself let Otronsky know he wanted someone got rid of.”

  Shock flared in Czartoryski’s eyes. “That is treason, Rannoch.”

  “Not for me. He isn’t my sovereign.” Malcolm stared into the thick black liquid in his cup. “I don’t know that the prince regent would be incapable on moral grounds of ordering an assassination—in fact, I suspect he’d be all too easily convinced of the rightness of his cause—but I’m not sure he has the wit for it.”

  Czartoryski scrubbed at the spattered coffee on the tablecloth. “There was a time when I’d have sworn I knew the inner workings of Alexander’s mind better than anyone. Now—”

  “Otronsky could have taken an angry outburst of the tsar’s too literally. Like the knights who killed Thomas à Becket.”

  Czartoryski swallowed, gaze on the coffee-spotted linen. “You’re saying we can’t take this to anyone.”

  “Not yet. We don’t know whom we can trust.”

  Geoffrey Blackwell pressed a cool hand against Fitz’s forehead. “No headaches?”

  “None,” Fitz said in the heartiest voice he could muster.

  “No dizziness?” Blackwell reached for his wrist and took his pulse.

  “None at all. I slept like a log and ate all my breakfast. I’m right as rain except for a crippling case of boredom.”

  Blackwell snapped his medical bag shut. “Peevishness is a sign you’re on the mend. You’ll do.”

  Fitz swung his legs to the floor and reached for his dressing gown. “So my wife can stop fussing over me and feeding me bread and gruel?”