by Vienna Waltz
Wilhelmine squeezed her eyes shut. “That poor woman. Of course she was compelled to give the child up.”
“But she did see her from time to time. And when Malcolm was twelve, his mother took him to meet his sister.” She explained about Prince Talleyrand recruiting Tatiana as an agent and setting up her identity as Princess Tatiana Sarasova and her subsequent marriage to Prince Kirsanov.
“And so she came to Vienna to spy on us all,” Dorothée said.
Wilhelmine shot a glance at her sister. “Half the people in Vienna are spies for one power or another.”
“She certainly deceived the court of St. Petersburg brilliantly.” Czartoryski studied Suzanne. “But—”
Dorothée finished the thought for him. “There’s a reason you’re telling us all this. It has something to do with the papers she was concealing?”
“I think she was planning to use them to claim her heritage.”
“From Monsieur Rannoch’s mother?” Dorothée said. “But what—”
“No. From her father.”
“But who—”
Wilhelmine’s hand closed into a fist on the linen tablecloth. “Dear God. The bastard.”
“Who—” Dorothée stared at her sister, then at Suzanne. “Was it something to do with the paper in the Courland casket? But—”
The patter of rain against the casement echoed in the suddenly still room.
“Suzanne,” Wilhelmine said, “are you trying to tell us Tatiana Kirsanova, or whatever her name really was, was our sister?”
Suzanne met her gaze. “I believe so.” She opened her reticule again and took out Arabella Rannoch’s letter and the plain text version, as well as Tatiana’s locket.
Dorothée leaned close to her sister to read the letter, brows drawn.
Wilhelmine gave an incredulous laugh. “I thought our parents were beyond the ability to shock me.”
Dorothée stared at the papers as though they were in a foreign tongue. “Lady Arabella would have been—”
“Scarcely more than a child,” Wilhelmine said in a flat voice. “Though I’m sure she thought of herself as quite grown-up. The attentions of an older man can be so flattering.”
Dorothée touched her sister’s hand. “Papa—”
“Was a selfish man who took what he wanted.” Wilhelmine picked up the locket and ran her finger over the engraved P. “I don’t know why I thought he’d have caviled at this.”
“Princess Tatiana was our sister. That is—” Dorothée cast a glance at Wilhelmine. “I suppose she wasn’t really my sister. Not by blood. She was more a Courland than I am.” She looked at Suzanne. “Is that what Princess Tatiana wanted, to be acknowledged?”
“Or a piece of the Courland fortune?” Wilhelmine set down the locket and turned her gaze to Suzanne. “That’s why she was accumulating all the information she had in that box, wasn’t it? She was going to blackmail Metternich and the tsar into giving her a piece of the Courland estates.”
“I think so.”
Dorothée frowned at the tabletop. “She had more right to them than I do.”
“In this world, rights come with legal acknowledgment, not paternity,” Suzanne said.
“Or they used to.” Wilhelmine tented her gloved fingers beneath her chin. “Under Bonaparte the rules rather changed. And despite Prince Talleyrand’s talk about legitimate rulers, it isn’t quite clear what the new order will be.”
“Willie,” Dorothée said, “Princess Tatiana was—”
“Yes, I know.” Wilhelmine pressed her fingers to her temples. “No, I suppose I don’t properly. It hasn’t sunk in. I wish—” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I wish. Except that I’d had a chance to talk to her.”
“Did she actually make these demands of Prince Metternich and the tsar?” Czartoryski asked.
“I don’t think so. I think she meant to tell them the night she was killed.”
“But there’s no way to be sure,” Wilhelmine said. “If they knew, it gives them a whole new set of motives to have killed Princess Tatiana. And of course if we knew, it gives us motives as well.”
“Willie,” Dorothée protested, “we wouldn’t—”
“There’s no way anyone could be sure from the outside, chérie. Imagine how it looks. Especially since my spendthrift husbands have rendered my share of the vast Courland fortune not quite so vast as it once was.”
“Don’t be silly, Willie, it’s madness to think—”
Wilhelmine’s sharp gaze cut short her sister’s words. “Can you even be sure about me, m’amie? Despite our charming reconciliation this morning we haven’t exactly been close these past years.”
“You’re my sister.”
“So was Tatiana Kirsanova.” Wilhelmine touched her fingers to the locket that lay on the table.
“I know you that well.”
Wilhelmine squeezed her sister’s hand. “I’m flattered, ma chère. But it doesn’t change the way it will appear to others. Or what Suzanne cannot but be pardoned for wondering.”
“I never said—” Suzanne began.
“No, you’re much too polite. And tactful.”
Dorothée rubbed her arms through the thin cambric of her sleeves. “Did Tatiana try to blackmail my uncle as well?”
“We haven’t found anything to indicate that’s the case.”
Wilhelmine cast a sidelong glance at her sister. “Prince Talleyrand would have been furious if he’d known Tatiana was trying to get her hands on the Courland fortune.”
“Because of Edmond, you mean? It’s true that’s why he wanted me as Edmond’s wife, but—”
“Not because of your sad fool of a husband. Because of you. Prince Talleyrand is ridiculously protective when it comes to you. I think you’re the one person he’d protect for reasons other than politics.”
Dorothée tugged at her high-standing lace collar. “Don’t be ridiculous, Willie. He’s fond of me, but everyone knows what a pragmatist he is.”
“Would Tsar Alexander have acceded to Princess Tatiana’s blackmail?” Suzanne asked Czartoryski.
“I don’t know.” His voice was that of a commander weighing the odds of a battle plan.
“And I’m not sure about Prince Metternich, either,” Wilhelmine said. “But there’s one thing I can do.” She looked at Suzanne. “I don’t know what suspicions you may have about me. But your husband and I apparently share a sister, which makes us stepsiblings of a sort. And I think I can get my newfound brother out of prison.”
37
The rain had let up and the clouds were breaking apart by the time Suzanne and Wilhelmine arrived at the chancellery. Patches of autumn sunlight cut like diamonds through the oriental windows of Prince Metternich’s study. Bars of light shot across the intricate pattern of the carpet and bounced off the gleaming furniture. The smells of wood polish and good ink hung thick in the air.
The Austrian foreign secretary surveyed Suzanne and Wilhelmine from behind the polished ramparts of the desk.
“An unexpected pleasure, ladies.” His dazzling, practiced smile was as much armor as a steel breastplate. “What may I do for you?”
“Klemens.” Wilhelmine stripped off her gloves with brisk tugs of her fingers. “Even a diplomat of your skill can’t pretend the circumstances are anything approaching normal.”
Prince Metternich twitched a brilliant shirt cuff smooth. “There is, of course, a great deal of business before me. But not so much that I don’t have time for an old friend.”
“You must know we’re here about Madame Rannoch’s husband.”
Metternich’s hands stilled on the ink blotter. “No, as it happens. I didn’t realize you had interested yourself in Malcolm Rannoch’s fate, my dear Duchess.”
“There’s a great deal you don’t know about me, Klemens. Just as there’s a great deal I don’t know about you. But I can’t believe you wish to keep an innocent man in prison.”
Metternich’s gaze locked with Wilhelmine’s across the desk. Mem
ories shimmered in the shaft of sunlight between them, as gleaming and sharp as a naked blade. One recalled that only a few scant weeks before, these two people had been in each other’s arms.
Metternich wrenched his gaze away from Wilhelmine and turned to Suzanne. “Madame Rannoch.” His expression was veiled, but his fingers curled inward on the desktop, manicured nails cutting into his palms. “I am of course sympathetic to your predicament, but you must understand that I cannot intervene with the course of the law.”
“Rubbish.” Wilhelmine slapped her gloves down on top of her reticule. “You are the law.”
“You overrate me.”
“Never.”
Metternich put up a hand to the immaculate folds of his cravat. “You are naturally concerned for your husband, Madame Rannoch, but you must have faith in the course of justice.”
Wilhelmine drew her gloves through her ringed fingers. “Klemens, I’m sorry. I know you’re angry with me. I’ll even admit you have a right to be angry with me. I never wished to cause you pain, but I—” She shook her head. “This isn’t the place to dwell on that. Madame Rannoch and I deserve more than platitudes.”
“Wilhelmine—”
“She was trying to blackmail you.”
Prince Metternich’s polished façade shattered into shards of confusion. “Who?”
“Tatiana Kirsanova.”
“What—”
“And she was my sister. Oh good, I’m glad to see we’ve got your attention.” Wilhelmine rested her shoulders against the chairback. “Suzanne, why don’t you tell Prince Metternich what you’ve discovered.”
Suzanne launched into an abbreviated version of the story. Tatiana’s birth, her relationship to Malcolm, the revelation that Peter of Courland was probably her father.
“We think she wanted to have a share of the Courland lands carved out for her,” Wilhelmine said. “That that’s why she took my letter from you.”
Metternich shook his head. “You’re saying Tatiana took your letter—”
“To force your hand,” Wilhelmine told him. “Evidently she believed you’d be concerned for me.”
“Of course I’m—” Metternich drew a breath and spread his hands on the ink blotter. His fingers were very white against the green leather. “Go on.”
“Princess Tatiana also had information that Tsar Alexander would not wish to become public knowledge,” Suzanne said. “And information which my husband would wish to keep private.”
“And you think—”
“We think that that’s why she summoned you all the night she was killed,” Wilhelmine said. “To convince you to give her her heritage.”
Metternich pushed his chair back from his desk with a rough scrape. He strode to the nearest window and stood staring through the glass for a moment, then turned to face them. Against the sunlight, his handsome face was drained of color. “This is—”
“The only logical explanation for a seemingly illogical series of events.” Wilhelmine got to her feet and walked toward him. “We think she was planning to make her demands of all of you the night she was killed. You, Tsar Alexander, and Monsieur Rannoch, whom she wanted to intercede with Castlereagh.” She took his hand. Metternich’s expression froze at her touch. “Klemens, Monsieur Rannoch never received Princess Tatiana’s blackmail letter, any more than you or the tsar heard her blackmail demands. He was as much a victim as you.”
Metternich looked into her eyes. For a moment, Suzanne knew he was seeing not his former mistress but the woman whose political instincts he had learned to count on. “If this is true—”
“Tsar Alexander won’t want to believe it, of course. He’s been eager from the first to put the blame on Monsieur Rannoch. And he doesn’t have your subtlety.”
A faint smile pulled at Metternich’s mouth. “Rank flattery, Wilhelmine.”
“It’s no more than the truth. Birth gave Tsar Alexander power. An unconscionable amount of power. You’ve earned your place in the world. You have ten times the understanding the tsar possesses, and you have to walk in the room after him and let him speak first. To own the truth, I don’t know how you manage it.”
Metternich detached his hand from her own. “You’ve seemed to find his company agreeable enough these past weeks.”
Wilhelmine tilted her head back, her dark gold curls catching the sunlight, her gaze steady on his own. “I needed him. Because of Vava.”
Metternich cast a quick glance at Suzanne. Suzanne stared fixedly at the red and gold frieze that ran round the top of the walls.
“It’s all right,” Wilhelmine said. “Madame Rannoch knows. She’s been a good friend to me. It’s times like these when we learn who our friends are.”
Metternich leaned against the window frame, holding her gaze with his own. “What are you asking, Wilhelmine?”
“For you to be the man I know you can be. To stand up to Tsar Alexander and do what’s right.”
“Are you so sure you know what that is?”
“Think, Klemens. If Malcolm Rannoch didn’t kill Tatiana, her killer is running free.”
“And that bothers you?”
Wilhelmine’s hand closed on the window frame. “She wasn’t treated well by my family. A family she should have been a part of.”
“I can’t believe—”
“Your pride is hurt. It’s understandable. But you’re not a man to turn your back on a woman you’ve cared for, mon ami.” Wilhelmine touched his arm. “You want her killer brought to justice. The longer Malcolm Rannoch stays in prison, the longer her killer runs free.”
“Assuming Rannoch is innocent.” His gaze locked with Wilhelmine’s, Metternich seemed to have quite forgot Suzanne was in the room.
“If you learn Monsieur Rannoch isn’t innocent, you can rearrest him. Castlereagh won’t let him go anywhere. Meanwhile, I think Malcolm Rannoch is far more likely to discover the truth than Baron Hager.” Wilhelmine paused for a moment. “Unless you don’t want to go against the tsar.”
For the length of several heartbeats Metternich’s gaze remained steady on Wilhelmine’s face. He lifted a hand, then let it fall. “How well you know me, mon amie.”
“I have faith in the man you are.”
Metternich turned to Suzanne. “Madame Rannoch, would you accompany me to pay a call upon your husband?”
Footsteps echoed through the gaps round the scarred door. Malcolm closed the copy of the Wiener Zeitung he’d been endeavoring to read and pushed himself up from the edge of the narrow bed. The key rattled in the lock and the hinges creaked. Suzanne stepped into the room as he expected, followed by the Duchess of Sagan and the foreign minister of Austria.
“Rannoch.” Metternich moved to stand in the center of the room. The shafts of light cut by the window bars clung to his brilliant shirt collar and cravat. “Your wife and the duchess have been telling me an extraordinary story.”
“Prince.” Malcolm inclined his head in a gesture that stopped short of a bow. “I would offer you a chair or a drink, but I fear my resources are somewhat strained.”
Metternich crossed the remainder of the cell to look him in the eye. “Tatiana was your sister.”
“Yes.”
“And she was going to blackmail you and me and Tsar Alexander.”
“So it appears from the evidence. I’m still finding it hard to believe she could turn on me.”
For a moment he saw an echo of his own pain in the Austrian foreign minister’s usually veiled gaze. “It’s difficult to face betrayal from a woman one cares for,” Metternich said.
“Tatiana was a complicated woman. She’d had to make her own way in the world, and she’d learned that the way to do so was to put her own interests first. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it meant she didn’t care for people. Simply that she looked beyond her personal feelings.”
Metternich’s gaze locked with his own. In that instant there was greater understanding between them than at any point in all the weeks of negotiations. “What about
this supposed plot of Count Otronsky’s that you claim Tatiana had stumbled upon?”
“Baron Hager told you?”
“You have so little respect for our attention to duty?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d listen to the word of an imprisoned murderer.”
“Alleged murderer.” Metternich brushed at a smudge of prison grime on the tan leather of his glove. “It now appears you never received Tatiana’s blackmail letter. The rest of the evidence was circumstantial. I’ve spoken to Hager. Pending further information coming to light, we agree it is appropriate for you to be released. Of course you will remain in Vienna.”
“Of course. I’m a member of the British delegation. Prince—” Malcolm looked into Metternich’s cool blue eyes. “I cannot thank you enough.”
“Your wife and the duchess are persuasive women.”
Malcolm cast a quick, grateful glance at Suzanne and the Duchess of Sagan, standing in the shadows by the door, then looked back at Metternich. “Otronsky’s plot—”
“We’ll take extra precautions the night of the opera gala.”
“If—”
“I think you may leave Vienna’s security to the Austrian government, Rannoch.”
“Sir.”
Metternich moved to the door, then turned to look back at Malcolm with the gaze of the man who ran an empire. “And Rannoch—”
“Yes.”
“Go carefully. The investigation isn’t closed.”
The heavy door closed behind the foreign minister. Malcolm stared at the thick wood for a moment, scarcely able to comprehend that it was no longer barred against him, that he could walk out into the cool autumn sunlight.
He took a step forward. Suzanne moved at the same time, and then she was in his arms in a stir of roses and vanilla and soft velvet. He hugged his wife to him and spun her round in a circle, as though they were the heedless young lovers they’d never been. “You’re a remarkable woman.”
Suzanne laughed up at him, cheeks flushed with color, hat slipping back from her face. “It was mostly Wilhelmine.”
Malcolm turned to the Duchess of Sagan, who was regarding them with a smile of surprising warmth. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Duchess. I don’t know how to thank you.”