Teresa Grant - [Charles & Melanie Fraser 01]

by Vienna Waltz

  Radley controlled his shock of surprise to only a faint flash in his eyes. “Really? Then you know more than I do.”

  “To achieve her objectives, Tatiana needed the support of the chief players at the Congress.” Suzanne moved toward Radley. “She thought she had ways to get Prince Metternich and Tsar Alexander to go along with her. But Castlereagh was more of a challenge. She was trying to force Malcolm to intercede with Castlereagh on her behalf. But though Castlereagh values Malcolm’s abilities, Malcolm can’t even persuade him to show more consideration for the self-determination rights of the Poles and the Saxons, let alone to accede to Princess Tatiana’s demands. So she needed other ways to reach Castlereagh. And who better than a man who is both a war hero and a crony of Castlereagh’s beloved half brother?”

  Radley hitched himself up on the edge of the table. “You flatter me. But Princess Tatiana and I never had the sort of relationship for her to have that type of influence over me.” He lifted a hand and brushed it against her side curls. “I’ve always preferred brunettes to redheads.”

  “That wasn’t the type of influence she wielded.” Suzanne rested her fingertips on the table edge and looked sideways at him. “Tatiana knew about what you’d done in Spain.”

  This time the flash of fear in Radley’s eyes was more pronounced. “You intrigue me. Do, pray, enlighten me about these mysterious actions of mine.”

  “In the summer of 1812, Malcolm and Tatiana were working together in the Peninsula.”

  Radley gave a rough laugh. “If you’re gullible enough to believe that’s all—”

  “My dear Freddy, anything else that was between my husband and Princess Tatiana is no concern of yours. The French had intercepted word of a shipment of gold from Rothschild’s to Wellington’s forces in Spain. Malcolm and Tatiana fed the French misinformation about the route the gold was traveling. That misinformation led to a village being destroyed.” She controlled her voice. She would not let Radley see her vulnerability. “But in the end, the gold fell into the hands of bandits and never reached the British army. Surely you remember?”

  Radley swung his foot against the table leg. His dress shoe gleamed in the candlelight. “A lot was going on then, but I remember something of the sort. Old Hookey was damned hard-pressed to pay the men’s wages.”

  “And you were pressed for funds yourself at the time. But in your case, the lack of wages was more than compensated for by the gold that came into your possession.”

  Radley pushed himself to his feet and paced round the table. “What the devil—”

  “Remember I knew you then, Freddy. You even borrowed from your batman. You constantly complained about your debts and the stinginess of your allowance from your brother. Even in bed, as I recall.”

  “That’s a damn—”

  “I expect that’s what drove you to do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Must I spell it out for you? The gold that was intended for the British army came to you, Freddy. Except for whatever percentage you had to pay to the bandits you hired to steal it for you.”

  He spun to face her across the table. “If you were a man, I’d call you out for that.”

  “You still can. I’m an excellent shot. Or would you prefer swords?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Suzanne.” His voice had the force of a hand slapped against her mouth.

  “No sense in pretending you cavil at hurting women. We both know you quite enjoy it under the right circumstances.”

  “You can’t possibly prove—”

  “Tatiana had a coded letter and map you sent to your confederates. Malcolm and I found it with her other blackmail items. I wonder if she stole it from the bandits or if they sold it to her. The coordinates of the map are damning. Malcolm says they point to exactly where the bandits’ attack took place. Despite the block capitals, I thought I recognized your hand. I definitely recognized the seal. Risky to use it, but I suppose you had to have some way to prove to the bandits that the instructions really came from you. You probably counted on the code being too difficult to break in the event it fell into the wrong hands.”

  His skin turned ashen in the warm candlelight. “None of this proves—”

  “Even a war hero from one of Britain’s best families can’t get away with treason, Freddy. Tatiana had you in a devilishly difficult position. Who was the emissary you employed as liaison with the bandits, by the way?”

  “Damn it to hell, you don’t—”

  “Tatiana must have mentioned something of what she knew in the letter she sent that got you to come to Vienna early. I know she arranged to meet you in secret at Madame Girard’s.” Suzanne fingered the silver filigree clasp on her pearl bracelet. “How much did she tell you then? The whole of what she wanted? Or did she just ask you to intervene with Castlereagh over an undefined matter?”

  “She didn’t—” Radley turned his head away and bit back the words.

  “I don’t think she’d have told you the whole. She was waiting to spring it on Metternich and the tsar. I think she just said she required your assistance.” The finger of her glove snagged on her clasp. She tugged it free. “You accused Tatiana of trying to blackmail you. Don’t deny it, Charlotte Girard heard you. But then you thought about all you had to lose—treason is a nasty accusation.”

  “Devil take it, I’m not—”

  She leaned forward across the table. “What else do you call stealing the army’s pay? If the truth came to light, at best it would mean the loss of your career and reputation. At worst the loss of your life. You thought it over and decided it might be wisest to come to a compromise with Tatiana. Charlotte said when you left the shop you were on better terms, and Schubert saw you together in the street afterward. Tatiana must have asked you to call on her two nights later so she could explain what she wanted you to do. You were bargaining that whatever she was going to ask of you was something you could deliver on. At least well enough to persuade Tatiana to keep your secret.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Of course that was before you knew what she actually wanted you to do. When she told you, you may have decided the only way out was to get rid of Tatiana herself.”

  “Damn it, Suzanne.” Radley slammed his hands down on the table. One of the tapers fell from the candelabrum and hissed against the polished wood. “She was dead when I got there.”

  Suzanne picked up the taper and pinched the wick to make sure it was extinguished. Hot wax spattered against her fingers. “I see.” She set the taper down.

  “You don’t see anything. Stop being so goddamned superior.” Radley strode round the table and grabbed her wrists. “You bloody bitch, you’ve always been too clever for your own good. So sure you know everything. I went into the room, and the smell was enough to choke me. The blood was everywhere. I got it all over my shoes.”

  His breath was hot on her face. She made no effort to pull away from him. “You went through her desk.”

  “She was already dead. People were going to be pawing through her things. I couldn’t leave the papers for anyone to find. But the bloody things weren’t there.”

  “But you found her letter to Malcolm. And took it as insurance.”

  “If I hadn’t taken it, Malcolm would only have been suspected sooner.”

  “And then you left?” She scanned his face. She could see the pores in his skin and the golden hairs he’d missed with his razor.

  “I went downstairs, but I heard the door opening.”

  “Malcolm.”

  “I hid in the stairwell and saw him go up. Then I slipped out.”

  “Stopping to look up at the window. But you didn’t leave right away.”

  “I was at the corner when I heard footsteps. I turned and saw—”

  “Me.”

  His gaze blazed down on her own. “Yes.”

  She jerked her hands free of his grip. Red marks showed round her wrists. Not the first time he’d left marks on her. “It’s a good story, Freddy. But
it doesn’t prove you didn’t kill her.”

  Malcolm stepped out from behind the enveloping folds of the curtains and drew a welcome breath of fresh air. “She’s become too much of a liability. Their target is a woman. But who—”

  Czartoryski pushed free of the curtains and strode across the room. “The bastard. The spineless, contemptible—I wouldn’t have thought even Otronsky would go this far.”

  “How far—”

  Czartoryski stared into the fire, his face ashen. “I should have seen it. God help me, I’m a fool.”

  “I very much doubt that, but I can’t help unless you enlighten me. Do you know who the target is?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Czartoryski lifted his head, his mouth hardened into a harsh line. His hands were balled into fists. His voice trembled with shock and rage. “It seems Otronsky is planning to assassinate Elisabeth.”

  39

  “You think Otronsky is plotting to assassinate his own sovereign’s wife? ” Malcolm was used to surprise moves in the world of diplomacy, but this revelation befuddled even his chessplayer’s instincts.

  “Otronsky is a crony of the tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Constantine.” Adam prowled the length of the room. “There are rumors that Otronsky orchestrated the murder of Elisabeth’s lover, Alexis Okhotnikov, on Constantine’s orders. If Otronsky learned that Lisa’s letters to Okhotnikov were missing and guessed at the contents—”

  “He might have decided she’d become too much of a liability.”

  “Quite.” Czartoryski’s hand closed into a fist. He brought it down hard on the marble mantel, sending a tinderbox crashing against the andirons.

  “And if he could blame it on the representatives of another country, he could push the tsar further down the path to war.”

  “Precisely. Not to mention that he’s been putting his sister in Alexander’s way. I thought he had dreams of her being the tsar’s mistress. But he may have gone so far as to think she might become Alexander’s wife.”

  Malcolm moved to the fireplace. “Will the tsar take your word over Otronsky’s for what we just overheard?”

  “He’ll have to.” Czartoryski sounded as though he would physically force the Tsar of all the Russias to take action if necessary.

  For a moment Malcolm saw Suzanne the victim of a sniper’s bullet or a knife in the back and felt the force of the other man’s fury. “We may be able to get more proof. I think the second man was Gregory Lindorff.”

  Czartoryski drew a breath, as though swallowing his rage. “So do I.” He bent down and picked up the tinderbox. “I’m surprised to find Lindorff caught up in this. He’s a drinking companion of Otronsky’s, but I never thought he was—”

  “A killer.”

  “And so totally devoid of honor.”

  “I think we can break him. He was Tatiana’s lover in Paris. He gave her the looted art treasures she was selling. It’s leverage of a sort.”

  Czartoryski’s fingers tightened on the blood red enamel of the tinderbox.

  “Killing Otronsky won’t solve anything, satisfying as it might be,” Malcolm said. “The plot has already been set in motion. It would go forward without Otronsky. And we don’t know whom he hired.”

  Czartoryski set the tinderbox on the mantel with the care of one whose every impulse is under iron control.

  “We have time,” Malcolm added. “The opera gala is still a fortnight away.”

  “Lindorff’s in the ballroom.” Czartoryski moved to the door. “We can confront him tonight.”

  “No.” Malcolm crossed to Czartoryski’s side and caught his arm. “Not with Otronsky so close. If he bursts in, we’ll lose all chance of getting Lindorff to talk. We can find Lindorff tomorrow at the fencing academy. Or at the Beethoven concert. Without Otronsky breathing down our necks.”

  Czartoryski’s muscles bunched beneath Malcolm’s hand, but he nodded. “Tomorrow. We’ll get Lindorff to talk. If necessary, I’ll make him talk.”

  Tsarina Elisabeth studied Suzanne Rannoch as she came through a side door into the ballroom. She wore a gown that suggested moonlight and shadows, indigo crêpe fastened with silver clasps over a cool white satin slip. Her head was held high and she moved with deliberate grace, but Elisabeth caught the tension in the set of her mouth. The tension of feelings ruthlessly suppressed. Elisabeth knew a great deal about that sort of tension.

  Elisabeth swept her demi-train to the side and crossed the room to stand beside the younger woman. “Madame Rannoch. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see your husband a free man.”

  Suzanne Rannoch’s armor broke to reveal a swift, genuine smile. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  The tsarina dropped into a chair and gestured for Madame Rannoch to sit beside her. “You look—forgive me, but you look as though something has disturbed you.”

  Madame Rannoch’s hand stilled, settling the rich blue of her skirts. “Old ghosts.”

  “Ghosts you’ve managed to lay?”

  “I hope so,” Suzanne said. “It’s hard sometimes, looking back, to realize how foolish one’s been.”

  Elisabeth scanned the young woman’s face. Difficult to believe her past could be too tangled at her age. Yet Suzanne Rannoch didn’t have the eyes of a young girl. And at her age, Elisabeth had been seven years a wife and had loved and lost Adam Czartoryski.

  Elisabeth allowed her gaze to drift over the company, circling the floor in a waltz, sipping champagne, wielding fans, taking snuff. Diamonds and crystal glinted in the candlelight with a brilliance that could cut like a knife. The elite of Europe. Clever, brilliant, and oh, so dangerous. “For my own selfish sake I’m very glad you and your husband came to Vienna. But if you will permit me to say so, as your friend, I realize this can’t be the easiest place for a young marriage. Dangers of all sorts abound.”

  Suzanne Rannoch gave a faint smile. “Believe me, Your Majesty, Vienna is no more dangerous than the other worlds I’ve lived in. Before and after my marriage.”

  The young woman’s sea green eyes were like clear water that masks secrets fathoms beneath the surface. The words fit with what Elisabeth knew of the Rannochs’ life, and yet she had the oddest sense that Suzanne Rannoch had just confided in her, much as she had trusted Madame Rannoch with her secrets at the Burgtheater the previous night.

  Elisabeth pressed her hands over the beaded satin of her skirt. “When I was fourteen I was sent away from everything I knew to a strange country and given a new name. In the two decades since, I haven’t been sure who I am or whom I can trust. For all those years, Adam’s been the one constant in my life, even when we were apart.” She laid her hand over Suzanne’s own. “I know what you went through with the fear of losing your husband. Don’t let yourself be caught by ghosts. Hold on to what you have, chérie. You won’t—”

  “Suzanne.” Young Aline Dacre-Hammond slipped through the crowd, then drew up short when she saw Elisabeth sitting beside her cousin’s wife. “Your Majesty.” She sank into a curtsy.

  “Please, mam’selle. You clearly have something to tell your cousin. I will leave you in privacy.”

  “No, don’t go.” Mademoiselle Dacre-Hammond gave a smile that seemed quite uncharacteristic of the reserved young woman Elisabeth had seen her to be. “I should like to tell everyone.” She held out her hand to Suzanne Rannoch. “I’m engaged to Geoffrey Blackwell.”

  Eithne accepted a slice of orange Fitz held out to her. “It may be horribly unpatriotic of me, but I confess I prefer Herr Beethoven’s musical tribute to Bonaparte to the piece we just heard in Wellington’s honor.”

  Schubert smiled at her. “I think that shows admirable musical taste, Lady Fitzwilliam. Though the audience seemed to enjoy it.”

  Malcolm grinned at the young composer. He, Suzanne, Eithne, Fitz, Schubert, Aline, and Geoffrey were standing in a corner of a crowded salon during the interval in the concert. The concert itself was being held in the larger of the two Redoutensaals or Redouten Halls, court ballrooms adjoining the Hofburg
Palace. Malcolm had positioned himself with his back to a pillar so he could scan the crowd for Gregory Lindorff. He hadn’t been able to find Lindorff at the fencing academy before the concert, which was to take most of the afternoon.

  “At least we get a new symphony in the second half.” Aline curled her fingers round Geoffrey’s arm. Odd how strangely intimate such a simple gesture seemed between two such reserved people. Malcolm was still reeling from the news of their betrothal, yet looking at them together it seemed so very right.

  “An almost new symphony,” Schubert said. “It was actually performed last December. The musicians complained at how fiendishly difficult the music was. But it’s his seventh symphony. He needs to keep trying new things.”

  “What a crush.” Dorothée joined them, her arm tucked through Count Clam-Martinitz’s, her cheeks flushed with color, dark ringlets escaping a crimson bonnet. “I do love Beethoven’s music. I always feel as though it takes me to the most unexpected places.”

  Malcolm had caught sight of a tawny head and gold epaulettes. “Excuse me.”

  He moved across the hall, keeping his gaze on Lindorff. Lindorff caught his eye but didn’t dodge to the side as Malcolm expected. In fact, he seemed to be coming right at him. When they met, Lindorff seized his arms before Malcolm could speak. “Rannoch.”

  “Lindorff. I was looking for you.”

  “No time for explanations.” Lindorff’s voice was rough, his gaze that of a soldier who’s spotted enemy snipers. “I need your help. He has to be stopped.”

  “He?” Malcolm said, wondering what smoke screen Lindorff had constructed.

  “Otronsky. For God’s sake, don’t pretend you didn’t hear the whole from behind the curtains last night.”

  “What the devil—”

  Lindorff’s fingers bit into Malcolm’s arms. “He’s moved up the attack. It’s to happen today. I need your help to stop him.”

  “You were willing enough to help him last night.”