CHAPTER TEN
“His Highness the Prince de Ligne and His Highness Prince Kalishnikoff!”
Accompanied by the resonant, Russian-accented tones of Princess Bagration’s butler, Michael stepped into a long, narrow salon, hot as midsummer, stinking of perfume, and filled with bodies.
No, he corrected himself, as he took it all in. This hothouse room, wallpapered in rich gold and deep pink, was filled not with mere bodies but with power, palpable as steel. Princess Bagration herself might scandalize all the proper ladies of Vienna, but all the most influential gentlemen of Europe gathered here nonetheless to eat, drink, and keep a wary eye on each other in the enticing company of charming and farless-than-proper females.
Any of these men might help him on his way if they chose; any of them might yet discover his ruse by chance and denounce him to the world as an imposter and a rogue.
Exhilaration filled Michael’s chest as he stepped forward to join them.
“De Ligne!” A weary, Russian-accented voice spoke from the depths of a great chair at the end of the room, cutting off the glittering, swirling conversations. A blonde woman wearing a diaphanous, clinging gown of white muslin, which showcased every one of her exquisite proportions, uncoiled herself from her seat and swept across the carpeted floor toward the new arrivals. Jewels sparkled on her outstretched hands; a select few diamonds glinted in her upswept golden hair, above porcelain-white skin. “You’ve deigned to attend my little luncheon after all. I can scarcely believe it.”
“Could you doubt that I would come?” De Ligne kissed both hands, then turned to Michael. “Your Highness, may I present the ineffably enchanting Princess Bagration? And, Princess, my companion—Prince Kalishnikoff.”
“At your service,” Michael murmured, leaning over her hands. Her skin was warm, perfectly soft, and fragranced. “I do apologize for intruding without invitation, Your Highness.”
“In this company?” Her eyebrows arched. “Heavens, De Ligne, you’ve found one gentleman with manners in this dreadful city. We are in luck, after all.” She left her hands in Michael’s grasp, but stepped back to openly appraise him. “And where do you hail from, Prince Kalishnikoff?”
“Kernova, Your Highness.” He shook his head to forestall her. “You would never have heard of it, I’m afraid. A mere principality, but a beloved home to me—until Bonaparte decided to add it to his private collection, that is.”
“Ah.” She sighed. “But of course. The old story. And have you, too, come to Vienna to talk over dreary political woes with every other poor victim of the Monster?”
“I?” Michael smiled and pressed her hands gently as he released them. “Why, this city is filled with the greatest beauties and wits of Europe, and I”—he met her eyes—“have found myself at their center, I believe. How could politics take forefront in my mind?”
“Indeed?” She looked consideringly at him a moment and then at De Ligne, who was nearly vibrating in his determined silence. Her full lips twitched. “Well, I do appreciate a man with charm. Come sit by me, Prince Kalishnikoff. De Ligne … you are as much a rascal as ever, I see. Are you stirring up mischief again?”
“I can but try, my dear,” the Prince de Ligne murmured, bowing his head modestly.
Michael followed Princess Bagration to her seat, while De Ligne glided to the opposite corner of the room to kiss the hand of a lushly endowed young woman and murmur a remark,sotto voce, that made her laugh.
Princess Bagration sank back into her seat with a deep sigh and gestured limply at the men gathered around her. “His Highness Prince Kalishnikoff, of Kernova-that-was; Monsieur le Baron de Talleyrand, foreign minister to His Majesty of France; the Marquis de Noailles, also of France; Lord Kelvinhaugh, ambassador of His Majesty of England …” She smiled, lowering her eyelashes. “Surely you gentlemen must be able to find something of interest to talk about.”
Michael saw the glint in her hooded eyes, and his lips twitched appreciatively. He schooled his face to sober receptivity, though, as the English ambassador began to speak.
“Kernova,” Lord Kelvinhaugh said thoughtfully. “Ah, now. Kernova. That would be at the edge of Poland and Galicia, am I correct?”
“You’ve an excellent grasp of geography, my lord.” Michael sat down on an unoccupied seat and laced his hands around his knee. “Few people recognize even the name of my poor principality, anymore.”
Lord Kelvinhaugh’s lips curved into a humorless smile. “It is the business of this Congress to recognize such names, Your Highness. As the Prince Regent’s representative, I could hardly fail to study European history.”
Talleyrand laughed, a dry bark. “The business of this Congress? Kelvinhaugh, you haven’t studied long enough if you truly think so. Only ask our friend De Ligne, across the room. What new epigram of his did I hear repeated, only the other night?—ah, yes: ‘The Congress dances, but it does not advance.’ Your own superior, Lord Castlereagh, was seen to crack a rare smile at the truth of it.”
Lord Kelvinhaugh’s craggy face chilled into distant hauteur. “I like to think our work here is greater than that.”
“So would we all like to believe,” Talleyrand murmured. “My own most aggrieved government most of all, I think.”
In the momentary silence that followed, Michael studied the Frenchman’s face as discreetly as he could. He had heard of the man before, of course—one could hardly have followed European politics for the past twenty-five years without having heard the name of Talleyrand.
But how had Bonaparte’s top minister—the man who had orchestrated Bonaparte’s original seizure of power—become the closely trusted foreign minister of the newly restored Bourbon king? That must have taken wit and agility indeed … and even, from the rumors Michael had heard, a fair amount of outright, treasonous cunning.
Then again, as Talleyrand himself was rumored to have said: Treason is a matter of dates.Talleyrand’s own dates had been carefully chosen. It argued a wily intelligence indeed to have prophesied the great Bonaparte’s downfall in time to make the most of it.
It was not what one might have guessed from the man’s appearance. Less dapper than the Prince de Ligne or even the Marquis de Noailles, who sat beside him, Monsieur le Baron de Talleyrand presented no more than a minimally respectable appearance for the minister of such a great—if fallen—kingdom. His clothes were notably sober compared to the other Continental gentlemen in the salon, though still more bejeweled and colorful than those of the English Lord Kelvinhaugh beside him. Talleyrand’s face sagged with deep, distorting wrinkles, and a cane lay propped against his chair for the sake of his twisted feet. And yet …
Michael had not won so many gambles in his life by misjudging men’s appearances. The gleam in Monsieur le Baron de Talleyrand’s eyes was as alert as it was disconcertingly intelligent. If the Prince de Ligne was the most charmingly distinguished courtier of their shared era, Talleyrand was surely the most dangerous. If Michael was to succeed in his gamble, he could not afford to make a single false move before this man.
Even as the realization crystallized in Michael’s mind, the Frenchman spoke again.
“Kernova … the name is familiar indeed. Did I not meet your honored father once in Paris, Prince Kalishnikoff?”
Damnation. “I’d be astonished if you had, Your Excellency. My father was a man of the old school, not prone to speak the name of France after the revolution … nor to allow any of the rest of us to speak it, either.” Michael shrugged, his expression open and frank. “Still, I suppose that stranger events have come to pass … and a father does not share all his trips or secrets with his son.”
“No? I suppose not.” A smile played on Talleyrand’s lips as he considered Michael. “Still … the edge of Poland, my English colleague says? My, how often we have heard the name of Poland uttered in these past few weeks.”
“Indeed?” Michael blinked with genuine uncertainty. If only the students in the Kaffeehaus had been foolish enough to speak publicly of politics …
Then Talleyrand’s eyebrows rose in apparent surprise. “Ah! And now I come to think on it, Kernova would be one of the territories amalgamated.”
“Into a kingdom of Poland?” Michael said, with genuine startlement. “But surely, Your Excellency …”
“An intriguing thought, is it not?” Talleyrand sat back in his chair, smiling gently, as the English ambassador visibly simmered nearby. “It is always so instructive for the rest of us to observe the way the Great Powers think.”
“And it is well for others of us, from time to time, to take some nourishment to fuel our own thinking.” Princess Bagration gave a most improper—and attractive—stretch, and rose gracefully from her seat. “We’ll wait no longer to eat, I think. You have fine broad shoulders, Prince Kalishnikoff—will you be gallant enough to lead me in to luncheon today?”
“But, of course. I should be delighted.”
Michael stood and offered her his arm. With a murmur of pleasure, she slid her hand into the curve of it, as sleek and soft as any cat; he was nearly tempted into petting her.
Nearly, but not quite. Princess Bagration was no tame house pet but a sharp-witted politician in her own right. She would not take kindly to any man foolish enough to fall for her pretense at pliability. And even if that were not the case …
He looked down at the top of her piled golden hair, which brushed lightly against his arm. Caroline had stood beside him in nearly the same position last night at the conclusion of their dance. Where Princess Bagration leaned into him now, her perfume twining around him in invitation, Caroline had stood vibrating with outrage. The difference between the two was striking. And yet …
And yet, somehow, he found himself irrationally disappointed by the contrast. Incandescent with frustration and rage, Caroline had felt like a line of flame against him—and all of her fury, maddening though it had been, had been aimed at him, not at any charmingly assumed persona. It was the first time in years that he had felt so frustrated … and so deeply engaged, at every level of his being.
Princess Bagration said, apparently idly, “Talleyrand, do sit by me today.” Her sweet smile deepened into a smirk as she glanced back up at Michael. “I believe this luncheon may hold some real interest after all.”
By the time Caroline returned from her afternoon of paying social calls and driving in the Augarten, she was seething with suppressed tension. She stripped off her gloves as she stepped into her apartment building, her back teeth grinding together. She’d barely made it through her last requisite afternoon visit—with Marie Rothmere, full of poisonous gossip and prying questions—without missing a dozen social cues and shattering the disguise she’d worked so many years to build.
Her second husband might never have cared to learn anything of what he’d termed her “disreputable past,” but he had been both firm and exact about how to build her future, for both of their sakes. “Don’t humiliate me, Caroline.” She never had. She hadn’t broken any of his social guidelines in years. After memorizing them so carefully at seventeen, she’d absorbed them until they were nearly second nature by now.
But in the drawing rooms of Vienna that afternoon, all of her years of training seemed to have abandoned her, leaving only a brittle veneer of custom to defend her. All that Caroline had been able to focus on, as gossip swirled and eddied around her, was what lay ahead of her that night. Her foolish, impossible, unbreakable promise to Charles … and her damnable, creeping, inescapable fear.
She felt as fragile and ready to shatter as a pane of glass threatened by a bullet.
You knew this was coming, her reason reminded her, with cool censure.
Of course she had. Caroline had calmly planned her own reintroduction to alchemy as a necessary step in her scheme, as she’d sat alone in her elegant London drawing room that spring, far from Austria and the past. Sitting comfortably there in her favorite chair, surrounded by all the trappings of her new identity, she’d imagined herself cool and collected and far too adult to be frightened by old nightmares.
More fool she.
It did nothing to aid her mood when she heard the door open behind her and feet run up the twisting staircase in her wake. She knew that confident step, even after all these years.
Still, the sight of Michael Steinhüller, no longer a ghost from her long-lost past but vividly real and all grown up, was a shock against her senses when he came into view a moment later.
“My lady Wyndham!” He caught up with her on the first landing, smiling broadly. His scent, fresh and unfamiliar and a world away from his old boyish musk, brushed her with unnerving warmth as he swept a bow. His very presence seemed to vibrate with energy. “May I tell you how charming you look today? Quite the grand lady indeed, I must say.”
“Must you? Really?” Caroline swiveled to face him, giving up even the pretense of cool composure. He looked flushed, happy, handsome, and confident. It was unbearable. “You would be far kinder to leave me in peace. But I suppose there’s no purpose in asking for impossibilities, is there?”
His smile faded as he stepped back. “Perhaps not. I had intended to thank you, though, for the introduction you granted me this morning.”
Caroline stared at him. “I could hardly do otherwise under threat of blackmail.”
“Nonetheless …” He drew a breath through his teeth and nodded stiffly. “Believe it or not, I am still grateful.”
“Grateful? If you only knew what it had led to—”
“The introduction?” Michael shook his head, impatience creeping into his tone. “I hardly think—”
“Not the introduction,” Caroline said. “The—oh, never mind.” It was nonsensical to blame him, anyway, for Charles’s request. That would have come sooner or later, regardless of this new complication. But that it must come at all …
Michael stepped forward, frowning. “You’re weeping.”
“I am not.” She dashed away the brimming tears, hardening herself. She hated the vulnerability in her chest … and the sudden, inescapable memory of how she’d carried all her worries to him in the past.
She’d wept on his shoulder more than once, in the old days, and felt blissfully safe and comforted by doing it.
Unbearable.
She closed her teeth with a snap. “I’m only weary.”
“And melancholy. Or …” His face softened in sudden concern. “Frightened?”
He reached forward, as if to touch her cheek. She put her hand out to stop him … and found their hands touching.
The heat of sudden, unexpected awareness sparked against her skin, shocking the breath from her.
Caroline stepped back as abruptly as if she’d been slapped. Her hand tingled, unnervingly, against her side. Michael’s warm hazel eyes were wide and startled in his lean face.
“Forgive me,” Caroline said. She winced at the sound of her voice, husky and unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone else. A weakling. Steeling herself, she brought it under control. “I am in no state for company, I’m afraid.”
She broke away from Michael’s gaze, forcing a thin smile. “Not even the company of such old … friends.” He was standing between her and the stairs up to her apartment. Worse yet, he was looking at her as if he knew her. As if she was still Karolina instead of Caroline … and as if he actually cared.
She had to escape. “Move aside, please, Prince Kalishnikoff.”
He didn’t move. Instead, he asked softly, “What happened to you all those years ago? After the fire, after—”
She shook her head tightly, refusing to meet his gaze. “That can have no significance for you.”
“Orphanag
es can be … harsh. I’ve heard—”
She laughed, and almost choked on it. “Have no fear, then, Prince Kalishnikoff. I wasn’t in an orphanage.” No orphanage locked its charges in tiny rooms to be food for monsters.
And now, to willingly repeat it again …
“Karolina.” Michael caught her wrist, his grip warm and compelling. “What’s amiss? You can tell me.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. Of course I can. After all, how could I possibly fail to trust you, of all people?” The impulse to bitter laughter subsided into sheer exhaustion. Caroline looked up and met his eyes, only inches away, with a flat, impenetrable stare. “Release me,” she said with icy clarity. “Now.”
His hand fell away. As light from the windows faded, shadows flung themselves across the narrow stairwell and cast his face into darkness. Caroline was glad that she couldn’t see it clearly.
“Enjoy your evening,” she said briskly, as she might have spoken to a stranger. “Do you go tonight to a ball, or to the theater, or—”
He shifted aside to let her past. “I’ve been invited to the Hôtel de Ligne for supper and an evening party. As have you, I believe. If—”
“Pray convey my apologies,” Caroline said as she brushed past him. She picked up the skirts of her pelisse and dress, the better to run the rest of the way up the stairs. It was a cowardly maneuver, but then, at heart, she was a coward. “I have a previous engagement.”
That evening, at a quarter past six, Peter abandoned the stage of the Theater an der Wien at long last. He’d instructed every stagehand twice and insisted on hearing back their catechism of orders for the evening’s performance. He’d inspected the stage from every angle of the audience, gauging half a dozen last-minute adjustments that needed to be made to their flexible touring set. He’d tested every floorboard on the wooden stage itself.
It was time. Peter slipped down the narrow corridor that led to the back entrance. High and increasingly aggravated voices floated out through the closed door of the dressing room that Marta and Josephine shared; thank Heaven for his urgent appointment, which called him away from such volatile territory. A grin twitched Peter’s mouth at the thought. He hurried past, lest his footsteps be heard and he be called in to settle some new dispute.
Congress of Secrets Page 11