Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  Who could blame the comte for looking a bit goggle-eyed from his privileged angle? Not Francis, certainly.

  “Mm, how lovely,” the tsarina murmured, leaning forward.

  Her hair drifted over Francis’s arm.

  “Lovely,” Francis repeated, with deep satisfaction.

  The first round of tableaux had ended, and the orchestra had played through extracts from symphonies by Haydn and Mozart to accompany the change of stage sets, before Michael finally saw Caroline again. The noble performers had switched to a mixture of songs and pantomimes for this second part of the evening, choosing songs written by royals from all across Europe. Michael could only be relieved that the orchestra, at least, was staffed by professional musicians.

  “And here is our Lady Wyndham at last,” the Prince de Ligne murmured, as the second song finished. “Do you have any inkling of what kept her so long?”

  Michael turned in his seat to look. Caroline must have slipped into the back of the great room with the advent of applause; she was only visible by the crack of light from the door as it closed behind her. He wished he could see her expression.

  He wished he knew what Pergen had said to her.

  The door closed, and shadows swallowed her figure.

  “She must have been occupied with other matters,” he said coolly.

  Unfamiliar guilt pressed forward, but he shoved it aside. She had made it clear she didn’t want his help, hadn’t she? And yet …

  “She’ll have to be more punctual for our next evening of entertainment,” de Ligne said. “Our great leaders of fashion are already deploring how crowded the Hofburg will be tomorrow night with this grand and democratic fête that’s being planned by the emperor. Will you follow their lead and stay away from such an overwhelmingly popular affair?”

  “The grandest fête of the entire Congress?” Michael shrugged. The orchestra began its introduction to the next song, and he lowered his voice to a discreet whisper. “How could I miss it?”

  “And indeed, how could they?” De Ligne snorted with wicked laughter. “I’ll make a wager, if you like, that every salon hostess who’s decried this affair with the greatest outrage will be struggling and fighting for first place in the line in front of this palace in twenty-four hours’ time. After all, if any of them chose to miss it, how could they then take part in the weeks of heated discussions afterward, deploring how crushed and sordid it had all been? They would be social outcasts.”

  As the prince finished his sentence, Comtesse Zamoyska and Prince Radziwill stepped forward on the stage and launched into Queen Hortense of Belgium’s song “Do what you ought, let come what may.” Michael rearranged his face into polite attention as the singers pantomimed noble heroics with all their limited range of emotion.

  “Never fear,” Michael whispered to the prince, under cover of the music. “I will be there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Caroline waited until eight in the morning to summon Charles. It was hours earlier than she’d ever required his presence before, and he might well still be asleep—but she had been awake and pacing, her eyes burning with exhaustion and panic, ever since she’d returned at dawn.

  Her maid, Johnson, had come in when she’d first arrived, to cluck disapprovingly about her hair and gown, but Caroline had dismissed the older woman to bed without making any moves toward her own repose. She couldn’t let herself fall into the false security of unconsciousness until she had taken some real action to save herself and her plans … no matter how dangerous that action might be.

  “Your Ladyship.” Charles arrived less than ten minutes after her summons, impeccably presented and—Caroline noted with a twist of rueful surprise—clean-shaven already and showing no signs of sleepiness. It was a far cry from her own disordered appearance, still wearing last night’s evening gown and with her hair drifting free of its sternly ordered ringlets. Probably Charles had been up for hours already, doing his own work in the few hours he had free from her commands. Had she really forgotten, after so many years, what it was like not to be one of the cosseted upper classes?

  “I trust I haven’t kept you waiting?” Charles asked, as he straightened from his bow.

  “Hardly. You are invaluable … as always.” Caroline plaited her fingers together and drew a breath. It was time. She’d kept him in the dark until now, for reasons of more than ordinary caution. Every instinct in her body warned her that it was a risk to entrust him with her most vulnerable of secrets—especially now, after Pergen’s warnings and the events of two nights past. But she had no time anymore to listen to the voice of caution. Pergen had made that more than clear last night.

  Caroline tilted her head toward the open drawing room door behind Charles. He caught her meaning, like the invaluable servant she had named him, and moved quickly to close the door. She waited until he’d returned to stand before her chair before she spoke again, in a bare whisper.

  “I need your help.”

  “Anything!” His face lit up. He sank down to his knees before her chair. “Lady Wyndham, you know I’d serve you in any way.”

  “I know.” She smiled into his eyes, carefully overlooking the ardent meaning in his voice. “You are more loyal than I deserve, Charles.”

  “Lady Wyndham—”

  “Shh. Please.” She drew another breath, centering herself. What to reveal … and how much? “I am in danger,” she said, with soft deliberation.

  “I knew it.” His right hand formed a fist against his knee. “Prince Kalishnikoff—”

  “No! It isn’t him.” She reached out to give his fisted hand a quick, reassuring pat with the very tips of her fingers. “I thank you, but there really is nothing to concern you in that quarter.”

  He compressed his lips for a moment, visibly suppressing a retort. Caroline felt a whisper of new alarm brush against her as she watched him. She hadn’t realized how strong a dislike he’d taken to Michael … or was it that he felt himself to be threatened?

  That possibility was too disturbing to contemplate, in all its implications. Not now, not without any sleep … Exhaustion tugged at her. She wrenched her scattered thoughts back into order. She had to finish what she’d begun and address the true and current danger, rather than letting herself be distracted by idle premonitions.

  “It is the minister of the Austrian secret police who has threatened me,” she whispered. “The same man who has already placed a spy in this building.”

  Charles frowned. “Baron … von Hager, is it?”

  “No,” Caroline said. “No. In public, Baron von Hager may be named the minister of secret police, but that is no more true than …” Than my own disguise, or Michael’s, she finished silently. She shook her head. “The real position of authority has never changed since the last century. Count Pergen has been their true leader ever since Emperor Joseph’s time, for over thirty years now.”

  “But why the secrecy?”

  “Because …” Caroline hesitated. The look in Charles’s eyes, only yesterday—no. She couldn’t let herself think about that. There was no time. “He is the man I told you of. The man who now leaks shadows.”

  “An alchemist. A successful alchemist, for over thirty years.” Charles met her eyes. “Your teacher—!”

  “Yes.” Caroline compressed her lips. “But not by choice.”

  “But …”

  She could almost name the questions jostling for precedence in Charles’s throat. To him, she’d never named herself any other than an English noblewoman, born and bred—one whose interest in alchemy had been born of aristocratic idleness. She smiled thinly as she met his eyes.

  “I know,” she said quietly. “There are many things I haven’t felt safe to discuss. Particularly here in Vienna.”

  “I … see.” His shoulders rose and fell. “I think I see?”

  “I’m glad. Because I cannot make it any clearer at the moment. It isn’t safe, not with so many spies so close at hand.” Caroline brushed her hand over her burning
eyes and hoped he took it for a sign of budding, fragile tears, rather than the bone-deep weariness that wanted to topple her. “I shall explain everything to you as soon as I may. Dear Charles.”

  “Thank you, Lady Wyndham.” He looked down at his still-fisted hand for a long moment. “And may I ask exactly what Prince Kalishnikoff has to do with this?”

  “He is an old friend, just as I said.” Watching his face, Caroline took the risk of adding, “He does not know the truth of my … my training. And my knowledge. You are the only one I can trust with those secrets.”

  “But how can you be certain that he doesn’t report to Count Pergen, himself?”

  “Charles—”

  “You must listen to me!” Charles leaned forward, nearly shaking with the intensity of his whispered words. “You’ve spoken of spies. Cannot you see how he fits that description? His coming, by claimed coincidence—maneuvering himself into your confidence, your very home—!”

  “Please, Charles.” Caroline drew back from his vehemence. “You must believe me when I tell you he has nothing to do with such matters. He is a good friend, and nothing more.”

  “But—”

  “I must insist that you say no more of this.” She held his gaze until it dropped.

  His words came out in a reluctant mutter. “As you say, Lady Wyndham.”

  “Thank you. I knew I could trust you.” Discomfort coiled through her as she looked at his set face and the barely repressed frustration in the hunched set of his shoulders. Too great a risk …

  But no. Once in, she might as well risk everything. “I need you to find someone for me,” she whispered. “It is the sole reason I came to Vienna. I thought I would have more time. I thought I would have months to work.” She clenched her hands around her thin, gauzy evening gown. “I thought I might have the emperor’s help. But it seems that I will not, after all.”

  “Your Ladyship?”

  “A man was arrested by Pergen’s secret police, twenty-four years ago,” Caroline said. Please, God, let the door be thick. Let Charles be trustworthy. If Pergen ever found this out, he would know her and have her in an instant.

  She had to force her voice to form the words around the knot of fear in her throat. “His name was Gerhard Vogl. He was a radical, a printmaker who dared to print and circulate pamphlets that told the truth behind the senseless war against the Turks and questioned the ravaging of civil liberties. Emperor Joseph had freed the press and the public to speak their minds when he first took sole rule, but Pergen convinced him to withdraw all the freedoms he had granted. Pergen persuaded him that every honest criticism was an act of treason.” Her voice cracked. “Pergen’s men smashed Gerhard Vogl’s press, took him captive … and he has never been seen again since then.”

  Charles’s eyes were fixed on her, alert and watchful. “This man … could he have been executed?”

  “No!” She had spoken too loudly. Caroline lowered her voice back to a whisper. “Executions were public and accountable to the courts in those days. But secret imprisonments were not uncommon. Particularly when the prisoners had information that might prove inconvenient for the state.” A missing daughter.

  “Have you searched the records?”

  “I have spent hundreds of pounds employing my own spies to do just that for the past six years.” Ever since she had been widowed for the second time and finally set free, with a fortune under her own control and no husband to hold the reins of their household, make every significant decision … and decree that her past, and her lost father, were of no significance to anyone of worth.

  Caroline felt the ache of old frustration as she shook her head. “His imprisonment was never recorded, and he was never freed or banished as all the other printmakers of his time were long ago. He is—he must be still imprisoned. I could swear to it.”

  Still sitting locked in a small dark room, imagining himself to be abandoned forever, just as she had been abandoned to her own fate …

  “So, the informants have failed, and the emperor cannot be persuaded. You wish to use alchemy, now, to pursue your search?”

  “Is it possible?”

  “Mmm …” Charles’s gaze turned inward and thoughtful. “It’s not impossible. But whether I can do it is another matter. You’ve given me his name, but that won’t be enough, especially if his prison isn’t in the city of Vienna itself. If he’s hidden elsewhere in the empire, it will be a long and difficult task to search out his location. Such a task will take time.”

  “I have no time left!”

  They stared at each other for a paralyzed moment. Caroline closed her eyes, fighting real tears of frustration.

  “Pergen has sworn to discover who I really am,” she whispered. “He has set himself upon my path. I must leave Vienna before he can discover me. But I cannot leave without finding out the truth!”

  “I see.” Charles sighed. “Then I’ll need more than a name. I’ll require birth signs, signs of identity—”

  “I can provide all of those.”

  “But I can’t swear that I’ll achieve success. For a true alchemical search,” Charles said, “I would need his blood, to track him by.”

  “I can give you nearly that,” Caroline breathed. She met his eyes and let herself take the greatest risk of all. “We share the same blood,” she said to Charles. “I am his daughter. And I can give you mine.”

  It was time.

  Michael stepped out of his room just after he heard the apartment door close behind Charles Weston. He didn’t trust Caroline’s secretary. More than that, every instinct he’d cultivated in the past two decades sharpened into buzzing, full-throated alertness every time the other man stepped into a room.

  Weston had been bristling with territorial suspicion from the moment Michael had first stepped over the threshold of their joint apartment. Michael wouldn’t put it past him to act as a spy, even if only in Caroline’s interest. It might be amusing to lead the man in circles on an ordinary day … but today was no ordinary day, and it would be a fatal mistake to let himself be witnessed by anyone in what he was about to attempt.

  If an Austrian spy saw and reported him to the secret police, Michael would be in dire danger indeed. And if Charles Weston followed him and reported on his actions to Caroline …

  What had she said to him that first night? She’d recoiled when he’d spoken of loyalty, and thrown his own words back in his face. If she found out that he was putting both of them at risk now by visiting just such an illicit press as they had both grown up assisting …

  Michael shut his eyes for a brief moment.

  If he didn’t follow Talleyrand’s orders, his gamble would be lost indeed, and he might as well abandon Vienna and all his hopes without further ado. If he did not stay and fight for the rights of “Prince Kalishnikoff,” he would never win the money he needed to buy himself a true home for the rest of his life and achieve security at last. He would be on the run forever … and sooner or later, his luck would finally run out.

  Against that bleak prospect, Caroline’s reaction—the hurt, the betrayal—could not be allowed to matter.

  And yet …

  He set his jaw, hard.

  He would simply have to make certain that she didn’t find out.

  Michael strode down the stairs with careful nonchalance and exited the building into the bracingly cold morning air. Even at eight in the morning, the Dorotheergasse was crowded. At this hour, all of the nobles were still abed, but their servants were already hard at work, and the inner city—for this brief span of hours, at least—was entirely their own. They filled the narrow, cobblestoned streets, bustling through with baskets of shopping and calling out greetings to their fellows. Michael side-stepped a plump duo of housekeepers in mid-gossip and weaved through a crowd of busy maidservants and Turkish salesmen. They drew back far enough to let him through but looked at him with far more curiosity than respect.

  And no wonder. His clothes might place him in the aristocracy, Michael reali
zed, but his behavior in stepping out among them at such a time was more than enough to tinge social awe with outright irritation. He wondered if he ought to have attempted a footman’s costume, the better to blend into the background … but no. If Weston had spotted him in such an outfit, there would have been no escape. All he could do was hope that the servants’ own interests, during their rare hours of freedom, would be strong enough to overbalance the oddity of his appearance in their midst.

  He walked a meandering route toward the fifteenth district, stopping at every block to gaze through a shop or café window and take a discreet look at the reflections of the crowd around him. Any repeated face, from block to block, could be a danger; any figure always spotted at the same distance, who might be following on another’s orders …

  Michael spotted nothing and didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed. Every foreign noble would be watched by the police, he was certain—and the emperor’s personal dislike had been more than evident the night before. Perhaps the imperial spies themselves were still abed. Perhaps they were simply too good to let themselves be spotted.

  Michael wished he knew which option was more likely.

  Perhaps, if he waited until later … No, he was only looking for excuses. He took a deep breath and strolled forward at a leisurely pace, taking a side path onto the Ringstrasse for distraction’s sake.

  Half an hour later, holding a newspaper he had bought from an urchin on the way, Michael finally arrived at the grocer’s shop on Rotringstrasse that young Hüberl had described to him the day before. He stood on the street outside for a moment, looking in.

  The shop itself was a typically dark little space, overflowing onto the street outside with baskets of vegetables and fruit and the imported foods popular with immigrants in Vienna. Sacks of coffee beans mingled with bags of flour, freshly baked flatbreads that smelled of exotic spices, and baskets of colorful fruits from a warmer climate. Groups of cheerful, chatting Muslim women, their heads and faces discreetly covered, were already involved in picking out the best of each.