Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  The emperor paused, his face working. “Perhaps …” He flung a glance at Pergen. “I hear you came to Vienna looking for your father. Is that correct?”

  Caroline’s breath caught in her throat. She steeled her spine and closed her lips to keep any words from spilling out.

  The emperor smiled as if he’d received response enough. “Well, then. You may be interested to learn that he died of influenza ten years ago, in a prison cell outside Pressburg. Apparently it was a particularly cold winter that year … and his radical fervor wasn’t quite enough to keep him warm after all.”

  The world compressed into a shimmering bubble around Caroline. She couldn’t make herself take a breath.

  The emperor’s final words seemed to come from a great distance. “Pergen’s men researched his fate for me this afternoon. A pity that you should have come all this way for nothing, is it not?”

  Michael’s vision blurred as the enormity of it struck him.

  Caroline had walked into a trap. And he …

  He could have resigned himself to his own failure, with her escape as consolation. But he would not walk into captivity without a fight, knowing that she needed him.

  He would not abandon her again.

  Michael relaxed his arms within Riesenbeck’s grasp. Slowly, carefully, he linked his fingers together into a double fist.

  “I don’t understand,” Riesenbeck said to the policeman. “What are you both talking about?”

  “He seems to know the answer.” The policeman nodded at Michael. “An interesting point, that. I’m sure we’ll find out more about it later.”

  Nearby, the closest carriage horse shifted and let out a muffled snort. Michael slid a sideways glance.

  The coachman, inured to urban life, hadn’t shown a jot of interest in the fight that took place beside his carriage. Whether that reflected cynical wisdom or pure lack of interest, Michael couldn’t even guess.

  However, there was one other man on this street, only fifteen feet away, who might actually come to his aid—who had been instructed, in fact, to follow all of his orders. Earlier, Michael had been unwilling to risk giving away Caroline’s identity to his pursuers.

  Now, though …

  “Come.” The policeman jerked his head. “We should start off. I’m needed back at the gala, and you …” His lips twisted into an unpleasant smile. “You’ll need to prepare for tonight’s performance, Herr Riesenbeck.”

  “Very well,” Riesenbeck muttered. “But don’t think I’m going to—ah!”

  Michael gave a sudden jerk of his arms, pulling his captor off balance. Then he smashed one booted heel down onto the actor’s toes, grinding down with all his strength.

  Riesenbeck’s grip loosened for barely half a second, as he let out a muffled grunt of pain.

  It was enough.

  Michael was already shouting as he yanked his hands free. “Henry! Lady Wyndham needs you now!”

  What the hell was the man shouting about in English? And why?

  Peter lunged to recapture the slippery bastard just as Michael leaped at Grünemann, knocking the policeman backward onto the cobblestones.

  Caught off-balance, Peter hit midair instead of solid flesh and flailed for balance. The wrestling bodies lurched across the cobblestones and knocked into Peter’s feet. He stumbled backward, panting. He couldn’t tell who was winning in the scuffle at his feet, or how to help Grünemann without getting in his way.

  Perhaps—

  A heavy weight slammed against the back of Peter’s head. Consciousness fled, and his half-formulated strategy vanished with it.

  Michael let out a groan of sheer relief as the policeman suddenly slumped against him, his fingers falling away from Michael’s throat.

  “Thank you for that.” Michael struggled out from beneath the policeman’s limp body, grunting with effort. He massaged his bruised throat as he stood to face Caroline’s stocky, solidly built coachman. “You’re a good man in a fight.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  The coachman regarded Michael steadily, still holding his whip half-coiled in his hand. The head of the whip was solid bronze—a handy feature indeed. Michael wondered whether Henry had chosen it for that purpose. Whether or not the whip was a mere tool for driving, Michael had a strong feeling that Caroline had chosen the man himself for more than his ability with horses.

  “And what does Your Highness want done with these gentlemen?” asked Henry, apparently imperturbably.

  “Hmm.” Michael glanced down at the cobblestones. “We can’t leave them here, certainly.”

  “Do you want me to dispose of them?”

  “Dispose—?” Michael blinked. “Ah, no. Not yet.” He took a breath.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t inquire too closely into the other man’s background, after all.

  Henry coughed. “I only meant, Your Highness, to drive them out and drop them on the outskirts of the city. It would take them a few hours to walk back, and if you need to buy a bit of time for Lady Wyndham …”

  “Ah. Yes, that is a good idea.” Michael gathered up the wits that had scattered in the fight. “Thank you, Henry.” He nodded with just the right degree of royal condescension. “We’d better tie them up first, though, just in case they wake up at an awkward moment.”

  “That one already is.” Henry jerked his chin at the actor, whose head was shifting. Riesenbeck mumbled something unintelligible, and Henry asked, “Shall I give him another tap?”

  Michael opened his mouth to agree, but a sudden stab of reluctance startled him. It was the tug of his instincts, and he paused to think the impulse through.

  It would be another gamble, certainly—and at the most dangerous possible moment. If it was only his newfound and highly inconvenient guilt that pressed upon him now, he might well be sacrificing his only sliver of a chance. Yet, when he weighed up everything he knew, and tallied it against the odds …

  “Not yet,” Michael said. “I want to talk to him first.”

  Caroline put all her effort into holding herself upright and not letting herself faint as the door closed behind her. The emperor’s words rang through her head, repeating themselves over and over again until they merged and became only one word, inescapable and without end.

  Died … died … died …

  “You look unwell, Karolina.”

  Pergen’s voice pierced the fog, but she could barely see him as his footsteps approached. Her vision refused to focus on the room around her; only his blurred outlines appeared before her, even as his chill surrounded her.

  Died …

  “I hope you haven’t turned missish in the years since you left this country. The girl I remember wouldn’t have fainted away when things went badly. She would have been screaming and fighting by now, no matter how futile she knew it to be. Aren’t you even going to make one last escape attempt?”

  Escape? Caroline almost laughed. If the laugh had escaped her lips, she thought it might have contained blood.

  Michael had been right. She had been mad ever to think that her plan could have worked. That she could still save her father after all these years.

  So many years … all the years of her two marriages, waiting for her independence. Then the long years when travel between England and the Continent was blocked by the endless war, and she had been forced to wait and wait, gathering her plans, hiring informants and throwing all her frustrated energy into scheming for this moment. This moment, when everything she’d gone through, everything she’d chosen or been forced to do over the years, would all be redeemed and made worthwhile …

  And her father had been dead these past ten years.

  “Can you even hear me right now, I wonder?” Pergen sounded distantly amused. “Never mind. I imagine you’ll wake up soon enough.”

  What had Caroline been doing when her father died shivering and alone? Had she been writing letters in her warm, cozy morning room in her elegant London townhouse? Or had she been staying at a glittering coun
try house party full of innuendos and falsehoods, hailing the blanket of snow outside as a charming Christmas touch?

  “I’d thought it might be difficult to subdue you enough to be carried to your cell,” Pergen murmured, “but perhaps I misjudged you after all. I wonder, if I simply steered you by the arm, would you walk quite quietly back to your old cage?”

  Caroline didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The chill that emanated from Pergen wrapped around her completely now. It felt right. It felt like the cold that had killed her father, years before she had even managed to cross the English Channel on her way back to him.

  It had all been so hopeless. When Pergen’s thin fingers closed around her arm, Caroline didn’t even attempt to struggle.

  There had been no point in coming here tonight. Michael had been right, but she’d been too driven by need to listen to him. Now that it was finished, though, and she had failed …

  Michael. Horrified realization lanced her body, breaking through the fog.

  Michael didn’t know what had happened to her. He might wonder, but it hadn’t been long enough since she’d left the Great Hall for him to be certain that her meeting with the emperor had gone wrong. And the emperor would know—must know, by now, as he knew who Caroline was—that Michael himself was a fraud.

  The emperor, whom she had spat on and insulted, who had left the meeting room seething with rage.

  When he found Michael waiting for Caroline …

  Caroline’s vision focused into painful clarity. The little room closed in around her—five steps to the door, six steps to the opening in the wall through which Pergen had first emerged—and Pergen’s hand was firm on her left arm as he turned her toward that dark passageway. Caroline staggered, as if overcome by faintness, and red wine sloshed out from the glass she still held.

  “I have to—I must—” She drew a ragged breath.

  “Take a moment to compose yourself, certainly,” said Pergen. “We have all the time in the world, now, you and I.”

  Caroline closed her eyes and raised her free hand to massage her forehead, pulling Pergen’s hand with her arm. He released her, and she stumbled back a pace. She stopped there a moment, leaning her head forward into her hand, then raised her other hand—and mimed surprise as her cool wine glass touched her face.

  “I forgot—I really ought to …” Trailing off, she staggered the last few steps to the table where the half-full wine decanter sat, its facets sparkling in the candlelight. She set her own glass down carefully beside it, shadows shifting on the wall beside her.

  “You have grown over-nice in your habits,” Pergen said. “The servants would have carried it back, have no fear.”

  “I don’t,” Caroline said. She straightened, and managed a wavering smile. “I am coming now. I only—” She broke off again, raising her left hand back to her forehead. “I feel—I feel as if I might swoon, if I move even a step.”

  “Then allow me to assist you.” Asperity tinged Pergen’s voice as he started toward her. “But I beg you not to imagine that these delaying tactics are going to do you any good.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” Caroline said. “Truly.”

  She waited, poised, her left hand limp against her forehead, as he crossed to her. Two steps … three steps …

  Now. Caroline grabbed the heavy glass decanter with her right hand and swung it against Pergen’s face with all her strength.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The decanter smashed into Pergen’s face, and he fell to his knees. Caroline swung it again, and the thick glass shattered as it hit the side of Pergen’s head. Pergen toppled, red wine showering around him. Caroline dropped the last shards of broken glass and raced for the door.

  It was too late to escape, but she didn’t need to escape to alert Michael and save his life. If she only made it out into the Great Hall, she would be witnessed by the entire gathered, gossiping crowd, her long white gloves stained with her own blood from the shattered glass, as she was subdued and taken prisoner on the emperor’s command. Michael would see or be told about the spectacle as rumors swept the crowd, and he would suffer in the knowledge, yes, but he could run, as he’d been running all his life—as he should have been running tonight, if she hadn’t stopped him—and he would be free.

  Michael, run! Don’t wait for me this time.

  The door handle turned beneath Caroline’s bleeding hand, pushing even more tiny fragments of glass through her thin gloves. Ignoring the sharp bites of pain, she pulled it open. The cool air of the outer corridor brushed against her skin …

  And a hand closed around the back of her dress, yanking her back into the room.

  “Now, that is the Karolina I remembered.” Pergen’s smile cut through raw, gaping wounds. It wasn’t his smile, though, but the wounds themselves that made the bile rise in Caroline’s throat as he kicked the door shut behind her.

  Ragged cuts from the glass covered Pergen’s sunken face and head, but they did not bleed red blood. Instead, dark shadows leaked through the cuts, swirling past his skin and hair into the air around him. They trailed through the air toward Caroline, and she flinched away, struggling to escape. Pergen’s hand held her firm as the shadows brushed against her skin, burrowing against her cheeks as if seeking a way inside. A moan escaped Caroline’s closed lips as the shadows wiggled against her nostrils and crept up her face toward her eyes.

  What monstrous new development was this?

  “Afraid?” Pergen asked. His voice had calmed into the scientific detachment he’d always assumed when beginning a lecture to the emperor or one of the other rare observers of his experiments on her. “The shadows themselves cannot harm you, having no mind or purpose of their own. However …” Satisfaction overcame the detachment as he reached into his waistcoat. “I must thank you for giving me the opportunity to carry out a new experiment. I was afraid you had become too docile to need it after all.”

  Caroline clenched her jaw to hold back a sob as shadows wriggled into her nose and worked their way up inside her.

  Pergen’s hand reappeared in her line of sight. “Do you recognize this, Karolina?”

  Caroline blinked rapidly, trying to focus through the raw fear.

  It was a small silver tube, etched with unfamiliar markings and sealed at the top with a flat cap. Caroline had never seen it before in her life.

  “No?” Pergen shrugged. “Perhaps a familiar face will remind you.”

  Still holding her arm, he turned his head toward the dark, inner passageway through which he’d first emerged.

  “Mr. Weston? You may come out now.”

  As Peter opened his eyes, Michael’s face swam into focus. His lips were moving, but it took a moment for his words to penetrate the pain in Peter’s head.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Peter started to speak, then stopped as the pain intensified. He pushed himself up as far as his elbows. Nausea overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes, fighting to keep the bile down.

  “Let me give you a hand.”

  Peter opened his eyes and found Michael reaching out to him. It hurt too much for Peter to scowl. He accepted Michael’s outstretched hand and pulled himself painfully to his feet. Grünemann’s crumpled body lay nearby.

  “There you are,” Michael said. “The pain will wear off soon, I promise. You can trust me on that, by the way—I’ve had it happen to me too many times to count.”

  “I can’t trust you on anything,” Peter said. He dropped Michael’s hands and stepped back … and bumped into a solid figure.

  “Ah, that’s Henry, who saved me,” Michael said genially. “He doesn’t speak German, I’m afraid, but I’m sure he’s pleased to meet you, too.”

  Peter turned and met the measuring gaze of a toughly built, middle-aged man wearing a coachman’s multi-caped coat and holding a bronze-handled whip in his right hand. Peter had never seen that whip before, but his throbbing head made immediate and excruciating connections.

  “And now that you’ve made each other’s
acquaintance …” Michael turned to the coachman and pointed to Grünemann’s limp figure.

  Peter couldn’t understand the stream of English that came next, as the two men argued over something, but it was only too easy to read the suspicion on the coachman’s face as he glanced at Peter and gestured with his whip.

  Michael waved off the other man’s protests, though, and flashed Peter a grin. “We don’t want that fellow waking up here to turn us both in to his employers, now, do we? So it’s really better to stash him somewhere safe.”

  Peter didn’t smile back. He was well aware of the real meaning behind Henry’s reluctance to leave right now, and it had nothing to do with Grünemann … and everything to do with leaving Peter unguarded. The fact that Michael was treating him as a comrade now, rather than as a prisoner, only made him more uneasy.

  He didn’t move away, though. As the coachman dragged Grünemann’s limp—but still breathing—body away, Peter kept his eyes on Michael. The pain in his head was slowly subsiding, leaving room for his wits to revive.

  Michael didn’t mean to harm him, it seemed … or, at least, not yet. That had to mean that he wanted something else. Peter narrowed his eyes as he studied the other man’s body language, gauging the messages that it sent with a director’s eye—all easy friendship and fellow-feeling, drawing them together.

  So, Michael had devised another scheme, and he had made the decision, once again, to use Peter to help himself. Was he mad, to believe he could trick Peter again so soon? Or full of such overweening arrogance that he couldn’t even see the inherent flaw in his plan?

  Regardless … Peter shifted, letting his weight balance evenly on his legs. It was a pose he’d perfected in his training as an actor; it let him move rapidly in any direction. At the same time, he took control of his wayward expression, forcing open suspicion to metamorphose into mere confusion—the face of an easy dupe.

  He couldn’t overpower Michael here, where he was outnumbered. And if he let his nemesis go free, Peter would give up all his own chances at life, freedom, and the safety of his company. That left only one remaining option.