Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1)

by Mary Lancaster

  Unexpectedly, he laughed. “I like you, Madame, whoever you are.”

  “Eleanor Fawcett,” said, offering her hand. “Entirely gratified, of course.”

  “Of course,” he said gravely, shaking hands with her, before suddenly tearing off his cloak and coat and sword belt, and rolling up his sleeves. “Now let’s see about getting that fever down.”

  *

  In the morning, while the children were dressing and squabbling, Lizzie went to see if her aunt was awake, ostensibly to ask about the night’s festivities and any messages for Mrs. Fawcett, but more importantly to see what she could discover about the necklace.

  She found her aunt, sitting up in bed drinking hot chocolate and rather blearily reading her morning correspondence.

  “How was the ball?” Lizzie asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “Exhausting. I think we’ll all be glad of a quiet evening!”

  “Did Minerva enjoy it?”

  Aunt Lucy sighed. “She doesn’t try, Lizzie!”

  “Well, it is a little uncomfortable being hung out on display like a piece of meat.”

  “Lizzie!” Aunt Lucy scowled, throwing down her letter. “Where do you get such notions?”

  “From Minerva, actually. I think she would prefer a quieter life.”

  “She won’t once she’s an old spinster with no one to keep her,” Aunt Lucy retorted.

  “Maybe she and I can join our poor resources and live quietly in a cottage in genteel poverty.”

  Aunt Lucy eyed her a little uncertainly.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to tease you,” Lizzie said contritely. She didn’t really bear a grudge; it was natural that Aunt Lucy should care more for her own daughter’s future. “And it’s hardly your fault my father made no arrangements for us. On the contrary, we’re very grateful you took us in.”

  “Took you in?” Aunt Lucy repeated disparagingly. “You are my nieces, my profligate brother’s children, and, of course, you must live with us as long as is necessary. In fact, despite the noise of the children, Lizzie, I have to say you make a household run more smoothly. You’re a very useful girl. But listen, couldn’t you speak to Minerva? Advise her to…to sparkle a little?”

  “She sparkles in her own way,” Lizzie assured her. She hesitated, but now wasn’t really the time to bring up her cousin’s affection for Mr. Corner. “I think she’s more comfortable at smaller events than at huge, formal balls. Especially here, where they are so crowded you can’t move. According to Minerva,” she added hastily. “Oh, and I meant to speak to you about the necklace, the diamonds you borrowed from the estate.”

  Aunt Lucy cast her a wary glance. “Oh?”

  “I wondered,” Lizzie said, not entirely disingenuously, “if you had ever thought of having a copy made? You know, a paste replica?”

  Aunt Lucy stared at her. “Why would I do that?”

  “Well, then you could wear one whenever you liked and give the other back to Ivan the Terrible.”

  “Don’t use that ridiculous name, Lizzie, it will slip out at the wrong time. If you can’t stomach calling him Lord Launceton or Cousin Ivan, call him by the name he uses in Russia—if you can remember it. I’m not sure I can.”

  “Sorry. Don’t you think it’s a good idea about the necklace?” Lizzie pursued.

  Aunt Lucy shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t be silly.”

  But the flutter of uncertainty in her face made Lizzie catch her hand. “Aunt, is there anything I can help you with?”

  “Of course not!” Aunt Lucy gave a trill of a laugh and pulled her hand free with a distant pat. “I can’t think what you mean.”

  “Well, the clasp was broken, but you still wore it last night.”

  Lucy’s shoulders sank in incomprehensible relief. “Oh, that. It doesn’t seem to be broken after all. Perhaps Benson just hadn’t fastened it properly the night of the Emperor’s ball, for when we looked at it yesterday evening, we could see nothing wrong with it.”

  “And you still have it.”

  “Of course I still have it. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “No reason,” Lizzie said, getting up none the wiser. An unworthy suspicion was forming in her head. She stood up. “Do you have any messages for Mrs. Fawcett?”

  Her aunt picked up the next letter from her tray and reached for her chocolate. “Just my regards and best wishes for her quick recovery. I look forward to seeing her in Vienna.”

  “I’m going to take the children and the dog with me,” Lizzie said. “So, at least, they shouldn’t worry you!”

  “Excellent idea.” She threw the letter down on the bed. “This is addressed to you, Lizzie.”

  Surprised, Lizzie came back to the bed and picked it up. It was in a bold hand she’d never seen before. In spite of all her common sense, her heart began to beat faster, because the letter could come from him. He could have discovered who she was…

  Resisting the urge to tear it open to find out, she forced herself to break the seal without obvious urgency, scanning quickly to the signature. And, of course, it wasn’t from Colonel Vanya.

  “It’s from Dorothée,” she said in surprise.

  “Who’s Dorothée.”

  “A young French lady we met in the Graben the other day.”

  “French?” Aunt Lucy sniffed. “What does she want?”

  “She’s invited me to her house tomorrow afternoon.”

  Aunt Lucy set down her chocolate. “I don’t think I want you visiting French people.”

  “Why not? The war is over. And she did seem very nice. She didn’t object at all when Dog jumped on her and her poor maid. I would like to see her again, if you don’t need me.”

  “Is she respectable?” Aunt Lucy asked bluntly.

  Lizzie laughed. “She seemed so. She is here with her uncle. She is a married lady, I believe. She says she will send her carriage for me, so I won’t need an escort.”

  “Oh good, because I planned to take Minerva to Lady Castlereagh’s that afternoon.”

  “She’ll like that,” Lizzie said honestly, since Mr. Corner was likely to be there. “So I may visit Dorothée?”

  “Yes, yes, but go now. Someone is ringing below and it’s probably the carriage for you. Don’t keep Mrs. Fawcett waiting and be on your best behavior…actually, Lizzie, now I think of it, perhaps you shouldn’t take the children and certainly not the dog!”

  “She said I might,” Lizzie said, hurrying to the door, from where she blew her aunt a kiss. “Goodbye! Enjoy the peace of your day.”

  “Lizzie, your dress!” Aunt Lucy wailed after her.

  “My dress?” She looked down, twisting around to inspect the back as well as the front. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Everything. You must wear something of Minerva’s. Why didn’t I think of this before?”

  “Because you have enough calls on your time and money,” Lizzie soothed. “I’m respectable if hardly fashionable and Mrs. Fawcett quite understands how things were left.”

  She herded the children downstairs, paused only long enough to snatch up her reticule with Johnnie’s share of the necklace money, which she’d forgotten to leave him in the hurry of his departure. She then followed her siblings and the dog outside and into the familiar carriage.

  Dress, after all, had never been terribly high on her list of priorities, and even if she’d had the means or the time to adapt something of Minerva’s, she really saw no point in dressing in the height of fashion to visit a country inn and an old friend of her parents, to say nothing of the man she’d shot and, possibly, the thief who’d stolen Aunt Lucy’s necklace. Or at least one of Aunt Lucy’s necklaces.

  “Do you suppose,” she said to her siblings as the coach rattled over Vienna’s cobbles, “that Aunt Lucy had a paste copy of the necklace made and now can’t tell which is the real one? I think she imagines the stolen one is the fake and that’s why she’s so undisturbed by the theft.”

  “Maybe it was the fake,” Michael suggested.
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br />   “I think Johnnie’s buyer would know diamonds well enough to spot the difference.”

  “Probably,” Michael agreed. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it? We have the money and, even better, we haven’t made Aunt Lucy cut up rough about losing it.”

  “Yes, but if the necklace she still has is the fake, what if Ivan the Terrible notices?” Georgiana wondered. “He does seem to be the kind of money-grubbing man who would notice such a thing and complain, even if he has everything else and certainly doesn’t need another diamond necklace!”

  “That’s what bothers me,” Lizzie admitted. “I hope Johnnie is at the inn so we can ask him how knowledgeable his buyer is likely to be. And listen, this is still our secret. You mustn’t say anything about the necklace in front of Mrs. Fawcett.”

  “As if we would,” Michael scoffed.

  It was another lovely, sunny day, although so far into the year. As the coach bowled out of the city and through the countryside, Lizzie opened the carriage window. Dog stuck his shaggy head out and sniffed the air with pleasure.

  “Ah,” Lizzie remembered in time. “One other thing. The inn servants and Mrs. Fawcett think I was eloping with Johnnie, so don’t be shocked!”

  Henrietta gave a peel of laughter. “With Johnnie?”

  “Well, how else were we to explain why I was there with him? And the man I shot is our eldest brother, come to take me home. I have now decided not to elope with Johnnie.”

  Michael grinned. “All for the best.”

  “I think so. Only the brother that I shot had best be another half-brother since Mrs. Fawcett is involved.”

  “You do tell excellent whoppers, Lizzie,” Michael observed with open admiration.

  “I do, don’t I?” she said ruefully. “Never mind, when this mess is cleared up, we’ll all tell the truth all the time.”

  “Except how we came by the money for our cottage,” Georgiana said reasonably.

  “Apart from that,” Lizzie agreed.

  By the time they reached the inn, Dog was wheefling with excitement.

  The coach rumbled sedately into the familiar courtyard and drew to a halt. Before either the coachman or the inn servants got near, Michael threw open the carriage door and the children and Dog spilled out with joy.

  Lizzie emerged with marginally more decorum, laughing and holding onto her bonnet as Dog paused to jump at her before bounding around the yard and sniffing at the stable door.

  Mrs. Fawcett emerged from the inn’s front entrance, smiling. Lizzie went to her at once, hand held out. “Good morning, ma’am. I’m afraid we’ve come to cut up your peace. They’re all a little exuberant!”

  “You brought them all!” Mrs Fawcett sounded more amused than disapproving, fortunately.

  Lizzie called the children to order and they trooped over at once to make their bows and curtseys to Mrs. Fawcett. At least, they remembered their manners, although Dog, barking at the stable door, had clearly forgotten his.

  Lizzie called to him sternly, which he ignored. “Go and fetch him, Michael. I don’t want him scaring the horses.”

  Michael ran over cheerfully, just as the stable door opened and Johnnie emerged, as casual as ever in shirt sleeves. Dog hurled himself at him as if he were an old friend.

  “Morning, Johnnie,” Michael said cheerfully, and the girls immediately ran over to greet him, too.

  Johnnie paused to ruffle the dog’s head, greeting the children with easy familiarity as he strode among them toward her.

  “He seems at home with them,” Mrs. Fawcett observed.

  Lizzie flushed. “They’re very open and friendly.”

  “I have to say I like him better than I thought I would.”

  “Then you’ve met him?”

  “Oh yes. We nursed our friend together last night.”

  “How is our friend?” Lizzie asked.

  “Not good. He’s just about holding his own, but the fever is still raging.”

  “Oh dear! Well, I’m here to take my turn, so you and Johnnie can both get some sleep.”

  “Not a chance,” said Mrs, Fawcett. “I want to get to know these remarkable children.”

  “Good morning, Johnnie,” Lizzie broke off her conversation to greet the thief. Under Mrs. Fawcett’s perceptive eye, she felt somewhat uncomfortable. She’d no idea how she was meant to behave toward a supposed lover she’d just jilted. “You’d better show me our patient,” she blurted, before she realized how it would sound to Mrs. Fawcett, who now must imagine she wanted to be alone with him.

  Which, of course, she did, though not for any of the reasons Mrs. Fawcett might imagine.

  “Watch the dog!” she called hastily to the children. “Don’t let him run off too far.”

  “Or chase the chickens,” Mrs. Fawcett added.

  “Oh no, he’s very good like that,” Henrietta assured her. “He never worries chickens or sheep. I think he finds them boring because they won’t play with him.”

  The rest was cut off as Lizzie preceded Johnnie inside.

  “I didn’t think you’d still be here,” she said, low.

  “I don’t have to be anywhere else.” He still sounded as stiff as she’d felt greeting him in the yard.

  She tried for lightness as she began to climb the stairs. “But, of course, I forgot your fee.”

  “Which is, of course, why I came back.”

  There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice.

  Stricken, she stopped and swung around to face him on the stairs. “I didn’t mean that. You’ve done far more to help me than even an old friend might have done.”

  Although he halted, too, her suddenness meant he stood too close, on the step below, eye-to-eye with her. But there was no time or, indeed, need to be embarrassed.

  He said curiously, “Why should you care what I understand or misunderstand?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose I was brought up to care about other people’s feelings.”

  His rather hard eyes scanned hers and slowly softened, which had an odd effect on her stomach. It reminded her of a different feeling, a different situation she wouldn’t get into now.

  “A courtesy not always returned,” he guessed.

  “Often enough,” she said lightly. “You’re not angry with me?”

  Something that wasn’t quite laughter surged out with his breath. He spread his arm, gesturing her to proceed. “How can I be angry with you? If we could only keep our friend up there alive, it would be the best diversion ever.”

  Lizzie walked on. “Mrs. Fawcett said his fever was worse.”

  “Worse than yesterday when you left. No worse than last night.”

  Lizzie didn’t need to touch his forehead; she could see his fever in his face.

  “We gave him a cold bath last night, which helped,” Johnnie said.

  Lizzie nodded, biting her lip in pity for her victim. Then, distracted, she cast an amused glance at Johnnie. “You and Mrs. Fawcett did?”

  “Well, I and Mrs. Fawcett’s footmen. Mrs. Fawcett supervised from a modest distance.

  Lizzie’s lips twisted. It wasn’t quite a smile. “You’re right. It would be fun if we weren’t afraid he would die.”

  She found the familiar cloth and dipped it in the fresh bowl of water before she bathed his face and neck. As she worked, she felt Johnnie’s gaze following her movements, but he didn’t come any farther into the room or sit down.

  He stirred. “Did you want to speak to me about something else?”

  “Well, apart from the money—which is in my reticule, by the way, just take it—and to offer any help I can from my family’s connections—”

  He smiled, leaning his shoulder on the closed door. “You are a one woman reformist movement, aren’t you?”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Only in an admiring kind of way. I’ve only ever taken care of myself.”

  Lizzie moved on to her restless patient’s hands and arms. “And our friend here an
d me. And if you were a soldier, I expect you took care of each other.”

  “That doesn’t count.”

  She paused to glance at him in surprise. “Why not?”

  He blinked, straightening, then walked farther into the room with a shrug. “I don’t know. In war, there are just things one needs to do. You have no such need.”

  She grimaced. “And yet, I’m no saint, am I? Oh, that reminds me. How knowledgeable is your buyer?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The man who bought the necklace from you. Would he know diamonds from paste?”

  Johnnie halted on the other side of the bed, frowning. “I would hope so. Why?”

  “Because my aunt still has a necklace that looks exactly like the one you stole. The only solution is that she had a replica made, probably to fool Ivan the Terrible. If it’s the fake she still has, then Ivan will be mad as fire. But she must think she’s lost the fake, so she’s not much put out by its loss.” She frowned at Johnnie’s lack of reaction. “Johnnie, if she has lost the fake, then whoever bought the necklace for that huge amount of money is going to be furious with us when he finds out!”

  Dropping the cloth back in the bowl, she looked over at Johnnie, expecting some kind of panic. But he looked perfectly calm as his eyes searched her face.

  “It doesn’t matter. We have the money and I assure you we’re perfectly safe.”

  “Won’t he be able to find you again?”

  “No,” said Johnnie flatly. “He’s gone back to…Bohemia.”

  “Oh.” She searched in vain for any signs of anxiety in his face. He looked tired, she thought, irrelevantly, noting the dark rings under his eyes, the rather tight lines around his mouth.

  He said, “Don’t worry. That part is over.”

  “It just seems wrong to cheat someone. Even a receiver of stolen goods!”

  “Well, it can be a dangerous practice,” Johnnie allowed. “But they leave themselves open to it. I assure you he’d have cheated us if he could. In fact, he probably did. Perhaps the necklace was worth ten thousand.”

  “Hardly.” Lizzie sank into the chair by the bed, again watching her patient. “Has he been delirious?” she asked suddenly.