Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1)

by Mary Lancaster

  She sighed, tugging the dog onward when he lingered too long at a particular tree. “Now you’re laughing at me again.”

  “Actually, I’m not,” he said ruefully.

  Last night, he’d got into Sonia’s carriage with her, drunk but far from incapable, and when they’d reached her apartment on the Graben, he’d merely kissed her and walked away. Because at the last moment, he’d realized where all his emotion and lust, all his ill and good humors were directed. It was Lizzie he wanted and some barely understood chivalrous instinct made him back off, even though Sonia wouldn’t have understood if he’d explained it to her, and even though Lizzie would never know, nor care. Even for Colonel Vanya.

  “I promise you,” he said, “I won’t steal anything. And even if we never meet again, I’ll be a better man.”

  As Dog gave one of his sudden lunges, he shot out his arm and grabbed the leash to hold him before the animal dragged Lizzie off her feet. His fingers closed over hers, sweet and shocking.

  He heard the sudden catch in her breath, felt the delicious warmth of her closeness. Her lips parted and he remembered only too well how they felt under his. But her eyes, gazing steadily up into his, were almost…fearful. Was she remembering, too? Or just frightened that the thief might be about to take advantage and become unforgivably amorous?

  “Let me take him,” he managed, extracting the lead from her.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

  *

  What was the matter with her? Until she’d come to Vienna, she couldn’t ever remember noticing any men in particular. Yet at the Emperor’s ball, where her main concern should have been the necklace, she’d let Colonel Vanya, a complete stranger whose face she’d never even seen, kiss her. And even though his behavior had been completely reprehensible and quite disrespectful, she’d caught herself harboring silly romantic dreams about encountering him again. And now, she’d actually felt a dangerous tug of attraction to Johnnie the thief! As if he was becoming confused in her mind with Vanya, just because he was Russian and roughly the same height and build…

  At least she actually knew Johnnie, which was more than she could say about Vanya, but still, this just wasn’t done. And certainly not by her.

  Perhaps the dark and the moonlight had a peculiar effect on her. But she didn’t want to think about this; it was too uncomfortable. She liked Johnnie, and wished him a good life and happiness. That was all.

  Johnnie himself didn’t seem to notice. There had been an instant over Dog’s lead, when she’d been sure his gaze had flickered to her lips, but that had probably been a trick of the light and her own suddenly depraved imagination, for he behaved with perfect decorum all the way back, talking quite naturally about nothing in particular until she felt quite recovered enough to brush the moment aside.

  Supper was even more fun than lunch, since much of the worry over their patient had been lifted. Johnnie was wonderfully entertaining, making the children laugh, and Mrs. Fawcett’s dry wit and acerbic manner made her excellent company. After the table was cleared away, they sat by candle light and played some of the word games Lizzie had invented with the children, and the story game that involved a long, rambling tale with everyone taking a turn to add more.

  They took it in turns to check periodically on their patient, who still slept like a baby. They all agreed that it wouldn’t be necessary for anyone to stay in his chamber all night, but that he should be visited every couple of hours, just in case he woke and was hungry. Lizzie checked on her way to bed with the children, while Johnnie and Mrs. Fawcett, neither of whom seemed to sleep much, promised to take the next two turns, after which he could be left until dawn.

  With Dog taking up position across their bedroom door, Lizzie finally fell into bed beside her sisters and was asleep before her head touched the pillow.

  *

  Eleanor Fawcett had retired to her own chamber some time before she was due to check on their patient. She let the maid undress her and prepare her for bed, then wrap her in the voluminous robe in which she was most comfortable. The maid then went to sleep on the truckle bed and Eleanor read her book for an hour—difficult by the poor candle light—before visiting the injured man.

  He opened his eyes as she held the candle over him.

  “Who are you?” he asked in German.

  “I’m Eleanor Fawcett. Who are you?”

  “No one,” he said on the ghost of a laugh.

  Eleanor, pleased to see signs of humor, even if she couldn’t understand it, smiled back. “Are you hungry?”

  He shook his head, his eyes already closing once more. “Tired. So very tired…”

  Eleanor left him to it. As she closed the door, a scraping chair on the floor below drew her attention. Curious, because she’d thought everyone had retired, including the staff, she walked down the stairs and through the darkened house to the open taproom. A single lamp burned there, showing her Johnnie in his shirt sleeves, a glass and a bottle in front of him.

  He glanced up. “Mrs. Fawcett.”

  Although the place didn’t smell very good, she went over to join him.

  He got to his feet, still remembering his manners. “Brandy?”

  “Well, maybe just one.”

  As she sat in the other chair, he went off to find her a clean glass. At least he didn’t lurch.

  “I’m not drunk,” he said, as though he felt her disapproving stare on his back.

  “Just getting there,” she said dryly. “Is this a nightly habit with you?”

  He seemed to consider. “Sometimes.”

  “Are you unhappy?”

  He picked up a glass and walked back towards her. “No.”

  “Then I think it’s time we had a talk.”

  “What about?” Johnnie asked, sitting down and pouring a generous measure of brandy into each glass.

  Eleanor leaned forward and picked hers up, letting the aroma filter up to her nostrils. He’d found the good stuff, of course. Over her glass, she fixed him with the stare which had reduced many men from all walks of life to gibbering jellies.

  “About who the devil you are, Johnnie.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The man who still kept trying to think of himself only as Agent Z, closed his eyes once more. The sun shone through the window. The English girl had given him gruel which he’d managed to eat by himself and the combination of food and sunshine made him long to get up and outside. But although he needed very badly to get back to Vienna, he doubted he could get farther than the chamber door unaided.

  Maybe after this little nap…

  The awareness that had kept him alive through so many difficult situations, prickled his spine an instant before the door silently opened. He even felt under his pillow for a weapon, which, of course, wasn’t there.

  He tensed, waiting to see who crept in before he decided what to do about it.

  A child slid around the door and softly closed it before turning toward the bed. For a long moment, they stared at each other. The girl couldn’t have been much more than ten years old.

  “Who are you?” he asked at last. Since being shot, his life seemed to have taken a very bizarre turn and he wasn’t including the fevered dreams.

  “I’m Georgiana Gaunt. Are you the man Lizzie shot?”

  “Yes.”

  The girl came farther into the room. “You don’t look very fearsome.”

  “You must forgive me. I’ve been ill.”

  Unexpectedly, the child smiled. “You might be funny,” she said, clearly reserving full judgement. “I shouldn’t really be in here. I just wanted to say, I thought at first it was an excellent thing that Lizzie shot you, because you’d no right to steal her bag.”

  “I thought I had. But maybe I was wrong.”

  “I suppose if you’re some kind of policeman you might have had some right,” Georgiana allowed, grudgingly. “Although I can’t help feeling you should have asked. Anyhow, she was so upset that you might die, I had to pray for
you to live instead.”

  “Thank you,” Z said faintly. “I think.”

  “Georgi!” came a shout from farther along the corridor. “Where are you? Hurry up, we’re about to leave.”

  “Goodbye,” Georgiana said, spinning on her toes and rushing from the room.

  “Goodbye,” Agent Z murmured to the closed door.

  He shut his eyes. He’d gone through all this for absolutely nothing. The girl, Lizzie, the whole family, were innocent. Of this, at least.

  On the other hand, the Russian was still hanging around. It might have been amorous intrigue, although the English girl seemed too straight-laced for that. The Russian might well be up to something more sinister. If nothing else, the suspicion provided a good excuse for Z to stay exactly where he was.

  *

  When Lizzie returned home to Vienna, she discovered the maids had been busy refurbishing her prettier day dress and one evening gown.

  “What is this about?” she asked Minerva, who was sitting by her dressing table while Benson dressed her hair. “Am I to go with you to parties, after all? Aunt Lucy isn’t ill, is she?”

  Minerva laughed. “Of course she isn’t. And no one in their right minds would make you a chaperone. You’re hardly on the shelf, you know, Lizzie.”

  “Well, I’m three and twenty, but –.”

  “It’s because of your Mrs. Fawcett distinguishing you with such attention,” Minerva explained. “You must know that she is considered very fashionable in London. And Papa says she knows all the right people here, too. Mama is expecting cards and invitations from her and you are bound to be included, so…” She waved one hand toward the dresses, one of which hung against the door, the other was having a lace trim sewn onto it, cleverly hiding where Dog’s claws had torn the skirt last year and the darn at the shoulder.

  “Well, I have to say, you’re making a very god job of it,” Lizzie told the gratified maids. “Thank you!”

  “Did you find Mrs. Fawcett recovered?”

  “I think she’ll be ready to travel here in a few days,” Lizzie said evasively. It was rather alarming how often she lied these days, both directly and indirectly, which provided a very poor example for the children… “I said I’d visit her again tomorrow.”

  “Well, I look forward to her being here,” Minerva said frankly. “From a purely selfish point of view.”

  “Doesn’t it get easier?” Lizzie asked sympathetically.

  Minerva wrinkled her nose. “It’s like the torture that never ends and it’s been going on since London. Oh, I know I’m being so ungrateful for all the money being spent on me, but I truly wish they wouldn’t. I don’t need a grand match.”

  “No,” Lizzie said thoughtfully. “Maybe you don’t.”

  Benson finished fiddling with Minerva’s hair and left, sweeping the Viennese maids with her. Lizzie sat down on the edge of the bed. “But you’re eighteen, Minerva. Affections can change.”

  “Well, that would be true with whoever they married me to and I can’t help thinking I’d have more chance with someone I actually liked to start with.”

  “You have a point.” Another was the fact that Minerva clearly wasn’t comfortable with this world or her place in it. “But you know, if you become a diplomat’s wife, you will have to go to dinners and balls and host your own parties for the great and the good. Not necessarily on this scale, of course. This is quite different.”

  “And I would have a function. A role to play that didn’t involve selling myself. As something I’m not.”

  Lizzie blinked. “Do you really think of it like that? Selling yourself?”

  “All the debutantes are. Have been and will be. We’re like wares being shown off to buyers, which is bad enough when you’re an article people want.”

  “Oh, Minerva.” Lizzie slid down to kneel by her cousin and take her hands. “What’s brought on such a depression?”

  Minerva smiled and squeezed Lizzie’s fingers. “Oh, I’m not actually depressed. To be honest, if anything, I actually feel more comfortable at the balls. I danced with someone at Prince Metternich’s, who persuaded me to find my own particular entertainment in it all. It makes me a little less self-conscious, although I would still be glad to have you there to laugh with. Or Gordon.”

  Lizzie frowned. “It seems to me that you and Gordon need to spend a bit more time together to discover if you really want each other.” And Lizzie needed to see them together more to judge. Not that she was a great matchmaker, but over the years, she’d observed many couples—friends, servants and tenants—and thought she recognized pretty well when a relationship worked.

  “How?” Minerva asked in despair. “I’m sure Papa has guessed my partiality and keeps him away from me.”

  “I don’t know yet,” Lizzie said, releasing her cousin’s hands and rising to her feet. “But if you’re not prepared to make a stand over him, Minerva, he isn’t the one for you.”

  “What sort of a stand?” Minerva asked dubiously.

  “Well, to displease your parents at least to the extent of stating what and who you want. But let’s start slowly. Leave it to me. Now, I must go and see your mother and thank her for primping up these old gowns.”

  Although Lizzie understood that the repaired gowns were meant for attending Mrs. Fawcett’s future gatherings in Vienna, she hadn’t been forbidden to wear them earlier. So, that afternoon, she donned the green day dress, which now looked rather pretty, before Dorothée’s carriage arrived for her.

  “Goodness, it does look bang-up,” Henrietta said admiringly from the window. Michael’s vocabulary was clearly invading her own, but Lizzie let it go. “What a pity Aunt Lucy has gone out. You will give Madame Dorothée our regards? And Dog’s!”

  Lizzie laughed. “Of course I will. Be good while I’m gone and don’t let Dog get into any trouble.”

  Lizzie, who had for some reason, expected a tête-à-tête with her new friend, was surprised to find several other people already present in the faded salons of the Kaunitz Palace. This made it somewhat fast of her to arrive unattended, but Dorothée met her in the hall, greeting her with unaffected delight, and they entered the main salons together.

  It struck Lizzie that Dorothée was actually a little lonely. The defeated French, after all, were only just tolerated at the Congress, and no one wished to have much to do with the scheming Prince de Talleyrand, Dorothée’s uncle, who, as a former revolutionary and disillusioned Bonapartist, was definitely suspect.

  However, the few ladies and gentlemen present, were all very amiable, if mostly French. She was slightly stunned to meet the Duchess of Sagan herself, already one of the most famous hostesses of the Congress, an exotically beautiful woman with dark blonde hair and tragic brown eyes. Tiny and vivacious, the duchess couldn’t help but draw all eyes.

  Dorothée introduced her as “my sister, Wilhelmine.” Which certainly explained her presence. Already married twice and, it was rumored, soon to be divorced for the second time, the duchess was a slightly scandalous figure, but so great an heiress that society forgave her.

  “I didn’t realize you were sisters,” Lizzie said.

  “Well, we haven’t been much in each other’s company,” Dorothée said carelessly.

  “She’s trying to tell you there are ten years between us, without insulting me,” the duchess explained. “And then, we were all married off so young that we’ve been scattered about Europe without much opportunity of meeting. Another reason to love Vienna. Come, tell me your thoughts of our Congress so far.”

  “You mean it has begun?” Lizzie asked in surprise, an answer that the duchess seemed to find very witty.

  The afternoon passed most pleasantly in amusing conversation with very interesting people, though she also found time to talk alone with Dorothée, who, she discovered, was missing her own children. Indeed, she was still mourning a baby daughter who had died.

  “I suppose I was so restless with grief that when my uncle suggested coming to Vienna fo
r a change of scene, I jumped at the chance,” Dorothée confided. “But now, I could wish the city were closer to Courland so that I could visit them more.”

  “You’ve done so much with your life already,” Lizzie said wonderingly. “We are the same age and yet you have children, run a palace, and act as hostess for a great statesman. I feel I’ve been buried.”

  “Well, England was cut off by the war for so long,” Dorothée excused. “But your mind is not buried.”

  Lizzie laughed. “There are those who wish it were a little more subdued,” she admitted. “It rushes off on its own, but I don’t have your education, either.” Although augmented by her own voracious reading, her formal education was very basic compared with Dorothée, who was fluent in several languages, understood complicated mathematics and was used to discussing literature, economy, and politics with some of the greatest minds in Europe. “I’m beginning to feel I’ve wasted my life,” she said with a rare twinge of something that might have been envy, but felt a little more like longing.

  “Oh no,” Dorothée said at once. “Never feel that. You have something none of us will ever have, no matter how hard we try.”

  “What is that?”

  “Happiness,” Dorothée said.

  Lizzie felt her jaw begin to drop, but before she could ask for clarification, Dorothée stood up to say goodbye to her sister who was rushing off to her next engagement, with a young military man as her escort.

  At the last moment, the duchess turned back and presented Lizzie with a card. “I hope you’ll come,” she said with a fleeting smile, and swept on toward the exit.

  “Will you?” Dorothée asked eagerly.

  “I’ll ask my aunt,” Lizzie said lightly.

  “You could take them all. Wilhelmine won’t mind.”

  Lizzie, well aware of the honor just done her, knew equally well that her aunt’s rigid sense of etiquette would never permit her to “tag along” on another’s invitation. Or, probably, allow Lizzie to accept one so casually given and certainly not without a proper escort. However, the new arrival of a distinguished, solitary man drew Dorothée’s attention and saved Lizzie having to reply.