“Countess Savarina,” Aunt Lucy said coldly, dropping a stiff curtsey which Lizzie echoed. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”
“I assure you it’s of no moment.” The countess swallowed. “I apologize for calling upon you so early, but I felt I had to come immediately when my son explained to me how matters had been handled at Launceton.”
“Indeed?” Aunt Lucy was still impressively frosty. Lizzie hadn’t known she had it in her.
“I have come to beg your pardon,” the countess said with a clarity that sounded odd to Lizzie’s ears, as if she were enunciating very carefully in order to make the words easier to say. “And more particularly, the pardon of Miss Gaunt and her sisters. I never dreamed those imbeciles would evict you as they did. It was quite unforgivable and so I have written to them. They are, of course, dismissed. I can’t have my instructions so misconstrued.”
Not for a moment did Lizzie believe they had been misconstrued. On the other hand, she’d no intention of letting the countess take all the blame for this.
“We were told,” she said, “that the instructions came from the new Lord Launceton.”
The countess opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak, the colonel said, “In my name, certainly, and for that I take full responsibility. I was entirely at fault and beg your forgiveness.”
The humble speech sounded so unlike him that she made the mistake of actually looking at him. His intense gaze captured hers at once, but she could find neither mockery nor insincerity of any kind there.
“Really?” she asked seriously.
At that, sudden laughter did spring into his eyes. Just as if they had truly been friends. “Really.”
“Lizzie,” Aunt Lucy hissed with a kind of strangled mortification.
“Forgive me,” Lizzie said without contrition, “are my manners at fault again? Lord Launceton, my aunt, Mrs. Daniels.”
As the colonel bowed again, Aunt Lucy frowned, peering at him more closely. “Colonel…Surely, Colonel Vanya?”
His smile twisted. “Only at masquerades. Colonel Savarin everywhere else. My father took my mother’s family name when they married; it works better in Russian than Gaunt.”
“Then you won’t use your title?” Aunt Lucy said. “Your English title.”
“Of course he will,” the countess answered for him, taking his arm. “Once this silly Congress is cleared up.”
“Thank you for seeing us,” the colonel said stiffly. “We’ll take up no more of your time.”
“No, please sit down,” Aunt Lucy said without cordiality. “I have in my possession a necklace that is part of the Launceton estate. My late brother lent it to me, but it undoubtedly belongs to you.” She blushed, no doubt recalling whatever had passed between her and the unknown Colonel Vanya concerning the necklace at the Emperor’s ball. That something had occurred, Lizzie didn’t doubt.
“Thank you,” the countess said, as though surprised by such honesty.
“I have no need of necklaces,” the colonel said, ignoring his mother’s stare. “Why don’t we continue the loan? We are, after all, cousins.”
Aunt Lucy’s eyes widened. Lizzie knew how she felt. The pain in her stomach seemed worse when she couldn’t keep hating him.
“But you will want to give it to your wife,” Aunt Lucy said faintly.
Just for an instant, Lizzie couldn’t breathe. She’d never even considered a wife. And yet such a being could make no possible difference to Lizzie’s fate.
Another twisted smile flickered across the colonel’s lips and vanished. “I’m not married. And if I were, I understand there are other jewels.” He reached out, firmly drawing his mother’s gloved hand through his arm. “Good day, Mrs. Daniels. Miss Gaunt.”
*
“Am I forgiven now?” his mother demanded as he handed her into her carriage.
Vanya sighed. “Yes, Mother, you are forgiven. Provided you interfere no further.”
“Well, the aunt is very British but perhaps not so bad. The girl, on the other hand, has far too much to say. Her spirit is too independent. Unbecomingly so.”
“For one totally dependent, you mean?” he said wryly.
“Why do you defend her, Vanya? What is she to you?”
“A friend,” Vanya said firmly. Or at least she might have been if you hadn’t turned me into Ivan the Terrible. He kept the words to himself, though, and even as he strode off down the street alone, acknowledged that they weren’t actually fair, either. He hadn’t been interested in the English estate. Like his father, he’d believed the British branch of the family had turned their backs and he’d been in no hurry to build bridges when the old man had written.
His mother had sent on the news of the baron’s demise, but even then, he’d done nothing about it. Admittedly, he’d been wounded at the time, but he’d still been capable of stopping his mother in her tracks if he’d cared enough to do so. He could have guessed what she would do and why. For him.
Well, he’d tried to make it right now, as best he could. It didn’t and couldn’t change how she regarded him. Ivan the Terrible was only the beginning. He’d lied and pretended and made everything worse. The trouble was, he hadn’t expected to care. In the beginning, he’d only sought a little amusement while he righted a wrong perpetrated in his name, after which he’d doubted he would ever see her again. Only then, at the Emperor’s ball, he’d flirted with her and kissed her and something had changed.
And now he was found out and it was all over, and the darkness was closing in on him, urging him to the devil, to drink himself to oblivion and lose himself in whatever debauchery he could find. It had always worked before. He generally came out of his benders a better man with a sore head. Or at least, so he’d always believed. But in truth, he’d never taken much responsibility for whatever he did in such conditions. For years, it had just become his release from the horror of battle and the aftermath of grief. There was no need of grief here. No one had died, not even Herr Schmidt.
Herr Schmidt. Now there was a man he really needed to talk to. Russian soldiers—Blonsky’s soldiers—had been paid by an Englishman to kill him. Almost with relief, he seized on the mystery. He couldn’t let the darkness take him yet, because the would-be assassins had known about the inn. Whoever had sent them, had known where he went and it was quite possible they knew Lizzie went there, too.
On impulse, he swerved towards a coffee house where he’d once noticed Blonsky, surely at around this time of the day. There were a few Russians at the tables outside, so he went in, nodding acknowledgement to the few greetings sent his way. But, discovering no sign of Blonsky or any of the men he knew to be friends of his, he left again, and strode on to the next coffee house.
There were a lot of those in Vienna and he had no intention of wasting the entire day on searching them. There were other places he was more certain to meet Blonsky. However, in the third coffee shop, he spotted the major at an outside table by the door. His uniform coat was loosened, but he looked, otherwise, the perfect officer of the royal guard, relaxing off duty with his friends.
Without taking his eyes off Blonsky, Vanya strolled among the tables. The other soldiers nearby stopped talking, watching Vanya advance with varying shades of unease or excitement according to their character. The quiet spread quickly to Blonsky’s table, too, where the men tensed. Someone said the major’s name with quiet urgency and Blonsky, the last to notice him, finally glanced over, his coffee cup halfway to his lips.
The cup slipped, as if his fingers had suddenly gone slack, and coffee spilled onto the table. Between the fine whiskers, his lips parted. His eyes dilated. And Vanya knew.
Blonsky hadn’t expected him to be alive still. He might not have given the order, but he was in on it. Tempting as it was to make the man sweat by sitting next to him for the next half hour, Vanya didn’t really have the time to waste.
“Do you know,” he said to no one in particular, “I think I’ll drink my coffee somewhere more ple
asant.”
Chapter Seventeen
In her first day in Vienna, Mrs. Fawcett caused a major social stir by having an “at-home” afternoon with not only children but a large and unruly dog present. It was a risky strategy, but since Dog was enough under control to not actually jump on women’s elegant gowns and since the Duchess of Sagan, Dorothée de Talleyrand and Lady Castlereagh all chose to be amused, the afternoon was pronounced a success. Mrs. Fawcett was given the instant if undeserved reputation of hosting the most original entertainments.
The entire Daniels-Gaunt household was present, including Mr. Daniels himself and Mr. Corner. Lizzie, slightly alarmed that Vanya would turn up at any moment, dragged Mrs. Fawcett aside, into her bed chamber, and asked her outright if there was any chance of it.
“Oh, I think he’s busy until this evening,” Mrs. Fawcett said carelessly, “when he’s promised to escort me to Princess Bagration’s. Why, did you want to speak to him?”
“No,” Lizzie said flatly. Then, remembering the money for the “stolen” necklace, she offered, “That is, I don’t want to, but I need to.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Fawcett said, thoughtfully. “Are you condemning him for being Ivan the Terrible or the rakehell everyone in Vienna tells you he is?”
“Neither,” Lizzie said. “For lying to me.” And kissing me and making me think…whatever it is I was thinking.
“Did he really lie? Does it not strike you, Elizabeth, that he did everything you asked of him and more?”
Lizzie gazed blindly out of the window at the uniformly gray sky. Perhaps autumn was finally here.
“You always seemed such good friends,” Mrs. Fawcett pursued relentlessly, “that I could see right away why you’d eloped together—in the days I still believed you had eloped together.”
Lizzie raised one eyebrow. “How many of those were there? One day? Two?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m sorry about the stories. I didn’t know at first if we could trust you. If I could trust you,” she corrected.
Mrs. Fawcett smiled faintly and drifted toward the bedroom door. “And now you’ve forgotten to trust each other. What a waste.”
*
When she returned to the drawing room, Lizzie was slightly alarmed to see a group of young men all gazing at Henrietta as if not merely dazzled but stunned. Admittedly, Henrietta had that effect on most people. If she noticed it at all, she thought they were rude for staring.
“You have an extraordinarily beautiful family,” Mr. Grassic observed, standing beside Lizzie.
“You mean Henrietta,” Lizzie said candidly. “She is fifteen years old. By the time she’s seventeen, I suspect she’ll need a bodyguard.”
Mr. Grassic smiled. “She’s a most charming, unaffected child. They all are.”
“Thank you,” Lizzie said, smiling with genuine pleasure. “In England, society would find them far too…much for civilized company, but here in Vienna, things seem rather more relaxed. Mrs. Fawcett is very brave to have us all.”
*
Vanya, having learned from Mrs. Fawcett that Herr Schmidt had simply disappeared from the inn during the night—“At any rate, he was nowhere to be found this morning,” the redoubtable lady had informed him while supervising the disposal of furniture to accommodate her afternoon at home—gave up looking for him in the streets around the police building and went home.
He could have gone in and inquired or even sought an interview with Baron Hager, the police minister, but he suspected Schmidt didn’t want that kind of attention drawn to himself. Vanya certainly didn’t want to get the man into any more trouble. At least, not unless he gave Vanya any.
“You are coming this afternoon?” Mrs. Fawcett had called after him as he’d left him.
“Sorry, I can’t,” he’d replied hastily and not entirely truthfully.
“The Gaunts will all be there.”
He was almost tempted. The desire to see Lizzie again, even if only to feel her cold glare of contempt on his face, was undeniably strong and when put with the prospect of whatever chaos the children and dog would produce, the pull was almost irresistible.
“Then I’ll do them a kindness and stay away. Au revoir, Madame!”
Her voice drifted after him as he grabbed his hat from the hall table. “Well, I insist you come to my masquerade ball on Monday.”
“You’re very kind!” he called back noncommittedly and bolted.
He decided to go home and write notes to a few friends and, later, to visit Princess Bagration and find out what the rumors were among the Russians and their relations with members of the British delegation. People were usually happy to gossip to him about Blonsky, hoping for some wild or entertaining reaction to take back to the rumor mill.
Misha had left two letters for him, propped up in front of the invitation cards on the mantelpiece. One scented epistle was clearly from Sonia. He threw it on the table and with a groan, tore open the other bearing the tsar’s seal.
His Cossacks weren’t good at escort duty. They enjoyed showing off and gathering a crowd, and if anyone was ever foolish enough to attack the tsar, they’d slaughter him—or her—on the spot without a qualm. But they weren’t stupid. They knew taking the tsar to balls and performing tricks for his friends were trivial, pointless and beneath them as seasoned, skilled warriors. As a result, they were even harder than normal to keep in line on such occasions.
But this wasn’t an escort order. It was a personal summons to the tsar’s presence. Vanya threw it down with irritation, before realizing that, in fact, a visit to the tsar and his minions at the Hofburg might be extremely useful. Giving his uniform a halfhearted brush down with his hands, Vanya left his rooms again and walked round to the Hofburg.
His first indication that something was wrong came, inevitably, from the courtiers and hangers-on who swarmed around the tsar’s ornate public reception room. Those nearest the door all stopped talking as Vanya entered. No one greeted him but, instead, drew back out of his way. Blonsky’s friends, perhaps, he thought with a curl of his lip, though as he looked around him there was no sign of his old enemy.
He did glimpse the tsar, seated at his desk while some heavily braided officers and secretaries hovered nearby. One, whose name Vanya didn’t even know, caught sight of him, murmured to the tsar and walked forward. The tsar didn’t raise his head.
“Colonel Savarin, this way, if you please,” the braided functionary requested with cold civility. Vanya followed him across the room, puzzled that he was not being conducted to the tsar but to a chamber beyond, which turned out to be a bare apartment containing one large, empty desk with one chair on either side of it.
“Wait here.” The braided stranger left again, closing the door firmly behind him.
Vanya frowned at the discourtesy and paced around the room. Up until now, he’d been used to seeing only the affable side of Tsar Alexander. He’d found the “old soldiers together” camaraderie a bit irritating, certainly, but he’d got used to taking the Imperial favor for granted. It seemed he’d finally done something to annoy His Majesty, though he couldn’t imagine what. Even when he and Blonsky had fought their infamous duel, the tsar hadn’t shut either of them in a room and deliberately left them to kick their heels ignored for more than a quarter of an hour.
Well, since no one had told him he was a prisoner…
Vanya swerved away from the small window and strode to the door. He was about to wrench it open and go in search of His Majesty, when it opened from the outside and he had to jump back to avoid a collision.
The Polish Prince Czartoryski, whom Vanya had always regarded as a friend, stuck his head in the door, looking harassed.
“Colonel, watch your back and do nothing foolish,” he said urgently. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Bottom of what?” Vanya demanded, scowling.
But Prince Czartoryski straightened and stepped back, and finally the tsar himself entered the room, closely followed by
the braided secretary and Blonsky. Two soldiers waited outside the door.
At sight of his old enemy, Vanya knew this was serious. Almost worse, although Vanya bowed, the tsar offered no greeting, merely looked coldly down his nose.
“Where were you yesterday evening?”
Vanya blinked. “Lady Castlereagh’s. I met Your Majesty there.”
“You left early,” Blonsky uttered. “Before His Majesty.”
“Yes, I did,” Vanya agreed, staring at him.
“Where did you go?” the tsar demanded.
“I rode outside the city, to an inn where friends of mine were staying.”
“British friends?” the tsar inquired.
Vanya raised his brows. “Yes, as it happens. For the most part.”
“You see?” Blonsky said triumphantly.
“Then you don’t deny it?” the braided man blustered.
“Why the devil should I?” Vanya demanded “Are the British no longer our allies? Did we declare war at Lady Castlereagh’s and no one thought to tell me?”
The tsar smacked his palm on the back of the chair in front of him. “Damn it, there is no place for levity here and you would do well to recognize the fact!”
“I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” Vanya said mechanically. “Perhaps if you tell me what the problem is—”
“What happened to your face?” the tsar interrupted.
“I got in a fight,” Vanya said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “Or at least,” he added, gazing directly at Blonsky, “I was attacked. On the road to the inn.”
As soon as he spoke, he knew he’d made a mistake. He just didn’t know what it was. For instead of looking shifty as he’d done in the coffee shop, Blonsky smiled and lifted his gaze to the tsar’s.
“You see, Sire?”
The tsar’s fingers gripping the side of the chair showed white. “How long have you been betraying me, Savarin?”
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