Vienna Dawn (The Imperial Season Book 3)

by Mary Lancaster

  “You’re just putting off the evil hour,” he said. On the sofa, oblivious to Dunya’s repelling posture, Fawcett was all but bending over her. Trelawny could almost see her itching to jump up, only she was clearly afraid in the circumstances of drawing more attention to herself. “Send me word,” he said, with a quick bow to Jane, “when you’ve spoken to Fawcett. If you still need my help. Oh, one more thing, what is Etienne de la Tour to you?”

  Color definitely stained her pale face. “Nothing, of course. He flirts but it’s quite harmless.”

  “Take care around him,” Trelawny said curtly and walked purposefully across to the sofa. There, he took Dunya’s hand, drawing her to her feet. “Time to take our leave,” he said cheerfully. “We have another call to make.” He nodded amiably. “Fawcett.”

  Fawcett, no doubt brought abruptly back to the reality that he’d been making blatant eyes at another man’s betrothed under the nose of his own, jumped up and bowed.

  “Charmed to meet you again, Countess, quite charmed,” he said stiffly. “Trelawny.”

  As they said goodbye to Mrs. Fawcett, Lizzie and Vanya took the hint and rose too, leaving the children behind.

  “So,” Trelawny murmured as they stepped into the street, “how did that go?”

  “Appallingly!” Dunya hissed. “It was like apologizing to a block of unmeltable ice. And even if she had forgiven me, Fawcett would have ruined it again. As it is, he made a nonsense of everything I’d just said! Why did I encourage him so last night?”

  “Because you were angry.”

  “I act first and think later,” she said ruefully. “Which was how I came to meet you in the first place.”

  “Well, I can’t be sorry for that,” he said, with a quick smile that made her blush.

  As they followed Lizzie and Vanya through the cobbled streets, Dunya suddenly frowned. “Are we really going to the French embassy?”

  Lizzie glanced back over her shoulder. “I promised Captain Trelawny I’d present him to Dorothée de Talleyrand.”

  “You know a lot of influential people,” Dunya observed. “Mrs. Fawcett and Madame de Talleyrand-Perigord!”

  Lizzie laughed. “Well, I inherited Mrs. Fawcett from my mother, and I’m afraid Dorothée is Dog’s fault.”

  More quietly, Dunya said, “I don’t think I want to go to the embassy. What if Etienne is there and thinks I’m pursuing him?”

  “Then he’s a vain popinjay. Besides, I’m sure the sight of your brother will put the fear of God into him.”

  “I’m not sure it will. I don’t think he’s afraid of anyone. He’s never had cause to be.”

  Then it’s time to give him one, Trelawny thought grimly.

  As they were conducted upstairs and across the hall, Trelawny found himself gazing around with rather more interest than was warranted by a social call. All through his career, the French had been the enemy, and he couldn’t help his instinct to reconnoiter, to search out hidden dangers, even while he laughed at himself. Perhaps that was why, at the top of the stairs, he noticed a male figure through a door that stood ajar. The man was talking quietly, although Trelawny could make out neither the words nor the face, until a beautiful young lady leaned over the banister and called out, “Lizzie! Just who I wanted to see!”

  Lizzie called something back, and the figure in the room moved to close the door. Trelawny felt his eyes widen, for not only did he remember having seen this man at the ball last night and tried to remember his name, he quite suddenly recalled the precise circumstances of that familiarity.

  “Ferrand,” he breathed.

  “I beg your pardon?” Dunya murmured.

  “Ferrand. He was at your ball last night and I couldn’t place him, but we definitely captured him with an infantry detachment in Spain three years ago! He wore civilian dress. We believed he was a spy.”

  “A spy for Bonaparte,” Dunya pointed out. “Why would he be here with the new regime?”

  Trelawny curled his lip. “Talleyrand himself once worked for Bonaparte. Nearly everyone at the Congress was his ally at one time or another. But why would Ferrand be here now?”

  “And at my mother’s ball,” Dunya said wryly. Then she shrugged. “Well, why not? Everyone knows that everyone in Vienna is spying on everyone else. I would have thought he was exactly where he should be.”

  “Perhaps,” Trelawny allowed, but unease still lingered, for Ferrand was not merely a spy. He was, at the least, a very dangerous man, if not an actual assassin, and his presence at a civilized Peace Congress was surely unnecessary.

  Dorothée de Talleyrand welcomed them all with friendliness and took them into her salon, next door to the room where Trelawny had already glimpsed Ferrand. In the salon, they discovered one of her many admirers, an army officer called Clam-Martinitz, who seemed happy enough to converse on any subject and to flirt in a lighthearted manner with all the ladies.

  While the others were caught up in this, Trelawny seized the opportunity to ask Dorothée about Etienne. “Vanya was a little concerned,” he said mendaciously, “because M.de la Tour stayed with his family while he himself was away fighting.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he was the perfect guest there,” Dorothée said carelessly. “As indeed he is here. He wouldn’t have touched the little countess or her sister.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “The mother, on the other hand—” She broke off with a peel of laughter. “Now, don’t repeat that to Vanya! I’m joking. The world knows Etienne must marry money. If he is a cad, he is a discreet one I’ve never heard a word against.”

  But then, fast as Dorothée’s family was by most standards, gentlemen were still unlikely to talk to her as openly as they did to each other. And it was clear that Dorothée, however much she chose to give the appearance of gossiping, would in no way discuss matters relating to her uncle’s work or his staff.

  He would have thought it a wasted journey had he not glimpsed Ferrand in the next room. And had the inner door from the salon to that room not opened only a few minutes later, to admit the Comte de la Tour.

  The Comte and Ferrand? Now, what the devil was going on there?

  “Etienne!” Dorothée greeted him familiarly. “Come and join us! I believe you know Lizzie’s new sister! And of course, Lizzie’s husband,” she added innocently. If there was a hint of malice there, she hid it very well.

  But she was right. Etienne, although his eyes definitely welcomed the sight of Dunya, didn’t look remotely put out by the presence of Vanya, who was rumored to have a string of successful duels to his name and had apparently floored a brother officer for merely mentioning his sister’s name.

  “How come we haven’t met before?” Etienne said, smiling as he offered Vanya his hand. “Your family was most kind to me during my exile.”

  “So I hear,” Vanya said lazily, accepting the hand without rising. “You know Trelawny, of course.”

  “Of course,” Etienne said, giving the faintest bow. “Dunya’s gallant betrothed.” Only now did his eyes mock, perhaps just because Trelawny couldn’t aspire to the high aristocracy of the rest of the company. Or perhaps because he knew Dunya’s betrothal was a sham and guessed exactly why.

  Trelawny smiled amiably. “I have that honor.”

  Etienne switched his gaze to Dunya beside him. “And what brings you here today?” he asked, his eyes still smiling because he imagined he knew exactly why.

  “Oh, Lizzie brought us,” she said. “Because she is such friends with Madame de Talleyrand. We all met up at Vanya’s and walked Lizzie’s mad, bad, and beautiful dog before we called on the Fawcett’s and then came along here.”

  “You walked the dog, Countess?” Dorothée exclaimed. “But he is bigger than you are!”

  Dunya laughed. “Captain Trelawny and the children held on to me, but I believe my arms are loose in their sockets!”

  Clearly it was not quite the way Etienne had imagined the conversation would go, and while Dog’s antics were discussed, his handsome face betrayed a h
int of annoyance at his exclusion. Trelawny watched him until the Frenchman caught his gaze and then he allowed himself a faint, provoking smile. Etienne’s eyes narrowed.

  He took it for granted, Trelawny thought, that Dunya was his, and would always be his, even while he married another.

  “We must have a dog day here—or perhaps race them all in the Vienna woods!” Dorothée suggested. “We shall be so dull over the next weeks with so little dancing.”

  “Surely not that dull,” Etienne sneered.

  “Not dull in the slightest,” claimed the amiable Count Clam-Martinitz. “It would make a splendid day.”

  “Of course it would,” Dorothée agreed. “And of course we will have our musical evening tomorrow. I have found the most dazzling singer, and did I say our select guests will be invited to show off their accomplishments? I do hope you’ll all come… Do you sing, Captain?”

  “Like a nest of cats,” Trelawny assured her. “But Dunya plays.”

  “Quite delightfully, as I recall,” Etienne said.

  Dunya met his gaze. “I’m better now,” she said, and Trelawny knew she was talking about more than music.

  Etienne merely lifted one interrogative eyebrow.

  Etienne excused himself not long after, and a little later, Trelawny, despite the rather engaging company, made the first move to depart. Although he’d had no intention of mentioning his unformed suspicions of Etienne, it was Dunya who, almost as soon as they set foot outside the building, said excitedly, “Did you see? That must have been Etienne with your spy!”

  *

  The proximity of French spies and Etienne’s possible involvement with them, was exciting to Dunya, and although she found she rather liked being able to look on Etienne as a villain, the matter quickly vanished into the back of her mind once she reached home. For Anastasia had returned and was quite audibly quarrelling with Nikolai.

  For once, Nikolai didn’t seem to be saying much. Perhaps he’d had his say before Dunya got there, for now his voice merely punctuated Anastasia’s stream of fury. Dunya caught sight of her mother’s agonized face in the hall—and those of several servants peering from doorways and even over banisters from the apartments above and below.

  Dunya threw her hat and pelisse at a footman and whisked her mother into the restored drawing room, firmly closing the door.

  “Anastasia has run mad!” her mother exclaimed. “Never has she given me any trouble, never until now!”

  That wasn’t, of course, strictly true. Dunya could think of many occasions of Anastasia’s bad behavior, though she allowed there had been a lot fewer than her own, and certainly many less than Vanya’s, even before people stopped talking about his behavior in front of her.

  “What has upset her?” she asked prosaically.

  The countess waved one weary hand. “Nikolai, of course. He had to ask her where she’d been and question her propriety. And do so where the servants could hear everything!”

  “And so she’s throwing a tantrum for their benefit, too?”

  “She slammed the door in my face!” the countess said outraged. “I couldn’t get near her to calm her down.”

  It was excessively unlikely that her mother would, or could, have calmed anything. She would merely have added fuel to the flame, which was, no doubt, why Nikolai also had failed to admit her.

  “At least she can’t keep up the screaming for much longer,” the countess said optimistically. “She’ll lose her voice.”

  “No she won’t,” Dunya said, walking to the door. “You’ve forgotten her resilience.”

  “Wait, don’t leave me here with just that in my ears. Where are you going?”

  “To gag Anastasia.”

  Her mother, while apparently seeing nothing wrong with the intention, said in despair, “You won’t get near enough.”

  “Yes, I will,” Dunya said, and left the room so suddenly that she caught several servants actually huddled in the hallway, listening to Anastasia’s screams.

  Dunya paused and raised her voice so that the hidden ones would hear her, too. “If any of you breathe one word of this—one word!—to anyone, friend, family, police, fellow servants, anyone, I will know and you’ll be dismissed without a character, wherever you come from and whoever you work for. Trust me in this.”

  With that, she swept through them, and halted by the housekeeper’s side with her hand held out. With an air of disappointment, the woman loosened one of the smaller keys from her belt and handed it over.

  “Thank you,” Dunya murmured and marched along the hall to Anastasia and Nikolai’s bedroom.

  She gave one perfunctory, warning knock that no one paid any attention to, then unlocked the door and strode in, slamming it loudly enough behind her to halt Anastasia in mid-word.

  Both heads turned to her in astonishment. Nikolai, seated on the edge of the bed with his head between his hands and his elbows resting on his knees, was white. He seemed totally stunned and equally helpless. Facing him, like some termagant or valkyrie, stood Anastasia, red-faced, her hair awry as if she’d been pulling it out in clumps, her mouth still twisted in ugly rage.

  “Nikolai, please go into your dressing room and close the door,” Dunya said calmly. She caught her sister’s gaze and hung onto it determinedly.

  “I tried that,” Nikolai said miserably. “She follows me.”

  “She won’t this time,” Dunya said. “Just go, please.”

  As Nikolai stumbled away, she was already moving toward her sister, still holding her gaze. The door of the dressing room shut with a quiet yet heavy click, as though Nikolai were leaning against it. Dunya reached for her sister, wrapping her arms around her, hard.

  “Let me go!” Anastasia uttered between her teeth, trying to shove Dunya away. She couldn’t get a grip so she wriggled and slapped Dunya on both sides of her head so that her ears rang, and even kicked her shins. Through it all, Dunya hung on.

  “Stop, Asya, stop,” she whispered. “I love you. We all love you.”

  And quite suddenly, as she always had, her sister sagged into her arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Still holding her, Dunya stepped backward so that they could sink down on to the bed. She stroked her sister’s hair and waited for the storm to die down.

  It seemed to take a long time, but at last, Anastasia was calm again. She drew back a little, though Dunya still hung on to her shoulders.

  “Why?” Dunya asked simply.

  “I went for a ride,” Anastasia whispered. “Why should I not go for a ride without issuing multiple notices of intent two days in advance?”

  “Why indeed,” Dunya agreed. “Though a word to your maid might have been thoughtful.”

  Anastasia closed her eyes. “I know. I just feel… I am a married woman, not a child or a fool. I may have friends, go out occasionally without my husband or my sister or my mother in attendance without turning into Jezebel or being mistaken for a courtesan.”

  Dunya smothered a giggle. “Of course you may. But if you don’t say you’re going, then he will worry and react badly.”

  Slowly, Anastasia drew herself out of Dunya’s arms and looked at herself in the mirror. Dunya began to pull out the remaining pins in her hair and then rose to fetch the hairbrush.

  Anastasia swallowed. “It was I who reacted badly,” she confessed.

  “Yes,” Dunya agreed. “More badly, at least.”

  Anastasia drew in a shuddering breath. “Did everyone hear?”

  “Pretty much everyone,” Dunya said frankly. “Though we couldn’t make out the words. Don’t go into a decline over it. The Russians will understand, and the Austrians will just put it down to your being Russian.”

  “I need to apologize to Nikolai,” Anastasia said and closed her eye. A tear squeezed out the corner and rolled down her cheek.

  Dunya sat beside her and began to brush out her hair. “Yes,” she agreed.

  “He will hate me,” Anastasia whispered. “Have me locked up in some insane asylum.”

 
; “No he won’t,” Dunya said. “But I wouldn’t do it every day.”

  Anastasia let out a hiccup that might have had strained laughter in it somewhere.

  “Get into bed and rest,” Dunya advised. Laying down the brush, she rose and pulled back the covers. “You’ll have exhausted yourself.”

  Obediently, Anastasia slid between the sheets and closed her eyes.

  Dunya patted the covers. “Shall I send Nikolai to you now? Or later.”

  “Later,” Anastasia pleaded. “I don’t want him to see me until I’m…better.”

  Dunya kissed her forehead. “Then sleep. I’ll take him away.”

  She walked to the dressing room and knocked quietly. Nikolai, still looking stunned, opened the door. Dunya placed one finger on her lips and took his hand, leading him out and past the bed where his wife lay still and invisible under the covers.

  The hallway was deserted as they walked across it to the drawing room.

  “How did you manage that?” Nikolai asked in a rush.

  “Memory. She was a highly strung child. I would fight and stamp. She would have hysterical tantrums. We learned to look after each other. On the odd occasion we both went off at once, my parents screamed for Vanya.”

  Nikolai tried to laugh. Dunya squeezed his hand and let it go. “She hasn’t done it for years, you know. She’s already ashamed and sorry and won’t let it happen again.”

  Nikolai nodded and followed her into the drawing room where her mother stood by the fireplace, her hands tightly folded together in front of her.

  “She’s asleep,” Dunya said diplomatically. “She’ll be fine, if sorry, when she wakes up.”

  “Well, we have a quiet evening ahead of us,” the countess said with some relief. “Just the theatre. General Lisle and his daughter will be there… Do you know if the Fawcetts are going tonight, Dunya?”

  Dunya blinked. “The Fawcetts? I have no idea. Why?”

  “Mr. Fawcett did distinguish you with marked attention last night,” her mother said archly.

  Dunya sat down. “Mother, he is engaged to Miss Reid! And I to Captain Trelawny.”