Vienna Woods (The Imperial Season Book 2)

by Mary Lancaster

  She swallowed. “It is your table. And the cloak in question is very thick.”

  He let out a breath of surprised laughter. “Is it?” Deliberately, he stood up. He heard her breath catch and saw the sudden clench of her fingers on her cup handle before she released it. She wasn’t used to such games. He’d known that. Her honesty was one of the things he liked so much, and the reason he was in danger of believing her attraction to be true. He would make it truer yet.

  He strolled the few paces around the table and stood for a moment looking down at her, careful not to startle her into flight. Even beneath the cloak he could make out the rapid rise and fall of her breast, but she turned up her face to meet his gaze without guile or fear. Slowly, he stretched down his hand to cover hers. Small and frail, it leapt and was still, even when he curled his fingers around it and tugged her gently to her feet.

  The warmth from her body, so close but not yet touching, seeped into his, arousing, tempting.

  “You’re right,” he allowed. “The cloak is thick. But what makes you think I’m a gentleman?”

  “Experience,” she replied at once. Still, she held his gaze. A man could drown in those clear, beautiful eyes.

  He slid his fingers to her wrist and felt the galloping of her pulse. For him. With his other hand, he cupped her soft cheek, and closed the tiny distance between them.

  The cloak was thick, but it had parted. Now it was his heart which galloped out of control, but fortunately, his mind was still in command.

  “As it happens, you’re right,” he said unsteadily. “With you, at least. One kiss and then I’ll let you go.”

  Her heart, her pulse beat against him. She tipped her face up, allowing him easier access, and for a moment, he held her so, her eyes fluttering closed, her trembling lips slightly parted for his kiss. The hunter had won his prey and he’d never wanted anything so much as to kiss this girl. And more. Much, much more. He bent his head, glorying in her warm breath against his lips, and her sweet, clean scent in his nostrils. Esther Lisle.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the temptation. He only meant to kiss her after all, and she was so soft and yielding in his hold…

  He opened his eyes, drew in a long, determined breath, and slowly forced himself to release her, all but her hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is unkind. You should retire and bolt your door.”

  Her eyes flew open, bewilderment and a thousand other emotions chasing across her face. She snatched her hand from his and straightened her back. “I wasn’t inviting you there,” she snapped, and then, in deliberate mockery of his previous words about the coffee. “What a fuss about a kiss. It’s not as if you haven’t taken such before, without invitation.”

  “That was different.”

  She gave a brittle little laugh. “Because you always had a purpose beyond the personal? Forgive my encroachment, Herr Zelig.” She marched away from him, toward the stairs.

  “Because you were not then my responsibility,” he blurted, following her without meaning to. “I’m an agent of the police, not a gentleman, but even I can’t take advantage of you—”

  “I release you from that misapprehension,” she snapped, wrenching open the door to the stairs. “I’m still not your responsibility!”

  Appalled by his own mishandling, he took her hand once more, but she snatched it back before he could speak.

  “Oh no,” she said. “That foolish invitation is withdrawn. Goodnight, Herr Z.”

  With the door shut in his face, there was very little he could do.

  Thus snatching defeat, he mocked himself, from the jaws of victory. And telling himself it was for the best, that he’d done the right thing in the end, just didn’t help.

  *

  It said much for Agent Z’s fearsome reputation that Weber had to spend the entire night in prison, and a considerable portion of the following morning, before a guard came and threw him out. Even then, the man spat on him before slamming the door.

  “I’ll remember you, you bastard,” Weber muttered, picking himself off the filthy ground.

  “Weber!” someone hissed from across the alley. “Herr Weber!”

  Weber peered across to the dingy hired cab. Nieder, once his most favored underling, opened the door. Weber needed no further invitation. He leapt in and the horses immediately bore him away.

  “Sorry,” Nieder said. “Took a while for the news to reach me, and then the old bribery wouldn’t work. Had to use blackmail to—”

  “I don’t care,” Weber interrupted. “I just want to sink my knife between the finicky ribs of Agent Bloody Zelig! Where is he?”

  “No idea,” Nieder said, apparently surprised. “But you remember you were interested in a missing noblemen? Well, here’s another.”

  Still scowling, Weber glanced at him. “Who?”

  “A Russian countess came to Baron Hager this morning to say her son and his bride had vanished.”

  “What countess? What son?”

  “Countess…Savarina? I think that was the name. Her son is Colonel Savarin, whom the Tsar pursued for that spying mess last month, and then exonerated. He is also known as Lord Launceton, apparently.”

  “I know who he is,” Weber said shortly.

  “Well, apparently, he was married less than a week ago, and now the pair are nowhere to be found.” Nieder rummaged in his pocket and came up with a folded piece of paper which he held out to Weber. “This is the address of the summer palace they were to spend the week. The countess called on them there yesterday evening and was told they were not at home. This morning, she got the same information.”

  Weber blinked and swore. “I’d hide from my mother, too, in those circumstances. What the hell’s the fuss about?”

  “The countess spoke to an old servant she trusts and discovered he’s truly not there. Neither is his wife.”

  “Well, they’ve no reason to tell her where they’ve gone,” Weber snapped. “Look, if Hager seems to be taking this seriously, it’s only to placate the countess, not to do any actual work.”

  “No,” Nieder said stubbornly. “The baron was impressed because the countess admitted her son wouldn’t necessarily tell her, but he would have taken this servant if he’d had a choice. He’s a bloke called Sasha, who’s been with him since he was fifteen years old, and all through the late wars. He goes everywhere with the colonel.”

  Weber’s scowl deepened as he thought. “Take me back to my lodgings so I can change out of these stinking clothes,” he growled. “And then I think I’d better have a word with the noble Count von Meyer.”

  *

  By the time she rose the next morning, Esther realized she was more angry with herself than with Garin. She had left herself open to humiliation, and much worse. She should be grateful to have been handed only the former. And behind the pain of rejection lurked the memory of his predatory advance and clear temptation, and the hope, which was not yet dead, that he did care for her, and that he could.

  Splashing cold water over her face and body before dressing, she resolved neither to apologize, nor avoid him, but to treat him with calm friendliness, as if nothing untoward had passed between them.

  Nothing did, her disappointment reminded her.

  Esther found Lizzie and Vanya in the kitchen eating toast and being entertained by the boys with, she suspected, highly embellished tales of life on Vienna’s streets. They all greeted her warmly and plied her with toast and coffee.

  “We thought we might go for a ride,” Lizzie said. “It’s such a fine day and the countryside is very pretty. Why don’t we all go?”

  “I don’t think there are enough horses for us all to ride,” Esther said.

  “We can take the cart,” Menno said. “You won’t get any of us on a horse’s back anyhow.”

  “Only if Herr Zelig permits,” Kai reminded them.

  “Where is he?” Esther asked casually. “Back in Vienna, I suppose.”

  “No, he’s still here,” Vanya said. “The
other fellow went, though—Dietmar? Ah, speak of the devil, here is our host.”

  Although Esther’s heart beat furiously, and she refused to either gaze upon him or look deliberately away. Garin walked into the room showing no signs of discomfort.

  “Good morning,” he said to everyone in general, and sat down between Lutz and Menno, reaching for the coffee pot on the table.

  “Can we have the day off?” Menno blurted. “Since we did so much yesterday? We could take the cart and some food and show the ladies and gentleman the sights.”

  “I fed the prisoner,” Lutz assured Zelig.

  “We have a prisoner?” Vanya asked, clearly entertained all over again.

  “You don’t,” Zelig said.

  “Perhaps he’d like an outing,” Vanya suggested.

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Zelig said firmly. “Go for your ride if you wish, and take the boys, by all means. But Miss Lisle mustn’t be seen, nor Josephine.”

  “We could hide them in the cart under a pile of vegetables,” Lizzie said innocently.

  “No, we couldn’t,” Esther argued, “but I’d consent to a pile of clothing—if we encounter anyone!”

  “Then it’s agreed,” Lizzie said happily. “Show us the way, Herr Schmidt!”

  Garin hesitated, glancing toward the arch that led to his library and, presumably, work, and to the prisoner, of course.

  “Don’t say no,” Lizzie commanded. “When was the last day you didn’t work?”

  He cast her a speaking glance. “The day I left the Emperor Inn.”

  “Well, everyone should have a Sunday off,” Lizzie said firmly.

  “It isn’t Sunday,” Garin pointed out.

  “It’s in lieu of Sunday for you, since you worked all the others!”

  Esther now couldn’t cry off without making the sort of fuss she wished to avoid, so she calmly fetched her cloak and helped gather some food together to take on the outing. While they did so, Josephine came in and was informed of the plan by Kai.

  For a moment, her eyes lit up, then she gave a rueful smile and shook her head. “Wouldn’t really be proper, would it? You ladies can’t go jaunting round the country with me.”

  Esther and Lizzie exchanged glances.

  Kai said reasonably, “You wouldn’t be seen.”

  “I think,” Esther said, “that whatever we think of the world’s proprieties—and to be frank, they seem quite arbitrary to me—here we have to practice our own. We are an unusual company and in an unusual situation. I will be as glad of your company as I was at the Hofburg.”

  “You’re already here among us, Josephine,” Vanya said. “What’s the difference? Unless we bore you, of course.”

  Josephine laughed and turned to Garin. “Are you coming?”

  “For a little while,” Garin said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Weber, duly changed into his best clothes, which had the added benefit of not stinking of prison, knocked on Count von Meyer’s apartment door. He entered to find the count swathed in a dressing robe, about to be shaved by his valet. Meyer dismissed the servant impatiently and glared at Weber. “Well?”

  Weber had begun to regret this alliance. For one thing, since being slung into prison, he had less confidence than before in Meyer’s plans. For another, he didn’t relish being spoken to in this way, as if he were nobody. If it hadn’t been for the promise of bringing down Zelig, Weber would have long ago found other ways to make extra money.

  “You wanted to know about any of the foreign nobility who went missing,” Weber stated patiently. “A Russian countess is making a fuss about her vanished son and daughter-in-law. Newly married. She doesn’t understand why they might avoid her.”

  Meyer grunted. “Waste of—” He broke off, frowning. “Wait, though. Newly married, you say? Otto was to have gone to the wedding of some friend of Esther Lisle’s. What is this countess’s name?”

  “Savarina. Her son’s a Cossack colonel, inherited some English title.”

  Meyer sprang to his feet. “But this is promising, Weber! I believe this is just what we need! I think your careful Agent Z has taken them as companions for the girl. I was sure he’d go for the Spanish duenna, but he’s more subtle than that.”

  Weber, feeling suddenly more charitable towards his ally, said eagerly, “I went to the house in the suburbs where they were supposed to be and spoke to the servants. They were mostly close-lipped, superior bastards, but I got a word from the stable boy who brought round their carriage. They didn’t go into the city, but out toward the Woods.”

  Meyer, who’d been striding around the room, halted, scowling. “Hiding in the Vienna Woods or beyond? They could be anywhere! It would take us months to search. Did they leave with someone?”

  “I couldn’t get that out of the servants, though the boy said they didn’t take the regular coachman, but it was someone he’d never seen before. I suppose it could have been Dietmar. I didn’t see him in the Vienna office that day.” It was the day Zelig had bested him and thrown him in prison.

  “Ah yes, Z’s faithful dog,” Meyer said thoughtfully. He threw himself back into the chair. “So, Dietmar won’t tell us where Z hides them, and he’s too quick to let us follow him to his master. What if we let this countess bedevil Dietmar?”

  “Why would she, when she already bedevils Hager and Nieder?”

  “Because you—or Nieder—must spin her tales of her son’s danger in the hands of Agent Z, and tell her only Dietmar can help her. Isn’t it likely he will, if only to prevent her from making noise? If there’s one thing this Z dislikes, I suspect that it’s noise. And Dietmar will then be rattled. He’ll make mistakes, be forced to travel more slowly, and so you may follow and discover our stray sheep.”

  Weber began to feel much better about the whole sorry mess. He even smiled at Count von Meyer.

  *

  The weather stayed clear and sharp, and the expedition into the Woods turned out to be just what Esther needed to make her comfortable again in Garin’s company. At first, she barely looked at him—which was easy, since he drove the cart, and all she could see was his back. Later, the boys took turns, while Garin sprawled among the pillows in the cart with everyone else. The conversation was so quick, and the banter led by Lizzie and Vanya so amusing, that as the morning wore on, a bubble of conviviality seemed to form around the disparate group. Ladies and gentlemen of birth, courtesan, police agent, boys with criminal pasts—or present for all Esther knew—rubbed along with perfect amity.

  Esther’s awareness of Garin drifted into the background, merging with the simple pleasure of sunshine and birds’ song, and with the peace and beauty of the autumnal woods. It was, however, a cold day, so they stopped the cart some distance from the nearest track and took a brisk walk to warm themselves up. The boys ran ahead, throwing pine cones and fallen chestnuts at each other, until Lutz’s hit Garin by accident. In mock fear, the boy leapt up a tree, climbing it like a monkey with Garin after him.

  Fortunately, it was a stout tree, for when Lutz and Garin united to throw chestnuts down upon the others, Vanya and the other boys shook the tree to dislodge them, then climbed after them. Lutz and Garin climbed higher, and then began to climb down on either side of the others.

  “Come down, all of you, before you fall!” Lizzie commanded.

  “I’ll get them for you,” Josephine said, beginning to shake the branches she could reach. “I used to climb trees with my brothers.”

  “So did I,” Lizzie confessed, “and then with my sisters.”

  “It’s harder in skirts,” Esther observed, walking smartly toward a tree with a stout branch at the appropriate height. “But there is still fun to be had without being disgracefully revealing, if you’re careful!” So saying, she seized the branch and hauled herself upward until she was sitting upon it. Then she slipped backward, gripping the branch with knees and fists and tumbled, jumping nimbly to her feet again, to the laughter and applause of the entire company.

  Es
ther grinned. “There weren’t many children I could play with in India or on the Peninsula. I entertained myself.”

  “Interesting, isn’t it,” Josephine said, nodding her head toward Garin, who was currently pelting Vanya with pine cones. “Him, for example. I didn’t know he could play until I came here.”

  “He’s different on his own territory,” Lizzie allowed.

  “You think that’s the reason?” Josephine said, surprised.

  Lizzie glanced at her for a moment before she said vaguely, “He’s not in a profession given to trust. And yet he brought us all here to what I gather is his home.”

  Esther walked away but exultation was creeping though her, threatening to burst out. He does care for me. He does.

  Inevitably, at one point as they meandered back toward the cart, she found herself walking beside him. It felt quite natural, and yet at the same time, her whole being seemed to be aware as never before. She spoke of other walks from her childhood in Scotland, and growing up on her travels with the army, and learned that until recently he’d associated open spaces with fear. Being Garin, he gave few details, but it seemed to stem from his own childhood, when he and his mother found themselves in the middle of Bonaparte’s wars, before they fled to Vienna and found comparative safety.

  “Where is your mother now?” she asked.

  “Still safe.”

  She felt a pang. “You don’t want to tell me. I shan’t ask any more.”

  “She isn’t in Vienna. I couldn’t have her there and do the job I do. She lives quietly some distance away. I visit her from here.”

  It gave her a clue. His mother made him vulnerable. All love, she suspected. And he couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. Or thought he couldn’t.

  “I have always found,” she said at last, “that care gives me strength.”

  She felt his gaze on her face as she walked. He said, “You are different. It’s easy to care for you.”

  But when she turned, her eyes flying to his, he was looking straight ahead and waving to the boys who’d run ahead and already reached the cart. He might not have spoken. She almost thought she’d imagined his words, but they’d already seeped in too far, warming, insidious and sweet.