Teresa Grant - [Charles & Melanie Fraser 01]

by Vienna Waltz

  “Hunting’s a dangerous sport.”

  “But what else is one to do, confined to quarters all winter?” Radley’s gaze moved on to Aline. “Won’t you present me to your charming companion, Mrs. Rannoch?”

  Even now Suzanne could not deny the force of his smile. “Colonel Radley, Aline. My husband’s niece, Miss Dacre-Hammond.”

  “You must have known Malcolm and Suzanne in Spain,” Aline said as Radley bowed over her hand. She seemed blessedly unaffected by his charms, but then Aline was hardly a typical young lady.

  “So I did. But separately, as it happens.” Radley’s gaze returned to Suzanne, cutting neatly through the satin and lace of her gown. “You look very much at home as a diplomatic wife.”

  “I’m fortunate in my life.”

  “Fascinating how these things have a way of working out. We must reminisce sometime.”

  Suzanne’s fingers dug into her gloved arms. Fear squeezed her chest as though her corset laces had been pulled beyond bearing. She’d always known the past would catch up with her sooner or later. But the fear had settled into a constant, nagging presence, like the ache of an old wound that one learns to ignore because it is the only way to get on with one’s life. These last few days, discovery had been the furthest thing from her mind. While she’d been agonizing over Malcolm and Princess Tatiana, her own ghosts had been waiting to pounce.

  Julie Zichy drew Radley away, though Suzanne suspected she would see him again all too soon. Aline looked after him. “Judith will be so jealous,” she said, referring to her fifteen-year-old sister. “She has a box of clippings about his exploits on the Peninsula. Especially his commendations after Vitoria.”

  “A good soldier, Radley,” Geoffrey murmured. “One can’t deny him that.”

  “I don’t think Malcolm would have cared for the way he was looking at Suzanne,” Aline said. “Though Malcolm isn’t the sort to get jealous. And he knows you can take care of yourself.”

  “Thank you, dearest.” For a moment Suzanne could hear the cries of wounded men, see blood congealing on cobblestones, taste the cold bite of terror.

  “Suzanne?” Aline said. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course, love. Just caught up in memories.”

  Geoffrey touched Aline’s arm. “A lot of ugliness happens in war. A lot of ugliness happened on the Peninsula in particular. It’s hard to reconcile the memories with our current spun-sugar environment.”

  “Quite,” Suzanne said. She straightened her shoulders and flicked open her fan. She could only hope Aline’s confidence in her ability to handle Radley was not misplaced.

  For she had learned that the most insidious dangers could not be faced down with a pistol or a knife.

  Tsarina Elisabeth turned her back on the crowd for a moment and pressed her fingers to her temples. Above the jeweled border of her mask, her head was pounding. Even when her face was uncovered, she always wore a mask in public. Tonight should be easier, with a stiff creation of papier-mâché actually covering her face, but she felt as vulnerable as she had as a fourteen-year-old bride. Last night’s events had slashed her carefully cultivated ability to dissemble, as surely as Princess Tatiana’s throat had been slashed by the murderer’s dagger.

  “A waltz, Your Majesty?”

  The voice washed over her with comfort, even before his fingers brushed her arm. She turned round. Though his familiar features were covered by a half mask, Adam’s eyes were the same, and their warmth steadied her. She stepped into his arms, grateful beyond measure for this dance that allowed human contact and the chance for whispered confidences.

  “Courage.” He spoke into her ear, the way in the past he had whispered across her pillow. “I have an idea about where to look. Trust me, Lisa. In this, at least.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “I’ve always trusted you, Adam. It’s the world that’s conspired against us.”

  “But we’ve grown more deft at conspiracy ourselves, through the years.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t deserve you, Adam. I should never—”

  “Shush,” he said. “The past doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, Adam,” she said, as they circled in the pattern of the dance. “The past is all round us.”

  Three dances—with Princess Thérèse Esterhazy, Princess Catherine Bagration, and young Marie Metternich—a turn round the crowded supper room, and half an hour in the salon that had been given over to smoking had exposed Malcolm to a great deal of speculation about Tatiana and her death but nothing useful in the way of new information.

  He emerged from the brandy fumes and choking smoke—he’d never cared for cigars, they put him in mind of his father—and had started down the corridor to the ballroom when he saw Fitzwilliam Vaughn duck through a door. The library, if he remembered the floor plan of the villa correctly. Malcolm bit back a bitter laugh. Usually he was the one to take refuge in the library at entertainments. When the call of diplomacy, espionage, or investigation didn’t require him to circulate, he was happier with a book than making conversation in an overheated room. Since their marriage, Suzanne had more than once come in search of him and pulled him back to the ballroom to be sociable.

  He opened the door onto the light of two candelabra and the smells of ink and leather. No sense in wasting a chance for private conversation. It might be more easily come by here than in the Minoritenplatz. “An odd reversal of roles for me to find you ducking into the library.”

  Fitz turned with a start of surprise. He had crossed to a cabinet that held a set of decanters. “There must be above a thousand people here. Difficult to manage anything approaching rational conversation. And I find I’m not in the mood for frivolity. Brandy?”

  “Thanks. I imagine we could both do with a drink.”

  “It’s been a difficult day.” Fitz poured brandy into a glass, splashing a bit onto the Chinese lacquer of the cabinet. “I couldn’t believe it when Castlereagh called us in this morning—”

  “That was the first you heard of Princess Tatiana’s death?” Malcolm felt the faint, telltale catch in his throat when he framed the words.

  “Yes.” Fitz reached for a second glass.

  “It must have been especially hard for you.”

  Fitz lifted his head.

  Malcolm met his friend’s gaze. From their undergraduate days at Oxford, Fitzwilliam Vaughn had been one of the few people he trusted without question. “I know, Fitz. About you and Tatiana.”

  The crystal stopper fell from Fitz’s fingers to clatter against the decanter. For a seeming eternity he and Malcolm stared at each other across the paneled length of the library.

  “Dorothée Périgord saw you at the Zichys’ reception,” Malcolm said. “She told Suzanne.”

  “Dear God.” Fitz pressed his hands to his face. “Does—”

  “Eithne doesn’t know. At least not from us.”

  Fitz dropped his hands and gave a quick nod.

  A friend would go to Fitz’s side and clap him on the shoulder. But Malcolm wasn’t a friend in this. Not first and foremost. “Your private life is your own business,” he said. “Or would be if your mistress hadn’t been murdered.”

  “But you think I’m a rutting bastard and wonder how the devil I could do this to the woman I love.”

  A bitter acknowledgment of his own shortcomings echoed through Malcolm’s head. “I wouldn’t presume to know what’s inside anyone’s marriage. Though I confess I always thought you were singularly blessed.”

  Fitz took a quick turn about the room, like a caged lion at the Royal Exchange. “I thought I was the luckiest man in the world when Eithne accepted me. I still remember the first time I saw her—at Almack’s, of all places. I was home on leave from the Peninsula, doing my duty squiring my sister Sophia and regretting an evening of tepid punch and matchmaking mamas. I came off the dance floor and saw Eithne talking with two other girls. She was wearing a white gown with a yellow sash, and she had pearls in her hair. She took my breath away. I was
sure I’d never look at another woman again. I never thought I’d be the sort of husband who—You know. We see it all round, here and at home. The Devonshire House set. Lord and Lady Cowper. Prince Metternich. Tsar Alexander.”

  “My own parents,” Malcolm said, images etched sharp in his memory. “It’s one reason I never thought to marry.”

  “My father and stepmother, truth to tell. My older brothers. And my married sisters, I suspect.” Fitz grimaced, stalked back to the drinks cabinet, picked up one of the brandies and took a long swallow. “I was so smugly certain I could never be like my father and brothers. I never bargained on—”

  “Growing bored?”

  “No. That is—” Fitz stared into his brandy glass. “I suppose inevitably it becomes less intense. Surely you find that yourself.”

  Malcolm considered his own marriage. Except for a few unguarded moments, he kept his feelings carefully in check. But he could hardly say the intensity had dissipated. Quite the reverse, in fact. For a moment his consciousness of his wife was so vivid he could almost feel the brush of her hair between his fingers and smell the scent of her skin. “I don’t think I’ve been married long enough to judge.”

  “Perhaps not.” Fitz rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I could blame it on the familiarity of five years of marriage. On this city, where one can’t seem to turn round without stumbling over a romantic intrigue. On the mad hours we’re keeping. But the truth is, I looked at Tatiana and I felt—does it sound mad to say bewitched?”

  “Not mad.” Malcolm moved to the drinks cabinet and picked up the second brandy. “Though if you’re implying the blame is hers—”

  “Of course not. I take full responsibility.” Fitz turned his glass in his hand, studying the play of the candlelight on the crystal. “My love for Eithne was as sweet and safe as sugared rose petals. With Tatiana it was quite the opposite. Crazy, insane, a fever that fed on itself. I was dazzled the moment I first saw her, but I never thought she’d look twice at me.”

  “You underrate yourself.”

  Fitz shook his head, started to speak, took a swallow of brandy. “It was on one of those expeditions we all took to the countryside in October when the weather was so glorious. To the Klosterneuburg abbey.”

  “I remember,” Malcolm said. “Suzanne and I stayed in Vienna and took Colin to the Augarten.”

  “Eithne stayed for a dress fitting. Castlereagh particularly asked me to go on the expedition as Otronsky and Humboldt and the King of Denmark were in the party, and he wanted a British presence. My horse cast a shoe on the way home. Tatiana offered me a seat in her carriage. We stopped at an inn for a glass of wine, and—You can guess the rest.” He began to pace again. “The horrible thing is, I wasn’t sorry. She was fascinating. She could talk about anything, and she had the most remarkable knack for listening.”

  “She could make any man think he was the center of her world.”

  “You felt it, too.” Fitz shot him a quick glance. “Did—”

  “No,” Malcolm said, a little more firmly than necessary. “Though I don’t expect you to believe me any more than Suzanne did.”

  Fitz opened his mouth as though to voice a denial, then shook his head. “I knew I wasn’t her only lover. But I suppose I flattered myself that I was the only one who wasn’t political. I even had mad thoughts about giving up everything and running off with her. Though as soon as I was with Eithne I knew I could never do that. God help me, Lord Beverston will kill me if he finds out what I did to his daughter. Rightly so.”

  “Which wouldn’t do your political prospects any good.”

  Fitz flushed but didn’t look away from Malcolm’s gaze. “Without his support, I’d have little chance of achieving anything. For Eithne’s sake he wouldn’t let me be ruined, but he’d never make me his protégé knowing how badly I’d hurt his daughter. And my own father would only back me if I turned Tory, which would rather defeat the purpose. Not that any of that signifies beside Eithne. I know her. She’d stand by me. She wouldn’t reproach me. But it would never be the same.”

  Malcolm took a swallow of brandy. “Fitz. Where were you last night?”

  It was a moment before Fitz made sense of the words. “Good God. You can’t think—”

  “I’m endeavoring to be objective.”

  Their gazes met, like the clash of fencing foils. Memories hung between them, echoing back to their first meeting on the sun-splashed flagstones of an Oxford terrace, when Malcolm had been in his first year and Fitz in his last. Poring over lecture notes, correcting essays, debating in coffee houses. Drafting diplomatic communiqués over guttering candles, sharing wine in Spanish farmhouses, going cross-eyed as they drew up tables to decode documents.

  “I was at the opera,” Fitz said. “I escorted Eithne and Suzanne and Aline.”

  “And then?”

  “We went on to Baroness Arnstein’s. But Eithne had a headache and Aline was tired, so I took them home soon after we arrived. You must have found Suzanne at the Arnsteins’?”

  “Yes,” Malcolm said. “And you?”

  “Eithne went to bed when we returned to the Minoritenplatz. I sat up drafting a paper for Castlereagh on possible responses to Russia’s actions in Saxony.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you last see Tatiana?”

  “The night before last.” Fitz flushed again. “I looked in at the Duchess of Sagan’s reception and then ducked round to Tatiana’s through the side entrance.”

  “Did she appear concerned about anything?”

  Fitz frowned. “She seemed—distracted. I asked her if something was wrong. She laughed and said ‘on the contrary.’”

  “Anything else?”

  Fitz hesitated. “There was something odd in the way she kissed me when I left. For a moment I was afraid it was a . . . a farewell.”

  Malcolm studied his friend, knowing the bleak loss in Fitz’s gaze was the twin of his own. “Who do you think killed her?”

  Fitz shook his head. “The tsar would have been furious if he’d known of our affair. If we were seen at the Zichys’—”

  “I doubt Dorothée Périgord would have told the tsar. But yes, it’s difficult to keep a secret in Vienna. On the other hand, the tsar also believed I was her lover.”

  “Women were jealous of her. Men wanted her. But I can’t imagine anyone—”

  “Nor can I. But someone did.”

  Fitz met Malcolm’s gaze. “I know Castlereagh’s asked you to investigate—”

  “I won’t reveal your involvement with her unless it becomes necessary. But it may become necessary.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.” In the candlelight, Fitz’s gaze was dark and direct. “I want to know who did this to her, Malcolm. I want the bastard to pay.”

  “Yes,” said Malcolm. “So do I.”

  12

  The vast quiet of the book-filled library, normally Malcolm’s favorite sort of sanctuary, suddenly felt as suffocating as an overcrowded ballroom. Judging by Fitz’s expression he felt the same. Without speaking, they left the library and made their way down the corridor to the ballroom. Walking side by side as they had a score of times in the past.

  “Monsieur Rannoch. Lord Fitzwilliam.” Dorothée Périgord fell upon them as they entered the ballroom. “I have just hit upon the most perfect solution to my dire plight. You two must be chivalrous and save me. Chivalrous being the operative word.”

  “We are of course at your service, Madame la Comtesse,” Malcolm said. “But—”

  “Splendid.” Dorothée gripped his hand and squeezed Fitz’s hand as well. “Everyone says you’re the best riders in the British delegation. I’m in desperate need of two knights for the Carrousel. You won’t fail me, will you? It’s perfect because you’re such good friends.”

  The Meissen clock over the mantel in the side salon where Suzanne was talking with Aline, Geoffrey, and the Princess von Thurn und Taxis showed ten minutes to two. She excused herself an
d started for the French windows to the garden. A few paces from the door, a hand touched her arm. She froze, sure it was Radley.

  “Suzanne? What is it?” Malcolm’s voice spoke in her ear.

  “Nothing.” Sacrebleu, her wits were deserting her along with her finely honed abilities at deception.

  “I talked to Fitz,” he said, as he opened one of the French windows onto the garden. “I’ll brief you later. Dorothée just waylaid us on our way back into the ballroom. She wants Fitz and me to replace the two knights she lost in the Carrousel. Was that your idea?”

  “No. I thought she was looking for Austro-Hungarians.”

  “I think at the moment she’ll settle for good riders. Someone told her Fitz and I are halfway decent.”

  “Someone no doubt told her you’re brilliant horsemen. You agreed?”

  “It would have been difficult to say no,” Malcolm said as they descended the terrace steps. “She’s going to change round the favors so I can be your cavalier.”

  Suzanne cast a surprised glance at him. “Doesn’t it violate some rule of social etiquette for a husband and wife to be so in each other’s pockets?”

  “Dorothée must realize how unconventional we are.”

  Moonlight and a soft glow from strings of Venetian glass lanterns washed over the garden. On the night of Metternich’s Peace Ball a month since, the garden had been crowded with dancers, musicians, and performers. Tonight, in the cooler weather, it was empty save for a few intrepid couples, walking arm in arm or standing with their heads close together. Malcolm took Suzanne’s hand so they’d blend in, and they made their way down a gravel walk to the Temple of Mars, its gray stone splashed blood red by the light of a crimson glass lamp.

  Before they reached the temple, Suzanne gave Malcolm a flirtatious kiss, as though she were leaving him to serious business, and turned back toward the villa. When she reached some nice, concealing shadows she slipped down a side path, senses tuned to watchers, and circled back to the temple. She came up behind a topiary hedge that had served to conceal an orchestra at the Peace Ball. She drew the folds of her mantilla over her shoulders against the night air and settled where she had a good view through the interlaced leaves. Just in case, she eased open the clasp on her reticule and gripped her pistol.