by Vienna Waltz
Malcolm leaned against the temple. After a few minutes a figure emerged, swathed in one of the red and white dominoes Metternich had instructed those not in costume to wear. He came not from the direction of the villa but down one of the side gravel walks.
“You’re punctual. That’s good.” The man spoke French, but in a flat voice that didn’t sound native yet was impossible to place. He was not overly tall, and beneath the folds of the domino he appeared to be slightly built. A red mask covered his face. “Just in case you have any rash thoughts in mind, Monsieur Rannoch, I am holding a loaded pistol. Did you bring what I asked for?”
Malcolm turned toward the man with leisurely care. “Surely you don’t imagine I’d be fool enough to bring such valuable goods to a preliminary negotiation?”
“Who said anything about preliminary?”
“You have yet to even make an offer.” Malcolm continued to lean against the statue with an ease that suggested he found the discussion less than urgent. “I’m waiting.”
“Ten thousand,” Red Mask said in a crisp voice. “In English pounds or whatever currency you name.”
Dear God, it was a small fortune. What on earth did these people think Malcolm had?
“A handsome offer.” Malcolm set his shoulders against the temple and crossed his legs at the ankle. “But who’s to say I’m in the mood to sell?”
“You’ll be safer without it. Your wife will be safer.”
“So you were behind the attack on my wife and me last night?” An edge of steel crept into Malcolm’s voice.
“I didn’t say that. A number of people want what you possess. You and your family will be far safer once you’ve relinquished it.”
“Or perhaps we’ll become expendable because I’ve lost my bargaining chip.”
“I think not. I advise you—”
A branch creaked, though the air was still. Not a branch in Suzanne’s hedge. From across the garden. Red Mask spun round, then whirled back to Malcolm, his pistol leveled. “Damn it, Rannoch, what have you done?”
“Nothing but what instructed.”
“You’re a fool or a liar.” Red Mask backed away, still holding the pistol leveled, then turned and ran toward the ballroom.
Malcolm lurched into the shrubbery. A scuffle followed, a few thuds, a sharp cry.
Suzanne stayed where she was, though she pulled her pistol from her reticule. A few moments later, her husband emerged from the shrubbery, dragging a man who wore another red and white domino and a black mask. Malcolm had his own pistol pressed to the man’s side.
“It’s all right, Rannoch.” The man spoke quietly, in French. His voice was familiar, though Suzanne could not immediately place it. “Now that I know you’re in possession of the papers, I’m prepared to negotiate.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Malcolm said. “But—”
The man tugged at the strings on his mask and pulled it from his face. The light of the Venetian lanterns revealed the well-cut features of Prince Adam Czartoryski. “I’ll pay you twice what your friend offered,” he said.
“Czartoryski.” Malcolm studied the prince. “How can you even be sure that I possess what you want?”
“I wasn’t. But I’d begun to suspect you were the one person she might have given them to.”
“Princess Tatiana?”
“Of course. When I saw you leave the ballroom just now, I followed. What I overheard confirmed my suspicions. You have them and you’re willing to sell them.” A faint undertone of distaste crept into Czartoryski’s voice. “I will top any other offer you may receive.”
“Look, Czartoryski.” Malcolm hesitated. Echoes from the negotiating table reverberated through the small patch of garden. Adam Czartoryski was an adviser to Tsar Alexander. Tensions between the British and Russian delegations ran high just now, quite apart from the fact that the tsar had as good as accused Malcolm of murder. Yet Suzanne knew her husband admired Czartoryski as a man of integrity. She could see Malcolm weighing his options, debating how much to reveal. Sometimes one had to give out information to gain the information one was seeking.
Malcolm untied his own mask and pulled it from his face. “I’m afraid you’re under a quite understandable misapprehension. I don’t have what you are looking for.”
“But—”
“Just now you saw me endeavoring to bluff in an effort to acquire information. My wife was listening. Suzanne?”
Suzanne stepped from behind her hedge shield. “Good evening, Prince.”
Czartoryski looked from Malcolm to Suzanne. “I don’t—”
“I suspect,” Malcolm said, “that we may be able to help each other by pooling information. We’ll tell you our side of the story first, and then I hope you’ll be persuaded to confide in us.”
Czartoryski gave a slow nod.
“As you must have heard, Suzanne and I discovered Princess Tatiana’s body last night,” Malcolm continued. “On our way home from the Palm Palace, we were attacked by two armed men. When I captured one and tried to get him to talk, he was shot by a third. This afternoon, the man in the red mask stuck a knife in my ribs and said he was prepared to buy what I had to sell. I think he meant papers that had been in Princess Tatiana’s possession. I’ll hazard a guess that you are also looking for papers that Princess Tatiana possessed?”
Czartoryski was silent for a long moment. The moonlight and the glow of the lamps slanted over his still, tense features. At last, he nodded.
“And I’ll hazard a further guess that these papers have something to do with Tsarina Elisabeth?”
Czartoryski’s dark gaze widened. “How—?” He bit back the words. His face went as closed as if he were still masked.
“I saw you talking to her in the Prater this morning,” Malcolm said. “I saw the look on your face. I’ve seen enough of you to suspect that were your concern about these papers because of information they contained about yourself, you wouldn’t be so desperate. In fact, I can think of few things that would make a man like you as desperate as a threat to the woman he loves.”
Czartoryski shook his head. “You’re an uncanny judge of your fellows, Rannoch.”
“Hardly. But sometimes I have good instincts.”
Czartoryski’s gaze flickered from Malcolm to Suzanne. Making the same calculations Malcolm had done about the risks and rewards of trusting and taking on allies.
“Prince Czartoryski?” Suzanne said, going on instinct. “Were you at Princess Tatiana’s last night?”
His gaze whipped to her face.
“Because of these papers?” Suzanne pressed her advantage.
Czartoryski spun away and gripped the stone side of the temple for a moment, then turned back to face her. “I went to ask the princess to return papers that rightfully belong to no one but the tsarina. When I got there Princess Tatiana was already dead. I don’t expect you to believe that—”
“What time?” Malcolm asked.
“About two-thirty.”
“Was her skin blue-tinged?”
Adam met Malcolm’s gaze. “Yes. From what I know of dead bodies, she had been killed at least half an hour before. Once I had determined there was nothing I could do for her, I searched for the tsarina’s papers.”
“You were efficient.”
He gave a bitter smile. “I’ve played this game for some time.” He straightened his shoulders with military precision. “I know I should in honor have reported the crime. But that would not have helped the princess and might have done irreparable harm to Lis—to the tsarina.”
“So you left.”
“So I left.” His mouth curled with self-reproach. “I feared the tsarina’s papers had fallen into the hands of Princess Tatiana’s killer. But then I realized the killer might well not even have known of the papers’ existence. I tried to think where they might be if they hadn’t been in her rooms. I heard you had been the one to discover the princess’s body. I glimpsed you in the Prater this morning. It occurred to me that if Princess
Tatiana had given the papers to someone she trusted, you were the obvious candidate.”
“So you watched me this evening, and when you saw me go into the garden, you followed.”
“I had recognized you and Madame Rannoch when you arrived.” Czartoryski inclined his head to Suzanne. “You’re a striking pair.”
“Princess Tatiana kept her most secret papers in a box in a hiding place in her rooms,” Malcolm said. “According to her maid, that box has disappeared.”
“You trust her maid?”
“I consider her a friend.”
Czartoryski raised his brows but did not comment, as many would have done, on considering a servant a friend. “Do you think Princess Tatiana’s killer is in possession of this box?”
“Not necessarily. It’s entirely possible Tatiana herself hid it in recent days. But she didn’t hide it with me.”
“And yet a number of people think you have it.”
“Quite. Possibly even the killer.”
“So if we find the papers, we may find the killer.”
“Perhaps.”
Czartoryski looked from Malcolm to Suzanne. “What can I do to help you? I will give you any assistance that is in my power.”
Malcolm and Suzanne returned to the villa through the French windows that opened onto one of the side salons. They found a small crowd gathered on the chairs and settees. All eyes were focused on the corner of the room where Princess Catherine Bagration stood, one hand resting on a pillar that held a statue of Cupid and Psyche. She had removed her mask, but even had she still worn it she was easily recognized. The light of the chandelier gilded her blond ringlets and shot through the gauzy fabric of her Ukrainian peasant dress, outlining the shapely legs beneath the muslin.
She cast the briefest glance at Malcolm and Suzanne as they stepped into the room, then continued with what she had been saying. “I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. And goodness knows I’m as horrified by what happened to Princess Tatiana as anyone. More so, perhaps, since I live in the Palm Palace. I keep wishing I’d been able to do something to save her. But—well—” Princess Bagration shrugged her elegant shoulders. Her gauze scarf slithered down, baring her low-cut laced bodice. “There’s no ignoring the facts just because someone has died.”
“What facts?” the Prince de Ligne inquired. He was reclining in an armchair, gaze fixed on the princess with the appreciation of a connoisseur. Gossip was to him what brandy or first editions were to some.
Princess Bagration turned her pale blue gaze on the prince. “I made some inquiries. I’m not sure why, save that something about Princess Tatiana has never quite rung true to me. These past weeks were the first time I’d been much in her company, as she spent most of the last decade in Paris.” Her gaze moved to Malcolm and Suzanne. “You knew her. . . well, Monsieur Rannoch. Did she ever talk about her past?”
“Not her childhood,” Malcolm said. Suzanne suspected her husband’s voice would sound easy to anyone but her.
“Perhaps I was the only one who was suspicious. Of course we were both Russian. Or so I thought.”
“Thought?” Dorothée asked. She was perched on a settee beside Julie Zichy.
“Princess Tatiana’s history was cleverly documented. I can quite see how Prince Kirsanov was taken in when he married her. But I found one of the servants from the school she attended. Supposedly attended. The school—”
“Catherine.” A tall, brown-haired figure in a black domino appeared in the doorway from the ballroom. Tsar Alexander.
Princess Bagration lifted her chin and regarded the man who was acknowledged to be her lover just as he was acknowledged to have been the lover of Princess Tatiana. “I’m only revealing what I’ve learned to be fact, Your Majesty. The school Princess Tatiana supposedly attended burned down years ago, but this woman told me that the one little daughter of Prince and Princess Sarasov, Princess Tatiana’s supposed parents, died of a fever at the age of nine. Princess Tatiana quite cleverly appropriated this poor child’s identity.”
Princess Bagration paused, letting her words sink in. Suzanne resisted the impulse to look at Malcolm and see how he was taking the revelation.
Count Otronsky cast a quick glance at Alexander, then looked back at Catherine Bagration. “Are you saying Princess Tatiana wasn’t the daughter of Prince and Princess Sarasov? Then who the devil was she?”
“I haven’t the least idea.” Princess Bagration extended a gold-sandaled foot. “For all I know she wasn’t even Russian. But it’s quite clear Princess Tatiana was a fraud.”
13
Elisabeth touched her fingers to the jeweled edge of her mask. A number of the guests had switched masks at midnight, adding to the usual masquerade mischief. She wished she had managed to do so herself, though she doubted that a simple change of mask would have given her anonymity.
Candles burned low in the chandeliers and gilded sconces, but she could still hear the strains of “Mon Grandpère” from the ballroom. The dance from the last century was a traditional close to Metternich entertainments. Some intrepid souls continued to dance, while others milled about the stairs and the entrance hall, waiting for their carriages. The guttering candlelight gleamed against brightly colored silk and glinted off jeweled masks and diamond-stitched peasant skirts.
As she was about to step from an anteroom onto the stairs, she turned and met a familiar gaze. He had changed his black mask for a harlequin design, but she still knew Adam at once. He jerked his head to the side. The slightest gesture, but they’d learned to read each other’s smallest signals years ago. The knowledge was ingrained in her, like a pattern etched in glass.
He disappeared, and a moment later she followed him, through another anteroom into a salon that had been given over to cards but was now deserted. The remains of a game of écarté lay on the baize-covered table, and the air smelled of snuff and champagne and a mélange of perfumes.
Meeting Adam’s gaze, she knew at once what had happened, despite his mask. “You weren’t successful.”
“No.” He took her hands in his strong clasp. “But we now have allies.”
“Allies?” She drew back in alarm. In the Russian court, one learned not to trust oneself to allies.
Adam’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Sometimes one must learn to take help where it is possible, Lisa.” He told her about his arrangement with Malcolm Rannoch and his wife.
Fear thrummed through her like a shock from fire-warmed metal. “We scarcely know them.”
“I’ve been in numerous meetings with Rannoch and talked to him on more than one occasion. He has a good understanding, and he strikes me as a man of honor. I’ve been impressed with his willingness to stand up to Castlereagh when he disagrees.”
“This isn’t a border dispute, Adam.”
“One learns a lot about a man over border disputes. To own the truth, I was surprised and disappointed when I thought Rannoch was selling Princess Tatiana’s papers. His subsequent explanation confirmed my earlier opinion of him.”
“Though he was apparently betraying his wife with Princess Tatiana.”
“There are all sorts of betrayals, Lisa, for all sorts of reasons. Whatever else is between them, Rannoch and his wife clearly work well together.”
Elisabeth twitched her skirt away from a patch of spilled champagne on the floor. She had spoken with Suzanne Rannoch once or twice at various events and had met her in the Prater, walking with her young son. She had an image of Madame Rannoch holding the little boy up to look at the Chinese pavilion, heedless of the way the child crushed her frogged pelisse. “I like Suzanne Rannoch.” She drew a breath. “You’re right, we must be practical. I’ve made my mistakes. It’s folly to lament over the dangers in trying to fix them. This man who wanted to buy the papers from Monsieur Rannoch tonight. He knows about my letters?”
“Not necessarily.” Adam’s fingers tightened over her own. “We don’t know what else Princess Tatiana had in her possession. But he’ll almost certainly
approach Rannoch again. If we can entrap him, we can learn more.”
She lifted a hand and smoothed his thick hair back from his mask. “Be careful, Adam.”
“If I weren’t careful I’d have been dead long since.”
“Don’t joke. I have enough on my conscience as it is.” She let her fingers linger against his temple. “Did you hear about the accusations Catherine Bagration made? That Princess Tatiana was a fraud?”
“The talk spread like wildfire. Whether or not it’s true is another matter.”
“To play a part for so many years—”
Adam gave a bleak smile. “Isn’t that what we’ve all done, one way and another?”
“But not with assumed identities. Why would she have pretended to be someone else?”
He shook his head. “We can’t know that until we discover who she really was.”
“Adam.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “You didn’t tell the Rannochs what was in my missing papers, did you?”
“Need you ask it? Of course not.”
Their gazes held. Below the mask, she saw that Adam had a small cut on his chin from shaving and that the lines beside his mouth were deeper than she remembered. How well she knew that mouth. Teasing against the corner of her own, lingering at the hollow of her throat. Hot with urgency and yet always filled with a desperate tenderness.
The candlelight seemed brighter, but she felt the chill of the night air through the muslin and lace of her Bavarian gown. Adam stared down at her for a long moment. Then, as though yielding to a compulsion, he bent his head, and for the first time in years, pressed his mouth to hers.
Dorothée leaned her head against the Italian silk squabs and studied her uncle by marriage across the lamp-lit interior of the carriage. “Did you know? That Princess Tatiana wasn’t who she claimed to be?”
