by Vienna Waltz
Malcolm shook Otronsky’s hand. “We have more finesse than our Continental friends sometimes credit.”
“Believe me, Rannoch, I never make the mistake of underestimating the British.” Otronsky’s gaze locked with Malcolm’s own for a moment. “I understand Vaughn has recovered consciousness?”
“And Dr. Blackwell is hopeful of a full recovery.”
“A tragic accident.”
“Tragic, yes. But not an accident. His horse was tampered with.”
Otronsky frowned. “Vaughn is one of the last people in Vienna I’d have thought to find the victim of a plot. Perhaps he’s more like you than I realized.”
“Are you implying my husband has enemies, Count?” Suzanne asked, masking her words with a playful smile.
“Merely that your husband is a man of secrets, madame.”
Suzanne followed Otronsky with her gaze when he moved off. “Tsar Alexander still has him watching us.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsar Alexander has him investigating Tatiana’s murder. I can only hope he hasn’t learned about the tsarina’s papers.”
“Champagne?” A young man—a boy really, he could not have been more than sixteen—appeared beside them with a tray of glasses.
Suzanne shook her head. Her glass was still more than half-full.
The footman inclined his head. But instead of moving off, he pressed a sealed paper into Malcolm’s hand. “I was to give this to you tonight, sir. The lady was most specific.”
“Lady?” Malcolm asked.
“With the red hair. She said if she didn’t tell me otherwise before, I was to give you this letter at the Carrousel.”
Malcolm’s fingers closed on the paper. “When did she give it to you?”
“Three days since.”
Malcolm gave the waiter a coin, and he moved off. Suzanne stared at the paper in her husband’s hand. It was sealed with a lavender wafer, impressed with an unadorned button. Malcolm slit it open. A series of nonsense letters stared up at them. A code.
“Tatiana?” Suzanne asked.
“Tatiana.”
Three days ago, she would have laughed in bitter mockery at the suggestion that she would ever be relieved to see her husband receive a communication from Tatiana Kirsanova. But evidence was evidence. Not that that stilled the lurch in her chest as she watched Malcolm run his fingers over the paper.
Quickly as it had come, the tenderness in his eyes was gone. He tucked the paper into his sleeve, his diplomat’s mask well in place. “We’ll draw comment if we leave too early. Everyone seems to be dancing. We might as well—”
“Rannoch. Mrs. Rannoch.” Colonel Frederick Radley materialized soundlessly out of the shifting crowd. A prince of cats. “My compliments, Mrs. Rannoch. The evening was a triumph.”
“A triumph marred by tragedy.”
“That’s a bit strong, surely. Sad about Vaughn, but I understand he’s expected to recover.”
“It looks that way,” Malcolm said. “It’s too early to be sure.”
Radley regarded Malcolm. “Must have been difficult coming so close to killing your best friend in battle. One would have thought that sort of thing went out with Palamon and Arcite.”
“It was hell,” Malcolm said in an even voice. “Though as it turns out, someone tampered with Vaughn’s horse.”
“Good God. Plots within plots. Of all the men in the British delegation, Vaughn’s the last I’d have thought would have an unseen enemy. But then perhaps Vienna’s changed him.”
“Or perhaps he was an unwitting victim.”
“So many unanswered questions.” Radley turned to Suzanne. “But we can’t allow them to mar Mrs. Rannoch’s triumph. Would you honor me with a dance?”
Suzanne hesitated, gaze instinctively going to Malcolm. But Malcolm merely smiled and inclined his head. “By all means do, my dear. I need to speak to Count Nesselrode.”
There was nothing for it. She allowed Radley to lead her through an archway into the ballroom as a new waltz began. A smooth, gloved hand clasped her own as they stepped into the promenade that began the dance. Then his other arm encircled her waist. She could feel the warmth of his fingers on her back through the kid of his glove and the layers of her velvet gown and satin underdress and the corset and chemise beneath. Or perhaps the warmth came from memory.
“I always knew you had formidable talents,” Radley said, his breath stirring her hair. “But I confess I never envisioned you orchestrating a tournament.”
“Dorothée Périgord orchestrated it.”
“As I hear tell, you were a great help. The Comtesse de Périgord says so herself. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I always knew you were a consummate actress.” His gaze shifted over her face. “You still teach torches to burn bright.”
Bile rose up in her throat. Shakespeare was Malcolm’s code for talking to her. For Radley to use it seemed a desecration. “Rank flattery, Colonel.”
He swung her to the side. He led in the dance as he did in other things, with a casual assurance that his partner would follow. “Your husband’s an obliging fellow. If you were my wife, I don’t think I’d send you off so lightly to dance in another man’s arms.”
They were positioned facing in opposite directions. His hip-bone jutted against her own. “My dear Colonel, if you had a wife, I suspect you’d be so busy pursuing your latest flirtation that you wouldn’t have the least idea with whom she was dancing.”
“Touché. You know me well.” His smile still dazzled like diamonds in firelight. His arm settled with confidence across the front of her gown, where her fitted bodice met her full gathered skirts. “But then I expect your husband has his own interests as well. I understand he was very close to poor Princess Tatiana.”
“That seems to be the general impression.” She curved her arm across the braid and gold buttons of his coat.
He caught her free hand and drew it overhead, so their clasped arms made a half circle above them. “In fact I think the most warmth I’ve ever seen Malcolm Rannoch display was when he looked at the princess.”
Head turned to the side, she kept her gaze steady on his own as the dance required. “You saw them together in Spain?”
“Oh yes. Malcolm told you he knew Princess Tatiana in the Peninsula?”
“Of course,” she said, gaze locked with his own. “What I didn’t realize until recently was that you had known the princess there.” There was something between them, Dorothée had said, but not a love affair, even a past one.
Radley’s fingers tensed ever so slightly on her own. “Our paths crossed.”
“Princess Tatiana was working for British intelligence in the Peninsula.”
“Malcolm has told you a great deal, hasn’t he?” He spun her forward into his arms. “But of course intelligence missions were his business, not mine.”
“Yet you crossed paths with the princess.”
His eyes glinted down at her. “My dear Suzanne, are you jealous? I danced with her once or twice at regimental balls—she was using an alias, of course—but for what it’s worth she never shared my bed. As I said, Malcolm was the one who knew her.”
“They were friends.”
“Such an interesting word. In French you can’t tell whether it means friend or lover.”
“And yet lovers can just as easily be enemies.”
The tempo increased. Radley slid his arms round her, holding both her hands prisoner behind her back. “Relieved to have your husband off your hands? Or jealous? I can’t imagine you don’t feel at least a bit of pique.”
“Your imagination, Colonel, has its limits.”
“So that’s how the wind lies. It makes sense you’d take to a Continental marriage. Enjoy being able to cast your own eye about?” He spun her faster, circling after the other couples. “You know, I find myself deluged by memories.”
“So do I,” said Suzanne, in a tone that indicated the nature of those memories.
“My darling. I have no desire to
interfere with the agreeable life you’ve built for yourself.”
The words should have been comforting. But then she knew just how little she could rely on Radley’s word.
“But,” he continued, “I find I cannot contemplate another man’s ring on your finger without feeling my own twinge of—”
“Pique?”
He pulled her closer and looked straight down into her eyes. She felt the warmth of his breath on her skin. “Jealousy.”
Aline stared at Colonel Radley twirling Suzanne beneath his arm. Her foot came down on Geoffrey Blackwell’s toe. “Damnation.” She looked up at him. “Sorry.”
His mouth twitched. “I won’t tell your mother.”
“Mama could hardly complain about my using a word I learned from her. I think when she received billets-doux from three different lovers with her morning chocolate, all appointing rendezvous at the same ball. I meant sorry for treading on your toes.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“You’re a very kind man, Dr. Blackwell.”
“You’re clearer sighted than that, Aline. I have a reputation as a curmudgeon.”
“Which serves very well to get you out of things like squiring débutântes through dances. It’s kind of you to dance with me.”
“My dear girl. I don’t do it to be kind.”
“Chivalry lies in action more than words. And I don’t mean tilting with lances or throwing javelins at ghastly models of Saracen heads.” Aline cast a sideways glance down the circle of dancers. “I suspect you’re much more chivalrous than Colonel Radley.”
Dr. Blackwell followed the direction of her gaze. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she felt his fingers tighten for a moment on her hand. “I shouldn’t worry about Suzanne. She’s better equipped to look after herself than most soldiers of my acquaintance.”
“You don’t like Radley.”
Blackwell twirled her to the side and pulled her back to a very correct six inches away from him. He was a surprisingly good dancer. He made her quite forget about minding her steps. “Radley’s fearless on the battlefield. He lacks the imagination to really appreciate danger.”
“And?”
He grimaced. “His behavior toward the Spaniards didn’t help the reputation of the British army.”
She regarded him with the candor of Frances Dacre-Hammond’s daughter. “How many girls did he seduce?”
Blackwell’s mouth tightened. “Thank God I don’t know. He left at least two with child.”
“The Peninsula sounds very like Vienna.”
“Some things don’t change the world over.”
“Vienna rather does it to excess, though. The society here reminds me of Mama’s stories about Paris before the French Revolution.”
“A number of people at the Congress would like to turn the clock back to the ancien régime.”
“And the romantic intriguing goes along with the reactionary politics?” Aline glanced at the couples circling the dance floor, then looked up at Blackwell. She had known him her whole life, but he had never been part of the particular intrigues that her mother and so many of her mother’s friends indulged in. “You never really tried to play their games, did you?”
“Whose?”
“Mama and her set.”
“My dear Aline, I was hardly in that league.”
“Because you’re far too sensible.” She studied his familiar features. The intense eyes, the strong nose, the flexible mouth. Odd to think that he had once been her age and perhaps as bemused by her mother’s set as she was herself. “When I was seven I was passing round tea after dinner at one of Mama’s parties. I was horrid at passing tea, I always sloshed it into the cups. But I had to do it. Mama wouldn’t let me hide in the schoolroom or the library all the time. That day as I handed round the teacups, I heard one of the ladies say, ‘She takes after her mother, which is a mercy. No telling who her father is.’”
This time his arm definitely did tighten round her. “I’m sorry, Allie.”
“Don’t be.” She looked up at him with a laugh. “I didn’t really mind, even then. It explained the odd way Papa sometimes looked at me. It was vaguely interesting, but after a bit I gave up speculating on who my father might be and decided it really didn’t matter. As I grew older I was quite grateful for Papa’s benign neglect and the fact that Mama allowed me to be myself, though I think she often hasn’t the least idea what to make of me. But then I can’t imagine living a life like Mama or the Duchess of Sagan. It seems exhausting.”
“So I’ve always thought. Your mother says it means I lead a sadly dull life.”
“Yes, I don’t suppose Mama’s life is dull. Or that Aunt Arabella’s was.” Aline thought of Malcolm’s mother. For a moment she could see the restless glitter in Arabella Rannoch’s eyes and hear her brittle laugh. “But at least in Aunt Arabella’s case, it doesn’t seem to have made her very happy.”
Blackwell’s gaze clouded. Though Aline could never recall seeing him engage in the flirtation that was so common in her mother’s drawing room, she had a distant memory of seeing his gaze rest on her Aunt Arabella with startling tenderness. Even at the age of seven she’d felt a shock of surprise at the softness in his eyes. There was no mistaking the pain in his usually cool gaze now. “I don’t think much of anything made Arabella happy,” Blackwell said. “She spent her life looking for distraction. Not very comfortable for her children, I’m afraid.”
“I sometimes think that’s why Malcolm takes his responsibilities so seriously. Because neither of his parents was particularly responsible.” Aline saw her cousin’s stricken face as he knelt over Fitzwilliam Vaughn. “What happened to Lord Fitzwilliam—it could easily have been worse, couldn’t it?”
“Much.” Blackwell’s voice turned grim. “If he’d hit his head differently or landed on his neck. Or if the horse had struck him.”
Aline frowned at the top mother-of-pearl button on Blackwell’s waistcoat. “Malcolm would never have forgiven himself. I’m afraid he’s going to have a hard time forgiving himself as it is.”
Eithne met Suzanne and Malcolm at the door of her and Fitz’s bedchamber when they returned from the ball, wrapped in a dressing gown, hair tumbling down her back. “He’s sleeping. Dr. Blackwell just looked in. He says Fitz’s breathing and pulse are good. And Fitz hasn’t reported any headache.”
Despite the shadows of fatigue on her face, the tension was gone from about her mouth, and her eyes had a glow that Suzanne hadn’t seen of late.
Malcolm pressed Eithne’s hand. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it. You will try to sleep yourself? You’ll be little good to Fitz if you drop from exhaustion.”
Eithne smiled. “I think I’m actually calm enough I might manage to.”
Suzanne hugged her friend. “Wake me if you need anything. Even just the reassurance of someone to talk to.”
“Malcolm,” Eithne said, as they started to move off.
Malcolm turned back to her. “You’ll find who did this?” Eithne asked. “Tampered with Fitz’s horse?”
“I’ll make every effort to do so.”
She nodded. “Whoever was riding against him would have knocked him from his horse, you know.”
“It’s kind of you to say so, Eithne. But the devil of it is, I can’t help replaying every moment of the joust. I’m only glad no permanent harm was done.”
Suzanne and Malcolm went down the passage to their own bedchamber in silence. At last Malcolm was able to pull Tatiana’s note from his shirt cuff. Suzanne lit the tapers on the escritoire, and he spread the note on its polished surface. Block capitals, all run together with no spaces between words.
“Get the Shakespeare, will you?” Malcolm said. “Hamlet, Act I, scene iii.”
Suzanne took the leather-bound volume from a shelf against the wall. Shakespeare was one of the first things she and Malcolm had shared. It shouldn’t be surprising that he had shared the Bard with Princess Tatiana as well. With determinatio
n she opened the book to the appropriate scene and perched on the edge of the escritoire while he took a sheet of writing paper from a drawer, dipped a pen in the inkpot, and began to write, stopping every so often to refer to the page of Shakespeare that held the key to the code. He had Aline’s gift for numbers and patterns, a gift inherited from his mother.
Malcolm,
I hope you never receive this. I hope I can give you the information myself. But I am learning caution. I found a fragment of paper in the grate after my reception the night before last. In code. From what I could decipher, it referred to a plot. No clue to who the plotters were or whom they plotted against, but it was clear the substance of their plot was assassination. Of a person of importance. I also found the name of the Empress Rose tavern. I visited it and determined that a group of foreign gentlemen have been meeting there. I still don’t know their nationality or whom they plot against. But I have every expectation that I will have more information for you by the time I see you. In the event that I don’t, you will at least know what I know.
Always,
T.
24
For a moment, both Malcolm and Suzanne sat absolutely still. The smell of fresh ink hung in the air. In the circle of light cast by the single taper, the black letters glistened on the cream laid paper. Malcolm’s handwriting bringing Tatiana Kirsanova back to life. Simple words that changed everything.
Suzanne stared down at her husband. The candlelight turned him into a creature of shadows, sharpened the lines of his face, caught the weight of horror in his gaze. He ran his finger over the still-damp ink. “Oh, Tania. You always had a knack for sniffing out the worst dangers. What a damnable time for me to have been gone from Vienna.”
Suzanne touched her husband’s shoulder. “Even if you’d been here, even if she’d been able to tell you this in person, there’s no guarantee you’d have been able to prevent her murder.”
His muscles tensed beneath her touch, but he didn’t pull away as she half expected him to do. “Perhaps not. We’ll never know. In any case, there’s nothing to be done about it now.” His voice was clipped and matter-of-fact. His gaze said he would never stop wondering.
