Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  All that the British ambassadors needed now was a hint of direction as to which Continental nation should be the proper recipient of their financial support.

  Giving in to temptation, Francis finally let himself turn to the dance floor and rest his eyes on Lady Wyndham’s graceful figure as he worked.

  “There’s really no point asking me about such matters,” he said to Alexander. “Metternich makes all of those decisions, you know. I take no personal interest in politics.”

  He coughed slightly, lowering his voice so that Alexander and Friedrich Wilhelm both had to lean toward him to listen. “But I should perhaps tell you, for our friendship’s sake,” he murmured to Alexander, “what the French foreign minister said of your armies’ showing in the field this morning …”

  Francis bit back a smile of deep satisfaction as the tsar’s face turned purple with rage, and the Polish scheme was forgotten for an entire evening.

  Caroline fought down the urge to scream. From the corner of her vision, she could see the emperor watching them across the crowd. She schooled her features into smooth placidity and spoke in a strained whisper.

  “Now you have me?” she repeated. “What, precisely, is that supposed to mean?”

  “What do you think?” Michael grinned down at her. “Come now,” he said. “You were always the cleverest girl I knew. Don’t you remember how we outwitted that sweetshop owner together? We made a perfect partnership.”

  As a young girl, Caroline remembered, she’d found that grin dazzlingly attractive and his overwhelming confidence addictive. But now …

  Well, he was still attractive, unfortunately. His eyes were the same warm hazel she remembered, and even the new specks of silver in his thick brown hair were not unappealing. His soft, youthful good looks had hardened into a strong, lean handsomeness that might even have been compelling, mingled with the sharp intelligence and humor in his face—if she hadn’t felt so tempted to kick him.

  Kick him?

  Caroline gritted her teeth at the recognition of her own weakness. Only a few minutes with her father’s old apprentice, and she had already regressed into rowdy adolescence. It was exactly what he’d intended with his oh-so-innocent childhood references.

  She didn’t only want to kick him. She wanted to kick him hard.

  Caroline took a deep breath and released it without answering him. Calm, she told herself. She was five-and-thirty now, not a gape-struck eleven-year-old. She knew perfectly well how to manage a grown man, no matter how enraging or unreasonable he might be.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured. “I was so surprised, I fear I forgot my manners for a moment.” She relaxed into his embrace, releasing the tension in her spine that had held her distant. “Truly, I am glad to see you again.” She smiled warmly at him. “Michael.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And I am delighted to hear it—but my name is Stefan, now. Caroline.”

  “Of course.” She set her teeth but held her smile. “We must talk more, one day, about the past.”

  Only in a thousand years, when her corpse was long-rotted, would Caroline ever consent to discuss her past with anyone, much less with Michael Steinhüller. Michael’s murmur of assent, though, was her reward for the small gambit.

  Emboldened, she continued, “My late husband left me a great estate in Sussex. Perhaps, once this tiresome Congress is ended, you might visit me there?” She lowered her eyes demurely. “We have so much to talk about, after all.”

  “And, fortunately, we have absolutely no need to wait.” Michael gathered her close as they turned, and he whispered, his breath warm on her face: “Believe me when I say I am not complaining, but you needn’t waste your charms on me, Lady Wyndham. I’m far too old a hand to be moved by them—and I am fairly certain you’re alarming the poor emperor.”

  Caroline jerked away from him. For the first time in years, she felt her cheeks flame with humiliation. “Why, you—”

  “No, no, don’t apologize!” He pulled her smoothly back into his arms. “I was impressed, I assure you. But you don’t want to waste all the effort you spent on your last partner, do you? You wouldn’t want the emperor to think you found any other poor fool attractive.”

  Caroline gritted her teeth. “Trust me, I do not.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he said cheerfully. “So let’s abandon the usual nonsense and be honest with each other, shall we? I don’t know what game you’re playing now, but—”

  “I am playing no games.” She glared at him. “Unlike you, I have every right to be here! And—”

  “Which is, of course, why the emperor knows all about your past and who you truly are?” He smiled down blandly as she simmered. “As I said … I have no desire to interfere with your schemes. In fact, I wish you the best of luck with them. Just as I’m sure you have only the warmest feelings toward mine. Yes?”

  “Mm,” Caroline said noncommittally.

  “Don’t you? Well, at least you are far too wise a woman to choose to injure me in mine.” His smile hardened as he swept her through another wide turn. “Especially as it would suit neither of us for me to become … forgetful … about which name to call you. And to whom.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “Are you by any chance daring to threaten me?”

  His eyes glittered dangerously in the candlelight. “Why should I? We can help each other. Whatever it is you want from the emperor, I’d be delighted to assist you in gaining it. And you—”

  “I have no desire to assist you in anything,” she snarled. “Do not even consider asking me for help. Not tonight, and not ever!”

  “No?” His eyebrows rose, and he blinked. “That is unkind. After all these years, aren’t you even a little bit pleased to see me again?” He shook his head. “Don’t you have any loyalty left from childhood? Any—”

  “Loyalty?” Caroline stared at him. “You? Speaking of loyalty?”

  “And why not?” For the first time, he looked truly shaken. “Do you feel so little for the past? The girl I knew … Are you so arrogant that now you’ve reached the top, you haven’t even any sympathy for those of us without your luck?”

  “My luck?” Caroline spat the word. “If you had any idea what you were talking about …”

  “Then enlighten me!” he snapped. “The last time we saw one another, we were good friends. I was genuinely glad to find you alive and well, whether you choose to believe that or not. And now …”

  “I found out precisely what your friendship and sense of loyalty were worth twenty-four years ago,” Caroline said, enunciating every word with sharp precision. “Do not insult my intelligence by pretending any claim on that score.”

  The waltz drew to a close. Michael’s face shut against her, turning hard and cold.

  “I did what I had to do, that night,” he said, as they came to a halt at the edge of the dance floor. “Would you pretend you’ve never been forced to make a painful choice?”

  “A painful …?” Caroline shut her mouth, swallowing the venom that wanted to rise out of her. The shriek.

  I saw you! she wanted to scream. Through the flames! I was so relieved. I thought you would save us …

  It had taken her years afterward to finally understand.

  Michael had always treated her with the careless affection of an older brother, but Karolina, by the time she was eleven years old … Caroline cringed now at the memories. She had adored him completely.

  She had learned a valuable lesson that night. Yet she found that the pain was still fresh at hand when confronted with her first teacher.

  “Save your speeches,” Caroline said, through a tight throat, as she stepped out of his embrace. All around them, couples separated and dissolved into the shifting crowd. “I preferred it when you spoke of honest blackmail.”

  “Well, then.” His voice was clipped and soft as he leaned forward. To an outsider, it might have looked as if he were whispering endearments into her ear. “I need your patronage and your social acceptance. I wis
h to be introduced as your old friend. And at the moment, I also urgently need a room to stay in.”

  At that, she almost laughed. “You couldn’t possibly stay with me! I’m a widow.”

  “And a dashing one at that.” His smile held no humor. “Where does your secretary stay? A separate apartment beneath your own, am I not correct? I’ve made some enquiries, you see.”

  Caroline gritted her teeth. “My secretary is an entirely different matter.”

  “Quite. Unlike him, I’ll be out of your vicinity as soon as I can, for both of our sakes. You’ll hardly even know I was there.”

  “Until you’re exposed and ruin both of us.”

  “Caro!” Marie’s voice rang out behind Caroline with practiced pleasure. “My goodness, I’ve come across you again in this crush. What a delightful coincidence!” She regarded them both with bright surmise as Caroline took a too-hasty step away from Michael. “May I be introduced to your friend?”

  Caroline swallowed bitterness and gave an equally false smile in return. “But of course. Marie, Lady Rothmere, may I introduce Prince Kalishnikoff?” She pronounced the name with venomously dramatic rolling accents. “My very old friend,” she added.

  “Very old indeed,” Michael murmured.

  The satisfaction in his voice was almost too much for her to bear.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Michael woke to the sound of soft footsteps approaching. Automatically, he tensed, fisting his hands beneath his covers. He slitted his eyes barely open …

  Oh. A figure in a lace cap and apron passed through his narrow line of vision, and Michael relaxed. He almost laughed out loud in relief.

  A maidservant. Come to pull open his curtains, set a newspaper and breakfast within his reach, and possibly even—? Yes. Michael heard the rich, comforting crackle of a fire being lit in the woodstove across the room. Luxury, indeed, to match the deep, soft mattress he lay upon and the silk sheets that surrounded him.

  Feigning sleep, he waited until the door had closed behind the girl before opening his eyes. Alone, he pushed himself up in bed to survey the room for the first time in full light.

  Wallpaper in shining green and gold covered the high walls. Here in the crowded center of Vienna, rooms in even such a richly appointed house as this were forced into narrow proportions, but the high, gilded ceiling gave a false impression of space. A silhouette of the Duke of Wellington hung above the washstand, beside the zebra-wood secretaire; Michael’s lips twitched as he looked at the iconic picture. Karolina—no, he should keep to the rules of the game and call her Caroline now, even in private—was playing the part of a loyal Englishwoman all too well.

  The tall clock in the far corner of the room set the time at eleven o’clock. Michael tugged the bell cord and swung his legs out of bed, luxuriating in the comfort. No flea-infested inn mattress this time. He swiped a fresh, crescent-shaped Kipferl from the breakfast tray and licked its golden crumbs off his hands as he waited for a servant to arrive. A bath—yes, he’d take a long, hot bath to refresh and prepare himself for the day, and then … why, then, there would be no socially acceptable option but to pay a courtesy call upon his hostess and old friend in the apartment upstairs.

  The shadow of last night’s anger intruded, darkening his glow of well-being as he remembered.

  “I found out precisely what your friendship and sense of loyalty were worth twenty-four years ago.”

  Had she really thought that of him, all these years? Even as he’d looked back on her as one of only two people who’d truly known him in his life, two people whose opinions had meant everything to him for that brief, halcyon period when they’d given him his first and last true home … and she’d thought of him with bitterness, as an enemy, all the while?

  Michael leaped to his feet, driven by sudden restlessness. The look in her eyes as she’d accused him with the unmistakable sincerity of long-held, simmering rage …

  He didn’t know how to shrug aside rage from Karolina. All the armor he’d built over the years had been inexplicably pierced at her first blow. “You, speaking of loyalty?”

  He’d been drawn into saying far more than he’d meant in the way of threats, in return. Oh, it made little difference in the end—she must know, quite as well as he, how impossible it would be for him to ever reveal her true identity without hopelessly exposing his own—but still, the whole experience left a sour taste in his mouth.

  And her accusations …

  They were, of course, ridiculous. If Michael hadn’t been so taken aback, he could have argued and debated her into rationality.

  “I was fourteen years old. What did you expect of me, against the full force of the secret police? What else could I possibly have done?”

  Perhaps he might even have persuaded her. But he had been angry and surprised, and the force of her words had slammed directly into the one weak spot he’d never manage to shield, in all these years.

  For once, his wits had failed him.

  Michael paced the narrow room, battling down his emotions with the tools he’d mastered over decades. What did it matter if the adult Caroline had taken a dislike to him? He’d made a career of charming distrustful strangers in the worst of circumstances. He could certainly work this game to his own advantage, whether Caroline chose to cling onto irrational past grudges or not.

  But the knowledge of her anger pricked at him, more unnerving than any mere setback in a game. The wrongness of it was a nearly physical irritation. He let out a sigh of sheer frustration. Karolina had been almost a sister to him in childhood. Caroline should not be an enemy now.

  A respectful knock sounded on the door—a servant responding to his summons.

  “Come in,” Michael called. Tension drained out of his shoulders as he relaxed.

  Thank God for well-timed distractions from useless feelings.

  An hour later, his hair still damp from the bathwater and his shaven cheeks freshened with lavender water, he finally started for the door. His cravat was freshly tied, its creases carefully hidden, and yesterday’s clothes looked as impeccable as he could make them with the aid of an unsmiling but respectful footman-turned-valet.

  Later, he would visit a tailor to replenish his royal wardrobe, but for now, Prince Kalishnikoff was ready for the day … and it was time to confront his gracious hostess.

  Michael opened his bedroom door and stepped into the narrow corridor just as the opposite door opened. Caroline’s English secretary stepped out, tucking a book into his light brown jacket.

  “Sir.” Michael nodded slightly, with distant courtesy. Prince Kalishnikoff would do no more.

  “Your … Highness.” The younger man regarded him coolly for a long moment before he bowed. “I am honored.”

  Michael stilled, brought up short by the look in the man’s eye. He calculated rapidly and settled on a thin smile. “I don’t believe I know your name, sir.”

  “Charles Weston. Secretary to Lady Wyndham. We met yesterday afternoon, you may recall, when you approached me to ask my employer’s name.” Weston raised his eyebrows. “I take it that you were acquainted with Lady Wyndham, after all?”

  “You assume correctly.” Michael darkened his voice with a rolling Eastern burr—Prince Kalishnikoff’s underlying accent creeping through, in the height of offence. “Is it customary for servants in England to make such assumptions about their employers’ guests, Mr. Weston?”

  A flush rose behind Weston’s pale skin. “Not customary, perhaps, Your Highness. But only to be expected in odd circumstances.”

  Michael narrowed his eyes. “And do you consider these circumstances to be odd, Mr. Weston?”

  “I, sir? How could I? After all …” The secretary’s voice was bland as butter. “You have only just informed me that it would be impertinent.”

  Michael glared at him with regal hauteur. “I must go and make my duty to my hostess. I am certain you must have duties of your own to perform elsewhere, Mr. Weston.”

  “Naturally,” sai
d the secretary. “Lady Wyndham expects me to wait upon her at this hour.” He smiled tightly. “I will show you the way to her apartments.”

  By the time the clocks in her drawing room struck noon, Caroline had been sitting surrounded by unread newspapers, letters, and notes of invitation for over an hour. All of them were of pressing importance and would have to be dealt with that day. Normally, she would have worked her way through the entire pile in less than forty minutes. Today, she found herself completely unable to focus on any of them.

  All that she saw, when she looked at the words, was Michael Steinhüller’s familiar-unfamiliar adult face inches away from hers. When she closed her eyes, she felt his arms around her again, leading her through the dance. Worse, she heard his maddeningly confident voice in her ears, speaking without an ounce of guilt.

  “Would you pretend you’ve never been forced to make a painful choice?”

  The quill pen snapped in her right hand. Caroline released it with a gasp and let the two pieces fall onto the desk before her. Damn him. The situation was impossible. And now, as she worked—or attempted to work—he was only one floor beneath her. Perhaps directly below her feet. The knowledge felt like an itch flaming just beneath her skin, filling her with restless, turbulent energy that wouldn’t allow her to settle into any task.

  Michael Steinhüller was in her building.

  She had been the elegant Caroline, Countess of Wyndham, for so many years. But it was Karolina Vogl, unruly and prickling beneath her skin, who couldn’t stop listening for his step now.

  By the time Caroline finally heard a knock on the outer door of her apartment, it came as nothing but relief. Just as well. She took a deep breath and released it, smoothing an expression of fashionable boredom onto her face.

  Far better to see Michael in this sunlit room and be done with it than to waste another hour or more in useless anticipation.

  This time, she would not be taken off guard. And this time, he would not walk away the winner.