Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  “Your Highness, how delightful—and Talleyrand, my old friend …” The prince smiled and crossed the room to take their hands. His gaze was searching. “It is a great pleasure to see you both, of course. But did I not see your carriage pull away some time ago?” he asked Talleyrand.

  Talleyrand returned his smile. “Your eyesight is as keen as ever, my friend.”

  “I like to think so, certainly.”

  The French foreign minister raised his eyebrows in polite rebuke. “His Highness Prince Kalishnikoff was kind enough to accompany me on a stroll around your charming neighborhood. I’d spent too much of today in overheated salons and found that I wanted a bit of fresh air before I ate. Do you mind?”

  “Well, you may be certain to find fresh air here, for my butler tells me two new leaks have opened in the roof only today.” The prince laughed and turned to Michael. “I trust His Excellency has been a useful guide around the neighborhood? Not only to the buildings but to the schemes buzzing about the Viennese air? I’ve always thought he knew far more about—well, really, why limit myself to speaking only of Vienna? I’m sure our friend here knows more about everything, everywhere, than we any of us suspect.” A warning note sounded in the prince’s voice.

  “Come now,” Talleyrand said genially. “Why so wary, De Ligne? I’ve always been your friend, you know. Are you surprised that I’ve cultivated public caution? Only consider, I had to live under Bonaparte’s daily suspicion for the last seven full years of his reign.”

  “Did he truly suspect you for seven years, when he’d known you so intimately for so long? How very curious.” De Ligne shook his head. “I’ve suspected you far, far longer than that, my friend.” For a moment, his voice sounded pure steel. Then his smile broadened, as he finished, “If you weren’t so clever, after all, you’d be far less charming a companion. Come in, do, and admire our excellent fire. Picturesque, is it not? I always think a fire should look well, even if it has no effect beyond the aesthetic.”

  “What other effect could ever be preferable?” Talleyrand replied lightly.

  With a nod, he slipped past his host to take a seat beside one of De Ligne’s daughters. As he passed Metternich, the two ministers exchanged honeyed smiles.

  Michael turned back to De Ligne and saw the older man’s face alight with interest.

  “Excellent,” De Ligne murmured, beneath his breath. “Between you and Lady Wyndham, you are stirring up our little society, are you not? Ripples and more ripples …” His eyes met Michael’s with disconcertingly clear understanding. “I take it that my old friend Talleyrand will now treat you for the rest of the evening as a very casual new acquaintance, of no consequence to him whatsoever?”

  “I … can hardly speak for His Excellency, Your Highness.”

  “I understand.” De Ligne grinned boyishly. “I believe I’d better introduce you next to our own distinguished foreign minister, don’t you? I am finding this more and more diverting.” He paused, though, even as he took the first step. “Was not Lady Wyndham coming with you, though? I thought, as you two are such old friends, you might well share a carriage—”

  “Alas,” Michael said, “she asked me to pass on her sincere regrets, but she had already formed a prior engagement.”

  “A pity. She has a sharp wit indeed—I would have liked to hear her use it on our company tonight.”

  “Mm,” Michael murmured politely.

  A twinge struck him, unexpectedly, at the thought. As he’d left the house, he’d witnessed Caroline’s servants leaving as well. Preoccupied with his own concerns, when Michael had looked back through the carriage windows and seen the stream of exiting servants behind him, he’d noted the oddity without taking the time to think about it. All his wits had been marshaled in preparation for the evening ahead, practicing verbal maneuvers, parries, and defenses.

  And yet … now that he did come to think on it, it was more than odd. Caroline herself had not left the house before him, he was certain of that. Why send away her servants, then? Without a maid, no fashionable lady could prepare herself for an evening out. Without a butler, no visitors could even be ushered in. What appointment could she possibly fulfill?

  She’d seemed so distressed—no, more than that, distraught—that afternoon on the stairwell. “If you only knew what it had led to,” she’d begun, and never explained herself.

  If something were truly amiss, even now, and he had left her alone to face the consequences …

  “Your Highness?” The Prince de Ligne was frowning at him, as he gestured for Michael to precede him to the circle of seats.

  “Your pardon, sir. I fear I was woolgathering.” Michael cut off his misgivings with an irritable snap.

  If Caroline were in trouble—if—she could have told him. He had asked, after all. He’d done his best, and she had hardly welcomed his concern. If he went racing home now to confirm her safety, she would doubtless find some fresh insult in his action. Why should he feel such irrational childhood loyalty to her when she so clearly felt nothing for him anymore apart from the purest dislike?

  And to consider abandoning this golden opportunity to trade jests and companionship with the men who held his future in his hands, only for some paltry qualm …

  Guilt gnawed at Michael with the memory of her anguished voice. He banished it, like the rest of his past.

  “Please,” he said to the Prince de Ligne, and smiled. “Introduce me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  There were some mornings, Caroline reflected, when her bed—hers alone, singular and private, buried in thick coverings, with a warming pan at her feet and a fire in the wood stove across the room—seemed the only safe place in the world to be. Mornings when the thought of facing other people, shadowed by her memories of the night before, seemed more effort than she could bear.

  Unfortunately, this particular morning she had an early appointment. Groaning, she forced herself up. By nine o’clock, equipped with her public armor of clothes, coiffeur, and careful cosmetics, she was as prepared as she could be for the day ahead … and already well into her second pot of strong English tea.

  “God, God, God, Lady Wyndham! Why, oh why, did you hire a third-floor apartment?” The Prince de Ligne collapsed dramatically onto a chair as Caroline’s butler closed the drawing room door behind him. The prince’s blue eyes sparkled with pleasure even as he waved his hat before his face in exaggerated distress. “Have you no pity for a weak old man’s bones?”

  “I’ll summon up pity if you’ll show me in return a weak old man.” Caroline eyed the prince’s bright eyes and unlined face with a mixture of amusement and envy. “Your Highness, have you once had a proper night’s sleep since this Congress began?”

  “Sleep? What use would sleeping be when the fate of Europe is being decided all around us? Do use your wits, dear lady. Do you think I’d desire any rest at a time like this?”

  “I suppose not,” Caroline murmured. She restrained herself, with Herculean effort, from yawning.

  The unnatural strength and energy that had flooded her the night before had taken their own toll in a buzzing alertness that had kept her awake until dawn … awake, wide-eyed, and full of sharpened wits to contemplate all the dire possibilities that might result from her mistake. Each time she’d forced herself to shut her eyes, though, and close her mind to the teaming worries that plagued her, something worse had taken their place.

  The memory of another presence within her, using her—feeding through her …

  Caroline quelled the sickening lurch of memory and forced herself to focus. It might well be the ungodly hour of nine in the morning—an hour most of Europe’s aristocratic circle knew only through rumor, rather than by personal acquaintance—and she might have had fewer than three hours of sleep, but there was still no excuse to let her wits wander in company.

  Not when she had such an opportunity before her.

  “May I offer you refreshments, Your Highness?” she asked. “Or would you prefer to begi
n our journey without delay?”

  “Let us say … with very little delay?” De Ligne cocked his head. “I think—ah, yes, I do hear footsteps in the distance.”

  “Your Highness?” Caroline straightened, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve invited Prince Kalishnikoff to join us, my dear. We’ll have to be a cozy group indeed to fit within my small carriage, but I knew you wouldn’t object for such an old friend.”

  Caroline’s jaw tightened, but her smile remained. “Indeed,” she said, with brittle cheer. “How could I?”

  “A charming fellow. He reminds me of myself, when I was younger.” A reminiscent smile tugged at the prince’s lips as footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. “Ah, to be that age again and full of wit and fire. When I recall some of my own exploits …”

  “All of them shocking, I am sure.”

  “Why, Lady Wyndham.” The smile turned into a smirk. “Could you doubt it?”

  The drawing room door opened, and Michael stepped into the drawing room. “Your Highness! Lady Wyndham.” He bowed sweepingly. “I told your butler I didn’t require any announcement. And how do I find you both this morning?”

  Michael, Caroline saw with disfavor, looked quite as lively as the prince himself, despite the fact that he hadn’t returned to the building until the early hours of the morning. Caroline had had to expand her usual minimal touches of makeup in order to disguise the purple shadows beneath her eyes; Michael looked positively well rested and glowing with energy as he flung himself down onto the sofa beside her. She could actually feel his vibrant heat prickling against her skin through the air that separated them, irritating all her senses … and bringing them to tingling alertness.

  She forced herself to ignore the sensation. “I trust you both enjoyed your evening last night?” she asked. “I did regret that I couldn’t come.”

  “It was astonishing to witness. ‘A school for conversation,’ as Monsieur le Baron de Talleyrand rightly called it.” Michael raised his hand in a mock salute to the prince. “I believe you took the honors, though, Your Highness. There was some close cross-and-jostle work near the end between a few of the French diplomats and that Prussian countess—oh, yes, and Prince Metternich made a good point or two—but they all retired with honors when you hit them with that final epigram. I was afraid Talleyrand might suffocate from laughing too hard.”

  “Prince Metternich,” Caroline repeated faintly. “Did you share much conversation with him, Prince Kalishnikoff?”

  “Why do you ask, my lady?” Michael’s eyes widened in mock innocence. “Should I have passed on a personal message from you, perhaps?”

  Caroline bit back a sharp retort as she recognized the mischief in his face. Curse him, he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  The more he mingled with the head of Austrian foreign policy, the more likely he was to become the object of study by the Austrian secret police. And Caroline, as his publicly acknowledged old friend and landlady …

  “Our friend here made quite an impression on the assembled company,” De Ligne said. “Although perhaps most strongly with the French side of the diplomatic contingent. I can hardly wait to find out exactly what you and my old friend Talleyrand were scheming about last night, Your Highness.”

  “Nor can I,” Caroline said grimly. “Do tell me, when you can. I’m sure I would find it … intriguing, to say the least.”

  “I am at your service, of course,” said Michael. He turned to her, his hazel eyes glinting. “Do feel free to join in my scheming any time.”

  Caroline stood up, shaking out her skirts with a twitch. “Shall we start out, gentlemen?”

  “An excellent idea,” Michael said affably. “May I escort you, my lady?”

  As the prince walked ahead of them, winking roguishly at the maidservants and exchanging pleasantries with the butler, Michael drew Caroline’s hand around his curved arm. He held her back slightly until the prince was a safe distance ahead, then breathed his words into her ear as they walked.

  “I wouldn’t tease you so often if you weren’t so easily provoked, you know.”

  Caroline sighed pointedly. “What a comfort that is to know. Indeed, how kind you are to mention it, Prince Kalishnikoff.”

  “I certainly thought so, myself.” He grinned as she glared at him. “You see? Easy.”

  His breath was warm against her cheek as he leaned over her, helping her with scrupulous care into her tight, red Spencer jacket. As she closed the first button of the jacket, she looked up and met his gaze, startlingly close. Close and …

  Caroline stepped back. Irritatingly, she found herself breathing quickly.

  Stupid. Stupid and beyond stupid.

  But the expression that she’d surprised on his face, warm and intent …

  “You needn’t overplay your part,” she whispered tightly. “I’m not a fool.”

  Michael stepped back, his expression closing against her. “Oddly enough, I never thought so.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “But I suppose you won’t believe that, either.”

  He waited in rigid silence as she finished. Her hands trembled on the buttons.

  It was only exhaustion that made her muscles weak. Made her weak.

  For just a moment, though—before her wits had stepped in to save her …

  Caroline lifted her chin and took his arm. The prince was waiting for them at the doorway, his expression alert and dangerously curious. Caroline fixed a smile on her face.

  “I’m ready now,” she lied.

  It was a squeeze, as the prince had warned, particularly as the carriage had been crammed full of wrapped parcels. Caroline exercised all the control of posture that she’d learned in her first years of marriage to hold herself ramrod straight on the seat. Still, her arm brushed against Michael’s at every bump in the road, and she found herself irrepressibly aware of his warmth radiating through the half inch that separated them. With every accidental touch, a disconcerting jolt of energy sparked against her skin.

  What was it about him that set her nerves so on edge? She’d handled the emperor himself well enough, for all her fears. Compared to the threat presented by Emperor Francis and his minister of secret police, Michael Steinhüller, for all his dangerous knowledge of her past, was still only an exasperation. A cocky, far-too-sure-of-himself exasperation. And even his threats that first night …

  She sighed, sliding a secret glance up at him. He was listening to the prince with a genuine smile on his lean face, his hazel eyes narrowing with amusement.

  Under pressure, she had panicked, but now—too late—she could see the bluff for what it had been.

  Michael couldn’t turn her identity over to the police or to anyone else without giving up his own disguise … and it had been an empty threat from the very beginning. Truthfully, she didn’t believe that he would ever give her secrets to her enemies only to hurt her. Provoking though he might be, she couldn’t imagine any shred of real malice in him, even now.

  No, the real and waiting danger lay not in any intentional betrayal but in Michael’s own exposure. This mad game he was playing couldn’t last forever, no matter what he thought. And once his masquerade was shattered …

  She couldn’t count on him, she knew that much. He had proven it all those years ago. She knew better than to believe a word of friendship or loyalty that came from his lips now, no matter how much some secret, long-buried part of her wanted to break free and rise to them—to believe that, for the first time in decades, she might not be truly alone anymore.

  But Michael Steinhüller’s friendship only went so far. The moment any true danger arose, he would fly away to safety without a single regret, exactly as he had the last time she had trusted him.

  Still, sitting next to him now, listening to his laughing voice trading stories with the prince, and feeling his arm brush against hers with easy familiarity, she found herself as fidgety as a cat.

  The carriage veered sharply to the left to avoid an erratic o
ncoming mail coach. Caroline lurched off-balance, into Michael’s side.

  “Careful.” He helped her sit upright, his hand warm on her arm.

  “Do forgive me.” She smoothed down the striped skirts of her walking dress, biting her lip with irritation.

  The prince sat across from them with his arm laid protectively across a large wrapped package.

  “A special gift, Your Highness?” Caroline nodded at the package, glad for a distraction from her thoughts.

  “I hope so.” De Ligne’s lips quirked. “The other parcels all come from my esteemed wife, not from myself. Lace collars, little knick-knacks … She feels a grandmotherly tenderness for the boy, I believe—or, at least, for the romantic idea of him. This gift alone I chose myself. I think you’ll find that it’s appropriate.”

  “Appropriate?” Caroline murmured. She eyed the bulky package speculatively as she considered the question.

  What exactly would be an appropriate gift for the former king of Rome? The three-year-old boy to whom Napoleon Bonaparte had tried to pass on his empire through abdication, before the Allies—combined with his own betraying marshals—had forced him to abandon all hope and give over everything to the returning Bourbons … The boy who had gone from being a doted-upon king and the heir to an emperor to losing all of his titles, all of his potential … and all of his hope.

  Caroline had heard that the original plan, as agreed with Bonaparte as a prime condition of his abdication, was for the young boy and his mother to join the former conqueror of Europe on Elba with all speed. Bonaparte had sailed in expectation not only of a generous fixed income—which Caroline doubted he would ever see—but of a speedy family reunion, too.

  Now that Emperor Francis had regained control over his daughter and his politically provocative grandson, however …

  The carriage drove between two great pillars, each topped by an avaricious double-headed eagle, the symbol of thrusting Habsburg power. As Schönbrunn Palace spread out in golden splendor before them, Caroline measured its capacity … as a prison.