He felt the Prince de Ligne’s watchful eyes upon him, waiting for a reaction or explanation, but for once Michael’s brain refused to conjure up an appropriately light remark. All he could think of was the unpalatable truth that faced him.
He had to escape now, without delay, or else prepare to give himself up to the emperor’s secret police.
Caroline focused on keeping her fingers relaxed and still on the emperor’s arm as they crossed the Great Hall. When she slid a sidelong look up at his face, she saw his blue eyes hooded and his face unapproachable. She made no attempt at small talk, and neither did he.
If she turned, now—if she begged a sudden sick headache, a nervous indisposition—she could still escape and signal Michael. Within half an hour, at most, they would be together in her carriage. An hour later, and they’d be safe outside Vienna’s city walls, and then—
Caroline took a firm grip on her rebellious nerves. She had been preparing for this moment for years. She would not shame herself or her father now by failure.
They reached a closed door flanked by expressionless footmen. At the emperor’s nod, the door swung open.
“Your Ladyship?” The emperor gestured her forward.
Caroline lifted her chin and swept through the door.
She found herself in a narrow corridor, wide enough only for one person and lit by a single wall bracket of candles. Six feet ahead of them, the corridor curved sharply, hiding the end from view.
“Your Majesty?” Caroline kept her voice light and questioning.
“My apologies for the inconvenience,” the emperor murmured. “This is a passageway particularly designed to give access to a private meeting chamber, separate from my public gatherings.” His lips twitched. “You might be surprised by some of the meetings I’ve held here, while dances and banquets took place in the hall outside.”
“I’m sure I would.” Still, Caroline hesitated. If only she could see the end of the corridor …
“Well?” The emperor shrugged. “It was my understanding that you desired a private conference. I do have a fair number of duties to attend to, though, if you’ve changed your mind.”
“No,” Caroline said. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
She walked forward at a steady pace. Five steps, six, seven …
She turned the corner.
Five more feet of narrow corridor ran ahead of her, ending in a closed door.
“Do step through,” said the emperor, behind her. “I’m afraid there are no servants to open doors for us here. I prefer to keep my private meetings as secure as possible.”
“I understand.” The door handle felt cool and smooth in Caroline’s hands. She took a deep breath and opened it.
The small, octagonal room was empty. Caroline let out her held breath and stepped inside, onto a floor tiled in black and white. Ornately detailed Japanese panels lined the walls. A single settee of black velvet sat against one wall, supported by rosewood carved into muscular lion’s legs; across from it, a lacquered table held a decanter of red wine, two glasses, and a long bracket of candles. Only one of the candles was lit; the emperor crossed the room to light the rest, working quickly.
Caroline looked past him to the two empty glasses. “You were expecting me.”
“I had hoped to have your company tonight, I must confess. Of course, I really ought to be doing my duties as a host outside, rather than attending to my own private pleasures. But after such a flattering request …” The emperor turned, smiling, and lifted the decanter. “How could I refuse?”
“I’m glad.” Caroline waited while he poured out two glasses.
A cool breeze stirred the back of her neck. She jerked around.
She saw only lacquered black panels on the wall before her. No fireplace warmed this room or let in air from the outside.
So where had the breeze come from?
“Lady Wyndham?”
She turned back to the emperor. Deep red wine swirled in the crystal glass he offered her. Caroline accepted it with a forced smile.
“Excuse me, your Majesty. I was only admiring your panels.”
“Mm.” His lips twitched. “I am fond of them myself.” He raised his own glass. “To your health.”
“And yours,” Caroline murmured. She lifted her glass to her mouth.
Peter charged through the crowd.
He’d made a mistake, challenging Michael on aristocratic ground while surrounded by the man’s powerful friends. But it still wasn’t too late.
He shoved past diademed ladies, ignoring gasps and sharp words. He had to get to the other side of the room, where—
There. Through the crowd, he caught a glimpse of the man he was seeking.
Vaçlav Grünemann stood in a corner, sipping champagne and listening to an elderly dowager’s complaints with every appearance of bland attention. A moment later, the movements of the shifting crowd had hidden him again. That momentary glimpse was all that Peter had needed. He redoubled his efforts with grim determination.
One man, at least, was fated to torture and imprisonment as a result of tonight’s actions. Peter was determined that, this time, it would not be him.
“That was an odd fellow,” the Prince de Ligne said, as Peter Riesenbeck shoved away from them. “Is he smoother-spoken on stage than in company?”
“One can only hope,” Michael said absently. Riesenbeck’s head had disappeared from view. Damn. Now he couldn’t even track the man to gauge how much time he had left.
“‘Hope’?” the prince asked. “But did not you say you’d attended—”
“Pardon me,” Michael said. “I’m afraid—that is, I think I see, across the room—” Who? What, to explain such rudeness? He couldn’t even formulate a proper excuse. Panic was running too thickly through his blood.
“Prince Kalishnikoff—” De Ligne began.
“Forgive me, I must go.” Michael stepped away, moving quickly. He was breaking every law of courtesy, but he hadn’t time to worry about that now.
The wisest option was to leave. No—the only option was to leave.
He had to find Caroline first.
Michael moved in the direction the emperor had led her, slipping discreetly between groups of people. Caroline was a tall woman, he told himself, as he scanned the crowd. He ought to spot her dark head, even at a distance.
If she was still there. If she was still in the crowd, talking to the emperor in a private corner, Michael could simply tap her on the shoulder and draw her away. And if they walked briskly out of the palace and then ran the rest of the way to her waiting carriage …
There was still a chance. He told himself that, repeating the phrase the way he’d repeated the titles of the pamphlets and the newspapers he’d hawked as a child, over and over again as he’d waved them through crowded streets and Kaffeehäuser. Still a chance, still a chance, still a chance …
There were too many people crowding in his way. Light from the chandeliers flashed off women’s diamonds and sapphires and off the gold Orders pinned to men’s coats. Michael walked faster and faster, searching …
Until a familiar head of blond hair appeared in the corner of his vision.
Michael spun around. Peter Riesenbeck was striding toward him through the crowd, followed by another man in courtly dress. The expression of grim determination on Riesenbeck’s face spoke for itself. Michael didn’t recognize the other man, but he didn’t need to.
He turned and ran for the door.
Caroline nearly gagged on her wine as another chill brushed against the back of her neck. She forced herself not to turn around in search of the source. All she had left to fight with now was the impression of self-confidence.
Caroline lowered the glass and met the emperor’s eyes.
“Your Majesty, there is something I must tell you.”
“Really? I must confess, I am intrigued.” The emperor stepped closer, his fierce gaze intent on her face. “Would it be about this marvelous gift you’re offering to o
ur chancellery? The financial salvation you are so eager to grant us?”
“Yes,” Caroline said steadily. “But first …” She lowered her voice to a soft, seductive murmur, shifting her wineglass into her left hand. “I believe we spoke, the night we met, of sharing secrets.”
“Ah. I remember.” The emperor’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer yet, until his breath whispered against her face with his words. “And are you finally ready to share your secrets with me, madam?”
Caroline hardened herself to smile without flinching. “I am,” she whispered, and reached out to him with her free hand.
“Excellent,” murmured the emperor. He stepped back, leaving her outstretched fingers touching only air. “Pergen? You may come out now. I believe your moment has arrived.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Caroline spun around. The black lacquered panels on the wall shifted before her eyes and slid apart.
Count Pergen stepped through the gap. A chill swept with him into the room—the same deathly chill, Caroline realized, that she had felt before, leaking through a gap in the hidden doorway.
Pergen’s thin lips curved into a smile as he bowed with mocking grace.
Caroline raised her chin and wrenched her gaze from the horror of Pergen’s shadowed eyes to the emperor beside her. “What, precisely, is the meaning of this?” she demanded, in freezing tones. “I had understood this meeting was to be private.”
“You seem to have understood a great many things, Lady Wyndham,” the emperor said. “You will have to forgive me for being slightly less gullible than you had assumed.”
“Your Majesty—”
“Come now,” Pergen murmured. “This meeting is still private enough by any man’s standards. The outer doors are guarded, no one can see us or hear a word we say … and after all, we two are old friends. Are we not, Karolina?”
Peter cursed as he saw Michael suddenly lunge forward. He’d already been luckier than he’d expected, for the other man to stay this long after their first confrontation; but apparently his luck had run out.
He dropped back briefly to speak to Grünemann. “Call out the guards!”
“Not tonight,” Grünemann said briefly. “Too much noise. It would distract the guests.”
“But—”
Grünemann raised his eyebrows quellingly. “Just hurry!”
Peter gritted his teeth and set off. The line of incoming guests seemed never-ending, swelling the crowd even though the emperor and empress had long since abandoned the receiving line. Sweat poured down Peter’s neck as he pushed his way through the packed bodies around him, ignoring gasps, insults, and even snarled threats.
A group of diademed archduchesses passed in front of him, and Peter lost sight of his prey. He started forward to push them aside. Grünemann’s hand clamped down on his arm and pulled him back.
“No noise,” Grünemann snapped.
“What do you mean, no noise?” Peter rounded on him, ready to erupt. “Do you want to catch him or not?”
“To be perfectly frank …” Grünemann shrugged, looking maddeningly at ease. “I’ll find him sooner or later, now that you’ve pointed him out to me.”
“But if we don’t catch him tonight—!” Peter stopped as the truth hit him.
If they didn’t catch Michael now, Grünemann would simply catch Michael tomorrow … and imprison Peter tonight. By God, Grünemann would probably prefer it that way.
It was up to Peter.
He waited, seething, until the last of the archduchesses had passed, then ran. This time he didn’t wait for Grünemann to follow.
Ahead of him, he saw Michael disappear through the open doorway. Outside. With all the winding streets of inner city Vienna to choose from …
Peter hadn’t thought he could run any faster, with his body still tired and weak from the torture of two nights before.
He’d been wrong.
Bitingly cold air hit Michael’s face with the force of a slap as he emerged into the Hofburg’s inner courtyard. It nearly brought him to a halt after the suffocating heat of the Great Hall. He sucked in a freezing lungful and kept running, past the line of incoming guests, through the archway that led into the next courtyard, and toward the street outside.
Frantic calculations streamed through his mind as he ran, weighing risk versus reward. If he could first lose his pursuers in the tangled maze of narrow streets in Vienna’s inner city, he could leap into Caroline’s waiting carriage with no fear of his conveyance being noted and reported to every border guard in Austria. But if he failed and they caught him before he could reach the carriage …
Michael hurtled through the last archway, onto the crowded, well-lit square facing the Burgtheater, and lurched to a halt. Hovering indecision held him in a vise. If he ran directly for the carriage, only a few blocks away, he had a decent chance of climbing into it and taking off before his pursuers could catch up with him. He would escape the city of Vienna within the hour. If he was to escape all of Austria unhindered, though, he should do anything and everything to keep his pursuers from seeing the carriage that he took.
And yet, and yet …
God help me. Michael closed his eyes for an anguished moment. For the first time in his career, he couldn’t think. He couldn’t even choose a gamble. Caroline …
Would she be surprised to find him gone when she finished her meeting with the emperor? Or was it only what she had expected of him all along?
And she herself …
The sound of pounding footsteps brought him to his senses. With a curse, Michael lunged to the left, straight down the far-too-well-lit Herrengasse, aiming directly for the Bankgasse and Caroline’s carriage.
For all he knew, there could be a dozen armed guards chasing him by now. He couldn’t afford the risk of trying to lose them all in the inner city.
Even as he ran for the carriage, though, Michael had a sinking feeling that, for the first time in his career, his instincts might have failed him.
Peter lunged through the Hofburg’s final archway just in time to see Michael’s lean figure disappearing into the crowd to his left. He would have sent up a prayer of thankfulness if he’d had any breath or energy for it.
He had no idea why his nemesis would choose to stay on a main street instead of disappearing into the warren of smaller streets that twisted through the city center, but he thanked all the saints for the other man’s bad judgment.
While the nobility’s carriages clattered through the street itself, the pavements of the Herrengasse were filled with middle-class couples promenading between cafés and theaters, groups of elegantly dressed young women engaged in discreet solicitation, and flash young men of the upper classes, already half-tipsy and out for a night on the town. Peter plunged into the mix, gasping for each burning breath and marking his way by the occasional glimpses of Michael’s elegant dark green coat flashing in the crowd ahead.
It felt all too familiar. Only this morning Peter had been the one being chased. If he let himself stop running now, he would collapse onto the filthy cobblestones to be trampled by a carriage horse. And good riddance.
But what would become of his company if he let himself give up? Who was to say that Grünemann’s employer wouldn’t decide to punish them for his failure? Peter’s head throbbed with the effort of it, but he pushed himself forward relentlessly.
Intersecting streets created a sharp corner, two blocks ahead. Peter rocked back, realizing he had lost sight of Michael. No matter how hard he peered, he couldn’t see the other man anywhere in the crowd ahead …
Aha. A motion to his left caught Peter’s eye. He turned and spotted Michael’s tall form loping down a line of standing carriages on a quiet side street.
Carriages. Revelation curdled Peter’s stomach.
No wonder the man had chosen the main street for his escape.
Peter lurched into a sudden, desperate burst of speed.
Michael raced past the darkened palaces that lined the Bankgass
e. The buildings themselves were mostly empty tonight, but the street itself, as one of the closest side streets to the Hofburg, was lined with carriages waiting to return for their owners at the end of the evening. He didn’t dare slow down to seek out any details; he had to hope he would recognize Caroline’s embossed crest in the darkness.
If he even made it that far.
He couldn’t help it. He slid a quick look backward as he ran, cursing himself for his own weakness.
Peter Riesenbeck was barely half a block behind him, gaining quickly. And behind Riesenbeck …
Michael jerked his gaze back to the pavement ahead of him, biting down on self-loathing.
There were no armed guards. No inescapable force swept toward him in pursuit. He couldn’t even see the other man who’d been with Riesenbeck earlier—together, Michael and Riesenbeck must have outpaced him.
In other words, Michael could have lost both pursuers in five minutes if he had chosen the inner city.
So be it. It was too late now to change the past. If he could do that, he would have refused to come with Caroline tonight at all. He would have kept her from attending the gala by any means at his disposal, no matter how dishonorable. He’d known better than to agree to her mad plan even when she first came out with it. Only his cursed guilt had kept him from acting on his instincts. If he could change the past …
There. A familiar crest. Michael aimed himself like a perfect shot in a game of billiards. He had always saved himself from dire consequences and catastrophes before, no matter how inescapable they had appeared. In twenty-four years, he had scored a perfect record. He wouldn’t break it now. Only fifteen more feet until …
Peter Riesenbeck barreled into Michael from behind and sent him flying forward. Michael didn’t even have time to throw out his hands for self-protection before he crashed onto the ground.
Peter landed on top of Michael’s back. The older man had fallen facedown, with an impact that must have scraped skin raw. But he was surprisingly agile; before Peter could even catch his breath, Michael twisted around, pushing himself up from the muck-covered cobblestones and fighting to pull away from Peter’s hold.
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