“Send someone to pack your things immediately. I’m bringing you both back to Kent with me.”
“You’re too kind,” Ivy said. “But it’s entirely unnecessary. We—”
“I’ll not hear another word on the subject. There’s no sense in your staying in London, and who are your neighbors in Yorkshire? No, no, no. You’re coming with me. Unless, of course, you’ve already decided to stay with your in-laws. I hadn’t thought to speak to Robert’s mother—”
Now it was Ivy’s turn to interrupt. “No, no. Thank you, Lady Bromley. I shouldn’t think of refusing your hospitality.”
My mother gave a smug smile and turned to me; I couldn’t help but flinch. “As for you, child, I don’t know what will happen with your wedding now. Perhaps it would be best if you hold off on plans for the moment.”
I was about to say that, in fact, it would be best if we were married quickly and with little ceremony, but Colin spoke first.
“Of course,” he said. “We will proceed however you and Her Majesty feel is appropriate.”
“I shall consult with the queen at the earliest possible time. It’s too soon now—”
“Far too soon,” he said. I could hardly believe he was agreeing to this. “But I know that you’ll figure out the proper way to navigate all this, and I thank you, Lady Bromley, for all that you’ve done.”
“Oh, Mr. Hargreaves, it is my pleasure.” She beamed, then started for the door. “I will go oversee your packing, Ivy. Robert, ring for a footman and have a wire sent to Yorkshire. Your trunks can be sent directly to Kent. Miss Seward, why don’t you come assist me?”
Margaret stammered something that resembled muffled laughter more than it did a reply, but followed, her eyes flashing apologies to Mr. Michaels. The don excused himself almost as soon as she’d left.
“Why are you so eager to go along with my mother’s plans now?” I asked Colin, sotto voce, pulling him into a corner.
“There’s nothing else to be done at the moment, so why cause her alarm?”
“Alarm?”
“I think it would be good for us to spend some time alone—together—but away from our friends. I…I need to mourn, Emily. I want you with me. And I don’t want to be here. Not in London, not in England.” The pain in his eyes cut me as I saw all that she’d meant to him. His feelings, even if they were in the past, were still significant, and though this was painful, it also offered hope to me, because I did not want to believe that any love could be so fully abandoned.
“Of course.” I touched his arm. “Whatever you need.”
The door opened and Davis came in, holding a letter. “This just arrived express, madam.” He put it in my hand, and I tore at the envelope at once. It was from Sissi:
Dear Kallista,
I am most appreciative of your letter. Although I’d hoped for more information, you gave me enough to bring a small measure of peace to my heart. I realize that you were careful to say you had no proof, but the reaction you saw when you confronted him is enough for me. It fits with everything else I know. I hope you do not mind that I shared what you told me with a select associate—a man of action—who, shortly after learning my suspicions, was kind enough to bring me news of the suicide of an acquaintance of yours, Mr. Harrison.
Another of Vienna’s victims.
I send greetings from your friend, Friedrich. The emperor was so taken by the sketch he did of me that he asked to meet the boy. I understand his engagement is to be announced any day.
Do tell Cécile I long to see her again.
Elisabeth
I passed it to Colin. “She shouldn’t have done it,” he said, then handed it to Cécile, who shrugged.
“There are a lot of suicides in Vienna,” she said.
“I can’t say I feel much of a loss.” I folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope after Ivy and Robert had read it. “Despite Jeremy’s earlier admonition that ‘it is not right to glory in the slain.’”
“It’s not so much that we’re taking pleasure in the news,” Ivy said. “Simply that we knew his character well enough to feel that justice has been served.”
We sat in silence for a while, and though we may not have been grieving for Mr. Harrison, we had all faced too much death in the past weeks to recover quickly from news of still more.
“You’re a grim lot,” Jeremy said, entering the room. “I’m astonished. Given the scene in your entrance hall, I should have thought you’d all be drinking champagne.”
“Champagne?” I crossed to the door and peered into the hallway. Margaret and Mr. Michaels were caught in a tight embrace, my mother standing not five paces away, a smug smile on her face. As soon as she saw me watching, she poked Mr. Michaels’s back with her parasol.
“That’s quite enough, sir. Why don’t you tell your friends the news?”
“News?” I asked, coming out into the hall, the rest of our party following me.
“Mr. Michaels and I are engaged,” Margaret said.
“Margaret!” I confess I was shocked.
“Your mother is implacable, Emily. I could resist no longer.”
“I knew you were no match for her,” I said, hugging her. Congratulations rained down on the couple, and Davis, of his own accord, brought both champagne and cigars and did not balk in the slightest when the bride-to-be began puffing on one.
“Odette is being very good to him, I think,” I said to Cécile.
“I am most concerned,” she replied. “And ought to return to Paris posthaste.”
“Speaking of travels…” I pulled Ivy away from the group. “You don’t really want to go to Kent with my mother.”
“It’s already set in motion, my dear,” she said. “And I’ve neither the energy nor the inclination to fight it. Besides, at the moment, all I care about is having Robert at my side. Not even your mother can take away my joy.”
Chapter 29
The weather on Santorini was far from perfect. The sky and the ocean were gray, and rain whipped the white walls and blue shutters of my villa. Colin and I had arrived separately, planning this as a clandestine sort of meeting. We might be engaged, but we could not travel without a chaperone unless we wanted to court gossip, and certainly it could not be known that we were staying together, unsupervised and unmarried. He had come to the island five days before me, but when I reached the house, I could not find him. My cook, Mrs. Katevatis, pointed me outside, saying that, untroubled by the weather, he’d gone for a walk.
I took the umbrella she offered, but it was barely useful. The wind tugged at it, bending its ribs, and the rain, coming at me horizontally, soaked my coat as I walked along the path that skirted the edge of the island’s cliffs. It was here that twice Colin had stood before me and proposed, here that I now found him, his back to me as he stared out over the caldera. I turned him around and saw his dark eyes, red-rimmed, devoid of warmth, full of sadness. He fell into my arms and cried.
More than a quarter of an hour passed before he raised his head. “I don’t have to explain this to you, do I?”
“Not at all.” I knew his pain too well. It was the same I’d felt when at last I’d mourned my husband, two years after his death.
“It doesn’t have to do with you—you must understand that. What we have, Emily, it’s everything. I did love her, years ago, but that was different. It wasn’t…she didn’t…”
“She loved you,” I said. “She told me. She only refused you because she thought having a wife would distract you and put you in danger.”
“She told you this?”
“Yes.”
“I—”
I put my hand up to his lips. “Colin, it’s all right. She loved you. You have to know that.”
“I always believed her when she said it was just play,” he said. “I never thought she loved anyone.”
“She was good at being covert.”
“Too good.”
The smell of the wet earth rose all around us. A smell I usually
welcomed, something that reminded me of childhood days playing on my father’s estate. But today it caught heavy in my throat as I breathed. I could feel a trembling start in my core, and I could not stop it.
“I don’t want to disappoint you.” I hated the words the moment they escaped my lips.
“Disappoint me?”
I dropped my head against his chest, embarrassed. “I’m afraid I may suffer in comparison to your past.”
“You have a past too, my dear, one that’s not always been easy for me to accept.”
“My past? My past hardly even existed.”
“I knew you as someone else’s wife. My best friend’s wife.”
“Yes, but—”
“But you loved him. Eventually you loved him. And he adored you from the beginning. You were his.”
“Colin, I—”
“You’re not a girl who’s out for her first Season, and I’m not just down from Cambridge. We come to each other with fully lived lives, Emily.” The rain was falling harder, and we were both drenched. “We must accept that. I don’t think there’s anything more to be said.”
My eyes filled with tears. He pulled me close to him.
“You’re shaking,” he said. “It’s cold. We ought to go inside.”
Part of me wanted to stop him, wanted to insist that we talk about this more. But the rest accepted—begrudgingly, perhaps, but accepted nonetheless—that there was no need to speak further on the subject. Our pasts had brought us to where we were now, and without them, we might never have come together. He took my hand and slipped it, along with his, into his jacket pocket.
“I love you,” I said, looking up at him.
He smiled. “Such simple words, yet they sing.”
“How soon can we be married?” I asked, a smile creeping onto my face.
“I’m free this afternoon if you don’t have other plans.”
“If only,” I said.
“You wouldn’t dare refuse me. Not now.”
“What would the queen say?”
“I’ve no interest in anyone’s opinion but yours,” he said, and I knew at once how serious he was. There was no hint of flirtatious teasing in his voice.
“Does Mrs. Katevatis know?” I asked.
“She’s making spanakopita and kreatopitakia even as we speak.”
“Then I don’t see how I could say no,” I said. He brushed a wet curl away from my eyes and took my face in his hands, kissing me gently. I felt every barrier to happiness dissolving inside me.
“Shall we go straight to the chapel?” he asked.
“We’d need a license.”
“I’ve already arranged for that.”
“We’re soaked,” I said.
“I don’t mind being soaked. Do you?”
“No.” I looked at him, memorizing his face so that I’d always be able to recall this moment in perfect detail. “Strangely, I don’t.”
How could I mind? We’d already waited long enough.
Acknowledgments
Myriad thanks to…
Jennifer Civiletto and Anne Hawkins, whose guidance and insight made this a better book.
Danielle Bartlett, Shari Newman, Buzzy Porter, and Tom Robinson, publicity gurus.
Dr. Vincent Tranchida, New York City medical examiner, for telling me exactly what to expect from a gunshot to the head.
Mark Smith, The Man in Seat Sixty-One, whose breadth of knowledge about the history of rail travel is staggering.
Mike Campbell, provider of boundless insider information on Vienna and title-concept master; Marcus Sakey for tweaking said concept to perfection.
Joyclyn Ellison, Kristy Kiernan, Elizabeth Letts, and Renee Rosen, fiercely talented writers and partners in daily authorial neurosis.
Brett Battles, Laura Bradford, Rob Gregory Browne, Jon Clinch, Karen Dionne, Zarina Docken, Bente Gallagher, Melanie Lynne Hauser, Joe Konrath, Dusty Rhoades, and Sachin Waikar, for keeping me sane, grounded, and entertained.
Laura Morefield and Linda Roebuck, who are simply the best.
Christina Chen, Tammy Humphries, Carrie Medders, and Missy Rightley, friends I can’t imagine being without.
B.S.R., who always knows exactly what I need and makes sure I get it without having to ask. You’ve turned me into a beach girl.
Gary and Stacie Gutting, for boundless support.
Matt and Xander Tyska, for everything. I love you.
About the Author
TASHA ALEXANDER is a graduate of Notre Dame, where she signed on as an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse for spending all of her time reading. Following graduation, she played nomad for several years, eventually settling with her family in Tennessee. When not reading, she can be found hard at work on her next book featuring Emily Ashton.
www.tashaalexander.com
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ALSO BY TASHA ALEXANDER
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
A Poisoned Season
And Only to Deceive
Credits
Jacket design by Laura Klynstra
Jacket painting by Miralles Galaup/Bridgeman Art Library
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A FATAL WALTZ Copyright © 2008 by Anastasia Tyska. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition April 2008 ISBN 9780061732652
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Cast of Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 2
5
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Tasha Alexander
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Fatal Waltz Page 27
