Vienna Dawn (The Imperial Season Book 3)

by Mary Lancaster

  “Came straight from the French embassy,” Etienne said with a smirk Jane didn’t like at all. “You’re beaten fair and square, so hand it over.”

  “Not unseen, old man.”

  “Well, remember your manners. And your discretion.” At last, Etienne turned back to the room. “Miss Reid, be so good as to join us for a moment.”

  Jane wanted to die of shame. These were people she knew from Vienna and to be found in such a situation appalled her. “I am indisposed,” she said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about scandal at this point,” Richard drawled. “I think all secrets will be safe in this company.”

  Jane exchanged looks of consternation with Mr. Roberts, whose presence at least bestowed upon her a modicum of respectability. Raising her chin, she preceded him out of the parlor and into the coffee room beyond.

  Major von Wahrschein, her one time admirer, stood there beside Dunya Savarina’s rigidly poised sister. Although Jane barely knew the lady, she was aware her husband was not the major.

  “Damn you,” Wahrschein said to Etienne with a sigh. “Though I was expecting someone else.”

  “The night is young,” Etienne said incomprehensibly.

  “We all know each other, I think,” Trelawny observed.

  Mr. Roberts at least, seemed to have perked up in the new company. “Do you have a special license, too?” he asked hopefully. As if it were turning into a good night for wedding fees.

  “What?” said Wahrschein. “No! Who the devil are you?”

  “Mr. Roberts,” Jane said. “He is an English clergyman.”

  “Not quite sure what’s going on here,” the innkeeper interjected ominously. “But this is a respectable house.”

  “So I should hope.” Etienne sounded amused. “You can’t imagine we’d be here were it otherwise.

  Richard propped his empty shoulder against the door frame. “I would like to suggest that the ladies chaperone each other back to Vienna.”

  “Why the devil would they do that?” Wahrschein demanded. “They’ve only just got here.”

  “Lured here, surely,” Richard corrected with contempt, “under false pretenses.”

  “And who in God’s name invited you?” Wahrschein demanded. “Take leave to tell you, sir, you’re in the damned way!”

  Richard smiled. Jane had never seen him smile like that before. It made her stomach twist and sent shivers down her spine. It reminded her that he’d been fighting, living with the gory violence of war for years.

  “I mean to be,” he said.

  “Wait a minute,” Mr. Roberts insisted with clear foreboding. “What do you mean false pretenses?” He swung around on Etienne. “Are you married already, sir?”

  “Of course I’m not!” Etienne replied, affronted. “I showed you my special license, duly signed—”

  At that point, the outer door swung open and Dunya Savarina herself rushed in.

  “Asya!” she cried. “Thank God!” and hurled herself into her sister’s arms.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When she saw the phaeton still in the inn yard, Dunya ran into the building without waiting for any of the men. Finding Anastasia not only present, but in the company of several people she’d no time to even glance at, she ran at her with single-minded joy that drove every other concern from her mind.

  “You’re safe,” she gasped. “You’re safe.”

  “Well, of course I am,” Anastasia said shakily. “Did you think I’d been eaten by giants?”

  Dunya let out an unladylike little hiccup of laughter. “Something like that.”

  “More to the point,” Anastasia said severely, “How in the world did you get here?”

  Dunya drew back, casting her gaze around the other people in the room. Wahrschein, inevitably, was stroking irritably at his moustaches.

  The innkeeper she remembered only too well from her previous adventure here. “You!” he uttered. “Who are you with this time?”

  Ignoring him, Dunya moved on to a middle-aged clergyman she’d never set eyes on before. Then Jane Reid, looking mortified—perhaps not so surprising, though the sight of her twisted Dunya’s heart painfully because of who else must be here with her. Rather more unexpectedly, her gaze fell next on Etienne, whose face expressed in turn surprise, pleasure, and embarrassment. He said something that sounded like, “Already,” which made no sense.

  Finally, with aching reluctance, her gaze came to Richard, who straightened his lounging pose by the parlor door, staring at Dunya in clear astonishment.

  “Jenkins?” he said at last, presumably guessing how she’d known where to come.

  Dunya curled her lip at him.

  “Well?” Anastasia demanded impatiently. “How did you get here?”

  I came with Nikolai. Fortunately, she swallowed the words back in time. Drawing herself out of Anastasia’s grip, she lifted her chin and said proudly, “I came with Mr. Fawcett.”

  Jane let out a cry of pain that Dunya was fiercely, if reprehensibly, glad of. And as if on cue, the door opened again and Mr. Fawcett himself strode in, arguing with someone behind him, although catching sight of his audience, he was brought up short. Nikolai almost bumped into him.

  “Nikolai,” Anastasia whispered, taking an impulsive step toward her husband. Then, remembering her situation, she moaned his name again and covered her face with her hands.

  Nikolai rushed upon her, snatching her into his arms. “Asya, my Asya,” he said brokenly. “Has this swine hurt you?”

  “Oh forgive me, forgive me,” Anastasia sobbed. “But I can’t live with you if you don’t love me, and I’m too weak to live alone.”

  “Of course I love you!” Nikolai said fiercely, and without warning, he let Anastasia go.

  Dunya had the presence of mind to leap out of the way before Nikolai’s fist crashed into Wahrschein’s face and the Prussian fell like a stone.

  Anastasia and Jane squeaked—with more surprise than horror, Dunya guessed, at least in her sister’s case. In fact, Anastasia looked almost starry-eyed.

  Wahrschein hadn’t even seen it coming, and was understandably furious to be knocked down—by a husband—in front of so many people. Trying to haul himself up, he spluttered, “How dare you? You shall answer for this, sir! My friends—”

  He broke off as Trelawny’s boot knocked him on to his back once more, and remained hovering threateningly above his throat.

  “I think not,” Richard said contemptuously. “You have no friends. And besides, you are unutterably in the wrong. You may not have abducted this lady, but you certainly took advantage of her vulnerability to win a wager with that other reprobate.”

  “Wager,” Nikolai repeated wrathfully. “Wager!” Fists clenched, he made a lunge toward Wahrschein’s supine form, but Anastasia clung to his arm.

  “No, no, leave him,” she pleaded. “He is not worth it! My shame is complete!”

  It struck Dunya then that she had picked Wahrschein just because she’d always sensed his unworthiness. If she was going to behave badly, she meant to do it with someone who deserved badness in return.

  But then Dunya was trying desperately to think of anyone other than Richard Trelawny.

  “Wager,” Jane said suddenly, drawing all eyes away from Richard and Wahrschein.

  She was staring at Etienne. So was Dunya as another possibility finally began to dawn on her. Jane was eloping with Etienne. Not with Richard. Dunya had no idea and less care why he’d been on the carriage box. He hadn’t been eloping with Jane. Joy struggled up within her, terrified of being slapped back down if she dared to hope…

  “Reprobate,” Jane said, still gazing at Etienne.

  Wahrschein let out a savage laugh, and Richard obligingly removed his foot at last to allow him to rise.

  “Sounds like all bets are off,” Wahrschein sneered. “We’re both rumbled, Monsieur le Comte! Even she—” He pointed at Dunya, “came for her sister, not you!”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Mr.
Fawcett complained. “And I’m not sure I want to. Jane—Miss Reid—are you married to this man already?”

  “No,” Jane exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Etienne said baldly. “Mr. Roberts, Jane, if you please, let’s retire to our private parlor…”

  “You know, if Jane wasn’t a friend of mine, I might even let you,” Richard said lazily. “But now, Jane, would be a great time to tell the truth of your fortune to the count.”

  Etienne looked perplexed. “What truth? What fortune?”

  Jane, who was looking at her feet in apparent shame, raised her eyes to Richard and then to Etienne.

  “Of course,” she said in mortified accents. “That is why you were so keen for me to run away with you. But there is no fortune. The rumors of my wealth are entirely false. They always have been and they always will be. I have no fortune and I am no heiress.”

  Etienne took a deep breath. “Madam,” he said with deep loathing. “You have misled me.”

  Fawcett started toward Jane, then paused, meeting Richard’s gaze.

  “It isn’t very nice for anyone, is it?” Richard murmured.

  “Then the wedding is off?” Mr. Roberts said, scowling. “I was dragged out here for nothing?”

  “Weren’t we all,” Etienne snapped. “I’ll have my fee back, if you please!”

  “Less my expenses,” Mr. Roberts quibbled.

  Jane moved and sank into the nearest chair. She looked so terribly lonely that Dunya’s heart was touched. After all, she hadn’t run away with Richard.

  “Jane, I don’t care about your fortune,” Mr. Fawcett said desperately, holding down a pleading hand to her. “God knows I have enough for us both. Won’t you please consider yourself still betrothed to me?”

  Jane’s icy eyes melted into something close to tears. “Why Mr. Fawcett, how kind you are. But I have learned my lesson and don’t wish to be married from pity either.”

  Richard strolled past them toward Dunya, causing her heart to summersault with nervousness.

  “My advice,” he murmured on the way, inaudibly to everyone but the couple themselves and Dunya. “Stop talking and cut your losses.”

  He fixed Dunya with his suddenly fierce gaze and she couldn’t look away. He said, “You thought I’d eloped with Jane.”

  “I didn’t follow you here,” she said defensively. “I followed Anastasia. It was just luck that Nikolai and I encountered Mr. Fawcett on the way.”

  “You don’t trust me,” he said evenly. The hurt in his eyes pained her, frightened her almost as much as the idea that she’d lost him. She might still have lost him.

  “I saw you jump onto her carriage!” She paused, frowning. “Why did you jump on her carriage? Oh,” she answered herself, pleased. “You were following Etienne! Did you discover anything?”

  “Ferrand,” he said, just as another voice spoke in fury from the inn doorway.

  “Don’t touch me, you contemptible little thug!”

  Dunya spun around in fresh astonishment. “Lizzie?”

  Sure enough, her sister-in-law marched into the coffee room, her eyes sparkling with fury. At her heels came two large men who looked curiously helpless.

  “Landlord!” she called out, but stopped in her tracks much as Dunya had done, when she saw all the people in the room staring at her.

  “Oh perfect,” Etienne said with heavy sarcasm. “Imbeciles! You brought the wrong girl!”

  “Oh my,” Dunya said, with awe, going up to her and taking her cold hand. “Oh, Lizzie, you really were abducted!”

  “In mistake for Dunya,” Richard said slowly, looking from Lizzie to Etienne. “You really are a blatant cad, aren’t you? You planned to marry Jane for her money and force Dunya to be your mistress, all under the same roof.”

  He moved, striding across the floor to Etienne, shrugging off his coat as he went and then drawing his sword from the scabbard concealed beneath. Etienne, taken by surprise, fell back against a table, slid round it, and stumbled back farther.

  “I’m not armed!” he cried in alarm. “Someone stop this madman before he murders me! Dunya!”

  “I hope he does murder you,” Dunya said with contempt. “Jane and Lizzie and Mr. Fawcett hope he murders you, too.”

  “And I,” Anastasia said. “In fact, the only person who doesn’t want Captain Trelawny to kill you is Vanya, and that’s because he’ll want to do it himself.”

  By then, Richard had Etienne against the back wall, his sword point to the Frenchman’s throat. Wahrschein made a half-hearted move toward them, more to reason with Richard, Dunya thought, than to actually help Etienne.

  “Stand back!” Richard snapped without looking at him. “If you want to do him a favor, fetch the sword I’m sure he carries in his baggage.”

  A spark of hope lit Etienne’s panicked eyes at that. “Fetch it,” he ordered Wahrschein.

  “For God’s sake,” Wahrschein objected. “You’re already due to meet him with pistols at seven this morning!”

  This was news to Dunya who stared in fresh wonder at the back of her betrothed’s head.

  “We can do that, too,” Richard said, “if he still lives.”

  Etienne laughed with his more customary bravado. “Fool,” he said contemptuously. “Do you know how many duels I have fought? And I’ve won all of them! Against men with all their limbs intact.”

  Now that her anger had subsided, Dunya said uneasily, “Perhaps you shouldn’t kill him, Richard. The law is always against dueling.”

  But Richard, like men the world over once their blood was up, didn’t even appear to hear this good sense. “Mr. Roberts, perhaps you’d take the ladies into the private parlor. Nikolai, I’d be obliged if you and Fawcett would corral those thugs of the counts.”

  “I’d better stay to see fair play,” Mr. Roberts said unexpectedly, while waving his arm into the parlor by way of invitation. Jane and Anastasia, white faced, walked past him.

  “We need to stop this,” Lizzie said urgently. “There can be no good outcome for Captain Trelawny, win or lose.”

  “He won’t kill him,” Wahrschein assured them, passing with a rapier in his hand. “He never does.”

  Anastasia grabbed Lizzie and Dunya by the arms and pulled. Lizzie fell inside but Dunya, resisting, jerked free and closed the door on them. She and Mr. Roberts stood like sentinels on either side of the door.

  Richard, his blade still to Etienne’s throat backed away enough for Wahrschein to present Etienne with his weapon.

  “Watch him,” Nikolai warned.

  But it seemed Richard didn’t fear Wahrschein’s attack and he was probably right. The two men were hardly true friends and would not risk themselves in the other’s quarrels.

  As Etienne grasped his rapier, Richard stepped back, pushing the table and chairs behind him to one side. Etienne, assuming the classic fencer’s pose, saluted his opponent. Richard laughed.

  Etienne’s rapier whizzed through the air, and blood oozed from a cut on Richard’s chin. Dunya bit down on her cry. She mustn’t distract him now.

  With great confidence, Etienne advanced, pressing Richard farther and farther back, and although Richard parried all the blows, Etienne was clearly the better, more experienced fencer.

  “We should stop now,” Etienne sneered. “That was first blood. You lose.”

  Richard didn’t answer. Etienne drove him back, playing with him. “I’ve had the best fencing teachers in Europe, you clod. You can’t win.” Again the rapier whipped forward, this time stabbing his right side, where he had no arm to protect it.

  Dunya, her fingers in her mouth, bit down hard, for Richard seemed totally vulnerable in this position. Etienne could kill him.

  “And do you know the really funny thing?” Etienne said. “You’re doing this for Dunya and she only ever engaged herself to you to make me jealous.”

  Richard moved, seeming to push the rapier along his side in a bright, red tear, and yet his sword got under Etienne’s and knocked it up, striking h
ard, twice in a row, and Etienne fell back.

  “I know,” Richard said.

  “Then let’s make it third blood and stop,” Etienne said. “Honor satisfied.” He parried Richard’s strikes, and made another lightning thrust which Richard side-stepped, bringing his sword down hard on the rapier. Etienne stumbled forward, exposing his right side and back to Richard, who kicked him in the hip.

  Etienne fell on his side, scrambling desperately away from Richard, the rapier held waveringly in front of him as he tried to protect himself and rise at the same time.

  “Do you know what I find funny?” Richard said savagely, as Etienne leapt at last to his feet, only just parrying the blows reigning down on him. “I never learned to fence. I learned to fight. In battle. Where first blood doesn’t count.” The sheer strength of his blow shattered the rapier. “Only last blood.”

  Richard’s sword slashed the Frenchman’s wrist and with a cry of pain, Etienne dropped what was left of his damaged weapon, only to find Richard’s sword at his heart. “Yield,”

  “I yield!” Etienne squawked.

  “Apologize.”

  “I apologize!”

  Blood oozed around the sword as Richard pressed harder. “To whom?” he asked contemptuously.

  “To you!”

  Richard pulled back as if to plunge the sword into his heart and finish him. This time, Dunya cried out, and so did everyone else in the room.

  “To Dunya!” Etienne screamed. “And Miss Reid! And Lady Launceton! Oh God, and to Lord Launceton!”

  As he subsided into sobs, Richard met his gaze for a moment and then inclined his head. “That’s better,” he said and lowered the sword.

  As he sheathed it, Dunya ran at him. “Fool! You fool,” she cried, seizing him by both shoulders and shaking him, even while she reached up and pressed her mouth hard to his. “It was never to make him jealous, not after the first carriage ride! It was always you.”

  “Me?” he said shakily. “Then…you do love me?”

  “I adore you,” she whispered and kissed him again. Richard cooperated so fully this time that she never even heard the parlor door opening.