Masks and Shadows (13 page)

Charlotte's new maid was small and quiet, with nervous eyes and quick, deft hands. Charlotte was grateful for the girl's silence that evening as she prepared for dinner. She could not have borne empty chatter. All of her concentration was focused on keeping the music of Signor Morelli's accompaniment locked safe within her chest.

It had taken her until three o'clock before she'd felt remotely secure about every part. Now, sitting before her ornate looking glass, all she could see were the chord progressions playing out before her.

She sat through dinner eating mechanically and nodding to the conversation at what she hoped were the right intervals. Again and again, she felt Signor Morelli's dark eyes watching her. Sophie chattered about plans for an upcoming masked ball. Prince Nikolaus thanked Charlotte for the gift of her maid to his opera company. She smiled and murmured something polite. Servants slipped between them to remove the empty plates.

Signor Morelli rose to his feet. Jewels sparkled on his waistcoat tonight, although Charlotte hadn't noticed them until that moment. His eerily high voice silenced the whole table as he spoke to Prince Nikolaus.

“If Your Highness would be so gracious as to allow it, I would be honored to sing to your company tonight.”

The Prince's smile was the satisfied grin of a wolf, lips pulled back and eyes gleaming. “The honor is entirely ours, signor.”

“Baroness?”

Charlotte nodded and stood up, keeping her expression fixed in a semblance of serenity. She hoped that no one could see her fingers trembling as she preceded Signor Morelli into the next room. As soon as she was safely seated at the clavichord, she hid her traitorous hands in her skirts. Nobles filed into the room, chatting and laughing and darting bright, curious looks at both her and Morelli. Chinese drawings covered the papered walls, framed by scented wood from India. Morelli himself, more exotic than any of the room's rich decorations, stood with one hand resting lightly against the painted nymphs and cupids on the cover of the keyboard, his smooth, feminine face as impassive and remote as a statue.

Charlotte's breath stuttered in her chest.

Stupid
, she told herself, flexing her fingers. She'd performed so many times throughout her life, first for her parents' guests and then for her husband's. She'd learned so young to hide her emotions, to subdue her desires beneath those of her family, her husband, her guests. In the long, slow trudge of Ernst's dying, she had sometimes forgotten that she even had any passions or desires to suppress.

Yet in these past few days . . .

She sighed. This was no time for maudlin self-reflection, and she was no romantic
philosophe
in a Parisian salon. Yet in the challenge of Signor Morelli's offer, in the effort of practicing her parts and immersing herself in the music to an extent she hadn't allowed herself in years, she'd felt a part of her spirit stir and begin to wake for the first time in over a decade.

She had never felt so nervous, nor so irrationally certain that so much rested on a single performance, until now.

The Prince seated himself with a flourish in the center of the room. At his nod, two footmen closed the doors, shutting them in. The room fell silent. Signor Morelli met Charlotte's eyes and nodded infinitesimally.

Her hands moved, with a feeling of finality. They rippled through the first arpeggio, formed the leading chord; she watched them as if from a distance.
Too late to turn back.

And then his voice emerged, and she suddenly had to concentrate after all, had to fight to give her hands and her music the attention they deserved. It took every ounce of willpower in her body to focus on playing the right notes and supporting his dynamics, instead of dropping her hands away from the keyboard to soak in his voice with gape-struck awe.

She'd found his high voice unnerving, and nearly inhuman. But when he sang, his voice was no longer even close to human. It was angelic. It
soared
. It shone against tones no human could possibly hit, and it rang straight through her chest. She forced down tears as she played beside him. She forced her fingers to keep moving.

By the middle of the second piece, her hands were no longer merely following the motions of the music. They were playing, playing with all her might, to try to match him. The listening silence of the room wrapped around the twin instruments of clavichord and heavenly, unnerving, melting voice. No one could exist outside that iridescent bubble. Between each song, applause sounded in the distance. Charlotte barely heard it. She was only waiting for Morelli's nod, to begin the next piece.

At last, his voice peaked high and soft, and faded gradually, lingeringly. Charlotte's fingers breathed faint chords against the keyboard. She met his eyes, waiting, watching for confirmation.

Their two tones vanished at exactly the same moment. Pearl-like silence enveloped the room. Then applause crashed down upon them.

Morelli nodded at Charlotte once, his eyes still wide and dilated, as though he'd been staring into too bright a light. Perhaps he had, Charlotte thought dizzily. Such beauty—how could one man bring forth such unearthly beauty, and not be changed by it each time?

Then he turned to bow, and she realized that the recital was at an end. There was no more music to play.

Charlotte closed her eyes and smoothed out her face, as shivers of reaction rippled through her.

“Lotte!” Sophie was beside her, shaking her shoulder. “Lotte, that was brilliant. Why didn't you stand up and bow too, you ninny?”

Charlotte opened her eyes. The Prince stood between her and Signor Morelli, holding out a pouch that rattled with the heavy clink of gold coins. Noblemen and women swarmed around the two men, all of them waiting for the castrato's attention.

“Lotte?” Sophie asked. “Lotte? Are you listening to me?”

Signor Morelli accepted the pouch with a bow and slipped it into his pocket. The Prince clapped him on the back and turned away. The castrato's gaze met Charlotte's. His face was pale and cold. His eyes . . .

His lips were moving. “Well done,” he was saying to her. “Well done.”

Then, with a stiff nod, he turned away, until he faced the glowing noblewomen behind him. They seized one arm each and laughed up at him, their bright voices cooing across the room.

Sophie was chirping at her side, her fingers clinging onto Charlotte's shoulder. “Lotte? What's wrong?”

“I have to leave,” Charlotte whispered. “I'm sorry, Sophie. I have to . . .”

She stood up awkwardly, abruptly, and swept through the crowd, holding her head high all the way back to her room to keep back the tears that were only waiting to stream down her face and swallow her.

Edmund Guernsey ruffled quickly through the papers on Prince Nikolaus's desk, keeping half his attention on the sounds of the corridor outside. The castrato's recital had begun almost forty minutes ago. Hard to tell how long an evening's concert might last, much less how long it might hold any royal's attention. Prince Nikolaus had a reputation for musical taste, but still . . .

Architectural plans covered the massive desk. More monuments, more rooms to be added to the palace, more grandeur to be added on all sides. Nothing that aided Guernsey in his quest, any more than the masses of jewelry and other trinkets he'd found in Sophie von Höllner's rooms the night before. Piled on the desk, Guernsey found letters from architects and artists; the letter from the Archduke announcing his coming visit; more letters from the Prince's three sons, asking for money . . .

When Guernsey found another sketch in the pile, he barely glanced at it, expecting only another planned structure. But the Latin inscription in the center caught his attention.

It was not a building, but a seal. A newly designed seal—and he recognized the Prince's own strong hand in its design.

Guernsey blinked down at the sketch, caught by curiosity.

Prince Nikolaus expected Empress Maria Theresia and her son to honor him beyond measure, with a new order of knighthood designed himself. What on earth could he think to offer them, to match such wild and unlikely hopes?

Quick footsteps approached in the corridor outside. Guernsey slipped the pile of papers back into place and dived for the servants' door hidden in the gilded walnut paneling. He ducked into the dark corridor and closed the hidden door behind him, just in time. He heard the study door open and close. Footsteps moved toward the desk, and he heard the chair pulled into place.

Guernsey stepped away with a sigh of relief—and heard footsteps coming toward him down the narrow corridor. A servant on his way to bring the Prince refreshments in his study, perhaps. If Guernsey was caught . . .

He flattened himself against the wall. His vision narrowed to a thin line as his heartbeat sped up. Silently, he reached into the inner pocket of his frock coat and withdrew a slim knife.

What he would do with the body . . .

A door clicked open and shut further down the corridor. The sound of footsteps disappeared.

Guernsey let out his held breath and slipped the knife back into his pocket. He was safe.

He hurried back down the long corridor, certainty lightening his steps.

Whatever Prince Nikolaus had found that he hoped would bring him such glory, Guernsey, too, would discover. And when he did it would be King Frederick of Prussia who was the recipient, and Guernsey who would take all the reward for it.

In the depths of night, Franz woke with his face pressed against cold stone. The door to his cell was swinging open.

He pushed himself up to his knees, grimacing at the pain. “Yes?” He peered through the darkness, reaching for the piece of paper tucked inside his filthy shirt. “Is it—?”

“Pichler.” Light from a taper illuminated the pinched face of Herr Rahier, the Prince's administrator, looking down at him with distaste. “I bring you better news than you deserve.”

“Oh?” Franz squinted against the light and held back the curses that clawed their way up his chest.

Rahier had stood directly by Franz as he was beaten. His face had shown only calm satisfaction when the first screams were torn from Franz's throat.

“It seems that the requirements of the opera company must take precedence over the demands of justice.” Rahier's nostrils flared, as though he'd smelled something unpleasant. “His Serene Highness, in his great mercy, has decided to pardon you from the rest of your allotted sentence and allow you to return directly to your work.”

“His Highness's mercy is infinite indeed.” Franz smiled tightly.

“Well?” Rahier stared down at him. “What more do you wait upon, Herr Pichler? You may rise.”

Franz gritted his teeth. He pushed against the cold floor to lever himself up. Flames arced up his back. The thin scabs over his lacerations strained against the movement and ripped open. Franz bit back a moan. He had to pause, kneeling, to catch his breath against the pain. Rahier's satisfaction seemed to ripple through the air around him.
Damn the bastard to Hell and back
.

Once Franz was finally standing, shivering with reaction and propped up against the wall of the cell for support, Rahier sighed and turned away.

“You are free to return to your quarters, Herr Pichler. I hope this unfortunate experience may have taught you some caution and respect for the rules of this estate.”

“Rest assured, Herr Rahier, it has entirely transformed my perspective.” Franz smiled, thin-lipped, and limped away from the Prince's administrator, out of the dark, cold cell.

The fresh night air bathed his face like cool water when he left the building. The estate of Eszterháza lay spread around him in the glow of the moonlight, beautiful and serene. The palace was a great, dark shape on his left. Still water glimmered in the fountains before him.

He touched his shirt and felt the reassuring crinkle of paper inside. He'd devoured the image that morning as soon as light illuminated his cell, memorizing every arc of ink.
Flame shooting up from a beaker, flanked by two black birds
. It was the symbol of his coming freedom.