Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (20 page)

Lizzie laughed. “Of course I will. Be good while I’m gone and don’t let Dog get into any trouble.”

Lizzie, who had for some reason, expected a tête-à-tête with her new friend, was surprised to find several other people already present in the faded salons of the Kaunitz Palace. This made it somewhat fast of her to arrive unattended, but Dorothée met her in the hall, greeting her with unaffected delight, and they entered the main salons together.

It struck Lizzie that Dorothée was actually a little lonely. The defeated French, after all, were only just tolerated at the Congress, and no one wished to have much to do with the scheming Prince de Talleyrand, Dorothée’s uncle, who, as a former revolutionary and disillusioned Bonapartist, was definitely suspect.

However, the few ladies and gentlemen present, were all very amiable, if mostly French. She was slightly stunned to meet the Duchess of Sagan herself, already one of the most famous hostesses of the Congress, an exotically beautiful woman with dark blonde hair and tragic brown eyes. Tiny and vivacious, the duchess couldn’t help but draw all eyes.

Dorothée introduced her as “my sister, Wilhelmine.” Which certainly explained her presence. Already married twice and, it was rumored, soon to be divorced for the second time, the duchess was a slightly scandalous figure, but so great an heiress that society forgave her.

“I didn’t realize you were sisters,” Lizzie said.

“Well, we haven’t been much in each other’s company,” Dorothée said carelessly.

“She’s trying to tell you there are ten years between us, without insulting me,” the duchess explained. “And then, we were all married off so young that we’ve been scattered about Europe without much opportunity of meeting. Another reason to love Vienna. Come, tell me your thoughts of our Congress so far.”

“You mean it has begun?” Lizzie asked in surprise, an answer that the duchess seemed to find very witty.

The afternoon passed most pleasantly in amusing conversation with very interesting people, though she also found time to talk alone with Dorothée, who, she discovered, was missing her own children. Indeed, she was still mourning a baby daughter who had died.

“I suppose I was so restless with grief that when my uncle suggested coming to Vienna for a change of scene, I jumped at the chance,” Dorothée confided. “But now, I could wish the city were closer to Courland so that I could visit them more.”

“You’ve done so much with your life already,” Lizzie said wonderingly. “We are the same age and yet you have children, run a palace, and act as hostess for a great statesman. I feel I’ve been buried.”

“Well, England was cut off by the war for so long,” Dorothée excused. “But your mind is not buried.”

Lizzie laughed. “There are those who wish it were a little more subdued,” she admitted. “It rushes off on its own, but I don’t have your education, either.” Although augmented by her own voracious reading, her formal education was very basic compared with Dorothée, who was fluent in several languages, understood complicated mathematics and was used to discussing literature, economy, and politics with some of the greatest minds in Europe. “I’m beginning to feel I’ve wasted my life,” she said with a rare twinge of something that might have been envy, but felt a little more like longing.

“Oh no,” Dorothée said at once. “Never feel that. You have something none of us will ever have, no matter how hard we try.”

“What is that?”

“Happiness,” Dorothée said.

Lizzie felt her jaw begin to drop, but before she could ask for clarification, Dorothée stood up to say goodbye to her sister who was rushing off to her next engagement, with a young military man as her escort.

At the last moment, the duchess turned back and presented Lizzie with a card. “I hope you’ll come,” she said with a fleeting smile, and swept on toward the exit.

“Will you?” Dorothée asked eagerly.

“I’ll ask my aunt,” Lizzie said lightly.

“You could take them all. Wilhelmine won’t mind.”

Lizzie, well aware of the honor just done her, knew equally well that her aunt’s rigid sense of etiquette would never permit her to “tag along” on another’s invitation. Or, probably, allow Lizzie to accept one so casually given and certainly not without a proper escort. However, the new arrival of a distinguished, solitary man drew Dorothée’s attention and saved Lizzie having to reply.

A few moments later, she ushered the young man over to Lizzie. “I bring you a fellow countryman. Mr. Grassic is claiming previous acquaintance, so I’ll leave you to renew it.”

As Dorothée flitted away, Lizzie searched the newcomer’s face for inspiration as to where they’d met previously. Although she found none, it was a good face—not handsome, but interesting, and his eyes laughed.

“Forgive the exaggeration,” Mr. Grassic said gravely. “In fact, we’ve never met, though I do claim acquaintance with two of your cousins and an aunt. I blame my poor French for the misunderstanding.”

“You should speak English to Madame de Talleyrand,” Lizzie advised. “Hers is better than my own. So, you know my cousins, James and Minerva?”

“James, certainly, though I don’t believe I’ve had the honor of meeting Miss Minerva. No, the cousin I was thinking of is Cedric Gaunt. We were at school together.”

“He’s a very distant cousin,” Lizzie observed. “I think I only met him once. Or was it twice?”

“Well, we won’t speak of him,” Mr. Grassic said, so smoothly that Lizzie was sure he shared her low opinion of the absent Cedric who would, had Ivan the Terrible not existed, have inherited Launceton from her father.

“Let’s not,” she agreed cordially. “What brings you to Vienna? The Congress?”

“Only partially, and only for curiosity. Like everyone else, I’m enjoying my new freedom to travel on the continent. In fact, I’m researching a book on early Christianity with the eventual worldly aim, I confess, of advancement within my profession.”

His eyes twinkled so much that Lizzie smiled back. “You are a clergyman, sir?”

“Unlikely, I know, but there it is. I have the honor to be the Vicar of St. Anstell in Gloucestershire.”

“I wish you all fortune with your book,” Lizzie said cordially.

“Thank you. And you, I know, are here with Mr. And Mrs. Daniels. James told me how things were left with you.” The twinkling eyes were serious for a moment. “I’m sorry for your difficulties.”

“Thank you. We’re lucky to have my aunt and uncle.”

“Cedric, for all his faults, would not have treated you so.”

“But Cedric, sadly, was not my father’s heir.”

“Alas,” Mr. Grassic agreed. “And have you met the new baron yet?”

“No, nor want to,” Lizzie said frankly. “He’s in Russia still, I believe.”

“Oh? I had heard a rumor he was in Vienna with the rest of the world.”

“Oh dear, I hope not, for I have the gravest fear my sister will shoot him!” Especially now that Lizzie had given her the idea.

“Rumors are rarely true,” Mr. Grassic observed. “And in London, one Russian is much like another.”

This may well have been the case, but over dinner that evening, just to be sure, Lizzie made a point of asking her uncle if he’d seen or heard anything of the new baron.

Uncle Daniels snorted. “I had an insolent letter from his man of business questioning the inventory of Launceton Hall. Our solicitor is dealing with it.”

“Then he is still in Russia and nowhere near Vienna?”

“Or in England, I suppose. Why the sudden anxiety?” Mr. Daniels seemed inclined to be amused. “I would certainly have heard if he were here.”

“Of course you would,” Lizzie agreed and returned to her soup.

In truth, she wasn’t quite sure why the question niggled at her, but she really didn’t want to meet or even see the man who now owned Launceton, and held so much power over the people she’d grown up among.

However, she was quickly distracted by James’ unusually gloomy countenance. He barely contributed at all to the dinner conversation and there were lines of anxiety around his mouth that she couldn’t recall ever seeing there before. So, when everyone went to prepare for the evening’s outing to the Castlereaghs’ soiree, she followed James as far as his bedroom door, calling his name.

“What?” he asked, without much interest.

“I just wondered what was wrong. You seem very low.”

His hand slid off the door handle. “I am, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

“Louise?” she guessed.

“How did you know?”

“I guessed. What happened?”

James heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. One evening she’s all grace and affection and the next she looks straight through me with no more than a distant smile.”

“Well, she
is
married, James. I expect your devotion was making her life difficult.”

“Maybe. But Fischer had always seemed pleased when his wife was admired, flattered even. He never objected to my being alone with her.”

“Well, you must take your congé like a man,” Lizzie said, giving him an encouraging nudge with her elbow, “and not let the world see how cast down you are.”

“Of course,” he said gloomily. His fingers twisted on the handle, played over the latch, but didn’t open it.

“What else?” Lizzie asked.

“I owe him money. Fischer. I lost a lot at cards. And not just Fischer. I don’t know how I’m going to pay. I’ve spun them some yarn about waiting a day or so for my allowance to reach the bank in Vienna, but the truth is, I’ll never be able to pay. Even if I tell Papa, he doesn’t have that kind of money. He can’t even sell the wretched Launceton necklace with your Ivan the Terrible breathing down his neck. I’m ruined, Lizzie.”

“Oh no, James, I’m sure that’s not true. There’s always a way out…” Although right now, she couldn’t think what it was. There didn’t even seem any point in telling him off, since he was already miserable over it. “The first thing you have to do is stop playing cards altogether,” she said firmly.

“I have. I thought I could solve it all by just one decent win, only that never happened. I just got in deeper and deeper.”

“Let me think about it,” Lizzie advised.

A faint smile lit up the gloom of his face. “You’re a great gun, Lizzie. But there’s nothing you can do about this one.”

“Wait and see,” she said and turned back to her own room to help Minerva.

“J
ohnnie,” she said,
urgently, the next day as she bearded him in the inn stable. In his shirt sleeves, he was brushing down the big, black stallion and seemed to be murmuring softly to it in Russian. Lizzie found that rather touching and wished she hadn’t interrupted, but he turned to her at once and came to the open stall door.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Are you living here?” she countered.

“No, but the horse likes it.”

“Johnnie!”

“I just rode over.”

“We didn’t see you on the road from Vienna.”

“I didn’t come from Vienna.”

“I’m not prying,” she assured him. “I just wanted to ask you…since my aunt still has a necklace and as your man went away to Bohemia, do you think we could steal it and sell it again?”

Johnnie eyed her with bemused fascination. “Because it worked out so well for us the last time?”

Lizzie laughed. “Well, it did. Up until the last moment. We got the money and we didn’t get caught.”

“Yet. Need I remind you there’s a policeman in the house, whom you shot?”

“No, you needn’t, and Mrs. Fawcett says he’s doing much better. I’m about to go up and visit him.”

“To ask him to look the other way when you—we—commit your next crime?”

“Do you think he would?” Lizzie asked with mock seriousness.

“Never.”

“He does seem very…serious about his work.”

Johnnie returned to brushing the horse. “Are
you
serious?”

“About stealing the necklace again?” Lizzie reached up and stroked the velvet nose of the stallion. He was a magnificent animal. “Not really. I think I want it removed from my ‘possible’ list, so that I can come up with something else. Besides, I’m reluctant to involve you in any more thefts when I’ve been lecturing you about mending your ways.”

“The inconsistency wasn’t lost on me. What do you want money for this time? Michael’s cavalry regiment?”

“Oh no, he and Henrietta have quite decided between them that her rich husband will take care of that. No, my cousin, James, is in a bit of a pickle. So much so that I did wonder if I shouldn’t give him
our
money, only I do want it for the children…”

“You should let your cousin find his way out of his own scrapes. That’s how you learn not to get into them.” He laughed suddenly. “Listen to me, preaching morality.”

“Hardly, and you’re right of course. Only James’ scrapes reflect badly on my uncle and, therefore, on British interests in Vienna. How did you come by such a beautiful horse?”

There was a pause, then: “Don’t ask,” Johnnie said lightly. He moved around to the stall door and the horse nuzzled his neck. Johnnie slipped him some sugar. “I’ll think about James if you leave off hiring another thief for the time being.”

“Done,” Lizzie agreed. With an effort, she dragged her fascinated gaze away from man and horse and moved back out of the stall. For some reason, she’d been holding her breath and let it out now in a rush.

Johnnie followed her, closing the stall door. “Come then,” he said, grabbing his old coat off a peg on the wall. “Let’s go and visit our policeman.”

However, when they got to their patient’s bed chamber, they found he already had visitors. The children had apparently discovered Mrs. Fawcett there, and Georgiana and Michael were interrogating him about his wound, while Dog dragged Henrietta around the room, sniffing at everything.

“Oh dear,” Lizzie said. “It’s not enough that I shoot you; I bring my entire family to stay with you, too.”

Although her victim, who called himself Herr Schmidt without much conviction, was still looking pale, he seemed much better. Mrs. Fawcett said she only managed to keep him in bed with the promise that he could get up for tea this afternoon, provided he allowed her footmen to carry him downstairs.