Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (14 page)

“You’re very, very good, ma’am,” she said fervently.

“I’m very, very good at organizing people as I want them,” Mrs. Fawcett corrected. “Call Cartwright, will you? Tell her I want my pens and paper.”

Within a quarter of an hour, Lizzie was comfortably ensconced in Mrs. Fawcett’s well-appointed travelling coach, being waved off by the lady herself, the maid, and the landlady of the inn.

At the last moment, Lizzie stuck her head out of the window. “Oh, Mrs. Fawcett! When I return, do you think I could bring my dog?”

M
rs. Fawcett’s coachman
dropped her at the door of the Daniels’ house in the Skodegasse. She thanked him and he tipped his hat.

“See you tomorrow then, miss,” he said cheerfully and urged his horses on.

Lizzie let herself in with her own key and while she removed her cloak, listened carefully. The house seemed ominously quiet. Of course, it still lacked an hour until noon, so it was unlikely the ball-goers would be abroad—with the exception of her uncle who, presumably, had to attend to diplomatic business. But it wasn’t like her siblings, or Dog, to be so subdued.

She ran upstairs to the room she shared with her sisters and Minerva, entering with some trepidation. Both beds were occupied, the smaller by Minerva, and the larger by an ungainly heap which was clearly her sisters’ representation of herself asleep.

Minerva didn’t stir as Lizzie crossed the chamber on tiptoe. Crouching down, she drew the small trunk from under bed, replaced the carpet bag inside it, and pushed it gently back under. That done, she quickly smoothed and made up the bed, and quietly left the room. In the hallway, she encountered her aunt’s maid.

“Good morning, Benson,” she said brightly, searching the maid’s face for signs of disapproval or any other unusual reaction to her presence. “Where are the children?”

“I saw them go out to the garden, Miss. With the dog.”

“Then that explains the quiet in the house. Is my aunt awake yet?”

“Just about, Miss.”

At least all seemed well with Benson and so, presumably, with her aunt. But before she could relax, she had to see the children.

They were, indeed, discovered in the garden. As soon as she opened the garden door, Dog launched himself at her. Undeterred by the pole to which he was tethered, he continued to run at her in short, pointless burst that always pulled him up short and should have hurt him.

Putting him out of his misery, Lizzie went to him at once, let him jump on her and lick her while she held on to him for self-preservation and the children ran at her with cries of relief and joy.

“Oh goodness, calm down,” Lizzie begged. “You’ll give the whole game away.”

“We were just discussing where to tell Aunt Lucy you’d gone,” Georgiana said. “I reckon we could have got you another couple of hours.”

“Though I for one am very glad not to have to,” Henrietta said.

“What happened?” Michael demanded. “Did you get it? Because they all seemed very cheerful when they came home.”

“Really? Well, that is good, I suppose…although we may well have the panic tonight, instead. What is happening tonight?”

“Prince Metternich’s ball,” Michael answered, and when his sisters gazed at him in astonishment at his being aware of any such thing, he added, “What? Apparently, it has a military theme.”

“Ah,” Lizzie said, understanding. “Well, let’s sit down here around Dog’s pole so he can lie on top of me while we speak. I’ve had quite an adventure and it isn’t all good—although at least we have the money.”

She told them nearly everything, including speaking to the tsar, although omitting her dance and subsequent passage with Colonel Vanya. She told them of her difficulty finding Johnnie in the crush and his unilateral decision to steal the necklace by some flim-flam that meant Aunt Lucy didn’t realize it had been stolen. When she got to the part at the inn and the stranger demanding her bag, they all gazed at her wide-eyed with shock. Michael and Georgiana both cheered Johnnie for hitting him and even when she described how she came to shoot the poor man, Michael declared stoutly that he’d deserved it.

Henrietta, in her kindhearted way, was touched by everyone’s care of the wounded man, although Georgiana showed a disquieting interest in the gory details. For once, she appeared to agree with Michael that Lizzie had done the right thing in shooting him.

When she came to her encounter with Mrs. Fawcett, they all scratched their heads, wondering if she was a true friend or an interfering busybody.

“She seems to have known both Mama and Papa,” Lizzie told them. “And while she’s definitely most curious by nature, she does seem benevolently disposed toward us. She didn’t need to stay there to look after my victim or send me back in her carriage. To be frank, if it hadn’t been for her, our game would have been up. As to my reputation, my uncle’s fury and Minerva’s chances of a good marriage… I shudder to think. And she’s written to Aunt Lucy to ask if I might visit her at the inn tomorrow, so I’ll have an excuse to return to the patient.”

“Can we come?” Georgiana asked as a knock sounded on one of the house windows. Lizzie looked up to see Benson summoning her from her aunt’s room.

“I don’t see why not,” Lizzie said, standing up. “It’s a big carriage and I already have permission to transport Dog in it. You’re not
much
more destructive.”

The children’s laughter following her back inside the house gave her the strength to face her aunt calmly. She had no doubt that her aunt had finally discovered the theft of the beloved necklace. But when Lizzie, heart thumping with guilt and not a little shame, opened the door, she found her aunt waving a sheet of paper around.

“Did I know Eleanor Fawcett was your godmother?” Aunt Lucy asked.

“Only unofficially,” Lizzie said. “
You
are my godmother.”

“Yes, but it’s also true Eleanor and your mother were very close for a time…until Jane married your father, of course. Well, it’s very good of her to take an interest in you now. She’s on her way to Vienna, but was taken ill at an inn not far from the city. She’s asking that you visit her.”

Lizzie said weakly, “How kind.”

“I think you should go. It’s a very good connection. She’s an eccentric creature, of course, but she has a lot of influence in the fashionable world. She knows everyone. Everyone. Be kind to her and when she sets up her establishment in Vienna, we might all expect an invitation.”

Her aunt had more to say on that subject and on the subject of last night’s ball before moving on to her expectations of tonight’s festivity at Metternich’s summer palace, but it all floated over Lizzie’s head. She was more concerned with how and why neither Aunt Lucy nor Benson had noticed that the necklace was missing.

She didn’t discover that until the evening, when, as she was just finishing adjusting the hem of Minerva’s enchanting pale yellow ball gown, Aunt Lucy bustled into the bed chamber to see if her daughter was near ready to go. Resplendent in deep turquoise, her aunt looked every inch the elegant matron of birth, wealth, and influence. Lizzie couldn’t take her eyes off her aunt’s bosom, on which lay the glittering diamond necklace Johnnie had stolen last night.

*

It must be
paste
, she thought as she and the children turned out dutifully to wave the carriage off to its second ball in two nights.
My aunt must have had it made up so she’d have something to keep when she hands the original over to Ivan the Terrible. She’s got muddled and assumed the fake is the real one…

Or was it? What if Johnnie had sold the fake one and the buyer found out? She’d have to give the money back. Though surely any receiver of stolen goods, any decent jewelry fence, would be able to spot a fake…

“Come on then,” Michael said. With their aunt and uncle’s permission, they were going to follow in a hired fiacre to watch the guests arrive at the ball. Reluctantly, Lizzie had vetoed taking the dog who could have caused untold carnage from one moment of inattention.

When they arrived, there were already crowds of people outside Metternich’s palace and spilling onto the grounds themselves. In their usual manner, the children quickly latched on to a friendly Viennese, who good-naturedly pointed out the most important arrivals, including the enormously fat King of Württemberg and his handsome son, the crown prince, the long, lean King of Denmark, and the white-haired Emperor of Austria with his Empress who looked like everyone’s favorite aunt and uncle apart from the fortune in jewels sprayed around the empress’ person.

“Where is the Tsar of Russia?” Henrietta asked eagerly. “Is he not here yet?”

“This will be him,” said their unofficial guide. “Escorted by his Cossacks!”

Michael jumped up and down with excitement, trying to see over people’s heads. Their kind guide pushed Michael in front of him and made a space, too, for the girls. The good-natured Viennese moved happily out of the way to let the children see.

And the Cossacks were playing to the crowd. Although the tsar’s carriage was travelling relatively sedately in their midst, the horsemen were galloping ahead and doubling back in constant, circular motion. They looked rough and wild, with fine moustaches and some very eastern faces, their horsemanship unparalleled in terms of skill, discipline, and precision. Michael was enchanted.

The tsar and the stunningly beautiful tsarina rode in an open carriage and were cheered as enthusiastically as the performing Cossacks. On either side of them rode brilliantly uniformed aides on horseback and, a little in front and farther to one side, rode another officer, resplendent in a green and gold uniform that she’d seen before.

Her heart gave a funny little flutter, because it looked very much like Colonel Vanya’s. She looked up at his face as his part of the cavalcade approached, but she could see nothing to recognize – a hint of black hair beneath his tall hat, which covered a good part of his face, too. She saw only hollow cheeks and rather fine bone structure—the bits, mainly, that on Vanya had been hidden by his mask. She must have been wishing some kind of familiarity on him, for this man could have been anyone.

He appeared, however, to be the Cossacks’ officer. One word from him reined them into proper order as they prepared to enter the front gates. With superb control, the Cossacks wheeled into sedate formation, separating to the front and rear of the tsar’s carriage.

“Magnificent!” Michael exclaimed. “Lizzie, I know I said an infantry regiment would suit me very well, but I
need
to be a cavalryman!”

Lizzie laughed, knowing exactly how he felt. Unexpectedly, the Cossacks’ officer, then waiting at the gate for the carriage to pass through, glanced over his shoulder and directly at her.

Something moved inside her, as if her heart were trying to come out of her throat. The officer smiled, dazzlingly, and inclined his head, then turned back to follow the carriage.

Colonel Vanya, she thought with ridiculous, laughable excitement. Surely Colonel Vanya…

Or, more likely, a complete stranger who’d caught sight of Henrietta. When her sister came out, she was going to need a dragon of a duenna.

*

Although Vanya had
overheard the English boy’s enthusiastic wish to be a cavalryman, expressed in a vaguely familiar, still breaking voice, it hadn’t been enough to attract his attention, not until
she
laughed and answered him.

Just the sound of her voice made him smile and, yet, deluged him with quite uncharacteristic indecision. She’d spent all night in his company without connecting him to her masked admirer at the Emperor’s ball. To see him now, unmasked, wouldn’t she recognize “Johnnie” right away?

What did it matter? It was only a matter of time until he was completely found out and he couldn’t quite understand his reluctance to end the charade. She’d been kind to the thief. But he didn’t want her kindness. He wanted…whatever it was she’d shown the masked colonel, only more, deeper…

Forcibly, he cut off his mind’s ramblings. In a nut shell, he wanted just a little longer of her time, of her company as an equal. And when it all came tumbling down, as it must when she learned the whole truth, well…Vanya wasn’t used to dealing with the future. And right now, he’d settle for a glimpse of her. And so, deliberately, he turned.