Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) Read online

  But, of course, she wasn’t at the ball. Although he did spot her aunt and cousins, and that smarmy clergyman whose face he wanted to punch almost as much as he wanted to punch Blonsky. Although if they were all here, then Lizzie was at home. Alone. Apart from her brother and sisters and the infamous dog.

  Without a word to anyone, he left the ballroom and strode out of the house. Ten minutes later, he knocked on the door of number twenty-five Skodegasse, and asked for Miss Gaunt.

  “Miss Gaunt isn’t here,” said the maid with such surprise, that he knew it was true.

  “Then where is she?” he demanded, peering past her. He’d fully expected at least one of the children and the dog to be tumbling downstairs to greet him by now.

  “There was a note from the English lady and they all left,” the maid said, unable to keep a hint of indignation, or perhaps worry, from her face.

  “English lady? Mrs. Fawcett?” Vanya demanded.

  He never heard the maid’s reply. Her nod was enough to set him running for the nearby stable where he kept his horse.

  *

  There had, indeed, been a note from Mrs. Fawcett. A somewhat cryptic note merely demanding Lizzie’s instant presence. Which she was glad to give. She would have been glad to do anything that didn’t involve sitting around the house and thinking. About whether to forgive Johnnie for being Vanya and about whether or not Mr. Grassic was right when he accused them both of being Cousin Ivan the Terrible.

  Since she was unsure of Mrs. Fawcett’s crisis and whether or not it would be necessary to stay the night at the inn, she rounded up the children and Dog and took them with her in the kindly supplied carriage. A scribbled note to Aunt Lucy explained where she had gone.

  “I do hope Mrs. Fawcett hasn’t truly been taken ill,” she said worriedly as the carriage bowled over the cobbles on its way out of the city.

  “Perhaps Herr Schmidt is worse,” Henrietta suggested.

  “Oh dear, I hope not!” Lizzie exclaimed. “I wish she’d just explained and then we wouldn’t need to be worrying.”

  “Perhaps we’d have worried more if we knew,” Michael said helpfully.

  “Oh dear,” Lizzie said again, biting her lip.

  However, when they reached the inn, hurrying inside in a chaotic, anxious huddle, they discovered Mrs. Fawcett playing cards with Herr Schmidt in the private parlor, quite oblivious to all the drunken noise from the taproom.

  Mrs. Fawcett glanced up and smiled, as if they’d just come from upstairs. “Good evening. What are you all doing here?”

  “We got your message,” Lizzie said, inclined to indignation at the clear health of Mrs. Fawcett and the almost as clear recovery of Herr Schmidt.

  Mrs. Fawcett’s attention returned to her cards. “What message?” she asked vaguely.

  Inexplicable unease began to claw at Lizzie’s stomach. “Where is Johnnie?” she asked.

  “Isn’t he with you?” Mrs. Fawcett asked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  That evening, Misha, Vanya’s servant, had sustained a visit from the one being in the world he feared. His master’s mother.

  “Where is he?” she demanded, sailing into the attic the instant Misha opened the door. In a gorgeous evening gown of midnight blue silk, with jewels at her throat and ears, and in her elaborately dressed hair, Countess Savarina was clearly on her way to a party, even though she couldn’t have been in Vienna for longer than an hour or two. He couldn’t believe that any of her servants wouldn’t have warned him, or Vanya himself, had it been any longer.

  Misha could do no more than blanch and get out of her way. “I couldn’t say, Madame.”

  “Why not, Misha? I’ve never known you to be anything other than fully cognizant of where my son spends his evenings.”

  “He had several invitations, Madame. I don’t know where he went first.”

  Countess Savarina gazed around her with distaste, ran one gloved finger along the mantel shelf, checking it for dust. Finding none, she sniffed. “Well? Hazard a guess, Misha.”

  “Lady Castlereagh’s ball,” Misha said, hoping his master wouldn’t kill him for the betrayal. Surely he would understand…?

  The countess was flicking through the cards of invitation propped up against the clock. She sniffed at the Duchess of Sagan’s. And at Princess Bagration’s. Then she found the note from Mrs. Fawcett, and since it wasn’t sealed, she simply read it.

  “Who is Mrs. Fawcett? Vanya’s latest paramour?”

  Misha choked. “God, no! She just sort of…looks after the young lady.” As soon as the words left his lips, he’d have given anything to take them back. Not for the first time, he wished he didn’t babble in front of the countess. Or at least not when he was trying to hide things from the countess.

  “What young lady?” the countess inquired sweetly.

  “I couldn’t say, Madame.”

  “Oh, Misha, of course you can. And will. Is she that bad?”

  “Oh no, Madame, she’s no lightskirt! Never seen him chase a girl, a lady like this before…” Too late, he realized he’d said the wrong thing again.

  The countess’ eyes narrowed, so that they appeared to be spitting through slits. “You mean this female wishes to marry my son?”

  “Oh no, I’m sure that never enters her head,” Misha said in relief. After all, Miss Lizzie thought the colonel was a hired thief.

  “You are both imbeciles,” the countess said with contempt.

  “Yes, Madame,” Misha said meekly.

  “So, my son is with this Mrs. Fawcett right now?”

  “No, Madame,” Misha replied with some relief that he could tell the truth on that score. “He hasn’t read the message yet. It arrived for him after he left for the evening.”

  “Good.” The countess opened her fingers, letting the note flutter to the floor while she walked across the room to the door. “Where will I find Lady Castlereagh’s establishment?”

  *

  “Why would you expect Johnnie to have come with me?” Lizzie asked suddenly.

  The question came suddenly into her head more than an hour after their arrival, since Dog had broken into the taproom almost immediately and had to be extracted from the local drinkers who’d found him highly entertaining and hadn’t wanted to part from him. After which, there had been refreshments and health questions and Lizzie had been so relieved to find Mrs. Fawcett in perfect health and Herr Schmidt so far un-relapsed as to be downstairs fully dressed, dining and playing cards, that she’d allowed herself to be distracted.

  Despite having dined already, the children consumed the leftovers from the meal. Lizzie didn’t even try to prevent this now, since she’d long accepted that Mrs. Fawcett insisted on over-ordering in both quantity and variety, and even with a companion, had no hope of ever finishing any meal. She had absolutely no concept of economy, which was fine, since she appeared to have the means to indulge such extravagance.

  It was only after the meal had been cleared away and the children were demonstrating to Herr Schmidt how high Dog could jump to catch his ball, that the oddity of Mrs. Fawcett’s words came back to Lizzie. “Why would you expect Johnnie to have come with me?”

  “I thought you might have met on the road from Vienna,” Mrs. Fawcett said vaguely.

  Lizzie frowned. Mrs. Fawcett was never vague about arrangements. She’d summoned Lizzie in writing. “No, you didn’t,” she said frankly. “Or at least not with good reason. Either it wasn’t you who wrote to me—and it did look like your handwriting—or Johnnie should have been with us. Why should Johnnie have been with us?”

  “Oh drat you, girl, can’t an old lady indulge in a little intrigue? It’s not as if you haven’t.”

  Lizzie’s eyes widened. “What on earth do you mean, ma’am?”

  “I mean you tried to pull the wool over my eyes. You never eloped with Johnnie or anyone else in your life. It isn’t in your character. In fact, it isn’t even in his. You let me think he was an officer while you thought he was a
thief.”

  Lizzie had the grace to flush. “Forgive me. It wasn’t really my secret to tell. And in any case, we had to account for us being here together and I doubted you’d believe I would elope with a thief who swept up leaves in our back garden.”

  “Did he?” Briefly distracted, Mrs. Fawcett looked willing to be entertained by the story. Dog, leaping to catch the ball that had bounced off the ceiling, landed on his back amidst a hail of laughter from the children and bounced back up, panting. Mrs. Fawcett shook herself visibly and frowned. “However, I could see at once he was a gentleman.” Her sharp gaze lifted to Lizzie’s. “Why couldn’t you?”

  Lizzie looked away. “I don’t know. I suppose I saw what I wanted to see and ignored everything that didn’t fit. People often do. I just didn’t realize I was one of them.”

  “And yet my revelation doesn’t appear to surprise you.”

  “I met him at the Duchess of Sagan’s and saw at once how blind, how idiotic I’d been. I, of all people, should know that clothes don’t make the man.”

  “Well, in mitigation, I’m sure he played to your assumptions.”

  Lizzie smiled unhappily. “I was going to ask you to employ him, so that he wouldn’t have to steal anymore.”

  Mrs. Fawcett laughed. “What a splendid idea! Although, you know, he wouldn’t have made my life at all peaceful. I like my servants peaceful.”

  “Well, it’s hardly relevant since he’ll never be one. Or not in that way. So you did write to me? And to him?”

  Mrs. Fawcett sighed and nodded. “I confess. I hoped you’d meet on the way, that you’d see him at last as a gentleman and realize…”

  “Realize what?” Lizzie demanded.

  “That he was a gentleman,” Mrs. Fawcett said in a rush, with rare repetition. “But there, you worked it out for yourself without my help, and my plan didn’t work anyway, since he isn’t here.”

  “Actually,” Lizzie said with a resumption of unease, “why isn’t he here?”

  Mrs. Fawcett shrugged. “I suppose he didn’t get my note. He may already have been out for the evening.”

  Lizzie nodded. It seemed likely and there was no real reason for her unease. She swallowed. “Do you know…” Do you know who he is? But she couldn’t yet ask that question. She shied away from the answer. “Do you know about Russian names?”

  “I know they use patronymics as well as surnames,” Mrs. Fawcett said. “But I have very little familiarity with actual names. I’ll bet Herr Schmidt does, though.”

  Herr Schmidt, in the act of throwing the ball for Dog, glanced over at the sound of her raised voice. “What do you want to know?”

  “Is Vanya a Russian surname?” Lizzie blurted.

  “I’ve never heard it used as such,” Herr Schmidt said. “It’s a common diminutive of Ivan, the Russian form of John.”

  Lizzie drew in a painful breath and gazed at Mrs. Fawcett. “Please tell me he isn’t Ivan the Terrible.”

  *

  Vanya lay flat on his back, winded and disoriented, gazing up at the stars with rare appreciation. He’d always loved sleeping under the stars…

  Only he wasn’t asleep. He’d been riding full tilt from Vienna to the inn when, without warning, something had struck him hard in the chest, knocking him backwards off his horse. It was if he’d ridden into a tree branch in the dark, only the force was too great and between them, he and the horse were used to avoiding such obstacles…

  He’d been a soldier too long. He’d survived too many battles and ambushes. Even dazed, he listened to his warning instincts and right now they were screaming.

  Vanya rolled, leaping to his feet and drawing his sabre in a smooth, practiced action, just as a sword slashed at the ground where his neck would have been. And with new, sickening fear, Vanya remembered that Lizzie and her siblings had passed this way already this evening.

  Trying to blink his dizziness away, Vanya saw there were three of them—big, vicious bruisers. He didn’t wait for them to attack again. He was in too big a hurry because he needed to know what had happened to Lizzie. Instead, he flew at them with his best Cossack war cry. His horse whinnied in instant response, so he knew the animal hadn’t gone far without him.

  Taken by surprise by the force of his attack, the enemy fell back before him. Only one of them had a sabre. The others had vicious daggers and clubs. And they were undoubtedly strong. He’d have thought them street brigands, thugs, except for the fact they swore in Russian. It wouldn’t save them. Not if they’d touched so much as a hair on Lizzie’s head.

  Dropping one villain with a vicious sabre swipe to his right arm, he seized the club of the second and wrested it from him by means of a kick in the chest. As the man staggered back, Vanya drove in, smashing the club left handed into the man’s head while he fended off the third man with the sabre.

  Seeing his fellows both out of action, the third man panicked and dropped his weapon. Vanya kicked his feet from under him and fell on him, holding the sabre across his throat. He imagined his victim doing the same to Lizzie and barely managed to stop himself from cutting the bastard in two before he’d even asked the question. As though seeing it, the villain’s face contorted in abject terror. He knew he’d never been closer to his Maker.

  “Who else have you attacked on this road?” Fear reduced Vanya’s voice to a little more than a whisper, but the hiss must have sounded even more sinister to his attackers, for the one he’d beaten with his own club stopped crawling toward him, while the man with the sabre sobbed out, “No one, Excellency! I swear!”

  Could he believe him? He thought he could. The man had been too surprised by the question. But he didn’t yet dare to relax. “Who sent you?” he barked.

  It was an ambush. On a quiet stretch of road too late for most traffic. Someone had sent them, and since they were Russian, it had probably been for him rather than Lizzie. In which case, he could guess who was behind the attack. He was going to have to do something about Blonsky.

  “Mercy, Excellency! Mercy!” the brigand babbled.

  “Major Blonsky?” Vanya demanded.

  “No, no, not him,” the man replied as though relieved to be able to tell the truth to his bloodthirsty tormentor. “The Englishman. He gave us gold, too much to refuse.”

  Surprise caused Vanya to lift the sabre. His victim clapped a hand to his throat but otherwise didn’t move. Vanya rose and stood back. Blood dripped down the side of his face and trickled under his sleeve and over his hand. He didn’t think it was serious.

  “Englishman?” he repeated. “What Englishman?”

  “Don’t know his name,” the soldier wailed.

  “But you’re Blonsky’s men, aren’t you?” Vanya said shrewdly. “That’s why you didn’t mind having a poke at me. You think I’m your major’s enemy.”

  “Aren’t you?” the one with the slashed arm said bitterly from a few feet away, as he cradled his badly bleeding limb.

  Vanya said, “I was under the illusion we’d all just fought in the same army against a common enemy. We’re all Russians.”

  “Didn’t stop you trying to kill the major!” came the indignant response.

  “Swordplay,” Vanya said with a dismissive wave of one hand. “No one had any intention of killing anyone else.” At least Vanya hadn’t. He hadn’t minded the fight, though. He hadn’t minded at all showing the boy who’d once bulled him and humiliated him so often exactly who was now the stronger, better man. But this was different. This was malice. Murder, initiated surely by a total stranger, not the drunken brawl he was used to among Russians.

  Vanya tore off his cravat and cleaned his sabre with it before returning it to its scabbard. His horse snorted down his neck and he reached up absently to stroke its nose.

  “Well,” he told his attackers who still sat on the ground staring at him with their mouths open. “You’d better get back to your English master and tell him I’m coming for him next. And if I see your ugly faces again, I’ll have you hanged. In fact,
I might anyway unless you do my bidding. If I call you at any time, you jump to it, Major Blonsky notwithstanding.”

  Without waiting for a response, he threw himself onto his horse’s back and galloped off toward the inn. Lizzie. He had to know that Lizzie and the children were safe.

  *

  Mrs. Fawcett’s face gave nothing away except incomprehensible frustration. “Elizabeth—”

  “It’s Johnnie!” Michael reported from the window and Lizzie, conscious still of that nagging fear for him, leapt to her feet, hurrying toward the door before it flew open and Johnnie—Vanya—strode in, wild-eyed and bloody.

  A strange animal-like sound escaped her lips as his gaze swept around the room.

  “Good God!” Mrs. Fawcett exclaimed. “What on earth happened to you?”

  His gaze found the children, seemed to count them, moved on to Lizzie, where it blazed like some strange, flaring firework. Then he closed his eyes and simply sat down on the floor.

  Lizzie threw herself to her knees in front of him. “Johnnie!” Seizing his face between her hands, she turned it up to hers. Someone—Mrs. Fawcett—thrust a damp napkin at her and she wiped the blood from his face. “Where are you hurt? What—”

  She broke off as his hand closed on hers, holding it still against his face.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Goodness,” Henrietta said from the window. “Mrs. Fawcett, you are quite cast in the shade. The most dazzling creature imaginable has just stepped from her carriage into the inn.”

  “I passed someone almost at the gate,” Johnnie said, his voice so blessedly strong and normal that relief swept over Lizzie, drowning even the commotion of, presumably, the fine lady’s entry to the inn.

  “Georgiana,” Mrs. Fawcett said calmly, “run up to my chamber and fetch Cartwright and my medicine box so that we can tend Johnnie’s hurts. What happened to you?”

  “Ambush,” Johnnie said succinctly. “Don’t worry, this is only a scratch. It’s just…I was sure Lizzie and the others weren’t far in front of me and I didn’t know…”