Vienna Dawn (The Imperial Season Book 3) Page 19

  When it was Dunya’s turn, she too had many offers to turn her music for her, but she laughingly turned them all down. “I don’t use music for these. They’re old Russian folk melodies I learned just by ear.”

  She played them on the balalaika, not normally regarded as an aristocratic instrument, and she could see a few amused and even sneering looks before she started. She began with a sad and haunting song that always brought tears to her eyes. At least she stopped them actually spilling tonight, and was delighted to see the sneers had mostly vanished. A few handkerchiefs were even employed. Her second piece was a much livelier dance that earned her cheers and shouts of “Encore!”

  Laughing, Dunya shook her head. “No, no, if I play it again, Vanya will dance!”

  “I want to see Vanya dance,” Dorothée said mischievously.

  “I want to see Vanya dance,” someone seconded, and Dunya saw with awe that it was the Tsar himself. She hadn’t noticed his arrival while she was playing. Beside him sat Dorothée’s sister, the famously beautiful Duchess of Sagan. The Tsar smiled directly at Dunya. “I want to see both of you dance!”

  Breathlessly, Dunya met Vanya’s gaze, question and answer buzzing between them. Vanya laughed, and Dunya ran to Anastasia, tugging her to her feet. “We used to dance this and make our people laugh. My sister has to play!”

  “Dunya, no!” Anastasia hissed.

  “Oh please, Asya, it will be fun! Just one. The Tsar has commanded!”

  “It’s Advent,” she objected feebly.

  “I’m sure private performances don’t count,” Dorothée said with a dismissive wave of one elegant hand.

  M. de Talleyrand laughed quietly.

  So Anastasia sat down at the pianoforte, and Dunya and Vanya took their places. Anastasia struck one sad, mournful chord, followed by a soft, gentle melody, during which Dunya and Vanya slowly circled each other, their arms gradually stretching upward, until, without any warning to the audience, Anastasia struck another, louder chord, just as Dunya and Vanya leapt in the air. The music tumbled into wild abandon, and so did the dance, with much spinning and jumping.

  The audience stood up to see better and those at the back weren’t above climbing on their chairs. Together Dunya and Vanya spun down the length of the room and back up again, he throwing her in the air and catching her again only to crouch down and kick out his legs, Cossack style while she twirled around him. The dance never paused, which was one of the reasons they’d enjoyed it so much as children, just built to a flying crescendo which always ended with Vanya leaping onto the piano as if Dunya had thrown him there. And though they hadn’t performed it together for years, everything was still in perfect time, the three of them still in perfect understanding just as it had used to be.

  The audience, clearly carried away by the sheer exuberance, applauded crazily. Vanya jumped down and Dunya hugged him, laughing, before falling into her sister’s arms. Almost to her surprise, Anastasia hugged her back convulsively. Her face felt wet, although when Dunya pulled back in quick concern, she was smiling.

  “I do love you and Vanya,” she whispered. “I miss those days!”

  “So do I,” Dunya confided, but already Anastasia had pulled free.

  Looking around her, Dunya saw Nikolai watching his wife. He looked stunned. But then, he’d looked like that quite a lot since coming to Vienna. Then Richard stepped into her line of vision.

  “You’re amazing,” he said, and her happiness was complete.

  Even the Tsar’s amused and enthusiastic compliments didn’t touch her half as much. She seemed to drift on to Richard’s arm while the noisily appreciative crowd closed in behind them. She felt as if she danced across the room and out into the blessedly cool air of the hall.

  There, she could have recovered her breath if only Richard hadn’t swung her aside and straight into his embrace. Her sob of sheer joy was lost in his mouth.

  He kissed her as if he’d never stop, and she clung to him, throwing both arms around his neck, stroking his hair, his cheek.

  “There was never anyone like you,” he muttered against her lips as they loosened. “There never will be.”

  She smiled, tugging insistently until he sank into her mouth once more. Somewhere, she was aware of hurried footsteps, the shocked murmur of servants, and then dizziness overwhelmed her as she was whisked across the hall and fell against a closed door.

  “Are we safe?” she asked on a shaky laugh. He hadn’t let her go once.

  “Up to a point,” he replied huskily and kissed her again with a hunger she’d never imagined and yet now she seemed always to have understood.

  She wanted to weep and laugh and dance all at once. But more than anything, she wanted to be exactly where she was, soaking up feeling so physically and emotionally intense that she thought she might burst with them.

  I love you. She tried to say the wondrous words but they got lost in his mouth, in her own almost sobbing breath, and came out only as a strange little squawk that made them both smile.

  He lifted his head at last, stroking her nape in a way that made her shiver. “I’ve messed up your hair,” he said ruefully.

  “I can repin it and blame it on Vanya’s dancing.”

  “Do we have to go back in there?”

  She considered it, weighing up the temptation against the inevitable concern of her family.

  Richard laughed softly. “You’re wonderful, you know. It’s all right. I know I have to take you back. For now.”

  She kissed him for that, and his mouth grew thrillingly slower and heavier and hotter. He almost dragged himself out of her hold.

  “I can’t do this if you touch me,” he said unsteadily. “Can you pin your own hair or should I send your maid? Your sister?”

  She did it by feel, which was normally good enough, but since her fingers trembled she had to ask him if it had worked.

  “Beautiful,” he said, taking her hand and swinging it up to his mouth to kiss the palm. “Dunya.”

  “Yes?” she said breathlessly.

  “Can you teach a one-armed man to dance?”

  “I think a one-armed man can do anything. If he’s you.”

  His lips stretched into a slow smile. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “I do,” she whispered, but before she could explain, voices sounded just outside the room.

  Richard pulled her with him in a mad dash behind the door, so that when it opened it hid them.

  “It’s empty,” a voice said in French and a couple hurried straight in.

  As one, Dunya and Richard whisked themselves around the door and out into the hall where they dropped hands self-consciously, since Dunya’s mother stood staring at them, only feet away.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Trelawny, deliriously happy with the whole world, bowed to the countess.

  She acknowledged him with a haughty nod. “Captain, be so good as to find my other daughter and tell her we’re ready to go home.”

  Although it was clearly intended as a dismissal, he didn’t mind because he was sure now that against all the odds in the world, Dunya loved him. His whole being still raged from her kisses.

  “Already?” Dunya said, disappointed. “It isn’t even midnight and I’m sure there will be more music!”

  “I think it’s generally agreed,” the countess said dryly, “that after the last performance, anything more would inevitably be an anti-climax.”

  Dunya let out a gurgle of laughter. “It was fun, and I don’t believe anyone’s truly shocked. Folk music and dances are quite in fashion, you know.”

  The countess raised her eyebrows. “What about those made up by noble children on their family’s ornamental lawn, accompanied by a piano dragged out of the house and onto the terrace?”

  “Is that how you did it?” Richard asked, grinning.

  “No one here would know the difference,” Dunya assured him. “Even if there were experts present, Russia’s so vast that it could be a genuine folkdance somewhere!�
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  Laughing, Richard went off in search of Anastasia.

  “Remember to keep your eyes open,” Dunya called after him.

  And belatedly, he recalled they were meant to be watching for Ferrand, and for who left the embassy just before midnight. He had the feeling Dunya herself had only just remembered.

  “For goodness sake, why would he close them when he’s looking for Anastasia?” the countess demanded and Richard grinned again.

  In the main salons, wine was being served liberally. In the middle of the room, Lizzie seemed to be arguing some political point with Dorothée, while Vanya, his eyes twinkling, used her to demonstrate some ridiculous step from his mad childhood dance. It seemed the joke went on.

  Eventually, he found Nikolai on his own in a quiet corner of the room, looking morose. The sight of Trelawny didn’t appear to cheer him any.

  “Countess Savarina asked me to convey to you and your wife that she wishes to go home,” Trelawny said.

  “Thank God,” he said, standing at once.

  “You didn’t enjoy the evening? I have to say the last act provided a tantalizing glimpse of the Savarin childhood!”

  Nikolai smiled painfully. “Only a glimpse. The reality, we’re ever excluded from.”

  “Is that bad?” Trelawny enquired. “Our glimpses are fun, without the tears and tantrums.”

  For no obvious reason, Nikolai laughed. “Their warmth is beguiling and yet chaotic. I can’t understand it. That is bad. Thank you for the message, Captain.”

  Baffled and slightly concerned, Trelawny gazed after him for a moment, before returning to his search for either Anastasia or Ferrand. A glance at the battered pocket watch he’d carried with him throughout the Peninsular campaign, like a good luck charm, showed him that it was ten minutes until midnight. Sure that this particular vehicle would leave from the back rather than the front of the house, he hurried through the smaller salon, where he was almost brought up short by the sight of Wahrschein and Anastasia.

  The Prussian seemed to be talking passionately to her while she, pale as alabaster, gazed at her feet. At last, she nodded once and turned away. Trelawny hurried after her, but she’d already seen Nikolai and was walking toward him.

  Trelawny returned to his search for the back exit that didn’t involve going through the kitchen and servants’ quarters. On the way, he collected his great coat and sword belt from the quiet cloakroom. He’d become quite adept at donning the sword by stepping into the loosely buckled belt, pulling it up, and drawing it tight with his one hand. But he was still glad there was no one present to see. With his coat on to hide the weapon, he hurried on down the hall.

  He might already be too late to see who was leaving, let alone to follow. Although it was true the mysterious Herr von Zelig—or Garin—might well have the matter in hand.

  The other niggling concern at the back of his mind had always been the supposed wager between Etienne and Wahrschein and whatever they’d planned for tonight. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be so very far away, for Vanya had arranged his duel with Etienne for dawn tomorrow. Still, he’d been glad to see Anastasia return to her family, and Dunya…

  The back door of the house stood open. From here, the rest of the house sounded eerily quiet, and the hairs rose on Trelawny’s skin. He kept his hand on the sword hilt as he walked through the door.

  Steps led down to a small yard and there, in the cold moonlight, stood a horse and carriage. And just climbing into the carriage, Etienne de la Tour. Quick as thought, Trelawny leapt down the steps, keeping his hand on his sword to prevent it scraping. He ran to the front of the carriage and climbed up on to the box, where the driver regarded him with surprise.

  Trelawny nodded amiably. “Cold night,” he observed in French. “Let’s go.”

  *

  Once Dunya had remembered about the midnight carriage—the evening had been just too delightfully distracting, particularly the last ten minutes with Richard—she had no intention of waiting tamely with her mother for Anastasia. So under pretense of looking for her missing fan, which she must have dropped across the hall in the empty room where Richard had kissed her, she hurried after him into the salon. The smaller salon off it, had a doorway further down the hall, from where she hoped she might find her way to the back exit and discover the evil Ferrand. Perhaps she’d even overhear his command to the driver and find out where they were going, then she and Richard could follow.

  Her heart beat a little faster at that idea. There was nothing she wanted more than another adventure with Richard.

  She would have hurried straight through the smaller salon, only her wary gaze found Mr. Fawcett alone at the back of the room. A servant was presenting him with a letter on a silver salver. Which wasn’t so odd, since much business of the Peace Congress was actually conducted at parties. Delegates and diplomats received epistles all the time from their superiors, underlings, and foreign counterparts. But Mr. Fawcett had nothing to do with the Congress proceedings. Like many others, including much of her own family, he was here purely for the social occasion. And he did look surprised to receive the letter.

  Impulsively, Dunya paused, pretending to search for something in her reticule, while she covertly watched him unfold the letter and read.

  After barely a second, he sat abruptly, barely making the edge of the chair, as if, without it, he would simply have collapsed on the floor. Despite everything, Dunya’s curiosity vanished into sympathy.

  Neither his mother nor the other Mrs. Fawcett nor even Jane was with him. No one else seemed to have noticed his state of shock. Dunya abandoned her hoped-for adventure and went to him.

  “Mr. Fawcett?” she said gently. “Is everything well with you?”

  “No,” he said, blankly, still staring at the paper. “No, it isn’t. Jane—Miss Reid—has gone.”

  “Gone?” Dunya repeated. “Gone where?”

  “This is my fault,” he said, thrusting the letter under her face. “And yours!” he added with a glare.

  “Mine?” She took the letter from him mechanically, her gaze dropping to the short message.

  My dear Mr. Fawcett,

  I could not leave without these last few words to you. I know it is my own fault that you no longer believe in the great esteem and affection I hold for you. Nevertheless, I must repeat them and beg you to believe also that this step I have taken is as much for your peace as for mine. Although you are too much the gentleman to break our engagement, it is quite clear to me that you do wish it to be broken. And so, with a heavy heart, I depart for my new life where no one will know or care about my circumstances, or the accidental deceit which you and your family perceive as deliberate. Please know that it is not my choice but a last resort. I may be a weak creature but I find I could not bear the shame of public revelation and vilification.

  Please also convey my deepest regrets to your mother and Mrs. Fawcett for my sudden departure. I will always remain grateful for their past kindness, and for yours. I shall never forget you.

  Jane Reid.

  “Trelawny was right,” Fawcett said heavily. “I let that beautiful girl get away because of my coldness and my…because of you.”

  There was more than a hint of accusation, even loathing in the word you.

  “She can’t have been gone long,” Dunya said. “In fact, if she left this for you here, she is begging you to follow and bring her back!”

  He stared at her. “Do you think so? What can you know about such matters?” Snatching the letter back from her, he crumpled it in his hand. “I should have listened to Trelawny. I should—” He broke off, straightening. “Wait a moment. They are old friends, always conversing alone in corners… Trelawny was warning me last night, giving me one last chance before he took her from me! And in such a way!”

  “Oh no,” Dunya said earnestly. “You have that quite wrong.”

  “Then where is he?” Fawcett demanded with lugubrious triumph. “They are both gone.”

  “There he is,
” Dunya said, nodding toward the door into the hallway, through which Richard was just vanishing. Her feet itched to run after him. “Let me talk to him…”

  “Oh no,” Fawcett said, hauling himself to his feet. “I shall talk to him. You should return to your mother.”

  “Thomas?” Mrs. Fawcett’s voice said behind them. “What are you about and where is Miss Reid? Your mother wishes to go home. Ah, Countess, my compliments on your performances tonight!”

  Dunya smiled and answered at random, feeling high spirits were not quite appropriate to Mr. Fawcett’s mood. Civility demanded she stay and exchange a few words with Mrs. Fawcett, but as soon as she reasonably could, she left them and hurried in Richard’s wake. Since there was no sign of him toward the front of the hall, where she glimpsed her own impatient family, she hastily turned the other way. Of course, he would be checking on the midnight carriage.

  As she rounded the corner, she even saw him in the distance, heading out the open door. Picking up her skirts, she ran after him, ignoring the stunned footmen she encountered on the way. She slipped through the door before they could close it and stopped abruptly at the top of the stone steps down to the yard.

  A carriage and four horses stood there.

  Aha!

  But to her surprise, it was a woman who half-thrust her head through the open window of the carriage. “Please hurry!”

  Jane Reid. She really was eloping with another man because she felt there was no other path for her. Dunya started down the steps, her mouth already open to call out to her not to go, that Fawcett clearly loved her in his own way. But at Jane’s call, one of the two men on the drivers’ box, whose outlines she could just make out, turned his head into the moonlight, and the words died unspoken.

  It seemed everything else died too, because the man taking Jane away, just as Fawcett had guessed, was Richard Trelawny.