Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) (23 page)

Vanya didn’t even
know what he was doing at the Castlereaghs’ ball. He’d known Lizzie wouldn’t be there and, yet, part of him had hoped. After all, she shouldn’t have been at the Duchess of Sagan’s either but there she’d been.

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.

T
hat 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…