CHAPTER SIX

The angel above the Michaelerkirche gazed down with cool marble eyes, its wings raised high in either benediction or the preparation for flight. Caroline hesitated beside the church, her stomach clenching with sudden panic as her carriage drove away from her. Across the square, the Hofburg Palace rose in massive stone grandeur, immense and sickeningly familiar.

She took a deep breath, fighting down the memories.

The night air smelled of fire from the smoke of many torches. Through their flaring, leaping light, Caroline watched the other masked guests stream past her toward the great stone arch that led into the grounds of the palace. Laughing and flirting, they passed in glittering array through the entryway and disappeared, couple by couple, from view.

She had disappeared into this palace once before, and it had swallowed her childhood.

Caroline lifted her chin and crossed the square, following the others. As she passed underneath the double-headed Habsburg eagle that topped the stone archway, she had to tighten her hands on the satin trim of her pelisse to hide their trembling.

It had been twenty years since she had escaped her imprisonment here. She would no longer be afraid.

Inside the first stone court, servants in imperial uniforms waited to direct the crowd. Caroline followed their lead to the ladies’ cloakroom, where she dispensed of her warm pelisse and smiled greetings to faces familiar behind their masks.

“Caro, my love.” A warm arm slipped into hers, and Caroline inhaled musky perfume with resigned familiarity. “It’s been an age! But what a delicious costume you’ve chosen. Ottoman pink—really daring! But it does suit you, despite everything. There aren’t many women willing to take such risks.”

“Thank you, Marie.” Caroline smiled warily at the woman beside her, Lady Rothmere. “I hadn’t heard that you’d come to Vienna.”

“Oh, well, I could hardly miss the most fashionable event of the decade, could I? And poor George—he’s aiding Lord Kelvinhaugh now, you know—was simply driving me mad with his attempts at reporting the balls here—he’s absolutely useless at remembering any of the most interesting gossip—so here I am at last!” Marie opened her rouged mouth wide in laughter behind her glittering cat-mask as the two women stepped out into the great hall. She raised her voice to be heard above the sudden roar of noise. “And I must say, the gentlemen here are far more delectable than in London, don’t you agree?”

Caroline looked around, less to consider the question than to gain herself a moment of breathing space. Crystal chandeliers blazed light across the waltzing couples who filled the great hall. A circular gallery ran along the sides of the hall, with open doors leading into more rooms. An orchestra sat at the back of the great hall, playing waltzes for the dancers in the center, while the tunes of different minuets and polonaises streamed in from the other side rooms to create a deafening confusion.

Before Caroline could even formulate an answer, Marie pulled her forward. “Just look at Emmaline Kelvinhaugh! Oh, what a terrible outfit she’s chosen. Poor dear, she’s never had any real taste, has she? But we must be kind and visit with her anyway. After all, she hasn’t much else to fall back on, does she, with a husband as stuffy as hers? No wonder she acts like such a lack-wit . . .”

Resigned, Caroline followed Marie through the crowd at the edge of the room. It was just as well, she told herself, to have a moment or two to adjust to the glittering chaos—and better yet not to seek out the emperor with too-obvious eagerness. She’d set her lures already this afternoon; best to let him reel himself in with no visible help from her.

A group of women sat along the gallery on raised chairs disposed like an amphitheater, watching the dancers circle past them. Marie led Caroline to one of the closest chairs, where a plain, plump woman in a nun’s loose habit sat with two women wearing black silk dominoes, the simplicity of their own disguises offset by their glittering diamond necklaces and towering tiaras.

“Emmie, my dear, I don’t need to present Caro to you, do I?” Marie smiled brilliantly at the woman dressed as a nun before turning to the other women. “But your friends . . .?”

“Oh, of course.” Lady Kelvinhaugh’s naturally soft voice was nearly lost in the din. She smiled nervously at Caroline and turned to the masked women beside her. In careful French, she said, “May I present Lady Rothmere and Lady Wyndham, good friends from London, Your Majesties? And Marie, Caroline”—she turned back, lowering her voice still further—“you may give your deepest respects to the empress of Austria and the tsarina of Russia.”

“A great honor, Your Majesties.” Caroline curtsied deeply.

Poor Lady Kelvinhaugh. Caroline had seen her tongue-tied and miserable often enough in London society, where she’d lived all her life. Here in Vienna, Sir Edmund Kelvinhaugh was now one of the top diplomats working to divide up the conquered territories of Europe, and he would expect his wife to play her part in his work—thus, her enforced intimacy with the greatest ladies of the Continent.

“No need to curtsy tonight, Lady Wyndham,” the Austrian empress murmured. “There can be no crowns when all are masked, after all.” But her voice was rich with satisfaction as she tilted her chin in a condescending nod.

“Have you had any supper yet?” Lady Kelvinhaugh asked, with a visible effort at sociability. “The food here really is delicious. Especially the—” She caught herself and stumbled to a halt, giving the young empress beside her a panicked look. “That is, my husband always says that everything in Vienna is of the finest quality, without exception. Perhaps—?”

“I’m sure it is,” Caroline murmured. “But I fear I really must move on—I’ve promised to meet a friend, and I see him now.”

Leaving Marie to settle in for a solid round of poisonous gossip and ingratiating flattery, Caroline curtsied again and slipped away. The crowd around the edge of the ballroom was so packed that she had to turn to squeeze herself through, protecting her gown with her elbows pointed out, and aiming for one of the side salons. A familiar voice hailed her after only a few steps.

“Lady Wyndham!” The Prince de Ligne stopped her with a light touch on her arm. “Well met, my dear.”

“And you, Your Highness.” Caroline smiled sincerely at the old man, who stood unmasked in ordinary dark finery. “You’ve saved my manners, too—I swore I’d seen a friend in the crowd, to escape a tedious conversation. I’m glad you’ve made an honest woman of me.”

“Oh, never that, I hope!” The prince glanced behind her. “Whom—? No, let me guess. But first, let me introduce you to my young friend.” He gestured to the young man beside him, who wore a domino but no mask. “The Comte de la Garde-Chambonas, a delightful young friend from Moscow, Paris . . . oh, every great city in Europe, surely! And Augustin, let me present the charming Lady Wyndham, one of our favorite new English guests.”

“A pleasure,” said the comte. His plump face shone with excitement. He glanced rapidly about the room as he spoke, with apparently involuntary distraction. “I am writing a book of memoirs about the Congress, you know, Lady Wyndham.”

“What, so soon? You can hardly have collected material enough, surely—the Congress is only a few days old.”

“Oh, no! I meant to write it later, and—”

“I understand, my dear sir.” Caroline smiled at the young man’s discomfiture and set herself to placate him. “If you wish to gather stories for your future memoirs, then you’ve certainly come to the right place. Our friend De Ligne knows more people, and more clever stories about them, than anyone else I know.”

The prince arched one eyebrow. “Indeed? You set me on my mettle, Lady Wyndham. Let me see . . .” He pivoted slowly, peering through the crowd. “Aha!” He took the young comte’s arm. “There! You see the fellow in that extraordinary mask? There goes Tsar Alexander—without, for once, the charming Countess von Hedermann. Her poor husband must be so disappointed. Perhaps she’s at home practicing her religious fervor for the tsar’s benefit. And there . . .”

His lips twitched as he turned, the comte following his gaze with earnest attention. “Do you recognize that tall and noble-looking personage whom that beautiful Neapolitan girl is holding around the waist? No? Well, that is the king of Prussia.” The prince nodded, his eyes sparkling. “He seems well pleased by his captivity, does he not? And for all that the clever mask on that lady may disguise an empress, it is quite on the cards that she is merely—forgive me, Lady Wyndham—a member of the demimonde who has been smuggled in for the night.”

“Much more likely, from stories I’ve heard of the Prussian king,” Caroline murmured dryly.

“Oh. Well.” The comte swallowed, flushing. “But surely . . . with such a collection of noble personages, all in one room, there must be—”

“You desire a more romantic tale? I understand.” The prince shrugged and turned back to the search. “That colossus in the black domino over there is the king of Württemberg, and the man close to him is his son, the crown prince. His love for the Duchesse d’Oldenbourg, Tsar Alexander’s sister, is the cause of his stay at the Congress, rather than any concern for the grave interests which one day will be his.” He tightened his lips into prim delicacy. “It is a romantic story, the dénouement of which we may witness before long.”

“Ahh,” sighed the comte, with satisfaction.

Caroline met the prince’s eyes for a long, poignant look. Ahh, indeed.

“Ah, youth,” the prince sighed. He brushed a speck of dust off the lace at his cuffs. His attention sharpened; he spoke again, more softly, aiming his words at Caroline.

“And here is the person you have been waiting for, have you not, my dear? Do endeavor not to look too pleased—or, perhaps, even to notice?”

Caroline smiled wryly at the advice but followed it nonetheless, turning to gaze in a different direction and waving her fan softly to relieve the heat. She didn’t have to look to know who was coming. In the emperor of Austria’s own palace, the crowds drew apart to let him through even when he wore a disguise.

Her fingers tightened on the delicate fan. The prince kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter, which the comte did his best to accompany. Caroline kept her fan moving slowly, casually, back and forth . . .

“Your Majesty,” said the prince. “What a delightful ball indeed.”

Caroline turned, assuming a look of startled pleasure, as she finally allowed herself to notice their new companion.

Emperor Francis stood clothed in black silk monk’s robes. A golden chain was wrapped about his narrow waist, a narrow black half-mask covered the top of his face, and a thin gold crown took the place of a tonsure around his silvering fair hair. His eyes went straight to her, she noted, but he spoke courteously to the prince.

“I’m pleased that you’re enjoying it, De Ligne. And . . .?” He glanced briefly at the comte, before his gaze returned to Caroline.

But not to her face. Caroline had to resist the impulse to nervous laughter. The neckline of her dress was fashionably low, to be sure, but not so low as to account for any irresistible magnetism. She began to raise her fan to cover her chest, but halted herself in mid-action. It suited no part of her plan to discourage the emperor’s attention . . . no matter how surprising or unpleasant that attention might feel.

As the comte finished his enthusiastic response, the emperor moved forward. “And Lady Wyndham.” He reached for her hand and leaned over it. “Enchanting, Madam. A veryodalisque, to the life.”

“I thank you, Your Majesty.” Caroline kept her smile cool as she restrained the question that desperately wanted to be asked: how the emperor would have ever had the chance to see a sultan’s concubine in person.

. . . Or, on the other hand, perhaps not. There were some answers, after all, that she had no wish to hear.

Charles had certainly chosen her costume well, though, judging by the emperor’s smile.

The orchestra swept to the end of one waltz and paused.

“May I have the honor of this dance?” the emperor asked.

“Of course,” Caroline murmured, and snapped shut her fan.

She slipped its loop around her wrist and nodded a smiling farewell to the prince and his companion. The prince nodded back with a small, mischievous salute.

The emperor wrapped his long, dry fingers around hers and drew her through the crowd to the dance floor, just as the orchestra struck up a new waltz.

One-two-three, one-two-three . . .

For a moment, Caroline was swept back to disconcerting recollections of her first dancing lessons, at seventeen. Already once a widow and remarried, she’d twitched at the unexpected intimacy of the dance-tutor’s close embrace, while her forty-five-year-old new husband had watched with sharp attention from the corner of the room in his rambling country house, far from any other observers. Wyndham’s gaze had felt critical but not unkind as he’d prepared her to enter high society, to win the high-stakes wager he had set with his closest circle of friends upon her first widowhood.

“She’s bright enough, despite that atrocious accent. What a waste it was for Morham to hide her away! With a few good tutors and all the right gowns, I’ll wager I could turn her into a true English lady.”

It was a wager she had chosen to accept, as had the drunken, reckless men who’d surrounded the two of them in her first husband’s house after his wake. Clothed in black, vibrating with tension, and with nothing to her name, Caroline had looked into the cool, calculating gaze of her soon-to-be second husband and seen her chance, at last, to rise from the ashes of her past into something new and powerful.

A month later, she and her tutor had danced around two-hundred-year-old furniture wrapped in dust cloths, dancing her first tentative steps toward a real future . . .

It was an age and a world away from the glittering Hofburg hall tonight, filled with color and light and the overwhelming hectic gaiety of circling masks and costumes and people doing what they would never dare to do without disguise.

I can dare anything, Caroline told herself, and closed her eyes behind the mask. Oh, Father . . .

“I do hope you are enjoying yourself tonight, Lady Wyndham,” the emperor said.

He was holding her no closer than the dance demanded, but that was close and intimate enough that he could breathe the words into her ear. Caroline kept her body supple within his grasp, holding at bay the tension that wanted to stiffen her back or push away his hands.

She’d come planning to charm him and bribe him, in that order. And she knew enough about men, after all the long years of her marriages, to understand exactly what that might have to entail.

“How could I not?” she murmured, glancing up at him from beneath her eyelashes.

His eyes glittered behind his mask as he turned her in the patterns of the dance, his hand firm against her back. “I have thought upon your words from earlier.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Generous indeed, Lady Wyndham. Your sense of . . . gratitude is admirable, as you must know.”

“We must all be grateful to you, mustn’t we?” She glanced up at the chandeliers above them, blazing ornate glory across the room. “If the Monster had conquered all Europe and moved to England . . .” She gave a careful shudder, without moving any closer.

His grasp tightened. “I do admire your principles, Lady Wyndham. But perhaps . . . Might I not wonder, at what you might desire in return?”

She blinked, innocently. “I?”

“You,” the emperor murmured. “Lady Wyndham.” His smile was not altogether pleasant. “You see . . .” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I know your secret.”

She stiffened involuntarily, took a breath, and released it, still following the rhythms of the dance. “Your Majesty?”

“My men looked into your history today.”

“And?” Her voice sounded too breathy. But he couldn’t possibly—she had worked so carefully, for so many years—

“I know who you really are,” he murmured, “or rather, who you were. You had to transform yourself, did you not?”

“I’m afraid I don’t—”

“Have no fear, Lady Wyndham.” The emperor’s gaze dropped to her chest. It felt exposed beneath his hot stare. “I’m no prude,” he whispered. “If the marquis chose to marry his mistress, it can make no difference to me.”

“No?” Caroline fought down helpless laughter as she relaxed within his grasp. Her head whirled with calculations—better? Worse? Or only different?

“If you wish to move forward in your own society, I’m only too glad to help. Perhaps we can aid each other after all.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Caroline drew a deep breath and watched him track its progress. “What I truly want . . . what I most desire . . .”

“Mm?” The emperor’s gaze didn’t move, even as they circled.

“Information,” Caroline breathed. Exhilaration made her feel giddy and light as air. Finally.

The emperor frowned. “Pardon me?”

“No one knows my secret but you,” Caroline whispered, “but still . . . they all suspect there’s something missing. Something odd. Now is my chance. Can you understand that?” Steeling herself inwardly, she moved closer in his embrace until their clothes brushed against each other with shocking intimacy, just as he’d clearly been angling for from the beginning of their dance. Her voice dropped to a scant whisper against his skin. “All my friends are here with their husbands for diplomatic work. If I could only have some hint—some hope of what might lie ahead—?”

The emperor’s frown hadn’t faded, but he was breathing more quickly. “You wish to stay one step ahead of them?”

“Nothing too dangerous,” she murmured. “Nothing too deep. If I could but know more than they . . .” She met his eyes, scant inches from her own. “Perhaps we might consider exchanging some of our secrets?”

The strings of the orchestra hit a final cadence, and the waltz slid to a halt, along with the dancers. The emperor released Caroline’s hands slowly, still standing close to her on the floor.

“A most intriguing conversation, Madam. I do thank you.”

“I was honored,” Caroline said, and dipped a curtsy.

“I will think on what you’ve said. And perhaps . . .” The emperor drew a breath. “Perhaps I shall see you again. Very soon.”

Caroline smiled and lowered her head. “I do hope so.”

“Indeed.” The emperor paused. She felt his wary, measuring gaze upon her. “Tell me,” he said abruptly. “Your friends came with their husbands, but you . . .” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Surely you must have companionship here as well, Lady Wyndham.”

“I?” Caroline looked up and met his gaze with wide open eyes. “I came alone, Your Majesty. As you see me.”

His lips curved into a hard, satisfied smile. “I am pleased to hear it.”

He bent to kiss her hand, and she curtsied deeply, glad for an excuse to drop her gaze. When she looked up again, he was gone. Caroline straightened, smoothing down her narrow skirts. Triumph battled with revulsion in her chest . . . and won.

She had done it. She hadn’t known if she’d be able to, even after so much planning, even during the long carriage trip across the Continent to come here.

When the moment came, though, she had managed it, for her father’s sake. For the first time in twenty-four years, she was actually one step closer to saving him. She could feel every muscle in her body relaxing with the relief of it.

She couldn’t leave yet, of course, but at least she was finished with her work for the night. Perhaps—

A warm hand slipped into the crook of her arm for the second time that evening. But it was a man’s hand this time, taking her arm into a firm grip and turning her inexorably around to face a tall figure cloaked in a black domino.

Caroline’s breath froze in her throat as she recognized the eyes behind the glittering half-mask.

“Lady Wyndham,” Michael Steinhüller said. Beneath the mask, his face broke into an all-too-familiar cocky grin. “I cannot begin to express how pleased I am to meet you.”