Masks and Shadows Read online

“Heavenly,” Carlo repeated softly.

  Her chest rose and fell, but the laugh she gave sounded almost breathless. “So . . . you were not too misled by the effusions of my old music master, after all?”

  Carlo raised a hand to discreetly wipe a bead of sweat from his neck. “On the contrary, madam. Should I ever have the pleasure of meeting him, I will compliment him on his acumen.”

  “Lotte!” Frau von Höllner turned from the others to summon her sister’s attention. “We are making plans for Saturday night’s ball!”

  The moment was broken. Baroness von Steinbeck turned to listen to her sister, and Carlo leaned back in his seat, fighting to maintain a composed expression.

  The court of Eszterháza proved far more dangerous than he’d expected. There were some dangers, though, that he knew better than to court. From this moment onward, he would avoid intimate conversations with Baroness von Steinbeck at all costs.

  He’d reached six-and-thirty years on his last birthday. He might well be growing maudlin, but no one could accuse the foremost musico in Europe of being a fool.

  Backstage, Anna was shaking as she leaned against the thin wooden wall. A jumble of music and phrases ran meaninglessly through her head. The singers around her paced up and down, whispering lines to themselves and gesturing sweepingly. Spirit lamps had been carefully placed at each wing of the stage to send hot beams through the air and illuminate the coming performance. Anna couldn’t even make herself move. Would they have to carry her onstage?

  An unfamiliar footman walked past her to carry a sealed note to Franz Pichler. The singer paused in his pacing to rip it open. Anna watched, caught by the fierce satisfaction that lit his face. A smaller, separately-sealed note sat inside the first; Herr Pichler slipped the enclosed note inside his waistcoat, unread, as his gaze ran across the larger, open message.

  “Beginning positions!”

  Monsieur Delacroix clapped for their attention. A sudden hush in the audience preceded a round of applause. Herr Haydn and his musicians must be filing into the orchestra’s benches.

  “Pichler and Kettner, ready yourselves!” Delacroix shot a look of pure loathing at the younger man as the orchestra struck up the overture’s first chord.

  Herr Pichler stepped up to Frau Kettner, his face turning pale and set as he straightened his injured back. With his movement, the unsealed piece of paper slipped out of his wide, ruffled sleeve and fell to the floor.

  Delacroix turned, frowning. He leaned over to pick it up—but Anna darted forward and snatched it first. It had fallen partially open on the floor.

  She folded it before whispering, “Herr Pichler? This is yours, I think.”

  His eyes flared open in shock as he turned and saw what she held out to him. He snatched it roughly from her hands and tucked it into a pocket. The music sounded his cue, and he strode onstage without a backward look.

  Anna glared after him. Would it have injured his precious dignity to give her simple thanks?

  “The man is a scoundrel,” Delacroix hissed. He spared Anna a sour look. “Did you happen to see, Fräulein Dommayer, what that note said?”

  “I would never read another’s correspondence, monsieur,” Anna said primly.

  She wouldn’t, truly. At least, not by intention. The first line of the message had meant nothing to her, anyway.

  We are most pleased by your release. Your first instructions . . . The rest had been maddeningly hidden by the folds of the paper.

  Anna lowered her gaze demurely and stepped away from the theatrical director, leaving him to simmer.

  Who was sending Herr Pichler instructions? And for what purpose?

  But the opening duet came to an end far too soon, and then it was her turn to walk past the hot spirit lamps, onto the stage.

  Charlotte leaned forward in her seat to watch as Anna walked onstage.

  The hero had left, swearing to return, and the heroine paced around the stage, while the rippling music showed the confusion of her thoughts. At Anna’s entrance, she looked up and sang, “Sorella!” Sister.

  Charlotte tightened her fingers around the arms of her chair. Only let Anna do well, let her not be embarrassed . . .

  Anna’s voice soared up, high and confident. Her blush was just right as she sang of the handsome stranger she’d just seen from her window. She’d sent a servant running after him to discover his name and invite him to dinner . . .

  The audience groaned in sympathy for the shock and dismay on her older sister’s face.

  “Perhaps,” Anna/Carolina sang, in heavily accented Italian, “Papa will let him marry me, as we have given up waiting to find you a husband!”

  Charlotte bit back a laugh at the byplay of looks that passed between the two women.

  She didn’t have to fear for her erstwhile maid after all. Instead, Charlotte leaned back in her seat and abandoned herself to enjoyment. If, every so often, the Italian phrases blended an inch or so too far in Anna’s German mouth—well, what matter was that, when compared to the ringing beauty of her voice?

  And she arranged my hair every day of the last six years, Charlotte thought, during the applause. She hardly knew whether to feel shamed or proud.

  At the intermission, Prince Nikolaus nodded gravely to her. “Our thanks, Baroness. Your Fräulein Dommayer is indeed an asset to our little company.”

  “Her voice is lovely, is it not?” Charlotte had rarely spoken directly with the Prince, but now she was overflowing with relief. “I believe it must be what she was born for.”

  “It is a great fortune for us that you brought her here and relinquished her from your service.”

  “How is your new maid, Lotte?” Sophie tapped the Prince’s arm with her fan. “I told Niko he ought really to have given you two or three maids in exchange for the inconvenience to you. I vow, it took my maid three months just to learn how to arrange my hair properly.”

  “My new maid does very well,” Charlotte said. “I do thank you, Your Highness. She seems admirably efficient and hard-working.”

  “But no singing voice?” Signor Morelli asked. There was an edge to his voice, but whether of amusement or irritation, Charlotte could not tell.

  “Not that I’ve yet heard.”

  “And a good thing, too.” Sophie sniffed. “It would be too absurd for Lotte to have to give up another maid! But really, how likely is it for that class of person to come up with such an astonishing voice?”

  “Anna’s voice is beautiful,” Charlotte said.

  “Yes, but that must have been a freak occurrence. Think of it! She didn’t even come from a musician’s family. Not that musicians are worth so very much themselves, but at least—”

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Signor Morelli stood up, smiling, but with a dangerous glitter in his eyes. “Your Highness, might I take a breath of fresh air before the second act?”

  “Of course, signor.”

  At the Prince’s nod, Morelli strode outside.

  “I’m afraid you’ve offended our guest, my dear,” the Prince said mildly, once Morelli had disappeared.

  “I? Oh, pooh. I said nothing except—”

  “You said he was beneath us!” Charlotte’s nails dug into her hands. “Sophie, how could you?”

  “I was talking about ordinary musicians, obviously. And anyway—”

  “Do we even know what his family was? Perhaps his parents were servants, too. Perhaps—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Lotte, your nerves must be shattered. Look at the signor! Of course he isn’t at our level—you know that as well as I do!—but does he look to you like a servant?”

  “Wouldn’t we, if we wore their uniforms?”

  There was a thundering silence. The Prince, his niece, and Sophie all stared at her, openmouthed in shock. Charlotte, trembling, was belatedly aware that she had gone too far. And made a scene, too—other faces had turned to look.

  She stood up, smoothing down her skirts. “I’m—I’m afraid I don’t feel very well, Your Highne
ss,” she said. “Please forgive me my intemperance.”

  The Prince nodded stiffly. Sophie was glaring at her, with red spots flaring high on her cheeks. Charlotte swept past them and past the eager whispers of the Prince’s niece and her companions.

  She hurried out of the royal box, down the two sets of stairs, down the long, ornately decorated corridor and through the main entrance into the blessedly cool darkness outside. As the night air met her face and she stepped onto the shell-lined path, she fought down a wave of dizziness and anger. Coming to a halt, she clenched both hands around the cool, wrought-iron railing of the steps that led up to the balcony and took a long, shuddering breath.

  “Baroness?” Signor Morelli’s tall figure emerged on the balcony above her in the darkness. His face looked pale and forbidding in the glow of the torches, but his high, pure voice rang with concern. “Are you unwell?”

  “No. Not really.” Charlotte straightened and gave him a weary smile. “But I won’t be able to stay and enjoy the rest of the performance.”

  “Then you are unwell.” He ran lightly down the steps to meet her, frowning. “Do you need—”

  “No.” She sighed. She should devise a polite fiction—a headache, perhaps. But she felt too weary and disgusted, with herself and everyone else, to lie to him. “I left because I’d lost my temper, I’m afraid. I said some foolish things.”

  “That sounds unlikely.” He looked down at her from the first step, only a hand’s-breadth away. She imagined that she could feel his breath, warm on her cheeks. “You are truly loyal to your dependents, madam.”

  “My—oh, you mean Anna?” His eyes were dark wells in the greater darkness. Her chest tightened as she looked into them. “We did not argue about Anna,” she whispered.

  His eyes widened. She bit her lip and looked down, suddenly conscious of her slip. She shouldn’t have said anything, should have let him think what he would. She—

  She realized that his gaze had lowered and fixed on her lower lip, still held lightly between her teeth.

  She took a quick, shallow breath. Darkness wrapped like velvet around them. Under his gaze, her lips seemed to throb. She lifted her eyes to his.

  A bell rang inside the building, signaling the end of the interval. Signor Morelli stepped back, shaking his head as if to clear it.

  “Signor?” Charlotte’s voice came out as a rasp.

  He swallowed visibly. “It seems that I must thank you, madam.”

  Charlotte blinked. “For—?”

  “For arguing . . . as it was not over Anna, after all.” He smiled tightly and sketched a bow. “I must return to see the drama played out. I bid you goodnight, Baroness.”

  “Goodnight.” Charlotte curtseyed and watched him disappear into the lights of the opera house.

  As she set out along the path that led back to the palace, the darkness felt suddenly far too empty.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was all very well to order some poor fool to go sit for hours in tedious opera rehearsals, but it was quite another thing to have to do it yourself, without even being allowed to fall asleep.

  Friedrich scowled as he pushed himself upright in his chair, fighting the pull of his leaden eyelids. This whole thing felt like a bloody practical joke. “Attend the rehearsals. Become a familiar figure.” Well, this was the fourth day he’d attended rehearsals, and when he’d walked in that morning, that sultry, older lady singer had given him a coy little wave. Was that familiar enough for the bastards?

  The music struck up again, and Friedrich stifled a groan. Bloody hell. It was the same song again. They’d gone through it three times already in the past hour!

  Enough was enough. He crossed his arms, let his eyes fall closed, and sank back down into the chair. He was here, anyway, whether or not he was awake. That would have to be enough for them.

  Franz watched the blond officer sink lower in his seat. Another minute, to be safe—yes, he was definitely asleep. As Madame Zelinowsky and Monsieur Delacroix began a third attempt at their patter-song duet, Franz slipped off the stage and walked casually down the aisle.

  He’d preserved the note carefully since receiving it inside his own instructions last night, fighting down all temptations to steam it open and read it himself. Whoever had sent this note through his care could presumably have delivered it to the officer themselves . . . which marked this as a personal test. A test that he was determined to pass with flying colors. Franz would prove his trustworthiness to the Brotherhood in any way they chose, whether it was by keeping the secrecy of their messages or by following orders without question. Each task marked one step closer to freedom and a fortune.

  He dropped the letter onto the floor just beside the officer’s sprawled legs, finished walking the length of the aisle as if nothing had occurred, turned around—and saw Fräulein Dommayer watching him from the stage with brightly speculative eyes.

  Blast. Franz walked back at the same meandering pace, but his heartbeat was racing. Trust her, of all people, to have seen him. Seen him and speculated about his actions—she was cleverer than he’d thought when he’d first met her. She might look like a pretty, vacant Bavarian milkmaid, but he’d wager she saw and understood nearly everything that went on around her.

  Wait. He paused halfway down the aisle as an idea seized him. It was so unlikely—and yet . . . what other explanation was there? Why else would she watch him so intently? Why else with such a measuring look? She had even rescued their note to him from Delacroix the night before.

  She must work for the Brotherhood, too. She was reporting back to them on his movements. Perhaps . . . She didn’t look like a spy. But then, the whole story of her employment had sounded so bizarre and unlikely. From personal maid to singer in one great leap? It would make so much more sense, in the same wild and dreamlike manner of that original nighttime visit, if he assumed instead that her “discovery” had been engineered by the same great forces that had found him in his prison and had planned a great design.

  What if his inclusion in their plans depended on her reports of his success in this and other tests?

  Franz smiled brilliantly at her and walked back up to the stage as quickly as his injured back would let him. His pulse was still racing as he nodded to her.

  “Fräulein Dommayer. You’re looking lovely, as ever, this morning.”

  She blinked and stepped back. “I . . . thank you, Herr Pichler.”

  “You sang beautifully in last night’s performance.” Was he laying it on too thick?

  Perhaps. Her eyes narrowed.

  “What were you leaving for that officer, Herr Pichler?”

  “Nothing much,” he said. “Only going about my business. Following instructions.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Your instructions—”

  Herr Haydn called out, “Herr Pichler! Frau Kettner!”

  Franz grinned at Fräulein Dommayer and took the risk. “I’m sure you know all about those instructions, Fräulein. I only hope you may be pleased with the way I accomplished them.”

  He limped up the steps onto the stage with a lighter heart than he’d felt for days.

  “I shouldn’t even be speaking to you,” Sophie hissed to Charlotte.

  They had fallen behind the rest of the group strolling through the pathways of the Prince’s gardens. Sunlight shone down on the colorful beds of flowers and soaked through the black cloth of Charlotte’s gown and all her undergarments until she felt ready to sink beneath the heat. The water shooting out from the nearby fountains called to her with a dangerously seductive appeal.

  She sighed and wrenched her gaze away from the streams of cool water jetting out from Neptune’s copper trident, five feet away. “I am sorry, Sophie,” she whispered back, “but I have apologized several times already. What more do you want me to say?”

  “It was inexcusable for you to embarrass me in front of everyone.” Sophie glared straight ahead, her pretty face shadowed by her wide, curving hat. Blue ribbons dangle
d down across her shoulders, matching her parasol. “How did you think such behavior must reflect on me, your sister? Your hostess? I had to apologize to Niko and his niece for you, and promise—”

  “There was no need for you to do any of that, as I had already apologized to them myself.” Charlotte bit off the ends of her words as renewed temper threatened to overwhelm her. “Oh, Sophie.” She closed her eyes a moment against the too-bright sunlight and took a deep breath. “Perhaps I am causing you too much trouble, after all. If you are finding my visit too much of a trial, you really can cut it short without injuring my feelings, I promise you.”

  “What?”

  “Only say the word, and I can be packed to leave within the day. Perhaps it has been unfair for me to linger here and take advantage of your hospitality. I can go to Vienna—”

  “To Maman? Don’t be absurd, Lotte! You’d go mad within a fortnight. She would have you remarried and sold off—”

  “I can manage Maman,” Charlotte said evenly. “I’m old enough to say no to her nowadays.” I hope, she added silently. Hidden in her skirts, her fingers clenched at the memory of the last time she had tried. “If you’ll let me have the loan of a carriage for the journey, I’ll—”

  “Lotte, no.” Sophie came to a halt and grasped her arm. “Please don’t leave. For my sake, not yours.” Her face twitched, as though she fought back tears. “It’s meant so much to me to have you here. Twelve years since we’d last seen each other. Twelve years, Lotte!”

  “I know.” Charlotte squeezed Sophie’s gloved hand. “It was far too long.”

  “And who knows where Maman will marry you off to next? You might have to travel to the wilds of Poland, for all I know! Besides . . .” Sophie’s smile was watery. She took her hand back to wipe her eyes. “I need you here, Lotte. I love Niko, of course I do, but there’s no one else here for me, apart from him. No one who cares about me, Sophie, and doesn’t just think of me as Niko’s pet, or hope that he’ll be rid of me soon, or—”

  “Sophie!” Charlotte stared at her. “Dearest, I’m sure that isn’t true.”