Free Vienna Waltz (The Imperial Season Book 1) by Mary Lancaster Page B

retreating French army.
    He drove the memories away, thinking himself into the slightly furtive role of Johnnie the thief. And yet, his whole mind seemed to be full of her , vivid and fun and totally unaware of her charm.
    She hurried out of the palace, drawing the hood of her cloak up over her head. She’d acquired a small carpet bag from somewhere; it hung from the edges of her cloak.
    He stepped out of the shadows, ridiculously tense as he waited for recognition to hit her.
    But she barely glanced at him as she hurried on. “Oh Johnnie, why didn’t you wait for me to point her out? I’d decided I didn’t want you to do it that way, but to rob the house, instead.”
    “It’s done now.” As Vanya, he’d unconsciously let the Russian intonations more into his speech with her and, in fact, mostly they’d spoken in French, the generally accepted common language of the Congress. “I couldn’t come anywhere near you. Everyone was looking at you.”
    “Oh dear,” she said worriedly. “I’d hoped that was nonsense… None of this has gone according to plan, has it?”
    “Well, there’s the necklace,” he said, jangling the coins in his pocket as they walked across the square.
    It didn’t seem to comfort her, although she did glance up at him through the gloom with her eyes so big with worry that it was all he could do not to kiss her there and then. “What did you do? Did you scare her? Why was there no hue and cry after you? She didn’t look frightened…”
    “Stop worrying,” he said, leading her to a waiting fiacre for hire. “It was all quite civilized.”
    Lizzie stopped in her tracks, eyes widening. “She doesn’t know it’s gone,” she said in wonder. “You flim-flammed her!”
    He grinned. “Unladylike.”
    “But she will know it’s stolen?” Lizzie said anxiously. “Once she notices, I mean. She won’t just think it’s lost and blame herself?”
    “She won’t think it’s lost,” he assured her, handing her into the fiacre before he turned and spoke quietly to the driver.
    “Where are we going?” Lizzie demanded as soon as he joined her and the horses began to pull. “Do you have a buyer ready?”
    “At an inn just outside the city.”
    Lizzie frowned. “Really? I imagined some mean back street with thieves in every corner.”
    “You sound disappointed.”
    In the pale light shining in from the coach lamps, she regarded him with some suspicion. Her fingers tightened convulsively on the bag in her lap. “You wouldn’t…let me down, would you, Johnnie?”
    Vanya sat back and stuck his hands in his pockets, meeting her gaze through the shadows. “What do you think?”
    She shivered slightly, hiding her moment of fear in a glare. He had to admire her courage. There weren’t many young ladies of her upbringing who could put themselves in such a situation, let alone deal with it as she was.
    She took a deep breath. “If you take advantage of me, I’ll kill you.”
    Vanya blinked. “ Kill me? How are you going to do that?”
    “Pray you never find out,” she said loftily. “Stick to our agreement.”
    “I always meant to. If you insist on mean back streets, we’ll go there and hope for a decent-ish price, but my buyer will be at the inn and he’ll give us twice what any back-street fence would.”
    Lizzie searched his face and he held his breath, glad of the poor light but still waiting to be recognized.
    “You trusted me when I was drunk,” he observed, when she didn’t speak. “I’m a better man sober.”
    Her eyes fell. “I’m sorry. I suppose I just don’t feel very good about this whole plan now we’re actually doing it. I feel dishonest and…dirty.”
    “Don’t,” he said, leaning forward and touching her tense hands. “Who are you hurting? Not Ivan the Terrible and not your aunt. The necklace can make no real difference to your cousin’s chances of a good marriage. And I’m sure your father would have been happy to know you and your siblings will