Moncrief ran Harvey to ground midway in a hanging staircase in the library that led to a gallery of rare tomes. Palgrave found it a good vantage point from which to spot a certain lady he had in his eye. “Any luck finding that blue diamond we spoke of?” Moncrief asked him.
“The Tavernier? No, no luck at all. The French girl knew nothing of it.”
“A second visit was no more prosperous than a first?”
“By Jove, Tatt, are you having me followed? How did you know I went back?”
“Everyone knows everything in Vienna. I could tell you what you had for lunch. Not setting up a flirtation with the girl I trust?”
“With that innocent lamb? Not a bit of it. She ain’t my type. Say, ain’t that old Talleyrand there in the blue velvet jacket? Wouldn’t mind making his acquaintance, Tatt. Can you do the honors? Googie tells me his niece is the Duchesse de Sagan’s sister. Ought to be some good company at the palais.”
The good company he had in mind was likely the niece, but it would keep him out of mischief. The introduction was made, and a bizarre sight it was, to see the craftiest man in the room make hay of the most foolish. At the back of Moncrief’s mind, a question lurked, hampering his enjoyment of the rencontre. If Harvey was not after Mademoiselle’s favors (and innocent young girls were not his usual choice), why had he returned a second time to the apartment?
Amidst the throng, Lady Palgrave spotted Moncrief and threaded her way towards him. She was blazing with jewels, but not, thank God, the Star of Burma. She was in diamonds and sapphires. “I see Harvey has met Prince Talleyrand, as he was determined to do. I am surprised you would arrange it for him. You were against his buying the blue diamond I thought?”
“Oh my God! Is that what he’s up to!" Moncrief exclaimed, aghast.
“Not trying to buy it from the Prince!” Googie assured him. “Certainly
he
has not got it. He is on the side of the Bourbons this year. He would not know who Boney gave it to. It is only that Miss Feydeau told Harvey whoever has the diamond might try to sell it back to Louis through Talleyrand. He might be able to find out who has it, you see.”
He did not think Napoleon’s wife would be likely to be dealing with Prince Talleyrand, the representative of the King of France. Whatever Mademoiselle had told Harvey, it was not what she had told himself. “Feydeau suggested he speak to Talleyrand?”
“Lud,
I
don’t know. I think he hit upon the idea of speaking to Talleyrand by himself. Why don’t you ask him, Tatt? Or better yet, ask la Feydeau? All the gentlemen seem anxious to have any excuse to be running back to her. She must be wonderfully pretty.”
“She is.”
“And available,” she added with a toss of her short curls,
“Not so available as most,” he answered, in a fit of pique, and stalked off to detach his cousin from Talleyrand. There were enough people present that the troublesome topic of blue diamonds had not yet arisen.
Moncrief got him away and gave his ears a good scorching. “I tell you quite frankly, Palgrave, if you make trouble over this diamond, Castlereagh will have you barred from the city. You’ll be shipped back to London in disgrace. Things are reaching a crisis here, with threats of war. We don’t need a breach with France on top of it all. Don’t breathe a word of this foolishness to Talleyrand, or anyone else. The stone is in all likelihood in the Empress Marie Louise’s possession, and you know what chance you stand of getting it from her.”
“Rubbish! Napoleon would never have given it to his own wife. Couldn’t stand her. Only married her to get in with the real royalty, and to have a son.”
“Did Miss Feydeau not tell you Marie Louise . . ."
“Ah yes, of course! Quite right. Quite right, old chap. I shan’t say a word. Not a word. Rubbishing old diamond. Daresay it has a flaw anyway. Feydeau tells me it ain’t cut worth a damn—will have to be redone, and you’d lose more carats in the recutting. Mean to say—only sixty-seven carats left to it as it is. Be nothing to it by the time Hamlet . . .“ He stopped self-consciously. “Well, well. Fine party, ain’t it? Goog says she means to have a skating party on the canal, if it will only get busy and freeze up right and tight.”
He wandered off after a passing female, and left his cousin frowning in consternation. Harvey was hot on the heels of the Blue Tavernier. Every word he uttered revealed it. He had learned its precise size, its imperfect cut, had even hit upon Hamlet, the London diamond man, to do the refashioning. Where else had he learned about it than Feydeau? He had been back, and had received encouragement from her. How was it possible for that innocent face to be so conniving?
The Tsar’s imported treats did not mitigate his anger. The sweet cherries from the secession houses of Tsarskoe Selo were ignored, the miniature fresh cucumbers and lettuce hearts left sitting on his plate. It was a relief to be able to get away early, when Castlereagh gave him the nod to remove his half-brother, Stewart, before he cast any more insults upon the guest of honor, Catherine, the Grand Duchess.
Chapter Seven
The ensuing week held more than the customary number of crises. Castlereagh had been hinting to Russia that he might be willing to sacrifice Saxony, providing certain concessions were made. He received word from Liverpool he was to do nothing of the sort, but was to support Austria in preserving it. Emboldened by England’s support, Metternich firmly denied to Prussia this territory it desired. The Tsar became furious, and after being shown some secret letters, threatened to challenge Metternich to a duel.
Everyone, it seemed, was in a wretched mood. Charles Stewart fell into a row with the Grand Duke Constantine, the Tsar’s troublesome sibling. The Duchesse de Sagan had a falling out with her beau, which was mended when Metternich found a buyer for her emeralds at a good price. The Princess Bagration planned a festival in her wing of the Palais Palm, to which she condescended to invite her arch rival, Sagan, who did not condescend to accept her invitation, but gathered as many of the royal and mighty as she could to a
petit souper
of her own on the same evening.
In the matter of the Blue Tavernier, Moncrief made little headway but to discover Marie Louise did not have it in her possession.
“Utterly impossible!” Castlereagh told him. “The French Provisional Government sent an emissary to Orléans to snap up all the imperial treasure at the time Napoleon was beaten. They stripped the very string of pearls she wore from her neck. Napoleon would never have left so valuable an item with her. He has the lowest opinion of women—machines for making babies he calls them. He would as soon have left the diamond with his dog.”
Two visits to the Palgrave mansion in Schenkenstrasse revealed no more than that his cousin was certainly up to something, and determined to conceal it. Any mention of the jewels was brushed quickly aside. With so many other topics of interest to the new visitors in town, it was difficult to judge when they were being cunning, and when merely scatterbrained, or downright foolish.
“Have you been back to see Mademoiselle Feydeau?” he finally asked point-blank, and got an uncompromising “No” from Harvey, accompanied by a guilty flush.
His wife chose that moment to begin a series of unrelated remarks of a purely social nature, but whether this was fortuitous or considered was not known. “We have taken your advice, Tatt, and enrolled at Austrian Headquarters with Sagan. The Tsar is a pet. He does not mind in the least that we have opted for Sagan. He never fails to dance with me at the larger parties. Unfortunately he favors the dreary polonaise—such a bore. Will you have a glass of wine?” she asked, all in the same breath.
As her pet monkey had just had the decanter in his hands, Moncrief declined. He watched unperturbed as the monkey drew out the stopper and poured the liquid onto the floor. “Bad boy!” Googie said, cuffing it on the ear. “Isn’t he sweet, Moncrief? The Danish King gave him to me. I can’t imagine why.”
“Happy to be rid of him, I expect.”
“Do you go to the Princess Bagration’s festival, or the Duchesse’s little spite supper, as they are calling it? So childish of her really.”
“I will be at Bagration’s do. When will you have a party of your own, Lady Palgrave? I had thought you would be showing them all the way.”
“Oh lud, there are so many parties every night I don’t know when I can fit one in. I had a little levée the other morning—only a hundred and fifty came. Everyone beats me to everything. But Harvey has found me a charming little chateau in the Wienerwald where I might contrive to have some
fête champêtre
sort of do when it warms up.”
“Spring is a long way off.”
“We have wangled an invitation to dinner
chez
Talleyrand. His chef, Carême, is counted the best at the Congress. We hope to lure him back to London with us.”
“Your own man will have his nose out of joint. Bélanger sits idle, does he?”
“Oh no, he is planning menus, and trying dishes. First I must get busy and fix this place up a little. I swear those window hangings have been there since the Turks invaded. Centuries old. I wouldn’t be caught dead having a party in such a shambles of a place.” She glanced at the dark puddle where her monkey had added to the shambles, but she made no move to remove the decanter from the animal’s hands, nor to have it taken out of the room.
“Ordered the blue velvet drapery material yesterday,” Harvey mentioned. He sat in a corner, with a gray cat on his knee.
“Did you, my pet? The right shade of blue?” his spouse queried, then suddenly looked conscious. She rattled on with a tale of a new blue gauze gown she was having made up.
It sounded very like her normal, mindless chatter, except for the quick guilty glance the couple exchanged. “Is the drapery material to match the gown, or the blue diamond?” Moncrief asked.
“How you do keep harping on that subject!” Googie complained. “The blue diamond is not for sale.”
Moncrief did not believe a blue gown was being ordered to show off the Star of Burma. They had plans afoot to secure the Blue Tavernier certainly. Their party was being delayed to launch the jewel, or they were husbanding their resources against its acquisition. They had bought no new horses or carriages, no furs or other lavish items since their arrival. They had not redesigned the mansion, or squandered their customary fortune at cards or betting, or any form of gambling. One did not even hear that Harvey had set up a ladybird in some extravagant nest. Only the chateau was mentioned. This was so unnatural a way for them to carry on that it was as damning as an outright admission of their intentions.
His thought of calling again on Mademoiselle Feydeau seemed unlikely of achieving anything. She had lied to him once; she was not likely to change her story now, with a buyer on the hook. He hardly knew where to turn. As the hour of Bagration’s festival drew near, he had done nothing but think and worry. He was surprised to see the Krugers and the Countess von Rossner at Russian Headquarters, their more usual haunt being in the other half of the palais. But everyone liked an occasional change of scene. The daughter, he noticed, had acquired a new beau. A French fellow it was—not one of the top dogs, but attached to Talleyrand’s delegation in some manner. He might well have been chosen by the young lady for his appearance, that certainly cast the Count Rechberg in the shade. One of those debonair Frenchies the fellow was, all airs and graces.
Herr Kruger, not finding a plain Monsieur Chabon a suitable replacement for a count of excellent expectations, was looking elsewhere. “There is the English melord who called on us the other day, I believe. Lord Moncrief, a very eligible
parti
,” he mentioned to the Countess, who raised her lorgnette and examined him through her sharp, rheumy eyes.
“Handsome!” she allowed, as her glance swept him from head to toe. “An excellent old English family too, Peter. We would not relish losing Maria to England, but there, she spent some years in the country, and would not feel quite a stranger amongst the breed. But it was not romance he had in mind when he called on her, I think? Maria mentioned that ruby star thing your little Mademoiselle sold. Business it was,
n’est-ce-pas
?”
“I believe he took some pleasure from the business. He stood up with her that same evening.”
“The saucy piece went after him to make Anton jealous. I saw the whole. He is unattached so far as I know, and might be hinted into a state of admiration, if it is done carefully. I shall attend to it myself.”
The Countess’s sledgehammer tactics in pursuit of a beau were by all means to be avoided. “I shall attend to it,
mon chou
.” he told her, giving her rouged and sagging cheeks an amiable tug, while he suppressed a grimace at the infatuated smile she returned him. Really she was the ugliest female God had ever devised. She might have been formed to reveal the meaning of the word ugly. Hermione, he conceded grudgingly, was a marvelous companion. She was wise and witty, and seldom out of sorts. He would as soon spend an evening in her company as anyone’s. They had been friends for decades, and shared the same friends and acquaintances, likes and dislikes—up to a point the same social history. He wished she could be his sister, but wife! The very thought of being required to make love to her sent his glands into a state of shock. Why must it always be the old and ugly women who possessed the wealth? God, he thought, had a very wide streak of mischief in his makeup.
“Lord Moncrief,” he said, advancing towards the young gentleman with a genial smile in place. “A delightful evening the Princess has arranged for us, is it not? We too seldom see you. It is this foolish business of our two charming neighbors in the Palais Palm cutting society down the middle and claiming a half each that is responsible.”
Moncrief turned with interest towards the speaker. He could not recall Kruger’s having ever said more than a dozen words to him before. He was of course curious as to what was behind the present move. He bowed, and extended his hand. “I was to call on you the other day, Sir, but as you were out, your daughter was kind enough to see me. Perhaps she told you what business took me?”