Portrait of Seduction (19 page)

Had he been in touch with everyone who might be able to report Greta’s activities?

“Yes, my lord, at a sonata hosted by Lady Venner.”

“She has a great deal of influence for being born a commoner.”

“But if it suits our ends, Uncle…”

“Indeed, quite right. I suppose the same can be said of Maria Lucca.”

Greta frowned slightly, missing the leap he’d obviously made. “The duke’s…companion?”

“That’s right. She’s purchasing your copy of that one by Benjamin Block. The one of the Ansbach nobles. They were relatives of hers, apparently, although I can hardly believe the connection.” He sneered in such a way that ruined whatever good looks he could boast. Greta only saw the profile of a man who had no notion of what he was enacting.

Maria Lucca buying a forgery.
Dear God, what a disaster!

“Now,” he said firmly, but with a strangely solicitous air. “I took you into my confidence because I want to propose a truce. The money secured by this sale will be enough to ensure the girls will marry well, and that Herr Weiser accepts your hand.”

“My lord, may I suggest—”

“In return, I would appreciate if you do not whisper to the servants about this exchange. The painting has already been delivered to her residence. She wrote to me personally about how pleased she’ll be to have it in her collection when she returns to the city.” He shrugged casually. “Airs and graces aside, she’s ensured that all will be well for our family.”

For all her turmoil, Greta’s heart still twisted. He was stubborn and decidedly unethical, but he intended only the best for his daughters—and maybe even for her. That he went about it with so few scruples and so little regard for their emotional well-being seemed almost secondary when confronted with his earnest worry.

But even her unexpected sympathy for his position did not ease Greta’s flood of dread. Because there was still the issue of Maria Lucca.

The rest of their walk passed as an achingly slow torture. Uncle Thaddeus continued to talk about the architecture and the inadequacies of newly titled citizens who held sway in this reprobate new world. Greta’s ability to understand his words, however, dimmed as she plotted and fretted and feared.

Was this a new skill she had developed, the ability to endure the impossible? Because what she faced was impossible. A trap closed around her, one to which her uncle was not privy.

He escorted her back to the Venners’ residence. “I’ll be staying as a guest of Count Peltzer at his town home. I’ll come for you and the girls on Wednesday when we’ll return to Leinz with Herr Weiser.”

“Wednesday,” Greta said tightly. “So soon?”

“It’s no longer safe to linger. Anyone with means should be out of harm’s way as soon as possible, lest we find ourselves at Napoleon’s mercies. We’ve worked too hard for that.” He patted her arm. “Why, Margaret, you look exceptionally pale. Whatever is the matter?”

“Uncle…” She clasped her laced fingers so tightly that pain shook through her knuckles. “I wish you would reconsider this deal with Maria Lucca. The woman is a known connoisseur of art. Surely my copies are none so good as to fool an authority on the matter.”

“An authority? Hardly. She will see what she wants to see, just as she does with her own so-called lineage. The duke’s attentions have her thinking far too highly of her redeeming qualities.” An angle of sunlight glinted off his bald head as he shrugged. “Your work is well enough for the likes of her.”

Greta swallowed past a gritty lump of frustration. He never took her seriously, not even on the one topic where she might claim some conviction. Perhaps it was best to admit that he never would. But she had to try one more time.

“Sir, I insist. This will do nothing but undermine our family name. I assure you, Maria Lucca will realize that painting is not genuine—and then all we’ve worked for will be threatened. Surely you can see that!”

“I can see that you are overwrought.” His frown tightened over the threat of a scowl. “I suggest you go rest.”

Whatever kindness might have lurked in his concern was nothing to her heartsick disappointment. He spoke to her with the same condescension he had always used like a weapon against her mother.

Greta found herself replying as she remembered from years past, with enough deference and gratitude to end the conversation—because he was beyond listening to reason. “
Danke schoen,
Uncle Thaddeus. I think I will.”

The Venners had already returned from Mass. Anna and Theresa bounded down the corridor to their father. Greta wondered, then, if the wall between her and her cousins had been built because of just such a scene. The girls loved their father without reservation. They had none of Greta’s resentment, none of her memories of how his influence and might had ruined her parents. On the issue of Thaddeus Leinz, she and her young cousins would never be reconciled.

Finally held by the privacy of her room, she confronted the facts. She would leave on Wednesday. The span of her time remaining in Salzburg could be realistically measured in hours—mere hours before she and Oliver would never see one another again. Now, added to that heartbreak, her uncle did not suspect the danger in which his scheme had placed the family.

Soon she would be discovered. Oh, very soon.

And it had nothing to do with informing Maria Lucca. Thaddeus’s fraud would be uncovered and the family reputation would suffer. Her cousins would never marry respectable men, and Herr Weiser would certainly rescind his proposition. Greta would never be able to paint again.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Salzburg society—the society her uncle blinded himself to out of pure snobbery—would have known of Maria Lucca’s affinity for art. A forgery billed as an original would be discovered. Greta knew it, dreaded it, as she wiped her tears with a handkerchief.

The light had faded toward dusk when she finally calmed. The idea that had come over her was so daring and dark that she hiccupped in fear at the mere thought. Maria Lucca had a painting she should never see. That meant Greta would have to take it back.

She waited until just after midnight before climbing out of bed.

Greta reached the windowsill and looked down to where the gated garden rested in dark tranquility. She found the spot where she had knelt between Oliver’s legs. A rush of warmth and need made her shake. But even Oliver, for all of their unexpected passion, could do nothing to make this right. She placed her palms against her heart and pushed. It beat even faster beneath that pressure. Her paintings had always been such a source of joy, but now they were set to cause her misery.

The quiet remained unbroken. She found her pelisse and pulled it on, just as the clock struck a quarter to one. Her idea was reckless and terrifying, but she needed to try. For her cousins and for her own reputation, she would get that painting back.

On silent feet she crept out of her room and down the main stairs. She felt unbearably conspicuous, but using the servants’ stairs would have been even more perilous. The staff was more likely to be up and about at this hour, perhaps even scurrying off to a quiet rendezvous. She knew a little more about their secret lives now, how the obscurity of their work often gave them more freedom than she could even dream about.

If she were a ladies’ maid, she would marry Oliver Doerger. A real maid would probably shear Greta’s hair for coveting such circumstances. The goal was not to idolize their lives. Far from it. But Greta could not help but envy any woman who could claim a legitimate opportunity to make Oliver her husband.

The wood railing was cool under her fingertips as she hurried toward ground level. She exited through the garden door Oliver had used, knowing the front door would be guarded. No one could see her.

Once outside, she continued past the topiary lions to the locked gate at the rear of the garden. She hoped her letter had got through to Baron Hoffer.

A harsh laugh pushed into her throat. Baron! He was Karl Schulz, who had once been employed among her uncle’s kitchen staff. She knew she had seen that face before. Only his appearance at the De Vosses’ recital had spurred her memory to match familiar features with a long-buried name. Why he had come to Salzburg posing as a nobleman was only beyond her with regard to details. He had been a climbing, grasping man even as a servant, dismissed for altering shipment records—and pocketing the difference.

That he was trying his hand at his own sort of forgery came as no surprise.

Greta squeezed her knuckles until they popped. Perhaps that was why she so disliked her uncle’s scheme. Forging his paintings had been her means of contributing to the family’s safety. His decision to sell them as originals lumped her in the same category as people like Karl Schulz, who used trickery to advance their stations. She wanted to be known as an artist, not a swindler.

A rustle beyond the gates made her heart leap. Shrinking into the shadows, she pulled her dark pelisse tighter around her body. Then she waited.

“I don’t know why you’ve summoned me,” came a man’s voice, “but I never decline an invitation from a lady.” Karl’s face appeared between the upright metal bars of the garden gate. The bars mimicked those of a jail cell, which struck Greta as rather appropriate.

“You got my letter, then?”

“I did.” He leaned casually against the gate as if he had no fear of discovery. But why should he? He had come dressed as a commoner.

“Your clothes are none so sumptuous as I remember them, Baron Hoffer.”

“Why waste the effort on a woman who knows the truth?”

“More like, why risk being caught out in a situation that risks your disguise.”

“That too. I imagine you should’ve taken similar steps, or would your uncle approve of you meeting a man in the middle of the night?”

Greta’s stomach clenched as if she had been force-fed spoiled beef. “Since you’re here, you understand the nature of my letter.”

“I read well enough to recognize blackmail, even when written in a woman’s fine hand. So what do you require of me, Fräulein Zweig?”

“I need the name of someone who would be willing to steal a painting.”

Karl blinked and straightened. Greta was oddly amused that she had taken him by surprise. “Well, well. That’s quite a request.”

“Indeed. But I’m sure you can accommodate me.”

“Oh?”

“Your, shall we say, lifestyle at present suggests a certain level of deceit—false patents of nobility and family trees, that sort. So I assume you have connections with less savory folks than do I.”

“Shall I be flattered or insulted?”

“Be practical. Give me the name of someone I can use and where to find him.”

With unnerving calm, his surprise apparently exhausted, Karl stepped to the gate and held the bars. “Why don’t you ask Oliver?”

Greta frowned. The idea of asking Oliver for such a favor not only made her nausea worse, but it was utterly laughable. “Perhaps I would if I thought he might know such people.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that he would know criminals.” Karl grinned with such malice that Greta shivered within her pelisse. “I meant you should ask him to do it.”

“Why ever would I do such a thing?”

“Because he’s very good at whatever he sets his mind to. And at one time, many years ago, that included criminal enterprises.”

The air left her lungs in a heady rush. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t believe it.”

That vicious grin intensified. “Believe it,
Fräulein.
Your dear Oliver is one of my oldest friends. He and I—well, we share a few particularly sordid years. Ask him how he wound up in the army. You’ll be surprised by his reply. That is, if he decides to trust you with the truth.”

“Give me a name.”

“I just did.”

“And I tell you I won’t believe it!” Her whispered hiss likely echoed no further than a few feet, but Greta flinched at how loud it sounded there in the night-quiet garden.

Karl chuckled softly. “Poor girl. Was he very good for your first time?”

“I won’t listen to this.”

“I think you will. You’re a curious thing. Ask yourself what sort of valet can do what he does. Ask yourself why he was able to save your life without so much as breaking a sweat.”

“He was a soldier.”

“And before that he was a thief. Army life beat a healthy dose of respectability into him, but don’t let appearances fool you.” He glanced down at his simple garb. “You saw through me. I wonder why he’s been able to fool you so completely.”

At Greta’s inability to speak, he produced another low, chilling laugh. “I’ll bid you
gute Nacht,
” he said. “Whatever blackmail you’d intended to leverage against me will now be, I assume, reconsidered? You wouldn’t want anyone to know what I do about our dear Oliver’s past, nor about—what was it? A painting you intend to steal? That wouldn’t do at all.”

He bowed formally and turned on his heel. Greta slumped against the gate, slowly sinking toward the dirt. All strength had seeped out of her. All certainty.

Oliver was a good man. The best she had ever known. Karl Schulz was a lying, conniving bounder who was perpetrating a grand ruse. She should no more believe him than she should be there in the garden in the middle of the night. But Oliver had never added up properly. Something about him always struck her as out of step with the picture he presented to the world.

And the fact of Maria Lucca remained. Greta was no closer to solving the problem of that forgery than she had been at the start of this sordid conversation.

She was still sitting on the ground, her body trembling, when a familiar pair of boots stepped out from behind a dwarf cherry tree.

Oliver held his wrists behind his back to keep from leaping toward the gate and grabbing Karl by the throat. All this time he had been careful, upstanding,
decent.
That a man could come along and threaten that carefully maintained life struck him as some strange divine justice. The sins of the past would not be quiet.

But he had held still, flaying himself with the disbelief and outrage in Greta’s voice. She could not even entertain the notion that Karl spoke truthfully. They were half-truths steeped in bitterness, but Greta did not know that.

Now he had two difficulties to confront—explaining his past and figuring out why she met with Karl in the middle of the night. Both would alter, perhaps forever, his tenuous relationship with the woman he loved.

Love.

With a whispered curse, Oliver hung his head. How had he let this go so far? He loved Greta Zweig, only realizing it now when fate was prepared to send them spinning away from one another—without even the comfort of a few unblemished memories to keep them company. All they had shared would now be tainted.

She was a wreck, huddled on the ground, her forearms draped over trembling knees.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Oliver said quietly.

“I should like him gone too, if he knew something incriminating about my past.”

Crossing the distance between them took nerve and concentration. “Ask me what you want to know. But understand if you do, I may ask a few questions too.”

“Such as?”

“If I were to guess, I’d say it had just gone three in the morning. Why were you out here meeting the esteemed Baron Hoffer at such an hour?”

“Baron? Don’t perpetrate his ruse for him.”

Oliver had not heard their entire conversation. He had been awake, pacing his room, before sensing her footsteps in the corridor. “He told you?”

“No, I told him. He worked last summer in the kitchen of my uncle’s manor. I only just recalled where I’d seen his face.” She tipped her head back, meeting his gaze squarely. “Is he your friend? Are you here planning some criminal scheme against the Venners?”

He should have known how much her suspicion would hurt, but suggesting that his past had fingers long enough to sully his family was too much to endure. “I care very deeply for them both. Everything I do, all of my energy, goes toward repaying their kindness and show of faith.”

“And you want me to believe that?”

“Yes.”

Greta sniffed. Her wide eyes shone with an unnatural brightness. “Tell me.”

Weary, resigned, Oliver sat heavily on a cobblestone some two feet from Greta. She flinched and dragged her knees tighter toward her chest—a subtle act to slice at his heart. Only now did he realize how deeply he cared for her, when she was ready to treat him as a criminal.

Perhaps, at the very least, he could explain.

“I was a…a wild young man. All of the forthrightness you tease me about now—these were hard-won victories over how I once behaved. My father was a man of some importance, but I was born a bastard. He never acknowledged me or my mother.” The simplicity of such a sentence struck him as painfully comical. Even after all these years, he could not face that truth without heartache. To be fathered by such a coward. Oliver bit his molars together, shoving away the hurt. “So I did what many a lad would do in such a situation. I broke every rule and made sure he knew it.”

“You say that as if it’s some justification.”

“Perhaps. But realize that I take full responsibility for what I did. After a time, I was more than aware of right and wrong, then went out of my way to make trouble anyway.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I started stealing things from his home. Tokens, at first—pieces of him. Just to prove that I could. When I’d learn he was furious at missing a book or a cigar box, I congratulated myself. I was winning, you see. Then it became a matter of striking out against his friends, too. Anyone I thought harbored a kind word or thought for the old man.”

He chanced a quick look toward Greta. She was no longer quite so distant, her body leaning nearer as if in anticipation of his next words. Before he lost his resolve, he pressed on.

“But then he began to punish the household staff.” A chill shivered across his shoulders as he recalled that horrible time. He had been a young man lost. “My father made public spectacles of the servants he suspected of the thefts—jewels and such. They were humiliated, or dismissed without a letter to recommend them. I couldn’t let them take the punishment.”

“You revealed yourself?”

“I did. I returned all of the items and stood before him, ready to accept whatever consequences my behavior merited.” Oliver exhaled heavily. He wanted very much to take Greta’s hand but he did not dare. Not yet. “I fully expected to be jailed for the crimes. Perhaps it was a general sense of mercy, or perhaps a nod to the paternity he never acknowledged, but he gave me a commission to join the Prussian army. I took it, eagerly, and said good-bye to my mother. She passed away the following year, and my father a few months before I returned to civilian life.”

“You never saw either of them again.”

He needn’t have fretted about taking Greta’s hand because she reached for him. Palm to palm, fingers twined, her gaze fixed on his face, she silently urged him to continue.

“Karl was not wrong,” he said. “My illicit skills were very useful to my commanders. I was a spy and reconnaissance expert. But I never forgot the humiliation of having to admit to my father what I had done, and I never forgot his unexpected moment of kindness in handing me a profession.”

Oliver shrugged, shifting the heavy weight of his past. He had worked too hard to escape; he would not be dragged back.

“After the fighting concluded,” he said, “when I had the opportunity to join Lord Venner’s household, I vowed to do my duty by him. I would not succumb to the anger of my youth. Not again.”

Greta smoothed the fine hairs along the back of his hand. “And that’s what makes you so stubborn now?”

He was about to take offense when she flashed a shy smile. “Yes,” he said. “Afraid so.”

“And how did you know this man, Karl?”

“He and I grew up together, got into trouble together. When I joined the army, he followed me. He didn’t have anything to gain by staying. We were very close but got separated during the war.”

No matter the relief of unburdening himself of certain past events, Oliver could not give voice to his complicated relationship with Karl. The key was to keep Greta away from him.

With her head bent low, she was shaded by evening shadows and the drape of her unbound hair. Desire and a deeper, more terrifying regard turned her to a living goddess. But she was here in the garden after dark, consulting Karl for some reason. He did not enjoy the idea of her thinking badly of him, but neither did he want to consider her in an inauspicious light.