The Night Angel Read online

  Falconer knew he was expected to respond in kind. But here and now, raw from his desperate nighttime prayer, he saw his answer upon display. The three of them formed a silent tableau, a message as clear as fiery words scripted upon the dawn sky.

  Serafina turned not to him, but to her parents. Her parents stood to either side of their daughter, seeking to shield her from the closest present danger. John Falconer, the man they needed, yet feared.

  Had Serafina herself shown a desperate love for him, perhaps they might be swayed. Yet she was still recovering from the previous summer’s trauma. Her own heart had been sorely wounded. She was truly fond of him, he was sure, and would call him friend all her days. But when her heart healed, her parents would seek another’s hand. Someone appropriate for their station. And Serafina would yield to their request.

  Falconer felt a burning behind his eyes. He turned back toward the draped window, mentally picturing nothing save a bleak and empty night. He muttered, “I must depart.”

  “Excuse me, good sir, did you speak?”

  Falconer’s fists clenched at his sides as he clamped down on a sorrow that writhed and bucked and sought to bring him down. It was a silent struggle, one that no one else noticed. And he won.

  He turned to face the four of them. “We must depart. Now.”

  “What, in the middle of the night? You can’t—” “Think on this, sir. Think carefully. Your daughter saw attackers. Whether they were after you, we can only guess. But I cannot protect you here. Do you understand what I am saying? I cannot protect you or your daughter. You are entrusting the legate with securing your family’s safety.”

  “He is right, Alessandro.” Bettina’s face was drawn with growing concern. “What if the legate was behind this?”

  “He would not dare have me attacked on his own property!”

  “Lower your voice, husband.” Bettina Gavi took daily instruction from an English tutor. Her abilities were growing steadily, but her accent remained very heavy, particularly now when she was so afraid. “Have you not yourself said the legate seeks to make trouble with the Americans? He could attack us, then accuse the American authorities of being unable to protect their foreign guests even inside their capital.”

  Rapid action went against the diplomat’s nature. “But where would you expect us to go in the middle of the night?”

  “A hotel.”

  Alessandro Gavi wrung his hands. When dressed in his official finery and stationed in the halls of power, he cut a dignified figure. Now, in the depths of a night masked by cloud and fear, his hair a tangle and his movements nervous, he looked frail and aging. “Whatever will the legate think?”

  “If you wait and ask permission, he might refuse.” Falconer found every word an effort. “If you go and explain on the morrow, it is a deed already done.”

  Gavi offered Falconer reluctant approval. “You are right. Of course. Very well. We must pack.”

  “No time.” Falconer straightened, as though easing his back. But the internal struggle could only be quashed by motion. “Tomorrow you will send me back with a message for the legate. Mary and I will then fetch your possessions. We must leave now. Before the guard in the formal chambers awakens and raises the alarm.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Never mind.” Falconer motioned toward the door. “Take only what you can carry easily. We leave in five minutes.”

  “But—”

  “Hurry.”

  Chapter 2

  Prince Fritz-Heinrich von Hapsburg, nephew of the Austrian emperor, possessed a remarkable example of the royal nose. An uncharitable person might have said that the prince’s snout was made for looking down on those around him, and for sniffing his disdain. Both of which the prince did altogether too often.

  “Make way there.”

  Falconer stepped to one side. A liveried attendant in powdered wig and brocaded frock coat led a trio of servants into the grand salon. The doors were opened by two guards, also in full Hapsburg livery. When the doors swung shut behind the small group, Falconer pretended to relax against the back wall.

  A man sidled up beside him. Gerald Rivens was the prince’s junior coach driver. Gerald had been stepping out with Mary, Serafina’s maid. They were often seated in the servants’ gallery at the church Falconer attended. A bit of the rough trade was Falconer’s initial impression of the man. But Falconer had no problem with those from society’s underclass. It was, after all, his own birthright as well.

  Gerald asked quietly, “You mind a word?”

  Falconer responded by making room for Gerald to join him against the wall. Gerald planted his tricorn hat upon his chest, as though respectfully awaiting a summons. It was a common practice among the prince’s servants, adopting positions that suggested they were busy with duties even when idle.

  Gerald said, “Mary won’t tell me where you’ve got the family holed up.”

  Falconer nodded acceptance of the news, well pleased to learn his orders were being carried out.

  “Don’t blame you,” Gerald went on. He pitched his voice low and kept his eyes focused on the closed doors across from them. “I’ve noticed signs of strangers in the night.”

  Falconer glanced over. The man was narrow in all the ways that mattered. His face pinched downward to a slit of a nose. His gaze was tight and cautious. Though his frame looked slight, he carried himself with the taut muscles and wariness of one who had survived his share of battles.

  Falconer murmured back, “What is your weapon of choice?”

  Gerald looked at him and smiled with the knowing grin of one who understood everything that Falconer had left unsaid. “I don’t walk those ways anymore.”

  “I’ve seen you at church.”

  “Aye, I came crawling up to the cross a few years back. Accepted my salvation on the only terms that mattered. Empty-handed, broken and needy.”

  “I like those words,” Falconer replied. “Especially when spoken by a man who knows his way about a fight.”

  “Like I said, I’ve left the dark paths behind.” Gerald turned his attention back to the shut doors with their gilded crests and nodded slowly. “But in a former life, I was partial to the blade.”

  Falconer nodded also, accepting the smaller man’s gift of trust. “You were speaking of attackers?”

  “Don’t know who they were. But I had a careful look around the day after you slipped away. There were footprints between the cottages and the stable.”

  “Mary told you where Serafina had seen the figures?”

  “That she did. Which was why I went to have a look for myself. I spied three sets of footprints. And a bit of slow match. You understand?”

  “Musket,” Falconer replied with another nod. A slow match was a means of firing an old-fashioned weapon. Since the advent of percussion caps, slow matches were used less and less. But the hand-crafted guns of old were still used by marksmen who sought accuracy above all. “Assassin.”

  Gerald drew his mouth down. “Mary said you had a history of your own.”

  “I once considered myself a better man than some because I had never played the pirate,” Falconer confessed. “Fool that I was.”

  “I’ve come to feel the only difference between a strong man and a weak one is the color of the lies he tells himself,” Gerald agreed.

  Falconer turned to look squarely at the man. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, brother.” He offered Gerald his hand and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You’ll find Mary at Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel for another few days.”

  Gerald’s grip held surprising force for such slender bones. “After that?”

  “We’ve rented a house on Lafayette Square.”

  Gerald seemed reluctant to let go of Falconer’s hand. “Does Master Gavi have his full accompaniment of servants?”

  “The Gavis have no need of a full-time carriage driver. But a trusted man who could serve as family guard would be most welcome.”

  “What of your
self?”

  “I am soon to be called away.”

  The doors across the hall swept open. A royal attendant stepped out, his chin held so far back he could look both up at Falconer and down his nose. “John Falconer, your presence is required.”

  As Falconer stepped forward, Gerald said softly, “I’m your man.”

  Serafina stood a pace behind and to one side of her parents. The aristocrats and a few petitioners formed two long arms down either side of the formal chamber. The hall was large, imposing, and very cold. No amount of burning fires or sunlight could warm the atmosphere.

  The royal gathering took place each Saturday afternoon, a chance for the titled and near-titled Europeans to gather, play court to one another, and pretend a superiority to the Americans they could only feel when surrounded by their own.

  Prince Fritz-Heinrich was seated on a raised French chair at the salon’s far end. The chair back was as tall as a man and imprinted with the Hapsburg seal in gold leaf. A trio of musicians sat in the far corner, their instruments at the ready, awaiting a sign from the majordomo. The courtiers were mostly European, for not many Americans had the patience to put up with Fritz-Heinrich’s associates and their affected ways. That was one of the things Serafina had learned since her arrival in America. Even the most powerful Americans did not care to flaunt their authority. Such mannerisms were seen as shades of the past they had cast off with their Declaration of Independence.

  This meant only two types of Americans joined in such formal assemblies. Some were operators, as they were known here. Smelling of hair oil and greed, they weaseled their way in to further their nefarious profit schemes.

  Others were there by order of someone more powerful. These diplomats were easy to identify, for they were the only ones all in black, carrying stovepipe hats at their sides. Desperately eager to be gone, they stood in stiff isolation, awaiting their turn before the dais.

  Serafina was one of the few ladies in the chamber who did not wear a powdered white wig. Her blond hair was covered with a short white mantilla. From behind her lacy screen, Serafina studied the gathering. Once they had returned to the hotel she intended to work on several drawings of these people and the royal setting. And as ever, Mary would beg for every scrap of detail about what she had observed.

  Before crossing the Atlantic with Serafina, Mary had been in service at the household of William Wilberforce. She had used her free Saturdays and Sundays to study in one of the schools Wilberforce had established. He had arranged for space in churches to teach reading, writing, and Bible during times the sanctuaries were not in use. For many of those from Mary’s social class, it was their only opportunity for proper schooling. Mary’s ambition was to become a private secretary. She had accepted the offer to travel to America as a step toward leaving the restrictive British class system behind.

  Serafina’s Venetian parents, as warmhearted and tolerant as they were, couldn’t help but be concerned with the casual friendship between Serafina and the woman they viewed as merely their daughter’s maid. Serafina did not try to explain that Mary had initially been Serafina’s only female companion her own age. Serafina was gradually making new friends at church, but she saw that as no reason to give up someone she had come to call a friend.

  Mary responded with a quiet intimacy that revealed many things normally unseen by someone of Serafina’s standing. Mary knew that Serafina, in the dark days after discovering her lover was both a scoundrel and a liar, had served as chambermaid in an English Wiltshire manor. The result was that Mary treated Serafina in two distinct manners. In public, she was the demure and silent maid. In private, Mary revealed a wit and intelligence that was hidden to Serafina’s parents. Serafina often reflected on these secret times, noting how much was lost by being imprisoned within wealth and social standing.

  One of the confidences Mary had shared with Serafina had been the rather obvious fact that Prince Fritz-Heinrich was not well loved among his staff. Quite the contrary.

  Serafina looked again around the hall as the line she was in moved forward. Her parents’ turn to be presented to the prince was at hand.

  Serafina could feel the legate’s gaze upon her. She kept her eyes firmly fastened upon the marble floor at her feet.

  Alessandro Gavi was speaking in High German, as the legate required. “Once again, Highness, I apologize for our swift departure. But—”

  “I can hardly accept such an apology, Herr Gavi. It was a serious breach of protocol. Particularly as I personally invited you to remain as my guest.”

  Serafina’s father bowed low. “We have faced dire threats, Highness.”

  The prince used a few of his sniffs as disdainful punctuation marks. “Where, pray tell? Who is the one who dares suggest that an honored guest would not be safe in my home?” He sat forward in his chair to bore holes in the unfortunate Alessandro Gavi.

  “M-my personal aide and guard, sire.”

  “Show him to me. Is he here?”

  “In the hall, Highness. But—”

  “Bring him forth immediately!” The legate waved a lace-embroidered handkerchief at his hovering aide. “Have him attend me this instant!”

  “He is rather rough-edged, Highness,” her father warned.

  “What else can one expect from this disorderly and loutish nation. How is he known?”

  “John Falconer, Highness.”

  “A common sort of name.” The legate sniffed again and dabbed at his nose with the handkerchief. “Your daughter is with you this day, I see.”

  “Indeed, Highness.”

  “Step forward, child. Remove your veil. There, that is better. What is your name again? Forgive me, the pressures of this office . . .”

  “Serafina, Highness.”

  “Of course. Such a delightfully Italian name.” Another sniff. “You speak German, I take it.”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  “Of course you would. Coming from a proper family, as you do.” Though Serafina’s gaze remained demurely down- ward, she could feel the stare from the legate. “Tell me, child, are you betrothed?”

  She remained silent.

  “Your daughter does not know how to properly answer her superiors, Herr Gavi?”

  “She is not betrothed, Highness.”

  “Is that a fact. And such a lovely flower. Speak, Miss Gavi. Your parents tell me you were ill upon your arrival. You are better now, I trust.”

  Serafina remembered this was the explanation her parents had given for her not attending court. Now that she stood before the legate, there because they had all been so ordered, Serafina understood why her parents had been desperate to keep her out of sight. “Thank you for your concern, Highness.”

  “Tell me how you occupy your hours.”

  “My daughter is an artist, Highness,” her father inserted.

  “Permit her to answer for herself. An artist, forsooth. Do you paint? Sculpt?”

  “I currently work mostly with charcoals or pen and ink, sire. But I also use oils and watercolors.”

  “Then you must attend me,” the legate murmured as the doors at the hall’s far end swished open. “I should be ever so grateful for a sample of your skills.”

  Serafina caught the nuance of the words, enough to bring a flush to her cheeks and draw her focus from the floor. She met the legate’s gaze as steadily as she could manage and replied, “I should be honored, Highness.” She gave a careful pause, then added, “To sketch or paint your wife.”

  The legate’s features turned to stone. “I see your daughter has inherited her father’s impudence.”

  Alessandro Gavi bowed once more. “We count ourselves among the Austrian court’s most loyal citizens.”

  The man quirked an eyebrow at the absence of the proper address. “Vienna’s court,” he said meaningfully, “and not my own?”

  “We are loyal subjects of the king,” Alessandro Gavi replied stolidly.

  The prince flicked his fingers and sniffed dismissively as Falconer appr
oached. Serafina curtsied with her mother, and together the three of them backed off a pace.

  The prince’s aide carried a long staff leafed in gold and tipped with a carved crown. He tapped the marble floor three paces away from the throne, signifying that Falconer was to approach no farther. He announced in English, “John Falconer, Your Highness.”

  “Indeed.” The prince waited. Along with the entire gathering. John Falconer planted himself before the legate, removed his hat and held it to his side, stared back at the man upon the gilded throne, and waited.

  The aide snapped, “You shall bow before His Highness.”

  Falconer turned toward the courtier. Whatever he revealed to the white-wigged man was enough to cause the man to falter, and he swallowed noisily.

  The prince sniffed, then spoke in accented English, “Well, it is scarcely a surprise to meet ruffians in this land who have yet to learn the proper courtesies of a European court. From a nation far older and more civilized—”

  “All men are equal in our land” came a retort from down the hall.

  The prince flushed with rage. “Who said that? Who?” When the room remained silent, he rose to his feet and cried, “The embassy of a recognized country is not your land!”

  He glared out over the gathering. When no one responded, he subsided into his throne. Like all the other Europeans, including Serafina’s father, Prince Fritz-Heinrich wore the clothing of the Austrian court. His pastel long coat had gold buttons, and his powdered wig was almost as ornate as his embroidered vest. His tight pants, tucked into high boots with tassels of spun gold, revealed a potbelly that the waistcoat could not fully enclose.

  Prince Fritz-Heinrich demanded of Falconer, “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “You were the one who asked to see me.”

  The courtier rapped out, “You will address the prince as sire or Highness!”

  Falconer glanced over a second time. He smiled as he added, “Sire.”

  Serafina found herself seeing Falconer through the eyes of those gathered. It was not merely his size, though he was perhaps half again as tall as the prince and ten times the man in strength. It was his presence. The prince might storm and squall all he wished, but Falconer remained untouched. Falconer was unique, and never had the fact been more evident than here, among this gathering of powdered wigs and ceremonial swords. Falconer was powerful both in body and in spirit. He emanated a force that defied them even when he stood as he did now, silent and grave, his internal musings masked.