The Forbidden Waltz (Viennese Waltz #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The boy had stolen her reticule.

Pippa had been reaching for a coin when he flitted from the shadows and snatched it from her hands. She watched, stunned, as the scrawny figure sprinted along the cobbled street, zig-zagging nimbly around the pedestrians like a hare.

Pippa cursed with such vehemence that the stableboy nearly dropped the water buckets in alarm.

She immediately set off in pursuit. Under normal circumstances, she would have chased him down easily, since she was an equally nimble runner. It would have been child’s play to catch the little wretch.

Provided she wore trousers and sturdier shoes.

But Pippa wore delicate kid leather half-boots that, whilst so pretty in the shop window, proved treacherous on cobblestones.

Her heavy woollen dress and layered petticoats caught at her legs with every stride.

Not to mention the shift, stays, and stockings that kept sliding down.

Over it all she wore the heavy loden coat Papa had given her last Christmas, with her shawl and bonnet, draped in dull, black mourning crepe.

It was nigh impossible to run even two steps in that outfit.

And sure enough, her heels entangled in the hem of her long skirts, she stumbled, and came to a halt. She watched in disbelief as the boy made a last turn and disappeared into the crowd.

The stableboy had witnessed the entire interlude. “Stop the thief!” he yelled. Some stable hands set into motion to run after the boy, but they returned empty-handed, panting and shaking their heads.

“Sorry, Fr?ulein. But he was too fast,” the boy said regretfully and shrugged.

A sick feeling struck Pippa in the stomach, robbing her of breath, as the realisation set in of what, precisely, this signified.

Her reticule was gone. And with it, her entire future.

All her valuables—her papers, her jewellery, the purse with the money—gone.

Her knees weakened, and she swayed. She was about to swoon and faint and drop to the ground like those silly, simpering ladies she had always liked to mock. No, worse. She had allowed herself to get fleeced like a helpless little lamb as soon as she arrived in Vienna.

What on earth was wrong with her?

Spitfire, hothead, minx, madcap, was what people called her. Mostly with annoyance, but from those who knew her, with some affection.

My pet and my treasure were the endearments her papa had used for her. Sometimes, he called her Poppy, like the flower.

And mein T?ubchen was what Klemens liked to call her teasingly.

My little dove. With amusement brimming in his eyes, because her personality was anything but dove-like.

His lips would curl at the corner, and it would take only a little more edging on, a little more teasing until she would receive her reward: a full-blossomed smile breaking over his handsome face…

But all her fire and spirit had disappeared when Papa died and Klemens had vanished.

Angry, hot tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

And now she was weeping. For heaven’s sake! Fierce, headstrong Pippa never cried. She rubbed at the tears impatiently with one hand. Really, she was no better than those silly, milk-and-water ladies she despised.

“There, there.” The man gruffly patted her arm.

“’Tis a terrible thing, the thieving these days.

With all that aristocratic rabble swarming into Vienna for this cursed congress—or whatever they call it—the fine lords are drawing every kind of riffraff, pickpocket, and cutpurse into the city.

The prisons are full of them. But it is all useless because for every thief they throw into prison, ten more pop up, like mushrooms. Now, you look like a sensible young thing.

Surely you have kept some spare coin stowed away elsewhere, as one should do. ”

She had not.

“And surely you must have a respectable family—” he sized her up and down to take in her formal mourning attire that screamed bourgeois respectability, “—that will take you home from here.”

She did not.

Papa had died a fortnight ago. The land and cottage in the alpine village where she had grown up had been seized to pay the debt Papa had left behind.

She had no home.

Her eyes lifted to take in the inn where the mail coach had stopped, the ostlers busy running back and forth, tending to the horses. Her eyes lit on the gilded lamb that dangled over the main entrance: Gasthof Zum Goldenen Lamm.

Klemens.

Klemens would be here. A flush of relief swept through her.

All would be well.

She drew a breath before turning to the man.

“Thank you. Yes. My betrothed is waiting for me here.” She nodded at him and turned towards the innkeeper, who stepped out of the main door.

He was a tall, burly man with a white apron knotted at his waist; an important fellow, who not only oversaw the post but also waited upon distinguished guests.

He strode out with a swaggering gait, puffed up with an air of self-consequence. A steep frown darkened his brow.

“You have to be more careful, Fr?ulein. Can’t survive in the city if you can’t take care of your odds and ends.” He turned back to the inn.

“I am looking for the student Lindenstein. He lives here.” Pippa stepped up to him. “Could you please tell him that his betrothed has arrived?”

The man cast a dismissive look over his shoulder. “I know no student Lindenstein. This is an inn, Fr?ulein, not lodgings for students.”

Panic welled up. “Klemens, then. Klemens Lindenstein. He has to live here! I sent all my mail to this address in the past.”

But the man was already walking away.

The old Pippa would have uttered a string of curses that would have made any hardened man blush. But this Pippa, after days of being jolted around in the mail coach, with very little fare and even less sleep, hollow and numb from recent events, had no more spirit left in her.

She grabbed his arm. “Please,” she begged. “Please tell me he lives here.”

The innkeeper shook her hand off. “Letters come for every sort of fellow, but that doesn’t mean they lodge here. Gentlemen often have their post directed here, and I don’t keep every name in my head. Now, look here. I’m a busy man. Book a room, or take your luggage and move along.”

It was on Pippa’s lips to say that she would take a room. It would be the most sensible thing to do, to stay here and wait for Klemens. For surely, if she waited long enough, Klemens would come.

Until reality hit. “I have no money,” she whispered. “They stole my money.”

The innkeeper’s eyes turned to two hard, beady stones. “In that case, move on.”

She fingered the simple golden ring that hung from a band from her neck. It was Klemens’ ring. No. She couldn’t offer that in exchange. Why, oh why, hadn’t it occurred to her to sew a few coins into her hem? Then she would have had at least some payment for a single night.

“I can do some work,” Pippa offered, following the innkeeper.

“For one night, I can help in the kitchen, or in the stable. I’m good with horses.

Truly, I am…” Pippa had never helped in the kitchen and she barely knew how to make a fire.

She understood horses, however. And numbers.

Those she could handle as well as horses, if not better.

The innkeeper must have instinctively known that she has not experience with horses, for he merely sneered in response, turned, and slammed the wooden door into her face, leaving Pippa staring at it.

Horseshoes clattered on the cobblestone, and another mail carriage pulled up. The ostlers came running.

“He’s a hard one,” the stable hand said, as he passed her.

“Will not give an inch unless you pay. Don’t expect any charity from him, either.

It will get dark soon. If you want to get inside the city, better do before they close the city gates, otherwise you have to pay a Kreuzer to pass.

Good luck, Fr?ulein.” He turned to the horses to tend to them.

Pippa’s gaze wandered down the street leading to the heavy city walls and the massive stone gate with the imperial double eagle above it.

She straightened her shoulders, picked up her trunk and set one foot in front of the other, taking her to the gate that was guarded by two men.

One of them, a young, lanky red-head, held out his hand.

“Papers, Fr?ulein.”

“They were stolen,” she said. “A boy took my reticule.”

The guard frowned. “Then you must go to the Polizeihofstelle.”

“But…why?”

“Unregistered people, foreigners, people without papers have to go to the Polizeihofstelle.”

“Because we don’t have any papers, they treat us like criminals,” said a bearded man, who appeared to have the same problem.

“But we’re just normal citizens like anyone else, except if you don’t have papers, they treat you like animals.

Me, I’m a blacksmith who came to the city because I heard they have work aplenty here. But, I lost my papers,” he shrugged.

“What will happen there?” Pippa asked with foreboding.

“They will investigate you until you can prove your identity.”

“Investigate?”

“Every individual needs to be accounted for in this state. All thanks to Metternich.” The blacksmith spat on the ground.

“It’s because of the congress,” the woman who had overheard their conversation chipped in, shifting her basket from one hip to the other.

“They’ve become stricter. Too many people are flooding into the city.

In the past, all you had to do was to slip a coin into his hand.

But now it’s impossible.” She sighed. “I don’t have any papers either.

But hopefully my sister, who works at an inn, can come to identify me. ”

“What happens if you can’t get identified?” Pippa knew absolutely no one in the city.

“Then you have a big problem,” the blacksmith said darkly.