“Thank you, ma’am,” I said politely. I reached for the letter, but she held it just beyond reach. Frau Messner was not tall; she was a short, stout woman with sharp features that brought to mind a plump, well-fed ferret, but I could not retrieve my message without stepping in closer than I was comfortable.
“’Twas brought over by a liveried servant this time.” Her beady eyes darted from the letter to my face and back again, inviting me—taunting me—to say more. “Queer little fellow. Small as a child, dressed in red with his white wig all tufty ’bout his head like dandelion fluff.”
I gave her a tight smile. “Was he?”
“Not many noble families in Vienna outfit their liveries in red,” she mused. “But fewer still mark their correspondence with the sign of the poppy.” Frau Messner held the letter up before me, where I could clearly see the image of the flower pressed into the wax seal. “Your benefactor is quite unusual, Fr?ulein. I understand better now how you came across your good fortune in the city.”
I stiffened. I had been in the city long enough to know that luck was merely power in another guise. While I had not expected our lives to be easy, what I hadn’t expected was just how dependent we would be on another’s kindness, another’s whim. The apartments in which we lived were already leased in our names when we arrived, introductions and invitations to influential members of society penned and received, lines of credit established with shopkeepers, every need anticipated, arranged, and attended to. Our rude and rustic ways were already the subject of much ridicule, but what we could not be forgiven for was our good fortune. Our luck had little to do with success, and everything to do with access.
“I see,” I said, schooling my features into a neutral expression.
“I meant no disrespect, my dear,” she said, but her sneer belied her words. “Count Procházka is richer than Croesus, and how he chooses to spend his money is his own affair.”
A flush crossed my face, betraying my agitation despite my best efforts to keep calm. “If you please,” I said, holding out my hand. “My message.”
Frau Messner hesitated. “A word of warning before you go.” She absently fiddled with the edges of the letter, almost as though she were reluctant to speak. “You are young and so very innocent in the ways of the world. Know that there are unsavory predators in this town who would prey upon that na?veté.”
“I am not so credulous as all that,” I said, a trifle defensively.
“I know, Fr?ulein,” Frau Messner said. “Only . . . I was like you once. Homely, hungry, and eager to make something of myself.” Her eyes fell to the letter in my hand. “Your patron is said to be rather eccentric, and prone to . . . strange proclivities.”
Ice trickled down my spine. “I beg your pardon?”
Strange proclivities. I thought I could hear the snicker beneath her sugary-sweet demeanor, the questioning, judgmental glances that lingered on my sister’s buxom figure, on Fran?ois’s dark complexion, on Josef’s choirboy face.
Seeing my misgiving, my landlady went on. “They say the count and his followers are lovers of the poppy,” she said in a conspiratorial tone.
I glanced at the red crest on the letter with the image of a flower pressed into the wax. “Do you mean . . . opium? Laudanum?”
“Aye,” she said. “Theirs is a house of madmen and dreamers, of smoke and visions. Laudanum loosens the mind and”—the smirk was back on her face—“loosens other things as well.” Her gaze trailed down my rail-thin figure, my sallow skin, and overlarge eyes, and a prurient glint lit their beady depths.
I went rigid. “How dare you?” I asked in a low voice.
Frau Messner lifted her brows. “Gossip spreads through this city faster than fire, Fr?ulein,” she said. “And the tales that come out of Procházka House are more incendiary than most.”
I had had enough. “I appreciate your advice,” I said shortly, snatching the letter from her hand. Turning, I made my way up the stairs to our apartments.
“I don’t say this to be mean or cruel, Elisabeth,” she called after me. “The last young woman the Procházkas took under their wing disappeared under . . . mysterious circumstances.”
I paused on the stairwell.
“She was a poor, plain little thing from the country,” she went on. “A distant relation of theirs, or so they claimed. From what I heard, she was a particular favorite of the Countess. ‘Like a daughter to them,’ they said.”
After a moment, I succumbed to my curiosity and turned to face Frau Messner. “What happened to her?”
My landlady grimaced. “There was . . . an incident. At their country home. In Bohemia. Details are scarce, but there are reports of some sort of . . . ritual. The next morning the girl was gone and one of their friends was dead.”
“Dead?” I was startled.
“Aye.” She nodded. “They claim there was no foul play”—she snorted—“but the young man was found out in the woods, his lips blue with frost and a strange gray mark across the throat.”
The bottom fell from my stomach, that sickening lurch that accompanies an unexpected misstep. Elf-struck.
“They’re only rumors, of course,” she said quickly, seeing the expression on my face. “It’s just . . . you are a clever young woman with a good head on your shoulders, Elisabeth. Use your judgment and take heed, is all.”
I ran my thumb over the wax seal on the letter, tracing the shape of the poppy petals. For all that I did not want to admit it, my landlady was merely voicing my doubts about our patron aloud. We had not met with Count Procházka or seen him since we had arrived in Vienna. Not once. Messages were few and far between, mostly concerned with our domestic details—clothing, groceries, rent. For someone who had been so eager to bring us to Vienna, he seemed considerably less interested in seeing us in the city. It was getting harder and harder to ignore my unease the longer we were here.
“I thank you for your warning,” I said slowly. “And will take your advice into account.” I picked up the folds of my skirts and started to make my way to the landing above when Frau Messner called my name one last time.
“Elisabeth.”
I waited.
“Beware.” Frau Messner’s face was hard. “It is not the wolves you need fear, but the sheep skins they wear.”
*
K?the and Fran?ois were home when I returned to our apartments. She sat on the bed surrounded and swathed by yards of fabric, her fair head bent over her sewing, while Fran?ois carefully cut and basted patterns on the nearby table. Of the four of us—my sister, my brother, Fran?ois, and me—only K?the had a practical skill that could be leveraged to bring us some extra income. My sister assisted the dressmaker down the street with simple needlework, constructing basic gowns for the tailor to finish for each of his clients.