The Secret Society of Salzburg, page 1
Praise for the novels of Renee Ryan
“The Secret Society of Salzburg is a gripping, emotional story of courage and strength, filled with extraordinary characters and tender relationships. Renee Ryan reminds us that the universal languages of art, music and friendship bring light and hope amid even the most challenging of times. I loved every word.”
—New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne
“The Secret Society of Salzburg is a powerful journey of bravery, secrets, and subterfuge. Renee Ryan is a brilliant storyteller and this book is definitely one you don’t want to miss!”
—Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London
“The Secret Society of Salzburg is a heart-wrenching yet uplifting tale about the importance of art and beauty in the darkest of times. Renee Ryan weaves a masterful story anchored by the unbreakable friendship of two extraordinary women. A must-read.”
—Julia Kelly, internationally bestselling author of The Last Dance of the Debutante
“The Widows of Champagne is a heady concoction of everything I love about historical fiction—history, drama, and passion as effervescent as the resilient LeBlanc women and the champagne that bears their name. I highly recommend!”
—Karen White, New York Times bestselling author
“The backdrop of the picturesque Champagne valley paired with the darkness of the German invasion helped this story come to life in a unique way. The Widows of Champagne will remind the reader of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale.”
—Booklist
“The Widows of Champagne is a riveting novel of WWII France. Highly recommended.”
—Robin Lee Hatcher, Christy Award–winning author of Make You Feel My Love
“The Widows of Champagne will sweep you into a wartime story of love, greed, and how one should never underestimate the strength of the women left behind. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Donna Alward, New York Times bestselling author
Also by Renee Ryan
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The Widows of Champagne
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THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SALZBURG
RENEE RYAN
Multipublished, award-winning author Renee Ryan grew up in Florida. She’s written nearly thirty books in several genres, including historical fiction, historical romance and contemporary romance. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband and a large cat many have mistaken for a small bear. To learn more about Renee, visit her on Facebook or Twitter.
For Mark.
After twenty-six years and counting,
you are still my first, my last, my always.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Excerpt from The Widows of Champagne by Renee Ryan
Chapter One
Elsa
August 1943. Salzburg, Austria.
Felsenreitschule Theater.
The black Mercedes-Benz approached the Felsenreitschule theater at a steady pace, giving the woman inside time to settle her nerves before stepping into the heavy August heat. It had been an exhausting two weeks for Elsa Mayer-Braun. The endless rehearsals, the physical demands on her body, the excessive stress to her vocal cords. Yet none of that compared to the torment unfurling in her own home, made worse by the escalating arguments.
She would not think about Wilhelm now. Nor would she dwell on the terrible things she suspected of the man she’d loved enough to marry. The pain was too great, the grief too real. And so Elsa sat very still on the worn leather seat, inhaling the soft floral scent of her perfume as it mixed with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke left behind by the previous occupant. She would not think of him, either, or the way he’d insisted she accept the loan of his state-sponsored car. The generous offer, she was told with a hard clasp to her arm, was one she would not refuse.
A chill crept along her spine at the memory of her husband’s cold, emotionless glare as he spoke those words in front of his powerful friend. The glacial steel of Wilhelm’s eyes had been that of a stranger. The silent demand more threat than warning.
If only Hattie were with her, sharing this moment, speaking of opera and art and very little else, certainly nothing of the secret they shared. Perhaps then Elsa would feel less afraid, and this terrible sense of foreboding would vanish.
But Hattie wasn’t here. She’d been detained in London. Elsa was on her own.
She stared straight ahead, speaking not a word, thinking not a thought beyond what she must do tonight on the stage. This would be her final opportunity to slip behind the mask of Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Elsa’s prior performances had captured high praise from the critics. Unprecedented, they wrote. Matchless. Without rival. Oh, yes. She had much to be grateful for professionally, if not personally, where the dual life she’d chosen required her to wear a different sort of mask, with much higher stakes.
The Mercedes rolled to a stop.
Elsa flexed her fingers, lacing them together to make sure her gloves fitted snugly, the way she liked them best. They were new, a gift from her husband. Wilhelm had smiled when he’d presented them as a peace offering last week after telling her he would not be conducting Don Giovanni as planned. Pristine and snowy white, the gloves were the color of a shroud. She checked the fit again.
Biting back a sigh, she chanced a glance out the side window. A crowd had gathered along the curb, a river of faces swollen in anticipation. It seemed all of Salzburg had come to witness her final performance. Their voices tangled unnaturally, blending, until all Elsa could hear from inside her cocoon was a high-pitched buzz, much like the sound of bees in their hive. “El-sa,” they chanted. “El-sa, El-sa, El-sa.”
Something in their adoration was different tonight. Or perhaps it was Elsa who was different, making her feel like a guest in her own life. The throng pressed in closer, shoving at one another, throwing elbows, placing palms on the hood of the car, the roof, even the window that separated Elsa from their frenzy.
The driver—she didn’t know his name—swiveled around in his seat. He wore a military uniform: SS, the hated enemy. The look in his eyes was not easy to read beneath the shadow cast by the bill of his hat. “Should I circle the block?”
It was too late. Elsa had been positively identified. Precious little could be done now but to accept her fate. “Retreat will only stir them up more.”
“Then, I will drop you closer to the stage door.”
She shook her head. “No, I’ll exit here. I—”
The Mercedes began to rock. Fear skittered up Elsa’s throat. She swallowed it back and forced herself to breathe. Perhaps she should issue the order for him to take a spin around the block after all. Impossible now. The choice was no longer hers to make.
Her fans continued closing in around the car, chanting her name, the earlier buzz of their voices sounding more like a roar. They wanted only one thing. A glimpse of the woman who carried the label of Hitler’s favorite opera singer.
Elsa knew what was expected of her. She would give the masses what they wanted. She would smile and sign autographs and speak to a select few. No one would ever suspect how she used her elevated status within the Third Reich. Or that her notoriety had become both shield and sword against Nazi Germany’s crimes against humanity.
She’d stalled long enough.
Scooting forward, she breathed slowly in, out. Then, with a flick of her wrist and a bold push, she exited the automobile in a rush. She’d moved quickly, and for a split second, the crowd froze. Elsa hardly noticed their shocked silence. Or the way the driver left his place behind the wheel to stand beside her in silent solidarity. Her attention was riveted on the long, narrow street. On the buildings themselves and the sea of Nazi flags waving their allegiance to a monster and his deadly regime.
Sorrow came fast and hard. Her beloved Salzburg had been infested with vipers,
The next ten minutes went by in a blur of flashing bulbs, garbled words of praise and more chanting of her name. No human deserved such earthly acclaim.
Despite the sticky, suffocating heat, Elsa shivered, fumbling her way through the riot of fans and journalists. Until finally, at last, she was inside the building, cloaked in shadow and the molten gold and orange light that played across the centuries-old stone walls. Only in Salzburg could an ancient quarry become the home of the greatest music festival in Europe. With its portico of arches on three tiers hewn into the rock, the former riding school for an archbishop’s mounted soldiers was like no other theater in the world.
Elsa entered her dressing room and began the task of transforming herself into a woman bent on revenge because of a greedy man’s selfish desires. She knew this character down to her bones. She was this woman. She finished her warm-up exercises and stepped into her costume, but there was still no sign of Wilhelm. She hadn’t expected him to come, but she had hoped. So be it. She would face this final performance on her own, with no words of encouragement from her husband. No Toi, toi, toi—opera’s equivalent of Good luck. Her punishment, she supposed, for refusing to believe his lies.
Of course, she had her own lies to protect.
Head high, she made her way to the stage, moving like a wraith through the darkened corridors, taking a position in the wings, concealed in shadow before she took her cue and rushed onto the stage. The mezzo-soprano singing Donna Elvira, a role out of her range, met Elsa’s gaze. The bitter dislike was unmistakable, raw and blatant. Frieda blamed Elsa for many offenses. Her anger partly valid, mostly not.
With great success came enemies, some quite intimate. Wilhelm had taught her that.
The conductor took his place in front of the orchestra. He lifted his baton, and the overture began with a thundering D minor cadence. A short misterioso sequence followed, which led into a lighthearted D major allegro. The music changed, the singing commenced, and then it was Elsa’s turn to hit her cue. She pursued the masked Don Giovanni onto the stage, clutching at his arm. She sang her opening notes. So caught up in Donna Anna’s desperation, she didn’t realize that the brilliant baritone playing Don Giovanni had gone unnaturally still and that she was singing alone.
She searched his face. Had he forgotten the words? It happened sometimes—rarely, but yes, it happened. She expected him to find his place in the melody, silently willing him to do so, right up to the moment she understood the expression on his face was one of terror.
Next came shouting in German, a sound that had no place in this opera. At the far end of the center aisle, soldiers stormed the auditorium. She recognized the uniforms. How could she not? These men were SS, an elite guard assigned to serve the secret police. Gestapo.
A rushing filled Elsa’s ears as she watched the endless stream of soldiers marching into the building, perfectly matched in height, stature and soulless stare, like an army of ants. One by one, they broke off from the group in a precise, rhythmic tempo. Some took up position along the perimeter of the auditorium. Others lined up in the aisles and around the orchestra pit, cornering both patrons and musicians alike.
Elsa had witnessed this spectacle in other German cities, other auditoriums. She knew what came next. An arrest. She was not the only one to arrive at this conclusion. Gasps and murmurs followed. Tension, thick enough to cut with a blade, vibrated in the air.
Another group of hard-eyed men entered the building, three in total, wearing head-to-toe black. Their collars bore the SS runes, and the red armbands around their left biceps carried the Nazi swastika. The man leading the way caught her gaze. She knew him by sight and reputation. Kriminaldirektor Gerhardt Vogt. His face wore something she’d seen in others draped in the same uniform. Fanaticism. Bigotry. Hatred.
A dark premonition filled her mind as she watched the fiend take the stage, stopping only after he stood before her. Up close, his eyes were bluer, colder than she’d first thought, and he smelled of death. The scent made her frantic. She wanted to run, to vanish from the stage. You’re panicking, she thought and lifted her chin, saying not a word. If nothing else, she would force the swine to speak first.
“Elsa Mayer-Braun.” His voice held much distaste, as if the mere effort of stating her name was a personal insult. “Du bist verhaft.”
You are under arrest, spoken with a Bavarian accent. The noise in her ears was deafening, an explosion of chaos and thought turned to sound. She choked for a moment, then stammered, “Wh-what is my crime?”
He closed the small space between them. “Treason against the Third Reich.”
Chapter Two
Hattie
August 1934. London, England.
British Board of Education. Secretarial Pool.
Hattie Featherstone finished the document she was typing and pulled it free from the roller. Five more and she would be through her enormous workload, far and away ahead of her coworkers. It was no secret Hattie was the best typist in the building. She had an eye for accuracy and fast, sure fingers. Skills that came naturally, if not without a sense of quiet desperation.
Was she to be a civil servant the rest of her life?
Her artist’s soul, inherited from her mother, cried no. Never. Hattie was barely twenty. She had plenty of time to escape the mind-numbing tedium of reproducing educational treatises in triplicate. Her current position was only a temporary pause, a way for her to cover her expenses so she could afford art classes as her mother had always wished for her. Classes, she was coming to realize, that were systematically slaughtering her desire to paint. Last night’s critique had been especially brutal.
Her continued failure to succeed was like losing her mother all over again. Love of art had been their greatest bond.
A sob threatened to slip past Hattie’s lips. She pressed them tightly together, sufficiently caging the emotion in her throat. No one in the secretarial pool could be allowed to witness her turmoil. They would ask questions and try to give words of encouragement. She didn’t want their kindness. She wanted to be alone in her agony. It was easier that way. Even her older sister didn’t know the depths of her disappointment. Vera would take on Hattie’s failure as her own, as if she’d somehow failed her little sister.
Mouth grim, Hattie breathed in a slow, careful breath and turned her head to the right, then left, not really seeing her workspace but rather her painting of a pair of swans on a pond cluttered with lily pads in various forms of decay. The watercolor had been Hattie’s best effort yet. Her fellow art students had agreed. Her professor at the Royal College of Art had not.
Derivative. Uninspired. Lacking imagination.
He’d driven home his point with harsh comments on her youth in his nasally, high-pitched voice. You need to suffer, Miss Featherstone. Something devastating. Surely losing her mother at the age of ten implied both suffering and devastation. A heartbreak, perhaps. Then, in time, if you’re very fortunate, your art will be sufficiently tolerable.
Sufficiently tolerable. As if the best Hattie could hope to achieve was mediocrity.
Sighing, she lowered her head and studied her hands resting lightly on the keys of the LC Smith and Corona. The bits of paint buried beneath the unpolished nails and the charcoal smudged into the cuticles belonged to those of an artist, not a copying typist.
Of their own volition, her fingers rounded into fists, the knuckles turning bone-white, the nails digging into her palms. All the pain Hattie felt, all the anger and despair over yet another disparaging critique from a man who knew nothing about her or her past was there, in her tightly curled fingers. Why, why couldn’t she translate her emotions, good and bad, raw and vulnerable, onto the canvas? What held her back?
