Awaiting the Moon (21 page)

Alerted to a possible problem, Nikolas tried to ignore a flare of jealousy in his own heart as he turned his gaze to the group. It was true that Christoph never smiled so, and it was directed at Miss Stanwycke. She was only a few years older than he, enough to appear glamorous and worldly to a boy who had little experience; she was English, too, beautiful, and with a wit and sensibility that would be attractive to any man.

It was not that he expected Christoph to remain chaste, but his sister’s tutor was not a proper object for his passions. Nor was she appropriate for the young man to marry. Christoph reached out for some sheet music, and his hand brushed Elizabeth’s, and both started back, as if they had been burned.

Consciousness, the first dangerous stage of attraction, Nikolas thought.

Standing, Nikolas said, “I will take care of it. Thank you for your concern, uncle.” He crossed the room, caught Christoph’s eye, and beckoned to him.

When his nephew reluctantly left the trio of young ladies at the piano, Nikolas pulled him outside the door. He had intended to find some way to make amends for his behavior earlier, if Christoph would apologize for
his
remark, which had been a comment on Nikolas’s relationship with Magda Brandt that was not only wholly without justification, but filthy and inappropriate.

But this new worry superseded that concern, and he said, holding Christoph’s arm in his own grasp, “What is going on between you and Miss Stanwycke?”

“Elizabeth?”

He had not even allowed himself to say her name out loud; Nikolas’s grip tightened on Christoph’s arm. “Miss Stanwycke, to you. What is going on?”

“Nothing,” his nephew said, pulling his arm out of Nikolas’s grasp. He rubbed it and winced.

“But what if there was? Have you branded every woman in the castle and village with your own ownership?”

Fury ripped through Nikolas at the insolent tone and sneer that accompanied those words. “I would have you take back that, and your filthy suggestion earlier today about Magda Brandt.”

Blue eyes wide and lips a tight line, Christoph shook his head.

“Take it back, Christoph. Apologize. Now.”

“No. If she is yours, just say so, uncle. If you are fornicating with her…”

Nikolas, driven past endurance, grasped his nephew with both hands and shoved him up against the wall again. “Why will you continue to poke and prod me like this?” he ground out, shaking the boy. “Take back that insolence, and what you said about Miss Stanwycke!”

“I didn’t mean that,” Christoph grunted as he struggled against the superior strength of his uncle, his pale face reddening, two blotches of high color staining his cheeks.

“Apologize!”

“I didn’t mean anything about Elizabeth…”

Nikolas pushed harder.

“Miss Stanwycke. I meant to say Miss Stanwycke!”

Releasing his nephew, Nikolas, shuddering with anger, strode away for a moment and tamped back the emotion. Again he had allowed the boy to push him past endurance. He must master his anger where Christoph was concerned, or one day he would harm him. It was not natural for them all to spend so much time together. Christoph should have been out seeing the world, becoming more worldly and leaving behind the emotional suffocation of their insular world, but he would not do anything, nor would he even allow anything to be done for him. Nikolas was reaching the end of his forbearance. How did one deal with a boy who would not become a man, even given every opportunity?

He turned back and saw that his nephew was slinking off. “Stay! I am not done with you.”

“What now?”

Nikolas stared at him for a long moment as the echoes of their angry voices dissipated in the gallery. Once, when Christoph was a little towheaded boy of five, and Nikolas was home for a brief vacation before starting on his tour of Italy, Greece, and the Orient, the child had gazed up at him with wide eyes and told him he loved him. His Uncle Nikolas was an idol then. That was the last good moment between them.

How to mend the years of damage now? If there was a way, he didn’t have a single clue to what it was. Everything went sour after Johannes died. All Nikolas could do was keep trying to set Christoph on the right road. “Why do you insist on thinking I am some lecherous demon?” he said.

Silvery blue eyes glinting in the pale light from the flickering candles in the hall sconces, Christoph watched his uncle’s face. “It is the way this family works, is it not? How we all work? We take what we want.”

“I am astounded you could see things that way. All I have ever done is try to make a good home for you and your sister.” Nikolas found Christoph’s cynical words deeply troubling.

“I think you have had a few other things on your mind,” he said, one corner of his well-shaped mouth lifting as he stared up at his uncle.

That sneer again. Nikolas felt the ire building, the desire to punish that damnably knowing sneer. He tamped down the anger, trying to defeat the darkness that pushed itself into his weary mind. “Tell me what you think you know, Christoph, so I can tell you it is a damnable lie.”

The younger man was silent.

“Tell me!” He lunged forward to grab his nephew’s arm as Christoph began to edge away, but just then the door opened and Melisande and Charlotte, followed by Elizabeth, entered the hall.

“Are you coming back, Count Christoph?” Miss Stanwycke said, glancing uneasily from Nikolas to his nephew.

“No.”

“Why not? I thought we would try something we both know, and the two girls can perhaps sing.”

Christoph just shook his head.

“Why not, Christoph?” Melisande Davidovich asked.

“Ask him,” the young count said, his voice quavering with emotion. “Ask my uncle. He’ll tell you all about why I am not fit company for any of you. I might cut one of you away from his pack of available females.” With that he whirled and strode away, running up the stairs toward his own room.

Nikolas felt his face growing brick red with a mixture of anger and chagrin.

“What did he mean, Count?” Miss Stanwycke asked.

“I have no idea. Return, all of you, to the drawing room.”

“Are you… going to join us?” the tutor asked, though it was clear to Nikolas that Charlotte, her expression holding nothing but dislike and distrust, would rather he didn’t.

“No. No, I have work to do.” He had done enough damage for one night; he would not join them and stifle whatever natural joy was left to glean from the evening.

THE DAY was gloomy and overcast, with a lowering sky that threatened even more snow.

Charlotte had pled ill yet again, and Countess Adele had this time supported her in her claim, telling Elizabeth the girl really did have a cold and was warm with a slight fever. Melisande was preparing an herbal remedy as she did whenever the Countess Gerta was ill, and one of her ointments was already being utilized to clear Charlotte’s breathing passages. Elizabeth thought that the countess was perhaps overly careful of her sister and niece’s health, but it was not her place to protest, and so she had a free morning.

She sent a message to Frau Liebner through Fanny and was invited to her friend’s rooms to visit. Though the woman was still in bed, reading, she invited Elizabeth to sit with her.

Holding up her book, she said, “I am reading that Englishwoman Mrs. Radcliffe’s newest novel,
The Mysteries of Udolpho
, which Adele received from an acquaintance in England. The woman has a style, but I must say that so far as I have read the hero, a certain Monsieur St.

Aubert, seems a bloodless paragon, too good to be interesting.”

“Too good to be interesting?”

“Hmm.” She laid the book aside and yawned. “He never makes a misstep, so far, and is faultless in his kindness, moral decency, and charity. He is a priggish bore whose conceited, mischievous, and boastful brother-in-law sounds far more interesting.”

Elizabeth thought about that description, wondering at its truth and curious about the character. “May I read the novel after you?”

“If you will join me of an evening, you may read it to me out loud, for I always have enjoyed the sound of your voice, Elizabeth.”

“I will gladly do so, madam. I confess to a great interest after your description of the stultifying goodness of Monsieur St. Aubert. I have always thought that goodness and morality were necessary parts of the hero of any novel’s character, but perhaps I am wrong and you are right, that a man who is too good is boring.”

“We shall find out together. So, how are you finding your first month at Wolfram Castle?”

Frau Liebner said, studying Elizabeth’s face.

“I’m finding that a lot of notions I had about the German character were wrong,” Elizabeth replied, wandering to the window and staring out over the steep fir-shrouded hill that rose beyond the castle. “I was under the impression that German women were strong, stout, and phlegmatic. Instead I find Countess Gerta is frail and fragile, Charlotte is put to bed at the first sign of a sniffle, and even Countess Adele, the strongest woman in the castle, supports them in their imagined afflictions.”

“How harsh you sound. Perhaps you need a day of self-indulgence. Do you enjoy your work so much that you do not appreciate a day of rest?”

Elizabeth turned away from the window and sat down by the bed, gazing up at her friend. “I don’t mean to be unkind to the ladies. I’m just a little uneasy, I suppose. Please, don’t mind my sulky state.” She frowned down at the floor, examining the intricate pattern, a Grecian key design that edged the carpet. “It’s just that Count Nikolas has made it very clear that my staying on is contingent upon my rapid success with Charlotte, and for that I need time and cooperation, neither of which I am getting in any measure.” She brooded for a long moment.

“What is wrong with this family?” she went on. She described to her friend the scenes from the previous day between the count and his nephew. “Do they dislike each other so much?

And why?”

Frau Liebner sipped her chocolate. “I admit, I do not know what is wrong between Nikolas and Christoph. When I left, Christoph was still just a child, sullen at times, but bright and beautiful mostly. Something has happened between them, and I do not know what.”

“Do you think,” Elizabeth said, aware that she was treading on very treacherous ground, “that it could have anything to do with how his mother died?”

“It is no wonder to me you are having difficulty with the inhabitants of this home if all you insist on doing is speaking of that which makes people uncomfortable.” The older woman glared at Elizabeth for a long moment and then called out in German to the maid assigned to help her. The girl scurried to the bedside. “I wish to rise now, and I would appreciate it if I could do so in privacy.”

Elizabeth was well aware that she had been summarily dismissed. She apologized for upsetting her friend and earned a milder look.

“Go on, go up and speak to Uta,” Frau Liebner muttered. “She will like the company even if you are in a troublesome state of mind.”

Was that a subtle hint that the eldest member of the family might have some clues for her?

Elizabeth nodded and thanked her, then departed, heading to Countess Uta’s suite. Mina responded to her light tap and motioned to the chair near the window, the elderly woman’s customary seat. The countess was dozing but awoke as Elizabeth sat down in the low chair nearby.

“Ach,
gut
, a pretty face to look at,” she muttered sleepily. “Is happy I am to see you. To see anyone. No one visits among the young ones, except for my darling little Melisande. Dat girl is more like a niece to me dan Charlotte.”

“I can see you are in an unhappy frame of mind today,” Elizabeth said. “I am perhaps not the best visitor, then, for I feel much the same.”

“You are troubled, ja?” The old woman bent forward and framed Elizabeth’s face in her arthritic hands and turned it to the weak light that managed to evade the curtains.

“I am,” Elizabeth said awkwardly, over the tight grip of the woman’s surprisingly strong hands.

“What is it, den?” she answered, releasing Elizabeth. “You came to talk… speak.”

Elizabeth glanced up at Mina, uneasily, for the woman lingered, folding and refolding a towel by the washstand.

“Do not regard Mina. She knows more secrets dan anyone in dis household, and yet dey stay secrets.”

“But do you never wish to have a moment of talk without her nearby?”

“No, for it is vital to me dat she know everything I know.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t. But if it will make you happier…” She gestured to Mina and dismissed her with a flap of her hand. The woman turned and disappeared through a door at the back of the room.

Elizabeth sighed with relief and sat back in the low chair. Why Mina’s silent presence should irritate her so she wasn’t sure, but the woman was always watching.

“Now, what is so important?”

Elizabeth caught the avid gleam in the almost blind eyes of the elderly countess and shifted uneasily. She hadn’t meant to imply any importance to her questions, but it was too late to go back. And she did need someone to talk to. “Nothing important, ma’am. It’s just… I’m uneasy. There is so much turmoil in this family and yet no one will speak of it. Everyone edges around certain topics and I don’t understand why. And stories of the past directly conflict. Was Count Nikolas here the day Count Hans von Holtzen and Countess Anna von Wolfram died, or wasn’t he? I am told he was, and I am told he wasn’t.”

“Perhaps you are asking the wrong questions,” Uta said.

“What do you mean?”

“People do not like to speak of things dat have truly happened. Rather dey prefer to talk about gossip and scandal and rumor and innuendo.”

Elizabeth was silent. None of that appealed to her. Gossip and innuendo had ruined her, and she despised it and the people who spread it, but she couldn’t say that to the countess.

It had not escaped her notice that the elderly woman, too, had evaded her pointed question.

Perhaps she would never receive a definite answer.

“And curses,” the old woman said, her face turned to the hazy light from the window. “Curses are always good; people love to speak of dem. Dis family is bewitched, you know.”