The Dead Travel Fast (16 page)

“I did make a terrible fuss,” I admitted ruefully. “I remember we were very late back to the school because you and Fraulein Möller helped me to search and we were all lectured quite sternly by the headmistress on punctuality.”

“I did not mind,” Cosmina said loyally. “I only minded because we could not find it, and I knew it hurt you to lose it.”

“It was the only thing I had of Mama’s,” I recalled.

“And it was blue, I remember that,” Cosmina said with a fond look at the necklace she had bought me.

“Yes, it was. The colour of the Madonna’s robe.” I touched the necklace again. “How like you to remember it, and to give me this. Thank you, Cosmina.”

She bent swiftly to press her cheek to mine. “I am so happy you are here,” she said in an odd, choked voice. “I want you to be happy here as well.”

“I am,” I told her truthfully.

Just then a voice hailed us and we looked to the gate to find we were not alone. Florian stood there, muddy to his waist, but looking rather happier than I had seen him.

“Florian, whatever have you been doing? Playing in the piggery?” Cosmina asked, her tone touched with coolness. Perhaps she resented the intrusion upon our private moment, but there was no call to be rude to poor Florian. He flushed deeply.

“No, Miss Cosmina. I have been seeing to the digging of the new well.”

I looked up sharply. “The new well?”

He nodded. “Yes, miss. The count, he gives orders for a new well. There is digging for many days now, and today the water comes.”

I realised then that a commotion had been rising outside the peaceful garden. I rose and went to the gate. On the street, folk were scurrying to and fro, bearing pitchers and pails, and over and again I heard the word
apă
.

“Water,” Florian explained with a smile. “They are still wary, but happier.” I canted my head at him, but he did not elaborate. He looked at Cosmina and an anxious frown settled between his brows. “Are you ready to be going to the castle? I will leave now to take you.”

“Escorted by you, muddy as a dog? I hardly think so,” Cosmina said with a sharp laugh.

He flushed again, a deep, angry red and turned on his heel to leave us.

I resumed my seat beneath the elm. “It is not like you to be unkind,” I said mildly.

Cosmina’s pretty features wore a pained expression. “It is a greater unkindness to encourage him. In Vienna he might well have been someone. Here he is no one. Like me.”

A thread of bitterness stitched her words together, and I sipped at my wine, choosing my phrases carefully. “If you truly believe that both of you have so little worth, why not encourage him? He is a nice enough young man.”

“I told you I do not wish to marry,” she said almost angrily. The tips of her nostrils had gone quite white and she was breathing very fast. “You ought to understand. You have no one, you want no one, and you are content it should be so.”

I thought of Charles and the future he had offered me, and I thought of the count and all his maddening ways, and I had never felt the want of a confidante so keenly. I longed to unburden myself to Cosmina, to tell her that I had been offered—and very nearly accepted—marriage to a man I did not love, and that I spent my days thinking about a man I could not have, a man who had scorned her as a woman ought never to be scorned.

She was watching me closely, and for an instant, the words trembled upon my lips. But I had kept my own counsel too long to confide so easily. I merely smiled and rose, brushing the leaves from my gown.

“It grows late and I think you are more tired than you will own.”

If she was disappointed that I made her no confidences, she did not show it. She rose, too, and I took up her basket and whistled for Tycho and we began our long ascent up the mountain.

13

The count did not appear to dinner that evening, and as Cosmina was quite tired from our excursion to the village, the meal was a simple and short affair. We each of us retired early to our own pursuits. I meant to write for the rest of the evening, but I could not settle to it, and the scribbles I made were messy and slashed with my pen where I crossed out passages that displeased me. I had meant to write a passionate scene between two lovers, a scene of declaration and devotion, and the words failed me—failed me because I did not know what words folk used at such a time, I thought in disgust. I had no experience of such things, and even an imagination as broad as mine could falter. I longed to know what they would say and feel, what sweet sighs would pass between them, what caresses they would exchange. Of course I could not write the whole of such things, but if I could not imagine the entirety of the act, how could I comprehend its effects? And from there my thoughts drifted from my characters to the events of the day.

The count was the source of my distraction, for as Cosmina and I had passed through the village upon our return, I had looked more closely, reckoning the changes I found. A party of men was draining the river meadow for good pasturage, and a father and son were perched upon ladders, giving the school a fresh coat of paint and prying off the boards that had held the shutters fast. There remained an air of sleepiness about the place, but between the pedlar and the new improvements, something indefinable had changed. I noted there were yet branches of basil hung at the windows and here and there charms against evil had been newly painted. The people themselves seemed happy, but warily so, as Florian had said. They still feared the
strigoi
then, but they were pleased that the new count had finally bestirred himself to take an interest in their well-being. The question was why? Why had Count Andrei at last begun to improve the lot of his people?

The question plagued me. Alternately I hoped I might have been the cause of it and ridiculed myself for my foolish fancies. The count had spoken plainly enough of his feelings towards women. They were playthings, pretty toys to while away his hours of boredom and to be discarded once he tired of them. When he married it would be to some dull creature whose blood ran blue and who could give him sturdy sons with an excellent pedigree. If I interested him—and I conceded it seemed so—it was simply because he had few other diversions at the castle. Had we encountered one another in Paris, he would not have spared me a second glance, I told myself firmly.

But we are not in Paris
, I thought by way of reply. I believed in free will, but I could be persuaded to fatalism. Perhaps we were here together at this time because it was supposed to be thus. I could never be more to him than a fleeting indulgence, but I realised with a sudden cold shock that I was not certain I wanted more from him.

Before I could think too long upon it, I rose and mounted the narrow stair to his room. I groaned to see the door ajar, for if it had been closed, I think I would have lacked the courage to knock upon it. But it stood open just far enough for Tycho to catch my scent and come to the door.

I peered past him to find the room empty, but the door that led to the workroom stair was also ajar, beckoning. I patted Tycho absently and passed through the room, gathering my skirts to mount the twisting stair to his workroom. He was standing at the longest of the tables, his sleeves rolled to bare his forearms, his neckcloth and collar discarded. He was bent to a task, and as I moved closer I could see he held a feather in one hand and a tiny piece of clockwork machinery in another. A lock of jet hair fell over his brow, but he did not seem to notice, so intent was he upon his work. I stood for a long moment before he spoke, and when he did I started, for he had not turned his head and I had not realised he was aware of me.

“It is an orrery,” he said, nodding towards the intricate pieces scattered the length of the table. There were long, slender rods and several spheres and half spheres in various sizes, some painted in beautiful colours, others more muted, and the tiniest daubed with silver paint. At the end of the table rested a slab of inlaid wood and a collection of legs, and scattered over the table were an assortment of clockwork gears and complicated mechanisms. “A model of the solar system. When it is put back together, a simple crank will set the whole of it into motion, the entirety of the universe captured in a tabletop.”

I moved forward and watched as he dipped the end of the feather into a bowl of oil and, with a precise and delicate touch, applied it to the gear.

“Another piece of your grandfather’s?” I asked him.

He nodded, intent upon his work. After a moment, he gave a little sigh of satisfaction and put the feather aside. He wiped his hands upon a bit of linen and turned to face me, his arms folded over his chest. The light fell upon his bared neck then, and I saw no scar there, not even the palest mark to blemish the smooth expanse of olive skin.

“I am sorry to have disturbed you,” I began.

“It is a welcome intrusion,” he replied with cool gallantry. He was watching me closely, assessing me, I thought, and I felt myself grow hot under his scrutiny. I wished he would return to the orrery, and to cover my confusion, I moved to the other side of the table.

“Is this Venus? It must be. What else could be so bright—”

“Do not touch it,” he cautioned. “The paint is not yet dry.”

I drew back sharply and put my hands behind my back.

“You are ill at ease tonight,” he observed. “Is something amiss? Some trouble with your room perhaps?”

He was playing the host now, and I felt my courage wilt miserably within me. I could not possibly say the things to him that I wanted to say. I murmured an excuse and made to leave. He returned to his work, but as I reached the door, he called after me.

“There is a length of fabric upon the sofa. I believe it belongs to you.”

I glanced towards the sofa and felt my heart give a peculiar lurch.

“That is the dress length that Frau Amsel purchased from the pedlar today,” I said in some confusion.

He had picked up his feather and another clockwork gear. “It is yours,” he repeated.

“I do not understand you. Has Frau Amsel changed her mind?”

“Frau Amsel has come to understand that her behaviour towards a guest in my house was intolerably rude,” he said mildly, never taking his eyes from his work.

I gathered up the length of fabric and went to him.

“It belongs to Frau Amsel,” I said quietly.

He put down his work and turned to me, his gaze inscrutable. “Do you find that you do not like it after all?”

“Of course not. It is lovely,” I began.

He turned away from me. “Then it is yours.”

I did not stir from my position. “She paid for it.”

“She has been recompensed,” he returned.

“You cannot mean you paid her for it?”

“Naturally. She will be bothered enough by her disappointment. There was no need to punish her purse as well.”

I struggled to understand him. “That you took the fabric from her astonishes me, but that you can speak of it so calmly is incomprehensible. She paid for the cloth. She has a right to it.”

He dropped the feather and turned to fix me with such a look as I had never yet seen upon his face. “I am master of this castle and lord of this land. No one has a right to anything that I wish for myself.”

There was no possible response to that, so I did not attempt to make one. Instead, I placed the fabric upon the table and dropped the lowest and gravest curtsey I could manage and turned to leave.

Once more he recalled me at the door. “You will not keep it then?” he asked evenly.

I turned back to him, hands fisted. “You wish me to help you upset a poor old woman? How could I possibly keep the cloth when I know what was done to retrieve it?”

“That poor old woman is vicious as a viper, and you would do well to remember that,” he said calmly. “She took the fabric from sheer malice, she told me as much when I taxed her with it. She does not like you and she knew you wanted it, so she took it. It was childish and unworthy, and she violated every rule of hospitality in treating you thus. In disrespecting you, she disrespected me, and that is unacceptable. I gave her the choice of permitting me to pay for the fabric or resigning her post and leaving the castle at once for her transgressions. She was grateful to take my money and be done with it.”

I felt the hot rush of anger ebb a little, even as I wished to hold fast to it.

“It still seems wrong to be so high-handed,” I said, my voice sounding feeble even to my own ears.

“And did you not identify this as a feudal place?” he asked.

“I did,” I admitted. He took up the fabric and put it into my hands.

“Take it.”

“I cannot possibly. I am still uneasy about the method by which you acquired it,” I told him with some asperity. “And even if that were not true, I could not accept a gift from you. It is not proper.”

“Proper? I think we have passed beyond the pale of propriety, Miss Lestrange.” He put his head to the side, and I saw that his eyes were clear and alight with some anticipated pleasure. “You will not do this to please me when I have done so much to please you?”

“Please me?” I paused and suddenly my bodice felt uncomfortably tight, constricting me. Had he made the improvements in the village at my urging? “The digging of the new well?”

“And the pasture, and the school, and the church,” he added, numbering them on his fingers.

“You did not do those things to please me,” I said faintly. I could scarcely hear my own voice over the drumbeat of my pulse in my ears.

He leaned forward, his lips brushing my ear. “Didn’t I?”

I closed my eyes at the sensations that assaulted me. “You have owned that you do nothing you do not wish to do. It pleased you to make those improvements.”

A warm exhalation passed over the flesh of my neck, summoning and warming the blood beneath. “It pleases me to please you,” he murmured.

A single fingertip stroked downward from jaw to collarbone, tracing the pulse that surged and fluttered there. His other hand came around my waist firmly, possessing, even as his lips coaxed.
I ought go
, I thought stupidly.
It is not too late to turn back. Now, I will push him aside and take my leave
. Instead I lifted my chin, exposing my throat to him as he lowered his head. Fear rose within me, choking and hot, but still I stood in the circle of his arms, yielding, trusting. I felt the graze of his teeth against the soft flesh of my throat, and I waited, bracing myself for the pain of the piercing that would follow.

But it did not come. Instead he covered my mouth with his own and thrust his hands into my hair, wrenching aside the pins and plaits as he pressed me against the worktable.

His kisses were a revelation, for I had never imagined such things. Rather than frightening me, his abandon challenged my hesitation, and my passion rose with every proof of his.

He broke off suddenly, his lips so near to mine I could still feel the warmth of them. He put a fingertip to the first of my buttons, twisting it.

“Your gown buttons in the front, like a maid’s,” he said, his voice low and soft.

I swallowed hard as his fingertip brushed the bare skin above. “I have no maid. I must dress myself,” I replied.

“Shall I be your maid?” he asked, sliding his fingers behind the décolletage. My knees failed me then, and he held me firmly against him with one arm as his other hand continued its work at my buttons, sliding intimately under my chemise.

“What if it were true?” he murmured against my lips. “Everything you hope and everything you fear. Is that what you have come for?”

“Yes,” I said, opening to him.

He slipped each button from its hole, and with each another of my doubts slipped away. There was no space for them, crowded as my head was with the feel of him, the scent of him, the taste of him still hanging upon my lips. I had merely sipped of him yet, and I craved the whole.

“‘What will you say tonight, poor solitary soul, to the kindest, dearest, the fairest of women?’” he murmured. It was Baudelaire, a lingering line from the poems he had given me. “‘There is nothing sweeter than to do her bidding; Her spiritual flesh has the fragrance of Angels, and when she looks upon us we are clothed with light,’” he added.

He punctuated the poem with kisses, tracing his lips over my skin with every syllable. “‘Be it in the darkness of night, in solitude, or in the city street among the multitude, her image in the air dances like a torch flame.’”

He drew back, the smile of Mephistopheles touching his lips. “Do you remember the rest?”

“‘I am your guardian Angel, your Muse and Madonna,’” I said obediently, my breath coming in short gasps.

“Yes, I think you are my Muse,” he said, clasping me to him and gathering me up as if I were a small child. I had not realised the strength in him. I had looked at his elegant clothes and taken him for a plaything of fashion, but the man who carried me to the little sofa and bore me down into the cushions was no idle creature. He was hard and fit, and when I drew his clothes away with impatient fingers, I could have wept at the beauty of him.

The pleasures we took upon that little sofa I could never have anticipated. He was neither tender nor rough, for although he coaxed responses from me, he had his own joys of me as well, and I was glad of it. The thought of playing the student to his tutor would have been unbearable. But we were equals, demanding of and rendering to each other the fullest of physical pleasures, and I realised how fortunate my choice had been. Had I surrendered myself in the marriage bed, my own satisfaction would have been illicit, a thing to be stolen from my husband. With a lover, it was a holy thing, a sacrament to the act itself, celebrated by the ordained. This liberty to do and choose whatever I liked made me bold, and my boldness pleased him and there, upon his grandfather’s velvet sofa, he engulfed and consumed me and burnt me to ash to be reborn.