I returned, twisting my tongue around the syllables of his name and giving it the same inflection his mother had.
Just at that moment I became aware of a disturbance, not from the noise, for his approach had been utterly silent. But the dog pricked up his ears, swinging his head to the great archway that framed the grand staircase. A man was standing there, his face shrouded in darkness. He was of medium height, his shoulders wide and, although I could not see him clearly, they seemed to be set with the resolve that only a man past thirty can achieve.
He moved forward slowly, graceful as an athlete, and as he came near, the light of the torches and the fire played over his face, revealing and then concealing, offering him up in pieces that I could not quite resolve into a whole until he reached my side.
I was conscious that his eyes had been fixed upon me, and I realised with a flush of embarrassment that I had returned his stare, all thoughts of modesty or propriety fled.
The group had been a pleasant one, but at his appearance a crackling tension rose, passing from one to the other, until the atmosphere was thick with unspoken things.
He paused a few feet from me, his gaze still hard upon me. I could see him clearly now and almost wished I could not. He was handsome, not in the pretty way of shepherd boys in pastoral paintings, but in the way that horses or lions are handsome. His features bore traces of his mother’s ruined beauty, with a stern nose and a firmly marked brow offset by lips any satyr might have envied. They seemed fashioned for murmuring sweet seductions, but it was the eyes I found truly mesmerising. I had never seen that colour before, either in nature or in art. They were silver-grey, but darkly so, and complemented by the black hair that fell in thick locks nearly to his shoulders. He was dressed quietly, but expensively, and wore a heavy silver ring upon his forefinger, intricately worked and elegant. Yet all of these excellent attributes were nothing to the expression of interest and approbation he wore. Without that, he would have been any other personable gentleman. With it, he was incomparable. I felt as if I could stare at him for a thousand years, so long as he looked at me with those fathomless eyes, and it was not until Cosmina spoke that I recalled myself.
“Andrei, this is my friend Miss Theodora Lestrange from Edinburgh. Theodora, the Count Dragulescu.”
He did not take my hand or bow or offer me any of the courtesies I might have expected. Instead he merely held my gaze and said, “Welcome, Miss Lestrange. You must be tired from your journey. I will escort you to your room.”
If the pronouncement struck any of the assembled company as strange, they betrayed no sign of it. The countess inclined her head to me in dismissal as Frau Amsel and Florian stood quietly by. Cosmina reached a hand to squeeze mine. “Goodnight,” she murmured. “Rest well and we will speak in the morning,” she added meaningfully. She darted a glance at the count, and for the briefest of moments, I thought I saw fear in her eyes.
I nodded. “Of course. Goodnight, and thank you all for such a kind welcome.”
The count did not wait for me to conclude my farewells, forcing me to take up my skirts in my hands and hurry after him. At the foot of the stairs a maid darted forward with a pitcher of hot water and he gestured for her to follow. She said nothing, but gave me a curious glance. The count took up a lit candle from a sideboard and walked on, never looking back.
We walked for some distance, up staircases and down long corridors, until at length we came to what I surmised must have been one of the high towers of the castle. The door to the ground-floor room was shut. We passed it, mounting a narrow set of stairs that spiralled to the next floor, where we paused at a heavy oaken door. The count opened it, standing aside for me to enter. The room was dark and cold. The maid placed the pitcher next to a pretty basin upon the washstand. The count gave her a series of instructions in rapid Roumanian and she hurried to comply, building up a fire upon the hearth. It was soon burning brightly, but it did little to dispel the chill that had settled into the stone walls, and it seemed surprising to me that the room had not been better prepared as I had been expected. I began to wonder if the count had altered the arrangements, although I could not imagine why.
The room was circular and furnished in an old-fashioned style, doubtless because the furniture was old—carved wooden stuff with great clawed feet. The bed was hung with thick scarlet curtains, heavily embroidered in tarnished gold thread, and spread across it was a moulting covering of some sort of animal fur. I was afraid to ask what variety.
But even as I took inventory of my room, I was deeply conscious of him standing near the bed, observing me in perfect silence.
At length I could bear the silence no longer. “It was kind of you to show me the way.” I put out my hand for the candle but he stepped around me. He went to the washstand and fixed the candle in place on an iron prick. The little maid scurried out the door, and to my astonishment, closed it firmly behind her.
“Remove your gloves,” he instructed.
I hesitated, certain I had misheard him. But even as I told myself it could not be, he removed his coat and unpinned his cuffs, turning back his sleeves to reveal strong brown forearms, heavy with muscle. Still, I hesitated, and he reached for my hands.
He did not take his eyes from my face as he slowly withdrew my gloves, easing the thin leather from my skin. I opened my mouth to protest, but found I had no voice to do so. I was unsettled—as I had often been with Charles, but for an entirely different reason. With Charles I often played the schoolgirl. With the count, I felt a woman grown.
He paused a moment when my hands were bared, covering them with his larger ones, warming them between his wide palms. I caught my breath and I knew that he heard it, for he smiled a little, and I saw then that all he did was for a purpose.
Holding my hands firmly in one of his, he poured the water slowly over my fingers, directing the warm stream to the most sensitive parts. The water was scented with some fragrance I could not quite place, and bits of green leaves floated over the top.
“Basil,” he told me, nodding towards the leaves. “For welcome. It is the custom of our country to welcome our visitors by washing their hands. It means you are one of the household and we are bound by duty to give you our hospitality until you leave. And it means you are here under my protection, for I am the master.”
I said nothing and he took up a linen towel, cradling my hands within its softness until they were dry. He finished by stroking them gently through the cloth from wrist to fingertip and back again.
He stood half a foot from me, and my senses staggered from the nearness of him. I was aware of the scent of him, leather and male flesh commingling with something else, something that called to mind the heady, sensual odour of overripe fruit. My head was full of him and I reeled for a moment, too dizzy to keep to my feet.
His hands were firm upon my shoulders as he guided me to a chair.
“Sit by the fire,” he urged. “Tereza will return soon with something to eat. Then you must rest.”
“Yes, it is only that I am tired,” I replied, and I believed we both knew it for a lie.
He rose, his fingers lingering for a moment longer upon my shoulders, and left me then, with only a backwards glance that seemed to be comprised of puzzlement and pleasure in equal parts. I sat, sunk into misery as I had never been before. Cosmina was my friend, my very dear friend, and this man was the one she planned to marry.
It is impossible. I said the words aloud to make them true. It was impossible. Whatever attraction I felt towards him must be considered an affliction, something to rid myself of, something to master. It could not be indulged, not even be dreamt of.
And yet as I sat waiting for Tereza, I could still feel his strong fingers sliding over mine in the warm, scented water, and when I slept that night, it was to dream of his eyes watching me from the shadows of my room.
In the morning, I rose with vigour, determined to put my fancies of the previous evening aside. Whatever