Awaiting the Moon (18 page)

He felt a smile curve his lips upward, even against the concern he felt. Someone at some time had mistreated her, he thought, feeling a rush of protective ire. But though skittish and uncertain, like the female wolf she would rather go on the attack than wait and be meek. As dangerous as that attribute made her, he liked her for it.

But he chose not to answer. “Miss Stanwycke, come out of the shadows,” he commanded.

She moved stiffly to stand before him.

“Look at me.”

She looked up and shivered, but her expression was not fear or resignation but defiance.

“You are cold,” he murmured.

“I’ve been cold ever since I arrived here. Your country is winter and ice and snow.”

“Ah, but in spring, in the mountains, it is full of life and beauty. You will see. Come May you will forget the ice and snow and see the beauty surrounding you.” On an impulse, he murmured, “Let me warm you, before you go back to your room and so to bed.” He held open his arms.

Irresistible as the invitation was, Elizabeth knew there was a price attached, a price he wouldn’t even know she was paying. And yet… one more time could she just let her desires guide her? Numbly, fearfully, against her common sense even, she moved into the beckoning circle of his arms and he enfolded her next to his heart; the wall of distrust and fear she had built up to shelter her gave way, the mortar crumbling as she felt his strength and innate kindness surround her. Nothing could shatter the whole structure of her doubt, but her defense was breached.

She looked up into Nikolas’s eyes and saw her reflection there in the dark gray. Warmth seeped into her bones and she closed her eyes as the steady
thump-thump
of his heart calmed her agitation. A moment later the warmth was ignited by his lips against hers, just a soft pressure, undemanding at first, but sweet.

When Elizabeth opened her lips to say she must leave, the seductive invasion of his tongue came as an electrifying shock, pulling her back to the first time such a thing had happened to her and her surprise that men and woman did such things. Then she had not known what to do.

Now she did.

She surrendered, allowing Nikolas to take his fill of her as his teeth nipped her lips, suckling with fervor. Clasping her arms around his neck, Elizabeth took back, delving into his mouth, feeling the thrust and parry as a love dance, an enticing match of erotic force. But the feel of his burgeoning arousal budding against her stomach jerked her back to the impropriety of her behavior and she loosed her hold and staggered away from him, her lips moist and plump, her heart pounding.

His dark eyes like liquid coal, Nikolas stared at her in the shuddering lamplight. He was silent.

“I have to go b-back up to my room,” she stammered.

“Yes, you must,” he finally said, his voice ragged and harshly accented. “You should, and right away.” He broke the intense connection between them, the locked gazes, and turned away from her.

Elizabeth headed to the doorway, turned the knob, yanked the door open, and strode into the hallway, almost running in her haste to be gone. Nikolas followed her to the doorway.

“Miss Stanwycke,” he called.

She halted in the middle of the hall and stared back at him in the dim light cast by a candle in a wall sconce.

He stared at her, then shook his head. “I… it is nothing.”

Somewhere a door shut, and both of them gazed up into the darkness of the gallery.

“Sleep well, Miss Stanwycke,” he said and retreated back into his library.

FORGET WHAT just happened
, Elizabeth commanded herself. It was an inappropriate and wholly dangerous meeting, and she was utterly to blame, for obviously even in the middle of the night Count von Wolfram’s library was not a safe place to be.

Her thudding heart calmed some as she found the stairs and began her ascent. The sound of a footstep above stopped her and her heart began hammering again, but as a figure holding a candle turned the corner she relaxed. It was just the elderly Bartol Liebner descending, one hand outstretched to steady himself against the wall.

“Miss Stanwycke!” he exclaimed, holding the candle so high it cast elongated and ghastly shadows down the stairs. His free hand covered his heart and he rolled his eyes. “I thought I heard something and came to investigate, and then I heard footsteps… my foolish heart did a
thump-thump-thump
and jumped, so I thought it would leap right out of my chest!”

“I felt the same, sir,” Elizabeth said, smiling up at him in the dim and flickering light. “I was just… uh, in search of something to read, you know, but lost my way to the lady’s library. In the dark, the castle is very different than in the light of day.”

“How well I know it. Shall I confess? I really came down to go to the buttery to see if any of the cake from dinner was still there. Would you join me in my quest?”

She hesitated, but then nodded, not liking to think of the man wandering alone down the stone stairs. It could be dangerous, and he seemed none too steady on the steps. She wondered if he had perhaps imbibed a little too much of the excellent vintage wine served in the drawing room that evening.

They descended the rest of the way, and Herr Liebner led her to the serving area near the back of the castle, which was reached by a door under the grand staircase. He glanced over his shoulder with one finger held up to his lips as they crept down a dark, chilly hallway. “There may still be servants about, you know, and I would not like to get caught at my thieving.”

His wink and lopsided grin made Elizabeth seriously consider her thought that he had a little too much to drink. She chuckled softly and replied, “Would a servant not bring something to you in your room if you wished, sir? It would be simpler than roaming the castle at night.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “a servant would bring me cake. But it would not be as much as I want. I am greedy, but ashamed, too. You I will trust more than the chattering servants.”

The buttery was a long, narrow room with dishes covered in clean white cloth laid out on shelves and countertops. It was cold, and there almost seemed a draft. Herr Liebner uncovered a platter on the marble counter, sliced a large piece of cake, hesitated, cut two more, moved them to a plate, and then uncovered a pitcher. “Milk, to go with the cake, you know. Nothing so refreshing.”

He handed Elizabeth the plate of cake and poured two pewter cups of milk, picked up the candle, and indicated to her to lead the way back out of the narrow confines of the buttery.

“Now we will go to… the yellow parlor? Yes? You will not mind so much sharing your little haven?”

She agreed, and they made their way back to the yellow parlor by a different path than she was accustomed to. The parlor still retained some of the warmth of the day from the banked coals in the fireplace and she welcomed even so slight a rise in temperature. By mutual though silent agreement they made their way to the two chairs closest to the fireplace and sat, both putting their plunder on the table between them.

Just minutes before, Elizabeth had been kissing the master of Wolfram castle, and now she was stealing cake and milk from his larder. How odd her life had become, she thought, as she ate a piece of the rich, raisin-filled spice cake.

Herr Liebner ate with great relish, finishing three-quarters of the cake. Then he dusted his fingers off, put one hand on his paunch, and belched daintily. The food had sobered him, it seemed, but he was in a sentimental frame of mind. “A good life, I have, my dear Miss Stanwycke. Such a good life!” He leaned his balding head back against the cushioned chair upholstery. “And all because Nikolas is such a good nephew. He listened to his mother’s dying words and continued to give me a home when he did not have to.”

He must have seen her look of surprise, for he continued, “Oh, yes, I know. I am not supposed to be aware that Maria begged her son to be sure I continued to live here and not be sent back to my family.”

“If I might ask, sir, why did you wish to stay here? Did you not leave behind family?”

“Ach… it is not the same now. All of us old ones are dead, except for me, and the new ones…

why, I hardly know those others, my other nieces and nephews. This is my life,” he said, waving one hand around. “The von Wolfram family, I mean.”

“That sentiment does you credit,” Elizabeth said, warming even more to the odd. little man and his extravagant love of the family. But as she said it, a shadow of pain flicked across his pale, egg-shaped face. He shook his head and his lip trembled. “What is it, sir?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking away and swiping at his eyes.

“But it is something. What has made you so sad suddenly?”

He gazed at her earnestly and then leaned forward. “I feel I can trust you. An outsider is just what we need, someone who sees things differently, perhaps.” He stopped, though, and took a deep breath, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Should I say anything?”

“About what?” His fussy doubtfulness was irritating, but Elizabeth did her best to be patient.

She thought he might have something interesting to say, and it was worth drawing him out, considering how few of the rest of the family were willing to talk about anything at all.

“Well, it is… have you heard of the family sorrow, the terrible things that took place fifteen years ago, almost?”

Fifteen years ago. The night Anna Lindsay von Wolfram and Hans von Holtzen died. “I have heard hints,” she said hesitantly.

“Yes, hints. I feel the family has never recovered, you know, from that awful time. And the sorrow keeps plaguing them. How I wish I could help.”

“What exactly happened to Anna von Wolfram and Hans von Holtzen?” she said boldly.

“Ah, now, knowing you know that much makes my way easier.” He took a deep breath, leaned over the side of his chair, and said, “They died together in a dreadful fire. It was a terrible night! Oh, so terrible!”

“A fire in the castle?”

“No. Not in the castle. They were…” Herr Liebner shook his head and winced. “So sad. They were together in a little cottage on the property, just in the woods. It was the old woodcutter’s cottage, but unused… or so everyone thought. It appeared afterward that it had been used often as… as…” He shook his head.

“As a place for secret rendezvous?”

He nodded.

“And it burned down?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked confused for a moment, but then he said, “Well, I mean that they died together in the fire, but it did not burn down completely, you see. Someone saw it and called for help, and the workers of the castle, along with poor Johannes himself—it was his wife inside, you know

—put it out.”

“That’s terrible! But… Johannes von Wolfram did so much? I understand he died just three weeks later. Was he not sick even then?”

“Oh, no, hale and hearty. He became sick after.”

“Because of the tragedy.”

Bartol Liebner furrowed his brow and stuck out his bottom lip. “I… I don’t know.”

There was silence for a long moment. “But you were here… and you have a guess.”

“Well, yes. But it is just a guess.” The man furrowed his brow, his pale face shining like a moon in the dim candlelight. “I think,” he said softly, “that poor Johannes did not care to live anymore. He adored Anna—she was an Englishwoman, and, like you, very beautiful—and when she was gone he just… didn’t care to go on.”

“You think he killed himself?”

He reared back in shock. “Oh, no! He would not do that. No, Johannes just… he just became ill and died. Very quick. Very odd.”

“How strange,” Elizabeth mused. She sat back in her chair and stared at the fire. “Countess Gerta had her children not too long after that.”

He made a noise between his teeth. “Poor, poor Gerta! She has been fragile ever since, you know. Yes, she had the twins, even though her husband had died, and in the arms of another woman, too. How tragic.”

“Did anyone know that Anna and Hans were having an affair? And how did they get trapped in the cottage? Surely if a fire started it should have been easy to get out of such a small building.”

He frowned down at his fingers tented over his paunch. “I had not thought of that.”

“Was there any other way out of the cottage?”

“No, it was a tiny one-room hovel,” he said, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Who else was living here?”

He appeared puzzled at that particular question, but she wasn’t willing to explain her query just yet. He shrugged and sat back in the chair, looking up into the darkness. “Here at the castle? Let me see… Anna and Johannes, and of course Christoph and Charlotte—they were just six and four years old, not even really old enough to know anything but their mother was gone to heaven—and Gerta and Hans, more’s the pity, and Adele.”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, of course there was Countess Uta. She was still very spry, though if I remember she had begun to use a cane. But her sight was quite good; the darkness had not crept up on her so much then. And my dear sister Katrina, of course, was here. She has been a widow so long, and even then it was not a recent sorrow. She was not living here then, but only visiting with Countess Uta, with whom she had developed a fast friendship. And Maximillian was here…”

“Count Delacroix?” Elizabeth asked in surprise. “I thought he only came when the Terror began in France.”

“Oh, no, he is an old friend of the family. He has been a guest here often in the last twenty years. Once it was thought he would marry… but no matter.”

“Marry who?” She thought she knew the answer, but was proven wrong.

“Well, he was very fond of Gerta and would have married her. But Johannes thought the Count von Holtzen was a better match, you know, and so it was done. Johannes was master of the house, you see, as eldest, since their father was gone. But Maximillian, he has always been a welcome guest here. And I believe…” He frowned in heavy thought. “Yes, yes, he was here at the time.”

Elizabeth pondered that news. Count Delacroix had wanted to marry Gerta and had been thwarted? But still he remained friendly with the family and could have had Countess Adele, if one was to judge by her current feelings. It was no mystery to anyone how she felt for him.