Awaiting the Moon (24 page)

And so do gentlemen. Charlotte must learn, for men expect a little flirtation before the serious business of marrying is approached. It indicates a wit and lightness of humor that is delightful.”

“As long as it does not indicate a lightness of character,” she replied soberly. “One is best to err on the side of discretion and risk appearing humorless, for a reputation of ill-considered levity or inappropriate conversation is ruin for a young lady. And a reputation, once damaged, is too often irreparable.”

Something lay beneath her words and he longed to take her aside, to delve into her past. She had been hurt, but whether it was by a man or by society at large, he could not guess.

“Are there not harmless little devices that every lady knows… things she does to fix a gentleman’s attention?” he said.

Charlotte’s expression was rapt; Elizabeth glanced at her, and her clouded expression turned lighter again as she regained her equilibrium. She snatched up a fan that lay on the piano.

“Certainly, sir. Charlotte, gentlemen, wielding all the power in the world, deserve to be taunted and teased a little, and to be kept in doubt of a lady’s regard. Those in society of more serious casts of mind consider it mere foolishness and gamery, but I happen to disagree. If men require such tomfoolery to aid in attraction, then I consider it merely part of the courtship.”

“Can I not just tell a gentleman that I like him, and ask if he likes me?”

“Oh, no, Charlotte,” Elizabeth said, with some bitterness in her tone that belied her brilliant smile. “A lady will never give away too much of her feelings before she is certain of the gentleman’s. Men, being men, will take advantage. Worse, they will value you the less for being so honest and forthright, for what they value in other men they take in women as being unladylike and forward.”

It was a hard little speech, and Charlotte stared, open-mouthed. But Elizabeth had already turned away from her student. She drifted over to Nikolas and as she stood in front of him she fluttered the fan, covering her mouth and only displaying her remarkable azure eyes, which flirted up at him beneath her lashes. A dimple on her cheek winked but then disappeared, and she sighed and turned slowly, throwing one long, lingering look over her shoulder as she strolled away, the hem of her gown twitching in a most bewitching way. She was well-versed in the art of silent flirtation, even if she had never deigned to use it, Nikolas thought, his heart thudding. Were they in any common ballroom he would follow her and beg the indulgence of one single, solitary dance. And then he would draw her out to the terrace for a stolen moment, a kiss, a touch. She would submit for a brief moment and then draw back, abashed, the better to entice him. He remembered the old games from his days at university in Heidelberg and the ladies of the town, and then after, from his year on the Continent, doing the tour.

But how well such delicate stratagems worked to attract men, for he had to restrain himself, and he knew that he had even surged forward a step before awareness returned to him. He glanced around and caught Christoph’s steady gaze on him. It was a moment when he could have perhaps said a word, something, anything to break the tension between them, but he was speechless, caught in a web of tangled feelings.

Abruptly he bowed. “Very good; please excuse me. I… I have to speak to… to the others.

Carry on with your lessons, Miss Stanwycke.” He turned and strode away.

He said a brief word to the others but could not bear to stay. It was painful to want something

—or someone—so desperately and yet know one’s desires were doomed to be disappointed.

The night was a long one, and Nikolas awoke the next morning aching with desire from dreams that left his sheets damp with sweat. A plunge naked in the snow may have helped his feverish state, but work would have to suffice as an antidote to desire. Whether it was just the result of long abstinence or something about Elizabeth Stanwycke herself that had his blood boiling with need, he didn’t know.

He rode to the village in the morning and spent several hours speaking to people, reiterating his commands, trying to counteract the effects of Willhelm Brandt’s poisonous dread. He then finished his letter to Jakob, telling him this was not a good time for him and Eva to come back to Wolfram Castle. He met with his estate manager regarding plans for the spring planting and birthing of new milk cattle, and he met with Adele, trying to disregard her frozen expression and pained demeanor, knowing she was aching to spill her troubles to him, but with no patience to deal with them when he had his own concerns.

Finally Nikolas was alone in the library, and he laid his head down on his desk and felt weariness shudder through him.

A sharp rap at the door made him straighten, and he shouted, “
Kommen sie. ”

The door opened and Charlotte sidled in, standing just inside the door.

He stood. “What is it?”

She faltered for a moment, her pretty face a mask of confusion. But then she stiffened, much as he had seen Elizabeth do when she was bracing herself to say something to him, and said,

“I’d like to talk to you, uncle, if I may.”

“Certainly. Come. Sit,” he said, indicating the chair in front of his desk. “What is wrong?”

When she flinched, he realized how brusque he sounded. Could he never soften his tone? She was his niece, not a servant or subject. With great effort, he said, “If you have any concerns or worries, Charlotte, you may always come to me.”

She gazed at him steadily, skepticism in her blue eyes, and he could see her mind working, trying to find a way to say what she wanted to say. It was likely the same old argument again, the fact that she did not want to marry an Englishman, did not want to go to England, and in fact didn’t want to go anywhere without her brother. Nikolas had determined that for her own sake she must leave, and with things the way they were in the castle and the situation as it was on the whole of the Continent, he thought it would likely be that summer. He was not willing to bargain, nor back down. Though Nikolas could not force Christoph into any action, Charlotte was his ward and would be until she married. He only hoped he had not left it too long.

“How are you feeling? Are you over your cold yet?” he asked, as she sneezed once and blew her nose.

“No. It is still with me, though Meli’s potions have done me good.”

Silence fell between them again, but finally she met his steady gaze. “What really happened to my mother?”

He sat back, stunned. She stared at him, waiting, and he realized that if he had had nothing to hide from her, he would have spoken immediately. “You know what happened. She died very tragically, in a fire.”

“But how? Why?”

He considered, as he gazed at her, how much he should tell her, meaning how much she needed to know to be satisfied. “You were so young when she died. I’m sorry you never really knew her, for she was… a lovely person. She was very kind to me.”

“Were you in love with her?”

“What? Who told you that?”

She looked frightened. “No one. No one at all, uncle. I just wondered… the way you just spoke of her…”

But he knew she had come in thinking that, and that someone had fed that lie to her. “No, I was not in love with her. She was kind to me, but just in the way an older sister is to a younger brother. Like Christoph is to you.”

She looked away, a gleam of a tear in her eye.

It took every bit of determination to do what he knew was right. Nikolas got up, circled the desk, and crouched by her, gazing up into her eyes. “Your mother was indeed a lovely person, and your father loved her very much. She was out at a cottage on the property—no one is sure why, but we think she may have been looking it over, thinking of redoing it as a little retreat for her and your father—and somehow, it caught on fire. I think a lamp spilled and caught on a curtain. Hans, your Aunt Gerta’s husband, had gone out for a ride, and though we don’t know for sure, we think he must have heard her cries and rushed in to try to rescue her.”

Tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her clenched hands. He put his larger hand over both of hers and squeezed. “I… I had been gone some time, on the Continent. Cesare and I were just coming back that night; he had stayed behind in the village with our trunks, but I was eager to get home and had come through the woods—it was the full moon, lots of light—and… and I heard the cries. I found the cottage in flames and tried to rescue them, but it was already too late. I could not get in. I couldn’t save them.”

Charlotte wept silently for a minute, then, sniffling, she said, “What about Papa? Why did he die?”

Nikolas sat back on his heels. “I don’t know. He got sick. We tried everything, called in a specialist from Vienna, but he was gone three weeks after Anna… your mother.”

“He didn’t…” She shivered. “He didn’t kill himself?”

“Who has been feeding you those lies?” he said, standing to his full height and towering over her.

She scuttled out of the chair and toward the door. “No one!”

“Charlotte! Wait!” He hadn’t meant to frighten her. He thrust his hands though his hair and squeezed. He must learn to temper his responses. “I… I did not mean to shout. I am not angry at you, but if anyone is telling you such despicable lies, I want you to tell me who.”

“No one! No one. But… it has just been whispered that he did not have to die… that he should not have died.”

“No, he should not have died.” He shrugged helplessly. “But he became ill. He died. That was all.”

She nodded, her lips in a tight line.

“Charlotte, I—”

“Good day, uncle. I will not disturb you again,” she said, slithering out the door and racing down the hall away from him.

He flopped back down in his chair and covered his eyes. Even if his soul was not already damned to hell, it would become that way from the lies he was forced into again and again.

When would it end?
How
would it end?

Feeling at the end of his tether, he bellowed to a footman, who scurried off to do his bidding.

Ten minutes later, flustered and harried looking, Elizabeth Stanwycke hustled into the library.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

“Did you put her up to that?” he growled.

“Whatever are you talking about?” she said, crossing the room and staring down at him.

“Did you plant those evil lies in Charlotte’s head? She never did ask such things before, and I know you have been snooping around the castle, prying into things that don’t concern you…”

“Whatever is wrong, Count, do not pull me into your schemes and stratagems. I have said nothing to anyone. What are you talking about?”

He gazed up into her mystified eyes and knew she was telling the truth. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He rubbed his eyes and then stared back up at her again. “There I go, apologizing to you again.”

“Well, if you would stop trying to bully, accuse, and torment me, then you would have nothing to apologize for.”

As brisk as the words were, he could hear the exasperation in her voice, and though he felt it was better than he deserved he was grateful that she said no worse. “Elizabeth, Elizabeth. Do you know, I think in truth I just wanted any excuse to see you.”

“You could have chosen something else rather than base accusations to bring me here,” she said, her tone still stiff.

“You are right. Again, I apologize. Will you sit with me for a moment, if I promise to be on my best behavior?”

“I will sit,” she said, perching on the chair across from him, “but I doubt if you can keep your promise. You must tell me first what it was you were talking about with my pupil.”

“Charlotte came to me; she had some ideas about her parents’ deaths. I don’t know where she can have gotten some of them.”

“In particular… ?”

“She asked me,” he said, precisely, “if I was in love with Anna, her mother. I was not. And she asked me…” It was too painful; he could not go on. He bowed his head and felt the weariness and misery of his life descend upon him. He could not go on, trying and failing constantly to deliver his family from the pain of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

The room was quiet and cold and he felt so empty inside. Had Elizabeth left him alone? He couldn’t blame her if she had. But then he felt a warmth nearby and she stood before him and her hand was on his hair. He felt himself dissolve, and then, before he realized what he was doing, his head was against her stomach and she was stroking his hair. Relief trickled through him like a clear, cool stream, and he lost all sense of time and place.

Her scent filled his nostrils; her heartbeat filled his ears. Fingers threaded his hair and stroked his neck, and with his eyes closed he could sense every touch; it took him beyond forgetfulness to bliss.

“I know,” she murmured against his hair as she bent over him like a sheltering willow.

Without knowing what he was saying, he had been muttering, over and over, in German, “I’m weary, so weary.” She had understood him, but whether it was his words or his tone she was responding to, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He raised his face, eyes still closed, and lips touched his eyelids and his cheeks, and the soft kisses rained on his brow and over his lips. He reached out, encircled her waist, and pulled her to him, onto his lap, urgently seeking her sweetness, tasting the wetness of her exquisite mouth over his. He nuzzled her neck and nipped her soft earlobe, hunger building in his stomach like a fire heating a forge. In a heartbeat he traveled from tenderness to desire.

But in an instant it was over, and he was cold again, bereft, for she had wrenched herself from his grasp. “What is wrong, Elizabeth?”

“I… I meant only to offer you a moment of solace, sir, for I know how weary your burdens make you.” Her voice was breathless and she was standing on the other side of the desk again, her body half turned, ready to flee like a deer before a wolf.

“No, don’t go,” he said, rising and putting out one hand.

“I must. You know that. Truly, I must go. I… I hope you’re feeling better. Don’t worry about Charlotte; she’s just questioning everything right now, I think.”