Castle of the Wolf (12 page)

Cissy frowned. “I was not joking.”

Abruptly the laughter stopped. “You weren’t?” Something like suspicion entered his eyes.

She shook her head. “My father taught me to read Latin. I used to read to him often in the past few years.”

“How…peculiar.” He cleared his throat. “Well, then. Would you like to continue the tour?” He held out his hand. “There’s more to discover.”

Yes, so much more to discover: the tapestries along the walls, the unicorn about to lie his head on the maiden’s lap while the hunter hid behind the nearest tree, an arrow already cocked in his bow. In another room, the large wall-hangings depicted the four seasons. And while the scenery changed with each tapestry, in the background there was always a castle on a hill. “The Castle of Wolfenbach,” Leopold said proudly. He touched one of the tiny castles with his forefinger, giving Cissy a chance to admire his wide, graceful hand, the long, blunt fingers with the short-clipped nails. Warmth blossomed low in her belly as she remembered how on the crumpled tower he had touched her cheek with this same finger. And she marveled at the fate that had brought her to this moment, into the company of this man, her golden knight.

She smiled at her own fancy, but the tiny flutters in her stomach did not stop.

Next he showed her the tapestry his great-great-great-great-grandmother had woven, a hunting scene in the forest, where the hunters had just cornered their prey, a proud stag. And he told her how his distant grandmother had given one of the hunters the face of her secret lover. The vines and flowers surrounding the man on his great stallion curved and twisted and revealed their secret only upon a closer look:
Te amo
.

Blinking away sudden tears, Cissy traced the faded green lines with a gentle forefinger.
Te amo.
She touched her heart.

When she turned, she caught Leopold watching her, his head cocked to one side. The dimple appeared in his cheek. “It’s very romantic, is it not, Celia?” He paused, then added in a murmur, “
Liebchen
.” A mere whisper of sound, but her cheeks warmed nonetheless.

“Once a subject of any indelicate kind is mentioned, you blush like a peony.”

Confused and breathless, she stepped past him. Even if it was improper, these whispered endearments excited her. Whenever he looked at her like that, his green eyes dancing like wood sprites and the sweet dimple denting his cheek, her whole body tingled and shivers raced along her nerves. She wished she were brave enough to bare her wrist for him to kiss the skin there once more. She wondered what it would be like to be close, without a breath of air between them, oh so close to all his golden beauty, to have his hands caressing her face once more, and his lips…his lips…

Cissy laid her hands against her burning cheeks. Quickly she reined in her wanton thoughts. She felt as if she were going up in flames.

Chuckling, Leopold reached out and lightly drew his finger over the back of her gloved hand. “What delightful innocence. I am quite smitten by your blushes.” His lips twisted with amusement. “
Liebchen
.” He laughed as she tried to hide her flaming cheeks. “No. Don’t be embarrassed. You are charming, truly charming.” He offered her his arm. “Come, there’s much more to see.”

~*~

His inner restlessness drove him to walk the ramparts at night, when the wind blew icier than ever. Fenris welcomed the bite of the wind, which brought tears to his eyes; sometimes the pain was enough to chase away unwanted thoughts, to dispel impossible dreams.

Yet sometimes, the light was still on in her room high above him, and every dream he ever had came rushing back. On some nights the pain was bad enough to bring him to his knees.

Fortuna must be laughing spitefully down at him to bring somebody like her to a place like this. To have her disrupt his self-imposed solitude and shred all his acceptance of his fate. His hand crept to his chest, where his heart burned with impossible longings.

Wearily, Fenris closed his eyes. No, there would be no redemption for this beast. He would forever remain in this form, would forever be caught in a crippled body. Redemption had become impossible long ago, when the cannonball had exploded next to him and blasted his leg away. Curiously, it hadn’t hurt at first. He had lain on his back on the muddy ground and stared up at the sky, his eyes burning with gunsmoke. One last time—he had wanted to see a bit of blue sky one last time. He had hoped for one last glance of brilliant, untarnished blue. But there had been only acrid smoke, the rolling thunder of cannon, the screams of men and horses, and the sickly smell of burnt flesh and blood. They had soaked the earth with blood, men and mere boys sacrificed to the God of War.

Was it any wonder that he had lain there and hoped in vain? And then, finally, a red veil had been thrown over the world and he had sunk into a sea of endless pain.

Fenris gave an unsteady laugh.

A sea of pain it had been, from which he had emerged as a fairytale monster, no trace left of the man he had been. And like a fairytale beast he had taken possession of this castle—only to have his life disrupted once more by his very own Belle. An intelligent, funny, brave Belle, with a temper quick to rise to his baiting.

He smiled a little.

Yes, she could get so angry that she looked ready to spit nails. And how her eyes glittered hotly! A regal queen of the Amazons, who would probably enjoy running him through with a long, sharp spear.

Chuckling softly, he shook his head. She was an exceptional Belle indeed.

She was also a Belle to which he had no right. No right at all. His amusement ebbed away, left him choked with longings and yearnings and bitterness, so much bitterness. When he stumbled back to his room, frozen to the bone, a sleepy Johann was waiting to help divest him of his clothes.

“I told you, you don’t need to stay up for me,” Fenris said gruffly.

His valet gave him one of those unfathomable glances he was so good at, and continued unbuttoning his coat. “I daresay if I didn’t stay up for you, you would fall into bed still fully clothed. Dear God, Fen, your hands are frozen stiff! Can’t you at least wear a scarf and mittens when you venture outside in the middle of winter? I swear, you’re one of the most pigheaded people I’ve ever met!”

It stung. “Well, then…” Shrugging, Fenris looked away. “Nobody forces you to remain here. You could easily get work somewhere else.”

“Oh, yes!” Snorting, Johann helped him out of the coat. “With that vain peacock of your brother, perhaps? After all, you already seem bent on seeing that the castle falls to him.” Grumbling, he started working on the buttons of the jacket.

Fenris blinked. “What are you talking about?” Looking down at his valet’s head, he could just imagine Johann rolling his eyes, even though the man didn’t look up.

The answer, when it finally came, was softer than before. “I simply don’t understand why you leave the field to your brother in this. You will lose the castle, don’t you see that?”

Fenris raised his shoulders as if such an occurrence wouldn’t touch him in the least. “So?” He shuddered a little as Johann helped him out of his jacket. God, he was cold, so cold. His very bones hurt with it.

Johann impatiently tugged at the strings that secured the cuffs. “Can’t you just try at least? Be a little nicer to the girl?”

“And what for?” Fenris stilled his friend’s hands on his wrist. He waited until Johann met his gaze. “What for? What right do I have to…to court somebody like her? What right would I have to drag her into my darkness?” He shook his head. “Leave it be, Johann.”

The other man searched his face, then sighed. “As you wish. But I think you’re wrong.”

The weariness that descended upon him was worse than the pain of the winter cold. “Just leave it be.”

And so, during the days, Fenris kept away, watched from afar how his brother courted her, dazzled her with his charm. Charm came so easily to Leo. It had once come easily to Fenris, too. Once, in a distant past.

But that was before his life had been literally blown to smithereens, before he had in turn destroyed the lives of the people he cared for most, before it had been made clear to him how utterly, utterly undesirable he had become as a man. Before he had seen revulsion in a woman’s eyes as he bared his body to her gaze.

Never, never again.

So, yes, he kept away from her during the days. But at night, he would stand on the ramparts and look up at the light in her room. Or, when the cold became too intense and his longing too bitter, he would walk the hallways instead. And just a little way from her room, he would stop and lean his head against the cool stone and remember the sound of her laughter.

But not for him, of course.

Never for him.

Chapter 9

The castle was vast. There was so much to see. Yet when they finally came across the grandfather clock, Cissy wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before. But then, it stood almost hidden in a small niche, rising up in warm honeyed tones against the cold gray stone. The afternoon sun slanted a lonely beam of light across the wood and lent it a reddish tinge.

Entranced, Cissy stopped in her tracks. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she breathed.

“What?” Leopold turned to follow her gaze. “That?” He gave a laugh, then flashed his sweet dimple at her along with a broad grin. “It’s just an old clock. One of the oddities my brother loves to accumulate.”

“Is it?” For once his dimple failed to charm her. She was much more interested in this clock, which stood taller than a man. Graceful, slim pillars framed the three levels of the timepiece—a lower compartment where the counterweights would be, a mysterious middle compartment with a curved double door, and a glass-covered upper section, which held the face, faintly yellowed with age, and a curious, dark blue half disk.

Stepping nearer, Cissy peered up at this last element. Royal blue, with a stormcloud face to the left and a smiling sun on the right. And in the middle before them…

Cissy blinked. “Is this a sheep?” When she didn’t get an answer she turned, and only then became aware of the tapping of Leopold’s foot on the stone tiles. Impatient? She frowned. “Sheep?” she repeated, making her voice more assertive than before.

“Sheep? Where?” Leo looked around as if he thought a live sheep were running bleating through the castle.

She felt her frown deepen.

Her irritation increased. Whatever was the matter with her charming golden god? “There. On the clock.” She pointed, even though that was supposed to be unladylike.

Leopold rolled his eyes. “Gosh, that old thing. What’s the attraction? A pile of rotting wood and an old music box which will be forever out of tune.”

Her heart gave an excited thump against her breastbone. “There’s a music box, too?”

He shrugged. As she continued to stare at him expectantly, he finally heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, all right, it’s got something to do with gnomes, dwarves, or whatever you call the little buggers.” He pointed to the middle section of the clock. “That’s where they are.”

“But, why is there a sheep at the top?”

With an expression of exasperation, he threw up his arms. “How should I know? It’s probably there because the clockmaker was a loony or—”

To their right a door was thrust open with enough force to make the hinges creak in protest. “Do you plan to raise the dead with all your screaming and shouting?” Fenris von Wolfenbach growled.

Cissy quickly stifled a startled squeak behind her hand.

Von Wolfenbach shot her a murderous glance. “What?" he snapped.

Gracious, she marveled, he looked as ferocious as his namesake. His expression was angry, his hair dusty and sticking up in odd tufts as if he had repeatedly run his hands through it. A thin trace of black ink marred the corner of his mouth.
Like black blood dripping to his chin.
Cissy shuddered.

“My, my,” Leopold drawled. “Aren’t we testy today?” He had hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat, and, smirking at his brother, rocked back and forth on his heels.

Von Wolfenbach’s black brows drew together and he muttered something unintelligible while apparently trying to murder his brother with his gaze. If he would but lift his lips and reveal his teeth and growl some more, he would look exactly like a mad dog, Cissy thought.

Or rather, like a mad wolf.

She shook her head. No matter. She’d had enough of these antics.

“What are you doing here?” she asked loudly.

He turned his dagger-like glare on her. “This,” he said clearly and slowly, as if talking to a particularly daft child, “is my study. Where I work.”

Leopold leaned forward to whisper. “His den.” His breath whispered intimately over her ear. “As in, the lion’s den. Where the beast resides.” He winked at her.

His brother grimaced in distaste. “You always had a horrible sense of humor, Leo.”

“Better a horrid one than none altogether.”

Cissy rolled her eyes. The men reminded her of snarling dogs.

And then she heard the melody.

Whirling around, she faced the old clock. After the first few notes a clicking sound joined in, and the door to the middle compartment opened to reveal a group of dwarves hacking away in their mine.
Click-clack, click-clack
.

“Oh!” Delighted, she stepped nearer. They were perfect, with little caps and hammers and long beards.

Click-clack, click-clack.

Eventually their work slowed down, then stopped altogether, just as the last few notes of the little melody sounded. A creaking and whirring started, and on the face of the clock the eight turned inward and a man with a flowing cap and starry cloak appeared at the window.

The clock struck the hour in clear, almost musical strokes. And all the while the tiny man looked yearningly up toward the sheep on the disk above him, looked and looked, until the last stroke had sounded and the door to the dwarves’ mine closed. Slowly, the cloaked man turned away, too. The window closed, and the big hand slipped to one minute past four.

“Oh,” Cissy said again. “How lovely!” Behind her, she heard Leopold’s long-suffering sigh. Not paying him any attention, she turned toward the other brother. “What is this?”