The Autumn Castle (37 page)

Mayfridh sank back on the sofa, bewildering emotions tumbling inside her. The deception was immense, even cruel, but she sensed
no cruel intent behind it. Looking at him now, she still saw only beautiful Jude, perhaps even more beautiful now he had revealed
how troubled and conflicted he was.

“I’ve tried,” he said quietly. “I’ve tried to be in love with her.”

“Four years.”

“I haven’t been counting. I’m determined to do this for the rest of my life. To atone. I’ve done it for reasons that are pure
and true. I never want to hurt her again. I’ve been faithful. I haven’t even looked at another woman.” His eyes dropped, embarrassed.
“Well, until . . .”

Mayfridh suddenly saw her own role in this drama clearly, and recoiled from herself, despised her attempts to make Jude fall
in love with her. The flirtation, the dropping-in when Christine wasn’t around, the subtle faery glamour she turned on whenever
he was near. But no, that wasn’t fair either. She and Jude had connected; beneath all the silly games she had played to be
near him, they had connected.

“I’ll marry her when I can afford it. I’ll raise a family with her,” he continued. “I’ll go to my grave loving her the way
I always have. It just won’t be the way love is usually meant to be.”

“And if you fell in love with someone else?” Mayfridh asked, challenging him with her gaze. “For real?”

His eyes met hers and didn’t waver. Desire rushed upon her and she cursed herself for thinking about her own happiness when
his and Christine’s were so distant.

“I never thought that could happen,” he said. “I could never imagine that there existed a woman in the world who could sway
me from my purpose. I thought I was making the sacrifice for life.” He paused. “I still believe in that sacrifice, Mayfridh.”

These last words stung her. Whatever he felt for her—and he’d all but admitted that he felt the connection as much as she
did—he was determined to deny it. He was determined to continue in his deception, and how could she persuade him otherwise?
The alternative was to tell Christine the truth.

“Mayfridh,” he said, leaning forward, his voice dark and serious, “Christine can never know.”

“Of course.”

“Only you and I know this story. I will never tell her.”

“Nor will I. She’s . . . I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“Yes. Yes, exactly. And she’s got enough pain in her life. You’ll go. You’ll be back in faeryland and you’ll forget all this,
and I’ll be left here with this life that I’ve created for myself, and I’ll get through it and it won’t be so bad. But she
can’t know, not ever.”

“Our little secret,” she said, humorlessly.

“Until winter. Then just
my
secret again.”

A sudden knock on the door startled them both. Jude jerked to his feet, smoothing his hair back, muttering, “I wonder who
that is?” Mayfridh felt guilty and flushed, hoping it wasn’t Christine, then realized Christine wouldn’t have knocked.

Jude opened the door. It was Gerda.

“Hi, Jude,” she said. “I wondered if—oh, hi, Mayfridh.” She peered into the room curiously. It had begun to grow dark but
Jude had switched no lights on. Mayfridh realized she looked anxious and guilty. Gerda, with her keen eye, hadn’t missed it.
“What are you two up to?” she asked, only the thinnest veneer of humor over her words.

“Nothing,” Jude said, his casualness returning. “We just got talking while waiting for Christine to come home.”

“Where have you been, Mayfridh?” Gerda asked. “We’ve all missed you.”

Mayfridh rose from the sofa and joined them at the door. “I had some problems back home,” she said. “I won’t be staying long.”
She shot a glance at Jude, who ignored it.

“But you’re staying tonight, right?” Gerda asked. “Come on, Garth sent me a bottle of Swedish vodka—trying to make up with
me—and you’re just the girl to help me drink it.”

Mayfridh tried to smile, realized it wasn’t so hard to do. “Yes, I’d love it.”

Gerda switched her attention back to Jude. “I wanted to borrow some laundry powder. I’m all out.”

“Um, sure. Wait here.” Jude disappeared into the bathroom.

Gerda fixed Mayfridh with her eye. “You look guilty.”

“Do I?”

“You did when Jude opened the door.”

“You’re imagining it.”

Jude returned with a box of laundry powder and handed it to Gerda. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She hooked her elbow through Mayfridh’s and dragged her into the hallway. “Come on,” she said, “you can help me
with my laundry.”

“Good-bye, Mayfridh,” Jude said.

Mayfridh glanced over her shoulder. Jude at the door, like the first time she had seen him. Perfect, dark-eyed, tangle-haired
Jude.

Before she could say good-bye, he had closed the door.

Three a.m. came and still Mayfridh was no closer to sleep. The vodka had been the only way to distract Gerda from asking insistently
what she and Jude had been “up to.” Now, lying in bed with a narrow band of streetlight that fell through the crack in the
curtain, Mayfridh’s mouth tasted sour and her head throbbed lightly. Her body, so saturated with uncomfortable thoughts and
feelings, could not find a smooth or restful position in the bed. She tried her right side, her left, her back. It was like
trying to sleep on a handful of pebbles. She sat up.

What was she even doing here? So close to Jude. Just one floor below him. Was he sleeping?

Three a.m. seemed the perfect time to contemplate secrets and deceit and betrayal. The gray darkness and the shadows. Mayfridh
dropped her head into her hands. Hexebart had really only told her half the secret: Jude had killed Christine’s parents. The
most awful half of the secret was that he had spent four years pretending to love her, and intended to spend the rest of his
life living the same deception. She knew she should be angry with him; he lied to Christine with every beat of his heart.
Yet Mayfridh felt nothing but sadness and pity and worry and
love
for him.

In the distance, a police siren wailed and ebbed. She shouldn’t be here. She should be far away from Jude. Every second they
were together they were coconspirators, sharing too much unspoken intent, but she couldn’t go back to Ewigkreis yet. As soon
as she returned Eisengrimm would persuade her to unburden her miserable heart, and he would have only scorn for Jude. And
so he would mutter and mumble and sermonize until winter came, and every precious sensation she felt for Jude would be spoiled.

Her mother’s house, then. With a guilty twinge, she realized she hadn’t even contacted Diana since her return. Mayfridh swung
her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. This early hour of the morning wasn’t the most polite time to show up at Diana’s
door, but she had to get away from Hotel Mandy-Z and from Jude and from Gerda with her endless questions.

In the bathroom, she rinsed out her mouth and splashed her face with cold water. The clothes she had worn the previous day
were hanging on the towel rack and she pulled them on. The light from the bathroom reflected past Gerda’s open door. Mayfridh
paused in the doorway, considering whether or not to wake Gerda and tell her she was leaving. Gerda was fast asleep, sheets
and bedspread askew, wearing a white singlet, her arm thrown up over her pillow, revealing a hairy armpit. Snoring, ever so
gently. Mayfridh smiled and backed away, closing Gerda’s bedroom door behind her. She picked up her shoes and let herself
out of the apartment and down the stairs.

In the foyer she paused. A faint glow from the gallery. She glanced around the corner. Light, coming from under Jude’s studio
door.

The next few moments stretched out like elastic, and it seemed she had stood there forever, knowing that Jude was awake in
his studio, knowing that she should just leave as she had intended, but being pulled toward his door. Hanging on to the threshold
of the gallery as if it could hold her back.

Her feet decided for her, and she was moving barefoot, her shoes still in her hands, toward the light. The dark gallery was
cluttered with paintings and sculptures, and yet it seemed so empty as she crossed through it, the abandoned emptiness of
a room where someone has died and left his possessions, meaningless, behind. Her hand was on the doorknob; she turned and
pushed.

Jude looked up. The first thing she noticed was his legs, long and pale and bare. He wore only a white shirt, unbuttoned,
and a pair of boxer shorts with cartoon characters on them. Then she noticed his eyes. Dark smudges under them. He hadn’t
slept either.

He said nothing. The room was in chaos: the easel on its side, a canvas thrown down, paint tubes spread about. He had a large
paintbrush in his hand, dripping brown paint. Behind him, the wall was a mess of monochrome shapes, still wet.

“You’ve painted the wall,” she said, knowing it was an empty nothing to say, but needing to say something. She closed the
door behind her.

“Yes,” he replied. “The canvas wasn’t big enough for . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she knew what he meant.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He dropped the brush and moved toward her, reaching for her. She took a step back but he caught her and pressed her against
him so hard it pushed her breath from her lungs. “Hold me,” he said.

Was there anything else she could do? Her arms went around him. His lips were on her throat and something long trapped inside
her rose up with her breath and gasped out of her. “I love you,” she said.

His lips moved to her cheek, her nose, and finally her mouth. He pressed his lips against hers fiercely, and she let him crush
her in his arms. His tongue tasted of tobacco and whiskey. She tried to say “I love you” again, but the sweet violent kiss
barricaded the words inside her. She twined her fingers in his hair. His own fingers were descending down her blouse, popping
the buttons free one by one. He stood back, slipped the shirt from her shoulders to reveal her bare breasts. Then his lips
were on her nipples, kissing, biting, sucking.

She shuddered with an acute sense of vulnerability. No man had ever seen her breasts before; no man had ever kissed her before.
Jude raised his head and pressed her to him again, and this time she could feel the hard warmth of his erection through the
silk of his shorts.

“Jude,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’ve never . . .”

He stood back a pace, his eyes curious. “What?”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“Never?”

She shook her head. A silent moment passed between them; his fingers were drawing away from her body.

“But I want to,” she said hurriedly. “I want to do everything. I want to do whatever you want me to do. You just have to show
me.”

Jude’s gaze dropped to her breasts. He moved closer again, his hands at the zipper on her skirt. It slipped over her hips
and fell to the floor. He lifted her against him and carried her to the wall of the room, pressed her bare back into the still-wet
paint. His hands pinned her shoulders as he kissed her throat, her breasts, her belly. The paint felt sticky and soft and
slimy all at once. She tried to keep her head bent forward, to keep her hair from trailing in the paint, but he stood and
crushed his mouth against hers again, forcing her head back, pushing her whole body into the wall.

“Will you forget this?” he murmured against her lips, her chin. “Will none of this have ever happened?”

“I’ll forget everything,” she said, the sadness a cold barb. “I’ll forget you.”

He kissed her and kissed her until her breath was short and her head dizzy. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the
sofa, tipped off the rags and the empty paint tubes, and laid her down. The paint on her back stuck and pulled on the rough
material of the sofa. Still he kissed her, as if he never wanted her to breathe again. She almost wanted to suffocate, surrender
all under the weight of passion. His hands were all over her body, smudging her with paint. His lips left her face and descended
between her breasts. He removed her knickers and wiped his painty hands clean on them, casting them aside into the chaos on
the floor of the studio. The swelling feeling of vulnerability returned. The most private parts of her body, areas she had
never even explored, and he was down there with his eyes and his fingers and his tongue and, oh, what a velvet searing pleasure
rocked her body then, and somehow the vulnerable feeling became part of the pleasure, a strange liberation. He lifted her
ankle and rested it on the back of the sofa, and she lay there with the paint gluing her to the sofa and her hair tangling
into sticky clumps and closed her eyes and Jude was doing the most
incredible things
to her body and every hot nerve was shuddering and trembling and tensing tighter and tighter and—

Mayfridh covered her face with her hands so she wouldn’t shriek and wake up everyone in the building. The pleasure was almost
unbearable. And then, strangely, thankfully, it released in warm rhythmic waves. Her heart pounded in her ears, her toes trembled.

Jude covered her body with his. “I’ll be gentle,” he said.