When he crossed the room, Scarlet tried to ignore the impressive bulge in the man’s trousers and focused instead on the lady’s face. Circling her like a vulture, Lothar drew near, extremely near. Heat from his body tickled the back of her neck when he passed behind her. A hint of female musk and perfume tickled Scarlet’s nostrils. She gritted her teeth in alarm and excitement when he let a single finger trace the contour of her collar. Shivers followed in a tight wake. Blowing gently on the nape of her neck, Lothar planted himself right behind her, his torso and hips a hair away from her back. While he remained thus, almost touching her but not quite, his hands floated down along her arms and seized her wrists, which he brought back behind her. The whole while the lady watched, her cheeks flushed, obviously aroused herself.
Scarlet had to stifle a gasp when Master Lothar pressed her trapped hands against his stiffness. She could tell he was well-endowed, and by the way he let his breath stir strands of hair around her face and how he had run a gentle finger over her skin, Scarlet knew this had to be a spectacularly skilled man. And a dangerous one as well.
“I love your hair,” he murmured, grasping both her wrists with a large hand. Another accent layered his speech. Austrian, perhaps? She’d heard that particular inflection before. His free hand came up behind her head and loosely fisted her curls. Scarlet fought the urge to pull against him and instead followed his backward movement. When her head rested completely on his chest, Master Lothar’s hand released her wrists. His caress of her neck made Scarlet shiver.
And she who’d told Werner she wouldn’t be no one’s whore! The sobering thought tightened her mouth. She stared hard at Lady Katrina, hoping the message would get through.
“Do you want him to stop, Scarlet?” the lady asked, coming to her feet.
Scarlet sighed in relief. “Yes.”
Though the word implied one thing, her breathlessness implied quite the contrary. How completely idiotic had she become in the span of a few moments? This place was provoking her dark humors.
Then suddenly a small, burning sting on her arm made her yelp. Whirling around and rubbing her biceps, Scarlet noticed Lothar had a small jewel-tipped needle in hand.
“What have you done to me?” Scarlet demanded, too late worrying about the edge in her voice.
Lothar didn’t seem overly upset as he dropped the needle into a tiny vial he’d just pulled out of his vest pocket. The drop of blood on its tip swirled around and dissolved in the clear liquid.
“It is only a small test, Scarlet. To make sure it is safe for you to be near my cousin. I should have warned you. My apologies.”
After a nod, Lothar slipped the bottle back in his vest. “Her blood is clean.” Bowing, he took his leave without another word.
“The physician had to make sure no disease polluted your blood, so as not to infect my cousin. His health is already so fragile.” She made a sad face. “No one here has passed the test in some time. Their blood is tainted, I am afraid. Something about living in these parts, perhaps. That is why we now must find someone who has never lived here. Only Lothar and I passed the test, being from another city. And now you.”
Scarlet rubbed at her arm again. No blood had seeped through the cloth for which she was glad. Showing up for work bleeding hadn’t been part of her plan to make a good first impression.
“Do you know how to read?” the lady asked, drawing near. She had the silver-ended cane in her hand, though she obviously had no need for it.
Still angry at being poked and prodded like cattle, Scarlet only managed a tight, “No.”
“That is unfortunate. Your patient enjoys being read to. Let us meet him, then. I know he has seen you from his window.”
“How much will I get paid?” Scarlet asked, regretting the question as soon as it left her mouth. Stupid girl.
After a long, withering glare, Lady Katrina’s expression softened. “I forget what you had to go through in life just to survive.” She brought the pommel of her cane up to Scarlet’s chin and gently, slowly, ran it along her jaw. Scarlet stared through her mounting fear.
The lady leaned into Scarlet, their mouths an inch apart. “You have a strong will. I shall enjoy our association,” she murmured before kissing Scarlet on the mouth.
As much as she tried to be shocked and revolted, Scarlet couldn’t. The sheer sexuality and magnetism emanating from the tall woman almost pierced Scarlet’s defenses. Almost. And when Lady Katrina straightened, Scarlet felt strangely bereft.
Such a strange place, this. Strange and dangerous.
Eager to break the spell, Scarlet clutched her hands behind her back and followed Lady Katrina up the stairs. An old man probably, ill and unable to read himself. Or a blind man, or perhaps one crippled in a hunt or battle. Scarlet didn’t care if she’d be sloshing chamber pots around, as long as she received enough coins to make a new life for herself. Elsewhere.
Lady Katrina led the way deeper into the older portion of the castle. Scarlet recognized the different brickwork and mortar of the tower when they reached it. A small oil lamp blazed on a nearby table.
“Get the light,” the lady said.
Scarlet did, holding the small lamp by its handle. A barred door took a good portion of the rounded wall. After digging under her tight midnight blue bodice, Lady Katrina pulled a brass key, which she inserted into the keyhole.
Strange way to an ill man’s chambers.
“Here,” the lady said, giving the key to Scarlet. “I keep the original. This one here is the only copy. If something happens to it while I am away…”
Scarlet could easily have picked the lock by the looks of it, but wouldn’t tell the lady that. She put the key in her pocket. “Am I to be the only one to take care of him, then?”
“Yes. Aside from the physician and myself.”
A thought occurred to Scarlet. “Who used to take care of him? Other servants here?”
Lady Katrina smiled. “The one who took care of him is…gone. It is hard work to care for an ill man and when he could no longer manage it, I found him easier work elsewhere. Now let us go meet my cousin.”
When she opened the door, the small lamp’s sputtering light flooded a staircase landing, and all Scarlet could see were steps twisting up. Narrow, steep steps. With no apparent effort, the lady climbed those steps at a brisk pace with Scarlet right on her heels.
A nagging suspicion slithered in Scarlet’s mind. Why would the lady, with her obvious wealth and connections, want a mere street woman to care for her cousin? Why not a real maid or manservant? Where was that “other” gone to?
Trying not to let fear show through the stoic mask was hard. When she judged they’d gone almost to the top of the tower, a thick, cleated door barred further progress. A simple latch closed this one and no lock. When they opened it, a circular room the size of a small house gaped beyond.
Scarlet went in after the other woman, marveling at the size of the room, which went right up to the timbered ceiling. Two narrow slits, one on either side of the room, gave just enough light to make out pieces of furniture near the far wall. An expensive-looking rug covered most of the circular floor. Not a sound stirred the air. She’d expected smells of the sick and dying, but instead, a faint male perfume greeted her. Along the wall near the door, a copper basin the size of a large barrel lying on its side gleamed softly in the faint light.
To her left, Lady Katrina took the lamp and put it on a nearby table. “Good day, cousin. I trust your health is good?”
No reply.
As much as she tried, Scarlet couldn’t see a thing past the lamp’s golden glow. Lumpy shadows here and there could have been the cousin in question but she couldn’t be sure. There was a princely bed along the wall, with a mess of cushions and pillows. A table with two chairs, each at opposite ends. The inescapable chamber pot near the foot of the bed and a small dresser by the headboard. And that was the whole of this huge room’s furniture.
“My cousin can be very quiet at times,” the
lady said, her mouth a tight line. Turning back to the elusive man, she added, “This is Scarlet, your new maid.”
Scarlet had the distinct feeling the man in question was looking at her and not the lady. It was the same sensation she’d felt earlier when she’d first come into the courtyard. Not knowing where he was and what to call him, she just nodded at the shadows and crossed her hands behind her back. Fear was making her palms clammy.
“Come now, cousin, you do not want to scare away someone who will be so good to you.”
Stifling a gasp, Scarlet noticed in a corner something her brain refused to assimilate. Then when she looked harder, it was gone. A trick of the light, no doubt. For a second, she’d seen a pair of glowing eyes, like those of animals in the darkness.
Chapter Three
“It’s time,” a female voice said in the darkness.
Scarlet was instantly alert in her cot and fighting the urge to crouch in a defensive position. “Ute?”
The door to her room opened to let a single blade of light in. “Who else do you think is up at this ungodly hour?” Ute snapped, leaving her candle on Scarlet’s dresser and closing the door back again.
Scarlet got out of bed without stretching and tiptoed to the washbasin. When she dipped her hands in it, Scarlet noticed the water had been perfumed. Good Ute. A grin the likes of which only the moon had seen spread on Scarlet’s face. She quickly subdued it and washed herself though she’d had a bath the day before and was by no means dirty. Still, this was her first day at work and she wanted to make a good impression. She took particular care of her hands, which had always been grimy and caked with dirt under her fingernails. They had to be perfect today. She’d be serving a nobleman and had to show some good breeding.
When she entered, the kitchen was already a beehive of activity. Ute loudly berated one of the serving girls for having let “the master’s food” grow cold.
“Master Lothar resides here as well?” Scarlet asked, hoping he didn’t.
Ute rounded on her with fists on her hips. “I’m talking about the true master,” she snarled, the poison in her tone surprising Scarlet. “Come,” Ute went on, tugging Scarlet by a sleeve. “You make quick before this serving grows cold too.” A withering glare at the serving girl added weight to the old woman’s already menacing air.
Slowly, with an almost reverent air about her, Ute took a small vial from her pocket and let two drops sink into the master’s food. Fanning it with her hand, she replaced the vial in her dress.
A faint scent came to her, tickled her memory. Scarlet wanted to ask but changed her mind. Questions weren’t part of her duties.
As though the old woman had read her mind, she nodded gravely. “It’s something the physician gave, it’ll keep the master strong. Two drops, never less, never more. Something to do with a special thing…mi-ne-ral, I think.” She struggled with the strange word.
Scarlet had never heard of it. She took the tray, balancing it expertly in one hand. “Is there a quicker way to his chamber?”
As if the question pleased Ute to the highest degree, she nodded. “Quick brain too, I’m glad to notice. Their blood may have been better than ours, but they didn’t seem to have much in coin in their purse.” Ute pointed to her temple with a gnarled index finger. “None of the others before you even thought of asking if there was a quicker way. And, yes, there is, a way us servants use. Come.”
How many others had there been before her, exactly? Scarlet swallowed hard but kept her mouth shut.
Right turn at the kitchen, down a corridor with a blue carpet, up three steps and left into a low-hanging alcove. This time, Scarlet would remember this route. The door to the tower was there. The tray in one hand, she slipped the key out of her pocket and slid it smoothly in the keyhole. This thing would be a trifle to pick. Barely four or five rings inside the mechanism. Scarlet’s practiced eye never missed a detail on any lock. There wasn’t a one she couldn’t pick.
“You’ve good hands from what I can see. So, what is it you used to do, girlie?”
“Tried my best not to starve,” replied Scarlet while avoiding the astute old woman’s eyes.
A soft chuckle warmed her heart. “Don’t we all. Did the mistress tell you about the master’s condition?”
Scarlet shook her head, knowing when to speak and when not to.
“Sun’s his nemesis. Any kind of light, for that matter. His eyes are too pale to sustain any direct light. God knows he used to, out and about and as fit as a fiddle, back before his illness took over. He was always a tad different, mind you. But just you make sure to keep the lamp out of his face. Master Lothar said it could kill him. You hear?”
Killed by light. People were usually killed by darkness, or by not knowing how to handle it. Strange illness.
“I’ll make sure the light is down low.” She lowered the cap even farther on the lamp, shielding most of the light behind the copper plate.
“Good girl.”
After the old woman had left, Scarlet took to the steps briskly, tray in one hand over her head, lamp clutched in her other, which she kept soft so the light wouldn’t bounce around and make her misjudge a step. After she reached the cleated door, she noiselessly pushed it in and poked her head in the opening.
In the large bed lay her charge, long pale hair spilled onto dark pillows. He was much taller and wider of shoulder than she would’ve thought for a frail old man. Without a sound, she placed the lamp on the floor, padded to the table and deposited the tray there.
Through one of the narrow windows in the walls, a sliver of dawn light cut in at an angle. Despite the near darkness, she could spot something peculiar about the rug covering the portion of the room closer to the bed. A worn, narrow path in a semicircle went from one side of the room to the other. Like the curve of a bow.
Shrugging, Scarlet arranged the cutlery and teapot for her patient. She wasn’t exactly sure how incapacitated he was, but she preferred to err on the side of caution. She depended on his good graces—and the lady’s—to gather enough coins for her new life. Maybe she could even buy a small farm and grow—
A small metallic clink alerted her keen senses. She whirled around, one hand going reflexively for the fork.
“Servants usually knock before they enter my room.”
His voice floated in from the gloom like the rustle of drapes in a breeze. In a corner, she spotted a tall, dark form slowly approaching. It came closer until she could make out a head and wide shoulders. He stepped into the sliver of dawn light with the eerie silence of a ghost ship gliding into port.
Scarlet tightened her fist around the fork as the man drew nearer. She could see very straight white hair that came down just above his square shoulders, through the long bangs a pale, high brow, white eyebrows, a long and narrow nose and…
Eyes the color of blood.
Scarlet swallowed discreetly, drawing on a life spent on the streets of Amsterdam to help keep her wits about her. Primal alarm twisted her insides. This was no time to show fear or doubt, for this man would sense it right away. She could recognize a predator when she spotted one, and this man was one.
So this was to be her patient. Not the frail old man she’d expected. In his thirties, if she’d have to guess, although his eyes were much, much too old for the rest of him, with skin so pale as to appear white and standing a good two hands above her. He wore a high-collared black tunic, which hugged his lean frame and came down to the floor. A row of buttons like a string of silver pearls went from his neck to between his feet.
Scarlet gritted her teeth, forced her face into an impassive mask. “I didn’t want to disturb you.” Lying came so easily to her.
“Are you going to stab me with my own cutlery?” His Dutch was much more accented than the lady’s or even Lothar’s. Rs rolled in the master’s mouth.
“If you have wicked intentions toward me, yes, I’ll stab you with whatever I have.” Scarlet forced herself not to wince at her abruptness.
A
row of pearly teeth flashed when he grinned. The smile was so fleeting she could have imagined the whole thing. “Fair warning,” he replied. The velvet tunic rustled softly when he moved. Now that she could study his chest closely, the buttons holding the tunic together were in the image of a snarling wolf’s face.
Scarlet slowly, cautiously, set the fork by the plate. “Your food, it’s growing cold…Master…Sire. Sir.”
His strange gaze scanned her from head to hem. Scarlet resisted the urge to squirm.
After a while, he cocked his head to the side, clearly gauging her. “My cousin really outdid herself this time. You almost sound real.”
“Almost sound real?” she blurted out.
If her tone bothered him, he didn’t let it show. Another small step brought him a mere hand from her. Though she was no short thing herself, she had to look up, way up, to meet his gaze. Her heart gave a great thud. There was something unnatural about his eyes. Apart from the color…
Sweat clammed her hands. Scarlet wanted to run away as fast as she could but couldn’t break the strange moment of them facing each other. She should run. Right now. Flee. This was too much for a single day. If Lothar had elicited a reaction from her body, this man here took the prize. It was all she could do not to faint dead on the floor. By God, he was beautiful in a ghostlike, eerie way. And he was very, very dangerous.
“What’s in it?”
“Ute prepared it, Master, I didn’t. Smelled like eggs and ham, though.” Her stomach used the silence to let its presence be heard.
A white eyebrow arched but he said nothing. Without warning, he leaned into her and kissed her.
Her first reaction was panic. Scarlet almost kneed him and ran. Almost.
This sort of thing had been done to her before. Men always seemed to think they could get away with it. Scarlet closed her eyes. It was all about control, she knew. This one was wrestling control away from her, using his intimidating appearance to frighten her into submission. Werner had tried to cow her as well, only it hadn’t worked. And it wouldn’t now.
Wolfsbane Page 3
