by Rhys Bowen
“Interesting,” I said. “The history of this whole area is fascinating, don’t you think?”
“One long disaster,” Siegfried said. “One long history of being overrun by barbarians from the East. Let us hope that Western European civility will finally bring peace and prosperity to these war-torn lands.” He looked around again as he spoke. “I really feel that I should at least go up to the sick man’s bedroom to make sure that he has all he needs.”
He was about to leave. I did the unthinkable. “Oh, no, dance with me, please.” And I took his hand and led him onto the floor.
“Lady Georgiana!” His pale face was flushed, apparently affronted by my boldness. “Very well, if you insist.”
“Oh, I do. I do,” I said with great enthusiasm.
He placed one hand upon my waist and took the other in his. His hand felt cold and damp, rather like clutching a fish. So my decision to dub him Fishface had been quite accurate. It wasn’t just his face that was fishy. I forced my mouth into a bright smile as we glided around the floor.
“So,” he said, “can one assume that you have finally come to your senses? You have seen the light, ja? Realized the truth about the situation?”
What situation was he talking about? Did he know something about Pirin’s murder? Had he arranged for it? Or was he talking about vampires, by any chance? He wanted to know whether I had discovered the horrid truth about his family. I had to tread carefully. I was, after all, a guest in a snowed-in castle, with the telephone lines down and miles from any kind of help except for Darcy and Belinda.
“What situation is this, Highness?” I asked.
“You have realized that it is important for you to follow your family’s wishes and make the correct match. You understand the importance of duty.”
What exactly was he talking about? Then he went on and light dawned.
“Of course I realize that ours would be a marriage of convenience, like so many royal marriages, but you would find me a considerate husband. I would allow you much freedom, and I think you would have a pleasant life as my princess.”
The words “not if you were the last man on earth” were screaming through my head, but I couldn’t let him stomp off to find Pirin, could I?
“Highness, I am flattered that you even consider me as your bride when there are many ladies present of higher status than I. Surely Princess Hannelore would be a better match for you—a fellow German and a princess, not just a relative of the royal family.”
“Ah,” he said, his face clouding. “She would, of course, have been an excellent choice, but she has let it be known that she does not wish to settle down yet.”
She’s turned him down, I thought, trying not to smile. Good old Hannelore!
“She is very young,” I said tactfully. “She may wish to experience life a little before she takes on the responsibilities of royalty.”
Siegfried sniffed. “This I find ridiculous. Girls of her station marry at eighteen all the time. It is not good to let them have too much freedom and to become too worldly. Look at my sister. She was allowed to spend a year in Paris and now—” He broke off, checked himself then said, “At least she too has come to her senses. She realizes where her duty lies and has made an excellent match.”
At the edge of the dance floor I saw Belinda’s face light up and realized that Anton had rejoined the crowd. So had Nicholas. But there was no sign of Darcy. The music ended to polite applause. Siegfried clicked his heels to me. “I enjoyed our dance and our little talk, Lady Georgiana. Or now I shall call you simply by your first name, and you may call me Siegfried when we are in private. In public I still expect you to call me ‘sir’ or ‘highness’ of course.”
“Of course, sir,” I replied. “Oh, look, Prince Nicholas has returned. I wonder if he has news about the patient.”
Luckily Siegfried took the hint and strode over to Prince Nicholas. I saw the latter gesturing and explaining, presumably preventing Siegfried from taking a look at the patient for himself. Belinda and Anton passed close to me.
“You and Siegfried looked awfully pally,” she muttered. “If you’re trying to make Darcy jealous, it’s not going to work. I gather he’s sitting at Pirin’s bedside all night.”
“That’s as pally as I ever plan to get with Siegfried,” I said. “Let’s just say that I did it for a good cause.”
I looked around the room, my head suddenly spinning with the conversation and bright lights and the whole strain of the evening. If Darcy was spending the night playing guard to Pirin, then there was no point in my staying awake. Suddenly all I wanted was to be quiet and safe and away from danger. I slipped away unnoticed and made my way up to my bedroom. There was no sign of Queenie, which didn’t surprise me. She was probably snoring by now. I checked the window to make sure the shutters were fastened securely from the inside. I even opened the wardrobe and, after several deep breaths, the chest, and, satisfied that I was the only person in the room, I pushed a heavy chair against the door and undressed. But I was loath to turn the light off. Did vampires come through walls, I wondered; or through locked shutters? Anything that could crawl up that castle wall could probably do a lot of improbable things. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up around me. The fire still glowed in the fireplace but had done little to take the chill off the room. I couldn’t close my eyes. I kept checking first one corner then the next, seeing those faces glaring down from the molding and the corners of the wardrobe, and then my gaze drifting to that chest.
“You are letting your imagination run away with you,” I told myself. “There is a good explanation for all of this, I’m sure. It’s an ordinary room and you are quite safe and—”
I broke off and sat up suddenly. There was now a completely different portrait hanging on the wall.
Chapter 19
Night in the chamber of horrors, Bran Castle
Thursday, November 17
Instead of the attractive and rakish young man there was now a different face staring down at me. This one looked as if it came from an earlier time, with a stylized royal sneer, not unlike Siegfried’s, a high collar and a velvet hat like a powder puff perched on his head. I got out of bed to examine it more closely. The paint was cracked and lined like in so many old paintings. That’s when I realized something about the other picture—the paint had been daubed on, in the manner of more recent art. And there was something about the freedom of the strokes that indicated French impressionists or later. It had been a relatively new painting.
I lay in bed, trying not to look at the supercilious stare of the man in the portrait, and tried to calm my racing thoughts. Too much had happened since I set out from London. There had been the man watching me on the train, the man who had tried to come into my compartment. Then that same feeling of being watched on the station platform. Then the creature crawling up the wall, the young man from the portrait bending down over my bed, his teeth bared, Matty with blood running down her chin and now a dead field marshal. Miss Deer-Harte had called it a house of horrors and it seemed she wasn’t wrong. But how did they link together? What possible reason could someone want for following me on a train? If the place was really populated with vampires, why kill someone with poison? Nothing made sense. I curled up into a little ball and wished I had never come. I also wished I knew which room was Field Marshal Pirin’s because Darcy was there and all I wanted was his reassuring arms around me. It did cross my mind to wonder what he was doing here. Had Nicholas really invited him to be part of his wedding party or had he pulled off another spectacular wedding crash? After all, when I first met him he had dragged me to crash an important society wedding and he made it clear that he did this kind of thing on a regular basis. It was his way of ensuring that he had a good meal once a week, and, I suspect, he liked the thrill of it too.
At last exhaustion overcame me and I must have drifted off to sleep because I awoke to an almighty crash, and not of a wedding. I leaped out of bed so fast I almost levitated, instantly awak
e and regretting that I hadn’t slept with the candlestick beside me this night. All I could make out from the glow of the fire was a large, bulky figure in white, standing just inside my door.
“Who’s there?” I demanded, trying to sound fierce and confident and realizing that whoever it was stood between me and the light switch.
Then a voice said, “Sorry, miss.”
“Queenie?” I said, anger taking over from fear. “What on earth are you doing? If you came to undress me, you’re about two hours too late.”
“I wouldn’t have disturbed you, miss, and I didn’t mean to knock anything over,” she said, “but I had to come down to you. There’s a man in my room.”
“At any other time I would have said that was wishful thinking,” I said.
“No, miss, honest truth. I woke up and he was just standing there, inside my door. I was that scared, miss, I didn’t dare move.”
“What did he do?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
“Nothing. Just stood there, as if he was listening. Then I must have given a little gasp, because he turned and looked at me, then he opened the door and crept out, just like that. I came straight down to you, miss. I ain’t going back in there for nothing.” She had come over to the bed by now and was standing beside me, a rather terrifying figure in her own right in a voluminous flannel nightgown, her hair in curling papers. “You do believe me, don’t you, miss?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” I said. “I also had a man in my room last night.” And a man had just been killed tonight, I didn’t add. Was a stranger in the castle, attempting to hide out in the servants’ quarters, or was it the resident vampire, who drifted around as he pleased?
Suddenly I decided that I was angry. I was not going to be a timid little mouse any longer. My Rannoch ancestors wouldn’t have run away just because of a few vampires. They would have gone to find the nearest wooden stake, or at least a clove of garlic.
“Come on, Queenie,” I said. “We’re going back up to your room. We’re going to get to the bottom of this right now.”
With that I wrapped my fur stole around me and stepped out into the corridor.
“Lead on, Macduff,” I said.
Queenie looked confused. “My name’s ’eppelwhite, miss,” she said.
“It’s from the play we don’t name,” I said, quoting my mother, the actress. “Never mind. Come on. If we hurry we may catch him. Did you get a good look at him?”
“Sort of,” she said. “The shutter doesn’t close properly and the moon was actually shining in through my window. He was young, fair haired, thin.” She paused. “That’s about it, really. I couldn’t see his face. But there’s no point in going back up there now, is there? By the time I left my room he’d gone. And I didn’t spot no one on the way down ’ere.”
“We’ll check it out, just in case,” I said and strode down the hall so fast she had to run to keep up with me. Up a long and winding stair we went, round and round until we came out into what had to be one of the towers. Cold silvery moonlight filtered past the shutters, creating strange dark shadows. I have to confess that I was already feeling less brave than I had been in my room. When I saw the shadow of a man standing behind a pillar, my heart almost leaped into my mouth until Queenie said, “It’s another of those suits of armor, miss. It nearly scared the pants off me the first time too.”
“I was just being cautious,” I said and tried to walk past it nonchalantly. It wasn’t easy to do, with the empty eye slits in that visor staring at me. I could have sworn those eyes followed me. We reached Queenie’s room, and I flung open the door and turned the light on. It was, as she had described it, spartan in the extreme. A narrow cotlike bed, two shelves, a hook on the wall and an old-fashioned washstand. Not even a jolly picture on the wall to cheer things up.
“Well, there’s certainly nowhere to hide in here,” I said. “And I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to come in here, either.”
“Me neither, miss. Unless he was just ducking in here because he didn’t want to be seen.”
“Queenie, you’re surprisingly bright sometimes,” I said.
“Really, miss?” She sounded surprised. “My old dad says I must have been twins because one couldn’t be so daft.”
I went across to her window, opened the single shutter and looked out. Moonlight had turned the snow into a magical scene—deep and crisp and even sprang to mind. The only sound was the sigh of the wind around the turrets, then I thought I detected from far away a howl. It was answered by another howl, close by, this time. And I thought I saw a wolf slinking into the forest.
Of course my mind went straight to werewolves. If vampires appeared to really exist, then why not other creatures of the underworld? This was, after all, Transylvania. Was it in any way possible that the man Queenie had just encountered had now climbed down the castle wall and transformed himself into his wolf form? Or did that only happen at the full moon? The sensible part of me, that sound Scottish upbringing, was saying “rubbish” very loudly in my head, but on a night like this, in a place like this, I was prepared to believe anything.
As I leaned out farther and looked around I saw something snakelike and gleaming in the moonlight, dancing close to me with a life of its own. I leaped back until I realized that it was only a rope, hanging down the wall. If someone had climbed up here, he had been aided and abetted by a person already in the castle. And if someone had entered this way, he had gone again.
“You’re right, Queenie. There is no sense in standing around getting cold,” I said. “I’m sure your mystery man is long gone. I’m going back to bed.”
“Can’t I come with you, miss?” She grabbed at my nightie sleeve. “I can’t sleep up here, all alone, after what happened. I know I wouldn’t sleep a wink. Honest.”
“You want to come downstairs to my room, with me?”
“Yes, please, miss. I’ll just sit on the rug by the fire if you like. I don’t care. I just don’t fancy being alone.”
I was about to say that it simply wasn’t done but she looked as white as a sheet, and I wasn’t feeling too steady myself.
“Oh, very well,” I said, not wanting to admit that I too was grateful for the company. “I suppose I can make an exception this once. Come on, then.”
We retreated back to my room, encountering nobody along the way. Once in my room I got into bed. Queenie sat dutifully on the hearth rug, hugging her knees to her chest, giving a good imitation of Cinderella. My kind heart won out over every ounce of my upbringing. “Queenie, there is actually plenty of room in this bed. Come on, you’ll freeze sitting there.”
Gratefully she climbed into bed beside me. I found the warmth of another body beside me comforting and fell asleep.
Chapter 20
Bran Castle
Friday, November 18
I was awoken by the blaring of horns. It was the sort of sound I associated with an army going into battle or alerting a castle’s occupants to the enemy’s advance and it caused me to leap out of bed. I didn’t think that conquering armies showed up unannounced these days in central Europe, but one never knew and I didn’t want to be caught in my night attire. I fumbled with the shutters, which had iced up, and flung them open just in time to see a procession of big black motorcars flying royal standards crawling up the snowy ramp to the castle. Heralds were standing on the battlements blowing on long, straight horns. The pass must have opened and the kings and queens had arrived.
I closed the shutters hastily to keep out the bitter chill and decided that morning tea would be welcome before I had to be presented to visiting royalty. It was quite light and surely tea should have arrived by now. . . . That was when I remembered Queenie. I looked back at my bed where Queenie still lay blissfully sleeping, mouth open. It was not a pretty sight.
“Queenie!” I yelled, standing over her.
She opened her eyes and gave me a vague smile. “Oh, ’ello, miss.”
“The royal party has just arr
ived. I should be ready and dressed to be presented. Oh, and I’d like my morning tea. So up you get.”
She sat up slowly, yawning her head off. “Right you are, miss,” she said, not moving.
“Now, Queenie.”
With that she staggered to her feet, then looked down at herself. “Lawks, miss, I can’t go walking around in me nightie, can I? What would people say? I wouldn’t half get an earful!”
“No, I don’t suppose that would be an acceptable thing to do, but I don’t have a robe I can lend you. Because you didn’t pack me one.” I opened my wardrobe. “Here, you’d better have my overcoat. Bring it back when you come up with my morning tea.”
She paused at my doorway. “This tea bit. What am I supposed to do?”
“Go to the kitchen, tell them you’ve come for Lady Georgiana’s tea tray and carry it up to my room. Now, is that too hard?”
She frowned. “Okay, bob’s yer uncle, miss.” And with that she sauntered out. That girl will have to go, I thought. Thank heavens I hadn’t taken her on for the long term.
I decided not to count on help with my morning toilet, so I was washed and dressed by the time she reappeared, red faced and panting, carrying my tea tray. “There ain’t half a lot of stairs in this place, miss,” she said. “Oh, and there was a bloke asking after you.”
“What kind of bloke?”
“Ever so handsome, miss. Dark hair and he spoke proper English too. Not like one of them wogs.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said it was about time you roused yourself and he was waiting for you in the breakfast room.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks going pink. “Then I’d better get straight down there, hadn’t I?”
“ ’Ere, what about the tea what I just brought up for you?” Queenie demanded.
“You drink it,” I said. “Oh, and my shoes need polishing.”
With that I ran down the hallway. One of these days I’d better learn to be masterful with servants. Lady Middlesex was quite right. Not that I thought that Queenie would ever learn.
