Ravensclaw (3 page)

A woman with chestnut hair, wearing a sleeveless, richly embroidered jacket of fine white lambskin, a skirt woven in strips of light and dark red wool. Around her waist, an ornamental belt of different-colored wool interwoven with golden threads. Heavy wool stockings striped white and red and black.

“Tradator! Nelegiuit!” She backed away from him, making the sign against the evil eye.

…

Ravensclaw looked startled. Emily jerked her hand away.

An ape’s an ape, a varlet’s a varlet, though they be clad in
silk and scarlet.

(Romanian proverb)

Thunder rumbled through the heavens. Raindrops rattled against the window glass. Emily slept fitfully.

…

Moonlight cast eerie silver shadows through the dense wild forest. She slipped out of the small cottage that nestled among the tall spruce trees. He was waiting in the mountaintop meadow where aromatic grasses and flowers grew.

“I hunger. Let me taste you.” He spread out his dark cloak.

She steeled herself against him. “I know what you are.”

He reached out his hand to her. “As I know what you are, iubita.”

She moved closer to him, closer, unaware that she had moved at all. “You do?”

Cool fingers slid through her hair to the nape of her neck. “It is a matter of scent.”

His eyes were blue as the ocean’s depths. She whispered, “Scent?”

“You smell of garlic.” He lowered his lips to her throat. His teeth found her pulse. Sensation flooded her senses, an intoxicating warmth—

…

Emily surfaced slowly from the depths of slumber, a heavy weight on her chest, the metallic taste of blood bitter in her mouth.

She had bitten her own lip. Emily touched it with her tongue. Found herself wondering, shockingly, if Ravensclaw would like the flavor of her blood.

Don’t think of that, you pumpkin-brain! You must find the athame.

Warily, Emily opened one eye. She had read of incubi, that special class of demons who squatted on the breasts of sleeping women and made them long for things unimaginable in the practical light of day.

No incubus perched atop her chest, but Machka. They were almost nose to nose. The cat’s whiskers tickled. After a moment’s slit-eyed contemplation, Machka butted her head against Emily’s chin and began to knead her neck.

Gingerly, Emily patted the creature. She hoped her necklace of talismans would prove effective against whatever Machka was. They weren’t protecting her against the sharp claws that pricked her throat.

She turned her head on the pillow. The small cell-like stone room was simply furnished, her bed a straw-filled canvas mattress placed upon wooden slats. Easy to imagine an archer standing at the narrow vertical window, firing his arrows down on the enemy below.

The warped door creaked open. A maidservant bustled into the room. “Good morning, miss. I’ve brought your chocolate. Ah, the naughty
pisica!”
She scooted a hissing Machka off the bed.

Maidservant? The woman more closely resembled a tavern wench, brown-haired and buxom, with a fine color in her cheeks and plump pouting lips. Emily pulled herself into a sitting position. “What is your name? I didn’t see you yesterday.”

“Zizi, miss.” The servant set down her tray, on which rested a pot of chocolate and a plate of biscuits. “There’s three of us, not counting old Isidore.”

Emily reached for the chocolate pot. Here was a perfect opportunity to learn more about her enigmatic host. “Have you worked for the Count long?”

Zizi scooped up Machka, who was inching toward the biscuits. “As long as I can recall.”

Glamour,
Emily decided. Although Zizi, as opposed to being pale and wan as befit an undead’s victim, was awesomely robust. Nor were there any fang marks on the startling amount of creamy neck and bosom that were on display. “Indeed?”

“As near as makes no difference.” Cat tucked under one arm, Zizi began to tidy up the room. “Ravensclaw treats his people well. None of us would want to work elsewhere.”

They wouldn’t, would they, if Ravensclaw had bespelled them? It was only sensible of the Count to have servants do his bidding during the daylight hours when he couldn’t be abroad. By means of the glamour
,
he blinded them to the knowledge that he was a bloodsucking fiend so foul no mortal could gaze upon his true form without being driven insane—

Insane with lust.
Perdition! No incubus had sent that dream.

Zizi was still talking. “Himself says that as soon as you’re ready, we’ll leave for Edinburgh.”

Emily glanced at the bright light streaming through the window. “Himself?”

 “The master.” Machka growled. Zizi set the cat ungently on the floor. “Will you need help dressing, miss?”

“Thank you,” Emily said, “but no.” Zizi closed the door behind her. Machka leapt on the bed, raised one back leg, and began to lick herself.

Leaving the cat to its ablutions, Emily swung her bare feet down to the cold floor. After a quick visit to the corner basin stand, she pulled off her nightrail, folded it neatly and placed it in the valise that Isidore had found abandoned at the bottom of the broken stone stair. She shook out her wrinkled gown, struggled into it, and set out in search of the Count. Machka jumped down from the bed to trail at her heels.

Ravensclaw was in the Lady’s Chamber, Drogo dozing at his feet. The Count had dressed for traveling in fawn breeches that clung to his muscular thighs, snowy linen, a superbly cut brown coat, and glossy boots. His auburn hair was drawn back and tied at his nape.

He rose to greet her, a slender volume in one hand. “I am reading a formula for the manufacture and use of a magic carpet. A virgin is required.”

Emily narrowed her eyes at him. Did not the undead, at the break of day, take refuge in their tombs? “
I
have read that one may vanish a nosferatu by stuffing his left sock with graveyard dirt and cemetery rocks, then tossing it into water flowing away from the area one seeks to protect. Supposedly, the demised may be controlled by the use of spiritwood and rum.”

Ravensclaw awarded her his bewitching smile. “One needs to be naked during that particular ritual, I believe.”

Wonderful. Now I’m thinking of him naked.
“Alternately one might make a stake of ash, hawthorn, or maple and pound it into the corpse, put garlic in its mouth, and pound a nail in its head. Remove the heart and halve it. Incinerate the decapitated body and throw the ashes to the wind.” Any of which, Emily admitted, would be a great pity in the present case. “You have a reflection. I saw it in the window yesterday.”

“Why would I not have a reflection?” Ravensclaw replaced the book on its shelf. “I assure you that I am quite corporeal.”

He was entirely too corporeal for her peace of mind. “I understand we are to go to Edinburgh.”

“Is that not what you wanted?” Ravensclaw inquired politely. Drogo opened one yellow eye.

“What I
want,
” retorted Emily, “is to be able to travel without the annoying restrictions placed on females.” Curiosity got the best of her. “Tell me, does a sanguisurge discriminate between male and female blood?”

“The undead are amphierotic,” Ravensclaw informed her. “Umbivalent, that is. I know this due to my vast reading, you understand.”

Amphierotic? Umbivalent? “Are you mocking me?” Emily asked.

“No, Miss Dinwiddie, I am enjoying you. It is a very different thing.” Ravensclaw scratched Drogo’s head. The wolf parted his great jaws and yawned.

Enjoying her, was he? Emily wished she might say the same. “Speaking of Edinburgh, how do you plan to transport your, ah, resting place?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are a very exasperating young woman? Come with me.” Ravensclaw indicated a doorway in the far wall.

He stepped aside. Emily entered the adjacent, smaller room. She was no longer surprised to see antique furnishings and tapestries and colorful wool rugs. Never, however, had she seen anything like the canopied bed that dominated the chamber, its headboard and posts elaborately carved with figures in bas-relief. Behind her, Ravensclaw said,
“This
is where I sleep.” His husky tones evoked erotic scenarios played out on the fur coverlet and linen sheets.

Cheeks burning, Emily bent to peer beneath the bed. She saw not a speck of dust or dirt. “I thought revenants couldn’t go far from their native soil.”

“I don’t know about revenants, but I can go anywhere I please.” The Count’s amused voice came from the vicinity of her upthrust rump.

Hastily, Emily righted herself. “And can you cross running water, my lord?”

“I swim,” he informed her. “I also bathe.”

She wouldn’t, she absolutely wouldn’t, think of Ravensclaw bathing. Emily squinted at an ornate bedpost. Carved figures sat face to face, heels locked around each other’s waists, their nether parts—
Oh, my.

“Miss Dinwiddie?” inquired the Count. “I believe you are anxious to depart for Edinburgh?”

Miss Dinwiddie was anxious to depart Ravensclaw’s bedchamber before she took leave of her remaining senses and dragged him down with her on that wicked bed, there to determine what was possible and what was not. Emily stalked out of the room with all the dignity at her command. In the Lady’s Chamber, with the air of a magician, the Count produced her umbrella and cloak before he escorted her outside.

A closed carriage waited in the courtyard, on its doors emblazoned a coat of arms. Emily turned to watch Ravensclaw follow her out into the sunlight. He wore a pair of small, dark, round-lensed spectacles. Despite his assurances, she half expected him to burst into flames or crumble into dust.

He held out his hand to her. Ignoring his offer of assistance, Emily climbed unaided into the crimson-upholstered coach.

Drogo took up most of the floor space; Machka, one bench seat. Grumbling, the cat moved aside, then arranged herself on Emily’s lap.

Closing the door behind him, Ravensclaw settled on the seat opposite. The coach dipped as Isidore climbed up onto the box. Emily hoped the old man had sufficient strength to control the team. Zizi and the other servants were to follow with the luggage in a less conspicuous vehicle. Emily wondered where all this equipment had been kept, and what else might be hidden in the castle ruins.

The carriage lurched forward, rattled under the rusted portcullis with its wicked-looking spikes, over an ancient drawbridge that looked incapable of bearing its weight. Emily threaded her fingers through Machka’s soft fur. Among the carriage’s amenities were locking shutters, a compass, silver-plated furnishings, and three lamps. Not for Ravensclaw, the indignities of traveling on a common stage alongside a matron with several squalling offspring, a parson, and several unhappily caged chickens. Emily had been happy to part company with her fellow passengers in Morpeth.

And now here she was. Emily had ridden in a closed carriage before, of course, but those previous excursions had in no way prepared her to share a small intimate space with Ravensclaw. The dead-alive were said to be of a seductive nature, and in this instance at least the literature was correct.

She was not alone with him, exactly. Drogo’s weight was warm against her feet and Machka’s claws pricked her thigh. And, unless Emily wanted to be remembered as the Dinwiddie who had let the genie out of its bottle, she must keep her wits about her and find that which was lost.

Stolen, rather. Emily thought of her intrepid ancestress Isobella. Isobella would have known what to say to the seductive stranger who lounged on the seat opposite. And what to do with him as well. The d’Auvergne athame wasn’t the only thing that particular Dinwiddie had stolen during her adventurous career.

Emily was not like Isobella. She stole neither artifacts nor hearts, didn’t dally with other women’s husbands, and hopefully wouldn’t drink poison at the end, which admittedly seemed an unlikely last act for a freckled, bespectacled spinster with frizzy masses of rebellious orange hair.

The silence was unbearable. Emily cleared her throat. “Is it true, my lord, that your kind can change shapes at will? Make yourselves invisible? Can you truly fly?”

He had been gazing out his window. Now the dark-lensed spectacles turned to her. “You remind me of a terrier with a rat, Miss Dinwiddie. The dog sinks its teeth into its prey and refuses to let go until the rodent’s neck is broken.”

Emily, for some odd reason, found herself in the mood for a good quarrel. “Are you comparing yourself to a rat?”

“No, little one. Nor am I comparing you to a cur.” Ravensclaw stretched out his long legs until one muscular calf rested against her skirts. “Loathe as I am to disappoint you, I’m not what you think. But I
am
something of an expert on supermundane matters, due to my extensive reading — I especially enjoyed
On the Masticating Dead in their Tomb
(1728), which puts forth the notion that having a virgin boy ride naked bareback on a virgin stallion will point the way to an inanimate’s resting place — and consider it most unlikely that any being can crawl headfirst down a castle wall, or turn himself into a wisp of fog.”

Maybe not, but he could turn her into a pudding. Emily found it difficult to gaze on the man —
the aberration!
— and retain possession of her wits. Proof, her papa would have pointed out, had he been privileged to be present, that the female constitution was unsuited to explorations of the extramundane.

She would prove him wrong. She
must
prove him wrong. “Tell me, why are you accompanying me to Edinburgh when you refuse to take me seriously, my lord?”

Ravensclaw reached over and plucked Machka from her lap. “Because you are a very reckless young woman, Miss Dinwiddie. And I possess a more chivalrous nature than I had previously understood.”