The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (23 page)

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Although he seemed to be aiming for lightness, the grim element to his voice hadn’t gone. It struck me that I’d been right in my first impression of him—he really was dangerous, and in ways I hadn’t thought of then and wasn’t sure I understood now.

“Try me,” I said, seizing his wrist and staring up into his dark face, deeply shadowed in the pale glow of the candle flame. His scar shone white, shifting with every tiny movement of his face as if it were independently alive. I tightened my fingers. “Zsigmund, we need to trust each other.”

Something changed in his eyes. His hand twisted to take mine. “I know,” he said softly. “We’ll talk, I promise you. But first, I need to keep you safe.”

He pushed open our bedroom door and led me inside, kicking the door shut behind us.

The dreadful fears and doubts, the illness I’d experienced here so recently seemed unreal now. “Were you here before?” I blurted as he gently pushed me to sit on the bed.

“You were fevered,” he said, “talking to yourself. I had to stop him. I didn’t expect you to follow me. And now you’re cold. Where is that nightgown?”

It wasn’t exactly as I’d planned my nakedness with him that night. He removed my robe with hardly a glance at the body within; he seemed, in fact, more concerned with covering it up again in my voluminous nightgown. Only when he eased me down onto the pillows and pulled the covers over me did I realise I really had been cold. He smoothed my brow with his own warm hand.

“Sleep, Caroline,” he said softly.

“I don’t want to sleep. There are things I need to tell you, things I need to know...” But the world was weighing down on me, heavy and yet no longer frightening because he was there beside me, holding my hand.

“I know,” he murmured. “I know. Just let yourself sleep. I’ll be here to keep you safe.”

“Safe,” I repeated, as my eyes fluttered shut. I opened them again. “Where is the book?”

“Where it should be,” he said. And certainly the fire seemed to be burning brighter again.

“Gizella said it should be burned...” My eyes were closed again, but my hand was still in his. His person, his very scent surrounded me. I didn’t care what he was or had been; I didn’t care what he’d done.
I love you, Zsigmund. I love you so much...

W
hen I woke to daylight, he still sat in the chair by my bed, his head back, resting against the wing, his eyes closed. A lock of his wild black hair fell rather endearingly over his cheek. The lines of a frown marred his brow, so for a moment, I thought he was awake. But his breathing was too deep, too even. It was, I thought ruefully, a troubled and uncomfortable sleep. I wished he’d lain in the bed with me. I wished I’d invited him before I fell asleep so selfishly.

The strange events of last night lurked in my mind like a dream. Some of it at least had been real, or Zsigmund would not have been sitting here, guarding my sleep. My heart turned over. He cared for me; I couldn’t doubt that. And we needed to stand together to face whatever was wrong in this house. Zsigmund and Gabor seemed to blame each other. Ilona, through Barbara...

This was where I came to grief. In the bright, prosaic light of day, I couldn’t quite believe in Ilona’s and Barbara’s presence. I wondered if I’d been drugged, or if it was simply my tired, confused mind’s way of trying to work things out, with the comfort of a friend...only why pick on Barbara? I had much older friends...though none but her at home among the dead.

I rose from the bed, slightly dismayed by the immediate resurgence of discomfort in my stomach. I stilled for a moment, one hand still on the bed, willing the feeling away. It seemed to work, so I bent and dragged a blanket free of its fellows. Zsigmund didn’t wake as I tenderly covered him with it. Then, since I could hear people stirring in the house, I rang for Duclos.

By the time I went down to breakfast, ordering Duclos to leave with me, Zsigmund hadn’t stirred. I wished I could have lifted him onto the bed to let him sleep in comfort; the vision of Duclos and me trying to heave his large body around like a sack and startling him into highly uncomfortable wakefulness in the process made me smile as I descended the stairs.

In the dining room, as usual, I discovered only Gizella, who wished me a bright good morning.

“I did enjoy last night,” she enthused, spreading butter on her toast. “It’s lovely to see some life about the house again—and of course, you are a wonderful hostess!”

“I just order the servants and smile,” I said wryly. “It’s Zsigmund who carries it off.”

“He does love company,” Gizella said with affection. “Both his parents were the same.”

I sat down beside her, with my coffee and a bread roll. My stomach was rumbling, though I wasn’t at all sure I wanted food.

“Gizella,” I said into the silence after my first mouthful. “What did you mean when you said no one would dare rob this house?”

Her amiable gaze flickered. “Oh, I suppose we have a bit of a formidable reputation,” she said vaguely.

“For what? Temper?”

“Retaliation.”

“The count goes after any petty criminal who stands on his toes?”

“Oh, not the count! Such things are beneath him.”

I drew in my breath. “Gabor,” I said. “He has the reputation as the magician, the
garabonciás
.”

She gave an uncomfortable, almost apologetic shrug.

“Superstition,” I murmured, with not quite so much superiority as I wished for. After all, I thought I’d seen the ghost of Ilona; I thought I’d talked to her through Barbara Darke a thousand miles away. Several times.

“Superstition can be as dangerous as the real thing,” Gizella observed.

“Ilona...” Almost mechanically, I raised my cup and drank. “Gabor taught Ilona. That’s why Zsigmund quarrels with him. He blames Gabor for her death.” And, perhaps, for my appearance of illness last night, though surely my nerves and overtiredness were responsible for that...

“Well,” Gizella said doubtfully. “Without Gabor, her chances of coming in contact with such knowledge would not have been high. On the other hand, once she had an idea in her head, no one, not her husband or her father, not the count or Gabor could talk her out of doing what she wished. I don’t see how he can be blamed.”

“Zsigmund burned his book.”

“Good,” Gizella said. Abruptly, she stood. “Shopping today,” she murmured, walking purposefully to the door, where, however, she paused and glanced back at me. “All the same,” she said, “don’t let Zsigmund quarrel with Gabor.”

I had many questions about that, but before my mouth was properly open to ask them, she’d gone. An educated woman, a sceptic like me, who couldn’t quite shake off the insidious belief that it
could
be true? Again, like me.

Barbara, Barbara, I so need to talk to you... Is that why I keep imagining you?

Thoughtfully, I finished my roll and poured some more coffee while I planned what to do with my day. I would make things right with Zsigmund. Today, we would talk, bring everything into the open and move forward together. Gizella’s words gave me the idea of buying him a present, a token of my love which I would no longer deny.

And, I thought, with sudden decision, I would prove how little I regarded his past relationships by visiting Countess Narinyi; nothing would show more how little I feared her. Of course, I’d only stay ten minutes, but it would be enough to quell gossip and her own lingering pretensions.

Setting down my empty coffee cup, I stood and marched purposefully from the room. My first, if trivial, task had to be to remove the drawers presumably still lying on the music room floor. Unless Zsigmund had cleared them away already. I doubted it; I doubted such a thing would even enter his head. I smiled as I ran up the stairs and walked along to the music room.

Opening the door, I couldn’t help wondering if I would see Ilona again, or if I only conjured her up from darkness and my own tiredness. But when I saw the little pile of my undergarment on the floor by the piano, just where Zsigmund had dropped it, the inevitable, hot surge of memory drove everything else from my mind.

I bent and swept them up, stuffing them into the pocket of my gown. I’d had pockets sewn into all my day dresses for convenience, although this was hardly the sort of convenience I had foreseen.

Then I took a deep breath and looked around me. Almost reluctantly, I let go of my sensible shell and, as before, allowed the atmosphere of the room to seep into me. I walked slowly around the room, touching the piano keys, the mandolin, the stool where I’d first imagined Ilona. And because she’d seemed strongest in the bedroom, I made my way there, touching everything as I went, especially the yellow sofa where poor Matthias had died so suddenly and tragically.

Why did his ghost not haunt the place? Because he didn’t suffer the same guilt as Ilona? More likely because I identified with Ilona, the bride thrust into this madhouse twenty-five or so years ago. I had to believe she sprang from my mind rather than from a spirit lurking in the ether.

In the bedroom at last, I sat on the bed and took a deep breath.

“Barbara,” I said grimly, “talk me out of this. Tell me I’m insane. Better still, tell me nothing at all. Don’t speak to me.”

Then don’t speak to
me
.

I could imagine her saying it so clearly, it
might
have been real, but since she volunteered nothing else, I presumed it wasn’t.

I wasn’t tired enough to imagine ghosts right now, although I was conscious of the distinctive, soothingly happy atmosphere of the place...

She formed in front of me, so faint and transparent that I should have been able to blink her away. It didn’t work. I stared, and her lips moved, her face wavered.

“Dark is better,” Barbara’s voice said, like some distant echo in my head. “The connection is stronger then. We’ll talk tonight. But Ilona wants you to know she fears for Zsigmund and for you. You must be careful of everyone. She’s fearful of something like a conspiracy, though I’m not sure she grasps... This is too difficult... Tonight, Caroline.”

“Tonight,” I said hoarsely to the vanishing figure of Ilona. I thought she smiled. Perhaps Barbara had translated my promise of assignation.

Oh yes, I needed very badly to speak to Zsigmund, if only to confirm my sanity or lack of it. I wondered how he’d take to the idea of my addressing the ghost of his mother through the intercession of Barbara Darke.

****

A
lthough I had an interesting expedition around the shops of Vaci Street, I didn’t find anything that I wanted to give Zsigmund. I found several trinkets that I had pleasure in gazing at, and eventually found myself wavering between an elegant tiepin and a turquoise ring that somehow seemed to match Zsigmund’s dramatic personality.

Deciding on the ring, I had just turned towards the shop door when the revelation hit me a bit like a thunderbolt: buying him expensive gifts was hardly the way to mend our relationship. He didn’t have the money to reciprocate, and yet he would feel obliged to. Besides what true value did such a gift have? It came to me quite suddenly that simply embroidering a handkerchief for him would mean more because it was personal.

Abruptly, I swung around, away from the door and came face-to-face with a countenance I would never forget: dark, bearded, brutal, scarred, and ugly, it had looked out of the mist at me outside the Andrassy house. This was the man who had grabbed me.

For an instant, he froze, and I could see at once that he recognised me. A scared expression flitted across his eyes before the reddish lids came down and he slouched past me. Without thought, I began to follow him.

I’m not sure what I intended. The danger didn’t even enter my head until he glanced over his shoulder and saw me. Vaci Street was busy; he wouldn’t dare attack me here in broad daylight—would he? I kept coming.

“A word, if you please,” I said in my best Hungarian.

He swore under his breath. His shoulders hunched; he looked poised for flight like some hunted deer who knows his time is up but won’t give in.

He bolted, barrelling between a group of middle-aged gentlemen. I started after him, sidestepping the men in time to see my quarry vanishing around the first corner. By the time I reached it, I could no longer see him. But sense and self-preservation had returned by then. The man had meant me ill. Even with some kind of weapon—I had none—following him into backstreets to confront him was the height of folly.

My heart beat uncomfortably fast. Did he still mean me ill? Had he been
following
me? Or was he merely in Vaci Street to pick the pockets of the wealthy and come upon me by accident? I wished I’d had two stout footmen with me, who could have seized him for me and made him answer my questions.

Slowing my pace, I walked on, no longer seeing the enticing window displays as I passed. All the strange things that had happened to me since coming to Pest crowded in on me, much as they had last night, only without the strange, melancholic self-doubts which had amounted to sickness. This time, with rare clarity, it seemed to me they were all connected somehow; if not exactly centring on the strange soldier, then I was certain he could shed considerable light on these events.

Zsigmund, I thought. I would ask Zsigmund to find him and bring him to me...

And if he was acting for Zsigmund?

I refused to believe that. Whatever his feelings for me, however much he might regret our impulsive marriage, Zsigmund would never harm me. In my heart, I’d always known that.

Part of me wanted to rush home to him now, although, of course, there were no guarantees he’d be awake yet, if he’d been watching over me for most of the night. I decided to have lunch out and visit Countess Narinyi before returning home.

It struck me, as I settled on a respectable rather than a particularly fashionable establishment, that I needed this solitude among strangers, almost as I had in Lescloches, where I’d found the peace and the distance to grieve. Here, I needed these things to think.

Inevitably, I attracted a certain amount of attention, but by now my haughty and quelling expressions were quite practised enough to carry it off. I enjoyed a plain yet delicious meal, with spices I thought I might suggest to our own cook, and when I paid, I got them to summon me a hackney.