“I am widowed. My wife died several years ago.” He eyed me as I put my hands on my blazing cheeks. “If you are not a whore, as you claim you are not, then who are you?”
“I’m just me,” I said with a little frustrated gesture. “I’m a former secretary. I like photography and traveling, although I haven’t done much of either. I’m spending the summer in St. Andras with my cousin Gretl. And I don’t normally bite men, especially strange men, and really especially not men who are as handsome as you are. So no, I’m not a whore, although I admit that after what I did to you, you’d be justified in questioning that statement.” I couldn’t stop reliving the feel of his mouth on my neck. It was the most sensual thing I’d ever felt.
It will only get better.
I froze, a dull feeling of worry filling my gut. What had I done to myself that I was hearing voices?
“I told you that I enjoyed it. You will cease blushing over it. Who were you running from?”
“No one. At least, I don’t think I was.” I stopped worrying about having to go to the hospital for CAT scans and the like, and tried to remember what happened after I had fallen near the twisty light.
“Not near it…through it,” I said aloud, my eyes widening as the memory came flooding back to me of the daytime that had turned to night, of a dirt road where a paved one should have been, and of a carriage and horses looming up out of the night as I raced toward the town and safety.
A horrible, horrible idea started to dawn in the dim recesses of my brain, something so fantastic that I didn’t even want to consider it.
“Through what?” Nikola held out a hand for me, and without thinking, I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. I stared at him, my brain seizing up and refusing to process the idea.
“It was… I don’t know what it was. A big swirly thing in the middle of the woods. Made up of light. I know this is going to sound really odd, but what’s today’s date?”
“Woods? What wooded area? Near here?”
“I don’t know where here is, so I couldn’t say. It’s the place that all the people in St. Andras say is haunted. It’s like halfway up the hill to the ruined castle. You didn’t answer me about the date.”
“Andras Castle is not a ruin,” he said, his fingers still holding mine. “The east wing needs some repairs, but I will attend to them now that I have returned from settling my son at university in Heidelberg.”
The horrible idea my brain refused to cope with grew even stronger. “What’s the date?” I asked again, holding my breath against the answer.
He frowned. “Today? It is the twelfth of July.”
“And the year?”
His beautiful eyes, now back to pale, glacier blue, narrowed on me. “You do not know what year it is?”
“I thought I did, but I have a magnificently horrible feeling I’m going to be wrong. What year is it?”
“It is 1703.”
I closed my eyes for a second, my stomach lurching when the room spun. Nikola’s fingers tightened, pulling me toward him.
“Are you swooning?”
“No, just…oh, boy. You’re kidding, aren’t you? You’re playacting that it’s 1703? Or…or you’re with some reenactment group or living-history place, right?”
“I am not jesting, no,” he said, still frowning, and I could feel the truth of what he said.
“No. This is just…no. Impossible,” I said softly, slumping against him when my brain fought to find sanity in this madness. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“Nikola, not Houston. As for the problem you pose—” He eyed me again. “I foresee much inconvenience in my future until you leave, not the least of which is the fact that despite just feeding from you, I wish to do so again. I will not be dictated to in this fashion, do you understand? I am not at all pliant, nor will I allow you to twine me about your fingers! I will feed when I wish to feed, and nothing you can do will change that!”
I straightened up and stared at him, a beautiful, angry man, and wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into now. Whatever it was, he’d have an aneurysm if he didn’t calm down, and although his lack of anger management skills wasn’t my problem, I kind of liked him. I felt some sort of a need to help him, although heaven knew why when he was being as unhelpful as possible.
The temptation is too great. Distance is protection.
“OK, Mr. Brain, you can just stop doing that because I’m not taking you to a hospital right this second,” I said sternly to myself.
Nikola’s left eyebrow rose.
“Sorry. I don’t normally talk out loud to my brain, but it’s been doing weird things the last few minutes. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, I’m sorry if you think I’m twisting you around my little finger. I promise I’ll stop doing that, OK? I don’t know about feeding you, though. I’m not a very good cook, although I’ve been told my chicken spaghetti is pretty good. Feel better? Excellent. I think I need to go into town, though, because otherwise, I really am going to worry that I’ve gone insane, what with you telling me it’s 1703, and my brain thinking that maybe it could be if that swirly thing was some sort of
Doctor Who
TARDIS thingie, and if it is, I can tell you that this isn’t going to end well.” I smiled brightly at him and headed for the door.
He didn’t stop me, as I half expected him to. Instead he just followed me as I opened the door and stepped out into a narrow hallway dimly lit by a stand of candles at the far end. “You guys really take your reenactment seriously, huh?” I said as I strolled down the hall, determined to be as calm as I could. There would be all the time in the world to panic later if I found out I really had gone insane. “I had a friend who used to be into the Civil War stuff, but she got tired of wearing the big hoop skirts. Said it was impossible to go to the bathroom without having to disrobe first.”
“Why do you not believe that I am speaking the truth?” Nikola asked. “I feel obligated to point out that if you were a man, I would challenge you for such an insult. But as you are a woman, and a strange one at that, I will merely make a mental note to punish you later for such insolence.”
To Nikola’s (and my own) surprise, I laughed at such an outrageous statement. “Punish me?” I asked, smiling over my shoulder at him before descending the long, curving staircase to the floor below. “Like what, a spanking? Or are you going to send me to my room for a time-out?”
I could send you to my room. That would be far more interesting.
I paused, and blinked, my fingers tightening around the banister, a little spurt of fear making my stomach hurt. Why was my brain doing this to me? What the hell was wrong with me?
“I am simply stating a fact. I am literally the lord and master here, madame, and as you have placed yourself in my protection—”
I continued down the stairs, distracted from my worries about my impending mental breakdown by Nikola’s ridiculous attitude. “I did nothing of the sort. I simply ran into some guy named Heinrich.”
“Horse. Heinrich is my horse, as I have stated already. Do not make me repeat myself.”
I paused again, watching with disbelief as he marched steadfastly down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to glance up at me. “You really are a piece of work, you know that? Even if this was 1703, and honestly, I’m not so far gone into derangement that I’m willing to believe that, but even if it was the truth, then still that attitude must have been pretty much unbearable.”
“No more so than your insistence that I’m lying about the date,” he said, making an irritated gesture toward me. “As for your other claims, they are just as ridiculous. I am not unbearable. I am generosity personified. I must be, or else I would be demanding recompense for the damage you’ve done to Heinrich, not to mention the indisposition you’ve put to my house by forcing me to give you shelter when you knocked yourself witless. A lesser man, an unbearable man, would have tossed you on the verge as Old Ted suggested. That you are here now, lambasting me with the vilest of slurs, is proof to the contrary.”
“I like how you talk,” I said, slowly continuing down the stairs until I stood next to him. “I don’t quite understand why you have an English accent rather than an Austrian one, but I like it nonetheless.”
“I spent many years in England,” he said, frowning. “My mother was English. My father is from Moravia. I mentioned that, too, although you apparently wish to ignore it. Why, I have no idea. I will consider it one of your many peccadilloes, and move past it to more important things, such as who told you about the curse, how you know my children, and just what you were doing out on the road where you might ambush my carriage.” He squinted at me slightly. “I begin to suspect you are misleading me with regards to your acquaintanceship with Rolf.”
I shook my head and walked past him, taking in the entryway hall. It, too, was lit by clumps of candles, and a fire crackling away in a huge fireplace across the room. I headed for the double doors that must surely lead outside. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Ralph—”
“Rolf—”
“Him, too. Let alone know one well enough to mislead you about him. I’m going to town. How far is it?”
“Slightly under four miles via the road. Less as the crow flies.”
I opened the nearest door, rubbing my arms and shivering a little when the night air swirled around me. Outside, the darkness was broken up here and there by a gentle glow from a handful of windows. Gravel crunched under my feet as I took a few steps away from the house before turning to look back at it.
It wasn’t a house. It was a castle. A big ole stone castle, right there in front of me. I tipped my head back as far as it would go, allowing my gaze to wander along crumbling bits of stonework, and the tall, pointy spire that rose closest to me. It was a castle with a tower. Of course it was. Where else would I be but a who-knew-how-many-hundreds-of-years-old castle.
“This looks like the painting of Andras Castle that Gretl has hanging on her dining room wall,” I commented, still rubbing my arms.
Nikola
tsk
ed impatiently, pulling off his long-tailed coat jacket, and slung it around me. “That is because it
is
Andras Castle.”
I gave him a long look.
He gave it right back to me.
“I’m going into town,” I said. “Which way is it?”
He pointed over my shoulder. I turned and started walking, somewhat disappointed when he didn’t join me.
“You don’t need him,” I told myself a minute later when it was clear he was just going to let me walk off wearing his fancy costume coat. I glanced back, but he stood at the doors, watching me. He didn’t even wave good-bye, the rat. “Just because he’s the world’s best hickey-giver doesn’t mean you want anything more to do with him. Besides, he’s bossy and arrogant and clearly thinks he’s above the rules the rest of us have to follow, and if you haven’t learned by now what trouble that sort of man can be, then you really are insane.”
Lecturing myself didn’t help much. Especially once I got beyond the boundaries of the landscaped lawns, somewhat seedy topiaries, and an avenue of arched, leafy trees. Three minutes after I had walked away from Nikola, I was beginning to regret my actions. The darkness seemed to close in around me, while the soft thud of my footsteps on the now-dirt road echoed the beat of my heart. Overhead, fleeting shapes of obsidian danced across the night sky, the moon too obscured for me to make out if they were night birds, or bats.
“I really hope they’re owls or something,” I muttered to myself, rubbing my arms again, this time in reaction to the thought of creepy little bats flying around me. The darkness was beginning to get to me, making me twitchy at the slightest of sounds, and just the possibility that they were bats made me want to run straight back into Nikola’s arms.
Castle! His
castle
, not his arms. What on earth was I thinking? “And if wanting to throw myself into his arms isn’t a sign I’ve done myself some sort of head injury, I just don’t know what—argh!”
A large shape loomed up out of nowhere, making me shriek and stumble backward into a small shrub.
“I suppose I should be thankful that this time you sprang away from my horse rather than into him,” a male voice said with calm indifference.
I pushed my way out of the shrub and glared up at Nikola where he sat mounted on a white horse.
“What the hell! You run me down and have the nerve to complain about the fact that I flung myself out of the way of that monster’s pounding hooves?”
He sighed and dismounted, leading the white horse toward me, and a second that I hadn’t noticed until that moment. “You did so unnecessarily. Demeter hasn’t trampled a lady underfoot in months.”
“What are you doing?” I asked when he held out his hand for me, and split my suspicious look between him and the horses.
“You wish to go to town. Old Ted has retired for the evening. Since it is not a pleasant walk, we will ride.”
He took my hand and pulled me over to the second horse, a long-faced bay who snuffled me curiously when Nikola led me to his side. “Oh. Well, that was thoughtful of you. Hey, wait just a minute. You don’t expect me to get up there, do you?”
“It would be difficult to ride him any other way, although I admit that I would enjoy watching your attempt to do so. Are you afraid of horses?”
“Not particularly.” I eyed the animal. It didn’t look overly pleased to see me. I seconded its sentiments. “I just haven’t done much riding.”
“Thor is Imogen’s mount. He has very nice manners. Gather up your gown.”
“Huh?” I stopped tentatively patting the neck of the horse in order to give it the (wholly false) impression that I was a competent horsewoman, and turned to ask Nikola what he meant, but before anything more could come out of my mouth, he grasped me by my waist and heaved me upward, plopping me down sideways on the saddle.
That was when I realized there was something wrong with it. Or rather with me. “This is—I’ve never ridden in a sidesaddle. Am I supposed to sit sideways? It’s kind of uncomfortable if I am.”
“You haven’t ridden at all?” Incredulity fairly dripped off his words.
“No, and you can stop with the superior attitude. I’m a San Francisco girl, born and raised. I haven’t been on a horse since I went to fat girls’ camp when I was eleven, and they had proper saddles. This one is seriously funky.”