Authors: Donna Lea Simpson
“Oh, and of course Nikolas and Signor Vitali were here.”
“The c-count was here?” She stumbled on her words, it was such a shock, for Frau Liebner had said he was not present, that he was traveling Europe at the time and hadn’t returned home until after the tragedy. How could she have been so mistaken? Or was it Bartol Liebner who was wrong?
“Yes, oh yes, Nikolas was here. And the Italian. I was told that Johannes sent for his brother to return for some reason, but if it was so no one else had been aware, for his arrival was a complete surprise. He had done with university, you see, where he had met Signor Vitali—the fellow was tutoring Italian—and they had been traveling for a year or so.”
“Are you sure you’re not mistaken, sir?” Elizabeth said, leaning forward into the pool of light and gazing steadily at his face.
“Oh, no, I remember it all too well,” Bartol said, a terrible sadness in his gray eyes. “For it was Nikolas who came to the house to tell everyone the cottage was burning. His hands were black with smoke and his eyes red with tears.”
SLEEP, it turned out, was a luxury Elizabeth was not to experience for the rest of the night.
Bartol Liebner’s awful word picture of the youthful count, just nineteen, coming in shouting that the cottage was burning was too vivid for her not to believe that it was true. It left her sleepless and anxious. Why were there conflicting stories of his presence that night?
But as long as she had work that needed to be done, she could not afford to let it affect her.
Curiosity, she reminded herself, was not an attribute to be cultivated in a dependent tutor of elegant manners.
The yellow parlor had been cleaned before she even arrived after nibbling on a very small breakfast, and no trace of her late-night meal with Herr Liebner remained. She ordered, in faltering German, the small table by the window to be laid as if for a dinner party and awaited Charlotte while her orders were being carried out.
Finally Charlotte arrived, and Elizabeth restrained her urge to inquire if it was too much to expect the girl to arrive at the agreed-upon time. Instead she set directly to work, grilling her student on dinner conversation, how to conduct it, and how to divide one’s time appropriately between the two gentlemen on either side of one, if one happened to be taciturn and the other an inveterate talker.
Charlotte shrugged when asked what she would do. “Speak to the one who wished to talk, I suppose.”
“But no,” Elizabeth said, sitting down and facing Charlotte. “For the taciturn gentleman is a bishop, and if you are not seen speaking with him, it will be said you are shunning the church, or that you were uncomfortable in his presence, and it will cause much gossip.”
“I don’t care.”
Elizabeth again stifled an urge to chastise her moody pupil. “You must care! If you and your husband are to travel in all the best circles, then you must be above reproach. Allowing oneself to become the subject of gossip and innuendo is common and ultimately will lead to a kind of banishment from the upper circles of society. The only ones who will invite you anywhere are those who are always on the lookout for titillation and excitement, and they will ruin you.”
“Then I will flirt with the bishop,” Charlotte said desperately, her blue eyes wide. “Or I will dump a full glass of wine on him. I don’t care!”
Just then the door was flung open and Countess Gerta wandered in. “Oh, are we having a little lesson in deportment?” she asked, wandering over to the window and pulling open the curtain.
The window rattled as wind hurled snow pellets against it. “It is snowing again. Will it never stop? I want to walk outside, but it is snowing and…”
Charlotte and Elizabeth both waited, but the countess did not finish whatever she was going to stay. She just stared abstractedly out the window.
“Countess,” Elizabeth said. “We are indeed conducting a lesson here. Perhaps if you could come back later when we are going to have tea?”
Instead of responding, Gerta sat down at one of the place settings at the table. “What lovely china. This is our family crest, you know, Miss Stanwycke. The wolf… is he not a handsome beast?” she said, tracing the crest with one shaking finger.
“Countess Gerta,” Elizabeth said, eyeing the woman and wondering what was wrong with her.
She was different this morning than she had been the night before, her eyes glazed, her manner odd, a hectic flush over her cheeks. “I don’t wish to be rude, but—”
“I have a son and daughter, you know… twins. Was that not clever?” the woman asked, gazing up at Elizabeth, who had stood and approached her, trying to figure out some way to politely guide her from the room. “Was it not clever of me to have two children at once? But it was terrible, a terrible night the night I had them. Awful.” She shuddered.
Charlotte had wandered over to the window and sat in a window seat playing with a curtain sash, weaving it between her fingers. Elizabeth felt like she had lost control, and wondered if she would have to speak to the Countess Adele about her sister.
“Why shouldn’t they be here?” Gerta asked of Elizabeth, her narrow face pinched in an expression of misery.
“Uh, ‘they’? What do you mean, Countess?”
“Why should my children not be here, at the castle?” she asked, plucking at Elizabeth with grasping fingers. “Why are they banished? Nikolas has no right. He does not. It is cruel, the way he keeps my children from me, and whenever I ask about them I am told it is for the best.
For whose best? I miss my babies.”
To Elizabeth’s horror, fat tears welled in the countess’s eyes and began rolling down her cheeks in quick succession. She glanced over at Charlotte, but the young woman was ignoring them. Melisande came in just then, and Elizabeth looked to her with relief, for she immediately assessed the situation and put her arm around Countess Gerta’s shoulders, trying to raise her up. Elizabeth was about to ask Melisande if she would help the countess to her suite when the sound of shouts in the hall made them all pause.
Male voices, two of them raised in anger. The quarrel was moving down the hall, and Elizabeth strode toward the parlor door and looked out just in time to see Count von Wolfram and Christoph stop. Count Christoph said something, and his uncle—older, bigger, and far more powerful—took the boy up against the paneled wall, his large hands gripping his nephew’s shoulders.
“If you ever say anything that filthy again,” he shouted in English, his language of choice whenever he didn’t wish the servants to understand him. “I will whip you to within an inch of your life!”
Without thought, Elizabeth bolted down the hall and grabbed the count’s arm. “Leave him alone!”
Her charitable impulse earned a wrathful look from Nikolas, but he did release his nephew, tossing him roughly aside like a doll. The boy staggered but then righted himself, rubbing his shoulder, his face blotchy with red patches.
“Miss Stanwycke, I will thank you not to interfere in my handling of family matters.” The count’s face was dark with anger, his black hair tousled. He swept it back off his forehead with a careless hand.
She should have been alarmed, but the past twenty-four hours had left her feeling raw and ragged and she could not find it in her to care if she angered him further. As rash as it was, she said, “I did not ask for this quarrel to intrude itself upon my consciousness. If you wish to beat your nephew, and you expect me not to interfere, then you must beat him elsewhere.”
“I was not beating him.”
“You were very close to it in my estimation,” she said, aware that they had an audience.
Melisande, Countess Gerta, and Charlotte were standing in the doorway of the parlor watching, and Christoph had slunk off to join them.
“You have no idea what you are talking about. You do not know what prompted this quarrel and have no right to speak of it.”
“You’re right that I don’t know what it was about,” she said, glaring up at him, her hands on her hips. “But there is nothing that could make it right to physically punish your nephew. He is a grown man, not a child.” She shook her head. “Not that it would be right to beat him if he were still a child,” she said, exasperated by how rattled she was and how confused her speech.
“I did not mean that.”
The count mastered his anger, clenching his fists and gazing off down the hall for a long moment. When he looked back it was with a milder eyes. He bowed. “I apologize, Miss Stanwycke, if I alarmed you.”
She should let it go. She should just accept his apology and let it pass. But she couldn’t. “You have not wronged, me, sir. You should be apologizing to your nephew and not to me.”
“I will not be corrected by any woman,” he growled, his dark eyes dangerously narrowed.
“Perhaps you ought to be,” she said, stiffening her back and raising her chin. “Now,” she said,
“if you will all behave like civilized creatures instead of a quarreling pack of wolves, I will get back to my job, which is to teach correct manners!” She whirled and strode back into the parlor, pushing past the crowd at the door. Once in the parlor, she stood, shaking with a mixture of rage and dismay. What had she done? It would likely cost her her job, for she had been foolish beyond belief. If she claimed to be an arbiter of behavior, she should take herself to task, for no proper lady would admonish the master of the house, especially in front of his family.
“Charlotte,” she said, turning toward the group, “we will continue now, if you please.”
With a gleam of interest in her eyes, Charlotte obeyed, sitting down in her place at the table.
Elizabeth gazed back toward the hallway; Melisande put her arm over Gerta’s shoulders and led her away, and Christoph, with an enigmatic look at Elizabeth, loped off down the hall.
Nikolas, she had to assume, had gone elsewhere to quell his fury.
He was the most infuriating man, kissing her tenderly and with such passionate expertise as she had never experienced, and then behaving like a great angry bear hours later.
“What is it between your brother and your uncle?” Elizabeth asked of Charlotte, even though she knew she should not pry. “Why do they quarrel?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Christoph will not do what our uncle wishes.”
“Is that all?”
But Charlotte was done talking. She simply shook her head in answer to any more questioning. They finished the lesson, but Elizabeth couldn’t say that any of it was making any impression on her pupil at all. She would take in the information, parrot it back to Elizabeth, and then behave the same as she always did. Charlotte swiftly left the moment the lesson was pronounced done. Just as Elizabeth was directing the servants to take away the china, the Italian secretary entered and bowed.
“Miss Stanwycke, the count would like to see you in his library, if you would be so kind.”
Elizabeth’s stomach clenched and knotted. This was it. She had gone too far and he was going to send her away. Where would she go? What would she do?
“Please, miss, would you come?”
She had been just standing staring stupidly at him. “I… I’m sorry. Of course. Tell… tell the count I will come shortly.”
With an apologetic look, the fellow said, “If you please, miss, he would like to see you now.”
She sighed, and it came out as a long, shaky breath that echoed sadly. “I guess I’ve done it now,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s nothing. Lead the way, Signor Vitali, if you please.”
He did so, taking her to the door of the library. But before he departed, he said, his tone unexpectedly gentle, “Courage, Miss Stanwycke. The count is abrupt and sometimes difficult, but he is a fair man, and appreciative of your services.” He bowed once more and walked away.
SHE RAPPED twice and entered, shutting the door behind her.
Count von Wolfram was sitting behind his vast desk, poring over some papers, a faint quivering light from a candle his only source of illumination, even though it was day. He should open the drapes and get some natural light in there, she thought, but restrained her urge to do it for him. It was not her place.
But he would ruin his eyes that way. “You’ll ruin your eyes, straining them like that,” she blurted out.
He looked up, his expression grave. “Come and sit, Miss Stanwycke.” He stood and waved at a chair by the desk, then strolled over to the window to open a curtain.
She glanced around, thinking she’d rather sit anywhere than in front of his desk, but, taking a deep breath, decided to face her fate head-on. She sat down, folded her hands on her lap, and stared down at the thick burgundy carpet. “Count, I… I would in the normal course apologize for my behavior earlier. I should, really. But…” She trailed off.
“But you still think you were right,” he said, as a block of light from the snowy brilliance outside illuminated the dull room. Turning, he gazed steadily at her.
She stared back. He looked so tired, so drawn. It was as if there was something he was facing that he dreaded. There was a terrible knowledge in his dark eyes, an awful sadness and a dread of what the future held. No one should feel so.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
He appeared startled. “I beg your pardon?”
“What’s wrong? Is… is everyone well, sir? You look… you just look so sad.” Her last word trembled on a sigh, and she took in a deep, shaky breath.
He stared at her, the light trail from the window glinting on his shiny hair, shadowing his face and giving him the appearance of a haunted man. “Nonsense.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “Miss Stanwycke, the reason I called you here—”
“I know why you called me here,” she said, following him with her eyes as he strolled back behind his desk.
“You do?” He dropped into his chair and leaned back, gazing steadily at her. “Why do you not tell me then?”
“Well, of course you have called me in here to say I won’t suit, that I cannot teach Charlotte what I do not follow myself, that I am unsuitable in every way.” She bolted from her chair and paced, wringing her hands. “But you’re wrong! I know what I’m doing, and if you just give me a little more time… oh, I know I shouldn’t have railed at you, but… but it was just… his face! Christoph… uh, that is, the young count, he’s just so… so young and troubled and…”