Authors: Kerstin Gier
I pressed my lips together and tried to push Rakoczy away with my free hand. I might just as well have had a shot at shifting a mountain. Desperately, I thought
of what little I knew about self-defense—Charlotte’s knowledge of Krav Maga would have come in very useful at this point. When the flask was already touching my lips and the sharp smell of the liquid inside it rose to my nostrils, I finally had a good idea. I snatched a hairpin out of my towering wig and dug it as hard as I could into the hand holding the flask. At the same time, the door flew
open and I heard Gideon call, “Let go of her at once, Rakoczy!”
Too late, I realized that it would have been better to run the hairpin into Rakoczy’s eye, or at least his throat. It stuck there in his flesh, but he didn’t even drop the flask. However, his iron grip on me did slacken, and he turned around. Gideon, who was standing in the doorway with Lady Lavinia, looked at him in horror.
“What
the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing at all! I only wanted to help this little girl to … to gain a little more enlightenment!” Rakoczy threw back his head with a raucous laugh. “Will
you
venture to try a sip? I assure you, it will give you sensations such as you have never known before!”
I took my chance to break free.
“Are you all right?” Gideon was looking at me with concern, while Lady Lavinia
clung anxiously to his arm. Would you believe it? The pair of them had probably been looking for a room where they could smooch in peace, while Rakoczy was trying to get heaven knew what kind of drug inside me and then do heaven knew what else. And now I was expected to be grateful to Gideon and Lady Big-Tits for picking this, of all rooms!
“I’m just fine!” I growled, crossing my arms so that
no one could see how my hands were shaking.
Rakoczy, still laughing, took a gulp from the flask himself and then put the cork firmly back in.
“Does the count know you’re experimenting with drugs in this quiet little study, instead of devoting yourself to your duties?” asked Gideon in icy tones. “Surely you had other things to do this evening?”
Rakoczy was swaying slightly. He looked in surprise
at the hairpin still sticking in the back of his hand, then pulled it out with a jerk and licked the blood away like a big cat. “The Black Leopard is capable of anything—at any time!” he said. Then he put his hands to his head, staggered around the desk, and fell heavily into the chair. “Although there really does seem to be something about this potion that…,” he murmured, whereupon his head
dropped forward and hit the top of the desk with a crash.
Shuddering, Lady Lavinia leaned against Gideon’s shoulder. “Is he…?”
“Probably not, I’m afraid.” Gideon went over to the desk, took the little flask, and held it up to the light. Then he uncorked it, and sniffed. “I’ve no idea what it is, but if even Rakoczy is poleaxed so quickly…” He put down the flask again. “Opium is my guess. Didn’t
mix with alcohol and his usual drugs.”
Well, that was obvious. Rakoczy lay there as if he were dead. You couldn’t hear him breathing.
“Maybe someone gave it to him—someone who didn’t want him to have all his senses about him this evening,” I said. My arms were still crossed. “Can you find his pulse?” I’d have felt for it, but I couldn’t bring myself to go any closer to Rakoczy. Shaking all over
as I was, it was hard enough even to keep on my feet.
“Gwen? Are you really sure you’re all right?” Gideon looked at me with a frown. I hate to admit it, but at that moment I’d have loved to fling myself into his arms and have a good cry. But he didn’t look at all keen to give me a comforting hug, rather the opposite. When I nodded, he said angrily, “What the hell were you doing here, anyway?”
He pointed to the motionless Rakoczy. “It could easily have been you down and out on the floor!”
By now my teeth were chattering so much that I could hardly speak. “I … I had no idea that—” I stammered, but Lavinia, still sticking to Gideon like a very large, very green burr, interrupted me. She was obviously one of those women who hate anyone else to attract attention.
“Death!” she whispered
dramatically, looking at Gideon with her eyes very wide. “I felt the breath of Death when it entered this room. Oh, please…” Her eyelids fluttered. “Hold me tight—”
I wouldn’t have believed it—she simply fainted away! For no reason at all, and of course falling very elegantly into Gideon’s arms. I don’t know why, but I was infuriated to see him catch her, so infuriated that I forgot about my
trembling and my chattering teeth. But at the same time—as if I hadn’t run the gamut of enough feelings already—I sensed tears coming into my eyes. Oh, damn it, falling down in a faint was definitely the best option. Except that of course there’d have been no one to catch me.
At that moment, the dead Rakoczy said, in a voice so hoarse and deep that it could have come from the world beyond the
grave, “
Dosis sola facit venenum.
Have no fear. Only the quantity makes the poison. It would take more than that to finish me off.”
Lavinia (I’d decided that she was no lady, so far as I was concerned), let out a little shriek of alarm and opened her eyes to stare at Rakoczy. Then she must have remembered that she was supposed to be in a deep swoon, and with a dramatic groan for effect, she sank
limply back into Gideon’s arms.
“I shall be better in a moment. No need for any fuss.” Rakoczy had raised his head and was looking at us with bloodshot eyes. “My fault! It should be taken only a few drops at a time, he says.”
“Who says?” asked Gideon, holding Lavinia in his arms like a store display mannequin.
With some difficulty, Rakoczy got himself into a sitting position, let his head drop
back, and looked up at the ceiling with a peal of laughter. “Do you see the stars all dancing?”
Gideon sighed. “I’ll have to find the count,” he said. “Gwen, if you could just lend me a hand…?”
I stared at him blankly. “Lend you a hand with
her
? You must be joking!” With a couple of steps, I was in the doorway and then out in the corridor, so that he wouldn’t see the silly tears flowing down
my face in torrents. I didn’t know either why I was crying or where I was going as I ran away. It must have been posttraumatic reaction, the kind you’re always reading about. People do the weirdest things when they’re in shock, like that baker up in Yorkshire who crushed his arm in the dough press. He finished baking seven more trays of cinnamon croissants before he called the emergency services.
Those cinnamon croissants were the nastiest sight the paramedics had ever seen.
I hesitated when I reached the stairs. I didn’t want to go down, in case Lord Alastair was already waiting there to commit his perfect murder, so I ran on up. I hadn’t gone far before I heard Gideon behind me, calling, “Gwenny! Please stop! Please!”
For a moment, it occurred to me that he might simply have dropped
Lavinia on the floor so that he could run after me, but it was no good: I was still feeling furious, or sad, or scared, or all of them together. I stumbled on up the stairs, blinded by tears, and into the next corridor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Now Gideon was beside me, trying to take my hand.
“Anywhere! Away from you, that’s all,” I sobbed, running into the nearest room. Gideon followed
me. Of course. I nearly passed my sleeve over my face to wipe away the tears, but I remembered Madame Rossini’s makeup at the last minute. I probably looked battered enough already. I glanced around the room, so as not to have to look at Gideon. Light from candles in brackets on the walls fell on the pretty furnishings, all in shades of gold. There was a sofa, a delicate little desk, a few
chairs, a painting of a dead pheasant and some pears, a collection of exotic-looking sabers above the mantelpiece, and magnificent golden yellow curtains at the windows. For some reason, I had a sudden feeling that I’d been here before.
Gideon was standing in front of me, waiting.
“Leave me alone,” I said, rather feebly.
“I
can’t
leave you alone. Whenever I leave you alone, you do something
rash without thinking first.”
“Go away!” I felt like throwing myself on the sofa, staying there for a while, and drumming on the cushions with my fists. Was that too much to ask?
“No, I won’t,” said Gideon. “Listen, I’m sorry that happened. I ought not to have allowed it.”
My God, wasn’t that downright typical? A classic case of overresponsibility syndrome. It was nothing to do with Gideon
that I’d happened to meet Rakoczy, was it? Or that right now Rakoczy didn’t have all his marbles, as Xemerius would say. On the other hand, a few guilt feelings wouldn’t hurt him.
So I said, “But you did!” And I added, “Because you had eyes only for
her
!”
“You’re jealous!” Gideon had the nerve to burst out laughing. He sounded kind of relieved.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” My tears had
stopped, and I surreptitiously wiped my nose.
“The count will wonder where we are,” said Gideon, after a slight pause.
“Then he can just send his Transylvanian friend looking for us, that’s what your count can do.” I finally managed to look him in the eye again. “He’s not even really a count. His title’s as much of a fake as the rosy cheeks of that … what was her name again?”
Gideon laughed
quietly. “I’ve forgotten her name already.”
“Liar!” I said, but stupidly I couldn’t help grinning a bit myself.
Next moment Gideon was serious again. “The count’s not responsible for Rakoczy’s behavior. He’ll certainly be reprimanded for that. You don’t have to like the count, you only have to respect him.”
I snorted angrily. “I don’t
have
to do anything,” I said, abruptly turning toward the
window. And there I saw …
myself
! In my school uniform, peering out from behind the curtain with a rather foolish expression on my face. Good heavens! That was why the room had looked familiar to me! It was Mrs. Counter’s classroom, and the Gwyneth behind the curtain had just traveled to the past for the third time. I made a sign with my hand for her to hide again.
“What was that?” asked Gideon.
“Nothing!” I said, sounding as stupid as possible.
“At the window.” He put his hand out into thin air—a reflex action as he felt for the sword he wasn’t wearing.
“Nothing, I said.” What I did next has to be put down to posttraumatic shock again—like that baker and the blood in his cinnamon croissants. In the normal way, I’d never have done such a thing. But I also thought I’d seen something
green scurry past the doorway, and … and well, fundamentally I did it only because I already knew I was going to do it. You might say there was nothing else that I
could
do.
“There could be someone standing behind the curtain listening to—” Gideon was still saying as I flung my arms around his neck and planted my lips on his. And while I was about it, I also pressed the rest of me close to him.
Lady Lavinia herself couldn’t have done it better.
For a few seconds, I was afraid Gideon would push me away, but then he gave a quiet groan, put his arms around my waist, and drew me even closer. He returned the kiss so warmly that I forgot everything else and closed my eyes. It was the same as when we’d been dancing just now; suddenly it didn’t matter what was happening around us or what was
going to happen next. It didn’t even matter that he was really an utter bastard—all I knew was that I loved him, and I always would, and I wanted him to go on kissing me forever.
A small inner voice was whispering to me, saying I’d better come to my senses, but Gideon’s lips and hands were telling me the opposite. So I can’t say how long it was before we moved apart and stared at each other,
stunned.
“Why … why did you do that?” asked Gideon, breathing heavily. He seemed totally bewildered. He took a few steps back, almost swaying, as if to put as much distance between us as possible.
“What do you mean, why?” My heart was thudding so fast and so noisily that he could surely hear it. I glanced at the door. I’d probably only imagined the glimpse of a green dress that I thought I’d
seen out of the corner of my eye, and the dress was still lying on the rug one floor lower down with Lady Lavinia inside it, waiting to be kissed awake.
Gideon had narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “But you…” With a couple of strides, he was at the window, pulling the curtains aside. There he went again—typical! No sooner did he do something … er, nice, than he had to do his best to spoil it as
fast as possible.
“Looking for anything in particular?” I asked sarcastically. Of course there was no one behind the curtains now. My younger self had traveled back some time ago and would be just wondering where on earth she’d learnt to kiss so improbably well.
Gideon turned around again. The bewilderment had disappeared from his face, giving way to his usual arrogant expression. He leaned
back against the windowsill with his arms folded. “What was all that in aid of, Gwyneth? A few seconds earlier, you were still looking at me as if you hated my guts.”
“I wanted—” I began, but then I thought better of it. “Why ask in that silly way? You’ve never told me why you kissed me either, have you?” A little defiantly, I added, “I just felt like it. And you didn’t have to go along with
me.” Although then I’d probably have sunk right into the earth with shame.
Gideon’s eyes flashed. “You just felt like it?” he repeated, coming toward me again. “Damn it, Gwyneth! There are very good reasons why … For days now, I’ve been trying to … I mean, all this time…” He frowned, obviously annoyed by his own stammering. “Do you think I’m made of
stone
?” He said that in quite a loud voice.
I didn’t know what to say. And it was probably more of a rhetorical question. No, of course I didn’t think he was made of stone, but what in the world was that supposed to mean? The unfinished sentences before he asked it didn’t exactly make it any clearer, either. We looked at each other for a little while, and then he turned away and said, in a perfectly normal voice, “We must go. If we don’t
get down to the cellar punctually, the whole plan will fail.”