The Demon Count

by Anne Stuart

  I was only unconscious for a few moments. I was vaguely aware of my sturdy English body being lifted by someone with seemingly unlimited strength. I made a brief attempt to struggle, still befuddled by the blow on the back of my head, when to my horror I felt myself being tipped out into the cool Venetian air. Soft breezes swept by me as I hurtled downward, and a moment later I was immersed in the cold, dark waters of the canal.

  I seemed to sink down and down. Instinctively I had held my breath when I first hit the canal, and by the time my feet touched the slimy bottom my lungs were near to bursting. I gave myself a push, and felt my foot stick for one horrifying moment. And then I was spiraling upwards.

  A moment later my head was clear, and I sucked in deep gulps of air with tearful gratitude. Carefully I treaded wa­ter, recognizing with despair that my waterlogged skirts would drag me back down before long, opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs.

  That forced me back under water, and this time I swal­lowed quarts of the filthy stuff. I came up again, gasping and choking, and screamed again. Unfortunately the room I had exited so precipitously overlooked a small side canal, one free from traffic and witnesses. The noise of the Grand Canal must have drowned out my calls for help, and as I screamed again I felt myself slipping back into the water for what I knew would be the last time. Even the best swimmer was helpless against the weight of four petticoats and a heavy skirt. My lack of shoes was the only thing that had preserved me this long.

  The water closed over my head once more, and I felt myself sink into the blackness.

  When my senses returned I was lying face down on the cobbled alleyway, vomiting canal water, while my back was being pushed and pummeled by a pair of pitiless hands. I tried to call out for mercy but nothing more than a croak issued forth. My rescuer must have heard, how­ever, for I heard an exclamation of relief as I felt my poor soaked body being turned on its back. The sight my dazed eyes met was the worried blue gaze of Mark Ferland.

  "Are you all right?" he demanded, his hands passing over my body to ascertain my wounds in an entirely pleas­ant manner. "I was nearly too late."

  I smiled wanly, and reached a limp hand to touch his dripping face. "I'll be fine," I croaked, fighting down the urge to rid myself of more lagoon water. "How did you happen . . . ?"

  "I've been watching the palazzo," he admitted, looking & trifle abashed. "Ever since you agreed to help us I've been worried about you. Luc del Zaglia can be extremely dan­gerous. Apparently my worries were justified."

  "You think Luc did this?" I questioned in a hoarse whis­per. My throat ached from the water and the subsequent retching. "He couldn't have!"

  "Then who else?" he demanded logically.

  I just shook my head before such a natural question. "I have no idea. Three people heard me say this morning that I couldn't swim. It must have been one of them." I shook my head to try to clear away the confusion. "Holger or Jean-Baptiste or Rosetta." I tried to recall a fleeting im­pression I had had, just before I had been hit. One of sense or smell. But it escaped me.

  "Captain von Wolfram is on duty in the piazza at this moment," Mark corrected me. "I saw him scarcely an hour ago. And Perrier and the Italian girl went off some hours earlier, heading in the direction of Torcellano. There is no one else it could be."

  I still refused to accept it. "Luc knows I am spying," I admitted reluctantly. "He is very suspicious of me. But there are easier ways of ensuring my silence than bashing me over the head and throwing me in the canal." I strug­gled to sit up, and his strong, gentle hands went behind my wet back. "We shouldn't rule out the servants. There is something underhanded about them."

  "Tell me."

  I quickly related the tale of Mildred and the magnificent sapphire ring, the odd conversations and strange looks I had observed. Mark shook his head as he helped me to my feet.

  "It's possible," he admitted, "but I doubt it. Mildred is harmless and silly—I can't see her tossing you out a win­dow." He looked down at me, deep concern in his warm eyes. "It's amazing you survived that long in the canal, not knowing how to swim."

  "Oh, I know how to swim," I reassured him. "I merely used it as an excuse not to accompany Jean-Baptiste on his little picnic. I don't trust him."

  "And I don't trust Del Zaglia, for all your determined championing of him. Let's just hope that next time he won't be more fortunate when he decides to dispense with his rich little ward."

  I began to shiver then, more from reaction than from the warm spring air. I looked back up at the palazzo, the sinis­ter marble walls with the green lichen seeming to ooze from the stones, and I wondered if I could see a face peer­ing down at me from the third floor. I squinted, and made out the elegant form of my feline friend, Patrick. A mo­ment later the apparition vanished, and I decided not to mention anything to my stalwart companion. But somehow I could not feel easy.

  "I'd better go in and change before the servants wake up," I said reluctantly, struggling to my bare feet. "There is no way I can thank you." On impulse I reached up on tiptoes and bestowed a grateful kiss on his smooth-shaven -cheek.

  Absurdly, he blushed, and my heart warmed to him even more. "I wish you didn't have to go back," he said muti­nously.

  "You were the one who asked me to help," I pointed out fairly if cruelly.

  "I know. I've regretted it ever since. Just remember, I'll be watching. Either I or a friend. And if anything goes wrong you can send a message to the little tailor's shop in the Campo San Paolo. Ask for Giacomo."

  "IH remember," I promised, lifting up my wet, heavy skirts and running off around the corner on bare feet. Both doorways, I knew, would be guarded by a sleeping Cer­berus—Antonio on one, Thornton on the other. My best way in was the ground floor balcony that led off the dining room. I had eyed it carefully on previous occasions and it appeared low enough for a lady of sufficient athletic prow­ess to scramble up to and down from. In my wet and weak­ened condition it took considerably more effort than I had imagined, but within five minutes I had half crawled, half jumped onto the outside lip of the ledge, indelicately hoisted myself over the wrought-iron railing, and sped up­stairs, hoping the puddle marks would dry in the hot sun­light. I could place no reliance on the marks obliterating themselves in the cool, damp hallways, but with luck no one in this haphazard household would notice. If they did, I could always come up with a suitable lie.

  As I rubbed my naked, shivering body down with a rough, thick towel and tried to assemble something passa­ble out of my stringy, canal-drenched hair, my mind kept wandering to my demonic guardian. I couldn't help won­dering whether he had braved the terrors of the daylight to cast me out of the third-floor window so that I would surely drown, leaving only Patrick as a mute witness to the regrettable accident. Or whether he had sent a henchman. Or whether, as I hoped and prayed, it was someone en­tirely different, with no ties with Luc del Zaglia except an unceasing enmity. And I wished with all my heart that Jean-Baptiste hadn't been on a picnic with my self- proclaimed enemy, Rosetta, and that Holger had not been so noticeably on duty. I would have gladly believed murder of any of those three, rather than of Luc.

  Pulling on a warm wool wrapper, I gave in to my ex­haustion and the still energetic revolutions of my stomach and lay down on my bed. A large thud sounded, and Pat­rick, a concerned expression on his elegant face, stalked across the room, leapt on my bed, and proceeded to curl himself up at my stomach, purring noisily. With a brief caress for my self-appointed protector, I leaned back and slept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After my harrowing experiences of the afternoon, I was in no mood to put up with Luc's sardonic innuendoes. For once I hoped he would spend the evening out, so I would not have to endure his disturbing company. As luck would have it, for the first time in weeks he showed no disposition to rush away from the dinner table. He merely sat there, toying with a bone-handled fruit knife, as his topaz-colored eyes watched me in silent absorption.

  It quite put me off m
y feed. Even Jean-Baptiste's un­usually jovial company failed to lighten the atmosphere, and our stilted conversation petered out after the cheese course.

  "Did you know, Perrier," Luc's voice suddenly broke the uneasy stillness, "that my poor ward narrowly escaped death this afternoon?"

  I looked up, startled, and my eyes flew to Luc's unreada­ble face. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the Frenchman's look of suitable concern, and yet a suspicious and totally unjustified thought entered my mind. Perhaps the news of this afternoon's near drowning was not totally unexpected.

  "What's all this?" he demanded after a pause that was just a shade too long. "You never mentioned such a thing, my dear Mademoiselle Morrow."

  "No, she didn't, did she?" Luc said softly, and a chill ran down my spine. "Perhaps she didn't want to alarm me. Nevertheless, she fell into the canal, and it was only the fortunate and highly coincidental appearance of a fellow countryman of hers that saved her life."

  "No!" Jean-Baptiste protested, suitably amazed.

  "Yes, my dear fellow," the demon-count corrected. "The noble hero dragged my fair ward to the side of the quay and rescued her from certain drowning. I am still at a loss, dear Charlotte, as to how you happened to be in the canal in the first place, and how this young man happened to be so fortuitously close at hand. It is still too early in the sea­son to attempt swimming in our lovely waters."

  I knew I was pale from the strain, and I glared at my mocking guardian with suitable rage that failed to quell him one bit. "I was pushed out of a window," I replied stiffly, and was enraged to see him stifle a little spurt of laughter. "Probably by you," I snapped, tossing down my napkin angrily. "As for the Englishman, it is sheer luck that he appeared. For all you could care I could have drowned. Were you by any chance watching all this, hop­ing I'd sink into the canal and leave you in control of my fortune?" My voice was unpleasantly shrill, but the day had been too much for me, and all my fears and suspicions were coming to the fore.

  "Mademoiselle Morrow!" Jean-Baptiste remonstrated, shocked at my plain speaking.

  "No, don't stop her, my friend, I find it fascinating to hear of all the terrors an adolescent mind can concoct. No doubt she was doing her usual job of rummaging through some deserted chest of drawers or desk in one of the unoc­cupied rooms, tripped on a frayed rug, and over the bal­cony she went. Tell me, caristsima," he continued, and his voice was silky, "have you ever read Northanger Abbey by one of your so-talented countrywomen?"

  "Certainly," I replied stiffly, at a loss. "I have read all of Miss Austen's works. What has that to do with the mat­ter?"

  He smiled enigmatically. "You should take the time to reread it, little one. It might keep you out of trouble, in­stead of wasting your time snooping around. You were probably leaning across the balcony, trying to peer into our neighbor's bedroom, I would put nothing past you."

  "Luc, I must object to your unkindness," Jean-Baptiste protested nobly. "The poor girl must have suffered a dread­ful shock; there is no cause to berate her like this!"

  "Am I berating her?" Luc demanded innocently of the world in general. "I put up with her prevarications and curiosity with the patience of a saint. Even her outrageous suspicions I accept with equanimity. Tell me, mia Carlotta, did you know this English fellow?"

  "I have no idea who he is," I muttered ungraciously, feeling curiously and irrationally in the wrong.

  Luc smiled, his brilliant, blinding smile. "You see, my dear Perrier, another lie. The man is Mark Ferland, he is in some way attached to the British consul, and my ward and the redoubtable Miss Fenwick had tea with him at Florian's not two days ago." He shrugged his black-clad shoulders expressively, a demonic gleam in his light eyes. "I will have to talk with Mister Ferland himself. Perhaps he will be more willing to come up with the truth." He rose then, in the warm glow of the candelight towering over me. "Let us go in search of the gentleman, Perrier. Secrecy wearies me."

  Jean-Baptiste rose hastily, sneaking a worried glance in my direction. His warm brown eyes met my pleading ones, and he gave me a slight nod, just enough to reassure me. Perrier would not allow my guardian to commit what might be another in a long line of brutal murders. The epi­sode of Georges Martin would not be repeated.

  I simulated a, yawn. "Do as you wish. Your suspicions are quite as outlandish as you deem mine to be. Neverthe­less, if it will set your mind at ease, I hope you find Mister . . . Mister Ferland, did you call him? . . . and that he will be able to satisfy your questions." I yawned again, and rose. "Good evening, gentlemen." I was inordinately pleased with my indolent act as I glided by my two com­panions. Before I was out of reach, however, Luc's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist in a crushing grip.

  I stifled my instinctive moan, determined not to cry out in pain. I looked up into his eyes, and found no enjoyment of his cruelty, no delight in hurting me, just an expression of mocking sadness that somehow tore at me more than anything else might have. I bit my lip to stop its trembling, and he loosened his punishing hold on my wrist. Without another word I turned and ran from the room.

  It was very sudden. One moment I was deeply asleep, the next wide-eyed and motionless in terror. I lay unmoving beneath my heavy covers, not even daring to turn my head. Moonlight streamed through my shuttered balcony door, casting patterns on the marble floor with its elegant rugs. The silence was so deep I could feel it pressing on me from all sides, and yet I knew, somewhere deep inside of me, that evil was in the room—an ancient, terrible evil so vast I couldn't even begin to comprehend it, an evil with its roots in eternity.

  Summoning all my courage I moved my head a mere fraction of an inch, then a bit more, then completely around. My lovely, elegant room, which at times seemed more a prison than a haven, was deserted. Not a living creature was in sight, not even Patrick, and yet I knew I was not alone. Something so awful it defied description watched me, waited for me. Slowly I turned my head back to the moonlit reflection on my floor, and watched with horror as a figure just beyond the slatted balcony door blotted out those lines of light.

  My nerve broke, and I rose out of bed, shrieking like a banshee. A moment later I had flung open the door and was down the hall, dressed skimpily enough in a thin cot­ton nightdress, barefoot, with my hair tangling down my back like a wild woman. And just behind me, so close I could imagine its foul breath on my neck, was the indes­cribable horror I was trying so desperately to escape.

  I practically tumbled down the long flight of marble stairs, catching myself just in time, twisting my ankle in the process. The few second's delay brought the sounds of pur­suit even closer to my panicky ears, and, sobbing with hys­terical fright, I ran on, down to the first flight, trying vainly to peer over my shoulder into the dark from whence I came, afraid I would see what frightened me so. In my blind panic I ran straight into a very large, solid body in the middle of the first floor hall.

  My reactions have never made sense to me. When I looked up and met the unreadable topaz eyes of my guard­ian, I should have shrunk away in horror. Instead, with all the illogic I alone seem to possess, I threw myself, cower­ing, into his arms, whimpering and sobbing like a child in unreasoning relief.

  Strangely enough, he asked no questions. His face was grim as he enfolded me into his strong arms, and through my tears I noticed that he was in his shirtsleeves, the white linen shirt unbuttoned to the waist, exposing a tanned, smooth chest, the significance of which escaped me until many days later, when it was almost too late. His heart was pounding beneath my head, slow, even beats at variance with my fluttering pulse.

  "There . . . there is something in my room," I man­aged to stammer after a long while. "Something cold and evil and . . . and horrible."

  "What?" he asked flatly, perhaps hoping to calm me by his prosaic question, his hands gentle but firm on my trem­bling body.

  "I don't know," I cried, shaking all over from cold and fright, and, I must admit, excitement caused by Luc's prox­imity. "I didn't see anything more than a sh
adow on the floor, but I felt its presence. It was real, and horrid!" I was still crying, unable to stop it, and he reached out a slim hand and brushed away the tears.

  "Very well, little one, I will go and check on this 'thing' that frightens you out of a good sleep. And you will see it is nothing more than bad dreams." But he made no move to release me, and I clung to him in desperation, more terri­fied than I had ever been in my short, eventful life at the thought of being alone in this damp and decaying palazzo, alone and victim to that ageless evil.

  "Please!" I pleaded through my tears. "Don't leave me.

  I . . . I . . ." As I realized what I was asking I fell si­lent, biting my hand to try to still the sobs that were rack­ing my body so inexorably. I could feel him looking down at me. Without another word he scooped me up into Ms strong arms and started down the hall.

  His bedroom was very dark. Only the moonlight provided illumination, shining on the large bed, still neatly made. Kicking the door shut with his foot, he moved across the floor on silent feet, making light of his burden. Patrick's golden eyes glowed from the foot of the bed as he watched us with sleepy curiosity.

  With the grace that comes from long practice Luc stretched out on the bed, still holding my shivering body in his arms with a tenderness I wouldn't have thought him capable of. Slowly, gradually, my sobs lessened and then ceased altogether, and I nestled closer, my head against the hollow of his shoulder.

  A few moments later all that was left of my hysteria were a few lingering, shuddering sobs, and then, lying so safely and comfortably in the demon-count's arms, I slept.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was in those dark, still moments Immediately pre­ceding dawn that I awoke. In my first few moments of half- consciousness I was aware only of the most profound seren­ity I had ever known in my turbulent life. Totally at peace for perhaps the first time, I snuggled closer to the object that seemed to emanate such warmth and protection.