Castle of the Wolf

by Sandra Schwab

  Cissy narrowed her eyes. He was befuddled. He must be befuddled. How else to explain the feverish glint in his eye and the indecent talk? Straightening her shoulders, she glared at him. “I, sir, was awakened by a bat flying into my room. So I would be most obliged if you would go into that room and remove it.”

  “A bat?” He gawked at her for a moment or two before throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. “A bat in the middle of winter? You English have the most fertile imaginations!”

  He thought she had made this up? Cissy stared at him disbelievingly. Into what kind of dunderhead had he turned? A foxed dunderhead for sure, she thought, and wished an enormous blob of wax from his candle would drop onto his hand and scorch that moppy laugh off his face. Perhaps it would also scorch some sense back into his brain.

  “Yes.” She rudely poked a finger into his chest, determined to make him solve her problem. “Now, would you kindly go and remove it from my room?”

  He stopped laughing and chose to giggle insanely instead. “It’s winter. How can there be a bat in your room?”

  Cissy shrugged impatiently. “How should I know? All I know is that there is a bat there. Now, would you please do me the favor of removing it?” Dear heavens, what was the matter? He couldn’t be so far gone that he had lost all sense of chivalry.

  “A bat.” The giggles stopped and a speculative glint entered Leopold’s eyes. He swayed toward her. “And what favor would you grant me in return, Liebchen? A kiss perhaps?”

  “I—”

  “Or more?” The look he gave her could only be described as a leer. His eyes dropped to her bosom, where her nipples, puckered with the cold, poked through her nightgown. He licked his lips, very, very slowly.

  For the first time Cissy felt a shiver of real fear. No, this was not the charming young man she had got to know. Instinctively, she took a step back. It made him chuckle.

  “Look at you. Those sharp little tits, begging to be kissed. You’re hot for it, aren’t you? Such a randy little—”

  Cissy gasped with outrage. Without thinking, she slapped him, hard and fast. His candle clattered to the floor, rolled over the stone tiles.

  “Why, you…” He held a hand to his cheek. “You …” His expression shifted, darkened.

  Her breath heaving in her chest, Cissy eyed him warily. Suddenly, she felt cold. The icy temperature of the stone, which she had not noticed before, now bit at her bare feet, clenched her heart. A gentle breeze seemed to stir in the hallway. The flame of her candle flickered. Shadows sprang up from the walls as if in warning.

  Dear God, what have I done?

  She wondered whether she should run. Run and scream. But who would hear her in this wide and empty castle? Just the stones, only the stones. Cissy shuddered.

  Help me! Oh, please help me!

  “You little…” Leopold’s face twisted, became an ugly mask. He was a beast, was no longer human, no longer a charming golden god.

  She took a step back as he raised his hands, fists.

  Please.

  She took another step back. “I did not ask you to grope me,” she said. Despite her sudden fear, she laced her voice with coldness.

  For an answer, he growled.

  She took another step back. He took a step nearer. And then…

  Tap-dam, tap-dam, tap-dam.

  “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Fenris von Wolfenbach asked, his voice as cool as the stone itself.

  Cissy sagged against the wall with relief.

  His eyes flicked over her, lingered briefly on her heaving bosom. Her face flamed. Hastily, she put her free hand over her chest. At that, his expression subtly changed: his lips became thinner, his eyes darker. Wordless, he shrugged out of his coat and gave it to her. Her hands trembled so much the garment nearly slipped out of her grasp.

  “Fen.” Blotches of bright color bloomed on Leopold’s cheeks. He licked his lips. “Well, whatever should be the matter? Miss Fussell here and I, we were just talking.” Sweat beaded on his upper lip. “Isn’t that true, Miss Fussell?” Leopold wiped the back of his hand over his lip and shrugged.

  Feeling so numb and cold she wondered whether she would ever warm up again, Cissy huddled into Fenris von Wolfenbach’s frock coat. A soothing smell of sandalwood rose up from the material, and she felt as if enveloped in a warm embrace.

  Leopold’s words had been just the slightest bit slurred—enough to make his brother’s eyes narrow. “You’ve been drinking again.” Disdain laced his voice.

  Leopold’s nostrils flared as he stared at his older brother. Then he threw his head back and laughed, a hard and ugly sound. “You’re such a bloody hypocrite, Fen. As if you were a saint in this respect! I seem to remember a time when you couldn’t get enough of drink—and women.” His eyes glittered. “You fucked yourself through the beds of Freiburg’s fair world, my randy big brother, the darling of society, feted and bedded…” Leopold made a suggestive movement with his hips, back and forth, while an ugly smile twisted his mouth.

  Cissy felt how shock drained all color from her face. The shadows in the hallway seemed darker, denser. An icy gust whirled around them all, made her shiver. Dear God. Dear God… She pressed her hand to her mouth so she wouldn’t cry out. Yet when she dared a look at the older von Wolfenbach’s face, she found that his expression had not changed. Stoically he regarded his brother, his features as hard as the stone itself.

  Another laugh, wilder than before. “Perhaps you don’t remember, Fen? Did they shoot off your cock with your leg?”

  “Stop it!” Cissy croaked, forcing the words through her constricted throat. How sick could one man be?

  “What?” Leopold’s eyes swiveled to her. His hand not quite steady, he brushed the hair from his forehead. “What?” He giggled. “Oh, the demure maiden is speaking up.” Quick as a viper, he grabbed her arm, thrusting his face into hers so that his hot, moist breath tickled over her skin and she could smell the alcohol he had consumed. “And later, did you know what happened later?” he asked softly, cocking his head to the side while his eyes caressed her face.

  Cissy shuddered with revulsion. “You, sir, are disgusting.” She tried to twist free, but his grip only tightened like a painful vise around her arm.

  He grinned, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Later, when he came home after he had ruined our family—oh, you should have seen him then, Fenris von Wolfenbach, the former darling of society, drinking himself into a stupor night after night.” Leopold giggled again. “The whole castle reeked of alcohol. A den of iniquity.”

  Once again, Cissy tried to twist free, but Leopold just laughed. “He drank to forget, but he couldn’t—as was only right when he had made his whole family miserable.”

  A large hand closed over Leopold’s shoulder and the older von Wolfenbach pulled him away. “You talk too much, little brother,” he said. His voice was just a lazy drawl, yet when he shifted, his body was between Leopold and Cissy. “And you’re dead drunk. Go to bed.”

  He’s shielding me, Cissy realized numbly. He’s using his body as a shield for me. On top of everything else, this was simply too much. Tears welled in her eyes, and she had to bite her lip hard to prevent them from overflowing. While she watched the play of the muscles of Fenris von Wolfenbach’s broad back underneath his lawn shirt, she suddenly felt the urge to step nearer, to put her forehead against his back…

  This time, she bit her lip to suppress her shaky laugh. He would loathe it. How he would loathe it!

  “Go to bed, Leo.” Steel had slipped into Fenris von Wolfenbach’s voice.

  “Go to hell, Fen.”

  Von Wolfenbach advanced on his brother until the two men stood chest to chest, illuminated by the candle Fenris carried with him. One light, one dark. One with a smooth face, one with stark lines etched into his skin. The hair of one was like a halo, the other’s hair black like raven wings. Black like Merlin’s hair, spawn of the devil, and yet…and yet…

  “Go to
your room, Leo,” Fenris von Wolfenbach said very quietly. Yet Cissy could hear the underlying edge. “Or better, go outside and push your thick head into the snow to sober yourself up.”

  “I—”

  “Go now.” His voice was sharp.

  Cissy watched Leopold’s face turn glum. He thrust his lower lip out into a small boy’s pout. He snarled a word Cissy had never heard before, then stormed off. She shivered.

  Fenris von Wolfenbach waited until even the echo of his brother’s steps had died away before he turned to Cissy and scanned her with his gaze. “Are you all right?” he asked in a completely different tone: soft, as if she were a doe, as if the smallest movement, the slightest harsh sound, might frighten her away.

  Cissy lowered her head and stared at the flame of her candle. How it danced! So merrily, as if nothing had happened. A shudder ran through her. “I am fine,” she whispered. “I woke up and there was a bat in my room. I thought it might be a moth, but it was a bat. So I ran outside and hoped…and hoped…”

  “A bat?” She looked up and saw him lift an eyebrow, but for once she couldn’t detect any sarcasm or mockery in him.

  Biting her lip, she nodded. “A bat. I didn’t want to…” She looked away and swallowed painfully. “I thought…I thought he would help me.”

  Fenris caught her chin with two fingers and gently turned her head so she had to look at him. “He has not hurt you, has he?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “I’m glad.” His thumb stroked in soothing circles over her temple.

  She stared at him blandly. “Why?” She shook her head. Exhaustion crept over her, made her sway on her feet. “Why did you come?”

  His face became inscrutable again. “I heard a commotion in the hallway. Would you like me to remove the bat from your room?”

  “Oh yes. Yes. Please.” Cissy shivered despite his coat around her shoulders. How she longed to crawl back under the duvet, seek the cozy warmth of her bed and pretend this all hadn’t happened. That it had been a bad dream, only a bad dream.

  “I won’t be long,” he promised, and with a final lingering glance, he stepped into her room.

  Cissy heard how the door clicked behind him, and with a weary sigh she sank against the wall. As she pressed her face against the cool stone, Leopold’s ugly insinuations came back to her—the horrid things he had said, how he had made her feel soiled. She shuddered. And even uglier and more hateful still were the words Leopold had flung at his own brother. “Did they shoot off your cock with your leg?” So cruel, so unbearably cruel…

  A tear trickled over her cheek.

  Cissy closed her eyes and fought for composure. Von Wolfenbach surely wouldn’t like it if he found her in tears when he came out of the room. But how he must hurt. So much hurt… She bit her lip.

  A few minutes later, he stepped into the hallway. “That bat should have been hibernating.” He looked into Cissy’s face. Frowning, he reached out and lightly touched her arm where his brother had gripped her. “You are certain he hasn’t hurt you?” Concern made his voice gruff.

  Concern. All these weeks he had tried to scare her away, and now he was concerned for her. Cissy blinked away the tears. He would not want her tears. “I’m fine.” She managed a smile, a quick lifting of her lips. “Is the bat gone?”

  “Quite.” Yet he did not budge, and still regarded her, his frown deepening. “You will not hold it against Leopold, will you? Drink makes him aggressive. But he’s not. Normally.”

  That he would defend his brother grated on her. “Then he should stay away from alcohol in the first place,” she said sharply.

  Von Wolfenbach flinched. The lines in his face made him look haggard and older than his years.

  Contrition came immediately. He had, after all, saved her and did not deserve more harsh words. “It is all right.” She touched his hand, the big rough knuckles. “I am fine. Really. Thank you for all you did tonight.”

  His face changed, became blank as the stone walls themselves. “Well, yes…” He straightened, took a step back. “Don’t think about it. And in the future—don’t be so foolish as to walk the hallways at night. It’s dangerous.” And with that, he walked away.

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Leopold came to apologize, a sheepish smile on his face—as if the incident in the hallway had been a mere trifle, as if his charming dimple and his striking good looks could make her forget the hateful things he had said, the unleashed beast she had seen. As if, just like that, he could make her forget the fear that had clutched her heart.

  God only knew what he would have done to her had his brother not arrived on the scene. She still could not fully understand what von Wolfenbach had been doing in this part of the castle—but oh, how glad she had been to see him! Who would have thought it: that she would one day welcome the sight of the demon wolf of Wolfenbach! And even though he had manhandled her at their first meeting, she had never felt a need to fear him the way she had feared Leopold the previous night. For it hadn’t been so much the violence that had frightened her, but the sexual intent beneath. To be at a man’s mercy like that, to know he could easily overpower her and do…things to her…

  Cissy shuddered. She remembered Mrs. Chisholm’s warning on that first day: All is not gold that glitters. She would be very, very careful around Leopold von Wolfenbach from now on. When she thought about what liberties she had allowed him, she felt ashamed of herself. A pea-brained mooncalf she had been, falling for a pretty face and a few pretty words.

  And so, while she coolly accepted his apology, she did not choose to accompany him on further tours of the castle. Two days later he threw a fit over her ‘lack of understanding.’ His face mottled with anger, he called for his curricle and drove away in a huff. On to greener pastures, Cissy thought cynically. Probably back to the delights of Freiburg.

  It was strange—when she thought about her London season, about the lure of life in the big city, what she remembered most was how unreal this life had seemed: a glittering surface without any substance. Even though she had had to do without most fineries, she had enjoyed her life as her father’s secretary and companion. The worlds he had opened for her had been utterly fascinating. This was also true for the last world he had gifted her with—the Castle of Wolfenbach. She loved the smell of cool, old stone, the feeling of timelessness that enshrouded the castle. By now she even liked the gargoyles peeking down on her from the castle walls whenever she ventured outside, as if they were standing guard over her. On the ramparts she would sometimes pat their heads or form fantastic snow caps for them. Their ferocity presented an intriguing contrast to the finer things inside the castle. The grandfather clock with the sad King of Dwarves never failed to bewitch her, and she simply adored the ancient tapestries.

  Every morning on her way to the room where breakfast was served, Cissy passed the tapestry of the hunting party with its secret declaration of love. Each morning, Cissy stopped to admire it. She loved the intricate floral design surrounding the men and animals; the curving lines which cleverly hid the Te amo. And she wondered about the woman who had created this tapestry. How unhappy she must have been, married to one man, but in love with another. So much in love that she had even left a secret testimony of it. And though she and her beloved were now long dead and had fallen to dust in their graves, the proof of her love survived the ages.

  With a gentle forefinger Cissy touched the letters. Lowering her voice to a mere whisper, she told the man forever caught in the fabric: “‘O I will love thee still, my dear, / While the sands o’ life shall run.’” Smiling at her own fancy, she let her gaze wander across the tapestry and caught the many places where the thread had thinned, and the spots of slightly brighter color where the fabric had been repaired. One of the lower corners was frayed, and it would need a few stitches to keep the whole from unraveling.

  Cissy carefully lifted the damaged corner to take a closer look. Her thumb stroked the frail threads while she imagined what
kind of stitches the repair would take. I won’t let your legacy fall apart, she promised the long-dead woman, and a sudden, strong feeling of kinship for her welled up inside Cissy. A labor of love this tapestry had been, just like Cissy’s own work in her father’s library. And while she knew more about books than about anything else, she knew enough about needlework to fix the corner and thereby make sure that the woman’s declaration of love would survive the next few years.

  Her smile deepening, Cissy let go of the fabric. Just as she turned to go to the dining room, the deep sounds of male voices at the top of the stairs drifted down to her. She looked up and saw Fenris von Wolfenbach engaged in deep conversation with his valet. It was strange, Cissy thought; even now, von Wolfenbach’s face was set in harsh lines as if he never quite allowed himself to relax. Unnoticed, she watched how he walked down the stairs, wondered if he knew what a powerful aura he emanated. Grace and strength, mixed with a strong will and determination.

  His wooden leg clacked on the wood of the stairs.

  Cissy was certain there were possibilities other than just a wooden stick. Yet for some strange reason, Fenris von Wolfenbach seemed determined to flaunt his missing limb in the face of the world. As if he didn’t want others to forget that he was different. Or…

  Cissy frowned.

  Or as if he didn’t want himself to forget that he was different. But not that much different. Cissy remembered the night he had used his body as a shield for her. How easily he had towered over his brother, how easily he had dominated him. How safe she had felt standing behind him.

  Cissy sighed.

  An awful crunching sound came from the stairs. Her head jerked up. Time seemed to slow down as she watched how von Wolfenbach stumbled, how his hand shot out to grab the banister and his fingers brushed the wood—and how they slid away as momentum dragged him on and on, down the stairs. The startled look in his widened eyes. The thuds as his body hit the stairs again and again, tumbling down head over heels. And the awful silence as he finally came to a rest on the landing.