She was sipping her soup when she heard the clang of the rusty bell outside the front door and supposed that this was the first of the interviewees for the position of lady’s maid.
She was half way up the stairway returning to her room when Bujar called to her from the hall below.
“Would you step into the library for a moment?”
Ariana turned and slowly made her way down. The library door was open and Bujar beckoned her in.
“I have employed a maid for you. She was the first to apply and can start at once. Her name is Zhenka.”
A woman waiting meekly in a corner curtseyed to her. Her hair was completely covered in a brown cotton scarf, while her figure was encased in a dress of coarse-cut cloth and her expression was dull.
But Ariana recognised her at once.
It was Lulé!
She marvelled at Lulé’s boldness in appearing at Dukka Castle like this and then she recalled that Bujar had never set eyes on Lulé. The Prince had glimpsed her, but only at a distance. The only one who had seen her at close quarters was Gezim – and Gezim had most conveniently disappeared.
Too conveniently! Ariana paled at the thought that Lulé might indeed be responsible.
Bujar suggested that she take ‘Zhenka’ to her room.
Ariana led her new maid upstairs, addressing not a single word to her until they were inside her room.
Then she swung round on her.
“Did you kill Gezim?”
Lulé gave a low laugh.
“Of course I didn’t kill her! I informed her that her brother was with us in the mountains and wanted her with him. That news, and a little silver, was all it took to entice Gezim away.”
Ariana shook her head, bewildered.
“But why did you do that?”
Lule shrugged.
“So I could take her place.”
“Why?” Ariana asked again.
“For Lorenc,” replied Lulé simply, tearing off her scarf and shaking loose her raven hair.
Ariana sank onto the bed. She recalled the political situation as it was discussed at supper the night before. Had Lorenc, whom she now knew to be a Nationalist, sent Lulé because he wanted a spy in the Prince’s household?
What should she, Ariana, do if she believed this to be the case? Despite her revulsion for the Prince and her deep wish not to be forced to marry him, she was living in his home and she was in his care.
But she could not bring herself to betray Lulé and Lorenc to the Prince, even though she was now convinced that they were lovers. Why else would Lulé do what she had done?
She turned bitter eyes upon the gypsy. Well, if they were so close, Lulé could at least answer the question of who Lorenc was.
“Lulé, you have seen Prince Stefan,” she said.
“Yes,” replied the gypsy.
“So it cannot have escaped your notice that he and Lorenc are identical.”
Lulé regarded Ariana from under lowered brows.
“If you want to know the connection between those two men, my lips are sealed. It could place Lorenc – and you – in danger.”
Ariana felt a sob rise in her throat and turned away.
So Lulé might know the truth, but not she!
“I am in danger already,” she said. “The Prince is on his way right now to interrogate his coachman, who fled when the brigands attacked us. He will soon learn that I lied to him.”
Lulé’s reply was a puzzle.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It will resolve itself.”
Ariana’s head snapped round to stare at her, but the gypsy moved quickly on,
“Meanwhile I am curious to explore this Castle of yours.”
Ariana had hoped that now she had a chaperone, she might walk in the grounds that afternoon. But a light rain had begun to fall, so she then agreed to show Lulé the interior of The Castle.
The two trailed companionably along the passages and galleries and up and down endless flights of stairs.
Lulé seemed very interested in the various portraits that hung on the wall. Ariana had herself peered at these paintings, but had found nothing indicating a relationship between Stefan and Lorenc.
She had noted marks on the walls where paintings had evidently been removed. It was obvious that Lulé had made the same observation, for, although she said nothing, her eyes often narrowed at the tell-tale signs.
Lulé insisted that Ariana go where she had not yet ventured, down to the cellars carved deep in the limestone rock on which The Castle was built.
Ariana was surprised to find the stone walls lined with thick wooden doors, all bearing heavy exterior bolts.
After their tour the two women ate supper together in Ariana’s bedroom. They then played cards until Ariana said that she wished to retire.
Lulé, exactly like a well-trained lady’s maid, helped her to undress and then retreated to the little ante-chamber where she was to sleep.
*
Ariana was woken roughly by someone shaking her shoulder.
She started up with a cry thinking that it was the Prince, but it was Lulé, a shawl in one hand and a lighted candle in the other.
“Come,” Lulé whispered and moved to the door.
Barely awake Ariana obeyed as if in a dream and found herself led down the stairs to the hall.
Lulé stealthily drew back the bolts of the front door and opened it. Only when she felt the fresh night breeze on her face did Ariana fully wake up.
“W-where are we going?” she asked in wonder as Lulé threw the shawl over her shoulders.
Lulé did not reply, but quickly made off towards the woods. Intrigued, Ariana hurried after her.
In the woods she followed Lulé’s candle until the flame went out, probably extinguished by rain that dropped from wet leaves overhead.
Very soon she found herself in the clearing where she had last seen Gezim. Lulé was waiting for her and she stood regarding Ariana with a curious look and then she stepped aside.
Beyond Lulé Ariana saw a white horse cropping the grass in the moonlight. Her gaze swept round the clearing and she gave a start of joy.
Watching her from where he leaned against a tree was a figure she knew and loved all too well.
“Lorenc!”
His name escaped her lips with a cry
. Forgetting everything else, decorum and propriety, forgetting the world, Ariana flew on winged feet to him.
*
She found herself deep in his arms, his breath warm against her hair.
“Ariana,” she could hear him moan and then his lips sought hers.
Ariana lost all sense of time and place. She was caught up in a wild hurricane of emotion, not even pausing to consider how it could be that a man who had once coldly banished her from him now seemed overcome with joy at her touch.
From kiss to kiss with just a moment between, they each struggled as if beset by a power beyond them.
Swept along in a fevered unquestioning tide, Ariana forgot all her recent misery. She was flying to the moon and reaching out to touch the stars.
It was only when she felt a strong shudder shake his body that she drew back. Placing a hand against his breast in an attempt to still its heaving, she could feel in wonder the strong pulse of his heart.
Why, it was so strong it would surely burst!
He stared down at her, his eyes black and deep as the river that ran nearby.
“Yes, how hard my heart beats for a cruel Mistress who hid from me that she was to be the wife of another.”
Tears started to Ariana’s eyes.
“Oh, you don’t understand. At first I was silent on the subject because I had no wish to be held up for ransom to bring trouble to my – my fiancé before I had even met him. And then – after a while, I was silent because – ”
Her voice trailed away.
No doubt the way she had flown into his arms told all. And if it did not, she was not sure that she should explain as yet the longing she felt fo
r this man before her.
“Because?” Lorenc repeated with a smile.
“I did not want to – leave the mountains,” she said, flushing. “I did not wish to leave – a way of life I was beginning to l-love.”
Lorenc raised a teasingly sceptical brow.
The next moment he had caught hold of her hand and covered it with gentle kisses.
His tenderness shocked her more than his previous passion and she gave a little cry, which seemed to act on his senses like iron on an anvil.
A spark was relit and the next moment his lips were again on hers, but with an added urgency that both thrilled and frightened her.
It seemed to threaten a madness and an abandon that she had never encountered.
She should resist, she knew, but she was rendered helpless by his fierce determined grip and by the moans that rose from the very depths of his being.
She could not but be overwhelmed at the idea that she was the cause of his passion.
Then with an anguished cry he thrust her from him.
With troubled eyes he surveyed her flushed cheeks and her shining eyes before passing a sleeve over his brow.
“You torment me,” he growled in savage tone.
“T-torment you?”
“Yes!” He spun away from her and began to pace up and down. “How do I know but that you came to me so readily because you thought that I was your fiancé!”
“How can you say that?” Ariana protested.
Lorenc stopped and shot her a sardonic look.
“Lady, if you could fall with such abandon into my arms, why would you not fall with such abandon into his, who is so like me?”
Ariana trembled as she recalled Stefan looming above her with his whip and his bloodless lips that at other times had brushed her own.
“But I c-cannot bear – his embrace.”
In the moonlight she saw Lorenc’s face contort as if she had thrust a knife into his side.
“He has embraced you, then?”
Her eyes fell in sudden alarm.
“Y-yes.”
Lorenc sprang forward and seized her arm.
“How did he embrace you? Like this – ” and he sought her mouth so roughly that she flinched. “No? Like this then – ?”
And, hand on the back of her head, he drew her body to his with such violence that she cried out.
“Why do you insult me like this?”
Lorenc drew away with an expression that revealed he was as disturbed as she was by his behaviour. He fell back against the tree, his chest heaving.
“I am not myself,” he said after a moment. “When I think of the rights that viper has over you, then I am not myself.”
With a sudden dullness she wondered if this hunger for her that Lorenc had so forcefully demonstrated was no more than some perverse desire for a woman who belonged to another.
She had heard that jealousy was as great a force as love.
All the elation she had felt now vanished. She stood crushed before him, a flower that had folded suddenly with the flight of the sun.
She glanced at him, but his eyes were lowered, his fist clenched at his side.
Then she remembered Lulé and blushed to think of how the gypsy must have witnessed the outburst of passion between herself and Lorenc.
She turned to look for her, but Lulé had left and one suspicion at least, she consoled herself, had been dispelled by this encounter. Since it was Lulé who had led her to Lorenc, she felt confident that the gypsy and he could not be romantically involved.
She turned back to Lorenc. He rested against the tree, eyes still lowered.
“Why did you come here tonight?” she asked him.
He raised surprisingly agonised eyes to her.
“I have been constantly haunted by your image.”
Ariana regarded him with a sudden bitterness.
“How much more haunted you might have been if you had been forced to see my mirror image before you, day after day.”
If she believed that this comment would provoke Lorenc into addressing the resemblance between himself and Stefan, she was proved wrong.
Instead his visage altered at this allusion to Stefan, as if he did not, or would not, grasp the full implication behind Ariana’s words – that she had yearned for Lorenc as much as he had hinted that he yearned for her.
“Of course,” he said sarcastically, “I also came to discover whether or not you had betrayed me to Stephan.”
Ariana flushed with anger.
“I have not, but another soon will.”
“What do you mean?”
Coldly she explained that the coachman had been apprehended. Lorenc looked troubled for an instant only and then gave a shrug.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said. “At least you are not the one to lead them to me.”
Ariana drew in a scornful breath.
“Why would I, when Bonnie is in your power?”
A flicker of cool amusement crossed Lorenc’s face.
“So if I did not have her as hostage, I would not be safe?”
Ariana tossed her head feeling angry now.
“Why don’t you release her and find out?”
“To release Bonnie now would break someone’s heart.”
Ariana felt faint. Break someone’s heart? Whose heart she wanted to cry, but she dared not reveal the extent of her jealousy. It was clear that Lorenc was so taken with Bonnie that he did not wish to part with her.
She turned quickly away to hide her tears.
“Ariana,” she heard Lorenc murmur.
She did not respond and a moment later she felt his hand take her chin. She struggled to pull away from him, but he forced her round.
His gaze as it rested on her was suddenly and disarmingly tender.
“I realise now what it is that you long to know,” he said softly. “You want to know why I so resemble the Prince. Or, should I say, why he so resembles me. But for your own safety and mine, I cannot tell you. One day – ”
His voice trailed away, while his gaze slid from her eyes to her lips, passion stirring again within him.
Her limbs trembled at that look and a moan escaped her. She could not resist him if her life depended upon it.
He was a torch that set her whole being alight.
When he reached for her and drew her to him, she had no more power to resist than a moth to fly from the glare of a lamp.
This time his kiss seemed to bruise her very soul.
She was riding on air with a feeling she had never imagined could exist.
She yearned so much to be one with him and to have no barrier between them for the whole of Eternity.
“Perhaps,” he sighed in her ear, “perhaps I should rob Stefan of the joy of being the first to possess you!”
Shocked out of her reverie, Ariana put her hands against his chest to stare accusingly up at him.
“What? What?” he mocked. “You forget, I am no pale shivering Englishman. Remember what you said – I am a beast! I am from a wild and savage people. It is our tradition to take what we want. And how I want you, dear Lady. By all the Heavens my yearning is almost too strong to resist!”
Ariana tried to break free from the hands that now gripped her waist.
“Would you so – dishonour me?”
She almost melted at his troubled smile.
“No, Ariana. You I would not so dishonour.”
This reply did not and could not satisfy her, but opened a yawning chasm in her soul.
“But you would so dishonour – others?”
“Others? I have never needed to.”
“You mean that other women give themselves to you readily?”
Lorenc surveyed her through narrowed pupils.
“Ariana, I am a man. I have been a soldier. I have lived the rough life in the mountains. Surely you did not imagine I had no past where women are concerned?”
Ariana was too stung to restrain herself.
“And do
es that include Bonnie?”
“Bonnie!” Lorenc exploded. “By Heaven, Lady, do you think me that debased as to seduce the maid when I desire the Mistress? To take advantage of a creature who belongs to another?”
“Another,” Ariana gasped. “Do you mean – me?”
Lorenc shook his head in despair.
“You? Little fool, no! I mean I had Bonnie married to Gorci. Since the night before you left, I knew she would be less trouble to me then.”
Ariana closed her eyes with relief.
She remembered that last night at the camp when Bonnie had slipped away and not returned until dawn. The maid had hoped to win over Lorenc by revealing that her Mistress was to marry another. She had been disappointed and in that disappointment had agreed to marry Gorci.
And from what she recalled of the maid’s flushed state when she had crept into the cave that morning she had ended up quite happy with that outcome!
With a shiver of passion Ariana imagined how she might feel after such a night, a night when the man she loved had taken her, body and soul.
She now looked up longingly at Lorenc. He seemed about to wrap her in his arms again, but then stiffened as a piercing whistle sounded from the wood by The Castle.
He stepped back, listening, head on one side.
The whistle sounded again, more urgently.
“It’s a warning,” Lorenc said with a frown. “My darling, you must return.”
Ariana was flooded with despair. Her head sank to her breast, the shawl slipping from her shoulders.
“Take me with you,” she pleaded.
“I dare not raise such an alarm yet,” Lorenc began. “Believe me, when the time comes, I will endeavour to – ”
His voice trailed away and Ariana looked up to see his gaze on her breastbone, where the long welt was clearly visible in the bright moonlight.
“Who did this? Who did this to you, Ariana?”
The fury in his eyes caused Ariana to hesitate.
“I – burned myself – with an iron.”
Lorenc grasped her elbow so tight she winced.
“I ask again, who did this to you?”
She lowered her eyes, trembling before him. He let go her elbow, but she felt his eyes burning into her.
“S-Stefan,” she admitted at last.
Lorenc gave a roar of anger and slammed his fist into the tree, as behind them the whistle sounded again.
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