"She had a lung sickness, sir, and a fever."
"And she did not send to us?"
"No, sir. She didn't want any doctors. She used her own remedies."
"And much good it's done her!"
"Well, time gets us all in the end, sir. Ah—that's what Lady Tanucci said, sir," the peasant added hastily, hoping not to annoy the Landrat.
"True enough." The Landrat's mind was beginning to work upon the family matters this death would precipitate. "Well, I'll send a wagon over to bring her to her family's burying place."
"Ah, sir, if it please you, your honor, we've already buried her, as she wished, up on the hill."
"Without a priest?" Cat's mother exclaimed.
"She didn't want a priest, Lady," the peasant mumbled, staring at his ragged foot wrappings. "Begging your pardon."
The Landrat sat silently, his broad forehead crumpled in thought. He was still pondering the property. As the magistrate of the district and the husband of a Tanucci heiress, it was occurring to him that he really didn't know how the land was to be disposed.
"Lady Tanucci said I was to bring you these papers, honored sir, and that you'd know what to do. That you'd be merciful and not put us off the land."
Out of his pocket, the man produced an ancient package of papers. It turned out to be several wills, the earliest dating from the days Aunt Teresina had first taken up residence at the farm.
The nearest living relative was Caterina's mother. The newer papers, witnessed by an attorney from Passau, expressed the wish that land would not go to the von Ployer half-brothers, but would pass to Caterina. Of course, it would end up being a matter for men of the two families to decide.
* * *
Here Caterina's musings ended, returning her to the present, to that darkened bedroom into which she was locked with a man she despised. Absently, she clicked open the locket, removed the blade and performed the exercise just as she had for years now.
Get a good grasp! Then thrust!
She tried, while doing the exercise, to make the attacker into Christoph, but her heart wasn't in it. After all, he hadn't yet offered to do her any harm. He was her playmate of old, dear Wili's beloved, and now, Blessed Saint Brigitte, her very own husband!
Returning the blade to its hiding place, Cat heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe she could sleep now; there hadn't been a private moment in which to accomplish the task all day and she knew for a fact that punishment for the sin of omission would have certainly come as soon as she'd fallen asleep.
Dragging the blanket over her head, Cat tried to relax, but memories of Aunt Teresina continued to pursue her. She began to think of how it had been, the day she'd ridden with Wili, Herr Longenecker, and a few servants to the farm after her Aunt's death.
The girls had been intending to put a knot of dried flowers on her grave and to bring some of her pet’s home. The Landrat had wanted Herr Longenecker to count the livestock and put a stick into the grain bins to measure what was there.
At the farm, people were going about their tasks as usual, but the scene seemed different, somehow diminished.
"Where are all the animals?" Both Wili and Cat had burst out with the same question at once.
While there were still a few cats and dogs roaming the yard, the favorites were nowhere to be seen. Their Aunt's personal servant looked somewhat abashed. "The mistress said that they were to go with her," he finally admitted.
Then he said that they'd dug a very large grave and killed cats and dogs, all the crippled birds, even one of the horses, and had laid them down with her.
"Disgusting! Crazy! Like some pagan!" Lady von Velsen made no bones about what she thought. "And to think I let Caterina stay with her last spring!"
"Exactly what I thought at the time," her father replied.
This last eccentric act left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. It was a long time before the girls would talk about her again. Wili turned quite against her, especially after talking to the priest. Father Partsch, always jealous of Auntie T's influence with the peasants, had said that, gentlewoman or not, she must have been in league with "dark powers". The way she had wanted to be buried was certain proof!
A nasty stir in the ecclesiastical courts followed and some priestly witch hunters arrived. In order to forestall the burgeoning trouble, Papa ordered all the peasants on Auntie T's land to undergo baptism. Most did, but some disappeared and were not seen in those parts again. Two old women who flatly refused and who were found to have "witch marks" were taken to Passau and hanged. It might have been worse, except for the fact that the nobility and the local bishop (whose mother was a Tanucci) closed ranks. In the end, the outsiders were silenced and the matter was quashed.
"Was Auntie really a witch?" Cat whispered the question to her father one evening while the family was sitting solemnly after supper. "Father Partsch told Wili she was."
Lady Albertine shot an alarmed look at her husband. Her anxiety during the last few months had been palpable.
"Father Partsch better mind his own business," said the Landrat, gazing severely at his daughters. "Your aunt was mad, not bewitched. Imagine bringing all this trouble upon her family through the public exercise of that kind of eccentricity! She must have known what would happen, that the news would get around. We of noble blood, Caterina, have more than just our own skins to look after. We not only have our families, we have lands, servants and peasants in our care. Be sure that you always remember that!"
Trying to block out this last, ugly memory, Caterina rolled over for the thousandth time and threw her arm across her eyes, hoping to somehow quiet her mind.
Outside, June was rampant. Cool breezes swayed the moonlit trees. A nightingale filled the darkness with his poignant, silver-throated note spinning. It occurred to her that the last bird Wili had mended and freed, not two months ago, had been a nightingale.
In the darkness the man who should have belonged to her sister sighed and rolled over. Maybe, Cat thought, focusing upon the moonlit patch on the floor, maybe in the morning this whole thing would turn out to be nothing more than a terrible dream, a dream with the same awful reality as the dream she'd had all those years ago at Auntie T's.
Chapter Five
Caterina, stretching her long self out in the sunlight on the sofa, realized first that she had overslept enormously and second that morning had not exorcised the man in the bed. She could hear his regular breathing.
The soft squeal of a key in lock announced an opening door. Cat sat up to see Mama, accompanied by a servant who was carrying a tray of breakfast. She saw rolls, butter, cheese and slices of cold meat, eggs sitting staunchly erect in cups and a large red and white china pot steaming with tea. It looked most inviting after no dinner.
Then she saw a little frown begin to pucker her mother's forehead. Lady van Velsen had noticed they were sleeping apart.
"Madame Mama, you shouldn't be here," said Christoph. While she'd been thinking of breakfast, he'd suddenly sat up. The shirt in which he'd gone to bed was open, revealing a broad expanse of chest. "We're not really ready for congratulations yet."
Cat sprang off the sofa and dashed toward her mother. "Mama!" she cried. "Mama!"
Wine might have incapacitated her husband the night before, but not this morning.
"No running to Mama yet." Leaping from the bed, strong bare legs flashing, he caught Caterina by the arm.
"Let go!" Cat began at once to pummel his chest, but she might as well have been hitting the wall.
"Please go out and lock the door again," Christoph directed, over Cat's head. "We don't want to be disturbed. Tell Herr Goran to get a chair and sit where he can hear if I shout." For a man who was holding a strong and frightened young woman by the wrists, his tone was remarkably relaxed.
"Don't go!" Cat pleaded, but Mama and the servant were already beating an embarrassed retreat.
As the key clicked once again, Caterina exclaimed, "Why can't she stay?"
"Because, cousin Kitty Cat
, we have unfinished business."
Thinking she understood, she began to struggle wildly, but he gave her a hard shake and said sharply, "No! It's not what you think. I have a confession to make."
When she, surprised at his tone, quieted and met his eyes, he went on, "I'd rather not say this, but something tells me that if I am ever to gain your respect, I'm going to have to completely lose it."
In the aching silence that followed, he gazed deep into her eyes. Cat didn't think that she'd ever seen those usually laughing hazel eyes so troubled.
"If you remember, I said last night that there was no immediate prospect of any breeding."
Cat blushed, nodded. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine what he was going to say.
"Your sister and I—made love."
Cat gasped. Her heart began to pound wildly.
"Even if she and I were not married, well—we both wanted it. I think you can see now why it wouldn't really be right for you and me. Not for a time."
Caterina remained speechless. Her face had gone as red as her hair.
"We both need time to grieve."
When he tried to stroke her cheek, Cat jerked away.
"Don't touch me!"
The tears that had been welling spilled. She was to be spared his unwanted and for the last six weeks so fearfully anticipated attentions, but, the reason for her escape! Words burst from her lips, words she had no sense of choosing.
"You didn't love her. What are you anyway? A dog that jumps every bitch he gets near?"
"If that's true, then why not you?" Christoph retorted. "Of course I loved Wili. We were promised to each other for half our lives. It was the most natural thing in the world, and Wili had been kept waiting far too long."
"You aren't talking about a mare. You are talking about my dear, good sister!" Caterina didn't understand why, but the idea that he'd made love to Wili was repellent, almost as much as if he'd confessed that he'd been in bed with her mother. She stamped and then blurted, "You're even more wicked than I thought."
His reaction was surprising. Instead of raging, he sat down on the sofa, strong bare knees sticking out beneath the shirt. Resting his chin in his hand, Christoph stared at her steadily, as if trying to fathom a deep mystery.
"The fact of the matter is, Caterina, that making love to Wili was one of the few decent things I ever did for her. Now, especially now, I'm glad we didn't wait." In the pause that followed, Caterina felt a growing discomfort as she endured his gaze. Last night she had been angry and frightened. Now her emotions were a runaway, plunging here and there. It seemed impossible to identify exactly what she felt.
"Is it, perhaps—a touch of jealousy?"
"How dare you assume that I'm like all your others?" Cat felt as if she'd been struck by lightning. "I have never—I have never been—I never could—" Stumbling wildly, she finally exclaimed, "How could I be so wicked as to be in love with my sister's betrothed?" Then, of course, thinking of things she'd sometimes imagined, she flushed scarlet.
Christoph continued to look solemnly at her. If anything, he looked miserable. His words had come out wearily, as if arousing desire in yet another woman was more of a burden than he could, at the moment, bear.
"Could you please stop pretending I'm the enemy? I promised your mama and papa, and here I promise you. I'm going to be a good husband. I knew telling you about Wili would hurt, but I didn't want to start our marriage out with a lie. Don't look so sad, little cousin," he continued, his eyes suddenly brightening. "I'm sure that the duties we owe each other will, some day, be performed with pleasure." One elegant hand stretched out to her. "Now, pax, Caterina. Nothing will happen until we are ready. Come and give me a kiss to seal the treaty."
Cat moved in his direction, but instead of joining him on the sofa, she leaned over, grabbed the handle of the breakfast tray and then dumped it, in a cascade of eggs and ham, bread, tea and fragile china, in his direction.
"Conceited monster!"
Christoph was astonishingly quick. He jumped, vaulting over the sofa back. The teapot missed him. Instead, it broke and emptied upon the floor.
"Damn!" he exclaimed breathlessly from the other side.
"I'm not jealous," Cat shouted. "I don't want you now and I will never want you!"
She turned and ran toward the window, fully intending to hurl herself out, but he came in three great strides and caught her around the waist.
A moment later she was tumbled onto the bed, his strong body holding her down. Once he'd established control of her whirlwind arms, he forced them up over her head.
"Let me go!"
"Not until you promise to calm down. You little fool, you could have killed yourself." Caterina turned her head away.
"Caterina," he said, staring down at her in dismay, "what on earth is going on? I knew you were grieving for Wili and angry with me, but I thought that down at the bottom you and I were friends."
"I never was your friend!" Then she added, "Christoph, please move. I can't breathe." "Good," he replied. Nevertheless, he did shift his weight a little. "I thought I was your favorite person in the world, at least for a gallop." His eyes were full of puzzlement and hurt. "Did I frighten you when I said I wanted a kiss?"
"No! I'm not frightened of anyone."
"I am your husband, you know. Mother Church says I'm entitled to not only a kiss this morning, but quite a bit more..." He lowered his handsome curly head and began to tentatively nuzzle against her cheek. The sensation was perversely exciting—and maddening.
"Don't. I hate you, Christoph von Hagen!"
"Because of how I treated Wili? Or because I made love to her? Or because I said that someday I hoped we might enjoy being married to each other?"
When she remained silent, his face grew sad. "Well, maybe you have cause to hate me, but she had better. Somehow, though, dear Wili never could hate. All those times she took me back, all those injured birds and rejected lambs and lost kittens she was always rescuing. Your sweet sister didn't have an unkind bone in her body."
His beautiful hazel eyes spilled over. "And I freely admit that I've been the biggest fool that ever was, that I've a lot to make up for. You know, Cat, I almost died this past winter. There's nothing like that to get a fellow thinking. And then a thing happened on my way here, something with a lady in Vienna, that made me decide to change myself, made me realize, once and for all, what a cold hearted bastard I've—"
"I don't want to hear about your mistresses!"
The anger Cat saw in his eyes wasn't surprising, but the pain was.
"She was and is a lady, Caterina," he said, "in spite of what she did with me. And you had better learn to think before you speak. We're married now, damn it, roped together till death do us part."
She had begun to struggle again, but, strong as she was, he had no trouble holding her.
"Do you know how easy it would be to just do what your papa wants, to get between your pretty legs and start making that baby they all want, with or without your assistance?"
"Go ahead." She was shaking, but still defiant. "Stop talking and be the brute you really are."
"Oh, Caterina!" Christoph shook his dark curly head and sighed despondently. Without another word, he sat up and let her go. "You really are a trial. Especially for a man with a broken heart, a hangover and a cut foot."
Cat rubbed her wrists and quickly rolled away from him, but he no longer seemed interested in what she was doing.
"Would you help me bandage this?" Sitting up, he pulled a foot into his lap.
At once Cat saw a trail of blood. The foot he was inspecting steadily dripped red. "I stepped on china," he explained, indicating the shards which lay about the floor.
"Um—let's just use this." Suddenly ashamed, she began to tug at the bottom of her petticoat.
"You don't mind ruining it?"
She was doubly annoyed when she couldn't tear it, so she offered him the hem. In his hands it came away as easily as if the cloth were rotten. Then, i
n a practiced manner, he bound his foot.
Food and bits of porcelain were scattered everywhere. Feeling ill at ease and not knowing exactly what to do, Cat got out of bed, knelt and began to pile china and food on the tray. The smashed eggs, the butter and hot tea made the floor quite slippery.
Christoph sat watching her pensively.
"I think what it needs is stitching." The makeshift bandage was already turning red. "Can you do it?"
"Mama will have to. Wili could have, but I'm afraid I'd just tear bigger holes in you."
"Wili wouldn't have tossed the breakfast on the floor either and I'd be eating your Mama's excellent food and kissing and cuddling instead of brawling with you, crazy brat."
Overwhelmed, Cat slammed the tray down on the table and burst into tears. It was true. Her sister would have been as happy this morning as she was miserable. As she leaned against the table and wept, he stood and then shuffled close. Big arms firmly enclosed her and Cat was drawn against him, against that beautiful, muscular body that every other girl in the valley dreamed of.
"Please. Don't."
"Oh, Caterina," he said softly, irresistibly turning her to face him. "Why are you like this? It's me, Christoph. I've never, ever forced a woman and I don't intend to start with my own little cousin. Believe me, I'm so damnably sorry about what has happened. I thought that if I married Wili it would make amends for everything. I thought I would come back here and make a clean start, make our papas happy, and make Wili happy at last. Listen to me, Cat. That's the same speech I made to Wili. She understood. She forgave me, she loved me, but, God, how wrong it's gone."
He drew her close. Even though her cheek was pressed against his bare, broad chest, even though she was experiencing for the first time all the sensations of intimacy, catching the scent of his man's body, feeling his muscle-taut skin, this was indisputably not love making. Caterina turned her face towards him like a baby and let go of a brief, intense shower of tears against that formidable chest. Maybe he shed some too, for a series of tremors ran through him. The whole time his strong hands were comforting her, stroking the heavy, loose hair that fell in a fiery cascade down her long back.
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