He?
‘Good God,’ whispered Belinda, amazed at her own thoughts. It was Count André she was daydreaming about, not Jonathan, her own boyfriend. It seemed disloyal, but there it was. Her thinking mind wanted to abhor the idea, but her instincts – and her subconscious – had suddenly overpowered her intellect. She was far more concerned about the opinion of a rather evasive stranger than the approval of a man she had been close to for years.
This place is changing us, she thought, glancing at the two beautiful women who stood to either side of her. Me and Jonathan, the pair of us; we’re no better than each other. We’ve both been led astray.
Whatever next? she thought, turning around as a loud knock at the door surprised her. Another seduction?
André? Oren, perhaps? Someone I haven’t even met yet?
But what puzzled her most was how little guilt she felt.
Chapter Seven
Curiouser and Curiouser
WHEN THE DOOR opened she discovered her visitor was Oren and not Count André as her subconscious had hoped for and expected.
The tall, blond servant clearly didn’t sense her disappointment though, because his smile was broad and cheerful. Nodding respectfully, he then glanced behind her to Feltris and Elisa and an unmistakable glint lit his eyes.
They’re lovers! Curiouser and curiouser, thought Belinda, imagining the three of them together. They would make quite a sight, she was sure it; all blond, good to look at, and uninhibitedly full of life’s joys. She could just picture their three golden bodies, meshed and contorted in pleasure. Who did what to whom? she wondered, speculating helplessly. Oren was so immense, so tall and broad – what would it be like with a lover so strong and huge?
Although the good-natured subject of her musings seemed prepared to wait indefinitely while she daydreamed, Belinda gave herself a mental shake.
‘Have you come to escort me to dinner?’ she enquired of Oren, who made an expressive sweeping gesture, indicating that she should follow him.
Enjoying the swish of the shimmering antique dress against her silk-stockinged calves, Belinda stepped out into the corridor, then turned to bid farewell to her beautiful new friends. Elisa and Feltris smiled back at her, then each blew kisses, their dark eyes full of what had happened in the bathroom. It isn’t over, they seemed to be saying. And the next time will be even more delicious.
‘Oh boy,’ Belinda whispered almost silently, as she and Oren made their way along the corridor. The tall, Nordic servant was a pace or two ahead of her, and she got a shock when he turned and eyed her knowingly.
‘Are you their –’ What could she say that didn’t sound intrusive? ‘Are you their friend?’ she finished lamely.
Oren glanced at her, his eyes mocking her naiveté.
‘Their cousin, then?’ She couldn’t bring herself to be any more explicit.
He nodded, then made an odd little circling gesture with his fingers, which seemed to say ‘a bit more than that’.
‘Oh … Yes, I see,’ Belinda murmured, wondering again what it would be like to make love with him. He was a colossus but he was obviously considerate and gentle. And he looked good enough to eat in the clothes he wore this evening: white denims and a white piqué polo shirt, both of which enhanced the bronze-like sheen of his skin.
Goddamnit, Seward, get a hold of yourself, she castigated silently. What on earth had got into her since she had arrived here? She could think of nothing but sex and bodies. Bodies and sex. Shouldn’t she be worrying about Jonathan? Finding out where he had so suddenly disappeared to?
‘Excuse me,’ she said, touching Oren’s massive golden arm. ‘I was wondering what happened to my friend? We were together earlier, but then he sort of vanished.’
Oren paused in his stride and nodded, and when they reached the top of the stairs, he steered her towards another long landing instead. Halfway along it, they stopped before another heavy oak door – much like the one to her room – where he knocked softly, then opened it for her to enter.
Jonathan’s bedroom was luxurious – perhaps not quite as much so as her own red and gold room, but still strikingly opulent and comfortable. The predominant colours were rich, masculine greens, and significantly there were no portraits of the distinctive von Kastels. The only pictures were one still life and one landscape.
The bed Jonathan lay in was like a woodland bower hung with greenery. He was fast asleep and his face looked angelic against the snow-white lawn pillow-case.
‘Johnny?’ Belinda called out softly as she approached the bed. ‘Johnny, are you all right?’
Jonathan stirred slightly and muttered something indecipherable, but he didn’t wake up. Belinda turned to Oren, who had followed her into the room.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ she asked, feeling concerned. Jonathan was a great one for taking a nap whenever he got the chance, but she had never seen him sleep quite this deeply. What was more, it was well into the evening now, she realised, judging by the twilight she could see descending beyond the window. And Jonathan was a night person; he usually perked up about this time.
Oren smiled calmly. Launching into another of his eloquent mimes, he described meeting Jonathan on the landing a short while ago and then discovering that the young man felt dizzy.
‘And you asked Count André to see him?’ said Belinda, understanding the account but feeling puzzled. ‘What could he do?’
Oren made a stirring motion and a few slow, flowing passes with his fingers, then pointed to a white beaker that stood on the bedside table. Frowning, Belinda remembered André’s strange performance with the wine bottle, and she picked up the white mug with real alarm.
There was a strong smell of herbs clinging to the interior of the beaker, a scent that was quite pleasant and minty. Belinda guessed it had contained a tisane.
‘Was it a medicine of some kind?’ she asked.
Oren nodded.
‘Something Count André made?’
He nodded again.
Whatever next? she thought, reaching down to touch Jonathan’s brow. The man’s a doctor now, as well as a magician.
And obviously a good one, she decided. Jonathan’s temperature felt perfectly normal, and he seemed to be sleeping contentedly. It was a shame to wake him up just for the sake of it.
‘He must need the rest,’ she observed, then leant over and kissed her boyfriend’s smooth cheek.
As Oren led the way back to the head of the stairs, Belinda felt guilty that she hadn’t noticed Jonathan’s weariness herself. He had done most of the driving so far on their trip, and obviously the strain had tired him out.
When they reached the ground floor, she was ushered once again into the great library – where the sight of the leather sofa made her blush. It seemed only a moment since she had sat there half-naked on André von Kastel’s lap.
The count was waiting for her. Standing before one of the tall bookcases, he had an open leather-covered volume in his hand, and appeared deep in thought. He frowned suddenly, then flicked over several pages. Belinda cleared her throat to attract his attention.
When André looked up, the first thing she noticed was that his blue eyes were serious. The teasing quality she had seen earlier was conspicuous by its absence, and there was again an obscure aura of sorrow about him – something intense that came from deep in his psyche. He smiled to welcome her but still the sadness lingered.
‘Good evening, Belinda,’ he murmured, closing his book, setting it aside and coming towards her. ‘How lovely you look. You truly are a sight to fire the spirits.’
When he reached her, he bowed over her hand again, clicking his heels. Belinda’s heart pounded as his lips caressed her fingers.
André too had changed for dinner, and was now clothed from head to toe in black. Black silk shirt, black trousers and black shoes. Surprisingly, he was tie-less, but he was wearing the most elegant of antiquated dinner jackets, which suited him so beautifully that Belinda caught her breath. His
weird, striated hair was hanging loose around his shoulders, but despite its bleached look it appeared glossy and well kept. Belinda could have sworn it was even blonder than before.
‘Thank you,’ she said in answer to his compliment, feeling disturbed that he clung on to her hand.
‘You are worried about your friend, are you not?’ he said, giving her fingers a small squeeze before finally letting them go.
He’s reading my mind again, thought Belinda, still feeling his firm, cool grip. ‘Yes, I am rather. Johnny’s usually so fit. It’s not like him to come down with something.’
‘Do not worry,’ said André, his eyes hypnotic and soothing. ‘I have examined him and basically he seems quite healthy. He is simply a little over-tired.’ His mouth quirked very slightly, as if he was suggesting that she was the cause of Jonathan’s tiredness. ‘I gave him a herbal tonic. Something that will make him sleep deeply and renew his strength and vigour.’
‘Thank you,’ murmured Belinda again, her eyes sliding away from André’s, unable to cope with the intensity of his look. She glanced around at the massed ranks of books. ‘I didn’t realise you were a doctor.’
He shrugged and somehow managed to capture her eyes again. ‘I am not one.’ He smiled, a little crookedly. ‘I have a little medical knowledge but I am by no means a physician. Simply a dabbler in certain –’ he paused, his brilliant eyes dancing ‘– therapies that have stood the test of time.’
‘I’m very interested in alternative medicine – herbalism and aromatherapy and suchlike,’ said Belinda quickly. It wasn’t a lie. Standing here with André, she suddenly was interested. ‘Do you have any good recipes and potions you can pass on?’
As she spoke, that strange shadow seemed to pass across his face again, but it disappeared just as swiftly when he replied.
‘I would not exactly call them recipes,’ he said, smiling, ‘but there may be one or two things I can teach you. After dinner, that is.’ He looked across to Oren, who seemed to be waiting for his orders. ‘And now, I think, we shall have some champagne.’
This time, funnily enough, the wine was in an ice bucket. Belinda hadn’t seen it when she had entered the library, but she noticed it now on the sideboard, coolly embracing a familiar, shapely bottle. With characteristic efficiency, Oren uncorked the frothing wine and filled two glasses without spilling the tiniest drop.
André took the two crystal flutes and handed one to Belinda, dismissing his servant with a slight nod as he did so. ‘Not from my own country this time, alas,’ he said, as he clinked his glass to hers, ‘but delicious nevertheless. To your health, Belinda,’ he murmured, ‘and happiness.’
‘What about long life?’ she asked, as they sat down together. She felt intoxicated on just one sip of wine. ‘Isn’t that usually a part of the toast?’
André looked away then put his glass down by his feet. When he looked back at her, he seemed a mass of mixed emotions. His cultured face bore traces of irony, thoughtfulness and humour, as well as his slight but ever-present melancholy.
‘Would you really want it?’ he asked, his voice low and intent.
‘What? You mean long life?’ she countered, surprised by the sudden fire in the question. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I do. Doesn’t everybody?’
For a moment, André didn’t answer, and Belinda got the impression that she had lost him somehow. Or somewhere. He was sitting right next to her – handsome, charismatic and desirable – but it felt as if she were seeing him across a huge gulf, a division of time and space it was impossible to quantify.
Belinda felt frightened. In spite of what had happened here on this very couch, she did not know this man at all. She also had a feeling that if and when she came to know him fully, her present fears would seem as nothing by comparison.
‘There are some to whom long life is a curse,’ he said quietly. Then he reached down to retrieve his wine and downed it in one long swallow, his throat undulating sensuously as he drank. ‘More champagne?’ he enquired, on his feet again so fast it made her jump.
Belinda looked at her glass. She had hardly tasted the wine at all. She took a quick sip, then held it out. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, smiling as brightly as she could in an attempt to lift the suddenly sombre atmosphere.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when André returned with the wine, ‘I think I’ve said something to upset you … but I’m not quite sure what.’
‘It is I who should be asking forgiveness,’ he replied, his smile returned and his blue eyes unclouded and brilliant. ‘I am being a poor host. I allow my worries to intrude at the most inopportune moments.’
‘If you want to talk, it’s OK, you know,’ Belinda suddenly heard herself say. ‘I know I’m a stranger …’ Colour flushed in her cheeks. She hadn’t acted like a stranger earlier, when she had allowed him – and encouraged him – to touch her. ‘But sometimes it’s easier to tell your troubles to someone you don’t know than it is to tell them to a friend or a loved one.’
For several seconds André stared at her unblinkingly. Belinda felt he was studying everything about her; her every thought, her every memory, her every hope and desire. ‘You are a very kind and sensitive woman, Belinda,’ he said softly. ‘Perhaps I will confide in you. In a little while.’ He smiled again, his eyes cheerful and full of promises. ‘But first, we should enjoy our dinner, I think.’ Draining his champagne, he put aside the glass, then rose to his feet, extending his hand to her like the courtier he most probably once had been.
He’s like a prince in hiding, thought Belinda as she accompanied André to the dining room. A dissolute prince, banished for some unspeakable crime of passion and doomed to solitude for the rest of his days. It was a desperately glamorous image, she knew, and made him utterly fatal to women, especially imaginative ones like her, who loved tales of high romance and gothic mystery.
She was laughing by the time they reached their destination, and André gave her an amused look, as if once again he knew her thoughts exactly.
‘OK, I admit it,’ she said, as André drew her chair out and waited until she was comfortable before taking his own seat. ‘You … and this place … I hate to admit it, but it really gets to me. I’ve got an ordinary life, an ordinary job, and I meet ordinary people. All this is like something from a book,’ she said, gesturing around her. ‘A foreign nobleman. A crumbling but fabulous house. Antiques. Gorgeous pictures.’ She paused, realising she was gushing, and appalled by it. ‘You’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage. Really.’
André laughed, a merry, husky sound that seemed to dispel the last echoes of his sadness. ‘It is I who is at a disadvantage,’ he said, laying his hand across his chest. ‘I am at the mercy of your beauty, your compassion … and your open-mindedness.’ He hesitated, as if debating some thorny inner point. He seemed on the very edge of revealing something, something which Belinda sensed was crucial. ‘You have much that I want, Belinda, and much that I need,’ he said at last. ‘I am your servant, believe me.’ He bowed his head momentarily. ‘And I would do anything to keep you here in my company. Anything.’
He spoke with such emphasis that Belinda felt chilled. The words ‘do anything’ seemed to chime around the room and envelop her, despite the fact that he had spoken only quietly. It was a relief when Oren entered the room, bearing their first course on a large chased silver tray.
The meal was light and delicious but Belinda scarcely noticed the fine cuisine. It was as if André had put a spell on her; she could do nothing, really, but watch him and listen to his voice, and answer every question he asked about her. Revealing virtually nothing about himself, he seemed to effortlessly coax everything from her. Her past history; her present thoughts; her future hopes and dreams. Almost the whole of her life – even down to some of the most intimate details she had never told anyone about, ever – was described over the perfect food and heady wine. And when they were finished, she could hardly believe what she had disclosed.
Has he hypnotised me? she wonder
ed as she studied the tiny coffee cup before her and smelt the divine aroma it exuded. It certainly seemed that way. She had just talked and talked and talked, while André had remained enigmatic, and listened.
He had also, she noticed, eaten very little of his excellent dinner. Just a few morsels here and there, and then only taken for her benefit, it seemed. As the strong but sublime coffee began to clear her fuddled head a little, Belinda had the most extraordinary idea ever.
He’s not human, she thought, watching André push away his plate and fold his table napkin.
Suddenly, all the books she had read and the films and television shows she had seen seemed to conspire and produce an extraordinary conclusion – Count André von Kastel was a vampire, a ghost, or some other nether being who possessed strange powers and did not take ordinary nourishment.
Everything seemed to point to it. He slept during the day, he barely ate, and she was almost convinced that he had done some kind of magic trick with the wine that afternoon in the library. Plus the fact that he lived alone, in seclusion, with only three dumb servants to attend him, in a house that was crammed with peculiar artefacts. He even came from the appropriate part of Europe.
Belinda began to shake when André rose to his feet and walked around the table towards her. She felt foolish, letting her fancies control her, but when he stood over her, smiling slightly, she couldn’t move a muscle and she couldn’t seem to speak.
‘What is it?’ he asked softly, putting out his hand to her. ‘Are you afraid of me?’
Belinda licked her lips. She was caught in the thrall of a being who had the combined sexual magnetism of a dozen cinematic Draculas, and even if he were just a man after all, she was sure that wouldn’t lessen her growing fear of him.
‘Belinda?’ he prompted, making a tiny gesture of encouragement with his fingertips.
‘I-I’m sorry, I think I’ve had too much wine,’ she said, finally finding the strength to take his hand. ‘I started imagining the silliest of things just then.’ She stood up, half-expecting to swoon or something, but found herself quite steady on her feet.
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