Castle of the Wolf (7 page)

Eventually, the door opened and the butler returned in the company of an elderly woman. In fact, it was the woman who had run away shrieking when she had spotted Cissy in the courtyard. “
Gnädiges Fräulein
.” The butler made a stiff bow. “Frau Häberle, the housekeeper.”

Frau Häberle curtsied. “
Gnädiges Fräulein
.” Nervously, she twisted the hem of her apron through her fingers.

Oh, this promises to be interesting!
Cissy still held on to her bland smile, even though she wished she weren’t there all on her own. It would have been nice to have a familiar, dear face to look at, to draw reassurance from. And yet…

You’re no longer a child, but a grown-up woman. You have to take care of yourself.

Indeed.

And she would start by asserting her authority with her new servants. She subtly straightened her shoulders. “Frau Häberle.” She gave the woman an amiable nod. “I believe we’ve already met, haven’t we?” She watched how a soft blush tinged the woman’s cheeks, and for a moment she could almost sympathize. But then she remembered the state of the room she had been given and all sympathy fled. Her tone became chillier. “I understand it was you who assigned a room to me?”

“I …” Licking her lips, the housekeeper threw a look at the Graf and Gräfin. What she saw there obviously acted as encouragement, for her hands fell to her side and she lifted her chin. “Indeed. After consultation with the master,
gnädiges Fräulein
.”

After consultation with the master, indeed. Cissy raised her brows. The lout! She folded her hands in her lap and smiled some more. “I see. That explains it then,” she said kindly. “You were laboring under a misconception. For you see”—she leaned a little forward and lowered her voice as if divulging a great secret—“
I
am now the mistress of the Castle of Wolfenbach. Isn’t that so, Graf von Wolfenbach?” She turned to him.

The man cleared his throat, shifted on his seat. “You are quite right, my dear,” he finally said.

“See?” Cissy focused her attention on the housekeeper once more and gave her an even kinder smile than before. “And this means that I expect my room to be cleaned and tidied this afternoon and my travel chest brought in. I want to sleep on a clean mattress tonight, with a fresh pillow and featherbed, for I don’t care much for mice nests. I’m sure you understand. And make sure the old drapings are taken down, too. If you can’t substitute them for something more fitting today, that is quite fine. But else”—she looked the housekeeper up and down—“as I said, I expect to find the room cleaned by this afternoon, else I’m afraid I’ll have to look for a new housekeeper—and other servants.”

Color came and went in the housekeeper’s face. “
Gn-gnädiges Fräulein
?”

“That is all, Frau Häberle.”

After the two servants left, the room was very quiet. “Frau Häberle has been in our family’s employ for the past forty years,” the Gräfin finally broke the silence. “I am sure there is no need for such harshness.” Gentle reprimand rang in her voice.

Cissy steeled herself to meet the woman’s gaze calmly and with no outward sign that her heart was beating faster than normal. She did not want to alienate the Wolfenbachs any more than the servants, but after her inspection of what was supposed to be her new living quarters, she knew it was imperative to take up the reins fast.

Or rather, to wrest the reins from that blunderheaded churl, Fenris von Wolfenbach.

She had to suppress a shudder as she remembered how he had stared at her, snarled at her, how he had gripped her, totally out of control. For a moment she had thought he would actually throttle her. The warning of the innkeeper’s wife flitted through her head.
“He’ll rip you apart and tear you to pieces, he surly will!”

Not so fast
, she thought.
Not so fast…

She shook her hair back and met the Gräfin’s gaze unflinchingly. “Oh, I can assure you it was necessary. Quite, quite necessary.”

~*~

“She did what?” Fenris whirled around to stare at his friend and valet, his anger so intense that he thought his head might burst any moment.

Johann grimaced. Fenris had met him during the war, and they had stuck together during those horrid months Fenris wished he could erase from his memory. When he had returned home, Johann had followed him and stayed on as his valet.

“She threatened to dismiss Frau Häberle. And apparently everybody else, too.”

“The hussy!” Fenris growled. “How dare she—”

“Well, if the castle really belongs to her now…”

With a vile curse, he turned his back on his valet. Breathing heavily, he leaned on the windowsill and stared outside. The dark bulk of the forest was broken by the bull’s-eye pane, and each bulge showed a little piece of snow-covered green with a startlingly blue sky overhead. Closing his eyes, Fenris wearily lowered his head.

“Wolfenbach gone,” he murmured. “They even lost the castle because of me. All because of me.” Bitterness constricted his throat and viciously cut into his insides like the slow twist of a knife that had been thrust into his belly.
And this time even the legendary Wolves haven’t been able to protect their own…

“Damn it all!” His fists hit the stone. He didn’t care that the impact jarred his arms. If anything, he welcomed the physical pain. For if it were bad enough, he might forget the pain inside, the pain and the guilt, which had been his companions for more than a decade. “I won’t let her take the castle away from me. In fact…”—he slowly turned around, and his lips lifted in a terrible smile—“in fact, I will make her regret the hour she set her foot over my threshold.”

Interlude

An agitated murmur rippled through the stone. They pricked their ears, listened. Watched. Someone new had entered their realm.

They caught the sharpness of recent pain, but beneath…oh, beneath—there was something else. Something they hadn’t seen or felt in a long time. Something they had yearned for, hoped for. Something they wanted to keep for themselves.

Stone shifted.

And they
would
keep it.

Would keep her.

Forever…

…and ever…

…and ever…

Chapter 5

By late afternoon, Cissy’s room was moderately clean and warm. The cobwebs had been removed, as had the holey bed drapings and the rodent skeleton. The cracked chamber pot had been replaced by a whole, creamy white pot, and the bedding smelled and looked clean.

For dinner with the Graf and Gräfin, Cissy could finally change her clothes. While she straightened her wraparound stays, it occurred to her she would need to hire a new maid soon.

She sighed.

She missed Evie—the easy chatter, the softly rolling Yorkshire accent. She hoped the girl would find a new place instead of staying with Dorinda. There were a number of respectable families in the neighborhood she could work for as a maidservant. Or just as a normal housemaid.

Cissy rubbed her forehead.

She should have made sure Evie would get a nice new place. But then, she didn’t have any rights in regard to her former servants—her father’s former servants. Now they were George’s.
George, George, why must you have such an atrocious taste in women?
She shook her head and finished putting on her dress.

~*~

The demon wolf of Wolfenbach did not show up for dinner. It was just his parents and Cissy. For some unfathomable reason, they dined in the drafty Great Hall, and even though the table stood next to the stove, Cissy could still feel the chill of winter seep through her woolen dress.
Note: Wear more petticoats in the future. Or better, find another dining room!

To prevent another round of awkward and stilted conversation, she subtly steered the dinner talk to the field of mythology. Just like her father, Graf von Wolfenbach was keenly interested in the latest developments in this field. He asked her whether she had heard about the
Edda
edition and translation by the Arna-Magnaean Society in Copenhagen. He recited some of the Latin translations for her and told her about his plan for a new German translation. “Of course, Herder has already translated some of the songs, as have Grater and the Grimms, but still…” Abruptly he stood, raised his glass and in a deep, booming voice declaimed:

“Up rose Odin,

the old hero,

and saddled

Sleipnir.

Down he rode

to Nifelheim…”

He drank from his wine before he gave Cissy a crooked smile. “It is, of course, not terribly patriotic, but I have always loved those old Norse songs best of all medieval literature.” He sat down. “Tell me, my dear, which piece of medieval literature do you like best?”

And thus they passed the evening. That night Cissy dreamt of old prophecies, of divine horses with eight legs, of heroes riding the skeletons of giant mice, and of a great demon wolf with glowing eyes, sulking through the forest and pursuing a little girl in a black hood.

~*~

The next morning, Cissy tried to find a new place for all the things in her travel chest. When she unwrapped her books it felt like a reunion with old, dear friends. After they had found a new home on the shelf that adorned one wall of the room, Cissy thought her own new home suddenly looked much cozier than before. The finishing touch was her old blanket on the bed. She left her room with a smile on her face.

Yet just as quickly, her smile faded. While the previous evening a servant had been sent to guide her to the Great Hall, she was now on her own and soon found that the castle very much resembled a maze. Hallways suddenly twisted into different directions or ended in dead ends, while some staircases led nowhere. With increasing frustration, Cissy went from one ghostly silent room to the next, past faded tapestries and pictures so dark with old age the lines had been blurred beyond recognition. The furniture had lost its luster and everything was covered by a thick layer of dust, making Cissy almost believe it had snowed
inside
the castle. Her breath formed white puffs of air in front of her face, and she cursed the fact she had only taken her shawl with her and not her thick pelisse.
A person might wander around here for days and never find a way out…

Shuddering, she stepped to a window and looked outside. Far below, she could catch a glimpse of the ward above a rocky drop enclosed by the unrelenting darkness of the forest. And even farther below, like a child’s toy, she saw the small town of Kirchwalden. If she were to disappear, nobody would miss her down there. The innkeeper’s wife, Frau Henschel, might eventually spin a romantic tale about a young Englishwoman mad enough to brave the even madder son of the Graf von Wolfenbach. “And she was seen nevermore …”

Cissy snorted.

“Oh no, I’m not that easy to get rid of.” Determinedly, she walked on and finally found herself in the second, smaller courtyard. Heaving a sigh of relief, she glanced up at the wolfish gargoyles lurking beneath the roof above. On a childish impulse, she stuck her tongue out at them then stomped through the gateway to the main courtyard and up the wooden stairs to the Great Hall.

There she found the Gräfin staring at her plate, seemingly embarrassed, while her husband hid behind the previous day’s newspaper. At a side table, which hadn’t been there day before, Rambach stood waiting, his face devoid of all expression. When the door clicked shut behind Cissy, the Gräfin looked up and made an effort to smile. “Good morning, my dear. I’m afraid my son’s kitchen does not lend itself to culinary delights as far as breakfast is concerned.”

The butler came forward to help Cissy sit down. “Why, thank you, Rambach.”

The Gräfin wrinkled her nose, but it was her husband who answered from behind the newspaper in a most disgruntled tone. “There’s only black bread with butter.”

“And cold gruel,” Rambach added helpfully.

“Indeed?” Cissy shook out her napkin.
And I am supposed to believe that?

The newspaper rustled agitatedly. “Who knew what kind of strange diet our son keeps to! It’s a shame! A perfect shame!”

The Gräfin patted his arm. “Don’t upset yourself thus, Ferdinand. We knew Fenris has…strange habits.”

“Strange habits?
Strange
habits?” The Graf started to fold the newspaper so fiercely it seemed as if he wanted to wage war against it. “He’s grown into a heathen, our son! That’s what happened! A perfect heathen!”

A lout, a churl, a nidget, a mutthead…
Cissy cocked her head to one side. “Rambach?” She turned her head.

The butler blinked. “
Gnädiges Fräulein
?”

“Are there some leftovers from last night’s roast meat?”

He gave a cautious nod. “There might be.”

“Then bring them up.” She gave him a beaming smile.

“Y-yes.” He gulped. “
Gnädiges Fräulein
.”

~*~

The thick bulges of the bull’s-eye panes of the study softly filtered the light of the late morning sun. Specks of dust danced in the rays of light, which fell across the heavy desk of darkest wood.

“And?” Fenris kept his attention on the treatise on modern forestry he was reading.

Johann shuffled his feet. “Well…” He cleared his throat.

At that, Fenris looked up, a frown on his face. “Did it work?”

His valet scratched his head. “Well…your parents had black bread and cold gruel for breakfast, just as you ordered.” He paused.

“Yes, I admit it.” Sighing, Fenris waved his hand about. “That was a bit unfortunate. What did they say?”

“According to Rambach, your father thinks you’ve become a heathen. Correction: a
perfect
heathen.”

Fenris blew up his cheeks and exhaled slowly. Warily, he rubbed his neck. “What’s new there?” he muttered. “Go on. What happened then?”

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“Then Miss Fussell came and ordered Rambach to bring up the leftovers from last night’s dinner.”

Fenris groaned.

His valet lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “Apparently she liked neither buttered black bread nor cold gruel.”