The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (14 page)

I turned my back towards his side of the bed, although I could imagine only too well every move he made, the muscles rippling in his arms and stomach as he stripped off his clothes. I closed my eyes tighter as though that could block it out, and then the mattress depressed as he climbed in naked beside me.

“What is this?” he asked lightly, biting the fabric of my nightgown.

“Night attire,” I mumbled, hoping I sounded sleepy. “Warm and comfortable...”

“Not for me.” His teeth nibbled my skin through the thick linen, and my treacherous body began to respond. He tried to turn me over, but for the first time ever, I resisted.

“Sleepy,” I said, although I was anything but. I felt as if I’d never sleep again.

His hand lay still on my shoulder. His eyes seemed to burn into the side of my face. And then, with deliberation, he pulled me onto my back. “Caroline.”

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. He loomed over me, a frown tugging his brow downwards.

“I know,” he said abruptly. “I know what you saw and heard in the hall.”

“It’s all right,” I said, soothing and condescending as I’d tried to be in the first days of our acquaintance. “I forgive you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said.

“There you are, then. Can I sleep now?”

His stormy eyes searched mine. “You saw me kiss her.”

“She’s very beautiful,” I excused him.

His frown deepened. “If you’d waited another instant, you’d have seen me push her away and send her away. It was a kiss of farewell.”

“Of course it was.” I wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow myself to believe that. I couldn’t care one way or the other, or I’d be lost.

“I was her lover during the revolution and the war. But for me, it was over long ago.”

“That’s nice,” I said, letting my eyelids close before my true misery shone through. “Just allow me the civility of discretion.”

“Caroline.” He almost shook me. “You can’t believe I married you for your money! No one believes that!”

I opened my eyes and laughed. “Of course they do. I understand these things, Zsigmund. Everyone said I married Neil for his wealth. And do you know what? They were right.”

“Stop it,” he warned.

“Stop what?”

A moment longer, he searched my face, and then his eyes seemed to harden, almost like a stone curtain.

“You believe her,” he said, almost blankly. “You would rather believe Elena Narinyi than me.”

“Right now,” I said tiredly, for I wouldn’t have this turned back on me, “I’m too tired to care. Good night, Zsigmund.” I rolled onto my side once more and closed my eyes with finality.

For several moments, he didn’t move a muscle, and then, so suddenly that I actually jumped, he threw himself upright and leapt off the bed. I heard the muffled sounds of his dressing. Alarmed, because I’d imagined he wouldn’t go farther than the dressing room sofa, I said, “Where are you going?”

“To get blind drunk,” he said shortly and walked across the room in his boots.

I sat up. “You’re under curfew, Zsigmund!”

Zsigmund laughed and closed the door behind him. A few minutes later, I heard the outside door open and close below.

W
hen I woke the following morning, unrefreshed after a restless night, I was still alone in the big bed. Which, although I’d felt last night that I couldn’t bear him to touch me, caused my stomach to tighten in fresh distress.

I rose and walked across to the dressing room, but it too was empty. Mechanically, I went through the motions of washing and dressing before I remembered that I now had a maid. I rang for her and tried not to imagine that my ill nature had driven Zsigmund back into the arms of Countess Narinyi.

But then, even if he hadn’t gone to her—and I didn’t truly believe he had, not yet at any rate—something had changed between us forever. Our meeting in Lescloches hadn’t really been by chance; he’d pretended to know nothing about me, when in fact he’d already heard rumours of my comparative wealth and sent to Gabor, the family font of all information, to find out if it was true.

Which was another mystery. Why should Gabor, inhabitant of a country in crisis on the other side of Europe from my own, be expected to know anything about me? Zsigmund have got more information from his own exiled compatriots, like Béla, or other British travellers in France.

It didn’t really make sense, and yet this bothered me more, far more than the existence of Countess Narinyi. I’d have been surprised if Hungary wasn’t littered with his past mistresses. He was a very physical man as well as a devastatingly attractive one, and I’d married him knowing he came from the arms of the French courtesan Amelie. It was the deliberate, dishonest seduction I couldn’t bear. Neither of us had promised love, but I had imagined a genuine attraction, a genuine care. God knew there was plenty on my side. And now I had to teach myself
not
to care, in order to have a bearable life with him.

When my new maid, Duclos, had helped me with my fastenings, I left her to clear up and went downstairs in search of breakfast. On impulse, I walked past the dining room towards the public drawing room.

I saw Zsigmund right away, sprawled asleep across a chaise longue with one long leg hooked over the back. He wore no coat, and his shirt hung loose and askew on him. He looked both rumpled and disreputable, and my heart gave a funny little flutter. He was still my husband.

On the rug by the fireside, a complete stranger lay flat out on his front, gently snoring; and a third young man was curled impossibly into an armchair. The smell of brandy was distinct, as if it oozed from their pores. Zsigmund hadn’t been joking about getting blind drunk.

I left them to it and repaired to the dining room. Fortunately, Hungarians didn’t appear to go in for the huge breakfasts beloved by the British. I didn’t feel I could eat anything; I just couldn’t yet decide what else to do with myself. So I sat alone at the impressively large table and drank strong coffee while I crumbled some bread on my plate. Some of it might have made it into my mouth.

I was on my second cup of coffee when Zsigmund strolled in, yawning and shoving his fingers through his wild hair.

“Good morning,” he said, and sloshed coffee rather haphazardly into a cup before picking up the pot as well as the cup, bringing both with him. He sat down next to me. The long scar on his face looked angry against the unusual pallor of his skin.

“Good morning,” I returned, more calmly than I felt. “Aren’t your friends joining us for breakfast?”

“I doubt any of us would want that. I’ll shovel them out in an hour or so. Or earlier if you want the room.”

“I imagined you were in a cell somewhere, under guard.”

“Would you have minded?” He took a large mouthful of coffee and turned his head to look at me.

“Of course,” I said coldly.

His lips twisted. “I’m not sure I would. Are we going to talk about this or live in perpetual if silent recrimination?”

“What do you wish to say?”

He shrugged, swallowed the rest of his coffee, and reached for the pot. “I’ll answer whatever questions you have.” He topped up my cup and refilled his own.

Do you love me at all? Even a little?
Suddenly, it was the only question that mattered, and I couldn’t ask it. Even before last night’s revelations I couldn’t have asked. And yet before last night, the answer wouldn’t have mattered. I’d thought I understood what we had and what was growing between us. I ached so badly to be right that I crossed my arm across my stomach.

“Did you send to Gabor for information about me?” I asked.

His eyes closed, and my ache intensified, twisting through my gut.

“I was hoping for an easy one,” he said. “Like
where did you go last night?
Or
what is Countess Narinyi to you?
But of course, you are Caroline, you go straight to the heart of the matter.” He opened his eyes. They were stormy, defiant, just a little desperate. “Yes, indirectly, I asked Gabor about you.”

I should have been prepared. The trouble was, the sight of him, the sound of his voice gave me back hope that I knew him. But I didn’t. I’d never known him. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.

I pressed my arm hard against my stomach. “And that is it?” I said, almost gasping for breath. “No excuses? No extenuating circumstances to plead?”

His lips twisted again, but he didn’t release my gaze. “Would you listen if there were?”

“Possibly not.” I couldn’t bear his eyes, his nearness. I wanted to seize him in my arms and make him love me. It wasn’t pride but common sense that held me back. Instead, I rose from the table. “I’ll make arrangements to return to England at the end of the month. I’ll have settlements drawn up then.”

As I whipped away, he caught my arm, hauling himself to his feet. “
Settlements?
” he repeated with incomprehensible loathing. “Do you imagine you can pay me off like some over-familiar libertine? You are my wife!”

“Well, that is a bed we both must lie in,” I said bitterly. “But at least I have the means to choose my country.”

His lips had thinned to hard lines. His eyes spat boiling fury as his fingers dug into my arm. For the first time ever, he truly frightened me. “You may have the means. You don’t have the right.” Abruptly, he flung my arm from him and strode out of the room.

****

I
no longer knew what to do with myself. My plans for the house no longer seemed right if I wasn’t going to live here, and in any case, I refused to be milked for money, even if I had been married for it. Offering settlements was my best means of negotiating a peaceful return home, though it seemed I’d still have to go in the teeth of his opposition. Why have a portion when he could control all of it through me? Only he no longer could.

In the end, Gizella saved me by taking me to church. I met her by accident in the hall, where her erratic kindness swept me along with her. I ended by travelling with her in the count’s ancient coach across the Danube into the ancient city of Buda, to the medieval Matthias Church, where, in the physical beauty of my surroundings and the still-alien Roman ritual, I rediscovered a measure of peace and courage.

“Matthias and Ilona were married here,” Gizella told me a little dreamily as we left. “I always came here after that.”

The dead couple who’d lived in such beautiful rooms in the Andrassy house seemed to cast a long shadow. “How did they die?” I asked curiously.

“Such a tragic end,” Gizella mourned and then, almost in relief, turned to answer a greeting from another churchgoer. I was introduced to several of her friends, all of whom regarded me with great interest, no doubt as the new wife of the wild young prodigal.

When we were finally alone in the carriage to return to Pest, I opened my mouth to repeat my question about Zsigmund’s parents. But Gizella spoke first.

“You do know that Countess Narinyi is no threat to you,” she said, apropos nothing that had gone before.

I blinked, feeling my protective ice close around me. “I never imagined she was.” I gazed pointedly out the window.

“Good,” Gizella said, apparently oblivious to my aloofness. “Because if she ever could have been—which I doubt, having met you—she lost it all by coming last night to cause you embarrassment.”

I turned my head to regard her. Did she know something was wrong between Zsigmund and me? I began to doubt that she was as vague as she seemed. “Is that why she came?” I asked reluctantly.

“Oh, I think so. She can’t have imagined even Zsigmund would go off with her in public, leaving you to entertain his guests.”

“Why would she bother?”

“Who knows?” Gizella shrugged. “Because he’s the one who got away? Her pride is hurt. Or maybe she really does have a special
tendre
for him. He is an attractive scamp, even with that terrible scar. But don’t let her come between you. Zsigmund won’t.”

“Neither will I,” I assured her. “The countess does not concern me.”

Gizella regarded me doubtfully, rubbing one gloved finger back and forth across her lips. “Doesn’t she? I wish I could advise you how to manage him, but I can’t. I don’t know anyone who ever could... Be patient with him, my dear, for underneath it all, his character is sweet—”

“
Sweet?
” I repeated, startled into annoying indiscretion. I didn’t want to discuss Zsigmund with her or anyone else.

“Oh yes. He’s had so much in his life to deal with, and he just needs affection. There was no one to give it after Ilona died... I was too silly and inexperienced to see, and István is too like his father in such matters. Sometimes I’m afraid we didn’t just fail to repair the damage; we made it worse.”

“
Damage?
” I stared at her. “Oh dear, I’m repeating everything you say. But what do you mean? How was he damaged?”

Gizella waved one agitated hand. “I think I’ve said too much. Or said it wrongly. I’m a silly woman sometimes, but I’m trying to be better. I believe you’re good for Zsigmund, and I don’t want you to give up on him.”

Definitely, she knew something about our quarrel. Another suspicion entered my mind. “Did he... Did Zsigmund ask you to speak to me?”

Her eyes fell away from mine, gazing out the window. It had begun to rain again, blurring my view of the river. “Not directly,” she muttered.

My smile was twisted. We covered the rest of the journey in silence.

****

A
fter luncheon, attended only by Gizella, István, and myself, I returned to my bedroom, which had been made very neat and tidy by my new maid. There was no sign of Zsigmund, save for last night’s clothes piled neatly in the dressing room. The maid again, I suspected, although she hadn’t put them away. In the circumstances, I thought it as well this room remain his dressing room rather than a sitting room. He could suit himself when I was gone.

My heart twisted inside me. Stupidly, I’d run into this mess with my eyes open. God knew what the gossips would make of it when I returned home alone. Maybe I could live abroad. Or move to the Scottish Highlands and keep sheep.

In search of distraction from the gnawing pain, I left the empty bedroom and walked downstairs. I thought of telling the old count my plans, but in truth he had hardly been so kind to me that I felt obliged to keep him informed. Instead, I turned in the opposite direction and went into the library.