The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (20 page)

“Oh God, no,” she said aloud. “Not you. Please don’t be dead.”

“Of course I’m not dead! Barbara, is that really you? How is this possible? Why can I hear you and not her? What does she want with me? Where is she?”

“Caroline! Stop.”

I subsided. “I beg your pardon, but I’m beginning to think I’m dreaming again. You’re not really here, are you?”

“That rather depends on what you mean by
really
. My body isn’t with you, and my mind...my mind is joined to a spirit’s. She sought me out, though I believe we’ve spoken before.”

“Ilona?” I said hopefully.

“Yes, that’s her name. What is she to you?”

“My mother-in-law,” I said. “My late mother-in-law.”

“And you can see her?” Barbara asked cautiously.

“I could. Now I can see you.”

“Well, that’s different! This has never happened to me before. Ilona and I aren’t just joined, we’re occupying each other. It’s a strain, to be honest; I can barely hear you.”

“I couldn’t hear
her
at all, and she couldn’t understand me. Though I’m sure she spoke to me before when I
couldn’t
see her.”

“I suspect that didn’t involve language. She just willed you to understand something, but you couldn’t converse. So you both needed me...Which is a shame, because I don’t think I can hold this for very long. It’s
draining
. So I have to say this quickly. Ilona is frightened for you, for her son. Zsigmund.”

“Why doesn’t she appear to Zsigmund?” I asked suddenly. “Or does she?”

There was a pause, then the ghostly Barbara shook her head. “No. She would never appear to him. He last saw her hanging from this bed when he was seven years old. She was a suicide. She’s too ashamed. But it’s love for him that keeps her here between realms. She’s strong, protective... She wants you to love him.”

My throat closed up. I gazed at my hands. “I do love him.”

“He’s troubled. He needs you...” Barbara’s voice was fading. “
Garabonciás
.”

My eyes flew back to her face which blurred and twisted. “
What?
”

“It’s the warning in her mind, a word she repeats over and over and...we communicate oddly...”

“Barbara, don’t go,” I pleaded.

“Can’t stay,” she gasped, and abruptly her features vanished entirely into Ilona’s.

“
Garabonciás
,” I repeated. “Magician.”

She just stared at me and slowly began to fade. I thought she smiled at me before she vanished altogether.

****

W
ith everything else that had been going on, I’d forgotten that we were entertaining again the following evening. The realisation came to me as I woke up, and I sprang out of bed at once. There was already fresh water in the washing stand, so I didn’t wait for my maid but simply dropped my nightgown and washed as quickly as I could. I was already reaching for the towel when some instinct made me turn my head towards the dressing room.

Zsigmund stood in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the frame as he watched me. My stomach dived, scattering butterflies all through my naked body, not just because I was caught in so vulnerable a position but because, God help me, he was beautiful.

His rumpled black hair fell forward over his dark, unshaven face; his slightly parted lips curved in a sensual kind of a way that wasn’t quite a smile. He wore only his crumpled shirt and trousers, which looked as if he’d slept in them. His shirt, half-open, revealed the strong column of his throat and an expanse of chest that dried my mouth. There was something so aware in his relaxed yet watchful stance that, for a moment, I couldn’t move.

Then, as calmly as I could, I lifted the towel. His gaze followed my every move, and I realised I felt more than embarrassment. I felt pleasure in his observation. And power, for a pulse at the base of his throat throbbed visibly, and the bulge in his trousers was unmistakable. Desire tightened my nipples, moistened the secret, yearning places between my thighs. He’d taught me to crave his physical love, and it had been days now since I’d known it. A hundred memories crowded in on me: Zsigmund’s openmouthed kisses on my lips, my breasts; his caressing hands, arousing and pleasuring; his big, hard body settling in the cradle of my hips as he entered me and began to move in the long, sweet dance of love...

I swallowed, spread the towel over my breasts so that it hung down to my thighs.

Zsigmund stirred. “You seem to be struggling,” he observed, easing his shoulder off the doorframe and walking towards me with catlike deliberation. “Perhaps I can help.”

“I’ve rung for Duclos,” I said hastily. “But I’m quite capable of washing myself.”

“You’ve stopped,” he pointed out, still coming closer.

“Then give me privacy!”

His eyebrows shot up, and he came to a halt at my shoulder. “From your husband? Besides, I’m sure we established at our first meeting that a cat may look at a queen. Trust me, I’m looking.”

He was. His gaze slid openly down my shoulder and back. I had to stop myself clenching my buttocks in a strange discomfort that was almost...delicious. Suddenly, without raising his gaze, he twitched the towel from my nerveless fingers and ran it one-handed from my nape to my rear, where he lingered. His eyes were hot as they clashed once more with mine. Then they dropped to my lips and my breasts. He licked his lips.

The wetness of lust trickled between my thighs. He swept the towel up and around my side, under my breast, and stroked.

I swallowed convulsively. My body melted outside and in.

“I can manage,” I said. Though I meant it to be haughty, I was appalled by the shakiness of my voice. But Zsigmund didn’t smile.

“What,” he asked, “can you manage?” His head bent, his lips parted, and my breath caught in panic and yearning.

The bedroom door opened, and my maid bustled in. She halted abruptly, brought up short, no doubt, by the sight of me naked in my husband’s hold. A tiny half laugh escaped me, at once frustrated and triumphant because he was thwarted. But I should have known better.

“Wait,” he said to the maid, without taking his eyes off mine. And not even bothering to see if she would stand there or leave, he dipped his head farther and took my mouth in a slow, thorough kiss.

Part of me was outraged. But his kiss was delicious, and the press of his warm chest against my naked breast, his erection against my hip, blatantly arousing. He could have taken me there and then, on the floor for all I cared, and so lost was I, I doubt I would even have noticed whether or not Duclos was still in the room.

His mouth left mine too soon. With his thumb, he closed my parted lips, and quite casually handed me back the towel before he strolled out of the room. The maid, her rigid back to both of us, got out of his way.

“Just the old grey gown this morning,” I managed to instruct her. “I’ve a lot to do today.”

But I was undeniably shaken by what had occurred. I wanted very badly to believe it meant he cared for me. But he’d made frequent and spectacular love to me without caring, and I knew his morning lusts only too well. He’d just seen a naked woman at a weak moment.

Was he really so shallow? Would I have fallen so deeply in love with him if there were no more to him than that? In truth I was hurt and afraid and impossibly confused.

****

T
o my surprise, Zsigmund was alone at the breakfast table when I walked into the dining room fifteen minutes later. He wore a coat, causally open, as if he’d come across it on some chair where he’d thrown it so casually during last night’s revelry, and just flung it on over the crumpled clothes he stood up in. He still looked disreputable—and dangerously attractive.

The coward in me wanted to walk back out again to avoid confrontation, but I refused to do that. The trouble was, I didn’t know if it was defiance or simple desire to be in his company. However, I entered calmly, poured myself coffee, and sat opposite him.

He pushed his empty plate away from him and leaned back in his chair, fixing me with his gaze. “You know Elena Narinyi is coming tonight?”

“I saw her reply.” I lifted one eyebrow. “Are you warning me? I assure you, I won’t have hysterics at the sight of your past—or even current—mistresses.”

He shrugged. “She can be malicious. Do with that information as you like.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. I regarded him, concealing as best I could that I was still feeling my way. “What of the other information you promised me?”

“What was that?”

“My travel arrangements,” I said, holding his gaze. “I presume you have tickets for the steamship and the railways. And the channel crossing from France.”

He smiled faintly. “I’ll leave them on your desk.”

“Thank you. When do I leave?”

He appeared to think about it. “I can’t remember.” He glanced up as Gizella drifted into the room. “Good morning.”

“Zsigmund,” she said, apparently as much surprised as pleased. “You’re up early.”

“Got things to do.” To prove it, he pushed back his chair and rose. “Coming to tonight’s soiree?”

“Oh yes, of course,” she said, smiling, although she didn’t wait until he was even out of the room before turning to me. “What’s happening tonight?”

“An evening party here,” I reminded her. “Like the last one, only with more people.”

“That’ll be nice for you, dear. Things must be a bit dull for you in this house.”

“I’m not conscious of any dullness,” I said truthfully. I sipped my coffee, listening to Zsigmund’s footsteps fade across the hall before I said, “Gizella, what happened to Zsigmund’s father?”

Gizella shifted in her chair. “A weak heart, the doctors said. He’d shown signs of it as a boy, apparently, but he grew into a strong man, and everyone believed he’d got over it. Then one morning, he just didn’t wake up.”

“Then it was his wife who found him?”

“Not exactly.” Gizella crumbled bread between her fingers. “His valet found him on the sitting room sofa.”

“The yellow one?” I blurted.

She blinked at me. “Do you know, I believe it was yellow? Have you been into those rooms? Are you going to open them up again?”

“Zsigmund doesn’t want to,” I replied, but I refused to let myself be diverted again. “Why would Ilona have felt guilty about her husband’s death?”

Gizella gave an unhappy little smile. “Those left behind always feel guilty, don’t they?”

“Perhaps,” I said, thinking of Neil. Though in my case, I’d been gallivanting on the continent with Barbara when he’d been taken ill. I still wasn’t sure that if only I’d been there to care for him from the beginning, he might have got better. “Had they quarrelled?”

“Why should you think so?” she asked, placing a tiny amount of bread in her mouth.

“Because he was sleeping on the sofa,” I said dryly.

Gizella’s shoulders slumped. “Well, yes. But the guilt was all in her mind. She’d said some unkind and melodramatic things, as we all do when we quarrel.”

“Like what?” I pursued. I wasn’t sure why. It just seemed the key to understanding Zsigmund, to understanding everything that went on in this very strange house.

“Like ‘I wish you were dead,’” Gizella blurted. “And ‘If you look at her again, I’ll kill you.’ Stupid things people say when they’re angry.”

“Was he unfaithful?” I asked in surprise.

“I don’t know. I would doubt it. He seemed perfectly devoted to her. But her nature was jealous. He may have given too much attention to some other woman.”

“But that’s no reason for her to believe she was actually responsible for his death,” I protested.

“Exactly.”

There was more to it. There had to be. The woman’s guilt had led her to commit suicide, to leave her adored young son alone.

“Did she hit him?” I asked. “Or just assume the strain of their quarrel had been too much for him?”

By now, Gizella was looking quite harassed. “It was more than that for her. She’d been reading, studying folk knowledge. Someone had convinced her she was—” She broke off, obviously struggling for the French word, and in the end shrugging and using the Hungarian. “That she was
garabonciás
.”

My mouth fell open. I closed it and swallowed, “A magician,” I said.

“She thought she’d learned to summon storms and influence events. In the last weeks of his life, she and Matthias argued over that too. When he died, she thought she’d even learned to kill without truly meaning it. No one could convince her she was wrong. Not the old count or István, not priests or rationalist, nor even Gabor.”

“I saw a book with that title,” I said slowly. “
Garabonciás
...”

“It should be destroyed,” Gizella said. “Don’t read it.”

“Don’t worry,” I soothed. “I’m in no danger of believing I have any power at all beyond a modicum of common sense.” I paused with my hand on my coffee cup.

It wasn’t true. I believed I’d talked to Ilona’s ghost, through the intercession of my medium friend a thousand miles away in England. If that wasn’t magic, what was?

****

F
or this event, as for the last one, we kept most of the house in darkness and lit up only the decent public rooms on the ground floor: the entrance hall, the drawing room, the cloakrooms, and the large reception room where we greeted our guests.

To my surprise, the old count deigned to make an appearance that evening, stumping in on Gabor’s arm as if he were the guest of honour rather than the honorary host. By then I’d been introduced to so many new people I didn’t see how I’d ever remember their names. But I was pleased to recognise a few of our guests from the first party, who almost felt like old friends in this sea of strangers, especially Margit Borruth and her friend Elizabeth.

On the other hand, I wondered if they noticed the new distance between Zsigmund and me. This time, there was no banter between us, no exchange of looks or small touches of understanding or affection. It was a melancholy thought. They would all know, I thought, listening to a boisterous group of young men greet him with delight and amazement to see him in such a position of staid husband, that he’d married me for my money.