The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (22 page)

In that moment, I knew that whether or not Zsigmund had actually purchased my journey home, I had no intention of going. I would stay here and fight for him.

M
y heart lighter than it had been for several days, I enjoyed the end of our party far more than the beginning. Not that Zsigmund and I clung together. We separated once more as good hosts to mingle with our guests, only coming together at the last when just a few of his friends remained. They sat on the sofas with Zsigmund, drinking brandy, and it seemed natural for me to join them for a little.

Sitting next to Zsigmund, not touching, I let his nearness wash over me as I watched Gabor patiently escort the old count from the room. I wondered about Gabor’s oppressed life with the single-minded, impossibly bad-tempered old man. I remembered his kindness to me on the day of the mist, knew a surge of pity for him, trapped in this house. For he was, it seemed, a sociable man. I’d seen him deep in conversation with several ladies. He’d even been kind to Karl’s beautiful but still painfully shy sister Sofia.

I recalled other events from the evening, images flashing through my mind like hastily dealt cards. The faces of our guests arriving and departing, smiling, conversing, laughing. The strange light under the music room door; Zsigmund’s hot, predatory eyes as he’d advanced on me; his mouth on mine as he’d taken me against the piano. Our return to the party and how that brief interlude had changed everything for me once more.

He cared. I knew he cared. Maybe not as much as I did, but I could change that. I
would
change that.

I allowed myself the treat of simply being with him, soaking up his presence along with the good-humoured banter of his friends, a glimpse of how our life together could be, whether here or at the country estate or anywhere else.

But after a little, I graciously left them to their brandy and retired, the amiable good nights of the young men echoing in my ears, Zsigmund’s gaze warming my back. I smiled as I crossed the hall to the stairs and collected a candle. There would be no separate beds tonight, or any night if I could help it.

Climbing the stairs, I couldn’t help turning my head towards the music room door. I could see no unearthly glow around it now, and yet I couldn’t put what I’d seen and heard in these rooms down to imagination. I would talk to Zsigmund about it.

In my room, I was surprised to find Duclos waiting for me. I kept forgetting I had a maid. However, since the poor girl could barely keep her eyes open, I asked her merely to loosen my gown and stays and then dismissed her before actually removing them. After all, I wore no drawers, and she knew I’d started out with some at the beginning of the evening.

Laughing to myself, I told her she had leave to sleep in the following morning, and waited until she’d gone before stepping out of my gown. I washed myself and donned only my robe before brushing out my hair. I had every intention of being naked for Zsigmund when he entered the room. More than my blood, my happiness was stirred.

My dreamy eyes came back into focus on my reflection in the dressing table mirror. I thought I looked pretty, my eyes glowing with fresh hope and happiness.

Physical happiness, I reminded myself. Nothing else had been resolved between us. The faint, soft smile playing around my lips froze and faded.

I was lying to myself. Maybe I looked well enough for a woman of thirty-one—although it was true that recent grief and anxiety over my new life with Zsigmund seemed to have given me new worry lines around my eyes and mouth. I had grown too thin and I could see fine streaks of grey in the chestnut hair I’d foolishly imagined to be shining.

My husband was twenty-five years old and far too used to the finest-looking women. Did I really imagine I had beauty enough to truly attract him, let alone hold him? I was behaving like some foolish young bride, imagining love where there was only occasional lust. Zsigmund had slaked his physical needs; he’d claimed me as his possession, nothing more. He’d married me for money, and God knew I’d done nothing to change his feelings since we’d arrived here. If I had, he would already be up here with me rather than drinking downstairs with his friends.

There was nothing for him here. I wasn’t enough and never would be.

My stomach contracted. The sick feeling which had come over me when I’d first arrived in the house, and a couple of times since, began to grow again. My hand shook as I laid down the brush. My vision wavered, but that was all right. I didn’t want to look at myself.

I stumbled to my feet and weaved my way to the bed. I all but collapsed upon it, still in my robe, drawing the covers up to my ears. Desperately, I tried to throw off the self-doubts that had descended upon me like some weighty garment too heavy to bear. Such thoughts were so unlike me—love had done this to me—that I had no idea what to do with them except squash them, try to concentrate on something else...

On the sickness in my stomach; on the nightmare I’d woken from to find myself being smothered by a pillow, smothering myself with a pillow. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d succeeded...

No, no, I
will
not think that!

I remembered the mist shrouding the house, hiding it from me, telling me, if only I’d listened, that I was not safe here. I needed to leave. The place was full of ghosts—especially Ilona, Zsigmund’s mother. But that too was impossible. I was a sceptic. And yet I’d found myself talking to the ghost of my mother-in-law? Through Barbara Darke?

I was going insane. I had to get away from here.

I sat bolt upright in bed, and the world swayed all over again. I fixed my sick gaze on the lamp I hadn’t put out. Colours danced before my eyes, shapes that I couldn’t blink away, that formed themselves into the transparent figure of a woman.

“Oh no, not you again,” I whispered. “Please, I don’t want to be mad...”

“Caroline, she’s one spirit,” Barbara’s voice said dryly. “When you see as many as I do, I might let you consider your sanity. What’s the matter?”

It was imagination again, of course, but her voice struck me like a breath of fresh air in my all but fevered state. I tried to laugh. “I don’t know. Nothing. I don’t feel well. I don’t feel
right
.”

I blinked rapidly, shook my head to try to clear my vision, but that proved to be a mistake since it just made me feel sicker. I still couldn’t tell whether the ghostly apparition by the dressing table had Barbara’s face or Ilona’s. For a long time, she didn’t speak either, though neither did she fade.

“Caroline, stop it,” Barbara’s voice said, sharp with anxiety.

“Stop what?” I asked wearily.

“Believing the worst. The thoughts aren’t yours. You’re strong, you’re intelligent, you don’t need other people’s thoughts.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice sounded so slurred, it frightened me. I jerked my head up. “Barbara, are you really there? What’s happening to me?”

“Something strong,” she murmured worriedly. “A strong spirit, but a live one, like Kasimir...
Garabonciás
, according to Ilona.”

“Ilona thought she was a magician, that she killed her husband through magic. That’s why she killed herself.”

“No,” Barbara said, her voice suddenly stronger, “that isn’t right. Ilona knows it isn’t. Now she’s watching you, she knows the signs. You mustn’t give in, Caroline.”

“Give in to what?”

“Melancholy. Illness. Fight them. They’re not yours, they’re thrust upon you, letting him control you?”

“Who?” I demanded. “Who’s controlling me?”

An obvious answer presented himself. The man who would control me with any means at his disposal, including love.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Not Zsigmund...”

And suddenly, as if I’d conjured him by speaking his name, he was there beside me, staring down at me with something like horror in his eyes. I closed my own because I couldn’t bear to so disgust him.

His fingers touched my cheek, and I realised I was silently weeping.

“Caroline,” he said hoarsely. And then, abruptly, the air spun around me and his hasty footsteps sounded across the floor, closely followed by the slamming of the door.

I opened my eyes. Ilona was still there. She didn’t speak, merely beckoned with her fingers. I ignored her until she did it again.

“What? Should I die to be with you?”

She stared at me, frowning. As if she couldn’t understand me without Barbara there to bridge our worlds. She rose, gliding towards the door. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from calling her back, but at the door, she halted and looked back at me.

Understanding, I pushed back the covers and slid out of bed. I didn’t know if I was following a hallucination of my sick mind or body, but at that moment, I didn’t care. Doing something, anything, had to be better than lying in bed feeling ill with nothing to think about but my own troubles.

I shoved my feet into carpet slippers, seized the bedside candle and retied my dressing robe as I walked to the door. Ilona vanished before I got there, but I opened the door anyway and went out into the dark corridor.

My steps turned inevitably towards the staircase. I always ended in Ilona’s rooms, and it seemed I always found peace there, although I supposed one could hardly call the physical euphoria caused by Zsigmund exactly peaceful.

I hadn’t taken two steps before Zsigmund’s voice stopped me in my tracks. It was faint, distant, but unmistakably his, and it seemed to be coming from behind me. Frowning, I turned in the opposite direction, holding my candle high and peering into the darkness.

Ilona’s glowing figure waited for me, beckoning once more with quick impatience. I followed her. Another male voice could be heard now, quieter than Zsigmund’s, so I couldn’t make it out.

Ilona led me to the attic stairs, from where I could hear Zsigmund much more clearly. He was undoubtedly angry and speaking in Hungarian which I could only just follow.

“Oh no, the book stays with me!”

“The book is only words,” a quiet voice replied, much more reasonably. It sounded like Gabor.

Curious now on my own account, I followed Ilona up the attic steps.

“I want you out of this house,” Zsigmund uttered, his voice violent with loathing. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t up to you.”

“Oh, trust me, it is.”

“You’re being foolish. Your grandfather needs me.”

Zsigmund’s response was an angry deluge of Hungarian I had no hope of understanding. I couldn’t see either him or Gabor. They were too deep inside the attic. I stepped in, following the violent voice of my husband, lighting my way with the candle, which quite suddenly went out in a draught of air that seemed to ripple my skin.

I froze in the abrupt darkness, my heart drumming. But I wasn’t blind. A tableau was illuminated before me: my husband and Gabor glaring at each other in the light of a lamp and a candle on the desk between them. Zsigmund held a large book under his arm; I was sure it was the same one I’d seen in Gabor’s hands—
Garabonciás
, Magician.

Gabor smiled sadly. “Take it,” he said carelessly. “As I said, it’s only words, and I’d remind you they did your mother no good.”

Zsigmund’s arm swung back in fury. I was sure he was going to strike the older man, who only smiled tolerantly. I started forward to stop him, but the apparition of Ilona stood in front of me. I could have walked right through her except she suddenly had Barbara’s face again.

“Don’t,” Barbara said, sounding frightened as I’d never known her. “You’re in so much danger from him, and I don’t have the strength to stay much longer. I don’t know how to protect you from this; I can’t...”

“Barbara,” I said hoarsely, reaching out both hands to her. I didn’t know whether I meant to comfort her or keep her with me, but all I succeeded in doing was attracting the attention of the two men who spun to face me in the darkness.

“What was that?” Gabor demanded.

“Caroline?” Zsigmund said at the same time.

Neither of them could see me in the darkness. And before I could decide whether or not to walk forward into the light, I became fully aware of the footsteps which had been clumping up the attic stairs for some time.

“What the devil is the racket up here?” the old count’s irascible voice demanded just ahead of his candle’s glow piercing my vision.

“Gabor is leaving us tomorrow,” Zsigmund said savagely. “For good.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the count exclaimed. “Why would he do that?”

“Because if he doesn’t, I’ll kill him,” Zsigmund said with a grim certainty that chilled my blood.

The count barked out a laugh. “Melodramatic fool,” he said scornfully. “I need Gabor with me.”

“Why? Because he told you that you do?”

The old count stamped past me as if I were no more obvious to him than the fading shade of Ilona. And yet he must have seen me in his candle’s light, even if his person blocked me from the other two men.

“No,” the count snarled. “Because he’s the only member of my family worth a damn, the only one who stayed with me and cared for me, while you went adventuring and soiling my name! Gabor is going nowhere except to my study, where I need him to copy something immediately. And you,
boy
,” he all but spat into Zsigmund’s face. “Take your wife to bed where she belongs!”

I expected that deliberate provocation to enrage Zsigmund all over again, but although a sudden frown did snap down his brow, he snatched up the candle and strode past the old man as if he was suddenly of no importance. I raised my hand against the sudden light in my face.

“Caroline,” he said, stunned, and suddenly he was there, his arm around me, supporting me, and all the sickness and dizziness seemed to fall away. “What are you doing up here in the cold? Come down with me.”

I didn’t mean to melt against him, for I no longer felt so weak that I needed his support, but his strength was undeniably comforting. He all but swept me out of the attic and down the steps to the passage.

“What was that all about?” I asked as he hurried me along the draughty corridor towards our room. “What is your quarrel with Gabor?”