The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (24 page)

I was a little early for Countess Narinyi’s “at home,” but since I didn’t yet know the city well enough to walk there, I requested the driver to take me to the end of her street, and from there I would walk around a little and try to get my bearings before calling on her. It would give me time to think myself into the necessary character: just a little more languid than usual, quite comfortable in my husband’s affections and my own position, with no fear of her past or future connections with him.

And, in truth, I didn’t fear her. Zsigmund’s weaknesses concerned the novel and intriguing. Countess Narinyi was no longer either. Of course, it didn’t bode well for my own relationship with him, but to face that, I first needed to face her.

Gazing out from the hackney, I found her house quite easily. Not least because Karl von Degenfeld let himself out of the front door and ran down the steps to the street.

I frowned. Perhaps I’d got the addresses muddled and this was where Karl, not the countess, lived. Something about his departure just seemed too familiar and casual for an afternoon caller.

But no, this was definitely the correct address. And the Narinyi house was a typical nobleman’s Pest residence. Karl, I remembered, lived with his aunt and sister in an apartment in Buda, close to the barracks, and, I suspected, it was considerably cheaper than anywhere in the fashionable parts of Pest.

As the carriage stopped and let me out, my mind was galloping. I paid the driver and walked in the opposite direction from the Narinyi house, just in case I came upon Karl. I didn’t want to speak to him right now, because it seemed he’d been somewhat disingenuous.

Although he’d given me the impression he disliked and disapproved of Countess Narinyi, he was clearly a friend at the very least. A friend who hadn’t acknowledged her at either of our parties. Had he been disguising an amorous relationship with her in order to spare Zsigmund’s feelings? Even if my husband’s affections had changed towards her, and I was sure they had, Karl having taken his mistress might well have placed a further strain on their relationship.

But it was hardly something that could be kept quiet for long. Zsigmund was bound to hear.

Of course, Karl and the countess could merely be friends...in which case, why hide it?

Perhaps the countess had sworn him to silence; perhaps she was merely stringing him along as a useful tool to influence the Austrian overlords of the country...or until she discovered if she could get Zsigmund back.

I was no longer sure I wished to visit her. Distaste and vague unease had churned up the superior calm with which I’d meant to greet her. I didn’t know what she was up to, and that made me uncertain about many things.

Except that I was not giving up on Zsigmund.

Abruptly, I recognised the street I was walking on now. It was not so far from home. I could easily walk from the Narinyi house to our own. I turned and walked back the way I’d come.

****

“C
ountess Andrassy,” the servant announced, and I sailed past him, all the more ready to smile when I caught the stunned expression not only on Countess Narinyi’s beautiful face but on several of her guests’ too.

She recovered well, closing her mouth as if it had been open for nothing more than a yawn of ennui, and rose at once to greet me.

“Countess Andrassy, I’m so glad you found the time to drop in on us!”

There was only one other woman present, a faded, aging lady who bore the unmistakable signs of poor relation. All the countess’s other guests were men, fluttering around her, I thought unkindly, like bees at a honeypot. In a reversal of the familiar role of women displaying their social accomplishments for the approval of men who might deign to marry them, I soon discovered these gentlemen were vying for her attention with humorous anecdotes and slightly desperate displays of learning.

“We have been so dull,” the countess interrupted one young man to say to me. “So charming to have a new face in our company!”

“You’re very kind. Were you talking about the new play?”

“
Deathly
dull, I assure you. But you must have been to the theatre in Paris.”

I admitted that I had, and conversation moved on. Countess Narinyi hovered close beside me, as if she imagined I’d come with something specific to say to her.

Eventually, catching her eye, I murmured, “You have a lovely house here. So tasteful.”

“You should have seen it when I was first married. Filled with furniture that looked as if it had been kicked out of Buda Castle for being too old and useless, and draped with heavy fabrics like some Ottoman seraglio.”

I smiled as I was meant to. “Have you been married long?”

“Ten years, but I’ve been widowed for five of those.”

“Ah.”

She held my gaze. “Zsigmund didn’t tell you that?”

“Oh no. As you know, he lives far too much in the present to dwell on the past.”

Although I smiled as I said it, she understood me. Anger sparked in her eyes; the faintest flush mounted to her fine-boned cheeks. The animation only added to her looks, but I caught something else there too: assessment. She recognised the gauntlet. And I hoped she recognised the pointlessness of picking it up. I certainly wouldn’t force the issue.

I rose to my feet. “Thank you for inviting me to your gathering. I’ve enjoyed the company so much, but I’m afraid I have another engagement.”

“With Zsigmund?” asked one of the young men pointedly, presumably to advance his own cause with Countess Narinyi.

He irritated me. The countess and I, with perfect subtlety, had almost reached an understanding, which he’d just ploughed over with the refinement of an ox. There had been no need to mention my husband’s name, and he’d no right to question my movements.

I depressed his insolence with one raised eyebrow. “Yes,” I said, “with Zsigmund. Countess, I hope to see you at our ball, if not before. Good-bye!”

Nevertheless, as I walked briskly in the direction of home, I felt as if one weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Now I could concentrate on the rest. I had so much to discuss with Zsigmund, so many mysteries to solve, and yet I felt quite confident that together we could and would solve them and make everything as right as it could be.

I hurried into the square that had begun to feel like home territory and walked up to the Andrassy house. Perhaps it was my imagination, but it no longer looked quite so run-down and unwelcoming as it once had. Even the creaking gate seemed idiosyncratic rather than threatening. My heart light, because the time was right at last, and I would see him any moment now, I marched up the short, winding path to the front door and lifted my hand to the knocker.

Before I could touch it, the door flew open and I came face-to-face with Zsigmund, dressed to go out. The relief in his face surprised me as he all but dragged me inside and closed the door.

The half-amused quip died on my lips, for two feet away from me stood his old sergeant, the ugly, scarred man who’d grabbed me in the mist and run from me in Vaci Street. And the light in his eyes was savage.

Oh no. Oh God, have I been so wrong about everything, about
him
?

T
he sergeant uttered something furious in Hungarian that I’d no chance and less desire of understanding.

Zsigmund waved one dismissive hand. “No, no, this is probably best. Come in here and we’ll talk.”

At least I understood that, although when he removed my cloak and his hand pressed lightly on my waist to usher me towards the ground-floor drawing room, I resisted from instinct.

“Don’t mind Varga,” Zsigmund said carelessly. “He’s my old sergeant.”

To my amazement, Varga gave me a jerky bow, then straightened to attention like a soldier on parade, somewhat incongruously in his shabby clothes. “Madame,” he said clearly.

In my surprise, I found myself in the drawing room before I knew it, being handed onto a sofa by my husband, who sat beside me and waved his sergeant impatiently into the chair facing us.

“Varga can’t stay; he has errands to run. But he told me you found him out today—careless imbecile,” he added in an aside to the soldier, who merely grinned. It didn’t make him look less ferocious, but it did imply a hitherto unsuspected good nature.

“What exactly did I find out?” I wondered. “What were you doing in Vaci Street?”

“Following you, madame. Captain’s orders,” he added hastily.

Pain clawed at my stomach, and yet even then I knew there was something I wasn’t grasping.

I said coldly, “Did the captain order you to seize me outside the house too, the day of the mist?”

“Of course.”

I scowled at him. Why wasn’t he more ashamed? Why wasn’t Zsigmund, so still and silent by my side? Were they bringing everything into the open? Could I bear it?

I
would
bear it. I could bear anything, if only...

“I ran into Varga in a tavern,” Zsigmund said casually. “He was down on his luck and someone I trust implicitly, so I gave him a job, asked him to keep an eye on you, secretly, to make sure no harm would come to you.”

“Why would harm come to me?” I demanded, confused. “What danger—” I broke off.

“Think,” Zsigmund said quietly. “Illness, choking mists.”

“But
he
was the danger in the mist,” I exclaimed, glaring at Varga. And yet I heard the plea in my own voice.

“You
wanted
him to be the danger,” Zsigmund said relentlessly, “because at least he was solid and something you could understand. Mists that follow you across the city, hide your front door from you, and try to choke you to death are obviously impossible.”

Varga crossed himself. “
Garabonciás
,” he muttered.

“Magician,” I said, staring from him to Zsigmund. “You think a
magician
caused the mist?”

Zsigmund shrugged. “They’re said to be able to summon weather such as storms, winds, and mists.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I cried, dragging off my bonnet and hurling it onto a nearby chair. “We’re not ignorant, uneducated country folk! We’re rational...” And I had talked to the ghost of Ilona his mother, through the medium of Barbara Darke in England. Nothing was impossible, nothing ever fully understood.

“Varga dragged you out of the mist and into the house,” Zsigmund said gently, “where he knew you would be safe. Or at least saf
er
than in a mist he couldn’t fight for you.”

I swallowed. “And the pillow. There was a pillow over my face, suffocating me. Gabor said I’d done it myself.”

“You probably did,” Zsigmund said. “But then, my mother walked into a noose and hanged herself. As soon as the stool fell, she was doomed. When you weakened, there was no one else to hold the pillow in place.”

All words, my very breath, were swiped away. I reached up, touching his cheek in pity, and his fingers closed around mine. He’d brought it up, his voice prosaic, and yet still he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Varga has to go,” he said, “but I wanted you to know he’s watching so you’re not frightened anymore.”

Varga leapt up, gave another jerky bow and effaced himself. As the door closed behind him, I was more aware than ever of my husband’s nearness, his thigh half-lost among my skirts, his arm almost touching mine.

I raised my hand, rubbing at my forehead. “I’ve wondered if I’m not insane. Or the victim of some elaborate practical joke. So much goes on in this house, and very little of it seems to make any sense.” Lowering my hand again, I looked directly into his face. “Would you believe that I see the ghost of your mother?”

He nodded jerkily. “Sometimes I feel her. I know she isn’t at peace. And yet when I’m drawn to her rooms,
I’m
at peace.”

I swallowed. “She’s your mother. She’ll always look after you.”

His hand twitched in his lap, and without thought, I covered it with mine. I could only guess at the pain he’d carried with him since childhood, but it was time, more than time, to speak.

“Why did she walk into the noose?” I whispered.

His hand twisted under mine; I made to release it, but he only turned it, his fingers grasping mine convulsively. “He made her. He made her ill and depressed, suffused with guilt until he had control of her mind, and through that, her body. I suspect he made the noose for her and tied it to the bed rail, placed the stool. When she was his puppet, he simply willed her to climb, place her neck, and kick...”

His fingers squeezed mine hard enough to hurt.

“Who?” I said hoarsely. “Who would do such a thing? Who could?”

His eyes refocused on mine. His scar was livid. “You know.”

“Gabor?” I whispered. “Your own cousin? Why would he do such a thing?” Part of me, the rational, civilised, thinking part, was appalled that I didn’t even ask
how
he could do it.

“I don’t know. It’s why I avoided this for so long... But since I’ve come home, I’ve been talking to my grandfather, to István and Gizella and to some of my parents’ friends, and I think...I think he loved her. When she studied with him, he believed they had a special bond. In fact, it seems she began it from mere curiosity, searching for entertainment. She took none of it seriously, until my father died.”

As though suddenly aware of the power of his grip, he loosened his fingers and spread my hand on his warm thigh instead. “I think he made my father ill and stopped his heart. He believed he stood a chance with her then, but she was consumed with grief and her own guilt. She wouldn’t look at his damned book, would barely speak to him. He knew he’d made a mistake that could never be rectified, and so he killed her too.”

He pressed my hand into his thigh. “I know how hard it is to imagine yet alone believe such impossible tales. Away from here, in the real world, I know it’s nonsense. And yet here, I know it’s true.”

I leaned closer to peer into his face. “Have you always believed this of Gabor?”

He shook his head. “Suspicion haunted me from time to time. As a child, I had an aversion to him that I never completely grew out of. I hated his influence on my grandfather, and therefore over me. But it was only when I decided to come home with you that I resolved to ask questions and find out once and for all. At first because I had to know, for my sake and theirs. And then...for yours.”