The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (25 page)

“But why would he want to hurt
me
? He’s not remotely in love with me!”

“I don’t think he’s capable of love anymore.”

“Then why?”

He shifted restlessly. “I don’t know. But I
will
find out. Does my mother speak to you?”

I hesitated. But only the truth, however strange or downright ridiculous, would do between us now. “Not directly. It’s as if there is some veil between us, so that our worlds can’t quite meet. We don’t hear or understand each other except on the vaguest of terms. But...I have a friend, Barbara Darke, who is a medium.”

“I know. You told me about her before. Would she come here?”

I swallowed. “I think she already has. Somehow, she seems to have formed a connection to your mother’s spirit and speaks to me through her. And so your mother speaks to me through Barbara, even though Barbara’s in England.” I gave a quick laugh that was almost a sob. “Or at least, that’s what happens in my imagination, my insanity, whatever this is. But fevered or not, it’s what I
see
.”

He cupped my cheek with his free hand, turning my face up to his. Despite the topic of our discussion, I began to melt into his touch.

Unexpectedly, he said, “Do you really want to go home, Caroline?”

I shook my head mutely, and a smile flickered across his face. I said, “Did you really arrange my passage to England?”

His smile widened as he shook his head. “No. Can we stop this now?”

I didn’t need to ask what “this” was. “Yes, please,” I whispered.

He bent his head and covered my mouth with his. I touched his cheek with one trembling hand, and opened to him. His kiss was tender, sweet, and yet, as always with Zsigmund, holding an undercurrent of exciting passion I was suddenly desperate to encourage. I wanted to weep and laugh at the same time.

Then the door of the drawing room opened, and we sprang apart. Infuriatingly, János looked in and announced the arrival of two of Zsigmund’s friends.

“Tell them to go away,” Zsigmund said irritably.

“Charming,” said one of his guests without rancour, squeezing past János into the room. “I only came to deliver your winnings and ask for the chance to win them back. Countess!” Catching sight of me somewhat belatedly, he bowed.

I laughed. “I shall leave you to it! Will you be in for dinner tonight, Zsigmund?”

“Oh yes,” he said with a certainty that made my heart sing. Then, with a quick frown of memory, he added. “Damn. I asked Karl and Sofia von Degenfeld to dine with us tonight.”

And abruptly, I remembered one of the things I had to tell him. Although hampered by the presence of his guest, I couldn’t get rid of the idea that this was somehow important.

“I saw Karl today,” I said as casually as I could. “At Countess Narinyi’s.”

Zsigmund stood very still. “You went to Countess Narinyi’s?”

“Only briefly. She was a kind hostess.”

But he didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes were distant, lost in sudden, cold thought, until his friend nudged him physically back to the present. Reluctantly now, I excused myself. I wished I knew what was going on in Zsigmund’s head.

****

F
or the remainder of the afternoon, I settled in my bedroom—our bedroom—with the large pile of letters which had caught up with me, mostly from England. I was glad to see arrangements had been made for me to draw on funds from a bank in Pest, and my solicitor has sent me a letter for me to present to a Hungarian lawyer in order to make the changes necessitated by my marriage. He had also sent a long list of recommendations and anxiously advised me to let him oversee everything, however long it took to complete. I set this to one side and, with the feeling that I should probably fortify myself with a large brandy first, I sat down in the winged armchair Zsigmund had slept in so recently, and bravely opened the personal letters.

Inevitably, they ranged from somewhat doubtful congratulations to downright condemnation. My stepbrother the earl was loudest in reproof, sure that I had fallen victim to some flimflam merchant, since the real Count Andrassy currently resided in London. Predictably, Augusta, the Dowager Duchess of Silberwald, announced that she washed her hands of me, although this didn’t stop her writing a long and thoroughly abusive letter. It wouldn’t stop more arriving either.

Other friends were kinder. Patrick, bless him, wrote that my husband’s principles, courage, and military prowess were much praised among the Hungarian exiles; he had clearly been investigating. Of course, he did beg me to keep in touch and to remember that I could always count on his help in any situation.

Barbara’s letter was more hurried and less intelligible. Annoyingly, she didn’t mention plans for her own marriage. But at least she passed on other interesting information, including the fact that Prince Béla’s new post was with the same family as she currently worked for. Her best wishes for my marriage were warm, and I wondered if she’d sensed my happiness from Lescloches. But she had scrawled a postscript after her signature, urging me to take care and look after myself. I glanced at the date and saw she had written it on the day we arrived in Pest. I wished she weren’t so far away that her letters took so long to arrive.

I wriggled in the chair. It felt so hard, I’d no idea how Zsigmund had managed to fall asleep in it. He must have been exhausted. Gathering all the letters together, I resolved to begin answering them at the desk and rose.

Something about the cushion caught my eye. A piece of leather stuck out from beneath it. I suspected it needed repairing and bent to pull up the cushion.

My stomach lurched, tightened like a claw.

No wonder the chair had felt so hard. A large, leather-bound book had been placed beneath it.
Garabonciás
.

Zsigmund hadn’t burned it at all.

****

O
f course, he’d never told me that he had. I’d just decided for myself on the evidence of nothing more than the brightly burning fire. More wood or coal would have achieved that. Although I managed to put the book from my mind while I answered letters, and then bathed, I couldn’t help the nagging doubts. Why had he kept it? Did he plan to fight Gabor with his own weapons, make the same studies as his mother? I prayed not. I didn’t want him to have anything to do with it or the knowledge it contained. It felt wrong, evil. And it had brought his mother only tragedy and death.

I wished he would come up to change for dinner so we could talk more in private, but by the time I had dressed, he still hadn’t made an appearance. According to Duclos, his guests had departed without him half an hour since.

I waited another five minutes, which I spent looking for the silk handkerchief I’d given him on our wedding day and laying it aside for embroidering. Then, since it was almost time for the Degenfelds to arrive, I left the room and went downstairs in search of Zsigmund.

Unexpectedly, I met him on the first-floor landing as he came bounding over from the direction of his grandfather’s study.

“Hello!” he greeted me, as if surprised. Boisterously, he caught me around the waist and swung me around before kissing my lips and running his gaze over my person. “You look particularly beautiful. Am I late?”

“They’ll be here any moment.”

“Sorry. It took me longer than I planned to persuade them to come.”

I frowned, uncomprehending. “Persuade who?”

“My grandfather and Gabor,” he said cheerfully. “They’re joining us for dinner.”

My stomach churned. “Oh, Zsigmund, is that such a good idea?”

He gave me a brief hug and released me. “Don’t worry. I just want this finished. I want the shadows gone from our lives.”

I’d no idea how he meant to do that. As he leapt up the stairs three at a time, I could only hope we’d have a moment, at least, to discuss it.

****

Z
sigmund said, “I’ve just had the most famous idea.”

Somewhat rudely, he interrupted several civilised conversations to address the whole table. Up until then, everything had gone so smoothly and politely that I’d begun to hope he’d given up his idea of bringing things to a head. In my experience, complicated situations were better diffused a little at a time, with a few private words to different people at different times. But Zsigmund wasn’t really a piecemeal kind of person; more all-or-nothing.

With varying degrees of disapproval, tolerant amusement, and anxiety—for he did seem to have drained his glass rather often—the old count, István, Gizella, Gabor, Karl, Sofia, and I turned our attention to him.

“Tell us your famous idea,” Karl said lightly.

“Well, Gabor and I had a huge quarrel last night, and the upshot was, I threw him out. Verbally, of course, since my grandfather objected, on the grounds, apparently, that Gabor is the only one who cares for him. And then that he has nowhere else to go. But of course he does!” Zsigmund smiled dazzlingly into Karl’s face, “He can go and live with you and Sofia.”

Karl laughed, and yet behind the mirth, he’d grown watchful. It seemed he knew his old friend well. Uneasily, I glanced around the table.

“What nonsense you talk, Zsiga,” Gizella said, her gaze flickering nervously.

“Absolutely, madame,” Karl said, his voice light and amused. “Honoured as we would be to receive your cousin or any other member of your family, Zsigmund, we have no room. Which must be a relief to M. Andrassy!” He bowed, smiling in Gabor’s direction.

Gabor smiled back thinly. His dark eyes were like flint.

“Get a bigger place,” Zsigmund advised. “You can afford it. He’ll pay you rent.”

“Zsigmund!” the old count snapped. “Hold your tongue. You’re never half as amusing as you think you are.”

“On the contrary, I’m being perfectly serious,” Zsigmund protested, reaching for the wine bottle. He refilled Karl’s glass and his own and pushed the bottle down the table in his grandfather’s direction. “You don’t think Gabor has money for rent? Of course he has. I don’t suppose you knew you’d been paying him a salary all these years.”

“Of course I don’t,” the count snarled. “He’s family.”

“And yet a little money trickles from your account into his every month,” Zsigmund said thoughtfully. “Of course, it’s your principles not mine he’s flouting here. To me, the labourer is worthy of his hire, and I won’t deny he labours long and hard for you. What I can’t get over is paying the bastard for murdering your son and daughter-in-law and having a damned good shot at my wife too.”

“Enough!” the count roared, shooting to his feet. He was white, his eyes bulging with fury, though not, apparently, at my husband’s shocking language. The old count, after all, was the one who’d greeted me with the accusation of being a whore. He probably didn’t notice or mind such rudeness; it was the flouting of his authority that riled him. Or perhaps the mention of his dead son.

“Well, not enough to make him rich,” Zsigmund said judicially, just as if his grandfather’s command was a question. “But enough for a few years’ reasonable rent. Probably enough to repair our roof, mind you, but I don’t care about that if you don’t. Not if he goes.”

Gabor set down his knife and fork and deliberately fixed Zsigmund with his gaze. “You’re making a fool of yourself, cousin. If you leave the room now, I and everyone else present might forgive your drunken idiocy.”

Zsigmund laughed. “Giving me the evil eye, cousin? I think you discovered a long time ago that doesn’t work on me. You could never make me do anything.”

“Neither could anyone else,” the count roared. “
Will
you leave the room, or do I have to summon János to put you to bed?”

“János won’t come,” Zsigmund replied, lifting his glass and swirling the deep red wine under his nose. “I told him to answer no further rings until I fetched him from the kitchen myself. Sit down, Grandfather. I’m not drunk, and I’m not joking. It’s time we brought some things into the open. It’s time you knew.”

Karl said, “Zsigmund, please. My sister is present.”

Zsigmund inclined his head to Sofia. “I know. But it seems to me you dragged her into this. She has to learn to say no to you. Tell him now, mademoiselle, that you would hate to be married to me.”

I’d expected him to attack Gabor, but now I began to suspect that he really was drunk and losing the thread of his game.

“Anyone would,” Karl snapped, while Sofia looked in bewilderment from one to the other before casting a surreptitious glance at me. “Consider your own poor wife!”

“Oh, I am considering her,” Zsigmund said. His turbulent gaze swept over me and held. “And know this: I will keep her, and I will protect her. No one will hurt her.”

Despite the crowding of anxiety and unease in the room, my heart turned over.

“Jolly good, Zsigmund,” István said as if in relief. “Can we have János in now and finish our meal?”

“Not yet,” Zsigmund said without taking his eyes off me. He seemed to be trying to communicate something, a plea for trust, perhaps, or for support, though I’d no idea where he was going with this.

“Of course no one will hurt her,” Karl said quietly. “Except you. Have a care, Zsiga.”

Slowly, Zsigmund turned his head and gazed at Karl. “You’ve already hurt her. The night of our first party, you brought her deliberately into the hall in time to see Elena Narinyi embrace me and to hear things designed to hurt her. So unsubtle as to be laughable, only my wife didn’t laugh. And I didn’t see it for what it was until Caroline saw you coming out of the Narinyi house.” He sat back in his chair, thrust one hand into his pocket. “You and Elena had planned it. Caroline was in your way, and yet rumour said she was rich. You both need money.”

“It wasn’t planned,” Karl said tiredly, waving away the rest of the accusation as if it were too ridiculous to merit attention.

“Oh, but I think it was. It wasn’t even true. Elena was nowhere near my grandfather, let alone Gabor, when he read out my facetious comment about the rumoured rich widow and setting Gabor to find out if she was worth pursuing. But you
were
there. You told Elena, and between you, you twisted it into something to hurt Caroline that I couldn’t downright deny. Nor did Gabor ever send me such information. He understood the barb as it was meant, even if it glanced off him.”