Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

C arly did not leave in the morning.

She slept late. When she awoke, she was still drowsy and tired, and therefore irritated that she'd dreamed of a silver wolf and imagined that a man had come to her by night, silent, watching her, then slipped away, leaving behind just a hint of his presence....

The world seemed entirely silent, then she heard a sound down in the courtyard. She went to the window. Jon was down there, mounting Satan. Even as she watched he rode off, disappearing into the woods as the wolf had done.

She stayed there for some time, looking after him. She really should go. The inspector didn't want her to leave the duchy, but she could check into the hotel in the village again. Maybe once she was away she wouldn't dream of magnificent beasts with golden eyes. Maybe she wouldn't imagine that a man was with her. Maybe she could shake the hypnotic spell of Jon Vadim.

A man suspected of horrible murders.

She shook her head to herself, denying it. She was in love with him; she could admit it freely to herself. If she loved him, she owed him some kind of faith.

She wasn't leaving. Not then. Maybe later.

Carly dressed and wandered down to the terrace. The only one there was Geoffrey. He was sipping a cup of coffee and reading a manuscript. He looked up when she came, smiling.

"Carly. Welcome. It was kind of lonely here."

"You look busy."

"I'm not. Sit down, please."

Carly sat down. A maid seemed to materialize from the corners of the room to ask Carly what she would like for le petit déjeuner . Carly asked for some coffee and toast, and once it came and she and Geoffrey were alone together, she asked him what he was up to.

"It's the script for my next play," he told her, smiling. "Our next play. You are going to work for me?"

Carly nodded with pleasure. She was still a little in awe of the fact that he had liked her costume for the party enough to hire her for his next period piece with no more effort whatsoever. He grinned, pleased with her response. "I'll give you the play to read." He shrugged. "Might as well use some of our time wisely."

Carly sipped her coffee.

"How long were you planning on staying here?" she asked him.

"Well, I don't have to be back until January 15—which is when I'll need you, by the way. Fittings and all. You'll see how extensive the wardrobe is once you've read through the play. It's a good thing time isn't of the essence. I think that inspector would find a way to arrest us all just to keep us here, though God knows why."

Carly didn't know why, but she felt it necessary to defend Inspector LaRue. "People have died. He has to find out what's happening."

Geoffrey smiled at her, sitting back. "Carly to the rescue! Jasmine said that you could be fierce in the crusade for others."

"I'm not crusading. I'm..."

"Frightened?"

"No, not really," she protested, a shade too quickly.

He shrugged. "Well, don't let them scare you. I've known Jon a long time. He's no maniacal murderer—no matter what Alexi says."

"What does Alexi say?"

"Oh, you know. All that rot about lycanthropy and werewolves and all. These people are too superstitious."

"They're charming people."

"There you go again, the sweet crusader."

"I'm so terribly sweet," Carly assured him. She nibbled thoughtfully at her toast and felt him watching her with an amused smile. "I'm not, really."

"Okay, you're the Witch of the West. Whatever you want."

She laughed, feeling better. Geoffrey had defended Jon and had been down-to-earth, and she just felt more—normal. "I just wish Jasmine would call," she murmured, as much to herself as to him.

She expected an assurance from him. It didn't come. She looked at him at last, and he seemed somewhat pensive himself. "Geoffrey?" she asked.

"I don't know. Jasmine is like the wind. She's beautiful, and we all love her. But she does move like wildfire. Still..."

"Still, what? Geoffrey, please?"

"Well, I just thought...there had been a time there when she and Jon..."

"When she and Jon what?" Carly demanded.

"Oh, nothing," he said, but she thought he looked slightly guilty. "She and Jon planned the party together. Jon never minds that she brings in so many people, because they all donate to charities to attend. But it is Jasmine's bash. And this year, of course, she had invited you."

"Yes, of course," Carly said. "Geoffrey, is that all?"

"Is that all? Of course that's all," he assured her.

She wished she believed him. She couldn't help but wonder again about her sister and Jon Vadim. Everything hinted that the two of them had enjoyed a very close relationship. But Jon had denied it.

Please, let him be telling the truth! Carly prayed in silence. Geoffrey was staring at her. She hoped that he wasn't pitying her for falling so very hard.

"Well, Jon is off riding and Tanya and Alexi still seem to be sleeping," he said brightly. "I think I'll take a jaunt into the village. Want to come?"

Carly didn't think she had the energy. She hesitated, then thanked him for the invitation and told him no, that she would like to read the play. He offered her the script and left her at the terrace table. She stared blankly at the page, realizing that she was anxious to see Jon.

When she did see him that night, he was aloof and distant, and in return she was defensively cool and equally distant. She managed to excuse herself early and escaped to her room. She realized as she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling that she wanted him to come to her. She wanted him to lay his heart at her feet and swear again that he was innocent. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to pretend that none of it had happened, that the magic had all been real, that she was really like the Cinderella who had entered an enchanted carriage and been swept off her feet by a prince.

It wasn't his title that she liked, or the coach or the castle or anything else tangible. It was the love she craved, the intimacy that had been so briefly hers—only to be snatched away.

But she remembered with a sharp twist of pain that she didn't trust him—that she would be horrified if she had merely provided entertainment to fill the void left by her sister.

And then again—where was Jasmine?

Again she fell asleep telling herself that she should leave. Again when she woke, she did nothing toward leaving the castle. She dressed in jeans and went down to the terrace for breakfast, hoping to see Jon. But he wasn't there; he was closeted in the library with the inspector, or so Tanya told her. Tanya was bored. When they had nibbled at fresh croissants, she decided to take Carly on a tour of the castle.

Carly loved it. They explored the grand ballroom, music gallery, the solarium, and the newer rooms: the men's gallery, put in during the last century, and the ladies' bower, added in the 1930s. Upstairs, Tanya giggled when Carly refused to enter Jon's room. It was a wonderful bedroom, right out of a fantasy—or the Architectural Digest . Rows of French doors opened onto a long terrace, and there was a round dais for the massive old bed, with its dark wooden canopy and intricately carved posts. There was also a long, heavy oak desk, comfortable chairs stood before the fireplace, and there was a small, circular table with a pair of chairs for intimate dining.

"Want to go through his drawers?" Tanya asked.

"No!" Carly insisted, and Tanya grinned wickedly. Carly would really have loved to have gone through his things. But it was painful to be there, too. She had seemed so close to him but hadn't gotten close at all. She wanted to reach out and touch him again, but she couldn't allow herself to do so. She couldn't be a fool; she knew her wariness of him was well warranted, and he had to realize that he owed her a number of explanations.

He wasn't giving her any explanations.

At dinner that night, he was the perfect host. Carly decided not to escape to her bedroom; she wanted to be near him.

But that night Jon escaped. He left them all at the table, and while conversation flowed easily enough around her, Carly felt acutely uncomfortable. While coffee and dessert and brandy and liqueurs were served, she felt pricks of unease against her spine, as if they were being watched.

That night she dreamed of the wolf again, coming toward her, running through the mist. He came nearer and nearer, and his coat was lush and silver.

And his eyes were gold.

She wanted him so badly that she lay still. She saw the cunning in his golden eyes and sensed the danger. But she waited. And when he drew near, she stretched out her arms. He leaped through the mist, powerful, lithe. And then he was a man, still taut and sinewed and majestic, with masculine grace and power. She reached for him. She nearly cried out when he came to her, and she didn't care if he was man or beast, only that he touched her again, that he loved her again.

Days passed in miserable tension. Carly read the play and explored the basement with Tanya and Alexi. Carly could see that no Vadim had much cared about the basement in decades. There was a crypt there that hadn't been used in several centuries. A wall sealed off the ancient dead, much to Carly's comfort.

But beyond the wine cellar, in musty rooms where spiderwebs covered the corners and crevices, were the old dungeons, and deep in the bowels of the castle lay a room where "unfortunates" had once been housed. They had been pathetic creatures drawn into the Inquisition, petty criminals who had dared defy their counts. Carly saw the remains of a rack, covered with centuries of dust, an iron maiden, an assortment of whips and chains and scolds' bridles, thumbscrews and mammoth pinchers.

"Nice people, eh?" Alexi whispered with a wicked laugh.

Carly didn't even try to smile. She didn't like the basement. "Someone should really clean this place out."

"Oh, don't be silly," Tanya protested. "These pieces are of great historical value."

"Then they should be in a museum," Carly said.

Alexi was amused. "Do I detect a note of fear? Think of it—the long-lost relations of our dear count used to come down here to inflict torture. Behold, my dears, the iron maiden. That charming piece of steel could crush a man, and this particular model could disembowel him—or her—in the process."

The room was dim. Electric lights had been strung out, but their glow was pale. There were bloodstains in the stone, sins the Vadims might well have wanted hidden.

Carly shivered. She wanted to go back upstairs.

A voice cut into the darkness. "Sightseeing?"

She yelled, jumping. Tanya, too, was startled enough to cry out.

It was Jon. He had come upon them silently and was standing before one of the naked light bulbs, so that Carly could not see his face. He sounded angry again, but his anger was dry and cold and ironic. For a moment they all drew back, awed by the suddenness of his appearance and the larger-than-life figure he created.

As he walked in to join them he blew the dust off a wickedly knotted whip and picked it up. "I imagine this one could strip flesh from bone," he said. He cracked the weapon in the air, and the sudden noise drew a gasp of protest from Carly. His eyes found hers, but there was no warmth in them. They assessed her swiftly. He set the whip down. He smiled at Alexi. "You're being very dramatic again, my friend. You know that none of the counts or even the family actually practiced torture."

His expression unreadable, he turned to Carly and Tanya. He smiled, and his teeth flashed white against the striking bronze of his features. "We merely picked out the victims—then we ordered our henchmen to strip their flesh from their bones."

They stared at him silently. It had to be the mood of the place, Carly decided.

"Do enjoy yourselves," he said, and left, his shoes striking the stone sharply.

Tanya shivered. "Boy. I think he was mad."

"How did he come, without our hearing him?" Alexi murmured.

Jon's footsteps still echoed against the stone. Carly thought of a wolf padding silently through the forest. Then she flushed, embarrassed. They were prowling around his home, condemning his ancestors. "Let's get out of here," she urged.

"Mais, oui. Allons-y," Alexi agreed.

Geoffrey was alone when Carly reached the terrace for dinner that evening. She told him what had happened, wondering if they had offended Jon.

Geoffrey shrugged. "I doubt it. Alexi is always dramatic."

"Yes, but have there always been corpses around?" Carly asked uncomfortably.

Geoffrey didn't answer for a moment. "No," he said at last, then sighed. "I wish that the inspector would find out the truth, instead of harassing Jon. Then we could all go home and Jon would be left in peace."

"What's that?" Jon said, arriving on the terrace. "Do I need peace?"

They turned around. That afternoon he had been dressed casually, in jeans and a sweatshirt. Now he was all male elegance, in a black tuxedo, silk shirt and tie and velvet vest. He came toward them, smiling vaguely, swirling amber Scotch in a rock glass.

"Carly was concerned for you," Geoffrey said.

"Was she?" Jon inquired, smiling pleasantly, his gaze focused on her. "How nice."

She returned his stare steadily but said nothing. He shrugged and turned back to Geoffrey to say, "You missed the excursion into the realm of darkness."

"I've been on Alexi's tours to your basement before," Geoffrey reminded him.

"Ah, yes. That's right."

"If it bothers you, you should get rid of it all!" Carly charged him.

"Yes, ma'am, Ms. Kiernan!"

"I really don't see that it is a joking matter." She stood her ground, challenging him. But then she thought about the basement, about the meandering corridors and the stale, musty scent, the walls that sealed off entire sections of—bodies.

There could be newer bodies there, she thought. In the endless shadowy archways, murder could take place. A victim could lie for days, for months, without being found.

She realized he must have read her mind, for his lids flickered briefly and he walked by her, pulling back a chair for her to sit at the table. He gazed at her with the cool disdain that meant he knew her fears and did not forgive her for them.

Carly didn't move at first. His smile deepened, and she brushed by him as she took her seat. She felt his breath at her nape as he pushed in the chair, and a trembling took hold of her. In seconds her imagination was running wild. Alexi and Tanya were walking in, but she almost cried out, anyway. She almost leaped to her feet, almost touched his shoulders, almost shook him.

Just talk to me! she wanted to scream. Tell me the truth. Tell me what's going on! Because there was, beyond a doubt, something here that he understood while she did not.

She envied Tanya, who was easily kissing Jon's cheek. "You old grouch! I'm terribly sorry about this afternoon. I really didn't have the right to go wandering, but honestly, love, you were a total bear."

"Tanya, this is my home."

Tanya sat down and began buttering a roll. "Yes, but really, Jon, those are museum pieces. You could preserve them and send them to some deserving institute." She lifted her wineglass to Carly. "The Smithsonian! The Americans love things like that!"

"And the British don't?" Geoffrey asked her.

She laughed. "Oh, we thrive on such stuff. But then, we have tons and tons of our own."

Alexi laughed and Jon offered an honest smile and the evening progressed nicely. Carly wondered if there wasn't some way to talk to Jon. But when the meal was over, Jon was summoned to answer a phone call. Alexi and Geoffrey started a game of chess, and Tanya grew bored. Carly tried to keep talking to her. For an hour Tanya responded, but then she yawned and said that she was going upstairs. Alexi checkmated Geoffrey at last, and the men decided to go to bed, too. Carly said that she was going to sit on the terrace awhile longer.

Jon didn't return.

At last she went to the library. She heard voices, and one was definitely Jon's. She couldn't follow the conversation, though, for the rapid, impassioned words were French.

She started to knock on the door, then hesitated. She raised her hand again and knocked. Suddenly determined to know whom Jon was arguing with, she pushed open the door.

Jon was sitting behind his desk. He was in a terry robe and wearing dark-rimmed reading glasses.

And he was alone.

"Madame Kiernan," he murmured. "Is something wrong?"

Carly looked around the room. "Please, don't ‘Madame Kiernan' me, Jon. Who were you arguing with?"

He stared at her, and lifted his hands, palms up. "I'm not arguing with anyone."

"I heard you!"

He opened up his top desk drawer and took out a tape recorder. "I was dictating. That is all."

"You're lying!" She strode over to the desk and slammed her hands against it. "Stop it! You're lying to me, and you're hiding things from me, and you have no right to do so!"

He stood, a puzzled frown creasing his brow. "Madame Kiernan, I'm sorry. Please—"

"No!" Carly cried out. She hated this more than his anger or his cynicism or his mockery. She hated it when he created a total wall and behaved as if they barely knew each other. "Don't! Just—don't!"

She spun around and left him. He called after her, but she ran through the terrace and up the stairs and locked herself into her room.

He was making her insane.

She had heard voices. Two voices. No, he had been dictating.

Like hell! He had been arguing.

With himself?

With a disgusted oath of exasperation, Carly threw herself across the bed. She wished desperately that she had taken French at Columbia, instead of her two years of German. If she had only been able to pick out a few words of what had been said!

Frustrated, she changed for bed. She was about to turn off the light when she heard footsteps in the hall. Her heartbeat quickened. It was Jon, and he was coming to her. He would cast aside his bitter wall of defense and hold her again. And she would believe in him. No matter what.

There was a rap upon a door, but not hers.

Across the hall Tanya's door opened.

Carly heard Tanya laugh. "There you are! Come in, quickly!" Tanya's whisper was soft but throaty, and Carly strained to hear more. She could not.

She rushed across the room to her door and threw it open, but the door to Tanya's room had already closed.

"Damn!"

It occurred to her that she could just ask Tanya in the morning if she was having an affair with someone—Carly was certain that Tanya would certainly be blunt enough to ask her, if their roles had been reversed.

She lay in bed and, despite herself, enviously wondered whom Tanya was meeting. She lay there, awake and restless, and replayed the facts in her mind. People had been murdered. Jon could have committed the acts. She herself might very well have died that first night, when her coachman had been murdered.

Jasmine had disappeared. Her own sister.

Jon denied ever having had an affair with Jasmine. Geoffrey and Tanya had more than hinted that Jon and Jasmine had been involved.

And Carly still wanted him. She had sat there during dinner, and every time he had looked her way she had grown warm. When his fingers had brushed her flesh, when his breath had whispered over her nape, she had nearly cried out with the pain of wanting him....

At last she slept, restlessly.

At some point, as she struggled toward wakefulness, Carly became convinced that he was there with her. She breathed the subtle scent of his after-shave. If she just opened her eyes, he would be there; she would catch him.

If he was real.

She opened her eyes, and she was alone. "Damn you!" she cried softly to the darkness, tears stinging her eyes. She didn't know whether she had been more afraid that he would be there or that he would not. He was not mist; he could not come and go so easily.

But the scent of him lingered. It made her hurt worse, ache with a churning that twisted deep inside her.

She was afraid to get up. She didn't want to go to the balcony and see a silver wolf disappearing.

She didn't move, but stayed in bed, shivering. At last she began to doze again. As she drifted off to sleep, something bothered her. Something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. It was the scent, she thought. That after-shave, which was pleasant and stirring, with undertones that were so integral to him. There was something about him, something about the cologne. Something...

She just about had her finger on it. But she drifted off to sleep and it was lost to her. She tried to wake herself again, tried to remember, but the urge to sleep was too powerful.

In the morning she paced the floor, trying to remember. As she strode back and forth, a glimmer of pink dawn light reflected off something in the carpeting.

She paused and stooped. Her breath caught in her throat, she knelt and carefully extracted a loop diamond earring that was caught in the rose carpet.

She fingered it for a long time.

It was Jasmine's earring.

Carly held the piece of jewelry tightly in her fingers. Fear rose within her, and she closed her eyes as she swallowed and prayed desperately. Please, God, let Jasmine be all right!

She was still dressed in her flannel nightgown, with her hair all tangled but she rushed out of her room, anyway. She glanced at Tanya's door. She couldn't believe that Tanya's nocturnal visitor was Jon. She couldn't believe that he was a murderer—and she refused to believe that he would turn so quickly from her to another woman.

She crossed the hallway to the western side of the castle, where Jon Vadim's room was. She didn't give a damn if he was sleeping or not, and slammed a fist against his door.

There was no answer. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she told herself that she was a pathetic fool. Perhaps he was in Tanya's room, after all.

But then the door flew open. She had obviously awakened him, for his hair was tousled, and he looked irritated. He stared at her as he tied the belt of his robe.

"You again," he said.

She burst into the room, pacing on her bare feet in front of his bed.

"Jasmine is here."

"Jasmine is not here."

She paused and walked over to him, dangling the earring beneath his nose.

"This is Jasmine's!"

He reached for the earring. She clutched it in her fist, backing away from him.

"Give it to me." He started walking toward her.

"No! It is my sister's earring."

He stopped and shrugged. " Oui. Yes. It is Jasmine's earring. I've seen her wear it many times. But so what? Jasmine has been here often. Where did you find it?"

"In the rug."

" Voilà. You see." With the laissez-faire of a typical Frenchman, he shrugged again. "She lost her earring before she left. You have found it."

"I should have seen it before," she said.

"But you didn't."

"You're lying!" She realized her voice was rising hysterically. She was frightened and shaken and angry. And once again she didn't know how to feel or what to think.

"I am not lying to you! Jasmine must have lost it when—"

"She must have lost it recently. I would have found it before if it had been there."

He threw up his hands in disgust. "As you wish! You seem to have thought before that I did away with your sister. Perhaps I hid her in the dungeon. But now she was alive enough to come back and sneak into your room. And sneak back out. And not bother to tell her loving sister that she was back. S'il vous pla?t! Madame Kiernan." He took a step toward her.

What he said was true, she conceded. Or was it? She didn't know anymore.

"Come here, please," he said to her.

She didn't want to listen to him. She wanted to think. "No! No!"

"I swear to you that Jasmine—"

"No! Don't swear to me anymore at all. I don't want to hear any more of it!"

"Please—"

"No! I'm leaving here this morning. I'm going to the hotel, and you are not going to stop me."

She turned and fled. She stormed into her room and tossed her suitcase onto the bed.

The door suddenly burst open. Startled, Carly swung around.

Jon was standing there. Briefly she marveled at the speed with which he had dressed. He was in dark jeans and riding boots and a red V-necked sweater.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked her harshly.

"Packing," Carly told him curtly.

He strode on into the room. For a moment he watched her quick, angry strides from the dresser to the bed.

"Carly, stop it."

She did stop, just long enough to stare at him with a tempestuous and near-lethal fury. Then she started for the dresser again.

"Carly!" He caught her arm, and she was forced to stop. She was shaking badly, she realized. She didn't want to lose her dignity now. She stared at the hand that held her, at the bronze fingers that were curled over the soft flannel of her gown. He wasn't intimidated. He did not release her.

"Count Vadim," she said. "I would greatly appreciate it if you would take your—paw—off me."

"Paw? I see. I am part beast, and I attack people and use torture against them."

"Do you?" she inquired bluntly.

He didn't answer for a moment. He glared at her with a look of contempt. "No."

She tried to pull away. He held fast to her. "Count Vadim—"

"Stop calling me that."

"It's your name, isn't it?"

"You're not being reasonable."

"And you are?"

"I'm trying to talk to you."

"Well, I've tried and tried to talk to you. And now I don't want to talk anymore. I want to leave."

His mouth tightened. "You want to leave?" he asked harshly.

"Yes."

"Fine. That's just fine. We'll leave together."

"What—" Carly began. But she choked off her angry, indignant question as he pulled her roughly against him, sweeping his arm beneath her to lift her off her feet. Startled, she stared down into his eyes. They glittered with the sharp edge of his temper and determination. "Vadim, you can't do this—"

"But I can, Ms. Kiernan. I bloody well can, and I will."

He started walking so abruptly that she fell against him and instinctively hooked her arms around his neck. "What are you doing? Where are you taking me? You can't do this!"

But he was proving that he could. His strides brought them very quickly from the bedroom to the hallway and down the stairs. There was a maid on the terrace. Jon ignored her.

"I'm going to scream bloody murder!" Carly warned him.

"Enjoy yourself."

She gasped for breath, but didn't scream, though she didn't know why. He kept on striding across the courtyard. Satan was there, all saddled.

"What are you doing?" Carly demanded in exasperation. "I'm not even dressed!"

He almost smiled then. His eyes flickered over her as his arms tightened.

"You're perfect for what I've got in mind."

"What!"

He laughed. The next thing she knew, he'd hiked her over Satan's back, and leaped up behind her. Satan snorted and pranced. Carly swallowed a gasp of fear as the stallion reared and she fell back against Jon once more. His arms came around her to take hold of the reins. Satan set out across the cobblestones at a wild gallop.

"Where are we going?" Carly cried.

"To the devil, so it seems!" he retorted. "To the very devil!"

Her teeth chattering, Carly clung to the pommel. They entered the woods, and she thought she should be frightened. She wasn't. The tempest still raced through her. Mist rose from the ground, and she knew that wherever he took her, a storm would rage, for that sweet, rough magic was erupting again, all around the two of them and around the magnificent black horse that was bearing them toward their destiny.