Red Magic (12 page)

When she nodded, her eyes full of him, a
dark warrior in
firelight,
he said, very softly,
"Now, love, out of those wet clothes."

Cat, her body still humming from his
caresses and a rushing, shameless feeling, seized the clammy bottom of the
chemise and pulled it off over her head. At once there was the tingle of wet
flesh meeting air, and the new, never before tasted pleasure of showing off her
body, a pleasure that totally overwhelmed the fierce counter tug of the modesty
she'd been taught.

Christoph subsided into one of the chairs
by the fire, but his eyes never left her. A slight smile played about his lips.
He was clearly enjoying the sight of her, wide shoulders and high gold-dusted
breasts.

"All of it," he said, a devilish
grin barely in check. "Come on, Red." She had begun to blush, a blush
that unfolded a bloom all the way to her nipples. "Show me. Only when you
do," and suddenly he flicked away the other towel, flaunting his
possession, "can you have this back."

"Damn!" Just when had he
appropriated her towel? She lunged after, but he snapped it away.

"Take it off, little wife. I swear not
to touch."

Cat, arms crossed in front of her breasts,
stepped back and muttered, "Forgive me, cousin, but I don't find that
particularly reassuring."

"First you tease and then you run. I
didn't know you were such a chicken heart, Caterina!" He laughed, knowing
that he had turned a favorite childish taunt against her.

Cat gritted her teeth. Turning to the side,
she untied the thin strip that held the silk thigh-length man's
undergarment she'd worn beneath the riding breeches. She peeled it off and
stepped out, one long shapely leg at a time. Her husband leaned back in his
chair and let out a low whistle.

"Face me," he
said,
his voice ever so soft. "I won't touch, but after six weeks of marriage
I'd dearly love to see."

She did as he asked. Later, in the cold
light of the morning, brimming with guilt, Cat couldn't understand why she'd
done any of it, beginning with the impulsive kiss.

Firelight dappled her long, slim form. The
wet red single braid hung over one shoulder, while golden freckles gave her
fair flesh an all over glitter. Her breasts, tantalizingly unfinished, were
high with cold and excitement. Below, there was a perfect triangle of fine, red-gold
curls.

"Without a doubt, the finest piece of
woman flesh from here to Istanbul."
Christoph didn't move a muscle, but he did draw in a deep breath. The tiger's
look in his eyes rose to meet the one in hers, the one which was, with a mad
lack of restraint, daring him to make the next move.

Next, she nearly jumped out of her skin,
for there was a sharp rap-rap-rap at their door. Caterina dashed for cover,
flinging herself into bed.

"It's the Grafin's trunks, Herr
Graf." Goran called from outside, "They're ready with supper."

The young Graf clapped his hands together,
gave a shout of laughter and then cried, "Well, sir, enter!" Through
the half-open bed curtains Cat could see that he'd slung her towel like a
trophy over one broad shoulder.

The trunks came thumping in while Cat hid
beneath the covers. After the parade of servants had gone stamping out,
Christoph searched out Cat's morning gown and tossed it between the curtains.
Just as she finished hastily slipping into it, supper arrived.

* * *

They sat at a small table by the fire and
ate in an unaccustomed but pleasantly solitary state. Just as Christoph had
said, the food at the Black Swan was wonderful.

A richly sauced venison pie, with its
accompaniment of turnips and rotekraut, was delicious. Cat pursued it to the
bottom of the dish and used chunks of bread to wipe up the gravy.

The meal was punctuated by comings and
goings. Goran came to get orders for tomorrow; the innkeeper and his wife
appeared too. Apparently they had played host to Christoph before.

At last the table was taken away. They had
just settled down to a task that might have renewed their earlier, interrupted
intimacy, for Christoph had begun to brush his wife's beautiful thick hair dry
by the fire, when the host once more knocked.

"I'm sorry—devastated—Herr Graf von
Hagen, but Herr Graf Thun's party has just come in, quite desperate to get out
of the rain."

"And," Christoph finished with a
rueful look at his wife, at the shining, wavy red mantle which fell over her
shoulders and down her back, "You will need the ladies to sleep with other
ladies and gentlemen to sleep with other gentlemen if you are to accommodate
everyone. I understand perfectly, Herr Schwann. It's the luck of the
road."

The plump innkeeper bowed nervously.
"A dreadful occurrence in the middle of your wedding journey, Herr Graf,
and I pray you will not be angry, but you have divined our needs perfectly. If
the Countess Thun and her daughter, who is great with child, sir!—might room
here with your wife, then you, the Graf Thun and his son-in-law
could go to the west room."

After a torrent of apologies and
explanations that rivaled the torrents of rain still blowing outside, the round
faced host, bowing and bobbing, withdrew. Caterina began to get up, but her
husband caught her hand.

"Just a moment.
I want to remember how beautiful you look sitting there with all
that fiery hair."

After a moment of studying her, her face,
her lissome body wrapped in the morning gown, Christoph raised Cat's long
fingers and in the most tender and humble manner, kissed them. Caterina, while
experiencing that now familiar war of desire and doubt, allowed a thrill to
pass through her.

"I am not accustomed to looking upon
delay as a blessing, but in our case, my lovely wife, I believe it is."

Chapter Eight

There followed the tumult of two
aristocratic families meeting and sharing small quarters. The servants bustled
and their masters and mistresses offered each other congratulations and sent
greetings to family members. Gossip from Court was passed by the Thuns, who
were traveling home from Vienna
for the birth. They discussed the abominable state of the roads and the equally
abominable state of the weather.

The next day the intimate happenings seemed
like a dream to Caterina. Dressed in a pair of her husband's pants which
blossomed around her slimness—although the length wasn't bad—Caterina consumed
her breakfast in near silence. The size of the young countess's belly and her
languid passivity were equally unsettling. Caterina was glad they would go on.
It had stopped raining during the night and a chilly, autumnal wind had blown
blue skies down from the north

It was during this day's muddy ride that
the peaks of the mountains suddenly jumped into view. One mountain of the group
began to loom, the broken, bald peak intermittently veiled by gray clouds.

"See, Mistress? Heldenberg," said
Goran, reining his horse close to Caterina's. "She's in one of her dark
moods."

"Oh, she means us no harm," said
Christoph. "The old witch is just winking."

"Who was the Helden, the hero of the
place?"

"Siegfried, I believe, the one who killed
a dragon, and," Christoph shot a grin at her, "married a
Valkyrie."

* * *

The next day the dark pine forest poured
down the slopes like a black wave determined to engulf them. Soon they left the
road and rode through some rocky pasture, by-passing a tiny group of houses
clustered around a squat, ancient stone church.

"Heldenruhe," Christoph said,
pointing.
"Our nearest neighbor.
There is a
church, a mill, a smithy and not much else. Just an hour's ride and we'll be
home."

"Why did we not ride through?"

"Because we'd be
detained by everyone from the miller to old Father Leopold.
I'll take you down to meet them after you're settled."

They left the last of the cleared land now,
climbing the shoulders of the mountain. Here they entered the pine forest, which
was as forbidding and chilly as it looked, and trotted down a curiously yellow
dirt road. Caterina, used to the sunny open Donau lowlands, felt oppressed and
shuddery.

After miles of unrelenting gloom they
reached a place where men had been at work again. Here the forest had been
trimmed and thinned, tamed into a park. Now there were groves of oak and ash,
interspersed with islands of cheerful, sun filled meadow. A herd of deer, tails
flashing, bolted from one of them.

"Now that they've seen me, they'll
tell all their friends and by tomorrow there won't be one to be found
anywhere."

Suddenly the climb ended and Caterina had a
first view of her new home. Heldenberg Manor, with an ancient stone first floor
and a newer timber-framed second, sat on a cleared, grassy south facing slope.
It was a surprise, after the long ride under the forest canopy, to look back
and see how far up the mountain they'd come. Above them, with perhaps only a
mile's interval, the stony upper reaches began.

On the near side of the main house, level
with it, was a great stone barn, but first they rode past a row of tidy
cottages which her husband said belonged to the farmhands and servants who
worked the place. There were neat little patches of garden, tethered goats,
chickens and a group of tow-headed, staring children. In one place, two women
sat and spun in the good light of a flagstoned entrance. They rose to curtsy to
the passing riders.

Beyond the house she saw a long, low
structure like a barracks. Christoph explained that this was exactly what it
was. He kept a small contingent of soldiers and their families at Heldenberg.
Along the front of the manor, taking advantage of the southern exposure was a
well tended garden filled with herbs, flowers and vegetables.

Their progress towards the house was noted.
By the time they dismounted, servants had come and were lining up to meet them.
Everyone was neat and clean and looked well fed. Their eyes, Caterina noted at
once, seemed wary.

First to greet their master and new
mistress was a somberly dressed couple, the woman younger than her graying
husband. They were, Christoph explained, Herr and Frau Walter, the bailiff and
his wife. "There isn't much Herr Walter doesn't know about my land and
tenants. His good Frau manages the house and an excellent job she does."

Caterina smiled. The smile was dutifully
returned, but without any particular warmth. Men in uniform saluted and
housemaids curtsied one by one as she passed a crowd of faces and names. Then
she met the head gardener, who was credited with the handsome and practical
garden.

"It must have been work to make
anything grow on this ground," Caterina observed.

"All the hay and manure from the barn
for a good many years," the man said proudly. "The garden is more for
the kitchen than for flowers, but you might want to change that, Lady," he
went on in a thick Bavarian accent.

"Oh, no, sir," Caterina replied,
happy that he, alone of the rest, seemed pleased to see her. "It looks
like a wonderful garden just as it is. But, my Lady Mother has some nice roses.
If you wanted a few hardy ones, I know she would be happy to send
cuttings."

The man seemed pleased by that and backed
up, tugging at his forelock politely. Was she imagining it, or were the house
servants glaring?

"Well, here's one person,"
Christoph was saying, "who'll be glad that you aren't too interested in
flowers. She likes cabbages better." The cook, a round, homely woman,
stepped forward. "I've had cooks from Passau. I've had French cooks too, but by
God,
give me Frau Ute's cooking over all of them. My father
says we eat like peasants up here, but it is right for us, isn't it, my
dear?"

He pinched the cook's full red cheek, which
caused her to dimple. Emboldened by his obvious affection, she said, "You
don't get to eat enough of what I cook, Herr Graf."

"And you, my darling, eat too much of
it," he teased, poking at her round belly, "so it works out."

Then, followed by all those wary, curious
eyes, they went inside. Herr Goran went first, opening doors. At every other
step his wooden leg made a hollow sound on the slates. Caterina had decided
during the journey that she liked Goran, although she wasn't sure what he
thought of her. He was utterly devoted to his master. As a body servant he was
rough in manner and eccentric in dress, but she'd learned that he'd been a
common soldier in Christoph's regiment, a Croat by birth, whom her husband had
grown to value. After Goran had received his crippling injury, his commander
had offered him this job, and Goran, although proud, had accepted. He could
soldier no longer and had no home village or even a family to return to. It
seemed that all had been lost during an attack by the Croat's hereditary
enemies, the Serbs.

Now he, long moustaches drooping, opened
the door of a long room decorated with battle flags and trophies of the chase.
Somewhat to Cat's surprise, he didn't
follow,
simply
shut the door behind them. Christoph led Caterina to the head of a lengthy
trestle table and pulled out a chair for her. He seemed, suddenly, rather ill
at ease.