Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,33

here comes somebody now.”

A door had opened at the top of a flight of stone steps and a man in black and silver livery with a silver star-shaped decoration hanging at his neck was descending. He was silver haired and rather grand looking with high cheekbones and strange light eyes that glinted like a cat’s.

“Vous êtes Lady Georgiana of Glen Garry and Rannoch?” he asked in French, which threw us all off balance. “Bienvenue. Welcome to Bran Castle.”

I suppose I had forgotten that French tended to be the common language of the aristocracy of Europe.

“This is Lady Georgiana,” Lady Middlesex said in the atrociously English-sounding French of most of my countrymen. She indicated me. “I am her traveling companion, Lady Middlesex, and this is my companion, Miss Deer-Harte.”

“And for companion Miss Deer-Harte has somebody?” he inquired. “A little dog, maybe?”

I suspected he was attempting humor but Lady Middlesex said coldly, “No animal of any kind.”

“Allow me to present myself,” the man said. “I am Count Dragomir, steward of this castle. I welcome you on behalf of Their Royal Highnesses. I hope you will have a pleasant stay here.” He clicked his heels and gave a curt little bow, reminding me of Prince Siegfried, my would-be groom, who was also related to the royal house of Romania. Oh, Lord, of course he’d be here. That aspect hadn’t struck me before. The moment I had this thought, another followed. This couldn’t possibly be a trap, could it? Both my family and Prince Siegfried had been annoyed when I had turned down his marriage proposal. And Siegfried was the type who likes to get his own way. Had I been specially invited to this wedding so that I’d be trapped in a spooky old castle in the middle of the mountains of Romania with a convenient priest to perform a marriage ceremony?

I looked back longingly at the motorcar as Count Dragomir indicated we should follow him up the steps.

We entered the castle into a towering hall hung with banners and weapons. Archways around the walls led into dark passageways. The floor and walls were solid stone and it was almost as cold inside as it was out.

“You will rest after exhausting journey,” Dragomir said. His breath hung visibly in the cold air. “I will have servants show you to your rooms. We dine at eight. Her Highness Princess Maria Theresa looks forward to renewing acquaintanceship with her old friend Lady Georgiana of Rannoch. Please do follow now.”

He clapped his hands. A bevy of footmen leaped out of the shadows, snatched up our train cases and started up another flight of steep stone steps that ascended one of the walls with no railing. My feet felt as tired as if I’d been on a long hike and I realized it was a long way down if I were to stumble. At the top we came out to a hallway colder and draftier than anything at Castle Rannoch, then up a spiral staircase, round and round until I was feeling dizzy. The staircase ended in a broad corridor with a carved wooden ceiling. Again the floor was stone, and it was lined with ancestral portraits of people who looked fierce, half mad or both. Queenie had been following hard on my heels. Suddenly she gave a scream and leaped to grab me, nearly sending us both sprawling.

“There’s someone standing behind the pillar,” she gasped.

I turned to look. “It’s only a suit of armor,” I said.

“But I could swear it moved, miss. I saw it raise its arm.”

The suit was indeed standing holding a pike with one arm raised. I opened the visor. “See. There’s nobody inside. Come on, or we’ll lose our guide.”

Queenie followed, keeping so close that she kept bumping into me every time I slowed. A door was opened, curtains were held back and I stepped into an impressively large room.

Queenie was breathing down my neck. “Ooh, heck,” she said. “It looks like something out of the pictures, don’t it, miss? Boris Karloff and Frankenstein.”

“Come,” the footman now said to Queenie. “Mistress rest now. Come.”

“Go with him, Queenie,” I said. “He’ll take you to your room. Have a rest yourself but come back in time to dress me for dinner.”

Queenie shot me a frightened glance and went after him reluctantly. The curtains fell into place and I was alone. The room smelled old and damp, in a way that was not unfamiliar to me from our castle at home. But whereas the rooms