Royal Blood - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,46

reserved for the family.”

“Right next door to Siegfried, as it happens,” I said, “but Belinda, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Someone came into my room last night.”

“Not Siegfried!” she exclaimed. “I thought his interests lay in quite another direction.”

“Oh, God, no. But worse in a way. I think it was a vampire.”

Belinda started laughing. “Georgie, you are too funny sometimes.”

“No, seriously, Belinda. There is a spooky portrait hanging on the wall and this man looked just like him. I was half asleep and I woke to see him creeping toward me and then he stood over my bed, muttered something in a language I didn’t understand then bent down toward me with this sort of unearthly smile, showing all his teeth.”

“Darling! What did you do?” She yanked down my collar. “Did he actually bite you? What was it like?”

“He didn’t get a chance. I sat up and demanded to know what he was doing. He gave this sort of unearthly moan and vanished.”

“Vanished? As in just melted away, you mean?”

“No, merged back into the darkness, I suppose, but when I finally turned on the light he was no longer in the room. And what’s more there’s a large chest in the room and inside it was a cape still damp with snowflakes on it. Explain that.”

“My dear, how frightfully thrilling,” Belinda said. “If I didn’t have other diversions to occupy me, I’d volunteer to sleep in your room tonight. I have always wanted to meet a vampire.”

“So you believe me?”

“I’m more inclined to believe it was some young count or other, one of Nicky’s groomsmen, who made a mistake and got the wrong room when he went to visit the lady of his choosing. It’s easy to do in a place like this.”

“I suppose you may be right,” I said. “I’m going to watch when they set out hunting to see if I recognize him. Whoever it was certainly wasn’t at dinner last night. And he didn’t look—you know—earthly.”

Belinda put her hand on my shoulder. “Georgie, I was only joking in London about vampires, you know. You don’t really believe in them, do you?”

“Belinda, you know me.”

“I do and that’s what worries me. Until now I’d have said you were one of the most levelheaded people on earth.”

“I know and I’d agree with you. But I know what I saw and I know the absolute terror that I felt.”

“A nightmare, maybe? Understandable in a place like this. Darling, isn’t it all too delightfully gothic?”

“But what about the wet cape in that chest? If you want gothic, you should see the chest in my room. Come up and I’ll show you.”

“If you insist,” she said. “Very well. Lead on, Macduff!”

Chapter 15

Bran Castle

Somewhere in Transylvania

Thursday, November 17

I led her up the stairs and pushed aside the curtains. Belinda looked around the room and of course her gaze first alighted on the portrait on the wall.

“I say. He’s not bad, is he? And look at that sexy open shirt. I wonder how long ago he lived.”

“He still lives. That’s the whole point, Belinda. I swear he was my vampire last night.”

A wicked smile crossed her face. “In that case I may well volunteer to change rooms with you. I wouldn’t mind being bitten by someone like him.”

I looked at her and realized she was still joking. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

“I think the logical explanation is that you fell asleep with that portrait staring down at you and you had a little fantasy dream about him.”

“All right, I’ll prove it to you. Look, here’s the chest.” I stomped across the room to it. “And I bet the cape is still damp. See?”

I flung it open triumphantly, then stopped. The chest was completely empty.

“An invisible cape, how unique,” Belinda said.

“It was here, I swear. And when I first came up here I saw someone crawling up the wall.”

“Of this room?”

“No, the outside wall of the castle. Just over there.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“That’s what I thought. But this—whatever-it-was—climbed up the wall over there and then disappeared.”

Belinda put a hand on my forehead. “No, you don’t have a fever,” she said, “but you must be hallucinating. This isn’t like you, Georgie. After all, you grew up in a gloomy place like this.”

“We had a couple of ghosts, but no vampires, at Castle Rannoch,” I said. “I asked Siegfried and Matty about them. Siegfried made light of it but Matty was definitely cagey. You don’t think she’s been bitten and become undead,