I decided not to count on help with my morning toilet, so I was washed and dressed by the time she reappeared, red faced and panting, carrying my tea tray. “There ain’t half a lot of stairs in this place, miss,” she said. “Oh, and there was a bloke asking after you.”
“What kind of bloke?”
“Ever so handsome, miss. Dark hair and he spoke proper English too. Not like one of them wogs.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said it was about time you roused yourself and he was waiting for you in the breakfast room.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my cheeks going pink. “Then I’d better get straight down there, hadn’t I?”
“ ’Ere, what about the tea what I just brought up for you?” Queenie demanded.
“You drink it,” I said. “Oh, and my shoes need polishing.”
With that I ran down the hallway. One of these days I’d better learn to be masterful with servants. Lady Middlesex was quite right. Not that I thought that Queenie would ever learn.
Darcy was alone, sitting with a cup of coffee in front of him as I came into the breakfast room. He rose to his feet as I entered.
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “What sort of time do you call this?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“Almost ten.”
“Oh, crikey,” I exclaimed. “I had a disturbed night last night. I must have been making up for it.”
“And what disturbed you?” He was looking at me in that special way, half laughing, that made my insides go weak.
“My maid woke me up to say there was a man in her room.”
“Lucky maid. What did she want you to do about it? Give her your blessing or come and watch?”
“Darcy, it’s not funny,” I said. “She was terrified, poor thing. I went up to see, but of course he’d gone.”
“Was it a hot-blooded Romanian who fancied a prim English miss?”
“I told you it wasn’t funny, Darcy,” I snapped. “I know exactly how she felt because the same thing happened to me the night before.”
“Who was it? I’ll see to him.”
“Nobody I knew,” I said, secretly delighted by this response. “In fact I think it might have been a vampire.”
I saw the smile spread across his face.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” I said and hit him. He caught my hand in his and held me, looking down at me.
“Come on, Georgie. I know this is Transylvania, but you don’t believe in vampires any more than I do.”
“I didn’t, until I came here,” I said. “But there was definitely a strange young man bending over my bed, smiling at me and saying something in a strange language, and when I sat up, he just melted away into the shadows.”
“Then I’d have to say that he was probably in the wrong room and got as big a shock as you did when you sat up. That sort of bed hopping goes on quite a lot in places like this, you know. Or perhaps you don’t. You’ve led a sheltered life.”
“But he looked just like the man in the portrait on my wall,” I said. “Only last night the portrait had been changed, and someone was climbing up the castle wall. . . .”
“Up the wall? That’s a pretty suicidal thing to do.”
“Well, someone did it and there was a cloak in the chest in my room, with snowflakes still on it, and then it vanished.”
“Dear me, it all sounds very dramatic,” he said.
“Don’t you believe me?”
“I’d suspect that the rich food has given you vivid dreams, my sweet.”
“It wasn’t dreams,” I said. “I’ve felt a sense of danger since I came here. Lady Middlesex’s companion said that she sensed death as we arrived. And explain to me why all these other strange things have been happening.”
“What strange things?” His tone was suddenly sharp and his grip tightened on my wrist.
“Well, to begin with there was someone spying on me on the train. He tried to come into my compartment and then at the station—” I broke off because he was grinning again. “What now? Don’t you believe me?”
“Oh, absolutely. I have to confess something. The person on the train was I.”
“You?”
“Yes, I got wind of which train you were traveling on and I thought it would be a good idea to keep an eye on you. I hadn’t counted on the old battle-ax keeping me at bay.”
“But wait a minute,” I said. “If you were on the same train as us, how did you get here? An avalanche blocked the