Chapter Fifteen
Mr William Campbell, antiquarian, thief, had always prided himself on his clear mind, his steady hand, and flawless execution. Every single step in his life, every interaction had been thoroughly calculated, from the way he spoke and walked around the other students in Oxford, to the precise moment he could sneak out of a grand salon to lay his hands on a prized artefact. Yes, everything had always been perfectly calculated to achieve the desired aim, to climb another step towards his Big Dream of Making It In Life.
Up until that night.
He had wanted to cut Claudia out of his life to avoid a heartbreak. He had acquired her as a lover instead.
It was so that, over the course of a very uncomfortable night, at the tender age of eight-and-twenty, Mr William Campbell learned that, when the heart was involved, things never went to plan. And yet he did not feel despondent. He did not feel like a failure. How could holding Claudia skin to skin, watching her silver eyes turn murky with the pleasure they gave each other, possibly feel like a failure? He just felt like laughing—a bit out of sheer exhilaration, and a bit because no plan in his life had ever gone so spectacularly tits-up.
Although, really, he should be concerned by just how quickly the sight of her had burned through his resolve never to see her again. Or the fact that instead of feeling guilty, he had spent the night torn between indecent images of them together and compiling a mental inventory of things a man could do to spoil one’s lover (1 of reading to her, 1 of stealing flowers from Rabenstein’s garden and depositing them on her doorstep before she wakes up, 1 of introducing her to my favourite book, 1 of bringing her breakfast in bed, and so on).
But most concerning of all was the fact that, over the past few days, whenever she was with him, he had not thought once about the treasure and his plan. That whenever he held her in his arms, he felt completely content .
Him. William Campbell. Content .
As if he did not need money, wealth or power, for he had all what he needed already, and the only thing missing was her. As though actually, all things considered, he had pretty much made it in life.
It was incomprehensible. It was madness. His contentment must be a dangerous delusion, a delirious fantasy produced by their…how to call it…mutual fascination. Yes, it was just a fantasy, and he better write it in capital letters and hang it up on his bedroom wall. Before he fell head over heels for her and she unavoidably lost interest in him. Because let’s be honest, even in a world in which she didn’t have to travel back to England, what could he possibly offer her? Claudia had lived a whole life before they met, a life filled not with the idle pastimes of the aristocracy or with his own selfish pursuits, but with relentless work, dedication, suffering, fierce friendships, and yes, lovers too. What could he possibly hope to add to it? His entire petty life, wholly self-serving and curved onto itself, was a spit compared to everything she had experienced. She’d get bored of him, and long before she travelled back to England.
He walked downstairs but the house felt unfamiliar. It was filled with memories of her. The entry hall. The study. His desk, smashed by her display of strength. The drawings he had prepared for Caiani had fallen to the floor, and Bill was enthusiastically playing in the debris. A pretty unsubtle allegory of his existence and his plans, well and truly scrambled by this formidable woman.
And yet, somehow, he did not feel scrambled. He did not feel cracked or broken. He had never felt so whole in his life. And maybe, maybe , couldn’t it mean that she was actually…good for him?
Well, it would only hurt more when she left. Or when she sent him on his way, as every single woman like her had done with Eric and Ed. There was no future for them. He should refocus on his plan instead of drawing up lists of things to do for her. But he felt no inclination whatsoever to work, nor to go and see Caiani to begin the negotiations.
There, he was going in circles. Before he took any step, be it sending gifts to her, or rushing to Caiani drawings-in-hand, he had to talk to Rabenstein. Rabey always had a way of seeing right through the bullshit, maybe because he was a bit of a lunatic—or at least that’s what people said. Rabey would whack some sense in him this time too, that was for sure. Georg had said he would be back in a day, two days maximum. All he had to do was wait. Surely, for once in his life, he could learn to just sit down and wait, couldn’t he?
***
Claudia was safe in a guest room in the Rabensteins’ palazzo , and William was a memory, a scent, a caress on her sleeping body. She smiled, her soul light and blissful for the hours they had spent together.
A night spent with a man had never felt like that. It had always been quick and meaningless, thrilling too at times, but it had always felt like satisfying an urge, or rather, numbing a need, no matter how excitingly. It had never been so intimate. Never so close. After all the horrors of the past year, William was an unhoped-for gift.
And yet her bliss could not ease her doubts. She had been so caught up in the events of the past days that she hadn’t stopped for a moment to think about what exactly they were doing. What’s more, he had evaded a rather important question yesterday. Why was he always seen flirting with wealthy women? He had spoken of how flattery could open doors for him, which begged the question of whether he was hoping to get said advantages out of her .
She curled up on the mattress, pulling the bedsheet up to her chin. The closeness they had experienced had been sincere, there was no doubt about that. But it didn’t mean that he didn’t have ulterior motives. He had been relentlessly pursuing her from the first day, after all. And she was rich, blue-blooded, and powerful, exactly the kind of woman he was always seen with. And why would a ridiculously handsome man like him, who could have any woman in town, be interested in her of all people, if not for her wealth and status?
She would think about that later. For now, she just wanted to lie in bed, half-asleep in the first light of dawn, thinking of the way she had felt utterly safe and precious in his arms…
The mattress moulded to her body like a cushion of clouds, easing her into a warm and dreamless sleep.
Until a familiar presence gently entered in her consciousness and tugged at her soul. The blood in her veins seemed to stir and flow faster, as if reaching a numbed limb. That part of her outside herself began conversing, though no words were being uttered.
You…here…in my house…
In her sleep, she held her hand out.
It was promptly clasped by another, much larger than hers.
‘Moritz,’ she whispered, smiling.
‘Klaudi...’
She rolled to her side and opened her eyes.
He was sitting motionless on an armchair pulled close to the bed, so stern and composed that he looked like a statue. She took in his familiar figure, his hair so blond as to be almost white, and his pale and fierce face, which made him look like an archangel come to inflict vengeance. The unnatural pallor of his skin was only accentuated by the black silk band covering his right eye, and by the bloodred scar of the bayonet that had slashed his neck, forcing him to talk in broken whispers.
To the world he was Captain Moritz von Rabenstein, eldest son of one of the most ancient aristocratic families in Austria, the war hero of the Imperial Austrian Army who had gone mad in the war. To her he was just Moritz, her inseparable childhood friend, as much a part of her as her limbs or her blood.
‘You, Klaudi… here… ’
He fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to her hands. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
‘Moritz...’
‘Without you…my soul meanders in darkness…it searches for you…calls for you…’
‘I am always with you. Even when I am away.’
She tightened her embrace. His touch was so very precious. He never regaled anyone else with it, not even his siblings. But he embraced her, because she would never hurt him. Ever . And even what was left of his heart, somewhere behind those curtains of ice and stone, knew it.
‘I saw shadows on my journey…moving among the ruins…outside Rome. They were whispering…that they had come to take you from me…’
‘Moritz, dearest.’ She lifted his chin. ‘Since when do we believe in shadows?’
‘I don’t know anything anymore...since we almost lost you.’
‘I owe it to you and your siblings that I am still here.’ She squeezed his hands. ‘And now, no more bad omens. Let me hug you properly. Steh doch auf, stand up! No need of kneeling for me, you silly thing!’
She got out of bed and he stood too, a full head taller than her. He blushed and bowed a little stiffly.
‘Hi Klaudi.’
‘Hi Moritz. Welcome home.’
His lips just about twitched, which was his way of smiling. She hugged him tight again, making him gasp for air.
‘Survived many battles…won’t survive your embrace…you’re strong, Klaudi…so proud of you…’
They laughed and he stood back a little, encompassing her whole figure with an affectionate gaze.
‘You look happy, Klaudi…I knew it. I felt it here ,’ he placed her hand on his chest, ‘…like a sun…glowing…brighter and brighter…the closer I got to Rome...chasing the shadows…’
‘I am happy, my dearest. I have so many things to tell you.’
‘Let’s hear them now.’
‘In a moment. We have time for everything.’ She brushed off the white dust covering his uniform and his medals. ‘Tell me about you. Was it a long night on the saddle?’
‘Yes. Arrived this instant.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Betty shrieked, rushing in like a fury. She was carrying a huge bunch of flowers and a dressing gown. She threw the latter at her, a not-so-subtle suggestion to cover her shift. ‘Captain von Rabenstein arrived one hour and thirty minutes ago— ’
‘Quiet, little traitor!’ Moritz hissed.
‘—and insisted to sit there next to you to be there when you, how did you put it, my lord? When you opened your eyes! It is inadmissible , my lady! It is appalling ! I have never seen anything as scandalous in my whole short life. And I live with you , my lady!’
Claudia and Moritz exchanged an amused look.
‘All perfectly in order, little traitor.’ He paused to breathe. ‘You know we’ve been in each other’s…how do you say it in English?…I forget my English…since Mother died…’
‘In each other’s pockets.’
‘Yes. In each other’s pockets…since we were this tall…So why appalling?’
‘ Why? Because Lady Claudia’s affections are now…er…’
‘ Betty! Don’t you dare!’
Betty grumbled and forced her into the dressing gown like a child.
‘Captain von Rabenstein could have done so many things in almost two hours. He could have made himself presentable. He could have bathed .’
‘I think Betty missed you, Moritz.’
Betty turned crimson.
‘Too old for you, child,’ Moritz hissed.
‘I’m not a child, my lord,’ she frowned. ‘I’m fifteen.’
‘More than twice your age…terrible idea…in fact,’ he grinned a little sheepishly, a rare glimpse into the shy, sweet boy he had been once. ‘I’m generally a terrible idea.’
‘Don’t say that about yourself! And thanks for the flowers.’
‘They’re not from me…although they could have been…They look just like the ones in my garden.’
‘No, they’re not from the Captain.’ Betty impatiently picked up the bunch of flowers and a little envelope. ‘If they were, I wouldn’t be in such a foul mood. Mr…er…your admirer showed up at your palazzo at the crack of dawn, making a huge racket to find someone to fetch me. He gave me these for you. I’ve been awake for three hours already! It looks like nobody in this town has anything better to do than courting you, my lady.’
‘I can’t leave you alone for a second, can I?’ Moritz mocked her. ‘Whose heart…are you breaking this time?’
‘You won’t know him, and I wouldn’t tell anyway.’
‘I’ll just have to…find out myself then.’ He snatched the letter from her and held her back while he opened it.
‘Hey! Moritz don’t!’
‘Oh, that’s sweet…that’s really sweet…although your sweetheart…is a terrible artist…is this a wolf? Oder eine Ziege ?’
‘A goat? What? Give it back! Show me!’
Moritz turned the message towards her. It depicted a rather poorly-drawn cat depositing a bunch of flowers on a doorstep.
Her lips distended in a stupid grin.
‘It’s a cat, idiot.’
‘ Eine Katze?…sieht überhaupt nicht wie eine Katze aus!’ He muttered. ‘But lucky man….gets you to smile,’ he blushed ever so slightly. ‘I just terrify women…gets worse every year.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. As it happens, glacial and fierce has a certain appeal for some discerning women.’
‘Wouldn’t want to be with that sort of woman.’
‘And that’s why you’re still a bachelor.’
Moritz rolled his eye.
Then he took her hands in his, worried.
‘I am the luckiest person…in the world, finding you here…to welcome me home…But Georg refused to tell me why…you stayed overnight.’
‘It’s a long story. Maybe you want to go and rest a bit before. You look shattered.’
‘Tell me now.’
He sat on her bed wearily and untied the silk bandage. The right eye-socket was empty and black. His left eye was blue-grey and a little wet with tears. He looked colder and sadder every time she saw him.
‘Something’s wrong, Klaudi…I know it.’
‘I am going to tell you. But I want you to promise that you will sit right there and breathe. And we’ll talk about it together calmly, yes?’
‘ I see where this is going .’
Rage flickered in his eye.
‘So. Edward is in town. He tried to hurt me. He wants me back, I have no idea why, and I have good reasons to suspect that my family is trying to force an engagement.’
For a moment Moritz looked totally alien. Not just fearsome. Cruel . As though he wanted to hang Edward up by his feet and torture him slowly while smoking and laughing quietly. They said that the Rabenstein siblings were lunatics. That they had committed a monstrous sin against their kind, and they had been cursed to lust for blood until the end of their kin. And Moritz wanted blood right now.
But he sat still. Still. Still for the longest time.
‘St Cross is dead,’ he said at last, tonelessly.
For a moment the black poison of her hatred was so thick and gooey that she wished he could kill him.
But she took his hand in hers, the beautiful hand of a pianist, and shook her head.
‘No. No, Moritz. Of course not.’ But it was herself that she was trying to convince. ‘No more blood. No more tragedy. Think about his sister. She has already lost a brother. Think about yourself. You don’t need any more tragedy. No more tragedy in our lives.’
‘What if something happens to you? I am not going…to withstand this too, Klaudi…none of us is…’
‘Don’t say that.’
He signalled her to wait. He reached into his uniform pocket and extracted the little notebook he always carried with him for when his voice became too fatigued. He began scribbling fast in his barely-legible handwriting, then he turned it to her.
You are my home, our home. Because of you, I know that there is still hope for me, and for all three of us in this madhouse.
You asked me not to kill St Cross then. Are you really asking me to give him another chance to take you from me?
He did not wait for her reply and just wearily lay back on the bed. He was quiet for so long, staring into space, that she worried he had no sense of where they were at all. It was like a blade, seeing what sorrow had done to the creative, musical boy with whom she had grown up.
‘Moritz, dearest…’ she squeezed his hand.
He rubbed a hand on his face.
‘You are staying here, Klaudi…for your safety…This at least you’ll grant me.’
‘Yes, with pleasure. Now come on, my friend. Go and take a bath, put on something comfortable,’ she helped him stand. ‘You need to rest.’
He leafed through the pages of his little notebook, looking for something, then he turned it towards her.
Plenty of time to rest when I’m dead, thank you!
That made her laugh, at least.
‘You are always so morbid! Now go. I’ll wait for you downstairs. I’ll make us tea.’