To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [299]
The place was virtually a castle, and contained in its household many capable men, the Count’s lawyer among them. After several days wholly given to the pleasures of eating, hunting and dancing, Julius voiced his discomfort. ‘You said you had work for me, lady? Your friends are wondering why I am here.’
Bonne, her daughter, had come to join them: a solemn, flat-chested girl with brown hair, sucking a comfit from the heaped supper buffet. Anna had smiled, and made room for her to sit down. They were all warm from dancing.
She said, ‘You are here to rest from your office. Why not? I benefit from the fruits of your labours; it is only right that I should wish you refreshed.’
Julius said, ‘You have many friends as skilful as I am, or with secretaries who would be glad to advise.’
‘Then I wonder why I am not using them?’ the Gräfin said. ‘Really, why should you be assailed so by doubts? Because for the first time I have allowed my hateful business to fall into oblivion for three or four days? I have forgotten it, and I expect you to forget it as well. Or if you cannot, come and take wine with me later, and we shall please everybody by computing my customs dues, or the profit from the sale of a vineyard.’ He had not understood, until he arrived at her chamber, that she would be alone, and at ease in her bedrobe. He stopped.
‘Julius! What are we to do with you?’ she said. Rising, she crossed to shut the door at his back, and then, taking his hand, led him across to a seat, from which he gazed up at her. Her eyes in the candlelight were of that dense blue approaching to violet, and her hair fell divided over her shoulders. The black ends curled at her waist; the upper strands lay on her robe like embroidery. She said, ‘You did not go with Gustav last night?’ She wore the scent she always wore. He did not know what it was.
He felt himself flushing. He said, ‘It was kind of him to ask. I was tired.’
The scent receded. She sat down opposite, on the feather pillows of a day bed hung with linen. She said, ‘He wished you to go. It is a clean house. The girls would have done you no harm.’
He burned with embarrassment. He said, ‘I’m sorry …’
Anna lay back. She was smiling. She said, ‘I am honoured that you resisted, but you should have gone. I meant you to go. I suggested it.’
He said, ‘You want me to leave.’
‘No! No,’ she said. ‘How have I frightened you? You have paid me homage as a gentleman should. Had we lived in earlier times, you might have offered me exquisite poems. I was content. Then I wondered if you did not expect more of me than chivalrous dalliance.’
Julius swallowed. He said, ‘I have never wanted more than the Gräfin wished to give.’ He sat on the low velvet stool, his limbs at ease as if set on a side-saddle, his pulse sharp as the thud of a mallet.
She said, ‘I know all your attributes, Julius, except for one thing, which I hoped Gustav would tell me. The Graf Wenzel was an old man. I loved him. But when I do not seek the financial advice of my friends, it is perhaps a sign that I desire something more from there’
He began to rise. ‘Anna!’
‘… Which I should like to be sure they can give me. Are you a virgin, Julius?’
‘No,’ he said. He could barely speak.
‘Neither am I,’ said Anna von Hanseyck. ‘There is nothing then, is there, to delay us?’
He had started to tremble. He said, ‘You mean – ’
The violet eyes smiled. She said, ‘I am not asking you to marry me, Julius. I am asking you to show me whether or not I should like to be married to you.’
Her robe had parted a little; one of the long, straying locks was clinging half to her skin. He knelt before her, and she stretched a speculative finger, then two, to the sodden throat of his shirt. She said, ‘You are so hot, Julius!’
He stayed all night. Long after, he remembered thinking, at the height of the experience, that he could have died at that hour, and not grudged it. When he finally woke, the sun shone through the lawn of the hangings and she lay, naked still in his arms, smiling at him. She said, ‘Show me what you will