“I often have them,” she admitted. “But I have no memory of coming to your bedchamber.”
“Last night you climbed into my bed.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I do not believe it.” And she made to walk past me.
I grabbed her arm and held her. “You lay against me and smiled at me and purred like a wildcat.”
“Let me go,” she said softly, dangerously.
I released my hold on her, but she didn’t move.
“You stroked my face. And when I took you back to your own room, you said good night to me. ‘Good night, Victor,’ you said.”
She looked troubled now, her eyes darting about after flares of remembrance.
“What I want to know,” I said, “is why it’s my room you come to. Why not visit Konrad’s?”
“How do you know I don’t?” she retorted.
I swallowed, speechless for a moment. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I?”
But as I watched her, I saw the uncertainty in her haughty eyes, and knew she was lying.
“I have a hypothesis, if you’d care to hear it,” I said.
She said nothing, but nor did she walk away.
“Konrad’s a fine fellow, but there’s one thing I have that he doesn’t. A passion to match your own.”
“What nonsense you talk!”
“Is it? Konrad sees your angel, but I see your animal. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” said Konrad behind me.
Elizabeth glared at me. I glared back.
“Just a lively discussion,” I said dismissively, “and one I now tire of.” I walked past Konrad and back into the chateau.
I wasn’t surprised when, not an hour later, there was a knock on my bedchamber door and Konrad entered without waiting for an invitation. I was at my desk, pretending to read.
“You have upset Elizabeth very much, you know,” he said, sitting down in an armchair.
“Have I?”
He seemed surprised by my play of innocence. “Yes. She’s upset by the way you spoke to her.”
I frowned. “What way was that?”
I wasn’t about to make this any easier for him. I would give nothing away. I wanted to know how much Elizabeth had told him.
Konrad raised his eyebrows. “Your behavior on the balcony was hardly gentlemanly.”
The balcony. So he still didn’t know about our midnight kiss. Or her midnight visits to my bedroom. The fact gave me a little thrill. Our secret from Konrad.
“My behavior,” I said with a frown. “Can you be more specific, please?”
“You forced a kiss upon her, Victor.”
I shrugged like a world-weary lover. “Oh, that. How could a young woman be upset by such flattery?”
I watched Konrad carefully, waiting for his composure to crack.
“That kiss was not wanted,” he said evenly.
I chuckled. “It was by me.”
My brother’s expression remained infuriatingly calm. “You don’t really love Elizabeth. It’s nothing more than a youthful infatuation.”
“Ah, is that what it is?” I said, feeling my temper kindle.
He nodded, as though he were a kindly uncle giving advice to a pimply, gawking child.
“Perhaps yours is the youthful infatuation,” I said.
“All right, then,” said Konrad, and I suddenly felt like we were fencing again-lunging and parrying. “How long have you had romantic feelings for her? Be truthful. Weeks?”
“I don’t know.”
“ Days, perhaps?”
“What does it matter?” I countered. “If I love her, I love her.”
“I am willing to bet,” Konrad said, “that you only discovered your love for her after you knew of mine.”
“Not so!” I said, wondering if there was truth in this.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you,” Konrad said. “That was obviously a mistake.”
“I knew your feelings well before then,” I scoffed. “And my own, too.”
“Victor, she wants you to stop.”
“Hmm. I wonder,” I said. And on a devilish impulse I added, “Did she not tell you about our long midnight kiss?”
Konrad’s face tightened. A hit. But almost at once my victory tasted sour.
My brother stood, enraged. “She’s never said a word of this to me.”
Elizabeth had kept my shameful secret to protect me and Konrad-and I had just betrayed her.
“I tricked her,” I said quickly. “I stole the note meant for you. She thought I was you, but not for long, and when she found out, she was furious with me.”
“And yet you persist,” said Konrad, kicking the chair so hard it toppled and skidded across the room. “You want everything, Victor, that is your problem.”
“How easy for you to say, when you already have everything.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded, his fist closing.
Scalding anger evaporated any lingering shame or regret. “You are best at everything, and you know it. It comes so easily to you that I wonder if you even try. I must work at what I want.”
“And you’ve suddenly decided you want Elizabeth? Can’t you see how selfish you’ve been? She loves you as a brother, and it pains her to have to reject you-more than once now, it seems! She has no romantic feelings for you, Victor.”
“I’m not convinced,” I said stubbornly.
Konrad took a threatening step toward me. “This is one thing you cannot control. You must accept this.”
“I accept nothing,” I said.
“You deserve a proper beating, then!”
“Excellent!” I said, exhilarating anger coursing through my veins. “Let’s have at it. Or maybe we should fight a proper duel over her, hey? Come, let us get our foils.”
“Only if we uncork the tips!” said Konrad in fury.
“Agreed!” I barked.
He lunged for me, fists raised, but at that moment all the blood seemed to rush from his face, and he fainted on my floor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I hardly slept, worrying about Konrad the whole night. When he’d collapsed to the floor, so pale, for a terrible moment I’d thought he was dead. But he’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, and when he’d roused, he’d insisted that he was absolutely fine. But I’d already called a servant to fetch Father, and the servant and I had helped Konrad to his bedchamber and settled him in bed.
“Please don’t make a fuss,” he’d said, still very pale. “You’ll only worry Mother.”
When I’d bid him good night, he would not meet my eye.
Dawn came, and I threw on a robe and went directly to his bedchamber. Mother was just leaving, closing the door softly behind her.
“Wait a bit,” she told me. “He’s still sleeping.”
Elizabeth came round the corner, hastily robed, her hair loose about her shoulders. She scarcely glanced at me.
