Cosmina’s brows lifted slightly. “Strigoi? That is hardly a topic for pleasant teatime conversation. I hope he did not frighten you.”

“No more than you did when we were girls at school together,” I teased.

She looked a little abashed and began to fidget with my coverlet, tucking it more securely. “I do not remember what I said.” She hesitated, biting at her lip, before bursting out, “I would not have you afraid here, Theodora. Whatever this place is, whatever walks here, I could not bear for you to leave. Not yet.”

She seized my hand and gave it a quick kiss, pressing it to her cheek before she rose abruptly. “I will leave you to rest now. Forget what you have been told this day, and dream of pleasant things.”

I longed to ask her what she meant, but before I could do so, she left me, taking away my wet gown, and I felt a delicious, creeping lassitude overtake me and I surrendered to the arms of Morpheus.

Dinner that night seemed a tense affair-most likely from the storm, which howled and thrashed about the castle-and I was not sorry to retire. As had become his custom, the count collected me after a little while and we retreated to his grandfather’s workroom. A clammy chill had settled upon the castle, but he had built a fire upon the hearth, burning tree roots instead of logs. They were twisted, monstrous things, and I sat upon a cushion near the hearth to watch them burn. The roots looked like claws, reaching out in supplication, wicked and unearthly, beckoning. Tycho had followed us and the great dog stretched out next to me, his head upon my lap. I petted him slowly, from the coarse fur of his neck to the silken ears that twitched at my touch.

The count lounged upon a sofa he had unearthed, a comfortable affair in green velvet. He smoked a pipe as we sat in silence, and I sniffed at the air, taking in the sweetly pungent odour of ripe fruit. It was unlike any pipe I had seen before, and I noticed the ritual for lighting it was quite intricate.

After a long while, he saw that I watched him. “It is opium. Would you care to smoke?”

I shook my head regretfully. I would have liked to have smoked the opium, to have taken that sweet smoke into my mouth and held it on my tongue. But I knew opium dulled the senses, and it had become my practise to memorise every moment spent in his company. He meant to leave in another month’s time and I wanted to commit every feeling, every sensation, every cell of him to memory.

He shrugged and tamped out the pipe. “You do not approve of my pleasures?”

“It is not my place to judge such things.”

He gave a low rumble of laughter. “So primly she replies, all prickles like a pretty Scottish hedgehog. And yet you are not so conventional as all that, are you? There is more to you than meets the eye, or I do not know women.”

“I am not conventional in all of my attitudes,” I allowed. “Propriety dictates I ought not to spend my evenings in your company, and yet I do.”

“And to what do you owe such freethinking? Did your grandfather encourage you?”

I felt Tycho give a low snore under my palm. “He did, after a fashion. Mine was a unique education. I was left to my own devices for many years before I went to school, and he gave me free rein to read anything I fancied in his library. I educated myself from whatever books he brought into the house. I read philosophy, comparative religion, history, languages. And from all of these I formed the foundation of my philosophy as a writer, that man is a universal creature.”

“In what way?”

I warmed to my theme. “All men, no matter their station or situation, desire to be fed and sheltered. Beyond that, there is a need for self-determination, to work according to one’s interests and talents and to shape one’s own destiny.”

“Ah, the good American pursuit of happiness,” he said.

“You think me naïve.”

“No, I think the Americans naïve. You presume that all men are happier for being permitted to decide their own fate. I have seen differently. The average peasant in this valley is happy enough to have his roof and his bed and his full belly, you are right. But beyond that, if each was permitted to please himself according to his own desires rather than what was best for the community, what would happen? Suppose the blacksmith’s son decides to become a poet. Shall we shoe our horses with sonnets?”

“I should not expect a man born to feudalism to see the merit in another system,” I replied evenly.

“Indeed you should not. I am a feudalist-if there is indeed such a word-because I was born to be, just as the peasant in the field is born to be.”

“And a man may not better himself, ought not to change his station with hard work and education?”

“God forbid!” he said roundly. “Miss Lestrange, it is perfectly well for the Americans to have embraced such ideals. They had a new country to build. Without an aristocracy of birth, they had to establish one of merit. But we Europeans have an older way-a better way-that has served us for two millennia. Would you stage a revolution to make us other than we are?”

“No, but neither would I wish to be what I am told I ought to be, a proper wife and mother,” I said slowly. “It was the notion that I could decide what my own life should be that prompted me to leave Edinburgh, to make my own way in the world upon the strength of my pen.”

He gave me a slow, warm smile. “You claim not to be a bluestocking, and yet I have discussed far weightier subjects with you than I have ever discussed with any other woman. I find I can speak to you as easily as I do a man, a singular thing in my world, Miss Lestrange.”

“Are there no ladies of your acquaintance with whom you may converse about such things? No educated women from your own circle? I understood Parisiennes to be most highly opinionated and articulate.”

“Not the ones who dance at the Paris Opera,” he said, his eyes bright with mischief. “Serious women have always given me dyspepsia, but you are different. Somehow you say the most appalling things and I am intrigued rather than horrified.”

“Do you not cultivate the friendship of thinking women?”

“What need have I for a woman who thinks? Ah, the hedgehog bristles are out again. I have insulted your sex and you will take up cudgels on behalf of your sisters! And yet, you must reflect, I keep low company. The women of my acquaintance are giddy, silly creatures, but not bad ones. They talk only of clothes and jewels, and it is enough to drive a thinking man quite mad, and yet I have come to expect that when I marry, it will be just such a creature, a woman who cares only for the next pleasure.”

“I thought your betrothal was already decided,” I remarked carefully. We had not spoken of Cosmina, I had not dared. But I longed to know the depth of his regard for her, whether he held her in esteem or affection.

He stared at me, his grey eyes wide and guileless. “Do you refer to Cosmina? Ah, schoolgirl gossip, of course. Let me guess, the two of you whispered into your pillows about me after the schoolmistresses doused the lamps. Yes, it is my mother’s fondest wish that I marry Cosmina. But it will not happen,” he said decisively. “There is no power in Heaven or on earth that could move me upon this point.”

“Then you are not to be married,” I said slowly.

“No, Miss Lestrange. I am as free and unattached as you.”

There was something in his voice, some subtle shade of meaning I could not quite interpret.

“But how do you know I am unattached?” I asked, slanting him a mischievous glance. He need not know that I had refused Charles absolutely. Even Charles expected me to capitulate eventually.

He looked suddenly more alert and not at all pleased.

“You have a connection? Ah, I can see by the pretty way you preen yourself that you do. You are a woman of great personal attraction and a remarkable mind. It was stupid of me to assume you were not attached. Tell me about the man. Is he dull and predictable? Of course he is. I expect he wears brown suits and always eats his peas before his mutton and will not take port after dinner because it upsets his digestion,” he finished nastily.