“It is a most unique situation,” he admitted finally, glancing about the room. “I can well understand why it moves you so.”

I said nothing. I had learned from long experience that it was best to sow the seeds of an argument and let Charles bring them to fruition himself. Charles often found himself at odds with his own nature. His chivalry warred with his more mercenary tendencies, and at this moment, the prospective husband challenged the man of business. Protect the woman he hoped to marry, or encourage her to remain in peril and write a book he could use to make his mark? I prayed the merchant would prevail.

To my astonishment, he nodded. “Very well. I understand why you cannot leave. It does certainly present you with an opportunity for a novel you must not lose.”

Relief surged in me, sharp and painful as a lance.

“Then you will leave me here?”

He shook his head. “I cannot in good conscience. Neither as your publisher nor as your friend, and I still cherish hope someday to be more.”

I opened my mouth, but he waved a hand. “Do not reply. I know well enough what you will say. But you must know the offer stands, and it always shall. I accept that for now you have rejected me, and we will not speak of it for the present. You will continue to write and you will remain at the castle.”

“And you?” I ventured.

He smiled, and for the first time, it reminded me of a crocodile’s smile.

“I will remain with you.”

If I was annoyed at having a chaperone, I did my best to conceal it. Charles was entirely capable of creating enough of a distraction that I should be forced to leave the castle, and it seemed a tremendous victory that I had been able to persuade him I should stay. He told me with a bland smile that he meant to spend the morning exploring the castle, and I left him with a feeling of sharp unease. I tried to settle to my work, but every time I lifted my pen, I thought of him falling into conversation with the count and my stomach gave a little churn as if I had just boarded a ship and not yet found my sea legs.

After a pleasant midday meal, Cosmina proposed a visit to the village. She wished to call upon Dr. Frankopan and suggested that Charles might like to see more of the valley. He accepted with alacrity, and it occurred to me that I had seldom seen Cosmina look quite so uncertain of herself. She had always been quieter than most of the girls of my acquaintance, but she had worn a mantle of self-possession. Now, as she looked at Charles, once or twice I detected a hesitancy. I wondered if she were perhaps forming a tendresse for him in spite of her protestations against men and marriage.

We ventured down to the village, and all the while Cosmina kept up a patter of entertaining narrative about the castle and its legends. Charles was intrigued; I had known him too long to mistake that intently arrested air. He was doubtless fitting Cosmina’s chatter into the conversation he and I had shared over breakfast, and it was with only the slightest touch of annoyance that I noted he helped her over the roughest going while leaving me to pick my own way down the Devil’s Staircase.

In the village, Cosmina pointed out to him the fresh improvements, and Charles surveyed it all with great interest.

“It seems as if the new count is making rather excellent progress,” he commented blandly. “Is he not here to oversee matters himself?”

I said nothing but bent swiftly to fuss with a bootlace. The less I said upon the subject of the count, the better. Charles pricked like a pointer every time his name was raised, and it seemed inevitable he would discover my feelings for the man himself. I only hoped such a revelation could be postponed until long after we had both quitted the place.

“Count Andrei does not often go abroad during the day,” Cosmina told him. “He prefers to keep more nocturnal hours.”

I rose to find Charles had turned to me, his brows lifted significantly. “Really? What a singular fellow.”

“Not at all,” I returned, rather too sharply. “He is by way of being an amateur astronomer. He could hardly practise the astronomical arts during the day, now could he?”

Cosmina cut in to point out the graveyard just then and Charles turned away, but his expression was speculative, and I chastened myself. I should have to be far more careful if I expected to keep my feelings for the count concealed.

We walked on to Dr. Frankopan’s little cottage in the woods, and I was pleased to find the old gentleman at home. We were greeted with great warmth, and when he discovered we had a visitor with us, his usual fuss became an outright furore.

“How do you do?” Charles asked politely.

“How wonderful, how wonderful! A Scotsman, I do not think I have ever met such a creature before,” he exclaimed, much to Charles’s chagrin. Like many educated Scots of English descent, Charles had taken pains to banish both Scottish colloquialisms and accent from his speech, although they did creep in from time to time.

I smiled behind my hand, and Charles glowered a little at me as we were hurried to comfortable chairs beside the fire while refreshments were sent for. Madame Popa served us with a sullen humour, and I was not sorry to see her leave. If Charles connected her with the tale I had told him of the man who had taken to the mountains as a wolf, he betrayed no sign of it.

Dr. Frankopan gestured towards the tea things with alacrity. “Ah! Today the good Frau Graben has sent me a wonderful apple tart made from the apples grown in the castle garden. Have you seen the garden yet, Mr. Beecroft? An astonishing thing to find a place of cultivation so high upon the mountain.”

“I have not. I have only just arrived last night,” Charles explained.

“Oh, you must see it, you must!” Dr. Frankopan advised. “Of course, it is not so tidy as it was in the old days, but there is still beauty there in the ruins. And you will see the little trees that produce the famous black apples.”

“Black apples?” Charles looked a trifle alarmed as he poked a fork cautiously into his slice of the tart.

“Only the skins,” I reassured him. “They are quite extraordinary-looking, small and purplish-black like plums. But the flesh is very white and sweet.”

These were the apples Cosmina and I had picked and I knew from experience that they were delicious, although not prepossessing in appearance.

“Like something out of a faery tale,” Charles said, giving me a significant look.

“Precisely, precisely!” Dr. Frankopan said happily. “The whole place is like something out of a faery tale. You will find much to interest you here, sir, if you are not averse to country pleasures.”

Charles strove for diplomacy. “I confess I am a man of the city, Dr. Frankopan, but I am determined to learn the error of my ways. I do already see it is a most remarkable place.”

“It is, it is,” Dr. Frankopan agreed.

With that we fell into conversation about the village and the valley and a little of life beyond, for Charles had the most recent news from Vienna, and the afternoon was one of the most pleasant I had passed since coming into Transylvania. It struck me as I watched them that Charles and Dr. Frankopan were similar men, holding several virtues in common. They both were kindly and worked hard. They were agreeable and decent and they both conducted themselves in such a manner as to help those they could.

It also struck me that they were both solicitous of Cosmina. When it became apparent that she was sitting in the draught from a poorly fitted window, Charles insisted upon changing his seat for hers, and more than once I caught Dr. Frankopan watching her with a little furrow of worry ploughed between his brows. He was still concerned for her health, I realised, and I wondered if there was something more seriously amiss with her than I had known. But she seemed stronger than she had the previous week, and every day her colour rose and she was able to walk further and with more purpose. Even now, roses bloomed in her cheeks, and I was glad of it.