unzipped the dress and let it slide from her body, letting it pool on the floor at her feet.
His fiancée’s dress.
She shivered anew. God, what that had done to her. A dress chosen by the woman he had loved. The woman who had died that night along with so many others all those years long ago. Why had he wanted her to wear it?
She collapsed onto the bed and buried her face in her hands while the wind outside howled her distress.
She took a deep breath to steady herself. It was okay. She was leaving in the morning. Everything would be fine in the morning.
Like an automaton she packed her belongings to the sounds of a storm that mirrored her mood perfectly—every clap of thunder cheered, every burst of rain celebrated. The packing took nowhere near long enough for the storm. Her tools she’d already cleaned and packed. The pages were secure in acid-free packaging, padded to protect them from bumps during transit. There was nothing for it but to sleep and pray the storm had blown itself out by morning.
And the dress? She left it on a hanger in the dressing room before she slipped between the covers and settled her head into the pillows. It was a beautiful gown, there was no doubt—more exotic, more expensive than anything she had ever seen before or could ever afford—and she’d felt a million dollars inside its silken drapes. But it wasn’t hers.
It would never be truly hers.
It was dark when she awoke, disorientated and confused after another fitful sleep and wondering again what had roused her. At first she thought it must be just that the wind had dropped and the rain had ceased, the lull leaving everything suddenly almost unnaturally quiet.
Until she heard it. The sound wound almost hauntingly through the night air until it was carried away with the next gust of wind.
She sat up. Definitely notes from a piano. Maybe she hadn’t imagined it last night after all.
Between gusts of wind she caught more snatches, the notes melancholy and slightly off-beat, increasing in parts. Bewitching.
She snapped on her light, relieved the power was still on, saw that it was two in the morning and listened, wondering where it was coming from. The music had moved to a more comforting melody, undulating and lyrical, soft and warm, except there were gaps and she hated that she kept missing bits—hated that they were carried away on the wind. Then rain splattered against her windows, drowning out the sound entirely.
Intrigued, she slid from between the covers, drawing on her robe. If she opened her door just a little she might hear more over the weather.
The door snicked open and light spilled into the shadow- filled passageway. She listened. It was coming from somewhere downstairs. The rain intensified, thunder rumbled overhead and the poignant notes were lost again. She took a step towards the stairs, and then another, barefoot and silent in the darkened hallway.
She reached the top of the stairs and peered down into the inky depths. The music was hauntingly beautiful and yet so utterly, utterly wretched. And she felt compelled to hear more.
She looked around the darkened empty hall, nervous and excited at the same time. Nobody would see her, and if they did surely there was no crime in listening? Still, she took the steps gingerly, the haunting notes luring her further and further down. It was coming from the ballroom that, from the impression she’d gained in her brief time here, seemed to take up one half of the massive frontage of the castle.
With no light to guide her, with the music leading her feet, she silently descended the stairway, hesitating on that final step as the rich emotion of the piece washed over her. It was building now, in time with the storm outside, a rising of passion that left her gasping at its intensity. She took one tentative step closer to the wide French doors leading into the ballroom, and then another, until she could see inside.
She didn’t need light to know it was him. Even through the night-filled room, even across the yawning space between them, there was no mistaking the dark shadow at the piano, no mistaking it was pain he was feeling as he poured himself into the piece. She felt it too—felt that pain, felt that loss and his constant struggle.
And she fought with herself as she felt her own heart go out to this man. He had clearly lost so much.
He could be cruel, she reminded herself, remembering the dress and the cold way he’d told her it was his fiancée’s. He was autocratic. Imperious. Cold.
He’d wanted her gone and then he’d frozen her out when she’d told him she would be.
And that was after he’d practically forced himself upon her.
Except that he hadn’t …
He’d kissed her and she’d responded in the only way she’d been able—by responding in kind, by kissing him back. Because, so help her, she’d wanted him then and it hadn’t even occurred to her to stop him. And she wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for that paper. She would have opened her legs and welcomed him.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, aching in that hollow space between her thighs. How could she judge him?
The notes rang out, fighting the storm raging outside for supremacy, frenetic as the passion burst into a climax of such frenzied intensity that tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. A flash of lightning lit the room and displayed him in all his tragic beauty, his pain and torment clear in every stark feature and the scarred plane of his cheek.
The room went dark as the music crashed so suddenly down to earth that she held her breath and nearly turned and ran lest he discover her there, watching him.
Except that before her feet would move the notes resumed, almost from nowhere, soft and melodic. She recognised the earlier tune, only sweeter this time, and more poignant if that were possible. The notes tumbled like a stream, light and magical and so evocative that tears spilled down her cheeks.
She watched him as much as the storm-ridden night allowed as he coaxed honeyed sweetness from the instrument so that it almost bent to his will, compliant as a new lover willing to please—until he changed direction and willed it to insanity once again, urging it higher and wilder until the notes meshed one final time with the storm outside, only to collapse and shudder to a dramatic conclusion.
She heard the piano lid bang closed. She heard breathing, loud and close, and froze, panicked, only to realise it was her own ragged breaths she was hearing. She cursed herself for the time she had lost in making her escape.
She’d wheeled around, trying to make sense of the dark shadows before her, when light flooded the room—a chandelier of one thousand tiny globes above turning night to day.
‘Was there something you wanted, Dr Hunter?’
Adrenaline flushed through her veins. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest as she surveyed the stairs. Escape was right there, brilliantly and starkly illuminated, and yet her feet remained frozen to the floor. She dragged in air and pulled her robe tighter around her before she was game to turn around, trembling with panic and guilt at being caught out, knowing he would not welcome her intrusion.
‘I heard music, Count Volta. I was curious.’
He was standing near the doorway, wearing the same suit he’d worn at their disastrous dinner, as formal and regal as ever,
