Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 69
Emma turned to leave. All around her she perceived the swift movements of cloaked guests as they passed by like flashes of variegated, gleaming opals. From one shadow to the next they moved, their eyes seeming to glitter behind ornate masks as they acknowledged each other with nods and whispers.
This was the most bizarre ball she had yet to attend, her limited experience notwithstanding. The ballroom itself was so sparsely populated that one had to wander where the rest of the guests where.
There was a palpable excitement in the hush, Emma could feel it coarse through her own blood as she answered the nod of a tall gentleman in a grinning black jester mask teaming with black and red plumage. The ethereal strains of the harp music followed her back into the foyer. Gossamer streamers had been hung along some of the walls and beams, moving phantom-like over the drafty stones like ancient cobwebs. An effect both eerie and beautiful. The castle was like a cave of wonders tonight.
In the west corridor, she came upon a silent footman at the foot of the stairs trimming the candles in the sconces, but she spared the servant as little notice as he spared her. Her focus was on the door beyond and the man waiting behind it. She could feel Winterly there—the shiver of premonition along her flesh as much as proclaimed that looming male presence. With only a momentary hesitation, she admitted herself into Winterly’s inner sanctum.
Here the quiet of the keep was like a crypt, the lamps softly disturbing the darkness. The library appeared to have escaped the wonders of the world without and stood as dark and silent as it always did, all shadows and oxblood hues. Though she felt a powerful imminence upon her, there was no sign of life here. She was quite alone, and yet the tugging of fine hairs along her nape insinuated quite the opposite.
Emma passed the leathern armchair atop which had been placed a book only recently abandoned, the same dastardly novel he’d slipped into her hand when she’d been here with him before. A reminder of how he loved to bedevil her. Had Winterly been reading it moments ago? Very likely. She sent her gaze over the length and breadth of the room in search of the book’s owner.
At length, she reached the disturbing mural beside which he’d bade her meet him and halted there to wait. A feint rustling behind her occasioned Emma to whirl around, expecting to see Winterly emerging from the shadows somewhere behind her as he was wont to do. But here too she was met with empty silence. With an uneasy expulsion of breath, she turned back towards the wall only to shriek in fright. A very large, looming creature stood before her in a black cape where a moment ago there had been only shadows.
“Calm yourself, madam,” came the droll assurance of Lord Winterly, “’tis I.” At least it sounded like Winterly. “I had not thought you so easily affrighted as this.”
He was wearing a grotesque, black vizard in the shape of a demoniacal creature with long, black horns and hollow slits through which she could see nothing of his gaze. Only his strong Grecian nose and curling lips were visible to her. Yes, she would recognize that smirk anywhere. Besides, he possessed an air so formidable that it could be mistaken for no one else’s.
“When you skulk about like a fiend without making a sound,” she said, “surely it is no surprise that I might stop my heart at the first sight of you!” Her poor heart had still not ceased its furious galloping, being far from stopped in fact, for in that instant before he’d spoken, she’d thought the very devil himself was standing before her.
“You’re late,” he said without preamble or apology. And indeed dusk had already fallen ere she’d finally left her apartment.
“I’d not have come at all had I known the devil had summoned me,” she retorted, taking a step back.
But every inch of distance she gained he countered until she was right up against the wall of cannibals, her back pressed to the plaster and his body closing in.
“You’re not eating.” His tone had fallen dangerously low, and if she’d been permitted to glimpse something of the upper half of his face just then, she imagined it would now be clouded over in displeasure. “Are my servants not feeding you?”
“I—”
“You’ve been avoiding me.” He stroked his chin. “As much as I was tempted to lay siege and starve you from your seclusion, I do not hold with denying the body its pleasures, especially the pleasure of sustenance.” Lord, he made that sound so…licentious.
“I was not avoiding you!”
“Do not lie to me,” he said, his words forming in a sibilant whisper. His lips were now mere inches from hers. “I suffered you to do as you please, even kept myself away, but I am grown bored of your malingering.” His large hands moved threateningly either side of her; she was flush against the wall. “I did not take you for the fainthearted maid you’ve latterly evinced.”
She could say nothing—was powerless to string two sensible words together. Her sudden quietude seemed not to deter Winterly in the least, the opposite in fact. He moved his mouth a fraction closer, pausing it only fleetingly over hers, before he swiftly joined their flesh.
Mercy! The taste of him was so darkly exquisite that her knees buckled beneath her. His arms swiftly precluded her landing in a drunken puddle of silk at his feet. Her own lips seemed to defy her, opening eagerly as he pressed closer and deeper. Her flesh was burning with conflicting emotions. She had the wherewithal only to fold her hands about his neck for purchase, lest she collapse again. She