Nightingale by Juliet Waldron Page A

come in, her whole body had begun to ache.
    "Since the mistress commands, you shall stay then, finish whatever it is, but I caution you, sir. I am here now."
    Ignoring Liese, Akos knelt to take up Klara’s foot once more. Klara blew her nose again and coughed, now productively. This odd treatment had somehow liquefied the icy lump she'd been dragging about for the last few days.
    About a half an hour later, when the parlor had been pronounced warm, Almassy, at Liese's bequest, swept Klara into his arms and carried her to the divan there. The ease with which he did so proved there was more muscle in his spare frame than she’d imagined.
    The apartment was a series of rooms with no hallway, a very old-fashioned Viennese apartment. The first room beyond the kitchen was a narrow pantry, filled with pots and pans, hanging herbs, strings of dried apples and bright jars of conserve. A half consumed leg of mutton sat on a tray on a shelf, covered in a cage of wire mesh to keep out mice. A servant's bed in a cupboard occupied one wall.
    The next room was more interesting. Although Liese led him quickly across it, Akos knew this was Klara's. The bed was built into the wall, so that it could be closed on all sides, like a cabinet. There was a stove, a window and an elaborate lacquered Chinese screen that hid a washstand. A tall chifferobe completed the furnishing.
    The parlor was last. Fire crackled inside a squat white corner stove and a divan upholstered in a bright India cotton print sat close by. Now dizzy and exhausted, Klara clung to Akos. Leaning against his broad chest, she could hear his heart beating steadily beneath the black waistcoat.
    After gently setting her down, Akos drew up a chair and sat beside her. He took her small hand and gently began to rub it, in almost the same way he’d rubbed her feet. Liese settled a blanket around her mistress, nervously watching.
    "If you could bring the tea pot," Almassy asked softly. "Your mistress must finish it."
    "I hope to God you know what you are doing, young sir." Liese’s round face was flushed with distress.
    Almassy’s eyes never moved from Klara.
    It seemed to Klara that, in some mad way, what they had done this afternoon, the massage, the long embrace in which she'd been a sobbing child on his shoulder, the confession, had been more intimate than anything she'd ever done with Max. Random surges of heat and pain, of coughing and sneezing, shook her. She imagined she saw tiny golden stars flying around Herr Almassy’s elegant dark head.
    At last both Klara's tears and the racking cough stopped. She blew her nose one last time and settled herself into the divan pillows. His eyes, she thought, were such a strange dancing tawny color, like a shaft of mellow autumn sunlight.
    Diligent, strong fingers moved and moved, pausing only to place a drop of something upon her forehead, another upon her throat, upon her breast bone, to gently but thoroughly rub it in. Even through the cold, she could smell it, the scent she noticed on their first evening, the mysterious green, full of musk, pine and shadow. Suddenly she was terribly sleepy.
    "Don't worry. You are safe. Everything will be all right. Sleep now, beautiful Maria Klara Silber, sleep."
     

 
    Chapter 3
     
     
    It was the next day when Klara awoke. The favorite cat was a fluffy warm bundle pressed against her side. She returned to consciousness with a rending thick cough. In a facing chair, Liese sat watching, deep circles around her eyes.
    "Oh, Lamb! Are you awake at last? Twelve hours! I was about to call Doctor Hundchowsky. How do you feel? Tell me that you are better, that that Hungarian sorcerer hasn't made you sicker than you were."
    "I'll judge how I feel in a half an hour." Klara sat up. At once she was aware of discomfort in an odd place. Her feet ached so badly that walking on them would be a kind of insult, so she simply sat there, rubbing her eyes and clearing her throat, which was still raw and scratchy.
    As