The Cruel Count (Bantam Series No. 28) by Barbara Cartland

seen him smile in genuine amusement, and it suddenly transformed his features so that he no longer appeared so frightening.
    In the kitchen Vesta handed him a heavy wooden bucket. She was sure he had never lifted one before.
    At the back of the Inn there was a bleating nanny-goat tied to a post, a number of young chickens scratching among a debris of rotten vegetables, feathers, and unidentifiable objects which smelt.
    Someone, presumably the Inn-Keeper, had attempted half-heartedly to grow a few vegetables. They straggled forlornly among a multitude of sturdy and aggressive weeds.
    Nature had done its best to compensate for the ugliness of it all with a briar bush brilliant with pink blossom, and everywhere they could survive small flowers turned their yellow, blue and white faces towards the sun.
    Vesta led the way to the cascade.
    When they reached it, the Count saw she was carrying a blackened pan, a dirty cloth and a knife she had taken from the kitchen table.
    “Will you first fill the bucket and lift it clear of the cascade so that I can clean these?” she asked.
    He did as she requested, watching her with a twinkle in his dark eyes as she scraped the pan until at least some of the ingrained grease and dirt was removed.
    Her expression was serious as she concentrated on her work, and her long lashes were dark against her clear skin.
    The sunshine percolating through the trees made her hair shine with golden lights and a soft breeze moved little tendrils of it against her neck.
    She looked unreal, a nymph who might have strayed from the woods, a small goddess who had come down from Olympus to bemuse human beings.
    “Your name is unusual,” the Count remarked.
    “Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth,” Vesta replied.
    “And thus goddess of fire,” he added.
    She did not answer and he asked:
    “Is there any fire in your veins? Most English women are as cold as the snow on the mountains!”
    “How many English women do you know?” Vesta asked. “If we appear cold and reserved as a race, it is because we have self-control ... and pride.”
    “I was not talking about the English as a race,” the Count answered, “but of English women and yourself in particular.”
    “Why should you be interested in what I feel?”
    Vesta spoke truculently, her blue eyes wary as if she suspected he had some ulterior motive in speaking in such a manner.
    “Naturally I am interested in the wife of my reigning Prince,” the Count answered disarmingly.
    “Y ... yes ... of course,” Vesta answered.
    “And you have not answered my question. Is there any of your namesake’s fire in your make-up?”
    “I do not ... think ... I understand what ... you are trying to say,” Vesta faltered.
    “I think you do,” he replied. “Do you yearn to love and be loved? Could a man make the breath come quicker between those two soft lips? Could your eyes become warm with desire?”
    For a moment Vesta could not believe she had heard him correctly. The colour rose in her cheeks as she said stiffly:
    “Your questions are quite unanswerable, Count, even if I accepted that you had the right to ask them.”
    The Count laughed softly.
    Putting down the pan, Vesta washed out the cloth, wringing it in her small hands until it was possible to use it to polish the pan.
    “Now, if you will be kind enough to refill the bucket!” she said coldly. “I would like to wash before I go to bed.”
    “Cleanliness being of course next to godliness,” he said mockingly.
    “And much more comfortable,” she retorted.
    “Of course, Ma’am,” he agreed.
    She was sure he was laughing at her efforts to provide them both with a meal.
    “You did not expect to have to cook and clean for your first dinner in Katona,” he said.
    She thought that perhaps he was trying to make their conversation more normal and bridge the awkwardness he had caused by his impertinent questions.
    “No indeed!” Vesta answered. “I imagined I should be entertained with