The Castle Of The Seven Lilacs by Violet Winspear

Author:Violet Winspear [Winspear, Violet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The evening light had cast a spell over the lake, which reflected the dying of the sun. Birds called to each other across the water, and the reeds whispered ... a lonely sound.

The air was cold, filled with the scent of pine trees, and Siran wore her lambswool coat with the hood attached. The hood warmed her and also gave her the feeling of being half concealed as she approached the lake and saw the Baron standing there, waiting for her. He turned as he heard her footsteps in the snow and he held out a hand to her. The sunset was on his face and it was as if there were little flames in his eyes. She felt a heartleap at the sight of him, and then his hand was holding hers, pressing her slender fingers until she felt the bite of his crested ring.

‘We touch hands again and smile, eh?’

But she couldn’t smile. He made her feel too shy, he was so tall, so in command of himself, and her. Slowly he raised her hand to his lips and kissed her wrist. It was an imperial gesture, and yet at the same time so natural.

‘I could not be sure if you would be here,’ he said. ‘I hoped, but girls have a habit of changing the mind and Mayholtzen is far from the. gay distraction of Vienna.’

‘I—I’m not a gay person, Herr Baron,’ she protested.

‘But you would not have come if I had not provided an occupation for you. You are not the type to enjoy being idle and ornamental, though in that hood you look charming. Charming but a trifle apprehensive, as if I might be a wolf.’ He smiled and his teeth glimmered in the quickening dusk. ‘Or are you shy of me? This is only the second time we have really talked together and you are not quite sure of the kind of man I am. But you like my mother, eh? You find her charming.’

‘Oh yes.’ His brief kiss had made her feel unbearably shy; he looked so attractive in his dark plush jacket with a scarf at his throat and the wind off the lake tugging at his hair.

‘And what do you think of the castle? Do you find it romantic ... like a setting for a ballet? Which ballet, I wonder? The Snow Maiden?’

She smiled, for it was as if he knew her mind ... though he mustn’t know her heart and how turbulently it beat when he put back the hood from her face and studied her in the reflected glow of the lake. The dusk light had grown mysterious, darkening the mountains and leaving for several still moments the castle in silhouette there beyond the Baron’s head and shoulders.

‘I thought in Vienna that you would suit this place we call Seven Lilacs. There is something symbolic and haunting about it, ja? My mountain kingdom.’

He said it with humour, and yet beneath his words rang a note of pride and possession.

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