averted. He had tasted of honey, and I was surprised at how much I had been stirred by his kiss. Or would any man’s kiss have done?
“I am sorry,” I said, straightening my bonnet. “I ought not to have asked that of you.”
“Not at all,” he said lightly. He cleared his throat. “You give me reason to hope. You will consider my proposal?” he urged.
I nodded. I could do that much for him at least.
“Excellent. Now tell me about Transylvania. I do not like the scheme at all, you understand, but your sister tells me you mean to write a novel. I cannot dislike that.”
He offered his arm and we began to descend the hill, walking slowly as we talked. I told him about Cosmina and her wonderful tales of vampires and werewolves and how she had terrified the mistresses at school with her pretty torments.
“One would have expected them to be more sensible,” he observed.
“But that is the crux. They were sensible, very much so. German teachers have no imagination, I assure you. And yet these stories were so vivid, so full of horrific detail, they would chill the blood of the bravest man. These things exist there.”
He stopped, amusement writ in his face. “You cannot be serious.”
“Entirely. The folk in those mountains believe that vampires and werewolves walk abroad in the night. Cosmina was quite definite upon the point.”
“They must be quite mad. I begin to dislike your little scheme even more,” he said as we started downward again. He guided me around a narrow outcropping of rock as I endeavoured to explain.
“They are no different from the Highlander who leaves milk out for the faeries or plants rowan to guard against witches,” I maintained. “And can you imagine what a kindle that would be to the imagination? Knowing that such things are not only spoken of in legends but are believed to be real, even now? The novel will write itself,” I said, relishing the thought of endless happy hours spent dashing my pen across the pages, spinning out some great adventure. “It will be the making of me.”
“You mean the making of T. Lestrange,” he corrected.
As yet I had published in that name only, shielding my sex from those who would criticize the sensational fruits of my pen solely on the grounds they were a woman’s work. It had been my grandfather’s wish as well, for he had lived a retiring life and though he enjoyed a wide acquaintance, he preferred to keep abreast of his friends through correspondence. He had seldom ventured abroad, and even less frequently had he entertained his friends to our house. Mine had been a quiet life of necessity, but at Charles’s words I began to wonder. What would it be like to publish under my own name? To go to London? To be introduced to the good and great? To be a literary personage in my own right? It was a seductive notion, and one I should no doubt think on a great deal while I was in Transylvania, I reflected.
“How do you mean to travel?” Charles asked, recalling me to our conversation.
“Cosmina says the railway is complete as far as someplace called Hermannstadt. After that I must go by private carriage for some distance.”
“You do not mean to go alone?”
“I do not see an alternative,” I replied, looking to blunt his disapproval.
He said nothing, but I knew him well enough to know the furrowing of his brow meant he was knitting together a plan of some sort.
“Tell me of the family you mean to stay with,” he instructed.
“Cosmina is a poor relation of the family, a sort of niece I think, to the Countess Dragulescu. The countess paid for her education and there was an expectation that Cosmina would marry her son. He was always from home when we were in school—in Paris, I think. Now his father is dead and he is coming home. The marriage will be settled, and Cosmina wishes me to be there as I am her oldest friend.”
“Why have I never heard you speak of her?”
I shrugged. “We have not seen one another since we left