Vampyre Bride ✔️

XXII⎮Devil In The Mask

Winterly's good claret warmed her blood as she left her room and allowed her slippers to guide her sedately into the direction of the library. Oddly, there was no sound of music nor any laughter to be heard in the castle, naught but the soft brush of her velvet train as it dragged over the marble flags in her wake.

Along that gloomy corridor, wherein her course would terminate, she came upon no servants save one — a silent footman trimming the candles in the sconces. But not a glance did he spare her as she bypassed him, nor did he move himself to notice her momentary hesitation before she admitted herself into Winterly's inner sanctum.

Here the quiet of the stone keep seemed only to compound itself, the lamplight silently disturbing the shadows, and though she was sure she appeared outwardly calm, she very clearly perceived the loud and fearful trembling of her heartbeat.

Even from this short distance she could see no sign of a body standing at the mural whither she'd been directed. She was quite alone; and yet the tugging of the flesh at her nape suggested otherwise.

With a bolstering lift of her chin, she passed the leathern chair atop which had been placed a book only recently abandoned, for it had not been returned to its rightful place. Had Winterly been reading it moments ago? Very likely. But, overcome with agitated trepidation, she only caught the first word of the lengthy title, "Memoirs..." briefly from the tail of her eye before sending her gaze over the length and breadth of the room in search of the book's owner.

At length, she reached the disturbing mural and halted there to wait, still believing herself observed. A feint rustling behind her occasioned Emma to whirl around, expecting to see Winterly emerging from the shadows somewhere behind her as he'd done before. But there was curiously no one there. With an uneasy expulsion of breath, she turned back towards the wall only to shriek in fright, for there, not an arm's length away, had suddenly materialized a very large, looming creature in a black cape.

"Calm yourself, madam, tis only I," came the droll assurance of Lord Winterly himself. "I had not thought you so easily affrighted as this."

He was wearing a grotesque, black vizard in the shape of a demoniacal satyr 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; although she could absolutely feel the tangible stroke of his eyes against her flesh.

"When you skulk about like a fiend without making a sound then surely it is no surprise to you that I might stop my heart at the first, unexpected 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 suite.

"Only fashionably," she retorted, taking a step back from him.

But for every inch she gained for herself he counteracted with a checkmate until she was right up against the wall of cannibals, her back pressed to the plaster and his body following indecently close to hers. 

"And 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.

"I—"

"Moreover, you've been avoiding me."

"That is not—"

"I suffered you to do as you please," he said tersely, his lips mere inches from hers, "even took myself off to allow you some small peace of mind; but I am grown bored of your malingering." His large hands he placed threateningly either side of her, flush against the wall. "And you are not quite the fainthearted maid you've latterly evinced."