It looked a frightful sight, not welcoming in the least and this she promptly communicated to her sister as the road descended into a dell, so that the castle was, for the nonce, hidden from view.

"Really, Emma," Milli countered, " a little adventure shan't hurt us."

Emma sat back from the coach window and regarded her sister's shadowed face under her bonnet. With a dubious grin she said, "That is not what Captain Cook would have said."

Milli gave an impatient snort. "For mercy's sake, do cheer up; we are not amidst the natives in the blasted Sandwich Islands."

"Ay, but does not the castle seem just as untamed to you?"

"A little gothic perhaps," Milli conceded, "but that is to be expected, it is after all a very old house."

"That," she said, pointing to where the castle had disappeared behind the rolling terrain, "is not my idea of a house." The subject was dropped after that.

There was faint hint of wild hyacinth and lilac in the air as the carriage veered abruptly to the right and began ascending a narrow road. Emma's eyes rounded with wonderment as they moved along an avenue of yew trees, the gnarled boughs stretching overtop like an embowered arcade.

Torches had been lit at intervals, no more than a furlong between each one, which did much in endowing the night with a sort of dark whimsy. The road was wide and the yews magnificent with old-world mystery, some of the branches having long since burrowed into the ground to form new roots.

What stories these old giants could tell, she mused.

At last, the carriage slowed as the driver maneuvered the horses through a stone gatehouse before finally coming to a standstill in the courtyard in front of a large set of black, wooden double doors. They were heavyset and iron-studded.

As soon as one of the footmen had handed the girls down from the carriage, it rolled away and Emma glanced up at the terrifying edifice to see a woman gliding down the steps towards them. The housekeeper, Emma presumed.

She was very tall, perhaps as tall as Emma herself, and incredibly rawboned in her black dress which, like its wearer, was spartan-looking and plain; a wholly functional dress that bespoke the woman's station.

"Good evening," said she, her voice as dead-looking as her face. "Welcome to Winterly Castle. I am Mrs. Skinner, the housekeeper." She waved a spindly wrist and indicated that they should follow her into the ... house, such as it was. "Your portmanteaus will be delivered to your rooms directly, but first you shall no doubt wish to have a meal."

It was true, they had eaten nothing on their journey from York and were fair gutfounded by this point, or at least Emma had been.

"Where is Victoria, pray?" Milli peeked around Emma's shoulders as they moved into the great vestibule.

Mrs. Skinner paused to regard the younger sister. "His Lordship wished me to convey his regrets, but he and Miss Winterly had an engagement to attend this evening, and when it became clear that your coach had been delayed, they had no choice but to leave as planned ... without you. I imagine they were not aware you would even reach the castle tonight."

Satisfied that she had answered Milli's query sufficiently, the old skeleton continued on as the two sisters exchanged a meaningful look behind her.

What an odd night, and an unseemly welcome, they were experiencing thus far. Mrs. Skinner led them along a stone gallery and Emma drank in as much as the housekeepers pace would allow her. The lamps in the scones were veritably medieval, not gaslit at all, and the tapestries, though old, were exquisite and still perfectly preserved.

It was that word, preserved, that seemed to epitomize the castle exactly. What little of the interior and its furnishings she'd managed to see, before Mrs. Skinner lead them into a vast dining hall, was undeniably ancient-looking, but well preserved. Some of the colors had faded from the wall hangings and from the carpets underfoot, but none of it was threadbare or worn.

In fact, that was just how she would describe the house keeper and the footmen, as well as the driver too. They all looked ... well preserved. If she had ever seen the wrappings removed from a mummy, she would imagine the physiognomy to look just like the bizarre hirelings in the Winterlys' employ. Except their faces were pallid whereas a mummy's, or so she had read, was blackened.

Mrs. Skinner's gaunt little hand was once more employed to usher the ladies towards the long table, a heavy piece of furniture that was positively baroque. There were two places already set at one end and between the settings sat a silver candelabra that supported three long candles, their flames shivering in the drafty room.

The whole affair thus far was altogether strange and as Emma was seated by a footman that had appeared almost out of nowhere, she bethought herself a heroine in one of those dark and peculiar German fairy tales by the brothers Grimm.

Was she, like Rapunzel, to awaken soon with a belly swollen with child, the work of some midnight prince scaling her window of a night time?

That thought was already far too close to home, as regarding the strange dreams that had plagued her recently, and so she endeavored to ignore such unhelpful and disturbing ruminating the while the footmen, their faces as pinched as the housekeeper's, placed a delicate china bowl atop each lady's service plate.Thereat a ladle of soup was carefully poured within.

After the soup course came the roast duck and an accompaniment of roast vegetables, and when that too had been partaken of, a cheese platter was brought out. However neither of them could taste even a bit of it; not because they had glutted themselves on the previous courses, but because they were each far too disquieted by the silence of the room and queer atmosphere that hung oppressively within it.

For her part, Emma's hunger had dwindled with her first sight of the castle and, although it had resurged briefly, by the time they had sat down to dinner, it had abandoned her completely. No wonder Mrs. Skinner was so wasted — it was unequivocally the castle itself that induced a body's abstemiousness.

As if she'd conjured the woman up with thought alone, Mrs. Skinner appeared just as the footmen concluded the dinner service. "Shall I show you to your rooms?" she inquired.

"Yes, that would do very well." Emma then stood and followed her out of the dining hall, Milli close behind her.

Once again they were moving along a stone passageway that finally opened up into the grand foyer they's entered by. It was here that two curving staircases split off into opposite directions, like mirror images of one another, and opened up into a upstairs gallery just above them that overlooked the marbled foyer.

It was that marble that momentarily absorbed Emma as she paused to examine the detail of the polished flooring, unheedful of the housekeeper's continuing on without her. It was of a black and white marble arranged into square blocks, almost like a giant chessboard, that seemed to hypnotize the eye.

Milli's insistent little nudge at her back soon brought her back to herself and they hurried after the housekeeper. They were taken first to Emma's room and there she remained as Mrs. Skinner left with Milli in tow, but not before promising that she would have the footmen summoned to fill her tub with water.

Emma's room was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the castle appeared to be, notwithstanding the grandeur of what little appointments there were. The curtains at the windows were dark crimson velvet, like the hangings attached to the framework of the bed, and the bedstead itself was of the same handsome, black wood as the commode — a tall chiffonier with gilded handles on each drawer.

Beside the bed was a Cheval mirror with beveled glass that reflected the fire glowing languorously beneath a black, marble mantlepiece. At the foot of the bed lay her portmanteau, but before she had had a chance to open it a knock sounded at the door.

Mrs. Skinner entered moments later and brought with her four footmen carrying eight pails of hot water. They made quick work of emptying their burdens into the tub atop the heath rug, near the fire, as the stoic housekeeper watched on.

That done, and after the men had vacated the room, she inquired if there was aught else required of her. "Will you be needing your stays loosened perhaps?" Her black eyes glittered like schorl in the firelight.

Perhaps it was a ghastly trick of the firelight, but for just a harrowing instant Emma bethought she'd seen an odd, green reflection in that tenebrous stare, as of tiny, glowing pin pricks of eerie light.

"No, I shall manage alone, thank you." The woman was too unnerving by half.

The housekeeper nodded once and withdrew as silently as the footmen had done, the flagstones making little sound under her shoes.

She wondered about the sheen in Mrs. Skinner's eyes. She would have thought it cataracts or some sort of affliction of the lens, but it had not looked like any type cataracts she'd ever seen.

She wished now she had observed the footmen's eyes so as to draw a comparison in the light, but they were all so silent and efficient that she had hardly noticed them at all. Even at dinner. Perhaps she would have Milli stand at the door tomorrow night and angle her head this way and that until the same effect was achieved, so that she could prove to herself, once and for all, that she was being ridiculous.

Emma divested herself of her traveling clothes and sank into the tub with a satisfied sigh, her muscles and bones uncoiling of tension as she lay her head back a while. She awoke some hours later shivering violently as a result of the water having turned cold as ice. There was no doubt that the castle was as frigid within as it was temperate without. Hurrying from the tub, she wrapped herself up in one of the bath robes that had been provided for her and then threw open a window so that the mild summer air could warm her room a little.

The gibbous moon emerged from behind a black cloud as Emma gazed out over the North Sea that stretched out from her window. Her lids began to grow heavy and she listened to the waves battering the eastern cliffs.

As she yawned, turning to shut the casement, she detected a shadow passing over the moon from the corner of her eye, yet when she looked there once more, there was no cloud beside it as she'd expected. Perhaps it had been a large bird.

Latching the window, she moved to her bed, but the sound of the great doors shuddering gave her a start, so she hastened into a fresh chemise and nightgown. Thereafter, a little less scantily dressed than before, she tiptoed quietly from her room to peek down from the gallery. Careful not to make herself or her movements conspicuous, Emma angled her head cautiously around the corner of the wall and over the railing to cast her eyes down at the checkered floor below.

There he was. Winterly stood with his back to her so that she could only see the width of his broad shoulders beneath the black greatcoat he still wore. And he still had not doffed his hat, despite that he was indoors.

He was speaking to the housekeeper, but his words did not carry from this distance, though, she suspected her pounding heart did. He had that effect on her, and she realized now that he always had done. She hardly knew the man, yet she was utterly taken with him.

Shortly after the housekeeper left him, he moved out of view into one of the corridors and she released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been keeping. But she gasped when a low sort of moan drifted down the gallery towards her.

She looked back down into the vestibule to see if Winterly had perchance heard it too, but wherever he was now he remained there. She bethought the moan might have come from Milli's room and that her sister was was quite possibly in the throes of an awful nightmare.

That was all the motivation she required, and so she proceeded there directly. Her sister, however, was sleeping peacefully, so Emma waited a moment longer in the event her sister's slumber was once more beset with nightmares. After a spell, she planted a gentle kiss on Milli's brow and left as quietly as she'd entered.

If that desponding moan had not echoed from her sister's room where then had it issued from? Chewing her underlip thoughtfully, she turned towards the dim hallway that lay at the opposite end of her chamber and, feeling somehow compelled, moved that way instead of back to her bed where she ought to have gone.

Her feet padded silently across the smooth, stone slabs. The corridor seemed to extend unceasingly and, at length, she stopped in front of a door she had chosen at hazard. On either side of it stood two tall suits of armor, still as statues against the wall, a spear in each gauntleted hand.

Though they were insentient and empty, she still felt as though she was being watched. The sensation was that of a featherlight touch of a finger trailing down her spine, leaving horripilation wherever it went; not a welcome feeling at all.

This castle had something of Winterly in it — dark, mysterious, and watchful. They were well matched, she thought, reaching her hand towards the door handle.

"Are you lost, Miss Lucas?"

She yelped like a frightened cat, her back slamming instantly against the door and her fingers now bone white over the handle. Speak of the devil and he doth appear. "No, I ... yes, I am." She would rather admit to being lost than being intrusive.

He gave a curt nod and she began to feel uncertain under the weight of his regard.

"I thought I heard a noise," she admitted, finally, feeling that he could sense that she'd lied about losing her way.

"A noise?" Lord Winterly's hat had by this time been removed, but his back was to the light at the far end of the hallway, so she could not see his face.

"An echo," she said. "I thought it sounded like..."

"Like what?" His voice was soft, almost conversational.

"A moan, I think." But it had been so much more than a moan; so much more sinister. She angled her head up so as to meet his shadowed gaze as he stepped closer.

"Likely only the wind soughing through the battlements," he averred.

Would that she could see his face for any sign as to what he was truly thinking. "No, I wager it was something else entirely."

"It must be the ghosts then." He lifted his hand to his face in a thoughtful gesture. "I rather think this place is haunted. Perhaps you've already awakened the dead tonight." There was a flash of white as he smiled. "And the undead, come to that."

"I don't believe in ghosts." Her eyes widened to see his teeth. He had only peeled his lips back slightly, but, from what little she had seen of them, they had appeared uncommonly sharp. She swallowed.

"Not even the Holy Ghost?" He was toying with her, as was his usual practice, but tonight he seemed ... different somehow. Colder.

"Do you really wish to discuss theology with me at this hour, Lord Winterly?" There was a distinct edge of censure in her tone.

He chuckled. "Very well, Miss Lucas." He drew out her name and infused it with something altogether unsavory and ... wicked. He might as well have taken the liberty of using her given name, for even her surname had sounded personal and intimate on his lips.

"If you wandered this way to discover my secrets," he went on to change the subject, though, by no means to safer topics, "you won't find any in there." He meant the door still pressed against her back; her hand still rested on the handle. "I keep all of mine right here." With that, he tapped his head; and he smiled again.

"I best get to my room." Her voice shook with alarm. It was not at all appropriate for an unmarried woman to be conversing with a bachelor in his home, and in the small hours of the morning no less.

"Ay, you had better," he agreed. "You are like to catch your death if not."

"My death?" She felt her stomach clench with dread as she observed a brief freak of light where she knew his eyes were hidden. That same, green eyeshine she'd witnessed earlier ... in Mrs. Skinners eyes. And then it was gone.

"Your feet, Miss Lucas." He gestured to the floor and she, still distracted by what she'd seen in his shadowed face, looked down to notice that her feet were indecently bare against the flags. "The floors are cold in my home. One is like to catch one's death of cold, wouldn't you say?"

"I ..." Good heavens! She was making a cake of herself tonight. How he must be laughing at her beneath that quiet gaze she now avoided. Whether her sanity had finally cracked, or she was too wearied to care, she could not forbear the sudden laugh that escaped her compressed lips. It was, for the most part, a nervous laugh. "It seems I am incapable of saying anything tonight, Lord Winterly. Perhaps my exhaustion has finally caught up with me."

That had to be why she was seeing things. Her weariness was to blame.

"Yes, and I have been acting the gabster to keep you from your bed." She felt his eyes gliding across her face ... and body. "Allow me show you back to your room."

"I do not think..." She nearly demurred, but remembered betimes that she had admitted to being lost, so it would have been rather foolish of her if she had declined his assistance; however, she was too strait-laced to be not a little unnerved by his accompanying her to her room.

"Come now, Miss Lucas, you are fagged to death. I insist, lest Mrs. Skinner find you asleep here on the floor in the morning."

What a notion! "Thank you. I have kept you from your bed as well no doubt."

"Never mind that." The disturbing smile reappeared in her peripheral again, and she was struck once more with the belief that he seemed always too smoky by half. "You will soon find that we Winterlys are a nocturnal breed."

She really had no choice but to accept his aid, and fell into step beside him as he lead the way back to her room. At her door she glanced up to study his face, for the light was better here, and she had avoided his gaze since seeing ... what she thought she'd seen.

"I thank you for-" She caught her breath suddenly as her eyes widened in alarm.

"Good night, Miss Lucas." With another grim smile he left her trembling at her door.

"By God!" She quickly pushed the door closed and ran to her bed.

What in God's name was wrong with his eyes!

🌟 I think we will be seeing a lot more of Markus Winterly now 😈 I'm sure you're all very disappointed 😜 Bit of a longer chapter for you this week. 🌟