Devil's Palace

by Margaret Pemberton

  His arm circled her shoulders. ‘I know, and the Princess knew. It is all that matters.’

  Her head was cradled against the frilled linen of his shirt. Incredibly, she was content to let it stay there, crying in a way she had not cried since the death of her parents.

  His strength seemed to surround and protect her. His arms were a haven she had no desire to leave. She could hear the strong beat of his heart and was aware that he was holding her with astounding tenderness.

  She leaned against him, grateful for the comfort of his presence as he led her away from the surgery. The door was closed on the dead Princess. Maria, brought swiftly from the Villa Ondine by Sandor’s coachman, was standing in the hallway, ashen faced.

  ‘Oh, mademoiselle,’ she cried and Charlotte left Sandor’s arms and grasped Maria’s outstretched hands.

  She remembered very little of the journey back to the villa. She had lost the person dearest to her in the whole world. There would be no more acid-tongued conversations; no more kindnesses; no more laughter. She was once more alone in the world. Penniless in an environment where paupers had no place. Where respectable employment was almost impossible to find. Only hours ago she had been offered the only financial safety a girl without family could hope to find in Monte Carlo. She had refused it then and she would refuse it now. Whatever happened, she would not abandon her honour and become a cocotte. She would return to England. Find employment in a respectable house. The prospect sank like lead on her heart. Respectable employment as a governess or companion in England was worlds away from the sun and the society to which she had grown accustomed in Monte Carlo. Her dazzling, brilliant world would have to be abandoned. There would be no more evenings in the glittering Salle Mauresque; no more hours of excitement as fortunes were staked in the Salon Privé.

  She rose bleakly to her feet. A return to England would cost money. She had travelled to Monte Carlo at the Princess’s expense. Her gowns had been generously paid for by the Princess, as had every other item she owned. She had had no need of her salary and the Princess had retained it for safekeeping. Now there was no one she could approach who had the authority to pay her what was due. Her head ached. What would happen to the Princess’s body? Where would it be buried; and by whom?

  Maria stepped out on to the darkened terrace.

  ‘Count Karolyi wishes to speak with you, mademoiselle.’

  Charlotte turned to enter the lamplit room but he was already striding towards her.

  In the moonlight his black hair had a blue sheen. The firm jaw and finely chiselled mouth were strangely comforting.

  ‘I have sent word of the Princess’s death to Prince Victor in Nice. I have also seen to it that the newspapers in London, Paris and St Petersburg are informed.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She looked up at him with sad, vulnerable eyes and he felt a surge of pity for her.

  ‘I have also arranged that the Princess’s body be brought to the villa to lie in state. The Princess expressed a wish many times to be buried in Monte Carlo and I am assuming that Prince Victor will accede to her request. Therefore I shall go ahead with the necessary arrangements.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ There was so much she wanted to say and could not for the tears that choked her throat.

  ‘You need rest,’ he said abruptly, the darkness hiding the concern in his eyes.

  ‘Yes.’

  She had determined never to speak to him again but that had been before his kindness in Dr Deslys’ surgery. Now he was being kind again, offering to take the burden of the Princess’s death from her shoulders.

  ‘Goodnight.’ He could stay no longer. If he did so he would be unable to maintain his cool politeness. There was something at once innocent and paganly beautiful about her. She needed loving and cherishing and the temptation to undertake the task almost overcame him.

  The abrasive lines of his mouth were bitter as he restrained himself. The imprint of her fingers had taken a long time to fade from his cheek and he had no desire to add to her distress by pressing on her attentions that were so patently unwelcome; attentions that could lead to nothing but disillusion.

  Abruptly he took his leave of her, wondering as he did so what had taken place on her carriage ride with the Comte de Valmy. A deep frown furrowed his brow as he stepped into his carriage. Damn it to hell. It was none of his affair.

  ‘Madame Santillinos’,’ he rasped.

  ‘Yes sir.’ Obediently the coachman flicked the reins and the carriage pulled away from the Villa Ondine to Monte Carlo’s most notorious brothel.

  Hours later, as dawn broke, he emerged from Madame Santillinos’ opulent and luxurious house of pleasure, his white frilled shirt open at the neck, his hair tousled, his eyes bleak. Dear God in heaven. Did the future hold nothing more for him? Was he condemned to spend the rest of his life seeking transitory affection from women who cared only for the gold in his pocket?

  ‘Faster!’ he urged the driver as the carriage sped along the perilous coast road. ‘Faster!’

  The sins of the fathers are visited on the children, but it was not his unknown father’s sin that weighed so heavily on his heart and mind. It was the sin of his gay, foolish mother. The sin of the wife of Count Istvan Karolyi. He groaned, leaning back, eyes closed as the horses galloped at a suicidal pace. Istvan Karolyi had loved his erring wife. Had refused to let her endure the world’s censure. Instead he had accepted his wife’s bastard son as his own, and, with all the generosity of his great heart, had come to love him as if he were a son of his flesh. But not Sandor’s sister. Zara. Zara had been handed to the childless Prince and Princess Katzinsky and brother and sister had been parted for all their childhood.

  On her deathbed his mother had been overcome by guilt and remorse. Not until then had he been aware that he had a twin sister: that he was not Count Karolyi’s son but the son of a handsome, flashing eyed, wandering gypsy. His agony had been terrible. Even to think of it caused beads of perspiration to dampen his forehead. To know he was not the son of the man he loved. A man he had called father from his youngest day. Not the rightful heir to Karolyi land, to the magnificent castle overlooking the carp-filled lake. He had thought he would die of grief and shame. Instead, his pretty, heedless mother had died and it was by her deathbed that he met his sister, Zara.

  Her bewilderment, her anguish, was as deep as his and, drawn by bonds of love and circumstance, they had clung together and in her dependence on him he had gained strength.

  Zara. She had kept her secret as he had kept his. She had married and lived in fear that her husband would discover the truth of her parentage. Within days she would be in Monte Carlo: the one person in the world who knew him for what he was. Her love was the bed-rock of his life.

  Pebbles flew as the beating hoofs raced perilously along the barely discernible track. The carriage rocked on its springs. Sandor was uncaring.

  He had pleaded with Count Karolyi to be allowed to forsake the name that was not rightfully his. Istvan Karolyi had adamantly refused. He had no sons—Sandor had become his son. He had taught him to ride, to fish to shoot. His lands would pass to Sandor. The alternative was unthinkable.

  All through his youth Sandor had determined that, when the moment came he would do the honourable thing. He would disclose to Istvan Karolyi’s next of kin, Count Povzervslay, that he was the true heir to the Karolyi lands. Only with maturity had he realised why the noble-hearted man who had reared him had desired otherwise.

  Jozsef Povzervslay was a debaucher and a sadist of the worst kind. His thousands of tenants lived in fear of him. Blood flowed freely on his land. Emperor Franz Josef refused to receive him at court. Countess Povzervslay committed suicide. His daughters lived in abject fear, pale and dull-eyed.

  Povzervslay blood had been tainted for generations. His father had displayed the same perverted vices and Istvan Karolyi had been well aware that the son had followed in the father’s footsteps. It was his dying wish that Karolyi land and tenan
ts would never come under the stewardship of such a man. Sandor had promised. Istvan Karolyi had died and Sandor, son of an unknown gypsy, had inherited his title and his wealth.

  The lathered horses clattered into the drive of the Villa Beausoleil. Sandor flung himself from the carriage, throwing his cloak at the footman who hurried deferentially forward, striding into the lamplit salon and pouring himself a large brandy.

  There had been a time when he believed he could live with the secret. That he could marry, raise sons of his own, exercise just stewardship over his tenants. Those dreams had faded as he had embarked on his first love affaire and realised that, though such a secret could be kept from the world, it could not be kept from the woman who would share his heart, his life, his bed. And never yet, among the princesses, countesses and cocottes had he met a woman he had known would love him just as passionately when she knew that the object of her affections was not the son of Count Istvan Karolyi, but the bastard child of a nameless gypsy. That if Jozsef Povzervslay’s son grew up without the tainted blood of his father, the vast Karolyi estates would be handed over to him when his father died. That, marrying a man of wealth and title, their days could be concluded married to a man stripped of his name and bereft of his wealth. Such a woman did not exist and Sandor had long since abandoned the search for her. At thirty-two he indulged only in countless affaires with ladies safely married.

  He drained his glass, lifting the decanter again, pouring generously. Irina, Vicomtesse de Salbris, had not been married. She had been a pretty young widow and before he had been aware of it she had fallen in love with him – and died.

  He hurled the still-full glass across the room, shattering it against a mirror, golden droplets drenching the carpet.

  God in heaven. He had had no option but to break off the affaire. And he could not indulge in another, especially with an English girl with lustrous lashed green eyes and a mouth made to be kissed.

  He roared for his valet to pull off his boots. Why the devil he had kissed her in the first place he did not know. Nor why, once kissing her, he had wanted to continue more than anything else he had wanted in his life. His eyes glittered. Princess Yakovleva’s affection for Mademoiselle Grainger had not been misplaced. Charlotte’s grief at the death of her elderly and often querulous employer had been genuine and deep. She was a young lady of many commendable qualities. Not only was she undeniably beautiful, she was courageous, and her heart was warm and loving. As no doubt Justin de Valmy had already discovered.

  He dismissed the valet irritably and sank into a leather winged chair, staring moodily through the window at the dark shapes of pines. He was still there when the night sky pearled to dawn and the sea began to take on the first warm hints of day.

  When the Count left, Charlotte walked back into the villa and shivered. The rooms were empty and desolate. She felt like an intruder, yet she could not leave. Not until the Princess was buried and not until she had been paid the money owing to her. How long would it take Prince Victor to arrive from Nice? One day? Two? Heavy hearted she went to bed and lay for long hours, open-eyed in the darkness.

  Chapter Four

  She opened her eyes to the unmistakable sound of Sarah’s voice. Hurriedly she slipped from the bed and slid her arms into her silken négligé. Maria was already knocking on her door.

  ‘Mademoiselle Bernhardt for you, Mademoiselle Grainger.’

  ‘Tell Mademoiselle Bernhardt I shall be with her instantly.’

  Feverishly she brushed her hair, knotting it loosely on top of her head. There was no time to dress. Sarah’s golden voice was coming closer and closer. Another second and she would be in the bedroom.

  Charlotte flung open the door and hurried along the corridor and down the broad sweep of the staircase.

  ‘Charlotte!’ Sarah stood at the entrance of the main salon, poised on tiptoe as if halted at the very moment she had been about to mount the stairs and invade Charlotte’s room.

  She was in mourning, the corsage of her ebony-black dress softly draped like that of a Grecian goddess, accentuating her ethereal slenderness. Around her shoulders a cape of chinchilla trailed the ground.

  ‘Charlotte!’ She held her arms wide and Charlotte was clasped in a warm embrace. ‘What a tragedy! What a catastrophe!’

  She drew away from Charlotte, surveying the pale face and the shadows, dark as bruises, beneath Charlotte’s eyes.

  ‘How you have suffered, little one. You were exceedingly fond of Princess Natalya, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, feeling another onrush of tears prick the back of her eyes.

  ‘I shall be at her funeral service,’ Sarah said, drawing Charlotte into the salon, ordering refreshments from an overawed maid as if the villa were her own. ‘Spenser’s “Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, ease after war, death after life, does greatly please” will be the most suitable I think.’

  Charlotte sank back against the cushions on the sofa as Sarah seated herself. Had she slept? It didn’t feel as if she had.

  ‘And what of your position now, my little Charlotte?’ Sarah asked, reclining on a chaise longue, unutterably elegant; unbelievably beautiful.

  ‘I shall return to England.’

  Sarah’s pencil thin brows disappeared under the shower of her gold-red hair. ‘To England? So cold and so damp.’ She shivered expressively.

  For the first time since the Princess’s death, Charlotte smiled.

  ‘It is my home, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Sarah,’ Sarah corrected, waving a long, thin hand. ‘One’s home is where one chooses to make it, my little Charlotte. There is the home of our birth, and there is our spiritual home.’

  The maid set down a silver tray of coffee and brioches, still warm from the oven.

  ‘For myself, the Comédie-Française is my spiritual home. For you …’ The limpid pools of her eyes were questioning. Charlotte thought of the gold and velvet plush of the Salle Mauresque: the excitement of the Salon Privé. In her heart of hearts she knew where her spiritual home was, yet it was one grossly unsuitable for the daughter of a churchman. One she could not admit to, even to herself.

  ‘I do not think I have yet found my spiritual home.’

  ‘It is in the sun, my brave, beautiful Charlotte. Not in the greyness of England.’

  Sarah consumed a brioche with relish and demanded that the maid take out a plate of those remaining and feed them to the wolfhound unhappily deserted in her carriage.

  ‘Has Prince Victor been informed of his mother’s death?’

  ‘Count Karolyi did so yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Ah. Count Karolyi.’ Sarah’s feline eyes took on a dreamlike haze. ‘So tall; so handsome; so … dangerous.’

  Charlotte’s hand shook as she placed a china cup and saucer back on to the delicate low table. She had no desire to discuss Sandor Karolyi. Nor to think of him. Yet think of him she must. She had still not thanked him properly for his prompt assistance; for his kindness in taking the burden of informing the Princess’s son of her death.

  Sarah rose to her feet. ‘Do not grieve too deeply for Princess Natalya, Charlotte. She lived life zestfully. She died without pain. It is all any of us can hope for.’

  She kissed Charlotte on the cheek, enveloping her in an exotic fragrance and then, her furs sweeping the ground, she made her exit and through the open window Charlotte could hear her lovingly chastise her barking dog, promising it the finest steak the chef at the Hotel de Paris could offer.

  She returned to her room and was immediately faced with a dilemma. The Princess, declaring that Charlotte was too young to be dressed in black, had omitted anything suitable for mourning from Charlotte’s wardrobe. There was a day dress of heavy pearl-grey silk. She stepped into it, fastening the tiny pearl buttons of the bodice and cuffs.

  All through the morning there was a succession of callers bearing cards of condolence for the still absent Prince Victor. Lord and Lady Pethelbridge, the Countess of Bexhall, Princess Helena,
the pasha. The friendliness with which they had treated her the previous evening was politely lacking. She was once again Miss Grainger, companion. No word of sympathy or kindness was extended to her.

  The Princess’s body was brought in full regal dignity from the home of the doctor to rest in state in the boudoir displaying the Romanov crest. Flowers arrived in unending succession, surrounding the death bed in fragrant profusion. Charlotte, unable to compete with the lavish confections from the Kings of Serbia, of Sweden, of Spain, placed a small wreath of forget-me-nots on the satin pillow and a posy of the Princess’s beloved Parma violets in her hand.

  The Princess’s face, so wizened in life, was serene and full of peace. The afternoon wore on and still the procession of those coming to pay their respects did not abate, and still the Prince did not arrive.

  Monsieur Bertora paid his respects, as did the manager of the Hotel de Paris. The grand duke the Princess had spoken to the previous evening came, followed by another grand duke, and yet another. As dusk approached Charlotte sought refuge on the terrace.

  The twin bulbous domes of the Devil’s Palace glowed softly in the approaching twilight. The Princess would not enter those walls again. Charlotte’s heart tightened in her chest. And neither would she. When Prince Victor arrived and remunerated her for her services to the Princess, she would have to turn her back on the Devil’s Palace and the glittering blue sea for the last time. Through the trees that scattered the hillside she could see the road winding down towards the Port.

  Count Karolyi’s landau and white stallions were unmistakable. As was the abundant upsweep of sun-gold hair of the lady at his side.

  She turned, stifling the rush of conflicting emotions that threatened to swamp her. When the Prince arrived she would excuse herself from the Villa Ondine, thank Count Karolyi personally and correctly, and dismiss him from her mind forthwith.

  The Prince arrived late that evening in a Victoria drawn by two greys. Other equipages carrying his valet and household staff followed. He was stout, flush-faced, flamboyantly dressed and displayed none of the Princess’s caustic charm.