She was out in the corridor, shaking, fighting to control the tears of rage and humiliation that threatened to engulf her.
Prince Victor felt the veins in his neck swell and throb. He rushed after her, seizing her wrists.
‘Where the devil do you think you are going?’
‘To the villa!’ She wrenched herself free of his grasp. ‘I shall collect my belongings and I shall leave.’ She marched away from him, her skirts swishing.
‘You shall not! Not unaccompanied!’
Charlotte paused and turned, her eyes withering in their contempt. ‘Are you concerned for my virtue, Prince Yakovlev?’
‘No, by God! My reputation!’
Charlotte laughed, the unshed tears stinging her eyes. ‘Of course. How foolish of me. It would be damaging to your reputation if I were to be seen publicly leaving alone, wouldn’t it? Well; I am afraid you will just have to live with that humiliation, Prince Yakovlev.’
‘Never!’ He had hold of her wrist again. He was panting, his eyes fevered. If she left in the mood she was now in, the news would spread through the casino like wildfire. He would be a laughing stock. A Prince rejected by a paid companion. His sweating fingers tightened their hold. ‘Remain with me in the Salle Mauresque for five, ten minutes. Then we will leave together.’
‘No!’ She pulled away from him, half running towards the head of the stairs.
Gasping for breath he caught hold of her again. ‘Your salary. Do as I ask and I will pay you your salary.’ It was a pittance. He would take it from her winnings. Winnings he had no intention of allowing her to keep.
‘Five minutes.’ Her voice was tight with defeat. If she rushed unescorted from the casino she would have to face the long walk to the villa in the dark and alone. And where would she go when she reached her destination? Where would she take her pathetic belongings? She had endured much. Surely she could endure another five minutes and leave with a semblance of dignity?
Her satin-slippered feet hurried down the broadly sweeping stairs, Yakovlev following in her wake, his protruding blue eyes glazed with the fury of a man defeated.
Smoothly Sandor crossed to the foot of the stairs, his relief incalculable. She had not stayed to receive Prince Yakovlev’s amorous advances. He remembered the Princess’s love of baccarat and her frequent card-playing in the Salon Privé. No doubt that was where Charlotte had believed she was being led.
He wanted to take hold of her, chase the misery from her eyes, reassure her, comfort her. He could do none of those things because she would misunderstand his intentions. He could not even ask that she return with him to Beausoleil and wait there for Zara’s arrival. She would not believe in Zara’s existence. She would think it yet another ploy to rob her of her virtue.
His eyes slanted under their winged brows. There was only one way of achieving her safety. A cruel, heartless way, and yet if he did not act soon—tonight—she would be gone.
‘Good evening, Mademoiselle.’
She sprang back from him as if he were the devil incarnate.
‘Good evening, Prince Yakovlev.’
Prince Yakovlev had no desire to converse with Count Sandor Karolyi, yet Karolyi was a man it was wise not to snub. He accepted the Count’s condolences on the loss of his mother and felt a surge of adrenalin in his veins as Count Karolyi suggested a hand of poker. To be seen seated with the notorious Sandor Karolyi would restore some of his lost self-esteem. It would also ensure that he did not have to make a hasty and undignified exit with Charlotte.
For a panic-stricken moment Charlotte wondered whether she should abandon all dignity and simply run from the Salle Mauresque and out into the night. Common sense asserted itself. Whilst the Prince played cards with Count Karolyi he could not touch or molest her. By remaining with him in the casino, she would have carried out her part of the bargain.
Aware that Sandor Karolyi’s eyes were resting on her with disquieting frequency, she kept her own lowered as they crossed the room to a card table. An unopened pack of cards was brought across to the two gentlemen, was ceremoniously unwrapped and cut. Play commenced.
Charlotte, seated at the Prince’s right-hand side, was only feet away from Count Karolyi. She could not help but be aware of his disturbing nearness, of the thick black hair, springy as heather. Of the high, lean, cheek-bones, the amber flame burning deep in his eyes, the bandaged hand. She wondered if he had cut it, burnt it. How? Where? She tried to direct her thoughts elsewhere but it was impossible.
The first hand fell to the Prince. A corner of Sandor’s mouth curved in a crooked smile. Play commenced again. Two further hands fell to Prince Yakolev. Count Karolyi was known as a card player to fear and yet it seemed to Charlotte that he was playing with almost negligent carelessness.
The Prince, buoyed up by the skill he was displaying, increased his bets. Socialites wandering the salon paused to watch the play. Again Count Karolyi lost. Again Prince Yakovlev was gleeful.
Sandor’s eyes rose from the green baize of the table and caught Charlotte’s unaware, holding her prisoner. The desire he aroused in her flooded through her so that she could hardly bear it. She tore her eyes away from his, her heart slamming painfully.
The idle bystanders had increased in number. A lady’s sable brushed Charlotte’s shoulder. A gentleman asked sotto voce what the devil Karolyi was playing at.
Three kings. A flush. Again Sandor lost and as his mouth curved into a smile and he picked up the cards in front of him, Charlotte was filled with sudden disquiet. He was losing on purpose. Luring Prince Victor into a state of euphoric self-confidence.
A strange tightness began to grow in her throat, making it difficult for her to breathe. He was doing more than luring Prince Victor into parting with his gold. In that instant of time when their eyes had held, she had read something unfathomable in their depths. Something that both frightened and exhilarated her.
Again he lost to the Prince. This time, when he raised his eyes to hers she held them. A brief smile touched his mouth. Time wavered and faltered. In that moment she knew why the Vicomtesse had taken her life for love of him. A tremor ran through her body. No other man would have the power over her that Sandor Karolyi had, yet she would not yield to it. She would not become another in his long line of conquests. Her defiance shone in her eyes. His smile twisted, his mouth setting in a tight line.
This time the Prince lost to the Count. Charlotte was too overcome with the tumult of her heart and mind to care. She must not look at him. Must not remember the feel of his mouth on hers. The feel of his body as he held her with such easy strength. Unseeingly she stared at the bodices of the ladies surrounding the table: at corselettes of diamonds, of swathes of tulle and brocade.
Another hand went down to the Count. Perspiration was beginning to break out on Prince Victor’s brow. The audience surrounding the table made it impossible for him to call a halt to the game. Honour demanded that it be continued.
Charlotte strove to dismiss the Count from her mind. In the morning she would leave the Villa Ondine as soon as she had been paid. She would travel by carriage to Nice and then by wagon-lit to Paris. Surely there would be enough money for her to make the journey in reasonable comfort? In Paris she would rest overnight and then continue by road to Calais. In Calais she would take a ship to Dover.
His eyes were on her again. She would not turn her head. In Dover she would …
Cards were expertly shuffled and dealt. Covertly she slid her eyes across to his lowered head. He looked disturbingly commanding. In full control of the game he was playing.
Again the Prince lost. Lazily Sandor suggested that the stakes be raised. Unable to lose face, Prince Victor agreed. With almost insolent ease Sandor took Prince Victor’s full house with a running flush. Excitement around the table was palpable. Victor Yakovlev’s wealth was not vast, despite his rank. He had relied upon his mother for his finances and doubt had been expressed as to whether or not the Princess had left her fortune to her son.
Sandor Ka
rolyi’s wealth was indisputable. With utter assurance, hand after hand fell to the Count. Sandor continued to play, showing not the slightest mercy to his victim. Too late Victor Yakovlev realised that his judgment had been clouded from the moment he had first sat at the table. He had been seething with fury at the English girl’s rejection of him. His initial wins had restored his self-esteem. Now, thanks to his foolishness, he was a broken man. He had nothing left to stake. Monsieur Blanc would not extend credit to him. Credit had been extended too often in the past—and not repaid.
Savagely he rose from the table. He dared not continue to gamble on the strength of his mother’s will. That document was still unread, languishing in the offices of her St Petersburg solicitor.
‘One moment,’ Sandor leant negligently back in his chair, regarding Victor Yakovlev with a curious expression in his eyes. ‘I do not think the game is yet at an end.’
Victor Yakovlev glared at him with hatred. They were surrounded by half the crowned heads of Europe. Was Karolyi going to add to his humiliation?
‘It is at an end,’ he said curtly. ‘I have nothing left to stake.’
On the table between them lay a ransom in gold and bank notes and letters of promise.
‘I think, Prince Victor,’ Sandor said lazily, ‘that perhaps you have and are not aware of it.’
Prince Yakovlev halted. There was complete confidence in the Hungarian’s voice.
Around the table the conversation ceased. News of Prince Yakovlev’s loss had quickly circulated the salon and even the roulette wheels stilled as the curious walked across to the table where the two men faced each other and tried to obtain a view over dinner-jacketed and naked shoulders.
For several minutes Sandor did not put the Prince out of his misery. Then he leisurely lit a cigar, blowing a haze of blue smoke into the air and said carelessly, ‘Stake your companion, Yakovlev. It will add spice to the game and, who knows, if you win you will not only retain the delightful lady but also recoup the money you have lost.’
For a second there was a stunned silence and then slowly Prince Yakovlev sat down and reached for the cards. If he lost Charlotte he had lost nothing. Meanwhile, he stood to win a great deal.
‘My companion,’ he said, and his smile was one of malicious pleasure. ‘Your deal, I believe, Count Karolyi.’
Chapter Six
Charlotte felt as if she were drowning. The breath had frozen in her throat, her heart had ceased to beat. It could not be happening. She had misheard—misunderstood.
‘Prince Yakovlev has staked his mistress to Karolyi!’
The shouts went from table to table. Winning hands of cards were put down uncaringly. The whirr of roulette wheels ceased. The whole attention of the room was centred on the two men facing each other across the green baize table. And on Charlotte, standing immobile at Prince Yakovlev’s side, her hand to her throat, her eyes disbelieving.
The crowd around her jostled and pushed.
‘Where’s the girl?’
‘Surely she was Princess Natalya’s companion?’
‘What the devil is Karolyi up to?’
Words, sentences, permeated her brain. She tried to turn and run but could not for the crowd that hemmed her in.
No longer did Sandor Karolyi seek to hold her eyes with his. His glossily dark head was bent intently over the cards in his hand, his face taut with concentration. The langour, the carelessness, was gone. He was a man playing for high stakes. Stakes he had no intention of losing.
No wonder that harsh mouth had held a suspicion of a smile as he had looked up at her. He had known all along what he intended to do. He had been savouring the moment of her humiliation—enjoying himself at her expense.
She felt sick and giddy and if it had not been for the press of bodies surrounding her, would have fallen…
Princess Natalya had been more accurate than she had known when she had referred to him as the Devil’s spawn. Prince Victor triumphantly laid down two pairs. Count Karolyi topped them with a full house. Prince Yakovlev mopped his perspiring face with a handkerchief Sandor remained unperturbed, his mouth quirking in a humourless smile as Prince Yakovlev’s distress grew more apparent.
Too late Victor Yakovlev realised he was no match for a man of Sandor Karolyi’s cold, calculated expertise. He laid down the last of his cards. Three aces and two kings. The atmosphere round the table was electric. Sandor surveyed the cards in his hand and then, very slowly, laid them down.
Four queens. The room erupted around Charlotte. There were male shouts of ‘Bravo Karolyi!’ and the popping of champagne corks. Prince Victor stumbled to his feet. He had entered the casino intent on a night of pleasure. He was leaving it a broken man. Dementedly, he pushed past Charlotte. He had publicly staked and lost her as if she were a chattel, and he did not spare her a cursory word.
Champagne exploded and fizzed. Glasses were lifted in toast to the victor. Slowly Sandor raised his eyes to Charlotte’s, saw the burning shame and humiliation in her face and felt a knife twist and turn in his breast. There had been no other course of action open to him. By the morning she would have fled with her pittance and her pathetically few belongings. He would never have seen her again, never have known if she had accomplished the journey to England in safety. Now she would be in his care, hating and despising him.
He ignored the back-slapping, the champagne, the fortune lying on the green baize. He rose to his feet and faced Charlotte. She could smell the clean, starched linen of his evening shirt, the faint aroma of cologne.
‘And now, Mademoiselle Grainger, I think it is time that we left the casino.’
The lines of her jaw were tense with the effort she made to appear calm. She would not give him the pleasure of seeing her distress.
‘I think not, Count Karolyi,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘The entertainment is over. Your winnings are on the table. Goodnight.’
She turned, tall and slender, heartbreakingly dignified.
His hand closed around her wrist. There could be no explanation. He could not say he had won her in order that he might take care of her. She would never believe him and besides, to make such a statement would be to say far more. That she aroused and inflamed him as no other woman he had met. That she brought out in him feelings of love and tenderness he had previously believed himself to be incapable of. He had alienated the one woman in the world who might have accepted him for what he was: illegal inheritor of the Karolyi wealth, bastard son of a Hungarian gypsy. His own actions had destroyed any such chance of happiness. Since the night on the terrace when he had treated her so insultingly, kissing her against her will, she had regarded him with nothing but contempt and distaste. He didn’t blame her. He felt only contempt and distaste for himself.
‘We will leave together, Mademoiselle.’
Her barely held self-control snapped. Her green-gilt eyes flashed with revulsion. ‘The charade at the table was meaningless, Count Karolyi! I am no man’s to be lost or won at the turn of a card!’
She was only inches away from him. The nearness of her sent his blood coursing through his veins.
‘You are mistaken, Mademoiselle Grainger. I won you and I intend to keep you.’
Charlotte gasped and drew back her free hand to deliver a stinging blow to his cheek. He caught her wrist in a steel-like grip.
‘You are only adding to your entertainment value by such behaviour.’
Stunned she glanced around. In her fury and indignation she had forgotten the casino patrons who had surrounded the table with such interest and were now regarding the altercation between herself and Sandor with unconcealed delight.
‘We will leave.’ It was a command. Forcefully Sandor pushed his way through the throng around them, Charlotte in his wake, her wrist still tightly held in his strong grip.
‘Just where do you think you are taking me, Count Karolyi?’ she demanded in low, raging tones.
They had gained the ornate entrance hall. Their procession through the roo
m had been watched with shocked expressions by ladies of title, by envious lechery on the part of their escorts, and with amusement by the ladies of the demi-monde.
‘To Beausoleil,’ he said curtly. ‘Where else?’
‘To my home,’ she flashed, struggling to free herself from his grasp and failing.
He pivoted on his heel, seizing her shoulders so savagely that she cried out in pain. ‘You have no home! Would you return to the Villa Ondine and a man who would lose you at cards without a backward glance?’
‘No! Neither will I accompany a man who won me in such a manner!’
They glared at each other fiercely.
‘You have no option, Mademoiselle.’ There was a cruel edge to his voice that chilled her. The Karolyi white stallions had cantered to a halt outside the casino’s blazing entrance. The carriage door was open.
‘No!’ Her protest lacked conviction. Where else could she go? Her fate was sealed. The Prince’s treatment of her in the casino had branded her publicly as a lady of loose virtue. No one, now, would ever believe otherwise. Louise de Remy would help her, but only in securing her a rich lover. Justin de Valmy would help her, but only by making her his mistress.
The carriage door slammed shut. She was alone in the darkness with Sandor Karolyi. Despairingly she raised her hands to her eyes and began to weep.
He surveyed her with pain-filled eyes. He had had no wish to cause her distress but his action had made it inevitable. His mouth compressed in a hard line and the skin tautened across his cheekbones as her slender figure was wracked by sobs.
Gently he reached across and laid his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. She sprang away from his touch as if it had been fire, huddling in the corner of the carriage, staring at him with the huge, frightened eyes of a trapped doe.
Ice entered his heart. Had it come to this? That her anger had dissolved into fear of him?
‘Your fate is not so bad as it would have been if I had not intervened,’ he said, and his voice held an underlying throb that was far distant from the cruelty of his tones in the casino.
Devil's Palace Page 11