Devil's Palace

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Mademoiselle looks very beautiful,’ she said sincerely, hoping for some response in the unutterably sad eyes.

  ‘Thank you, Jeanne.’ Charlotte’s voice was soft and gentle – and heartbreakingly sad.

  ‘Count Karolyi is already breakfasting,’ Jeanne ventured.

  Charlotte rose from her dressing table stool. He would have to be faced. She could not hide in her room for ever. The charade must continue.

  With reluctant feet she walked slowly along the opulent corridor and down the vast, sweeping staircase.

  Georges greeted her with a smile, but he was concerned at the lacklustre of her usual sparkling eyes. Had the Count and the English girl quarrelled? Were Beausoleil and Valeni to be bereft of the mistress their staff so desired?

  Sandor’s night had been as sleepless as Charlotte’s. Nevertheless, at the sight of her his heart warmed.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to rise until much later,’ he said, rising from the table, drawing a chair out for her, dismissing the footman so that he might pour her coffee himself, breakfast with her in delicious privacy.

  ‘I was not tired.’ It was a blatant lie. She was exhausted.

  He frowned. ‘Is everything as it should be, Charlotte?’

  She did not trust herself to meet his eyes. How could he ask such a question? Hadn’t he only hours ago abandoned her to be reunited with the woman he loved? Hadn’t Lady Beston told him passionately that she would die if she could not see him, even for a little while? And hadn’t Sandor promised that they would meet again that very morning?

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Her voice was cool and remote.

  His frown deepened. ‘As you know, Lady Beston has arrived in Monte Carlo. I plan to call on her this morning.’

  There was silence from the other side of the table. He leaned forward, covering her hands lovingly with his. ‘You will be able to see what an ideal employer she would have made.’ Beneath the heat of his hand her blood seemed to freeze. He no longer wished her to accompany Lady Beston to England. Perhaps he was afraid that she would be indiscreet. That Lady Beston would discover that he was not against engaging in flirtations when she was absent. She kept her eyes firmly averted from his.

  ‘I am sure Lady Beston would still make a most admirable employer,’ she said stiffly.

  He stared at her. ‘What do you mean, Charlotte? You cannot imagine that after what has happened I still intend that you should accompany Lady Beston to England?’

  She raised her head and braved his eyes. ‘But of course,’ she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘How else am I to reach there?’

  His incredulity was total. ‘You cannot mean it, Charlotte!’

  Her coffee remained untasted, her croissant untouched. ‘ I am afraid that I do. I enjoyed yesterday exceedingly, Count Karolyi, but now I must think of my future.’ She was talking to him as if she were at an afternoon tea party with a stranger.

  Sandor felt himself held in the grip of a nightmare. This conversation could not possibly be taking place. Either she was mad or he was. His brows flew together, his eyes blazed.

  ‘Your future is here! With me!’

  She felt faint, as if she were poised on the edge of a precipice and about to plunge headlong into a void from which there was no return. If she wanted, she could remain outwardly his mistress. It was what Sandor desired. In Budapest and Vienna, in Paris and Monte Carlo, he could meet Zara and the world would be no wiser. For an insane moment she was tempted to capitulate. To live with him on any terms he offered. And then she remembered the sight of Lady Beston in his arms and knew that such recurring pain was beyond endurance.

  ‘I am afraid not, Count Karolyi,’ she lied politely. ‘ There is a gentleman to whom I am betrothed waiting for me in London. He has little finances but he is honourable …’

  ‘God’s teeth!’ Sandor rose to his feet in a fury, coffee cups spilling, plates scattering to the floor. ‘You have the audacity, the effrontery to tell me that you are returning to England to marry!’

  Charlotte placed her napkin on the table with a trembling hand and rose to her feet.

  ‘Yes, I am sorry that I did not tell you earlier. It did not seem important.’

  With a savage oath he crossed the space between them and seized her. For a terrifying moment she thought he was going to strike her and then he said savagely,

  ‘So your betrothed is honourable, is he? It’s more than I can say of you! Louise de Remy and Floretta Rozanko could learn a lot from your wiles, Mademoiselle Grainger!’ and, crushing her to him, he kissed her with cruel viciousness.

  She could not free herself from his bruising mouth. Her hands pushed in vain against his chest, but he was too strong for her. She could smell his skin, hear his heart beating, feel her body responding to his even as she struggled.

  As he raised his head from hers, blood seared her lips.

  ‘We will leave in fifteen minutes! I expect you to be ready and waiting.’ He spun on his heel and stormed from the room.

  She steadied herself on a chair and wiped the blood from her mouth. She had disrupted his plans and incurred his wrath. The devil incarnate Princess Yakovleva had called him. Now she understood why.

  She steadied her breathing. She had played her part well. Even Sarah could not have played it better. Her pride had been salvaged. Sandor Karolyi was disabused of any belief he might have had that he had won her heart. And now she must tend her lip, resume her play-acting, and meet the woman whose reputation Sandor had gone to such lengths to protect. Zara, Lady Beston.

  On the carriage ride to the hotel, Sandor felt as if his world had fallen apart. She sat opposite him, eyes lowered, hands lightly clasped in her lap. He had seen the bruises on her lips and had felt remorse mixed with murderous rage. Dear God in heaven, had she taken him for a fool right from the beginning? What had happened that he, Sandor Karolyi, a man whose reputation was notorious, should have fallen for the charms of a nineteen-year-old English girl? He cursed inwardly. At thirty-two he had thought himself immune from such foolishness. Now he was so deeply embroiled that even knowing how little she cared for him, his feelings remained unchanged. He loved her. She was in his blood and in his bones. He would love her to the day he died.

  The perfume that emanated from her hair filled his senses. He had to clench his hands into fists to prevent himself from seizing hold of her and crushing her once more against him. Her skirt brushed against his leg as they entered the hotel and he felt as if every nerve ending in his body were raw.

  The Bestons’ suite was in the opposite wing of the hotel to Sarah’s and bore no trace of its occupants’ personalities as Sarah’s so lavishly did.

  Lord Beston was clearly not pleased at receiving visitors. He was tall and narrow-shouldered, his moustaches immaculate and flecked with grey. His hand barely touched Charlotte’s as Sandor introduced them. Looking up into his colourless, almost opaque eyes, Charlotte felt an unpleasant chill touch her spine. Lord Beston was a man it would be wise not to cross. Or to be alone with.

  ‘Lady Beston,’ Charlotte was aware of the underlying throb in Sandor’s voice. ‘Miss Charlotte Grainger.’

  Charlotte took a deep breath and looked directly into the eyes of the woman Sandor loved.

  Shock reverberated through her. The face was vaguely familiar, but from where? When? Blue-black hair was upswept in deep, undulating waves. Instead of the creamy white skin so treasured by professional and society beauties, Lady Beston’s skin seemed sun-kissed, as if she had dispensed with protective parasols and broad-brimmed hats. Her face was oval, her cheekbones high, and her eyes held a tantalisingly familiar slant. Her smile was warm and gracious, but the limpid pools of her thickly-lashed eyes held such suffering that all hostility drained from Charlotte’s tender heart.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Grainger.’

  Charlotte stared at her helplessly. The dislike she had expected to feel was absent. She saw only a woman who was bitterly unhappy. A
woman who lived only for the brief moments when she was in Sandor’s company. As she herself did. A woman who was graciousness itself.

  ‘I understand you have lately been in Vienna,’ Sandor was saying to Lady Beston. ‘Did you enjoy the opera?’

  ‘My wife would not know a good opera from a bad one,’ Lord Beston said unkindly.

  Charlotte saw two high spots of colour appear in Lady Beston’s cheeks.

  ‘I am sure you are mistaken, Lord Beston,’ Sandor said smoothly. ‘I have heard it said that your wife is a keen patron of the arts.’

  ‘She is a keen patron of dressmakers and jewellers, but an understanding of the arts is unfortunately not within her grasp.’

  Charlotte stared at him. Did he know how much his carelessly spoken words were wounding his wife? She saw the expression in his eyes and shivered. He knew, and he did not care.

  Sandor was speaking civilly to him about the Prince of Wales’s presence in Monte Carlo and Charlotte saw that Lady Beston’s eyes were fixed almost beseechingly on Sandor, as if willing him to keep her out of the conversation and away from the attention of her husband.

  As the minute hand on the clock moved up to the hour, Charlotte ached to escape from the claustrophobic confines of the room. Lady Beston’s unhappiness was palpable. Sandor’s eyes rarely rested on her, but Charlotte knew that he was acutely aware of her and that he entertained nothing but contempt for the man to whom he was speaking. It was with overwhelming relief that she saw Sandor was rising, that they were about to take their leave. Lord Beston turned away to summon service imperiously. In that brief moment Lady Beston’s and Sandor’s eyes met, the love each felt for the other nakedly exposed.

  Charlotte felt the knife in her heart plunge deeper, inflicting even more pain, and then they were saying goodbye and she was dimly aware that Lady Beston was risking her husband’s wrath by sweetly asking that she call on her for tea the next day. The door of the Beston suite closed behind them. The stilted and joyless meeting was at an end.

  Her heart was racing as if she had run a great distance. She felt sick and dizzy. Sandor had not mentioned to Lady Beston that Charlotte was to be her companion back to England. He had introduced her to the Bestons as his guest. Surely Lady Beston would not expect to employ a young lady she had met socially, as a companion?

  Her head throbbed. If Sandor had thought that his behaviour would make such an appointment impossible, he had underestimated her. She had been invited to tea the following day by Lady Beston, and she had accepted. It would be the ideal opportunity to ask Lady Beston if she might accompany her in an official capacity back to England.

  She began to put on her gloves and realised she had dropped one in her distress. They were nearing the lobby. The glove was nowhere to be seen.

  Hastily she retraced her steps. The white net glove was on the floor outside the door of the Beston suite. As she bent to retrieve it she could hear the sound of heart-rending tears. Feeling like an eavesdropper, Charlotte snatched up the glove and hastened to where Sandor waited impatiently in the hotel lobby.

  ‘I am sorry. I dropped my glove.’

  Taut-faced he escorted her into the brilliant sunshine. Yesterday had been the happiest day of his life. Today he was faced with the difficulty of extricating Zara from a marriage that was untenable and of pondering on the identity of an unknown Englishman of no financial resources who had succeeded in winning from him the only woman he would ever love.

  Charlotte’s emotions were in turmoil as Sandor handed her into the landau. She had gone to the Hotel de Paris fully expecting to feel bitter jealousy for Lady Beston. She had left feeling only compassion for her. Lady Beston was not of the same ilk as Lady Pethelbridge and the Countess of Bexhall. Her sad mouth had held sweetness, her tragic eyes kindness. Help from that quarter would never have been refused.

  Sandor struggled for self-control. He wanted to seize Charlotte’s slender shoulders and shake her until she promised that she would not leave Beausoleil. Instead he said caustically,

  ‘May I be permitted to ask the identity of your future husband, Miss Grainger?’

  Charlotte’s imagination failed her. ‘I do not think such details can be of any interest to you, Count Karolyi,’ she said tightly.

  The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky. Ladies in passing carriages bent their parasol-shaded heads in acknowledgment on seeing the unmistakable Karolyi stallions.

  ‘But it is of the greatest interest,’ he said relentlessly, fixing her with a steely gaze. ‘After all, if it had not been for my intervention, you would not have been in a position to return to the gentleman concerned.’

  She felt hot colour stain her cheeks. ‘I have no wish to discuss my future husband,’ she said, avoiding his eyes. If Lady Beston were not returning to England for some while, she would ask if she would lend her the necessary money, so that she herself could return to England immediately. Her pride, where Lady Beston was concerned, would not be at stake, and she would return the money as soon as she had found herself a position. Nor would the request be refused. She knew that intuitively. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would be reduced to such lengths, but there was no way she could remain in Sandor’s company. His anger cut through her like a knife. She was no longer ‘ Charlotte’ to him, she was ‘ Miss Grainger’, and she could no longer call him ‘Sandor’.

  ‘As you choose,’ Sandor said, his jaw tightening, and his eyes blazing.

  Her heart began to throb painfully. Why was he so angry? Surely he could acquire another lady to provide a foil for his public meetings with Zara? The sun blinded her eyes. Is that how he had used the Vicomtesse de Salbris? And had the Vicomtesse, like herself, fallen in love with him?

  The landau entered Beausoleil’s sub-tropical gardens, the palms giving fleeting and cooling shade.

  ‘If you will excuse me, Count Karolyi, I must rest. I have a headache.’

  With a leap of concern he saw the paleness of her face, the blue shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Of course.’ His voice was stiff. He dared not trust himself to express his true concern.

  Once in her room she closed the shutters, plunging the room into blessed shade. When Jeanne knocked and asked if she could be of assistance Charlotte merely allowed her to help her out of her dress and then said that she would like to rest and not be disturbed.

  Jeanne retreated respectfully and Charlotte lay motionless on her bed. Roulette coups. Grande cocottes dancing can-cans in front of the Prince of Wales. Dazzling sun. Exotic flowers. Sarah’s witchery. Louise’s pertness. How would she accustom herself to life without them? And without Sandor?

  She passed her hand across her eyes. How was it possible to love a man so much that she should suffer with him in his despair at not being able to make the woman he loved his wife? Her heart ached. For herself For Sandor. For Zara. It seemed that none of them was destined for happiness.

  Lord Beston left his hotel suite shortly after Sandor and Charlotte had departed—his destination the villa of his English mistress.

  Zara remained on the sofa where she had fallen in a flood of tears. Why had she married him? Vaguely she remembered the austere charm he had taken pains to exercise when courting her. Her longing for a fresh start in life. Her escape from her adopted home and its perpetual reminders of her bastardy. Through the long afternoon she remained on the sofa. If only she could live openly as Sandor’s sister then she would be happy, but to do so would mean telling Beston the truth about her birth, and so would mean Sandor’s ruin. Beston would not keep silent. He would tell Povzervslay that he had a claim to Valeni and then Count Istvan Karolyi’s last wishes would be denied. Valeni tenants would not live happily under Sandor, but would be ruled in terror by Jozsef Povzervslay. It was a prospect too hideous to contemplate.

  Her despair was total. She was thirty-two. Her husband did not love her; did not even care for her. She could see no happiness in her future, no peace or serenity.

  She rose and poured herself a gl
ass of mineral water, seeing with vague surprise that the shadows in the garden of the hotel were lengthening. Dusk was approaching. How much longer would Beston be gone? Dare she risk hurrying to see Sandor for a few snatched moments at Beausoleil?

  She moved swiftly, setting a hat of flowers and veiling upon her blue-black hair, picking up silk gloves, a lace-fringed parasol, her hands trembling.

  Rigid in his carriage, Lord Beston’s pale grey eyes were like slivers of ice. It had been three months since he had last seen his mistress, the wife of a fellow peer, and he had expected his welcome to be a warm one. Instead he had been received with languid indifference. The lady in question had grown bored by his absence and had sought diversions elsewhere. The interlude was over. Lord Beston had not endangered his pride by asking that the lady reconsider. He had feigned dignified relief at the news and untruthfully stated that he, too, had embarked on a new affaire of the heart. With barely concealed hostility he had taken his leave of his former mistress and, reluctant to return to the hotel immediately, ordered his coachman to drive up into the hills.

  Damn it to hell, but he would have to have a new lady on his arm to flaunt or it would be obvious that he had been lying. Calculatingly he reflected on the ladies in residence in Monte Carlo. None of them stirred his appetite. He had a sudden mental picture of Count Karolyi’s companion and at the thought of Charlotte’s red-gold hair and luminous green eyes the blood leapt along his veins. She was a beauty. Outstandingly so. And Karolyi would not be squiring her so publicly unless her pedigree was above reproach.

  A thin smile curved his lips. Karolyi was not in love with her. He was in love with Zara. They thought he was a fool and unseeing, but he had known so for years. He had known also that his infuriatingly pure wife had not yet graced the Count’s bed and it was for that reason he had remained silent. When she did so he would use the knowledge to break her spirit completely. God, how he hated her! So irreproachable. So long-suffering. He had married her believing he was aligning himself to a family of wealth. A family who had only one daughter to leave that wealth to. A daughter who was a princess. He remembered preening himself on his conquest the day the announcement of their betrothal had appeared in The Times. And he remembered his stunned incredulity after the wedding when he realised there was no wealth. That the Katzinskys had only an ancient family name littering the pages of the Almanac de Gotha like confetti.