by Jane Feather
"Goodness me, how do people tell you apart?" Princess Sophie exclaimed, clapping her hands in exaggerated astonishment.
"With difficulty." Leo answered the question with light amusement. "Mesdames." He bowed to the royal sisters. "And my little mesdames." He offered the same courtesy to the children, who giggled, before turning to Cordelia. "The dauphine wishes to speak with you, Princess. May I escort you?"
"Leave the children with us while you talk with the dauphine," Princess Sophie insisted. "Come, my dears, would you like to see my songbirds?"
"And I have a pet monkey," Princess Louise put in. "A most amusing little thing, you'll love him."
It seemed that the princesses, always on the lookout for new amusements, had decided to vie for the attention of Prince von Sachsen's identical twins. The novelty probably wouldn't last long, but Michael couldn't object to Cordelia's leaving his daughters to bask in the royal competition to amuse them.
She put her hand on Leo's arm and allowed him to lead her away. "I have a plan," she said in a low voice. Large groups were ideal for exchanging secrets so long as one kept one's expression bland and one's voice an undertone. No one took a blind bit of notice of what anyone said anyway, unless it was the juiciest morsel of gossip. "I will bring the children to Christian's lodgings in Versailles on the pretext of their taking a music lesson. The Nevry woman will cooperate. I gave Christian a letter explaining the plan; I'm sure he'll agree to do what he can to help."
"Good. I want you and the children to leave the palace tomorrow afternoon. Take nothing with you and go directly to Mathilde and Christian. They will know what to do."
"But what are you going to do?"
They had reached Toinette, and Leo didn't answer; instead he said, "Madame, I bring the princess to you, as commanded."
"Oh, good, I wish to play piquet, Cordelia." Toinette flourished a pack of cards. "It's been ages since we played together."
"I wonder if you cheat each other as well as everyone else," Leo commented carelessly, drawing out a chair for Cordelia at the card table.
"What calumny, Lord Kierston," Toinette declared, quite pink cheeked. "Whatever makes you say such a thing?"
"A long journey in the company of the princess," Leo responded with an amused smile.
"As it happens, Toinette and I never have the slightest need to cheat with each other," Cordelia said with a dignified tilt of her head, slipping easily into the role he was dictating. Light, slightly flirtatious banter was enjoyed by everyone at court. "We developed the strategy, as I told you, to combat the underhand dealings of others. Fight pitch with pitch, my lord." She glanced over her shoulder as she said this, and her eyes held a very different meaning. Leo merely smiled, bowed, and moved away into the main body of the room.
Tables were being set up for gaming. The children seemed to have vanished with the royal sisters. Michael was sitting at a whist table. It seemed to Leo that the man was having difficulty sitting up straight in his chair. His shoulders kept slumping. For the first time, Leo remembered Mathilde's potion and how Cordelia had said it had kept Michael from the boar hunt. So many momentous things had happened since then, he'd completely forgotten.
There were as yet only three people at the table just behind Michael's. Leo went over. "May I join your rubber? Or are you waiting for someone?"
"Not at all, dear fellow. But all means, sit." A snuff-stained whist player waved jovially at the empty chair. Michael glanced over his shoulder and acknowledged Leo's smiling greeting with a stiff bow. He looked ghastly, Leo thought. And then he thought grimly that if Michael was ill, he couldn't be expected to fight a duel. Leo would be expected to hold his challenge until his opponent was fit and well.
But he could still issue it. Once the challenge was issued, Cordelia would be beyond danger. The matter would fall under the king's jurisdiction until it was resolved.
He picked up his cards and sorted them. He intended to make his accusation in the most dramatic way possible. The following afternoon, after the play, on stage, he would speak out. He had his speech prepared and it would create a stir that would live in the memory of this court into the next generation.
He laid an ace of spades on top of the ten and took the trick. A hand touched his arm. A tiny dimpled hand. "Monsieur Leo."
He looked down at the twins, standing together at this chair. They curtsied as his eyes fell upon them, and then they gazed at him solemnly, as if a little unsure of their welcome. "Madame Cordelia said we could come and pay our respects, sir. We have something most particular to ask you.
"These are your nieces, I understand, Lord Kierston." A dowager duchess put up her lorgnette and examined the children, who were so fascinated by the ostrich plumes in her powdered mountain of hair that for a moment they stared unabashed as the feathers bobbed perilously close to the rim of a glass of champagne.
"Make your curtsies," Leo reminded them softly, and they did so hastily.
"May we watch?" Amelia inched closer against his arm, gazing up at him with Elvira's eyes, where appeal and mischief mingled.
"If no one else objects," he said, glancing at Michael's back at the next table. He didn't seem to be aware of his daughters' somewhat unorthodox arrival.
"Not in the least," the duchess said airily. "Have a comfit, mes petites." She selected two chocolate dragees from a silver dish. The girls, experienced now, opened their mouths to receive the sweet and smiled politely at their benefactress.
"What's a passport, Monsieur Leo?" Sylvie asked when she'd swallowed her chocolate.
Leo's hand froze in the act of scooping up his new hand. "Why do you ask?"
"You said to Madame Cordelia that you were going to get us one," Amelia put in. "Is it a present?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Amelia," Leo said with a slight, dismissive laugh, examining his cards-"And children with big ears certainly aren't given presents.
They both looked crestfallen, but that couldn't be helped-
"Go back to your stepmother now," he instructed. "You're disturbing my play."
They curtsied disconsolately and scurried off, but recovered sufficiently to take strawberry tarts from a salver that a footman obligingly held down to them.
"pretty little things," the dowager duchess said. "So like their mother. The same eyes." She leaned sideways and bellowed at Michael's averted back. "I was just saying, Prince. Your daughters… such pretty little things… the image of their mother-may she rest in peace," she added piously, crossing herself.
Michael looked over his shoulder. His eyes were blank. "How kind of you to say so, madame." He turned back to his cards.
Chapter Twenty-three
Michael took a glass of burgundy from a passing footman and drank deeply. It was his fourth glass in an hour, but contrary to medical opinion it didn't seem to strengthen him after the bleeding he'd undergone that morning. He still felt weak and his hands had an uncharacteristic tremor to them.
"I trust you are feeling better, my lord." His wife spoke at his elbow. Her eyes were more gray than blue this evening, reflecting the almost opalescent misty gray of her gown. The side panels of the gown were drawn up over her hoop to reveal an emerald green undergown sewn with seed pearls. A tiara of emeralds nestled in the black hair, a matching collar was clasped at her throat, and on her wrist she wore the serpent bracelet; the diamond slipper, the silver rose, and the emerald swan caught the candlelight whenever she moved her gracefully rounded forearm.
Elvira had worn the intricate bracelet with its strange, almost sinister medieval design with flamboyance. She had worn it constantly and flourished it as she flourished the male admiration that flowed over her. Admiration that she had played up to with all her seductive wiles. Cordelia was also never seen without the bracelet. She touched it frequently but almost absently, as if it were a kind of talismanic ritual.
Whenever he looked at the bracelet, he became superstitiously convinced that some dreadful mischance had brought it into his life.
Both women who wore it with such constancy were corrupt. Both were as devious, as faithless, as manipulative as the Eve it represented.
A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he grasped the back of a chair.
"You are unwell, my lord. Perhaps you should retire." Cordelia spoke again, not that she gave a damn whether he was on his deathbed. One thing was certain, he was not going to come to her bed tonight, not in his present state. The relief made her want to sing.
And then he looked at her and the familiar nausea and tremors began anew. He loathed her. The malice in his eyes was worse than she'd ever seen it. He seemed to look right through her, into the darkest corners of her soul. "I will retire in my own good time, madame," he said. "And I will come to you in my own good time. You will await me."
Cordelia turned away, unable to bear those eyes. She didn't think he was capable of hurting her tonight, but she was no longer certain of it.
Michael's mouth twisted. He moved around the chair he held without releasing his grip and sat down heavily. Passports. The child had prattled to Leo about passports. A promised present from her uncle.
Leo Beaumont had escorted Michael's wife all the way from Vienna. Twenty-three days in her company. More than long enough to form a liaison. Had she since confided the dark secrets of her marriage? Of course, she would have confided in a lover. And the impulsive lover would scheme to take her away.
The fat maggots of suspicion writhed in Michael's head as they had done since he'd overheard his daughter's question that afternoon. Elvira had been deceitful. Elvira had been unfaithful. Why should her brother be any different? Michael had never liked Elvira's brother. He had made use of him, but he had never really trusted him. And most particularly not since Elvira's death. There was a slyness to him. And definitely something peculiar about his besotted attention to a pair of infants. What grown man without an ulterior motive would be so attentive to such unrewarding objects?
Suspicion once aroused grew and grew as it had done over Elvira. Michael's head became filled with it, a great gray mass of twisting, gut-churning suspicion that in a few hours had become conviction. It was perfect logical reasoning.
Leo was planning to kidnap his sister's children, and he was going to run off with Michael's wife. Michael knew he was right. He'd been right about Elvira. He was always right to trust his instincts. He knew in his blood when something threatened his habits, his choices, his dignity, his very self. He had known since he was a small child when someone or something menaced his chosen path. And even as a small child, he had known how to fight back.
He was always right to act upon these instincts.
His wife had been virgin on her wedding night, he would swear to it on his mother's grave. But if she had not kept exclusively to his bed since then, she could even now be carrying Leo Beaumont's child. He would not give his name to another's bastard. He wanted an heir, and there must be not the faintest taint of suspicion as to its lineage.
Tonight he would make sure of it. Then he would make sure of Elvira's brother. His eyes closed, his head pounded mercilessly. He leaned back against the chair, resting his head, but the tormenting images of his wife's pale body moving against Leo Beaumont's sinuous flesh wouldn't leave his mind. They seemed to take him over, fill him with an all-consuming rage, so strong he thought he would vomit. His fingers curled over the arms of the chair.
"Prince, you seem unwell."
Michael opened his eyes. One of the king's equerries was examining him with an air both concerned and displeased.
"His Majesty noticed," the equerry said in explanation. The message was clear. Either the prince became his usual lively and diplomatic self, or he removed his feeble and offending carcass from the king's sight.
Michael rose, unable to disguise the effort it cost him. "I find myself a little fatigued," he said. "I beg His Majesty to excuse me." He walked toward the door of the salon, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
Had that deceitful wife put a curse on him? He couldn't lose the suspicion however firmly he told himself it wasn't rational. But witchcraft wasn't rational, and it was still a fact. That woman of Cordelia's-that Mathilde. There was a witch if ever he'd seen one. Perhaps she'd put the evil eye on him when he'd dismissed her. He'd find her. She had to be around somewhere, starving in some alley in the town. She couldn't have gone far.
He staggered into his own apartments, summoned Brion to bring him cognac, and shut himself up in his dressing room. He had some preparations to make before his wife came upstairs.
Leo, frowning, had watched Michael's departure from the salon. The man was clearly still far from strong, and Leo found himself cursing Mathilde's potion. Paradoxically, since without it, he wouldn't be contemplating Michael's destruction. A destruction he couldn't effect until the man was well and strong again.
Could Michael have heard Amelia's burble about passports? The child had spoken quite softly, and why should Michael have broken the habit of a lifetime and actually listened to her? It would be the supreme irony that a man who never paid the slightest attention to his daughters' verbal forays should have heard the one thing he didn't need to hear. But if he had…
There was nothing to be done about it. After the play tomorrow afternoon, it wouldn't matter.
"Leo, Michael's gone." Cordelia spoke breathlessly at his shoulder. "I can't believe he would leave me unwatched, but he has."
"I saw." He looked at her and he wanted to hold her. To snatch her up and taste the warm sweetness of her mouth, feel the supple slenderness of her body, inhale the fragrance of her skin. She read his eyes and her own filled with hungry longing.
"Where can we go?"
He almost laughed, it was so typical of Cordelia. No preliminaries, no forethought, just the simple question that she assumed he was asking himself. But the time for laughter and lovemaking had passed, and would not come again until their future was assured.
He shook his head and saw disappointment vanquish desire on her open countenance. "My sweet, we can take no risks now. Stroll with me along the gallery." He offered his arm.
Cordelia took it, swallowing her disappointment. "You have a plan," she stated, as they moved among the crowds. "For tomorrow. Tell me about it."
He paused by a deep window embrasure and looked out attentively, murmuring into the air ahead of him. "Tomorrow afternoon I want you to take the girls and go to Mathilde and Christian, as I said earlier." "But why?"
"To see if it can be done," he said simply. "A trial run, if you like." He ticked off items on his fingers, his voice quiet and authoritative. "We need to be certain that we have the governess's cooperation. We need to be certain that you can all leave the palace without drawing comment. And we need to be certain that the children don't make difficulties when it comes to the real thing because they don't understand what's happening." He turned his head. "Is that clear enough, Cordelia?"
"I suppose so," she said a little doubtfully. Why did she have the feeling he was hiding something from her? She looked up at him. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Leo?"
"Why would I do that?" He raised an eyebrow, his voice slightly sardonic.
Cordelia shrugged. "I don't know. But she still wasn't satisfied.
Leo resumed the stroll. He had been racking his brains for a way to ensure that Cordelia and the children didn't attend the play the following afternoon. The children must never ever gain so much as a hint of what their father had done to their mother, and he couldn't risk Cordelia's presence. One impulsive move when she understood what he was doing could reveal their liaison and totally discredit his challenge to her husband. Once the challenge was issued, the arrangements for the duel in place, then she and the children must start for England with Christian's escort… just in case anything went wrong…
But it wouldn't. Desperate determination sent a grim jolt to his belly.
Cordelia took her hand from his arm. "You are lying to me," she accused, barely raising her voice above a whisper
. "I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes."
He shook his head. "You're tired, Cordelia. You had little if any sleep last night and it's been a long and emotional day."
All of which was perfectly true. And yet she knew she was right. "If you don't trust me, there's nothing I can do about it." Hurt glistened in her eyes. "I'll do as you ask because I happen to trust you. I'll bid you good night, my lord." She curtsied and walked away.
Leo swore under his breath, wondering if he could have handled that any better than he had. Cordelia was so damnably intuitive.
A great wave of weariness washed over Cordelia as she walked away from Leo. Weariness, disappointment, and now loneliness. She wanted Mathilde with a piercing, tormenting need. She wanted to go to bed and have Mathilde bring her hot milk, and put a cool, lavender-soaked cloth on her forehead, and tuck her in, and tell her everything was going to be all right.
Instead there was only Elsie. Well-meaning but clumsy, who didn't know how to brush Cordelia's hair with the soothing strokes that took all the tension from her scalp;
who didn't have the clever fingers that unknotted the tight muscles in her shoulders and neck.
Oh, she was being childish! Cordelia took herself roundly to task. Leo was right. She'd had no sleep the previous night and the day had been overloaded with emotional tensions. She would go to bed and sleep off this presentiment of doom, this ridiculous sense of injury. Of course he hadn't been lying to her. Why would he do that? She was imagining things because she was exhausted and overwrought.
With sudden decision she turned aside toward the staircase leading away from the state apartments. At least tonight she was safe from Michael, and poor little Elsie did her best.
She greeted the girl with a determined smile as she entered her bedchamber and fell back onto the sofa. "Help me with my shoes, Elsie dear. I can barely move a muscle."
"La, madame! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" Elsie rushed over solicitously and, despite much fumbling and self-recrimination, finally managed to ease her mistress out of her heavy court dress, unlace her corsets, and help her into her nightgown. "Shall I brush your hair, madame?"