by Jane Feather
He hadn't mentioned these plans to their uncle as yet. But then, it wasn't really Leo's business, although he'd probably consider that it was. He was as devoted to the children as he had been to their mother. Her death had devastated him. He'd journeyed from Rome to Paris in less than a week when the news had reached him, and immediately after the funeral had left France for a twelvemonth. He would say nothing about what he'd done or where he'd been during that year of grief.
Michael took another sip of cognac. Leo's besotted attention to Elvira's children was a small price to pay for his continuing friendship. His brother-in-law was a very useful friend. He knew everyone at court, knew exactly which path of influence would be the quickest to achieve any particular goal, and he was a born diplomat. He was an amusing companion, a witty conversationalist, a superb card player, passionate huntsman, bruising rider.
And the perfect choice to take care of his friend's wedding details. Michael smiled to himself, remembering how delighted Leo had been at the prospect of the prince's remarriage. Not an ounce of resentment that his sister was to be replaced, just simple pleasure in the prospect of the twins having a mother, and an end to his friend's marital loneliness.
Yes, Leo Beaumont was a very splendid man… if a trifle gullible.
"Oh, Cordelia, I am so fatigued!" Toinette threw herself onto a chaise with a sigh. "I am so bored with listening to speeches, standing there like a dummy while they rattle on and on about protocol and precedent. And why do I have to play this silly game this afternoon?"
She leaped up again with an energy belying her complaint of fatigue. "Why do I have to announce in front of everyone that I renounce all claim to the throne of Austria? Isn't it obvious that I do? Besides, there's Joseph and Leopold and Ferdinand and Maximilian all in line before me."
Cordelia bit into a particularly juicy pear. "If you think this is tedious, Toinette, just wait until you get to France. The real wedding will be twice as pompous as all this palaver." She slurped at the juice before it could run down her chin.
"You're a great comfort," Toinette said gloomily, flopping down again. "It's all right for you, no one's taking any notice of your wedding."
"Yes, how very fortunate I am," Cordelia said dryly. "To be married in the shadow of the archduchess Maria Antonia and Louis-Auguste, dauphin of France."
"Oh!" Toinette sat up. "Are you unhappy that your wedding is to be so quiet? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It must be terrible to have no one taking any notice of you at such an important time."
Cordelia laughed. "No, it's not in the least terrible. I was only pointing out the other side of the coin. In fact, there's nothing I would like less than to be the center of attention." She tossed the core of her pear onto a silver salver and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Oh, you have the bracelet back from the jeweler." Toinette caught the flash of gold in a ray of sunlight.
"Yes, and it's most strange." Cordelia, frowning, unclasped the bracelet from her wrist. "I didn't notice its design when I first looked at it, but it's a serpent with an apple in its mouth. Look." She held it out to the archduchess.
Toinette took it, holding it almost gingerly in the palm of her hand. "It's beautiful, but it's… it's… oh, what's the word?"
"Sinister?" Cordelia supplied. "Repellent?"
Toinette shivered, and touched the elongated serpent's head where a pearl apple nestled in its mouth. "It is a bit, isn't it? It's very old, I should think." She handed it back with another little shiver.
"Medieval, the jeweler said. He was most impressed with it… said he'd never seen anything like it except in an illustration in a thirteenth-century psalter. Don't you think it's strange if it's that old that it should only have these three charms on it? In fact, really only two if you don't count the slipper, which is mine."
"Perhaps the others got lost somewhere along the line."
"Mmm." Cordelia fingered the delicate filigree of a silver rose, its center a deep-red ruby. Beside it hung a tiny emerald swan, perfect in every detail. "I wonder who they belonged to. Where they came from," she mused.
"I expect it's very valuable."
"Yes," Cordelia agreed, clasping it once again around her wrist. "Part of me doesn't like wearing it and part of me does. It has a kind of ghoulish fascination, but I do love the slipper. Makes me think of Cinderella going to the ball."
She chuckled at her friend's incredulous expression. "Oh, I know I'm not a beggar maid rescued by a prince, but we are going to Versailles, which everyone says is a fairy-tale palace, and we're escaping from all this prim protocol, and my uncle will never again be able to bully me. We can dance our lives away if we want, and never again have to sweep the ashes in the kitchen… Oh, lord, is that the time?" She started, exclaiming with a mortified cry, "Why am I always late?" as the chapel clock struck noon, the gong resounding through the courtyard beyond the window.
"Because you think it's fashionable," Toinette replied with a knowing chuckle. "What are you late for this time?"
"I was supposed to be in the chapel at quarter to twelve to rehearse my own proxy marriage with the chaplain. And I didn't mean to be late. It was the bracelet that delayed me." Cordelia grabbed another pear from the fruit bowl and headed for the door. "I don't suppose it'll matter. Father Felix never expects me to be on time."
"Your husband might," the archduchess commented, checking her reflection in a silver-backed hand mirror.
Cordelia grinned. "My proxy husband or the real one?"
"Prince Michael, of course. The viscount is just a puppet."
"Oh, I don't think that's the case," Cordelia said consideringly. "Leo Beaumont's no puppet. Anyway, I'm sure he's not expected to rehearse too." She blew Toinette a jaunty kiss as she left.
She had seen the viscount only from a distance since the encounter in the orangery two nights earlier. Strangely, she'd enjoyed the distance. She'd hugged the thought of him as a deep and joyful secret, treasuring his image, which had filled her nighttime dreams and her waking internal vision. But she'd been only half awake as she'd watched him from afar, dwelling on this extraordinary, all-encompassing, totally engulfing love that had felled her like a bolt of lightning, made her so hot with desire she could have been in the grip of a fever.
Now she was ready again for the man of flesh and blood. Her body sang at the thought of being close to him, of feeling his heat, inhaling his scent. Her ears longed to hear his voice, her eyes to feast upon his countenance. This afternoon, at the renunciation ceremony, he would be beside her, in Prince Michael's place.
She pushed open the door to the chapel and en
tered the dim, incense-fragrant interior. "I do beg your pardon for being late, Father." She became aware of Leo Beaumont's presence even before she saw him pacing restlessly before the altar. Her heart jumped into her throat. "I ask your pardon, sir. I didn't realize you were to be rehearsing too."
"I understand from Father Felix that you've never been taught that punctuality is the courtesy of kings," Leo said acidly.
"Oh, indeed, I know it's impolite." She came swiftly toward him, her eyes glowing in her radiant face. "But I was talking with Toinette. My bracelet has come back from the jeweler and we were admiring it and the time just went somewhere." She held out her hand to him, her fingers closing over his.
Deliberately, he pulled his fingers free and instead picked up her wrist, holding it to the light from the rose window above the altar. As always, the bracelet's curious design disturbed him. The serpent that tempted and ultimately destroyed Eve. Sometimes he had thought Elvira had been the embodiment of Eve and that Michael had picked his gift with pointed care. He noticed that the jade heart was now missing. It had been the charm Michael had given to Elvira. Presumably, he'd thought it more tactful to remove it before passing on the gift to Elvira's replacement.
He became suddenly conscious of Cordelia's pulse racing beneath his fingers as they circled her wrist. Her skin was hot. He looked into her face, and she smiled with such seductive radiance, her eyes so full of joyous excitement, that he dropped her wrist as if it were a burning brand. For an instant he closed his eyes against the blazing force of her invitation.
"Well, now you're here, let's be done with this business. I've other things to do with my time." He turned brusquely to the altar. "Father, if you're ready."
The chaplain came forward with an eager assent. "It won't take long, my lord. Just to make sure that you're both familiar with the ceremony and the blessing of the rings."
Cordelia stepped up beside Leo. Her skirts brushed his thigh. She tilted her head to look up at him. "Don't be vexed, my lord. I'm truly sorry to have kept you waiting."
"It's not necessary to stand so close to me," he snapped in an undertone, taking a step sideways.
Cordelia looked hurt.
"I beg your pardon, my lord. Is something the matter?" The chaplain looked up from his prayer book, where he was searching for the relevant passages.
"No." Leo shook his head with a sigh. "Nothing in the world, Father." He stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the pulsing presence beside him. How on earth was he going to manage her on the long journey to Paris? Or did he mean, how on earth was he going to keep his hands off her?
The ceremony was short, and Father Felix was only too happy to race through it when he realized the viscount's impatience and Lady Cordelia's restless distraction. He closed the book with relief after ten minutes. "That's really all there is to it. The blessing of the rings will take five minutes, and, of course, there'll be an address to the congregation. You will make your confession before the service, Lady Cordelia, so that you will be in a state of grace when you make your vows."
"And His Lordship too?"
"As this is a marriage by procuration, my lady, Viscount Kierston does not have the same obligations."
"Quite apart from the fact that I don't practice your faith," Leo stated. "Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have some business to attend to."
Father Felix offered a blessing and disappeared into the sacristy.
"Oh, no, wait!" Cordelia gathered up her skirts and ran to catch up with the viscount as he strode out of the chapel. "Don't go yet." She slipped her hand into his arm, pulling him aside into a small side chapel. "What a relief it must be not to have to go to confession." She took a bite of the pear she'd been holding in her hand throughout the rehearsal. "I tend to be rather forgetful when it comes to remembering my sins."
Her chuckle was so infectious that Leo couldn't help a responding smile. "Selective memory has its uses." He couldn't drag his eyes away from her little white teeth biting into the succulent flesh of the pear.
"I was wondering if loving could be considered a sin," Cordelia mumbled through another mouthful of pear. "I don't know why it should have happened that I love you the way I do, but it's a fact, and I don't really believe that God would frown upon it."
"Oh, in the name of mercy, Cordelia!" Leo jerked his arm free. "You don't know what you're talking about." He glared down at her. "And you've got pear juice running all down your chin."
"But I do know what I'm talking about," Cordelia protested firmly, searching through her pockets. "Oh dear, I seem to have mislaid my handkerchief. They're such juicy pears, you see."
With a muttered exclamation, Leo pulled out his own handkerchief and scrubbed at her chin. "You have to stop this fanciful nonsense, Cordelia. Do you hear me?" He thrust his handkerchief back into his pocket.
"I hear you. But I don't consider it to be nonsense." She gave him a serene smile. "Tomorrow night, in the Hofburg chapel, you will be my husband."
"Proxy!" he cried, flinging up his hands in frustration. "Proxy husband!"
"Yes, well, that's just a detail." She looked around for somewhere to dispose of her pear core, then with a shrug shoved it into her pocket. "Don't you see, Leo? This is meant to be. I know it in my blood. There are some obstacles, I know, but nothing we can't overcome."
"Are you run quite mad?" He looked at her helplessly.
She shook her head. "No. Kiss me and you'll see what I mean."
"Oh no." He backed away from her, holding up his hands as if to ward her off. She was Eve, and the serpent bracelet gleamed on her slender wrist as she reached for his hand.
"Kiss me," she repeated, her voice low and sweet, her eyes beckoning him with a siren's enchantment, her parted lips offering entrance to the lush secrets of her body. Her hand closed over his and she stepped up to him. Light from the stained-glass window played over her upturned face, and a bar of gold lay across her milk white throat. "Kiss me, Leo."
He caught her face between both his hands. The urge to bring his mouth to hers was overwhelming. His lips seemed to sing with the memory of the times he had kissed her, and she was looking up at him with all the expectant wonder of sensual awakening. He could feel his fingers deeply imprinting the soft skin of her cheeks. There was a demon here, in her or in himself, he didn't know, but somehow it must be exorcised. He looked down at her, his eyes seeming to pierce the shell of her body to the soul beneath.
Abruptly, his hands dropped from her face. He turned and strode from the chapel, and the door clanged shut behind him.
Cordelia bit her lip on her disappointment. She felt empty, as if she'd been promised something that had been incomprehensibly withdrawn. And yet she was certain that he did feel
what she felt-that they were somehow bound to each other. It wasn't a certainty that she could imagine either ignoring or questioning.
Chapter Four
Leo was bored, but no one would guess it from his smiling attention, his easy conversation, his diplomatic appearance of pleasure in the evening. He disliked costume balls more than anything, and in Paris or London he would have appeared in his regular dress, maybe carrying a loo mask as token contribution to the festivities. But in Vienna he was a foreign guest, a member of a delegation, and it would be discourteous to spurn his hostess's entertainment. So now he was clad as a Roman senator in a purple-edged toga, but as if to emphasize his dislike of the entertainment, his loo mask dangled negligently from one finger.
He shifted from one foot to the other and watched the clock. At midnight everyone would be unmasked, and if he slipped away a little beforehand, he could return dressed as himself without drawing comment.