by Jane Feather
Mathilde was waiting impatiently. "You have but a half hour before the viscount comes to escort you to dinner," she scolded. "He sent a messenger an hour ago, saying that you were to be ready by eight o'clock, and here it is already half past seven."
Cordelia's heart did an involuntary little skip at the thought that she would soon be in Leo's company again. "Her Highness needed me." She drew off her gloves, tossing them onto a chair. "Oh, I don't wish to wear that gown, Mathilde, it makes me look sallow." She gestured disdainfully to the gown of dull yellow taffeta lying ready on the bed.
"What nonsense. You've never looked sallow in your life," Mathilde declared. "The gown is well suited for dining in a monastery. It shows less of your bosom than some others."
"But I don't wish to show less of my bosom," Cordelia said, flinging open the door to the armoire. "It may be a monastery, Mathilde, but everyone will be wearing their finest raiment and I shall look a positive dowd in that."
Mathilde tutted. She was a very devout woman, and half-naked women gamboling around a monastery deeply offended her. But while her influence on Cordelia was both maternal and extensive, it didn't encompass choice of dress. Cordelia always had her own idea of what was right for her and for the occasion.
"Well, hurry up, then," Mathilde said, gathering up the despised dress. "I'll not be blamed by the viscount for your being late."
"Of course he wouldn't blame you." Cordelia selected a scarlet silk gown and pranced over to the cheval glass, holding it up against her. "He already knows that tardiness is my besetting sin." She tilted her head, examining her reflection. "I think I will wear this tonight."
"Scarlet in a monastery!" exclaimed Mathilde, scandalized, unhooking Cordelia's traveling dress.
"Oh, you are a prude." Cordelia swiveled to kiss her on both cheeks. "Besides, cardinals wear red, don't they? It's a very suitable color." She stepped out of the unhooked dress as it rustled to her feet. "Have I time to wash? I feel so dusty from the journey." She darted across to the washstand, dipped a washcloth in the ewer, and scrubbed her face vigorously, before sponging her bosom and raising her arms to wash beneath them.
"Maybe they do. But it's not decent to go about a monastery with your bosom uncovered." Mathilde, still grumbling, dampened a handkerchief with lavender water. "Such a harum-scarum creature you are. Sit down and let me do your hair." She pushed her down onto the dresser stool, giving her the lavender handkerchief.
Cordelia dabbed the lavender between her breasts, under her arms, behind her ears. "That's better. I swear I was reeking like a stable hand."
"Keep still, will you!" Mathilde pulled the brush through tangled ringlets before deftly twisting the gleaming mass into a chignon at the nape of Cordelia's neck. She loosened the side ringlets so that they framed her face, and fixed a pearl comb in the chignon. She examined her handiwork in the mirror, frowning. Then she nodded in silence and went to fetch the scarlet gown.
Her expression as she hooked Cordelia into the garment was so disapproving that Cordelia almost gave in. But she knew the scarlet suited her complexion as well as it suited her present mood. She was feeling dangerous, fizzing with anticipation, her blood flowing swift and hot in her veins. She told herself it was the sense of freedom, of release from the prison of rigidity that had been the Austrian court. It was the sense of her life opening up before her, of the golden glories of Versailles that awaited her.
The sharp rap at the door brought her swinging to face it as Mathilde hurried to open it, and she knew as her breath caught in anticipation that it was Leo Beaumont who did this to her. It was love-ungovernable, unbidden, incomprehensible, invincible.
Leo stood in the open doorway. He saw before him a radiant creature, all scarlet and black, with eyes as lustrous as sapphires, a warm red mouth slightly parted over even white teeth, the small, well-shaped head atop a long slender neck. The rich swell of her bosom rose invitingly above her decolletage. Her waist was so small he could span it with his hands. He had seen her so many times in the last days, but he felt now as if he were seeing her for the first time. She seemed surrounded by an aura of danger and temptation. The air around her was electric, charged with passion; he could almost hear it crackle. Anyone touched by that charge would surely burn, he thought with a chill of foreboding.
"I am ready on time, you see, my lord." Cordelia curtsied, seeking to mask the depth of her feelings in a light teasing tone. "Mathilde is very disapproving of my gown. She says scarlet is too bold a color to be worn in a house of God. But as I pointed out, cardinals wear red hats. Do you have an opinion on the subject, sir?" She rose slowly, with a coquettish tilt of her head.
"I doubt your gown will draw undue remark, since alleyes will be turned upon the dauphine and the emperor," he said dampeningly. "If you're quite ready, let us go down." He stepped aside so that she could precede him into the corridor.
"How ungallant of you," Cordelia murmured as she glided past. "I could almost be hurt at such a snub."
"But of course you aren't," he commented dryly.
She looked sideways at him. "Not in the least, my lord, since the only eyes I'm interested in are yours. I couldn't care less if I'm invisible to everyone else."
Leo drew a sharp whistling breath through his teeth. "You will stop this nonsense, Cordelia. I warn you that I begin to lose patience."
"I won the wager," she said, giving him a serene smile, taking his arm. "Now, don't look daggers at me or people will wonder what's amiss between such a newly married couple."
He had no time to respond as he would have liked because they had reached the great hall of the monastery, where those guests of sufficient importance were already assembled to dine at the abbot's table.
Toinette was pale but composed as she sat between her brother and the abbot. Princess von Sachsen and her escort were seated immediately below the royal couple, and Leo was obliged to grit his teeth and dwell silently on ways to put an end to his charge's incorrigible flirtation. Throughout the interminable meal, Cordelia's sunny smile never wavered, her conversation was never less than entertaining, and it was clear to the exasperated Leo that she was dazzling everyone by the sheer force of her personality. Even the abbot succumbed and was patting her hand toward the end of the meal and laughing heartily at her sallies.
Cordelia was exerting herself for Toinette, who she knew would be unable to hold her own in the conversation. The dauphine's pallor and silence went unnoticed under her friend's scintillating chatter.
"Now we shall have music," the abbot announced genially, as the second course was removed. "It aids the digestion, I find."
; Cordelia craned her neck to look from the dais where the royal party dined down into the main body of the hall. She hadn't seen Christian when they'd first taken their seats, but now she found him sitting at one of the far tables. He looked up immediately as if he felt her gaze, and raised his glass in a salute. He looked a little lost, she thought. He'd been apprenticed to Poligny at the age of ten and had spent all the intervening years at Maria Theresa's court. Now, like herself and Toinette, he was venturing into an unknown future in a foreign land. But unlike the girls, he had no path mapped out for him.
She glanced sideways at Leo. If she didn't have a path mapped out for her, how much simpler this tangle of feelings would be to unravel.
A Gregorian chant rose from the rear of the hall, and the table fell into appreciative silence as the exquisite plainsong filled the vast space, rising to the high rafters. The music continued until the abbot invited his guests to attend chapel for benediction.
"I thought you didn't practice our religion," Cordelia observed, kneeling on the hard stone, her skirts billowing out around her. Her knees were accustomed to the discomfort, cushions being reserved at court only for the empress and the aged of the highest aristocracy.
"When in Rome," he responded calmly, kneeling at his pew.
"I love you," she whispered. She hadn't meant to say any such thing, but he was so close to her that she could smell the faint lingering perfume of dried lavender and rosemary that had been stored with his linen. The air around her was imbued with his presence, so powerful that for a moment she lost all sense of her surroundings.
Leo prayed for inspiration. How was he ever going to resist her? He was aware of the blue fire in her eyes as she gazed at him from behind a hand that shielded her face, hiding her unprayerful countenance from the rest of the congregation. He was aware of the curve of her white neck, the little ear peeking between glossy ringlets, the swift rise and fall of her breasts. He reminded himself that she was another man's wife, but that fact hardly seemed real in the present circumstances.
When the service was over, the weary travelers were free to seek their beds.
Toinette summoned Cordelia to accompany her. "I know you're tired, Cordelia, but will you sit with me until I'm in bed? I feel so miserable still."
It was a royal command couched as a friend's plea for comfort. Something else Cordelia had grown accustomed to over the years.
Leo made his way to his own apartment. His servant was waiting to undress him, but he sent him away to his bed after the man had poured him a generous cognac and removed his shoes and coat. A fire had been lit in the grate. The late April evenings were still cool, and the stone walls of the monastery retained a chill even in high summer.
Leo sat down beside the fire in his stockinged feet and shirtsleeves and drew a small table with an inlaid chessboard toward him. Frowning, he began to rearrange the pieces in a problem that had eluded him for a week. It would take his mind off his heated blood. He might not be able to untangle the confusion in his brain, but the pure, simple clarity of the chess pieces and the clean lines of a chess problem could be managed.
Cordelia sat with Toinette until the dauphine fell asleep, then, yawning deeply, she made her way to her own chamber. Mathilde was dozing by the fire and rose sleepily to her feet when Cordelia came in.
"Just unhook and unlace me, Mathilde, and I'll manage the rest myself," Cordelia said through another deep yawn. "You need your own bed." She rubbed her eyes, then began to unpin her hair while Mathilde unhooked her gown. "I'm going to ride on tomorrow's journey. Is my habit unpacked?"
"I'll see to it in the morning." Mathilde shook out the scarlet dress and hung it up in the armoire. "We'll be making an early start, I gather." She unlaced Cordelia's corset and untied the tapes of her panniers. Cordelia kicked off her shoes, rolled down her garters and stockings, and plumped onto the bed with a groan.
"Go to bed, Mathilde. I can manage now."
"Well, if you're sure." Mathilde didn't waste time in protest. "I'll wake you in plenty of time in the morning." She bent to kiss her nursling and bustled out to her own bed in the servants' quarters.
Cordelia fell back on the bed in her thin linen shift and gazed up at the embroidered tester overhead, almost too tired to get under the covers. The fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and her eyelids drooped. She came to with a jerk, her heart pounding. Sitting up, she looked around the candlelit chamber for what had startled her.
A mouse scurried across the floor, disappearing into a hole in the wainscot.
She got off the bed and went to the dresser to brush her hair, knowing that if she slept on it unbrushed it would be a hopeless tangle in the morning. The silence of the room was broken only by the hiss and spit of the fire and the gentle ticking of the clock on the mantel. Cordelia realized that she was restless, almost too tired to sleep. Her mind was racing, filled with questions and speculation about the life that awaited her. What kind of man was her husband? What of his children? Were they looking forward to her arrival? Or dreading it?
She couldn't stop the tumbling thoughts or control her growing apprehension. She told herself it was because it was late and she was tired. If she could sleep, she would be her usual cheerful self in the morning, ready and eager to face whatever the day might bring. But for some reason, all desire to sleep had left her.
She moved restlessly around the room. One wall was lined with bookshelves. At first glance they looked to contain no volumes that might soothe a troubled soul. All very academic titles, mostly Latin and Greek. Obviously, the monks expected their guests to be of a scholarly turn of mind. Her hand drifted along the spines and alighted on a volume of Catullus's poems. Lighter fare than Livy or Pliny.
Cordelia pulled the slender volume from the shelf. She leaned against the bookshelves, idly leafing through the pages. And the wall began to move at her back. As she leaned against it, it creaked and groaned and swung inward. It was the strangest sensation and it all happened so fast Cordelia had no time to react. The section of shelving turned inward, and Cordelia found herself on the other side in a strange chamber, staring backward at the hole in the wall.
Leo looked up from the chessboard at the creaking groan from the wall of bookshelves at his back. He turned and stared, his mouth dropping open. Cordelia, barefoot, in a thin linen shift, stood in his room, gazing up at the gaping shelves with astonishment.
"How… how… how did that happen?" She spun round, relatively unsurprised at seeing him. It would take a lot to beat the astonishment of the last minutes. "Oh, Leo. I didn't realize you were next door. Look!" She pointed back at the wall again. "It… it just opened. I was leaning against it and abracada
bra! I was only looking for something to read." She brandished the Catullus as if she needed proof of her statement.
Leo was recovering slowly from his own astonishment. His first reaction was that Cordelia had deliberately engineered this little trick, but her amazement was clearly genuine and he couldn't see how she could have known in advance about the mechanism. "Go back to your own chamber and I'll try to close it from this side."
"Oh, how tame!" She stepped farther into his room, fulfilling his every fear. "Why do you think it's here? Isn't it intriguing?" Her hair was cascading around her shoulders in a blue-black river, ringlets framing her face, her eyes gray now, glowing like charcoal braziers in the firelight. "What was it for, do you think?"
"Presumably, it suited someone to have secret access to the next door chamber," he answered, trying to sound cool and in control. "Now go back to bed."
"Do you think it was for assignations?" Her eyes gleamed wickedly, but he didn't think she was playing her usual flirtatious games; she seemed genuinely fascinated by the situation. "In a monastery. How shocking." She turned to look back at the hole in the bookshelves again. "But I suppose these are the guest apartments. But what was some monkish architect doing designing such a thing?" Laughter bubbled in her voice. "Maybe monks have their secrets too."
"I'm sure they do. Now, will you go back the way you came, please."
"I can't sleep. I'm all excited and apprehensive and wrought up," she said cheerfully. "And you're not sleepy if you're playing chess. Are you doing problems? I like doing them too. But since there are two of us awake, shall we have a game?" She bent over the chessboard and without further ado swept aside the pieces of his problem and began to set the board up for a game.