by Jane Feather
Cordelia swung her legs off the bed and stood up, just as the maid reappeared with the coffee. "Oh, lovely. Thank you. I can't tell you how I long for coffee. Thank you for taking the trouble." She smiled at the maid with such warmth that the girl beamed and curtsied before filling a cup and handing it to the naked princess.
"No trouble at all, Your Highness." Still beaming, she backed out of the chamber.
"I really wouldn't have thought it of the viscount," Mathilde muttered. "If I didn't know how you always get your way, I'd not understand it at all. He seems such an honorable man."
"But he is an honorable man." Cordelia came quickly to Leo's defense. She took a deep revivifying gulp of coffee. "And I really didn't try to make it happen, it just did. And he made it stop, even though it must have been difficult for him."
"Aye, that it must," Mathilde said grimly. The thought gave her some satisfaction as she laced her charge a little more tightly than usual.
Cordelia endured without a murmur of protest. When Mathilde was this upset, it was best to let her get it out of her system. Involuntarily, she glanced at the bookshelves. Could she make them open again? She didn't know exactly how it had happened last night. Was there a knob she'd accidentally pushed, or a switch? Or did one just lean against the books at a certain spot? Not that she'd ever find out. They'd be long gone from this place in an hour.
"There, you'll do." Mathilde twitched Cordelia's starched stock into place at her neck. "Hurry away now." She waved her hands at her, shooing her from the room. Cordelia couldn't decide whether her nurse was vexed as well as concerned.
Deeply thoughtful, she stepped into the corridor just as Leo, in riding dress, emerged from the next-door chamber. "Good morning." She felt strangely shy. She curtsied, her eyes lowered.
"Good morning." His expression was somber, his eyes lightless, his mouth taut. He gestured curtly that she should precede him down the staircase to the hall.
Cordelia, most unusually, was tongue-tied. Throughout the ceremonial breakfast, her eyes kept drifting to his hands and she would remember where they had been on her body
and a surge of glorious memory would flood her with warmth. It was a relief to concentrate on the ceremonies as the dauphine took farewell of her brother Joseph, who would now return to Vienna, leaving his little sister to journey without family to Strasbourg, where she would be formally received into France.
Toinette was less emotional at taking leave of her brother than she had been of her mother, but it was still a solemn moment when the emperor escorted his sister to her carriage for the last time.
"I see you intend to ride today, my lord." Cordelia gestured toward Leo's riding dress, speaking to him for the first time since she'd greeted him on the stairs. It was supposed to be a neutral comment, but her voice sounded strangely intense to her ears in the monastery's busy, noisy courtyard.
"Yes," he said shortly. "We will ride behind the cavalry and to the side of the coaches." He surveyed the scene, frowning, looking for his groom with their horses.
"What made you change your mind?" Cordelia ventured. "You said yesterday that you would travel in the peace and quiet of the carriage if I was riding."
His brow darkened. "You're in my charge, Princess. Much as I might lament it, I'm responsible for you. If you're going to make anyone's life a misery, it had better be mine rather than some poor groom's."
He ordered his groom to help Cordelia to mount.
Cordelia cast Leo a covert sidelong look. His face was drawn, dark shadows beneath his eyes. He looked as if he hadn't slept a wink-a man haunted by conscience. She thought remorsefully of her own deep and dreamless sleep untroubled by guilt.
Leo mounted his own horse, waiting until Cordelia was settled in the saddle, the girths tightened, stirrups adjusted. Her Lippizaner mare was a beautiful animal, and he assumed that like the Hapsburgs with whom she'd grown up, she was an accomplished horsewoman, so he wouldn't need to worry about her safety on such a prime beast. But he also guessed from what he knew of her that Cordelia would chafe at the necessity of keeping her place in the procession.
"We will keep to a walk," he stated. "We cannot overtake the dauphine's carriage without offending protocol, so I'm afraid it will be dull riding."
"But we could leave the procession," Cordelia suggested. "Branch off across the fields and rejoin it later."
"That kind of suggestion is why I wouldn't entrust you to a groom," he said grimly.
Cordelia closed her lips tightly, gathered up the reins, and fell in beside him. The procession wound its way along the banks of the Danube as the sun grew stronger, burning off the early morning mists. Leo said not a word, and finally Cordelia could bear it no longer.
"Please talk to me, Leo. I feel as if I'm in disgrace, but I can't see why I should be."
He said gravely, "You don't seem to understand, Cordelia. What happened last night was unforgivable. I lost control."
"You feel you have betrayed your friend and my husband," she ventured.
Leo didn't answer. It wasn't as simple as that. He also felt he had betrayed Cordelia. She was in his trust and he'd betrayed that trust.
"I don't know anything about this man, my husband," Cordelia said into the silence. "It doesn't feel like a betrayal when I don't even know him, but I do know that I love you."
She looped the reins and then let them run through her fingers. The mare raised her head and high-stepped delicately. "I've been thinking," she said hesitantly while Leo was still trying to gather his forces in the face of her calm declaration. "While I accept that I'm married to Prince Michael, I don't see why I can't still be your mistress.
"It's perfectly acceptable in French society, I'm told," she rushed on as he exhaled sharply and seemed ready to break in. "If two people are in love but are forced to marry their family's choice, it's understood that society will turn a blind eye if they pursue a liaison discreetly. Even the king says so."
"And just who told you that?" he inquired, finding his voice at last.
"A cousin of Toinette's. He said that husbands say to their wives, "I allow you to do as you please, but I draw the line at princes of the blood and footmen." She glanced interrogatively at him. "Is that true?"
"What's true for some is not necessarily true for all," he pointed out dryly.
"But it is the court attitude, though. I mean, the king has had mistresses who were closer to him and more influential than the queen. Madame de Pompadour was the most important woman at the court for over twenty years. And isn't that true of Madame du Barry now? And I know all about the Pare aux Cerfs, where the king keeps his prostitutes," she added with the air of one delivering the coup de grace. "It's all true, isn't it?
"
"Yes," he agreed, unable to refute any of what she'd said. Cordelia was rather better informed than he'd expected of one reared in the strict moral atmosphere of the Austrian court.
"Then there shouldn't be any difficulty. I could be your mistress and my husband's wife." She gazed at him from her great blue eyes, a picture of earnest sincerity.
"My dear girl, you seem to expect Versailles to be some magical place where the usual rules don't apply, and all you need do is wave your wand to make whatever you wish come true." He sounded as impatient as he felt. "Even supposing such a fairy story were the case, and I do assure you it isn't, does it occur to you that I may not wish for a mistress?"
"Oh." It hadn't occurred to Cordelia. "Do you already have one?"
"That is beside the point," he said frigidly, wondering with a degree of desperation why he couldn't seize hold of this ridiculous conversation and break it off.
"I don't think it is at all. If you do have one already, it would be difficult, because one wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings unduly."
"Cordelia, I have not the slightest interest in taking you as my mistress. Neither interest nor inclination," he stated baldly, staring fixedly at the clouds of dust created by the cavalry on the road ahead.
"Oh," she said again. She swallowed uncomfortably. "Don't you care for me, then?"
He refused to look at her. "I care more for other things," he said resolutely. "I took advantage of your innocence last night, Cordelia, for which I beg your pardon. I can only assume I dipped too deep in the cognac. It will never happen again."
"But I would like it to happen again," she said simply. "I don't mean to sound bold or… or wanton, although I suppose I am being. But Mathilde said that very few men know how to give pleasure as well as take it, and it seems that when one finds such a rarity then one should work to hold on to it."
"Who the hell is Mathilde?" It was all he could find to say in response to that curiously artless yet appallingly knowing speech.
"My nurse… or at least she was my wet nurse and she's looked after me since my mother died. She was my mother's maid and I think they were about the same age. Mathilde knows everything about anything and she's amazingly wise."
"You confided in her?" Leo pushed a finger inside his stock, loosening the starched linen. He seemed very hot suddenly.
"I needed to understand what happened. I wasn't sure you would tell me if I asked you."
"I will tell you precisely what happened." He spoke with a cold finality. "I allowed a situation to develop in which I lost control. Fortunately, I came to my senses in time to prevent the worst happening. You will now forget everything about last night. You will stop talking nonsense about love and liaisons. You will treat me from now on with a scrupulous distance as I will treat you. Do you hear me, Cordelia?" She nodded. "I hear you."
"Then don't forget it." He nudged his horse's flanks and the animal broke into a trot, drawing ahead of Cordelia.
She knew not to catch up with him as he rode a few lengths ahead of her. A few days ago, she would have allowed her impulse free rein and cantered up beside him, but she was learning things these days that had no place in the schoolrooms of her past life. She would not be downcast, Cordelia told herself fiercely. She would cultivate patience, a vastly underrated virtue, she was sure.
The day's journey was as tedious as the previous day's despite the freedom of horseback. In fact, Cordelia decided it was more tedious, since she was obliged to ride in silence, her eyes fixed upon Viscount Kierston's straight back ahead of her. She'd hoped he would be a little more friendly when they stopped for refreshment, but Toinette demanded her friend's company at the al fresco luncheon on the banks of the river. Leo, having seen her safely ensconced at the dauphine's side beneath the trees, surrounded by the fawning burghers of the local township, went off on his own, and Cordelia looked for him in vain.
Leo strolled down the procession of carriages, horses, pack mules, and wagons. He was distracted, his mind in a ferment, and at first he didn't hear the woman's voice behind him. On the second "My lord, a word with you, I pray," he glanced over his shoulder.
A tall angular woman with sparse gray hair tucked up beneath a starched cap dropped a curtsy, but there was nothing subservient about her manner. She met his eye with a quiet dignity and an indefinable challenge.
"Mathilde, sir," she said when he looked puzzled.
"Oh, yes, of course." He ran a hand over his chin. Cordelia's nurse-the woman who knew what had happened the previous evening. He could detect no judgment in her frank gaze, however. He was not accustomed to concerning himself about the opinions of servants, but he thought with a flash of puzzling discomfort that he wouldn't wish to be on the wrong side of Mistress Mathilde.
"I wished to discuss Cordelia with you," she said.
There seemed no point pretending to misunderstand her. He gestured that she should accompany him along the bank to where it was quieter. "I understand Princess von Sachsen confided in you the unfortunate events of last night," he began stiffly.
"I know most things that go on with my babe, my lord." "So I understand."
"You should know, my lord, that the girl's like her mother. When she loves, she loves hard. And when she loves, she loves for all time."
"I don't know what you're saying, woman!" Leo exclaimed softly. "She's married to Prince Michael."
"Aye, married to him, but she loves you, sir."
"Are you as mad as Cordelia?" Leo swished at a bramble bush with his riding switch. "Whatever she feels, the facts cannot be altered to suit her own desires."
Mathilde nodded wisely. "I told her that, my lord. But she's not always inclined to take notice of what doesn't suit her."
"And I suppose my feelings in the matter are also an irrelevancy," he declared, with a sharply indrawn breath.
"You'd not foster this foolishness, then?"
"No, of course I wouldn't. I'm not a headstrong, spoiled brat."
"Then you'd best manage yourself around her, my lord. Because I doubt the lady will keep away from you," she said bluntly.
Leo found that he didn't resent the woman's advice or her blunt manner. She spoke but the simple truth. He had much more experience, much more sophistication, a much stronger will than sixteen-year-old Cordelia. It was for him to manage them both. Fleetingly, it occurred to him that in her absence the goal seemed much easier to accomplish than in her presence. "I would not harm her, Mathilde."
She looked at him for a long moment, then said, "No… no, I believe you wouldn't, sir. But that's to the good, because anyone who does harm to my babe does harm to me." The seemingly benign peasant woman had somehow disappeared, in her p
lace a strangely menacing presence with the blackest eyes that were full of an ancient knowledge and a great threat.
Witchcraft sprang to Leo's mind. This was no ordinary nurse defending her nursling. This was a woman who knew things that a man was better off not knowing. "Well, it's to be hoped you can prevent her from doing harm to herself," he said roughly, controlling the urge to leave her in unseemly haste. Then he nodded, turned, and strolled back to the picnic.
The dauphine returned to her carriage, lamenting bitterly to Cordelia that her position made it necessary for her to journey in the state carriage while Cordelia had the freedom of her horse.
"It's not much of a freedom, Toinette. We can't overtake your carriage, so we have to crawl along behind you." Cordelia leaned into the window of the carriage. "Poor Lucette doesn't understand why she has to be so docile."
"I'd still rather be you," the dauphine said with a disgruntled frown.
Cordelia laughed bracingly. "No, you wouldn't. You're going to be queen of France, remember?" She stepped back as the royal coachman cracked his whip and the afternoon's progress began.
"Come, Cordelia. We mustn't keep people waiting." Leo spoke behind her. He was holding Lucette; his groom had the reins of the viscount's own mount. "Let me put you in the saddle." He cupped his palm for her foot and tossed her up. The smile she gave him was so radiant, it took his breath away.
"Shall we ride companionably this afternoon?" she asked, confiding artlessly, "I was so lonely this morning." She turned her horse beside him as they fell in behind the cavalry. "I do wish we didn't have to swallow their dust."
"We can ride to the side." He suited actions to words, Cordelia following him. The talk with Mathilde had cleared Leo's mind. Last night had been an aberration that by some miracle had been stopped in time. It was ridiculous to imagine that he couldn't control his own desires. He had always been a man of honor and resolution, and that had not changed. Cordelia was in his charge. She was a sweet if spoiled and willful child, and he was a grown man, twelve years her senior. He would cultivate an avuncular amiability in their dealings. There was no reason to force Cordelia to ride alone. She was such a gregarious creature it was as unkind as it was unfair to punish her for his own lack of control.