by Jane Feather
He shot her a warning look, but she smiled sunnily and took up her cards. He said, "I doubt you have so many bystanders at Schonbrunn, Princess? The Austrian court is less open to the world."
"Oh, I am accustomed to playing under the most watchful stares, my lord," she said with the same radiant smile.
Leo ground his teeth. He glanced at Michael, who seemed indifferent. He would expect his- wife to play. Everyone gambled. It was a social skill.
The king held the bank. "We play high, Princess," he warned with a jocular smile. "But I daresay your husband will stake you. A wedding gift, eh, Prince?"
Michael's smile was tight, but he drew a leather purse from his coat pocket and handed it to his wife with the patronizing comment "If you play at all competently, my dear, that should cover you for a few hands."
"I believe you will discover that I play competently, sir," she said serenely, opening the purse. She placed a golden louis on the table and fanned out the cards in her hand with an expert flick of her wrist.
Leo groaned to himself and took up his own cards. Apparently there was nothing he could do to avert catastrophe.
But catastrophe seemed long coming. Cordelia won steadily. She played intently, her expression utterly serious, except at the end of a hand when she would gather up her winnings with that little crow of triumph that he remembered so vividly. She beamed around the table, and even the king chuckled and told her she was a fine card player but a shameless winner.
Michael, however, looked blacker and blacker. He was losing to his wife, his golden louis piling up at her white elbow, and her triumph was a thorn in his side. It was directed at him. She threw it at him with every smile. She had the upper hand and she was relishing every minute of it. Even the thought that later he could have his revenge didn't help the sour taste of defeat in the face of her gloating. Had she been meek and modest, he could almost have borne her success, but this blatant exultation was intolerable.
Leo tried to see how she was doing it. He watched her hands, the slender white beringed fingers. Her sleeves reached only to her elbow, so the obvious hiding place for cards was denied her. She made no sudden distracting movements, and when he thought she had become blinded to danger by her success, she averted any possibility of suspicion by calmly losing the next three hands.
She had a purpose, more serious than mere winning, and it took him a while to see it. She lost when it seemed sensible to do so, but she never lost to her husband. She outbid him, outmaneuvered him, took every louis he had with him. And she smiled with such artlessly shameless satisfaction that, even though Michael was clearly livid, everyone at the table laughed and shared her pleasure, her husband obliquely becoming the butt of their laughter.
And when she sweetly offered to lend her husband some of the money he had so kindly given her to play with, the table rocked with amusement. "She's got you there, Prince," the king boomed. "Such a pretty little thing, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but sharp as a rapier. If you ever need to repair your fortunes, just send your wife to the tables."
Michael smiled thinly and Leo wondered if he was the only one to feel the hostility and tension surging beneath the apparent bonhomie at the table. Finally Leo threw in his cards, laughingly admitted defeat, pushed his last coins across to Cordelia, and begged the king for permission to leave the game.
"I was always taught that a wise gamester knows when to close his game," Cordelia said swiftly. "Would Your Majesty excuse me also? I feel my luck is about to turn."
"You would deny us our revenge?" chuckled the king. "But we will have it another time, my dear Princess." He tossed his own cards to the table. "Ladies, gentlemen, I shall retire before the banquet."
His fellow players rose, as did the rest of the tables. The king passed through the salon, offering his arm to his new granddaughter-in-law. "Come, my dear."
Cordelia's head ached after the intensity of the game, but she was filled with jubilation. She would pay for it later, but it had been worth it. She scooped her winnings into her reticule under cover of the king's departure and left the table before Michael could summon her back.
Her initial impression of the palace had been of a succession of glittering mirrors, gleaming marble floors, rich tapestries, exquisite paintings. But there must be more to the place than that.
She moved unobtrusively through the series of rooms, keeping to the court side of the roped barriers. The massive Hall of Mirrors was disorienting, and she stopped, almost blinded by the reflections of the great candelabra in the vast expanse of looking glass. The crowded scene of glittering, jeweled courtiers and the massed throng of spectators were doubled by their reflection, and she felt as if she'd strayed into some infernal scene by Hieronymus Bosch. The acoustics in the gallery threw the noise up to the ceiling, where it bounced back in a discordant racket of voices, rattling dice, and above it all the gallant strains of a trio of musicians.
Cordelia reached the end of the gallery and turned aside into an anteroom. It was quieter here, with only a few people standing around looking out at the rain-drenched garden and discussing whether the evening's firework display would have to be postponed. Beyond the anteroom was a long windowed corridor that she guessed would lead downstairs and to some garden exit. She started toward it.
Leo broke off his conversation as he caught sight of the distinctive crimson and ivory figure crossing the anteroom. "Excuse me." He strolled casually in pursuit, waiting to catch up with her until they were out of earshot of the people in the anteroom.
"What the hell did you think you were playing at?" he demanded, catching her wrist, spinning her to face him.
"Lansquenet," she retorted, her eyes still sparkling with excitement. "Wasn't that what we were all playing, sir?"
"How did you do it?" He refused to respond to her mischief, unable to think of anything but what could have happened if she'd been discovered.
"I won," she said. "It was as simple as that."
"Damn you, Cordelia! Tell me how you did it!"
"Oh, don't be cross, Leo." She put a hand on his arm. "Nothing bad happened and I squashed Michael like a bug. Didn't I?" Bitter triumph laced her voice, glittered in her eyes, curled her lip.
Leo was shocked by the bitterness. It was as unexpected in Cordelia as malice would have been. She was wickedly mischievous, but never spiteful. She was determined, candid, frequently outrageous, but embittered… never.
"He was livid, could you tell?" she continued in the same tone. "Wasn't it wonderful? They laughed at him and I beat him." Her lovely mouth tightened. "I will not let-" Abruptly, she stopped, remembering who she was
talking to, realizing that she had dropped her guard.
"Won't let what, Cordelia?" Leo asked quietly. He took her hands, holding them tightly. "What are you talking about?"
She tried to laugh, to avert her gaze. "I was just rattling on. I do when I get excited; it's a terrible habit. You know how I love to win-it just goes to my head."
"Are you in trouble, Cordelia?" His gaze was piercing, intent.
She shook her head. "Of course not. How should I be? No one guessed what I was doing."
"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. Something is wrong. What is it?"
"Nothing is wrong. Of course it's not. At last I'm here, in fairyland. How else would you describe this place, Leo? It's even more fantastic than I'd imagined. I can't wait to explore the gardens and-"
"Stop it!" he interrupted sharply. "What are you trying to hide?"
If Michael had treated Elvira as he treated his second wife, she had not told her brother. Cordelia was now convinced of it. Leo's concern was as puzzled as it was genuine. He had loved his sister dearly; it would be unbearable now, after her death, to suspect that she had suffered at her husband's hands.
There was one sure way to deflect him. "I'm trying to hide that I love you," she said simply. "I'm married to one man and I love another. That's what's the matter, Leo. Nothing else. Just what you've always known. I'm torn apart. I have to pretend with my husband, all the time. All the time," she added with pointed emphasis. "In bed, in-"
"That's enough," he snapped, wanting to close his ears to the words, his mind to the images they created. He dropped her hands. "If you cannot resign yourself to reality, Cordelia, you will only store up misery for yourself. Don't you see that?"
She raised a sardonic eyebrow. Nothing could be more miserable than the reality of life with Prince Michael. "Is Christian settled with the Due de Carillac?"
It was such an abrupt change of subject, he was taken aback. But it was easier to talk of Christian than to talk of futile love. And if that was all that was troubling Cordelia, then he could do nothing to help her.
"I believe Carillac made him a generous offer," he said neutrally. "I daresay Christian will be at Versailles at some point during the wedding festivities. Carillac will want to show him off."
"I wonder how we can contrive to talk," Cordelia mused. "Michael must have ceremonial duties, meetings and levees and things to attend. He can't watch me all the time." She shook her head suddenly and offered him a bright smile. "Forgive me, I have need of the retiring room."
She glided away in the direction of one of the rooms set aside as a tiring-room for the ladies, but her smile seemed to remain, hovering in the air, bright, and as brittle as crystal.
Leo went over to one of the long windows looking down on the gardens. He stared out into the rain. Why did she think Michael watched her? Husbands weren't spies. She had been keeping something from him, lying to him. But why?
Chapter Fourteen
"Where's Mathilde?" Cordelia stared at the red-cheeked girl in her bedchamber. The girl was bobbing curtsies, her cheeks growing redder by the minute.
"I don't know, m'lady. Monsieur Brion said I was to look after you. Shall I help you with your gown?" Nervously, she came toward the princess, who continued to stare at her as if she were some unknown member of the animal kingdom.
Cordelia spun on her heel and marched into the salon, which was lit only by two candles on the mantel. "Monsieur Brion!" She called for him at the top of her lungs. And when he didn't immediately materialize, she yelled again. She paced the Turkey carpet, from window to door, her hands gripped together so tightly that her knuckles were white.
"Princess. Did you call?" Brion appeared from the kitchen. He was still fully dressed in livery and would remain so until the prince had gone to bed. He looked anxiously at the princess.
"Where's Mathilde? What's that girl doing in my chamber?" She rapped out the questions, so filled with dread that her voice was a high-pitched staccato rattle, bearing almost no resemblance to her own.
The majordomo pulled nervously at his chin. "The prince told me to summon Elsie to attend Your Highness," he explained.
"Where is Mathilde?" She took a step toward him and involuntarily he edged backward.
"The prince said Mistress Mathilde had to go somewhere." Brion was wringing his hands apologetically as the white-faced Fury, eyes ablaze, advanced on him.
"Where? Where has she gone?"
Unhappily, he shook his head. "The prince didn't say, my lady."
"But Mathilde. She must have said something." It was unreal to imagine that Mathilde would disappear without a word.
"I didn't see her, my lady. She was in your bedchamber last I knew, then the prince came up before the banquet and spoke with her. I haven't seen her since."
Cordelia was beginning to feel as if the world had tilted into insanity. This couldn't be true, it couldn't be happening. "Her belongings. Has she taken them?"
"I don't believe so, madame." To his relief, he saw that the princess was beginning to calm down. The light of madness was slowly dying in her eyes, and her voice had resumed its normal pitch and volume.
"Have you been told to send them on anywhere?"
He shook his head. "Not as yet, my lady."
Cordelia nodded slowly. "Very well. Thank you." She turned and went back to her own room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Elsie still stood where she'd left her in the middle of the room, gazing anxiously at the door through which her mistress had disappeared-and now reappeared.
"Should I help you now, my lady?"
Cordelia didn't appear to hear. She resumed her pacing, nibbling at a loose thumbnail. Why would Michael send Mathilde away? How had he done it? Mathilde would not have abandoned Cordelia willingly or easily. He must have come up here before the banquet had begun, after she had defeated him so soundly at the card tables. And he'd said nothing to her the whole evening.
The banquet in the opera house had not begun until ten o'clock and had dragged on interminably into the early hours of the morning. Michael had sat beside her, saying nothing to her, confining all his conversation to those around them. They were all strangers to Cordelia, and because her husband didn't address her, neither did anyone else, leaving her feeling as if she were sitting invisible in a freezing void. Once the dauphin and his bride had been escorted from the opera house, the prince had said in a cold undertone that she now had his leave to return to their own apartments, where he would join her at his pleasure.
Cordelia didn't make the mistake of assuming she had a choice. She had simply curtsied and left. She had come up to bed and found Mathilde gone, just as Michael had planned it.
Her head began to ache anew and her
body throbbed with weariness. She had been up and wearing court dress for almost twenty-four hours, and the heavy weight of damask and the constriction of her corset was a torment in her fatigue. She was too tired tonight to deal with this. She wanted Mathilde. And the thought of what Michael might have done to her nurse buzzed in her brain like a tormenting bee. She had never believed anyone could defeat Mathilde, could force Mathilde to do anything she didn't believe was right. So how had he compelled her departure?
"Should I help you, madame?" Elsie ventured again. She knew what she was supposed to do but didn't know how to respond when she was prevented from performing her tasks. Experience, however, had taught her that if she failed to perform those tasks, she would be blamed regardless of the reason.
"Yes… very well, yes, you may assist me," Cordelia said vaguely.
Relieved, Elsie ran forward to unbutton, unhook, unlace with reverent hands. Cordelia stood stock-still, offering little help, too absorbed in her own thoughts to be really aware of what was happening. She shrugged into the white velvet chamber robe that Elsie held for her, and sat on the dresser stool, beginning to unpin her hair.
"Oh, I must do that for you, madame." Elsie leaped forward. "I've never waited on a lady before," she confided, pulling out pins hastily. "So I hope I'm doing things right." She picked up the ivory-backed brush and began to draw it through the rippling blue-black cascade falling down Cordelia's back.