by Jane Feather
Cordelia darted to the door, reaching up to kiss him. He was prepared for a light farewell embrace, but she threw her arms around his neck, palming his scalp, pulling his head down to hers with all the passionate fervor of the night. He wanted to yield, but knew that they couldn't. He still held the door open and broke her hold almost roughly. "For pity's sake, Cordelia! We have less than an hour." He pushed her through the door and closed it briskly at her back.
Cordelia chuckled and danced down the stairs. Despite a sleepless and extraordinarily energetic night, she was filled with vigor and energy. A whole day in Leo's company stretched ahead, even if it was on the back of a horse. She grimaced at a prospect that ordinarily would have filled her with delight. Mathilde would know how to soothe the soreness, dissipate the stiffness. But instead of Mathilde, she had only the gormless if well-meaning Elsie.
But she would make the best of it, she told herself firmly. Mathilde would expect it of her, and this miserable situation wouldn't last forever. They would defeat Michael.
As she turned into the corridor leading to her own apartments, a scurrying maidservant bobbed a curtsy, looking a little curiously at the disheveled lady in her evening dress tottering on her high heels in the early morning. Cordelia gave her an airy smile but waited until she passed before opening the door to her own apartments.
The salon was deserted. She'd told Elsie not to wait up for her, and if Monsieur Brion was aware that she hadn't returned overnight, he was discreetly ensuring that she returned unobserved.
She slipped into her own chamber, threw off her clothes, bundling them into a corner, dragged a nightgown over her head, and jumped into her cold, unrumpled bed. Reaching out, she hauled on the bell rope, then lay down, pulled the covers up, and closed her eyes tightly.
"I need a bath, Elsie," she declared when the maid arrived somewhat breathlessly a few minutes later, bearing a breakfast tray. "I'm to join the hunt within the hour and I need hot water." She threw aside the bedclothes as she spoke, leaping to her feet. "Hurry, girl."
Elsie bobbed a curtsy and disappeared. Cordelia poured hot chocolate into a cup and hungrily attacked her breakfast.
She was as ravenous as if she hadn't eaten in days. She slapped thick slices of ham between hunks of rye bread and wolfed it down while Elsie laboriously filled a porcelain hip bath from steaming brass jugs of water.
Cordelia rummaged through Mathilde's pouches of herbs, trying to identify by scent the ones her nurse used to relax muscles in a bath. "These should do." She scattered the herbs on the surface of the water and sank into the tub with a little shudder of pleasure. "Oh, that's better. Put out my riding habit, Elsie. The emerald green velvet one, with the tricorn hat with the black feather."
Forty- five minutes later, feeling immeasurably restored, Cordelia joined the hunting party assembling in the outer courtyard. Her groom held Lucette. Leo, already mounted, was drinking from the stirrup cup presented by a footman.
"Good morning, Princess. I trust you slept well."
"Very well, thank you, my lord." She smiled serenely, putting her booted foot in her groom's waiting palm.
"Isn't it wonderful to be riding to hounds again, Cordelia?" Toinette's excited call came from the royal party gathered a few feet away. "You must come and ride with us."
Cordelia shot Leo a ruefully disappointed look and obeyed the dauphine's summons. The king greeted her pleasantly, the dauphin with a dipped head and averted eyes. Toinette was radiant.
The huntsman blew the horn, and the crowd of gaily dressed riders moved out under the early sunshine with a jingle of silver bridles and a flash of spurs into the thick forest surrounding Versailles.
Chapter Nineteen
The broad ride stretched through the trees, dappled with green and gold as the bright sunlight shone through the new leaves. The scent of the earlier rain rose from the turf, crushed beneath the hooves of a hundred horses. The lean, elegant deerhounds ran yapping ahead of the hunt, their huntsmen on sturdy ponies following. Beaters crashed through the bushes, driving up birds for the archers' skill, scaring doe and rabbit into the path of the dogs.
For the first hour, Cordelia rode with Toinette in the king's party, but when the dauphin had drawn alongside his bride and begun a stilted conversation, Cordelia had discreetly excused herself and dropped back. The dauphin, it seemed, needed all the encouragement he could get to increase his acquaintance with his wife. And Cordelia needed no encouragement to join Leo, who was riding just behind.
He greeted her with a doffed hat and a formal "I trust you're enjoying the ride, Princess."
"Immensely, it's such a beautiful day," she replied in like manner. "And I've already shot two pheasants," she added with the ill-concealed triumph that usually followed her gambling wins. But she certainly hadn't cheated with her bow. The arrow had flown clean and swift to its target, bringing the bird down dead and unmangled for the dogs to fetch and the keepers to bag.
"So I saw," Leo said, amused. "You're a fine archer, if a trifle immodest."
Cordelia chuckled and fitted another arrow to the bow that rested across her saddle. She held the reins with one hand, the bow and its arrow with the other, with an air of assurance that bespoke both experience and skill. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Leo, can you think of any reason why the dauphin should not have consummated his marriage as yet?"
"What?" He was incredulous.
"It's true. Poor Toinette is at her wits end. Every night he leaves her at her door. One of his gentlemen must have told the king, because yesterday he spoke to her about it. That was why he came to her boudoir when we were in dishabille and I had no shoes on. She said he was very delicate and gentle, but it was so embarrassing to admit that she didn't know what was wrong."
"Good God! Poor child, what could she possibly know of such things? Maybe he needs a physician."
"Yes, she said the king was going to order an examination. So she's waiting on tenterhooks to see what happens. She has to conceive."
"Of course," Leo agreed wryly, the realities of the marriage no more lost on him than they were on the lowest members of the Paris stews.
What if Cordelia already carried Michael's child? It was a question he had tried to ignore, but no longer. If Cordelia gave Michael a son, perhaps, just perhaps, Michael might be prepared to surrender his wife in exchange for his male heir. In a fantasy land, perhaps he would be prepared to surrender his wife and his female offspring in exchange for an heir. But how could Cordelia give up her own child? How could either of them contemplate leaving an infant in the hands of such a man? But Michael would move heaven and earth to reclaim a male child. Ther
e would be no safety, no peace, ever, unless they lived outside of society in a world where the children would be deprived of their birthrights, unable to claim their rightful place in the world, and therefore unable to make even the ordinary choices of adulthood, like whether or whom to marry. They would be dispossessed. How could he condemn helpless innocents to such a future? But how could he condemn Cordelia to a living death at the hands of Prince Michael?
First things first! He reined in the galloping thoughts before they bolted from him. If she was pregnant, they would cross that bridge when they came to it.
The cavalcade turned onto a broader thoroughfare, where a group of carriages awaited them. Madame du Barry sat prettily at the reins of an open landau, her ladies beside her. The king drew rein and greeted her. The dauphin bowed to his father's mistress. The dauphine looked the other way.
"Oh, Toinette, you're behaving so stupidly," Cordelia said in low-voiced exasperation, cutting into Leo's absorption.
"Why? What's she doing?" Leo was suddenly aware of the ripple of whispered awareness around him.
"She refuses to acknowledge the du Barry. She says it would be countenancing immoral behavior at court. Look at her, sitting there like some prissy nun at an orgy!"
Leo shook his head and quietened his shifting horse. He looked down to see what had upset the animal and saw a small ragged boy sidling up against the horse's neck.
"What are you doing?" he demanded sharply.
The lad shook his head. "Nuffink, milord. I jest likes 'osses." He looked pathetically up at Cordelia. His gaunt, hollow-eyed, dirt-streaked little face had an almost elderly cast, wizened with malnutrition.
"Are you hungry?" Cordelia said impulsively.
The child nodded and wiped his encrusted nose with a ragged sleeve.
"Here." Cordelia leaned down to put a coin into his filthy palm. Clawlike fingers closed over it and he was off, weaving his way through the horses, ducking and dodging shifting hooves and whipcracking huntsmen.
"Poor little mite," Cordelia said. "Do you ever look at their faces… the people's, I mean? They look so lifeless, so hopeless. I never noticed it so much in Austria."
"Or in England," Leo replied. "There's poverty, of course, but the ordinary folk are not downtrodden in the same way."
"I wonder if Toinette notices it," Cordelia mused. "Oh, she seems to be beckoning me. I hope she won't expect me to ride with her all day." She walked her horse to where Toinette sat somewhat to the side of the still-chattering group around Madame du Barry's carriage.
"Talk to me," Toinette said in an urgent whisper. "No one's taking any notice of me, they're all talking to that whore!"
"That whore is the king's mistress," Cordelia reminded her mildly. "She happens to have more influence at court than you, my dear friend."
"Oh, go away," Toinette said petulantly. "If you're going to scold, I don't want to talk to you."
Cordelia knew that the flash of bad temper would dissipate rapidly and her friend would be all remorse and apologies within minutes, but she merely nodded and rode away, determined to leave the dauphine to her own reflections.
"Psst. Milady!"
The whispering hiss came from a stand of trees to the side of the clearing. Cordelia drew rein and the urchin of before darted out. "Me mam's mortal sick, milady," he said. "Will ye come an' 'elp 'er."
"I'll give you some money-"
The child shook his head vigorously. "Not money, milady. She needs 'elp."
A beggar turning down money! It was extraordinary. Curiously, Cordelia signaled that he should lead her, and she followed him into the trees. He trotted along just ahead of Lucette, who was picking her way delicately through the thick undergrowth. Suddenly, the lad was no longer there.
Cordelia drew rein and looked around. She called, but the only sounds were the tapping of a woodpecker and the cawing of a rook. The tree cover was dense, the sunlight barely managing to filter through the thick leaves, and the air was heavy with the smell of damp moss and rotting leaves.
Cordelia began to feel uneasy. Lucette seemed to feel it too and began shifting restlessly, raising her elegant head to sniff the air. "Come on, let's go back. I expect he was playing a trick." Cordelia nudged the mare's flanks to turn her.
The two men came out of the trees at her so fast she barely had time to draw breath. One of them had seized Lucette's bridle, the other had hold of Cordelia's stirrup. Lucette was too well schooled to rear without orders, but her nostrils flared and her eyes rolled.
Not a thought passed through Cordelia's head. The bow was in her hand, the string drawn tight, and the arrow loosed in one fluid series of movements, so quick it was hard to separate them. The man at Lucette's bridle bellowed and fell back as the arrow quivered below his collarbone.
The second arrow was as swift and true as the first. The man holding her stirrup dropped his arm and stared stupidly at the arrow sticking out of his bicep.
"Up, Lucette, now!" Cordelia instructed, and the Lippizaner rose on her hand legs, her front feet pawing the air. The two men fell to their knees, terror writ large on their broad faces, their eyes wild with pain as Lucette towered over them.
"Dear God in heaven!" Leo's hunting knife was already in his hand as his gelding pounded across the forest floor toward them, tearing up the ground, loam and debris flying from beneath his hooves.
"What the devil!" Leo hauled on the reins and Jupiter came to a stamping halt. Cordelia brought Lucette onto four hooves again.
"Footpads," she said, her voice shaky now that the crisis was passed. "That little boy brought me here, then he disappeared. I suppose they were going to rob me."
"I saw you leave the hunt." Leo dismounted and stood over the two cowering men.
"Leave us be, yer 'onor?" the older one begged. "They'll 'ang us fer sure."
"A merciful death compared with what you presumably had in store for the lady," he said coldly, running a gloved finger over the blade of his knife..
"No, we wasn't goin' to kill 'er, yer 'onor! Jest get 'er to the ground, like." The spokesman inched backward as if he could escape the icy stare of the tall, slender Englishman.
"Leave them, Leo."
He turned in surprise. "Leave them? God knows what they were going to do to you."
"They're starving," she said flatly. "Their families are starving. That wretched child probably belongs to one of them." She reached into her pocket and drew out a leather pouch. "Here." She tossed it down to the ground between the two men, who merely stared at it as if they couldn't believe their eyes.
Which seemed an entirely logical reaction in the circumstances, Leo reflected. He sheathed his knife and remounted. An arrow hole was no l
ight wound, so they weren't exactly escaping scot-free. "Next time, I suggest you curb your philanthropic urges," he said to Cordelia as they emerged from the trees. "Ragged children have a sting in their tails."
"It's not their fault," she said flatly.
He looked across at her, thinking that she had so many unexpected sides. She was as many faceted as a diamond. And as precious. When he thought of what could have happened, his blood turned to ice. But Diana the Huntress also seemed supremely capable of looking after herself. However, she was rather pale, and he noticed that her hands on the reins were a little unsteady.
"Let's return to the palace."
"And not rejoin the hunt?" She looked surprised.
"I think you've had enough excitement for one day."
"I'm not such a milksop," Cordelia protested indignantly. "I was a little shaken, but not anymore. And I'm not in the least hurt. Come. I'll race you. We'll hear the horns soon enough." And she was off at a gallop down the ride.
Leo hesitated for a minute, then went after her. She seemed unhurt, but something about the whole incident niggled at him. Footpads who preyed upon the king's hunting party in the forest of Versailles were asking for the hangman's noose. And hunters would offer slim pickings- there was little need for money or jewels when chasing deer. No, there was something distinctly odd about the whole business.
Amelia, Sylvie, and Madame de Nevry traveled in a coach that lumbered in the wake of the prince's. The girls were so excited they could barely control themselves, and only their governess's grim visage and threats to report their behavior to their father kept them from kneeling up on the seat to look out of the window at the fascinating scenery and people they passed. They sat side by side, clutching each other's hand, their legs swinging with the motion of the coach, their eyes brilliant with excitement.