by Jane Feather
Her hand went unerringly to the journal for 1764-the year before Elvira's death. With trembling fingers, she opened it at the first page.
The book fell to the carpet with a thump as a loud bellow erupted from her bedchamber, a howl almost like an animal in pain. He knew. He knew that his chest had been violated. But how could he?
Dear God! She waited, frozen, for him to burst through the door to confront her. He would kill her. Another bellow crashed onto her ears, but he didn't come.
Slowly, she managed to move. She managed to stand up, although her legs were trembling so much they could barely carry her as she crept to the door to the bedchamber, opened it a crack, and peered around, her dread so profound she thought her heart was going to stop with fright.
Michael was sitting up in bed, his chest bare, his chamber robe fallen open to the sides. His eyes were wide open. They stared at the door, seemed to fix her on the dark points of his pupils. Cordelia trembled, her teeth chattering, nausea rising in her belly as she waited for him to do something. But he just sat there, staring. And slowly, very slowly, it dawned on her that he couldn't see her. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see her. He wasn't awake, he was in the grip of some ghastly nightmare.
Her relief was so great she almost collapsed to the floor. Mathilde's potion obviously did more than put a man to sleep. It must arouse the demons in the sleeper's soul. And Mathilde had chosen such a draught for such a man.
Again Cordelia shivered. Mathilde had a long reach and an uncanny instinct for appropriate punishment.
She returned to Michael's dressing room, picked up the fallen journal, and settled down on the carpet, leaning against the opened chest, to read. The ticking of the clock, the rustle of the pages as she read were the only sounds in the room. Slowly and in growing horror, she read through the events of 1764.
Her husband's documentation was meticulous. In February of 1764 he had begun to suspect Elvira of unfaithfulness. Each little detail was recorded, each hint of suspicion, each moment of conviction. His nightly attempts to dominate her were described with all the nauseating attention to detail Cordelia remembered from reading his description of her own ordeals. Elvira had suffered, but if Michael's entries were to be believed, she had taken her revenge with a lover.
The case against her was built up, pebble by pebble, day by day. Reading the journal was a horrifying excursion into the mind of a man obsessed to the point of dementia by his belief that his wife was making of him a fool and a cuckold. And yet, Cordelia could see no utterly incontrovertible evidence. Michael had seen it… or had he in his mad jealousy invented it?
Cordelia had forgotten the time, the place, all sense of danger. She replaced the volume for 1764 and withdrew the next year's. And she read about Elvira's death. Disbelief and then horror seeped cold and dreadful into the very marrow of her bones. Each stage of Elvira's decline was documented, the vomiting, the weakness, the loss of her once beautiful hair, the blurring of her vision, the dreadful bodily pains that racked her beyond even the help of laudanum. The descriptions of her symptoms were as cold and dispassionate as the descriptions of what had caused them-the poison and its relentless administration.
Each dose Michael had given to his wife was recorded. Three times a day right up to the hour before her death. Her death was simply stated. At 6:30 this evening, Elvira paid for her faithlessness.
Cordelia closed the book and stared sightlessly into the empty grate. The wick in the oil lamp flickered faintly, the oil almost gone. She replaced the journal and took out the book of poisons. With growing repulsion she flicked through it, looking for and yet dreading to find a description of the poison that had killed Elvira. But disgust became too much for her. She closed the book with another shudder of horror. Her hands felt dirty just by touching it. She felt soiled through and through by this journey into the dark vindictive soul of a murderer.
Only one thought filled her head now, as she replaced the book, checked with a cold pragmaticism that everything was in its right place, and closed and locked the chest. She had to get herself and the children away from Michael. Whatever the danger they faced in fleeing, it would be as nothing compared with the danger they all faced every minute they spent under the prince's roof. And all Leo's scruples about the kind of future they would have vanished in a puff of smoke when compared with the prospect of no future at all.
She cast one last look around the dressing room before turning out the dying lamp and creeping back to her own bedchamber. Michael was lying down again, on his back, his eyes once more mercifully closed. Cordelia slipped the key back beneath the mattress and drew the curtains around the bed again.
It was dawn. Leo and the male members of the court would be heading out into the forest for a boar hunt. Michael had been intending to join them, but she wasn't going to try to waken him. Part of her almost wished that she had given him an overdose of the potion, one that would ensure he never woke up. But he was sleeping too noisily for near death.
She wrapped herself in a chamber robe and curled up in an armchair, waiting until it would be a reasonable hour to summon Elsie and Michael's valet. Her mind was as cold and clear as a marble tablet on which every word she had read was engraved. And her problem was simple. How was she to face her husband when he awoke? How could she act as if she didn't know what she now knew? The least suspicion and he would kill her too.
Michael awoke to brilliant sunlight. His body felt leaden, clammy, his head thick as if he'd indulged too heavily the night before. For a moment he didn't know where he was. He blinked at the brightness of the light. Then he realized that he was in his wife's bed. He must have spent the entire night with her. He turned his head. The pillow beside him was vacant. He was alone in the bed.
He sat up… too suddenly for his head, which felt swollen, assaulted, as if it were a boulder being attacked by pickaxes. His eyes were raw, his mouth dry and foul tasting. He'd been drinking brandy freely before coming to bed. But surely no more than he was accustomed to. He buried his head in his hands, trying to think.
"You are awake, my lord." Cordelia's voice interrupted his desperate musing. "Are you ill, sir? You look most unwell." There was no hint of concern in the cold voice.
He raised his head painfully. Cordelia, in a pale negligee, her hair loose on her shoulders, stood at the end of the bed.
"What's the time?"
"Past nine. You have slept long."
"Past nine!" He had never slept that late.
"I think perhaps you are ill, my lord." Cordelia regarded him dispassionately. "You look a little heated. Could you have caught a chill?"
"Don't be absurd, woman. I've never had a day's illness
in my life." He thrust aside the covers and stood up. Immediately, the room pitched violently and his legs refused to hold him. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and wondered if perhaps Cordelia was right. Could he be ill?
"I'll call your valet." Cordelia pulled the bell rope.
"What happened?" Michael demanded thickly. "Last night? What happened?" He had a vague sense of dread that permeated his mind. He didn't know where it came from, but he felt as if something dreadful had happened, leaving him clothed in sticky, cold strands of apprehension.
"Why, nothing out of the ordinary, my lord." Cordelia came back to the bed. "Except that you fell asleep afterward." She couldn't keep the contempt out of her voice, but somehow she knew that at the moment her insolence would pass with impunity. Michael was too wrapped up in his own ills to hear her tone.
He shook his head slowly. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. His valet knocked and entered. "Is something amiss, my lord? You were to join the hunt this morning, but you didn't ring for me."
The hunt. How in the devil's name could he have slept through the dawn? Missed one of the king's hunts? He'd never done such a thing in his life.
"Give me your arm," he demanded harshly. He stood up, leaning on the valet's stalwart arm, his face set in lines of grim determination to defeat this mortifying weakness. "I'll take a hot milk punch and a plate of sirloin. Then I'll have the leech to bleed me." He drew the sides of his robe together. He cast a look of bemused frustration at his wife, then staggered from Cordelia's room, supported by his valet.
Cordelia smiled grimly. She must discover from Mathilde how long Michael's weakness would last. If he was forced to keep to his bed for a while, then matters would be easier to arrange.
As she rang for Elsie the clock on the mantel struck the half hour. The men would return from the boar hunt at around ten. Four hours of that brutal sport was enough even for the king, who lived for the hunt.
"Put out the gray gown, Elsie," she instructed as the maid scurried in, looking as usual as if she'd run a marathon to get there. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her hair was escaping in a frizz from beneath her cap. She curtsied and smiled nervously as she set Cordelia's breakfast tray on the table. "Will that be the one with the heather-colored petticoat, m'lady?"
"Yes, the one you mended yesterday," Cordelia said patiently, dipping her brioche into the wide, shallow bowl of coffee.
"And you wear the blue silk shoes with it," Elsie announced triumphantly.
Cordelia couldn't help smiling. "Precisely."
With a pleased beam, Elsie filled the basin with hot water from the ewer and bustled over to help her mistress out of her nightgown, asking with an air of importance, "How will you be wearing your hair today, m'lady? Should I heat the curling iron?"
Cordelia shook her head hastily. Elsie's last attempt with the curling iron had produced a few singed ringlets. "I'll wear it loose, with a ribbon."
At ten o'clock she went into the salon, where Monsieur Brion was arranging the newest periodicals on a console table. "How is the prince?" she inquired casually, casting a quick checking look at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.
"I have sent for the physician, my lady. He keeps to his bed, I understand," Brion replied without a flicker of an eye.
"If he should inquire after me, perhaps you would inform him that I am waiting on the dauphine. She will expect me to escort Mesdames Amelia and Sylvie to her later this morning."
"As you say, madame." He bowed. Cordelia smiled. They both gave a half nod, then the majordomo moved to open the door for his mistress.
Cordelia moved as fast as her high heels and wide hoop would permit down the grand staircase and out into the garden. She strolled along the gravel walks and through a side gate that led to the stable courtyard. It was here that the hunt would return.
Within five minutes the first huntsmen clattered onto the cobbles, the king at their head. They were splattered with mud and blood. Blood clotted on their britches and their gloved hands, streaked their faces. The grooms accompanying them carried their weapons, the knives and spears that they had used in the last fierce tussle with the boar. A hand-to-hand fight to the death, with the maddened deadly animal cornered by dogs and men, all out for its blood.
Women did not go on boar hunts. They were considered too dangerous, too bloody. The death toll among dogs and horses was frequently horrendous, and many a huntsman was crippled for life by a slashing tusk.
The morning had clearly been successful. A group of beaters carried a massive boar slung on two poles, blood dripping from its slit throat. Hounds limping and slavering crowded around, waiting for their share of the prize. The stench of blood was almost overpowering, and even Cordelia, who had been riding to hounds ever since she could walk, was sickened by it.
Leo came in with the second party. He too was blood spattered, his leather boots coated with mud. Presumably, he was one of those who had to be in at the kill, facing the beast, eye to eye. It didn't surprise her. What did surprise her was her wish that he would leave the risky reckless bravado to others and stay safely on his horse at the kill.
"Princess von Sachsen." She turned swiftly at the king's unmistakable hail, curtsying deeply. He beamed at her from atop his horse. "What a beautiful morning we've had. But we were expecting your husband?" He raised an inquiring eyebrow.
Cordelia swam gracefully out of the curtsy. "My husband is indisposed, monseigneur. He sends his deepest regrets."
The king frowned. "Indisposed? Not seriously, I trust?"
"No, indeed not, sire," she said swiftly. Indisposition in the king's presence was frowned upon, death was forbidden. It was an absolute rule that a dead body should never lie under a roof where the king was in residence, and if anyone had the bad taste to expire in the night, they were removed with unseemly haste before the king got to hear of it.
"Then I will expect to see him this evening," His Majesty declared, accepting the hand of an equerry to dismount.
Cordelia curtsied again and slipped away from the royal notice. Leo was standing to one side, respectfully bareheaded in the king's presence, tapping his whip in the palm of his hand.
"What's the matter with Michael?" he asked in a low voice as she came to stand beside him.
"Mathilde's potion. But I must talk to you at once. It's most dreadfully urgent, Leo." She tried to keep her eyes on some distant spot across the yard, tried to keep the panic from her voice, tried to appear if she were merely passing the time of day.
But Leo wasn't fooled and his gut knotted with apprehension. It wasn't like Cordelia to panic. He glanced around, then said, "Make your way to the laurel maze; I'll meet you there."
"But soon, Leo. You must c
ome quickly." She hurried away, leaving him in a turmoil of anxiety. He looked down at his filthy hands, his torn and blood-streaked coat and britches. Splashes of mud had dried hard on his face. He had to change. He would draw unwelcome notice if he appeared in the gardens in such a state.
Cordelia waited half an hour at the entrance to the laurel maze. It was in a secluded uncultivated part of the landscape, on a grassy knoll that gave a clear view over the parterres and fountains of the formal gardens below. They would see anyone coming while being concealed themselves within the maze.
But where was he? And how was she to tell him what she'd discovered? How was she to tell him that his beloved twin had been murdered? How could he bear such knowledge, bear to know that he had done nothing to help her?
She saw him climbing the knoll toward her. He was dressed in ivory satin, the lining of his coat peacock blue. He was bareheaded, wearing neither wig nor powder. And despite the dreadful business that had brought them here, a current of desire jolted her loins, curled her toes. He was so beautiful. And he loved her. She ducked backward into the maze, out of sight of anyone who might chance to look up from below. She was too far away to be immediately identifiable, but any risk, however small, was one too many.
Leo stood at the top of the rise and looked casually around, shading his eyes with his hand, as if taking stock of his surroundings. Then, in a leisurely fashion, he strolled into the maze.