by Jane Feather
"I trust you are feeling better, my lord." His wife spoke at his elbow. Her eyes were more gray than blue this evening, reflecting the almost opalescent misty gray of her gown. The side panels of the gown were drawn up over her hoop to reveal an emerald green undergown sewn with seed pearls. A tiara of emeralds nestled in the black hair, a matching collar was clasped at her throat, and on her wrist she wore the serpent bracelet; the diamond slipper, the silver rose, and the emerald swan caught the candlelight whenever she moved her gracefully rounded forearm.
Elvira had worn the intricate bracelet with its strange, almost sinister medieval design with flamboyance. She had worn it constantly and flourished it as she flourished the male admiration that flowed over her. Admiration that she had played up to with all her seductive wiles. Cordelia was also never seen without the bracelet. She touched it frequently but almost absently, as if it were a kind of talismanic ritual.
Whenever he looked at the bracelet, he became superstitiously convinced that some dreadful mischance had brought it into his life. Both women who wore it with such constancy were corrupt. Both were as devious, as faithless, as manipulative as the Eve it represented.
A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he grasped the back of a chair.
"You are unwell, my lord. Perhaps you should retire." Cordelia spoke again, not that she gave a damn whether he was on his deathbed. One thing was certain, he was not going to come to her bed tonight, not in his present state. The relief made her want to sing.
And then he looked at her and the familiar nausea and tremors began anew. He loathed her. The malice in his eyes was worse than she'd ever seen it. He seemed to look right through her, into the darkest corners of her soul. "I will retire in my own good time, madame," he said. "And I will come to you in my own good time. You will await me."
Cordelia turned away, unable to bear those eyes. She didn't think he was capable of hurting her tonight, but she was no longer certain of it.
Michael's mouth twisted. He moved around the chair he held without releasing his grip and sat down heavily. Passports. The child had prattled to Leo about passports. A promised present from her uncle.
Leo Beaumont had escorted Michael's wife all the way from Vienna. Twenty-three days in her company. More than long enough to form a liaison. Had she since confided the dark secrets of her marriage? Of course, she would have confided in a lover. And the impulsive lover would scheme to take her away.
The fat maggots of suspicion writhed in Michael's head as they had done since he'd overheard his daughter's question that afternoon. Elvira had been deceitful. Elvira had been unfaithful. Why should her brother be any different? Michael had never liked Elvira's brother. He had made use of him, but he had never really trusted him. And most particularly not since Elvira's death. There was a slyness to him. And definitely something peculiar about his besotted attention to a pair of infants. What grown man without an ulterior motive would be so attentive to such unrewarding objects?
Suspicion once aroused grew and grew as it had done over Elvira. Michael's head became filled with it, a great gray mass of twisting, gut-churning suspicion that in a few hours had become conviction. It was perfect logical reasoning.
Leo was planning to kidnap his sister's children, and he was going to run off with Michael's wife. Michael knew he was right. He'd been right about Elvira. He was always right to trust his instincts. He knew in his blood when something threatened his habits, his choices, his dignity, his very self. He had known since he was a small child when someone or something menaced his chosen path. And even as a small child, he had known how to fight back.
He was always right to act upon these instincts.
His wife had been virgin on her wedding night, he would swear to it on his mother's grave. But if she had not kept exclusively to his bed since then, she could even now be carrying Leo Beaumont's child. He would not give his name to another's bastard. He wanted an heir, and there must be not the faintest taint of suspicion as to its lineage.
Tonight he would make sure of it. Then he would make sure of Elvira's brother. His eyes closed, his head pounded mercilessly. He leaned back against the chair, resting his head, but the tormenting images of his wife's pale body moving against Leo Beaumont's sinuous flesh wouldn't leave his mind. They seemed to take him over, fill him with an all-consuming rage, so strong he thought he would vomit. His fingers curled over the arms of the chair.
"Prince, you seem unwell."
Michael opened his eyes. One of the king's equerries was examining him with an air both concerned and displeased.
"His Majesty noticed," the equerry said in explanation. The message was clear. Either the prince became his usual lively and diplomatic self, or he removed his feeble and offending carcass from the king's sight.
Michael rose, unable to disguise the effort it cost him. "I find myself a little fatigued," he said. "I beg His Majesty to excuse me." He walked toward the door of the salon, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
Had that deceitful wife put a curse on him? He couldn't lose the suspicion however firmly he told himself it wasn't rational. But witchcraft wasn't rational, and it was still a fact. That woman of Cordelia's-that Mathilde. There was a witch if ever he'd seen one. Perhaps she'd put the evil eye on him when he'd dismissed her. He'd find her. She had to be around somewhere, starving in some alley in the town. She couldn't have gone far.
He staggered into his own apartments, summoned Brion to bring him cognac, and shut himself up in his dressing room. He had some preparations to make before his wife came upstairs.
Leo, frowning, had watched Michael's departure from the salon. The man was clearly still far from strong, and Leo found himself cursing Mathilde's potion. Paradoxically, since without it, he wouldn't be contemplating Michael's destruction. A destruction he couldn't effect until the man was well and strong again.
Could Michael have heard Amelia's burble about passports? The child had spoken quite softly, and why should Michael have broken the habit of a lifetime and actually listened to her? It would be the supreme irony that a man who never paid the slightest attention to his daughters' verbal forays should have heard the one thing he didn't need to hear. But if he had…
There was nothing to be done about it. After the play tomorrow afternoon, it wouldn't matter.
"Leo, Michael's gone." Cordelia spoke breathlessly at his shoulder. "I can't believe he would leave me unwatched, but he has."
"I saw." He looked at her and he wanted to hold her. To snatch her up and taste the warm sweetness of her mouth, feel t
he supple slenderness of her body, inhale the fragrance of her skin. She read his eyes and her own filled with hungry longing.
"Where can we go?"
He almost laughed, it was so typical of Cordelia. No preliminaries, no forethought, just the simple question that she assumed he was asking himself. But the time for laughter and lovemaking had passed, and would not come again until their future was assured.
He shook his head and saw disappointment vanquish desire on her open countenance. "My sweet, we can take no risks now. Stroll with me along the gallery." He offered his arm.
Cordelia took it, swallowing her disappointment. "You have a plan," she stated, as they moved among the crowds. "For tomorrow. Tell me about it."
He paused by a deep window embrasure and looked out attentively, murmuring into the air ahead of him. "Tomorrow afternoon I want you to take the girls and go to Mathilde and Christian, as I said earlier." "But why?"
"To see if it can be done," he said simply. "A trial run, if you like." He ticked off items on his fingers, his voice quiet and authoritative. "We need to be certain that we have the governess's cooperation. We need to be certain that you can all leave the palace without drawing comment. And we need to be certain that the children don't make difficulties when it comes to the real thing because they don't understand what's happening." He turned his head. "Is that clear enough, Cordelia?"
"I suppose so," she said a little doubtfully. Why did she have the feeling he was hiding something from her? She looked up at him. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Leo?"
"Why would I do that?" He raised an eyebrow, his voice slightly sardonic.
Cordelia shrugged. "I don't know. But she still wasn't satisfied.
Leo resumed the stroll. He had been racking his brains for a way to ensure that Cordelia and the children didn't attend the play the following afternoon. The children must never ever gain so much as a hint of what their father had done to their mother, and he couldn't risk Cordelia's presence. One impulsive move when she understood what he was doing could reveal their liaison and totally discredit his challenge to her husband. Once the challenge was issued, the arrangements for the duel in place, then she and the children must start for England with Christian's escort… just in case anything went wrong…
But it wouldn't. Desperate determination sent a grim jolt to his belly.
Cordelia took her hand from his arm. "You are lying to me," she accused, barely raising her voice above a whisper. "I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes."
He shook his head. "You're tired, Cordelia. You had little if any sleep last night and it's been a long and emotional day."
All of which was perfectly true. And yet she knew she was right. "If you don't trust me, there's nothing I can do about it." Hurt glistened in her eyes. "I'll do as you ask because I happen to trust you. I'll bid you good night, my lord." She curtsied and walked away.
Leo swore under his breath, wondering if he could have handled that any better than he had. Cordelia was so damnably intuitive.
A great wave of weariness washed over Cordelia as she walked away from Leo. Weariness, disappointment, and now loneliness. She wanted Mathilde with a piercing, tormenting need. She wanted to go to bed and have Mathilde bring her hot milk, and put a cool, lavender-soaked cloth on her forehead, and tuck her in, and tell her everything was going to be all right.
Instead there was only Elsie. Well-meaning but clumsy, who didn't know how to brush Cordelia's hair with the soothing strokes that took all the tension from her scalp;
who didn't have the clever fingers that unknotted the tight muscles in her shoulders and neck.
Oh, she was being childish! Cordelia took herself roundly to task. Leo was right. She'd had no sleep the previous night and the day had been overloaded with emotional tensions. She would go to bed and sleep off this presentiment of doom, this ridiculous sense of injury. Of course he hadn't been lying to her. Why would he do that? She was imagining things because she was exhausted and overwrought.
With sudden decision she turned aside toward the staircase leading away from the state apartments. At least tonight she was safe from Michael, and poor little Elsie did her best.
She greeted the girl with a determined smile as she entered her bedchamber and fell back onto the sofa. "Help me with my shoes, Elsie dear. I can barely move a muscle."
"La, madame! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" Elsie rushed over solicitously and, despite much fumbling and self-recrimination, finally managed to ease her mistress out of her heavy court dress, unlace her corsets, and help her into her nightgown. "Shall I brush your hair, madame?"
"Yes, but very gently." Cordelia sat at the dresser. Her scalp felt tight and sore with tiredness. Elsie tried but she couldn't emulate Mathilde, and after a minute Cordelia took the brush from her and finished the task herself.
She climbed into bed with a sigh of relief, her body sinking into the deep feather mattress. "Blow out the candles, Elsie, and pull the curtains."
The maid had barely done so when Cordelia fell into a black and dreamless sleep.
Michael waited, dozing in the armchair in his dressing room. He needed his wife to be asleep because tonight he wasn't strong enough to overpower her without restraints and she would fight him. With Elvira, he had administered the initial doses of poison in the burned champagne that she enjoyed so much. After a couple of days, when the mixture had started its work and she was too weak to resist even if she'd known what he was giving her, he'd administered it neat. But she still hadn't guessed what he was doing to her. Not until those last hours, when he'd seen some dawning realization in her hollow eyes.
But there was no reason to conceal from Cordelia what he intended for her. In fact, he had no desire to do so.
He was beginning to feel that his draining weakness was abating as the hour approached two o'clock. Each time he awoke from a short doze, he felt stronger and more confident, and to his great relief the dizziness seemed to have disappeared. His head no longer swam when he stood up. He must have caught some minor infection, he decided. It was absurd to have contemplated witchcraft. The infection had weakened his brain.
The palace was quiet, his own apartments absolutely silent, the servants long gone to their beds. Cordelia had been in bed for an hour. She would surely be asleep now.
He picked up the four lengths of thinly braided rope, testing them between his hands. They would hold Cordelia's slight frame despite her supple strength. He looped them over his arm, then took up a shallow silver cup waiting on the dresser. He sniffed its contents. A bitter smile touched his lips. The juice of the herb savin. Not for nothing was it nickna
med Cover Shame in the underworld of procurers and midwives. It was well known as a "restorative of slender shapes and tender reputations," and it would suit his purposes this night.
He walked softly through Cordelia's dressing room and turned the handle on her door. The room was in darkness, relieved only by the faint moonlight from the open window. He padded to the bed and soundlessly drew the bedcurtain aside at the head of the bed. Cordelia was a still shape within the white covers, deeply asleep on her back, her arms thrown most conveniently above her head.
He moved behind the bed and had secured her right wrist to the bedpost before she awoke.
Cordelia struggled up from a deep sleep as the sense of something terrible forced its way through her unconsciousness. She was only half awake, disoriented, struggling to discover what was wrong, when the rope went around her other wrist. It was fastened to the bedpost before she could open her mouth to scream.
"Scream if you must. No one will pay any heed." Michael's cold voice came to her as if from some long tunnel. She struggled, writhed, and then he came into view. He stood looking down at her and his eyes were filled with indescribable menace.
Oh God, what was he going to do? He was going to kill her.
She pulled frantically at her imprisoned wrists, brought up her legs to kick at him. He grabbed one ankle and laughed, a harsh rasp of satisfaction, and she knew she was giving him what he wanted. Bitter experience had taught her that her resistance heightened his pleasure.