The Diamond Slipper (18 page)

“Viscount Kierston.” He greeted his brother-in-law formally.

Leo had been watching his approach. He bowed. “Prince von Sachsen. Allow me to introduce Princess von Sachsen.”

Cordelia curtsied. Her husband took her hand and raised her up. He kissed her hand, then lightly brushed her cheek with his lips.

“Madame, I bid you welcome.”

“Thank you, sir.” Cordelia could think of nothing else to say. The prince looked very like his miniature. He was not unhandsome. His hair was hidden beneath a wig, but his
eyebrows were gray. His figure was a little stout, but not objectionably so—unless one was accustomed to the lean, athletic muscularity of Leo Beaumont.

She forced herself to smile, to meet his pale eyes. Leo, beside her, was staring into the middle distance. The prince frowned suddenly and a shadow flickered across the flat surface of his eyes. It was as if he didn’t like what he saw.

“We will lodge at Compiègne this evening,” the prince stated in a flat, slightly nasal voice, without a tinge of warmth. “I have arranged for the marriage to be solemnized formally when we reach Paris tomorrow evening. It will be a quiet ceremony, but I trust, Leo, that you will honor us with your company.” He turned and smiled at his brother-in-law. A thin flickering smile that reminded Cordelia unpleasantly of an asp’s tongue. She glanced up at Leo. His expression was frozen but he bowed and murmured his honor at the invitation.

Cordelia was struck powerfully yet again by the knowledge of Leo’s dislike of the prince. It wasn’t in what he said, but it was in his eyes. And she could feel some surge of rage emanating from him. What was it? She looked between the two men. Prince Michael was offering his snuff box. Leo took a pinch with a word of thanks. Superficially, there was nothing untoward about the scene or their manner to each other, but beneath that surface Cordelia would swear ran deep currents of antagonism.

Why? It had to have something to do with Elvira. But what?

Leo struggled as always with the maelstrom of emotion his brother-in-law’s presence always evoked. Michael was alive. Elvira was dead. Leo had not been at his sister’s deathbed, he had known nothing of her illness until she was dead. But had Michael done everything possible to save her? The question tormented him as only the speed of her death had done. The speed, the suddenness. One day she stood in the sun, glowing and radiant and filled with life. The next she had been a wasted body in a coffin. And he hadn’t been
there to save her, or to suffer with her. And he would never know if everything that could be done had been done.

“Come, we should return to the carriage.” The prince indicated the royal party, who were reentering their own vehicles. “I will travel with you. There’s room, I believe?” He addressed this polite query to Leo.

Leo pushed aside the ghosts of grief and anger and brought himself back to the sunny afternoon. “I’ll leave you to become acquainted with your wife, Michael. I’m happy to ride.

“I bid you farewell, Cordelia.” He bowed and held out a hand to the silent, watchful Cordelia, who realized with a sick shock that he really was going to abandon her here.

She curtsied, giving him her hand. Her eyes wide and vulnerable, her voice unusually forlorn. “I am so accustomed to your company, sir, I don’t know how I shall go on without it. Will we see you at Compiègne?”

“No. I believe I shall return directly to Paris. Now you have your husband’s escort, you can have no need of mine, my lady.” He stared steadily at her, willing her to lose her air of desolation. It would certainly draw Michael’s attention.

“Then allow me to thank you for taking care of me, sir.” She seemed to have recovered herself. Her smile was brittle, but it was still a smile.

“The pleasure was all mine.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

The touch of his lips seared her skin through her gloves, and for a telltale second her love glowed in her eyes with such piercing intensity that he almost had to look away. Then she took her husband’s arm and turned from him.

Leo watched them move off through the bustling crowds, then he spun on his heel and walked away. He felt empty. The thought of Cordelia with Michael was suddenly unendurable. The thought of his hands on that fresh skin, his touch arousing that wonderful candid sensuality, brought bitter bile to his throat. Elvira had never confided anything
about Michael’s lovemaking, and her brother had respected such delicacy, even though it was unusual reticence from his robustly candid sister. Now he was tormented with an obsessional curiosity that was as painful as it seemed voyeuristic.

“Lord Kierston.”

He stopped and turned at the hail from Christian Percossi. His expression was not encouraging. He didn’t need the young musician’s accusatory comments at this point. But Christian looked as bereft and miserable as Leo felt.

“Will she be all right?” Christian was out of breath, his hair disheveled, a lost look in his soulful brown eyes.

“She’s with her husband.”

“Yes, but what kind of man
is
he?” Christian was wringing his long slender hands. “Does he know how special Cordelia is? Will he be able to appreciate her?”

Leo exhaled slowly. “I hope so,” he said finally, turning away again, before he remembered that the young man was in some way dependent upon him. “When you reach Paris, go to the Belle Etoile on the rue Saint-Honoré. Mention my name. I’ll find you there in a day or two.”

“Do you go to Compiègne now?”

“No. I am going straight to Paris. Until later, Christian.” He waved a dismissive hand at the young man and strode off, leaving Christian uneasily alone in the now rapidly emptying town square. After a minute he went off in search of his horse. He would follow the procession to Compiègne. Even if he couldn’t speak with Cordelia, at least he’d be in the vicinity. It seemed inconsiderate of the viscount to desert her when she must need familiar faces around her.

Leo pushed through a door into a low-ceilinged tavern. “Wine, boy!”

The potboy scurried behind the bar counter and returned with a jug of red wine and a pewter cup. Leo gave him a morose nod and filled the cup. He drank deeply and settled back for a long afternoon in the company of Bacchus. Tomorrow was Cordelia’s wedding and he planned to
attend it with a shattering headache and his senses dulled with wine.

Prince Michael had handed Cordelia into the carriage and stepped inside after her. He took his seat, arranging the full skirts of his brocaded coat, adjusting his sword.

Fussy little movements, Cordelia thought. A man who concerned himself with detail, who needed things to be perfectly ordered. The antithesis of herself.

“I am honored you came to meet me, my lord,” she ventured. The ice had to be broken somehow.

“Not at all,” he said, finally satisfied with his dress and looking up at her. “In normal circumstances, of course, I would have awaited you in Paris. But since His Majesty was pleased to make this journey, it seemed appropriate that I should accompany him on my own errand.”

Dry as dust, Cordelia thought. Surely he could have said something a little warmer, more encouraging. She glanced down at her hands in her lap. A ray of sun caught the serpent bracelet on her wrist. She touched it and tried again. “And I must thank you for this beautiful betrothal gift, sir. The diamond slipper is exquisite.” She held up her wrist to show him. The little charm danced with the movement. “I was wondering about the other charms.”

He shrugged. “I have no idea of their history. They were on there when I purchased it for my—” He stopped abruptly, thinking it was perhaps tactless to mention its original owner. The truth was that it was too good a gift to waste and he didn’t believe in unnecessary expenditure.

Elvira had worn the bracelet well. When he’d bought it on the birth of the girls, it had been an extravagant and whimsical gesture that he now despised. He had thought that its intricate design seemed perfectly suited to the woman, and how well he had been proved right. The bracelet with its rendering of the serpent and the apple was made for Elvira—temptress, deceiver, liar, whore. She’d
been a whore when he’d first taken her into his bed, and she’d been a whore on her deathbed.

The old red rage coursed through him, and he closed his eyes until he had it under control. It was over with. Elvira had paid the price. He had a new wife.

His eyes flicked open again, studying her. There was a boldness to this one too. He’d noticed it when she’d met his eye earlier. She should have lowered her gaze before her husband, but she’d returned his look with a challenging air that he didn’t like one bit. However, she was young and innocent. The antithesis of Elvira. He would soon rid her of any undesirable bravado.

Cordelia wondered why he didn’t finish his sentence, but she didn’t prompt him. His face was closed and dark. What kind of man was this husband of hers? She would discover soon enough.

Chapter Ten

B
Y THE END
of the evening at Compiègne, Michael was still undecided about his wife. She lacked the subservient modesty he had expected to find in one so young, brought up in the court of Maria Theresa. But her voice was soft, her tones sweet and melodious, and he could detect no sign of stridency or presumption in speech or bearing.

Also in her favor, she was perfectly at home at court. She had carried off her introduction to the king with impeccable grace, neither intimidated nor overbold, and His Majesty had clearly been pleased with her. A wife who was looked kindly upon by the king and was in the confidence of the dauphine would be a significant asset.

He decided to withhold judgment until he’d learned a little more of her. When the royal party finally took themselves off to bed, he went over to his bride, who was talking with or rather listening to an elderly duchess in full monologue.

“If you’ll excuse me, madame, I must take my wife away.”

Cordelia looked up at the slightly nasal voice at her shoulder, and for a second her relief at this rescue was clear in her eyes. But immediately she dropped her gaze as relief at one rescue merely heralded the moment she’d been dreading all evening. What would happen now?

Would her husband expect some physical intimacies? The thought of as much as a kiss made her shudder.

“Ah, yes, I wouldn’t keep you from your wife, Prince.” The duchess unfurled her fan, saying with a malicious smile, “It’s well known how a young bride can enliven the energies of a man a little … past his prime, shall we say?”

Prince Michael merely bowed, not a flicker of emotion crossing his face. “I bid you good night, madame.”

Cordelia curtsied to the duchess and stepped back to take her husband’s arm. “What a witch!” she said.

“What did you say?” Michael couldn’t believe his ears. He looked around to see if the outrageous comment could have been overheard.

“I said she was a witch,” Cordelia repeated, seemingly unaware of her husband’s shock. “What a nasty, malicious thing to say … to both of us.”

“Are you accustomed to using such language in Vienna?” he demanded frigidly.

“Oh.” Cordelia realized her mistake. She seemed to have started on the wrong foot. “I do beg your pardon, sir. I’m afraid I tend to be somewhat outspoken.” She offered him a rueful smile.

“That is a tendency you will learn to control, my dear,” he stated, clearly unmoved by the smile. “And you will learn too that the duchess’s malice is minor compared with most at Versailles. If you pay heed to it, you will be a laughing-stock. I assure you I will not tolerate that in my wife.”

This harshness was so unexpected, so severe, she couldn’t keep the shock and dismay from her eyes as she continued to look up at him, the smile fading slowly from her face.

Michael watched her discomfiture with satisfaction, noting that her blue-gray eyes were actually quite lovely, made even more so by her distress. His loins stirred faintly.

In horror, Cordelia recognized the dawning of desire in her husband’s eyes. It was an expression she had learned to distinguish in the last year, since her position at court had changed from child to debutante and she’d become the focus of attention for many a young courtier. But what she saw in her husband’s suddenly desirous gaze gave her the shivers. There was a ruthlessness to this hunger.

“You understand me,” he said.

Only too well.
Cordelia nodded. “You make yourself very clear, my lord.”

“Good. And so long as you hear me as clearly, then we shall get along very well. Come, I will escort you to our apartments.” The prince took her hand and tucked it firmly beneath his arm. Cordelia wondered sickly if he was about to satisfy his sudden appetite.

“Will you be playing at cards tonight, my lord?” The noise from the card rooms flanking the salon indicated that the usual inveterate gamblers were settling in for the night.

“No, not tonight,” he said curtly, parading her through the salon, nodding and smiling his asp’s smile from side to side as he met familiar greetings. “Tomorrow will be a long day. The king has graciously suggested that we solemnize our marriage in the private chapel of the Hotel de Ville in Paris.”