The Diamond Slipper (24 page)

He took the main staircase down from the nursery floor, and the girls’ voices reached him from a pair of double doors standing ajar along a corridor leading off the first landing.

He knew the room. It had been Elvira’s boudoir. He felt a sudden reluctance to enter there. On the occasion of his last visit, his sister had been vibrant and alive. He could still hear her laughter, feel her goodbye kiss on his cheek. When next he’d seen her, she’d been in her coffin, barely recognizable, skeletal against the white satin, her once rich golden hair thin and straggly. What dreadful curse could have wreaked such devastation in such a short space of time?

He forced himself to the doorway. Both girls were talking at once, their voices rising excitedly as they competed for attention. Leo smiled involuntarily. He couldn’t remember hearing them chatter with such uninhibited gaiety before. Without further thought, he stepped through the open door.

Cordelia was sitting on a low stool, the girls kneeling on the floor beside her. They were playing cat’s cradle, and one exuberant child was trying to transfer the complicated net of wool from her own tiny dimpled hands to her sister’s.

Cordelia looked up as she sensed Leo’s silent entrance. Her color ebbed, then returned. She smiled at him over the children’s heads, and the nakedness of the smile made his heart turn over. It was filled with warmth and promise and longing, brimming with the love she had so often expressed. And it was a smile paradoxically so vulnerable and so full of danger that he wanted to shake her into awareness of reality. Either that, or turn and run.

“Monsieur Leo!” Amelia, or so he assumed from the hair ribbon, saw him first. Both girls jumped to their feet, then stood awkwardly, curtsying, Amelia’s hands still occupied with the cat’s cradle.

“Viscount Kierston.” Cordelia also rose and curtsied. “This is an unexpected pleasure.” Her voice was a honeyed caress, her eyes deepest sapphire. There was no sign of the earlier shadows.

“I wished to visit the children,” he said, struggling to sound cool and matter-of-fact in the face of that overpowering sensuality. “They were not in the schoolroom and Madame de Nevry told me I would find them with you.”
With relief he dropped his gaze from the burning intensity of Cordelia’s and bent his eye on the two small faces staring anxiously up at him. “And how are my little mesdames?” he inquired with a smile.

“Very well, thank you, sir,” they said in unison, curtsying again. They seemed to be waiting for permission to move. Cordelia wondered whom they expected to give it. They were looking over their shoulders at her, their eyes wide in appeal, and she finally realized with something of a shock that in the absence of their governess she was the authority in question.

“Amelia and Sylvie and I were getting to know each other,” she said, coming over to lay her hands lightly on their shoulders. “But you and they are old friends, of course.”

“Oh, Monsieur Leo’s been our friend since our mama died,” Amelia confided, losing her stiffness. She put her hand in Leo’s.

“We were only babies then. How could he have been our friend?” Sylvie scoffed, edging forward to put her hand in Leo’s other one. “Babies can’t be friends with people.”

“Yes, they can. Can’t they, Monsieur Leo?”

Leo laughed. “I don’t see why not.”

“I told you so!” Sylvie declared in triumph, giving her sister a little push.

Amelia pushed back, her cheeks pink with annoyance. “Well, I say they can’t. Babies don’t talk. Of course they can’t be friends with people.”

“Who wants to see what I have brought?” Leo interrupted this escalating argument, dropping their hands to reach into his pockets.

The girls crowded around him, gasping with excitement as he gave them each a tiny tissue-wrapped packet.

“Oh, mine’s a pony!” Sylvie held up a china miniature. “For our collection, Melia.”

Amelia’s fingers trembled as she tore off the paper to reveal a miniature cat. “Oh, she’s so pretty. I shall call her kitten.” She held it up to her cheek, crooning softly.

“They have a collection of china animals,” Leo told Cordelia quietly.

“They seem to have little else to play with,” she returned. “Will the dragon lady approve?”

Leo grinned involuntarily. “I can’t say I give a damn whether she does or not.”

Cordelia touched his hand. He withdrew it with a jerk. For a moment they were silent. Then Leo spoke, his voice soft beneath the children’s prattle.

“I wonder if it’s wise of you to set yourself up against your husband so soon.”

Cordelia said nothing immediately. She stared straight ahead, frowning at the painted panels on the door as if she were trying to identify the flowers depicted there. Then she said, “I must do what I think right. He doesn’t wish me to be a mother to the children, but I know that I must be their friend, whether he wishes it or no.”

“It does you credit,” he said quietly. “But you should proceed with caution.”

Cordelia suddenly shuddered. It was an involuntary movement and again he saw the shadow flicker across her eyes. Then she shrugged with an assumption of carelessness. “I’m not afraid to do what’s right, Leo.” But the disturbing shadow deepened.

He changed the subject. “I understand Michael will be escorting you to Versailles for the wedding.”

“Shall we meet there?” She responded to the change with a note of relief that she couldn’t disguise.

“I shall be at court.”

“Will you be able to do anything for Christian, do you think?” Her eyes kept sliding away from his as if she were suddenly afraid to meet his gaze. But Cordelia was never afraid to look a person in the eye.

“I have a possible patron in mind. The Duc de Carillac,” he replied in a neutrally conversational tone that covered his unease.

“Monsieur Leo, will you take us for a ride in your carriage if Madame de Nevry permits?” The shy approach of Amelia and Sylvie, each clutching her china miniature, brought a welcome diversion.

“If
I
give you permission, then of course you may go,” Cordelia said. She glanced up at Leo, her chin lifted unconsciously as if she challenged him to argue with her.

“Are you more important than Madame de Nevry, then, madame?” They gazed up at her in wonderment.

Cordelia considered this, and her eyes began to twinkle with a return of her usual spirit. “Well, I think I am,” she pronounced. “Since I am your stepmother. And you must not call me madame. My name is Cordelia.”

Leo cleared his throat. “I think what they call you should be left up to Prince Michael. He will have his own intentions.”

Cordelia frowned at the warning. But she couldn’t fault it. If she were to achieve her own goals where the girls were concerned, she should choose her battles.

“Perhaps Monsieur Leo is right,” she said. “We will discuss it with your papa.”

“But we may go for a ride in your carriage, sir?” Elvira’s eyes, twinned, gazed appealingly up at him.

“I haven’t brought my carriage today, but I will do so next time.”

“And then we may
all
go for a ride,” Cordelia declared. “Yes?” She turned as someone scratched on the open door.

The footman bowed. “Madame de Nevry wishes to know if Mesdames are to dine abovestairs, my lady.”

Cordelia hesitated but Leo said swiftly, “Yes, of course they must go immediately.” He bent to take their hands in his, kissing them with laughing formality. “Mesdames, I am desolated to bid you farewell.”

The girls’ disappointment dissolved in giggles, but they remembered their curtsies, their stiff skirts billowing around them as they took their leave of their stepmother and uncle.

Cordelia picked up her fan from the side table, tapping
the delicate painted sticks in the palm of her hand. “He wants me to prepare them for their betrothals,” she said. “He doesn’t want me to love them, or befriend them.”

Leo’s lips tightened as he thought of Michael’s cold indifference to the children. But he controlled the urge to discuss his own careful involvement in his nieces’ affairs. “Michael has very strict notions on how matters in the schoolroom should be conducted. If you wish to improve their lives, you will do so only by inches. If you allow your customary impetuosity to rule you, Cordelia, you will gain nothing in this household.”

“Is this advice based on your sister’s experiences, my lord?” Idly, Cordelia unfurled her fan, hoping her eagerness for his answer wasn’t obvious in her voice. What did he know of Elvira’s life in this house?

“My sister’s marriage has little to do with yours, Cordelia. I’m offering the advice of a friend. One who has known your husband for several years.”

It wasn’t much of an answer. But she couldn’t believe he would knowingly have let her walk into this prison. Perhaps Michael had been different with Elvira. She’d been older, wiser, more experienced than Cordelia. Presumably, it had affected his conduct toward her.

Leo came toward her, drawn as if to a lodestone. He knew that the closer he came to her, the greater his danger, but he had promised to stand her friend and he could not desert her simply because he was afraid of his own feelings. He took her hand in both of his, saying with quiet sincerity, “I wish only your happiness, Cordelia. The reality of marriage to Prince Michael may not match up to your fairy-tale fantasy, but it has many advantages if you learn how to take them. Versailles and its many pleasures await you. If you don’t antagonize your husband, you can find much to enjoy in this new life.”

“Yes, of course,” Cordelia said, averting her eyes. She withdrew her hand from his and tucked a loose ringlet behind her ear.

Leo took her hand again, turning it over to examine the purpling bruise on her inner wrist. “How did this happen?”

Cordelia tried to pull her hand free. “I knocked it on the edge of the bath this morning. I slipped as I was getting out. The soap … or … something …” She stopped. She’d always had a tendency to expand fibs, and Mathilde had long ago told her that the best lies were the simplest. Not that she ever lied to Mathilde, only to her uncle.

Leo’s frown deepened but he released her wrist. “I must go now. I’ll set up a meeting with Christian and the Duc de Carillac without delay.”

He was rewarded by a vibrant smile, a return to the lively Cordelia that he knew. “Oh, that would be wonderful. I knew you would be able to help him.”

“Your faith is touching,” he said lightly. “I’ll see you at court, Cordelia.”

She nodded and kept on smiling through the forlorn knowledge that once he’d left her, she’d be alone again. Without friends or support in this house. Except for Mathilde. She had Mathilde, and Mathilde’s support was worth more than an army of foot soldiers.

The thought buoyed her as Leo left the boudoir. Sitting on the deep cushioned window seat, she looked out onto the courtyard below the window. The palace flanked the courtyard on three sides, the great iron gates to the street occupying the fourth side. Leo emerged from the main doorway to her left. He stood for a minute at the head of the flight of steps leading down to the cobbles, slapping his gloves into his palm in a gesture so familiar that a wave of insuperable longing broke over her. She had endured a hellish wedding night, filled with pain and mortification, and she yearned for what the act of love could bring. Now she wanted Leo with a naked lust that at this moment had nothing to do with love, let alone friendship. She wanted his body, the feel of his skin, his smell in her nostrils, his taste on her tongue. She wanted him inside her, each powerful thrust touching her womb, his flesh filling her, possessing her as she took
him into her and made him part of her self. She had never experienced the wonders of such loving, but in her blood she knew they existed.

The need was so strong, a soft groan broke from her lips. Her forehead pressed against the cold windowpane and she touched the glass with her tongue, imagining she was stroking the smooth planes of his belly. She could almost feel the hard contours of his thighs molded beneath her palms, the throb of his erect shaft against her fingers. He would bring her such pleasure, a pleasure that would eradicate the dreadful violations of her husband’s possession.

“Is there something of particular interest in the courtyard, madame?”

She started violently, turned, and stared at her husband, who stood in the doorway, his expression glacial. Her erotic dream vanished into the black clouds of reality. This man was reality, not the man now mounting his horse in the courtyard.

“I was daydreaming, my lord.”

“A bad habit,” he said. “You have many, I am discovering.” He came into the room, banging the door shut behind him. “I understand from Madame de Nevry that you have again disobeyed my orders with regard to my daughters.”

Cordelia stood up, feeling slightly sick. Michael had a strange look to his eyes. He was angry, but there was also a curious satisfaction, a hungry anticipation that sent cold shudders through her belly. “I wish only to befriend them, my lord.”

“But I gave you instructions that you were to see them only with my permission. Instead of which, you deliberately disturb their routine, bring them down from the school-room, encourage them to disobey their governess—”

“No, indeed I did not,” she protested.

“Do not interrupt me,” he said icily, and that dreadful anticipation in his eyes seemed to strengthen. “Did you or
did you not disobey my direct instructions regarding my daughters?”

There seemed nothing for it. Cordelia put up her chin and met his glare with a steady stare. “If you say so, my lord. But I consider that I was merely fulfilling my duties as stepmother.”

“Those duties will be defined by me, not by you, as you must learn. Come.” He crossed the room to the door to Cordelia’s bedchamber. “Come,” he repeated, the word a whiplash in the tense silence. He opened the door.

“What do you want of me?” She couldn’t help asking, even though her voice shook, and she knew the question betrayed her fear.

Again that terrible satisfaction flared in his eyes. “I want a wife who knows her place, my dear. And I intend to have one.
Come
!” He held the door open.

Cordelia walked past him into her bedchamber. He followed her in and she heard the key turn in the lock.