The Diamond Slipper (30 page)

Chapter Fifteen

C
ORDELIA LAY ABED
until ten o’clock that morning. She was filled with a great lassitude although no desire to sleep and could see no reason to get up when lying dreamily in bed was so pleasant. However, at ten o’clock she received a summons to attend the dauphine. Indolence vanished at the prospect of some private conversation with her friend after the stiff formality of the past weeks. She was also intensely curious about Toinette’s experiences and impressions of her own new husband, the dauphin.

In dishabille she hurried into the salon to inform her husband of the summons. He was sitting at breakfast and looked up as she entered. His eyes slowly ran over her and she knew he was looking for the marks he had left upon her the previous night. He could see the blue bruise on her cheekbone, the series of finger bruises on her neck where he’d held her down. And she saw the triumphant satisfaction spark in his eyes.

She returned his scrutiny with a cool contempt and, to her own satisfaction, saw puzzlement replace the gratification in his gaze. She was supposed to be cowed, bruised, defeated. And she wasn’t. If anything, she was stronger than she’d ever been, and she knew that strength radiated from her.

After a long minute, she curtsied deliberately. “Good morning, my lord.” She held out the written summons. “I am to visit the dauphine this morning. I thought you would wish to know.”

He took the paper from her and cast his eye over the message before commenting frigidly, “It is good that you remain in her favor. I would not wish you to become a member of
her household, that would occupy you too much at court, but you will ensure that she continues to regard you with goodwill.”

“She is my friend, my lord. Such friendships are not at the whim of politics.” Her eyes flashed, her chin lifted. She loathed and despised him, and she would let him see it.

His brow darkened. “Have you not as yet learned the unwisdom of arousing my anger, Cordelia?”

“There are some things I find it difficult to learn, sir,” she retorted, with another insolent curtsy.

He rose from the table and came to stand over her and with grim triumph she saw the frustration in his eyes. “You will learn,” he said softly. “Make no mistake, my dear.”

“Did Elvira arouse your anger, sir?” She regretted the words the instant they were spoken. She had promised Leo she wouldn’t deliberately provoke Michael to violence, but it was too late now. He struck her mouth with the flat of his hand.

“You try my patience, madame.”

The slap had not been hard enough to do any damage, but the shock and sense of violation still rocked her to her core. She couldn’t keep the distress from her eyes, and she knew that he’d seen it. She had no choice but to leave him in possession of the field.

“If you will excuse me, my lord, I will prepare myself to wait upon the dauphine.”

Instead of answering, he turned from her and returned to the table. Cordelia left the room.

In the privacy of her chamber, she touched her lips fleetingly with her fingertips as she examined herself in the glass. There was no swelling or bruising, but the bruise on her cheekbone was very noticeable. Would it be best to try to cover it, or to leave it and invent some lie? Toinette would be bound to ask.

“What gown should I put out, my lady?”

Cordelia jumped. She’d forgotten Elsie. The girl seemed to fade into the wallpaper when she wasn’t actually doing
something. She stood now behind the armoire, her hands twisting in her apron, radiating anxiety to please. Cordelia forced herself to smile. It wasn’t the girl’s fault that she wasn’t Mathilde.

“Let me see.” She went herself to the armoire, riffling through the contents. She needed a gown that would cover her throat. The prevailing fashion was for extreme décolletage, but she found a
robe à l’anglaise
of saffron muslin over a green satin petticoat. The gown had a wide lace ruffled collar and a muslin fichu that could be used to conceal a multitude of sins.

Elsie took the gown reverently. “Will you be powdering your hair, m’lady?”

“No, it’s not a fashion I care for,” Cordelia said. “On state occasions it has to be done, but not for every day.”

“How tightly should I lace you, m’lady?” Elsie approached with a corset.

Cordelia bit back a sigh. “I’ll tell you when to stop. But fetch my stockings first.”

“The white silk ones.”

“The white silk ones,” Cordelia agreed. She didn’t have any other kind of stockings, but presumably Elsie was not familiar with the contents of her wardrobe and dresser.

It took an hour of fumbling and innumerable questions before she was ready for the day. Elsie had volunteered no comment on Cordelia’s bruises, but she had produced the hare’s foot and box of powder without being asked. Cordelia brushed it lightly across her cheekbones. It didn’t conceal the bruise completely, but as long as the marks on her neck and upper arms were invisible, she could find an excuse for a bruised cheek.

Monsieur Brion awaited her in the salon to escort her to the dauphine’s temporary apartments on the ground floor of the palace.

She hadn’t seen him since their strange, silent encounter that morning. She smiled quite naturally and wished him good morning. He bowed and a tiny conspiratorial smile
touched his usually solemn mouth. “I trust you slept well, madame?”

“I find one sleeps much better knowing who one’s friends are, Monsieur Brion.”

“Quite so, my lady.” He held the door for her.

Toinette was still in dishabille and jumped up from her chair when Cordelia was announced.

“Oh, Cordelia, how I’ve missed you. Come into my boudoir where we can talk privately.” She cast her mentor, the Countess de Noailles, a look, half defiant and half appealing, as she said this. For all her newfound status as the wife of the dauphin of France, she was still awed by this stiff-necked arbiter of court ritual.

“You have but half an hour, madame, before you must be dressed for the opera.”

“It’s
Perseus
, isn’t it?” Toinette wrinkled her small nose. “It’s such a serious piece, and the music is tediously boring.”

“It is His Majesty’s choice,” the countess stated, and that was the end of the discussion, at least in front of her.

“Maybe he did choose it, but I still think it a tedious and heavy piece,” Toinette declared with a chuckle as she closed the door of her boudoir and at last they were alone. She flung her arms around Cordelia. “I have been so desperate to talk to you. What do they say about me? Do you hear anything?”

“You’ve been the cynosure of every eye,” Cordelia said, happy to give her friend the information she wanted. “Everyone talks of your beauty, your composure, your grace. They say Louis-Auguste is a most fortunate man.”

Toinette plumped down on a chaise longue. “What happened on your wedding night, Cordelia?”

Cordelia sat beside her. Not a comfortable question to answer. “The same as on yours, I imagine,” she said noncommittally.

Toinette shook her head. “
Nothing
happened! Absolutely nothing. My husband kissed me on the lips at the door of my bedchamber and went away. He never came back.”

Cordelia stared with incredulity at her friend. “Your marriage has not yet been consummated, Toinette?”

“No.” The dauphine shrugged helplessly. “What am I to do?”

“Your women know this, of course.”

“Of course. And my husband’s gentlemen. I assume someone will tell the king. But was it
my
fault, Cordelia?” Toinette seized Cordelia’s hand. “What did you do to entice your husband? I must have a child, you know that.”

“I didn’t need to do anything to entice my husband,” Cordelia said on an acid note. “He was enticed enough.”

“Then I do not appeal to my husband,” Toinette wailed.

“Nonsense,” Cordelia said briskly. “Even if that were the case, he would still bed you to get you with child.”

“I suppose so. So what is the matter?”

“I can’t imagine,” Cordelia said. “Perhaps he’s a virgin and he’s scared.”

“Perhaps I should write to
madame ma mère
?” Toinette considered. “But it’s so embarrassing, Cordelia. I feel I’m lacking in some way.”

“You are not,” Cordelia reassured with the same briskness. “If anyone is lacking, it’s Louis-Auguste.”

“Oh, hush!” Toinette put her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle. “You mustn’t say such things about the dauphin.”

Cordelia grinned. “Between ourselves, we can say anything.”

“Don’t ever leave me.” Toinette grasped Cordelia’s hand tightly, all laughter banished. “I feel so alone. I don’t know how I’m to find my way. The Noailles is no help at all. She preaches and prates and sniffs and looks down her nose at me. She’s so starched I think she must spend all day at the laundress.”

Cordelia hugged her, hearing the tears in her voice beneath the attempt at humor. “All will be well, you’ll see.”

“It will be once my husband beds me and I conceive,” Toinette said with grim truth. For all her childishness, she
knew why she was married to the dauphin. She was in France to breed, to produce the children who would cement the alliance between Austria and France—the children who, for the people of France, would justify burying the age-old enmity between the two countries.

“So, what of you? Tell me about your husband.” The dauphine, with one of her swift mood changes, turned her attention fully on Cordelia. “Oh, what happened to your cheek? Did you knock it on something?” She touched the shadow of the bruise with a gentle finger.

Between themselves they could say anything. “Since you ask,” Cordelia said decisively, “I knocked it against my husband’s hand.”

“What do you mean?” Toinette looked aghast. “Is he cruel to you?”

Cordelia shrugged. “Let’s just say that if Prince Michael showed no interest in the marriage bed, I should be a happy woman.”

“Oh.” Toinette took hold of her hand and held it tightly. “Shall I tell the king?”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Cordelia cried in horror. “The king wouldn’t involve himself in such a matter. A man is entitled to treat his wife as he sees fit, you know that. If the king said anything to Michael, I don’t know what he’d do.”

“But it’s terrible.” Toinette glared fiercely at a crystal vase of hothouse orchids on the table beside her. “We have to do something. What about the children? Is he cruel to them too?”

“No, I don’t think so. He leaves them to their governess.” She frowned. “That’s the other thing, Toinette. He has forbidden me to make friends with them. I’m to teach them about society and prepare them for their betrothals, but I’m not to love them or play with them.”

“You aren’t to be their mama?” Toinette was indignant. Her own mother had been the most important person in her life, and in many ways still was.

Cordelia shook her head. “They’re so lovely, too,
Toinette. They’re completely identical and they have such funny ways. I know they like to laugh, but there’s nothing for them to laugh about in that ghastly mausoleum with that prune-faced Nevry woman.”

Toinette’s eyes suddenly brightened. “I have an idea. Why don’t we bring them here?”

“Here? To Versailles? Michael would never permit it.”

“But I’m the dauphine. The first lady at Versailles,” Toinette declared with a haughty little toss of her head. “I can command anyone, even your husband.”

“What are you suggesting?” Cordelia asked, her own eyes now glowing with anticipation.

“I shall tell your husband that I would like to meet his daughters. I’ll say that you’ve told me so much about your new stepdaughters and for friendship’s sake I wish to make their acquaintance.”

“Tell him to bring them to Versailles, you mean?” Toinette was not usually the ingenious one in their relationship, but she was doing very well this morning.

“Precisely.”

“Toinette, you’re brilliant.” Cordelia flung her arms around the dauphine and kissed her soundly. “It just might work.”

“Of course it will work,” Toinette declared with the same mock haughtiness. “And since the king loves me, I’m sure he’ll give me his support if I ask for it. I’ll write the command immediately and you may take it back with you.”

“That might not be such a good idea,” Cordelia reflected. “I don’t relish being the bearer of ill tidings. He’s going to hate the idea and he certainly won’t care to receive a direct command from you at my hands; it will hurt his pride.”

“Yes, I suppose it might.” Toinette was deep in thought, then she clapped her hands. “I have it.” She was flushed with excitement. “At the opera, I’ll ask for you both to visit me in my box, and then I’ll casually bring up the subject of the children with the prince, and then have my wonderful inspiration. How will that be?”

“Perfect.” Cordelia nodded her satisfaction. “You’re a true friend, Toinette.”

“But isn’t there anything I can do to help
you
?” Toinette asked passionately. “How can you stay married to a man who likes to hurt you?”

Her friend’s distress was genuine and Cordelia knew it would torment Toinette. She almost told her that everything was really all right, that she could endure anything now. That Leo would take her away from her bondage when he could. But she didn’t dare share that secret with anyone.