"What should I wear, do you think? Something gay and bright. I want them to think of me as someone cheerful and not at all stuffy."

Mathilde couldn't hide her smile at the quaint notion that anyone might think Cordelia stuffy.

Cordelia eased her body into the hot water with a groan of relief. Mathilde had sprinkled herbs on the surface and emptied the fragrant contents of a small vial into the water. Immediately, Cordelia felt the soreness and stiffness fading away with the throbbing of her bruises. She let her head rest against the copper rim of the bath and closed her eyes, inhaling the delicate yet revivifying scent of the herbs.

Mathilde placed the breakfast tray beside the tub, and after a while Cordelia nibbled on the brioche and sipped hot chocolate as the steam wreathed around her. Her habitual optimism finally banished the lingering horror of the night. It had been hell, but the worst was over because she now knew the worst. And now there were two little girls in a nursery waiting to make her acquaintance. Were they scared? she wondered.

Madame de Nevry was in a very bad temper. Amelia and Sylvie, well versed in their governess's moods, knew they were in for a miserable day the minute she marched into the nursery soon after dawn and ordered their nurse to prepare cold baths for them.

"But I am already so cold," Sylvie whimpered, standing on the bare floorboards, shivering in her nightgown. It was too early for the rising sun to have taken the chill off the night air that filled the nursery from the perpetually opened window.

"It is your father's wish that you should learn to endure discomfort," Madame stated, pinning the child's hair in a tight knot on the top of her head. The prince had actually said only that his daughters were not to be pampered, but the governess chose to interpret the instruction according to her own mood.

Sylvie whimpered again as her scalp was pulled back from her forehead and the pins dug into her skin. Nurse, looking very disapproving, lifted her and dumped her skinny little body in the tub of ice-cold water. Sylvie cried out at the top of her lungs and received a slapped hand from the governess for her pains. Amelia stood and watched, waiting her turn with rather more stoicism than her sister.

They had heard the sounds of the party the previous evening as they'd lain in bed listening to the confused noises of carriage wheels, shouting linkboys, doors opening and closing in the house far below the nursery, the faint strains of music. They'd imagined the food at the banquet, but since their own diet was plain to the point of tastelessness and had never been anything else, they could only imagine a table laden with the strawberries and chocolates they had sometimes been given by Monsieur Leo, when he could sneak the treat into the schoolroom.

"Come, Amelia." Madame snapped her fingers impatiently as Nurse lifted the still-squalling Sylvie out of the freezing water and wrapped her in a thick towel. Madame's face was thin and pinched, and her lips and the tip of her nose had a blue tinge to them as if they'd been inked with a quill pen. On her cheeks burned two vermilion spots of color. She looked like a paint palette, Amelia thought, raising her arms passively as Nurse drew off her nightgown.

Sylvie's whimpers faded as she huddled in the towel. The goosebumps on her skin went down and her shivers lessened while her twin was doused and soaped and doused again, her lips blue with cold, her teeth chattering.

Even after they were dressed, they were still not properly warm, and a meager breakfast of bread and butter and weak tea did little to improve matters. Madame's blue nose turned pink as she drank her own tea. The girls had noticed it always did when she poured something from a little flask into her cup. And her cheeks grew even redder.

"We will study the globe this morning." Louise gestured to the large round globe with her pointer. "Sylvie, you will find England and tell me the name of the capital city."

Sylvie peered at the bumps and squiggles and lines. Everything looked the same to her. She closed her eyes and stabbed with her forefinger.

Louise put up her pince-nez and examined the spot. If asked to perform the task she had set Sylvie, she would have had difficulty. However, Sylvie's choice appeared to be in a range of mountains, and Louise was fairly convinced that England was not a mountainous land.

It was at this point that the door opened to reveal an astounding vision, shimmering, glowing with color in the drab room.

"Good morning. My name is Cordelia and I have come to make your acquaintance."

The girls stared openmouthed as a black-haired girl in a gown of turquoise silk stepped into the room, her jeweled heels tapping on the oak boards. She was smiling, her mouth red and warm, her eyes so big and blue they seemed to swallow them.

She bent and held out her hand to Sylvie. Leo had said something about hair ribbons, but she couldn't remember which was which. "Are you Sylvie or Amelia?"

"Sylvie. There's Amelia."

Cordelia took both their hands in hers, overpowering-ly aware of how small they were. She had never been much aware of children before, but these two, gazing at her with such solemnity, filled her with a strange awe.

"Princess, we were not expecting you." The glacial tones drew Cordelia upright again.

"You must be the children's governess. Madame de Nevry, I believe?" She smiled warmly, reflecting that nothing would be gained by alienating this disagreeable-looking woman.

"That is so, Princess. As I said, we were not expecting you. The prince gave me no instructions as to receiving you." She struggled to hide her dismayed shock at a vision that bore no resemblance to her imaginings of the new Princess von Sachsen. The girl was barely out of the schoolroom herself, and she was beautiful. Even to Louise's jaundiced eye, the vibrant beauty pulsing from the princess was undeniable.

"No, well, I daresay that's because he doesn't know I'm here," Cordelia said cheerfully. "I thought it would be much nicer to meet Sylvie and Amelia without any formal fuss and bother." She turned back to the girls, who still regarded her with openmouthed disbelief. "Shall we be friends, do you think? I do so hope we shall." She took their hands again, holding them in her own warm grasp.

"Oh, yes," they said in unison on a little gasp of delight. "Do you know Monsieur Leo? He's our friend too."

"Yes, I know him," she said, ignoring the preparatory mutterings from the governess. "I know him very well, so we shall all be friends." She straightened again to include the governess in the conversation. "I understand from my husband and Viscount Kierston that His Lordship is a frequent visitor to his nieces."

"That may be so," Louise allowed without moving so much as a muscle. "However, if you'll excuse us, Princess, the children must do their lessons."

"Oh, how drear that they should have to have lessons on the day I arrive." Cordelia's nose wrinkled and she moved closer to the governess on the pretext of studying the globe. "Are you having a geography lesson?"

"We were," Louise said pointedly.

Cordelia nodded as her suspicions were confirmed. The woman smelled like a soused herring, and it was barely nine o'clock in the morning. Surely Michael couldn't know that his daughters' governess drank. But for time being, she would keep the knowledge to herself. She had much to learn about this household.

"Then I'll leave you for the moment," she said amenably. "But I'd like the girls to visit me in my boudoir before dinner. There's no need for you to accompany them." She treated the governess to a dazzling smile. "At one o'clock, shall we say." Bending, she swiftly kissed the children. "We shall learn to know each other soon." Then she was gone, leaving Sylvie and Amelia in a warm daze and their governess as frozen rigid as a stalagmite.

"Practice your writing," she commanded, gesturing to the table and the pens and parchment.

She sat down abruptly by the empty hearth and stared at her reflection in the burnished grate. Surreptitiously, she withdrew the little silver flask from her pocket and took a swift gulp. She could not believe that the prince had countenanced his bride's surprise visit to his daughters. He lived his life by rite and rote and laid down strict orders for the schoolroom as he did for the rest of the household. But what was Prince Michael doing with such a frivolous, volatile, vibrant, unorthodox young bride?

Louise took another gulp. From what she knew of her relative, he wouldn't tolerate those qualities in the girl for very long.

Cordelia returned to the main part of the palace and descended the curving staircase to the cavernous hall with its marble pillars and vast expanse of marble floor.

Monsieur Brion appeared from nowhere and came to the stair with stately step, bowing low as she reached the bottom. "Is there something I can do for you, Princess?"

"Yes, I should like to be shown around the palace, please. And I should like to meet with the housekeeper and the cook." Cordelia's smile was warm, but the majordomo had the astonishing feeling that his new mistress, for all her youth, was not going to be easy to manage.

"If you have instructions for either the cook or the housekeeper, madame, I will be pleased to relay them for you."

Cordelia shook her head. "Oh, I don't think that will be necessary, Monsieur Brion. I am perfectly capable of giving my own instructions. Please ask them to come to me in my boudoir at noon. Now, perhaps you would like to show me around."

"Cordelia, is there something you wish for?"