"Won't let what, Cordelia?" Leo asked quietly. He took her hands, holding them tightly. "What are you talking about?"

She tried to laugh, to avert her gaze. "I was just rattling on. I do when I get excited; it's a terrible habit. You know how I love to win-it just goes to my head."

"Are you in trouble, Cordelia?" His gaze was piercing, intent.

She shook her head. "Of course not. How should I be? No one guessed what I was doing."

"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. Something is wrong. What is it?"

"Nothing is wrong. Of course it's not. At last I'm here, in fairyland. How else would you describe this place, Leo? It's even more fantastic than I'd imagined. I can't wait to explore the gardens and-"

"Stop it!" he interrupted sharply. "What are you trying to hide?"

If Michael had treated Elvira as he treated his second wife, she had not told her brother. Cordelia was now convinced of it. Leo's concern was as puzzled as it was genuine. He had loved his sister dearly; it would be unbearable now, after her death, to suspect that she had suffered at her husband's hands.

There was one sure way to deflect him. "I'm trying to hide that I love you," she said simply. "I'm married to one man and I love another. That's what's the matter, Leo. Nothing else. Just what you've always known. I'm torn apart. I have to pretend with my husband, all the time. All the time," she added with pointed emphasis. "In bed, in-"

"That's enough," he snapped, wanting to close his ears to the words, his mind to the images they created. He dropped her hands. "If you cannot resign yourself to reality, Cordelia, you will only store up misery for yourself. Don't you see that?"

She raised a sardonic eyebrow. Nothing could be more miserable than the reality of life with Prince Michael. "Is Christian settled with the Due de Carillac?"

It was such an abrupt change of subject, he was taken aback. But it was easier to talk of Christian than to talk of futile love. And if that was all that was troubling Cordelia, then he could do nothing to help her.

"I believe Carillac made him a generous offer," he said neutrally. "I daresay Christian will be at Versailles at some point during the wedding festivities. Carillac will want to show him off."

"I wonder how we can contrive to talk," Cordelia mused. "Michael must have ceremonial duties, meetings and levees and things to attend. He can't watch me all the time." She shook her head suddenly and offered him a bright smile. "Forgive me, I have need of the retiring room."

She glided away in the direction of one of the rooms set aside as a tiring-room for the ladies, but her smile seemed to remain, hovering in the air, bright, and as brittle as crystal.

Leo went over to one of the long windows looking down on the gardens. He stared out into the rain. Why did she think Michael watched her? Husbands weren't spies. She had been keeping something from him, lying to him. But why?

Chapter Fourteen

"Where's Mathilde?" Cordelia stared at the red-cheeked girl in her bedchamber. The girl was bobbing curtsies, her cheeks growing redder by the minute.

"I don't know, m'lady. Monsieur Brion said I was to look after you. Shall I help you with your gown?" Nervously, she came toward the princess, who continued to stare at her as if she were some unknown member of the animal kingdom.

Cordelia spun on her heel and marched into the salon, which was lit only by two candles on the mantel. "Monsieur Brion!" She called for him at the top of her lungs. And when he didn't immediately materialize, she yelled again. She paced the Turkey carpet, from window to door, her hands gripped together so tightly that her knuckles were white.

"Princess. Did you call?" Brion appeared from the kitchen. He was still fully dressed in livery and would remain so until the prince had gone to bed. He looked anxiously at the princess.

"Where's Mathilde? What's that girl doing in my chamber?" She rapped out the questions, so filled with dread that her voice was a high-pitched staccato rattle, bearing almost no resemblance to her own.

The majordomo pulled nervously at his chin. "The prince told me to summon Elsie to attend Your Highness," he explained.

"Where is Mathilde?" She took a step toward him and involuntarily he edged backward.

"The prince said Mistress Mathilde had to go somewhere." Brion was wringing his hands apologetically as the white-faced Fury, eyes ablaze, advanced on him.

"Where? Where has she gone?"

Unhappily, he shook his head. "The prince didn't say, my lady."

"But Mathilde. She must have said something." It was unreal to imagine that Mathilde would disappear without a word.

"I didn't see her, my lady. She was in your bedchamber last I knew, then the prince came up before the banquet and spoke with her. I haven't seen her since."

Cordelia was beginning to feel as if the world had tilted into insanity. This couldn't be true, it couldn't be happening. "Her belongings. Has she taken them?"

"I don't believe so, madame." To his relief, he saw that the princess was beginning to calm down. The light of madness was slowly dying in her eyes, and her voice had resumed its normal pitch and volume.

"Have you been told to send them on anywhere?"

He shook his head. "Not as yet, my lady."

Cordelia nodded slowly. "Very well. Thank you." She turned and went back to her own room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Elsie still stood where she'd left her in the middle of the room, gazing anxiously at the door through which her mistress had disappeared-and now reappeared.

"Should I help you now, my lady?"

Cordelia didn't appear to hear. She resumed her pacing, nibbling at a loose thumbnail. Why would Michael send Mathilde away? How had he done it? Mathilde would not have abandoned Cordelia willingly or easily. He must have come up here before the banquet had begun, after she had defeated him so soundly at the card tables. And he'd said nothing to her the whole evening.

The banquet in the opera house had not begun until ten o'clock and had dragged on interminably into the early hours of the morning. Michael had sat beside her, saying nothing to her, confining all his conversation to those around them. They were all strangers to Cordelia, and because her husband didn't address her, neither did anyone else, leaving her feeling as if she were sitting invisible in a freezing void. Once the dauphin and his bride had been escorted from the opera house, the prince had said in a cold undertone that she now had his leave to return to their own apartments, where he would join her at his pleasure.

Cordelia didn't make the mistake of assuming she had a choice. She had simply curtsied and left. She had come up to bed and found Mathilde gone, just as Michael had planned it.

Her head began to ache anew and her body throbbed with weariness. She had been up and wearing court dress for almost twenty-four hours, and the heavy weight of damask and the constriction of her corset was a torment in her fatigue. She was too tired tonight to deal with this. She wanted Mathilde. And the thought of what Michael might have done to her nurse buzzed in her brain like a tormenting bee. She had never believed anyone could defeat Mathilde, could force Mathilde to do anything she didn't believe was right. So how had he compelled her departure?

"Should I help you, madame?" Elsie ventured again. She knew what she was supposed to do but didn't know how to respond when she was prevented from performing her tasks. Experience, however, had taught her that if she failed to perform those tasks, she would be blamed regardless of the reason.

"Yes… very well, yes, you may assist me," Cordelia said vaguely.

Relieved, Elsie ran forward to unbutton, unhook, unlace with reverent hands. Cordelia stood stock-still, offering little help, too absorbed in her own thoughts to be really aware of what was happening. She shrugged into the white velvet chamber robe that Elsie held for her, and sat on the dresser stool, beginning to unpin her hair.

"Oh, I must do that for you, madame." Elsie leaped forward. "I've never waited on a lady before," she confided, pulling out pins hastily. "So I hope I'm doing things right." She picked up the ivory-backed brush and began to draw it through the rippling blue-black cascade falling down Cordelia's back.

Cordelia didn't respond. She was still thinking furiously. Mathilde would come back. She would come to her even if she'd been forbidden by the prince. If she was physically capable of doing so.

The door opened behind her and her heart jumped into her throat. She looked at him in the mirror in front of her. He stood in the doorway. He had removed his sword, but apart from that was still dressed in his wedding finery, the gold emblem of Prussia pinned to his sash.

She drew the folds of her chamber robe tighter around her as she rose to face him. "Where is Mathilde, my lord?" She spoke without inflection, but her eyes were filled with anger and contempt. Not a shadow of fear. She had gone beyond fear.

"She has been replaced as your abigail." He smiled his asp's smile. "I told you that you had need of a woman with more experience of the duties of a lady's maid at Versailles than some elderly nursemaid."

"I see." Still her voice was flat. "Elsie informs me that she has no previous experience of an abigail's work anywhere, let alone Versailles. But I daresay you assume that she comes by the required knowledge in some other way. Perhaps she breathes it in, or it comes to her in dreams."