Jane Feather - The Diamond Slipper

"My daughter will embrace France as her country," Maria Theresa stated. "She knows her duty. She knows that she was born to obey." She nodded decisively. "And Cordelia, of course, will be delighted to accompany Marie Antoinette-and to accept such an advantageous marriage. You have discussed this with her, Duke?" She turned to Franz with an inquiring smile.

The duke shrugged. "I saw no need to do so, madame. Cordelia also knows that she was born to obey. Now is time enough to tell her of her good fortune."

Good fortune? Leo's face was expressionless. Michael was a desiccated Prussian prince of rigid temperament; a sixteen-year-old might well be a trifle skeptical of such good fortune. Michael had not been as rigid when he'd married Elvira, but her death had darkened him in some way.

"So, my niece will wed Prince Michael by proxy and will accompany the dauphine to Versailles. You, Viscount, will be her escort, I understand."

"Yes, Duke. It will be my honor and privilege." Leo inclined his head in acknowledgment, thinking wearily of how tedious it was going to be accompanying some simpering debutante on such a long and arduous journey.

"Cordelia should be informed immediately. Send for Lady Cordelia." The empress gestured to her secretary, who bowed and left the room with swift step. "I would have this matter settled before the festivities of the wedding truly begin. We will be done with all business so we may enjoy ourselves on this joyous occasion with a free heart." Maria Theresa smiled benignly.

Cordelia stared down at the Latin text in front of her. The words made no sense; the grammatical structure was impenetrable. As she stumbled over the translation, she could sense the puzzled impatience of Abbe Vermond, the archbishop of Toulouse, who tutored both Cordelia and Marie Antoinette. Cordelia never stumbled. She took great pleasure in the intricacies of the Latin language, as she did in philosophy, history, and mathematics. Unlike Toinette, whose attention span was almost nonexistent, Cordelia was in general a bright, quick pupil. But not today.

She was alternately hot and cold, alternately filled with confused embarrassment and bemused anger when she thought of the exchange with the Englishman. And then when her body remembered the imprint of his through the light muslin of her gown, when her lips remembered the cool pliancy of his mouth, when her tongue remembered the taste of his mouth, she was awash with pulsing longing that she knew she should consider shameful, and yet she could find within herself not one iota of guilt or shame. It was pure exciting pleasure.

She glanced sideways at Toinette's fair head bent over her books. The archduchess was doodling in the margin of the text, idle scribbles of birds and flowers. She yawned, delicately covering her mouth with her fair white hand, her boredom palpable in the warm room filled with spring sunshine.

Had Toinette ever felt these strange stirrings, this heady flush of an unknown promise? Cordelia was certain she hadn't. Toinette would have confided such mysterious longings to her friend.

There was a knock at the door. Toinette sat up, blinking the daze from her eyes. Cordelia looked over with only mild curiosity at the flunky who stood in the doorway. "Lady Cordelia is summoned immediately to the empress."

"What could my mother want with you?" Toinette asked, frowning. "Why would she see you without me?"

"I can't imagine." Cordelia wiped her quill carefully and laid it on the blotter beside the inkstand. Such a summons was unprecedented, but one didn't keep the empress waiting. "If you would excuse me, mon pere." She curtsied to the archbishop and went to the door. The flunky bowed her out and escorted her to the empress's audience chamber, although she knew the way perfectly well.

She entered the audience chamber, her eyes swiftly taking in those present. A quiver of shock and surprise went through her at the sight of the English viscount standing behind the empress's chair. Dropping her eyes, she made a deep obeisance to the empress and thus missed the expression in the viscount's eyes. Her uncle, his gouty leg propped on a footstool, his hand resting on the silver knob of his cane, gave her a curt nod.

Leo turned aside, struggling to regain his composure. This was Cordelia Brandenburg! No simpering debutante but a mischievous, challenging, and sensual young woman. Just as Elvira had been before her marriage.

"Cordelia, my dear, your uncle has arranged a most advantageous match for you," the empress said without preamble. "Prince Michael von Sachsen is the Prussian ambassador to the court of Versailles. As his wife, you will take your place in that court, and you will be able to remain as friend and companion for Marie Antoinette."

Cordelia's mind whirled. She couldn't immediately take it in. She was to be married as well as Toinette? They would be going to France together? It was too good to be true- that she might be free of her uncle's tyrannical rule and the confines of the Austrian court. And live instead in that glittering palace of Versailles, in the fairy-tale world of the French court.

"Viscount Kierston, the prince's brother-in-law, will stand proxy for your wedding, which will take place the day after the archduchess's proxy marriage to the dauphin." Her uncle was speaking now in his flat assertive tones.

Leo turned slowly back to the room. Cordelia stared at him. "You… you are to be my husband." She didn't know what she was saying, the words spoke themselves.

"Proxy, child… proxy," the empress corrected sharply. "Prince Michael von Sachsen is to be your husband."

"Yes… yes, of course." But Cordelia barely heard the empress. She looked at the viscount and a warm river of excitement gushed through her veins. She couldn't put words to its cause; it seemed to spring from some bubbling source existing both in her mind and in her loins. It was as strange and terrifying a sensation as it was wonderful.

She smiled at Leo and the look in her eyes was so nakedly sensual that Leo was afraid that the others in the room would see it and wouldn't fail to read it correctly. He stepped forward, drawing something from his pocket.

"I have a betrothal gift from Prince Michael, Lady Cordelia. He kept his voice toneless and he avoided meeting her eye as he placed a small package in her hand. "You will also find a miniature of the prince." He stepped back, out of her line of sight.

Cordelia opened the flat velvet box and unwrapped the tissue. She withdrew a gold, pearl-studded charm bracelet and held it up to the light of the window. The jeweled charms swung together in the slight breeze.

"Very pretty," approved the empress.

Leo frowned. He hadn't thought to wonder about the prince's betrothal present. It had seemed unimportant. But the bracelet had been Elvira's, a gift from her husband on the birth of the twins. His mouth thinned. Michael kept a tight hold on his pursestrings, but to give a new wife a gift from a dead one seemed insensitive to say the least.

"Oh, look, there's another charm!" Cordelia was momentarily distracted from her emotional turmoil. She picked up a tiny diamond-encrusted slipper. "See how delicate it is." It lay in the palm of her hand, the diamonds glittering in the light. "He "must mean it to be my own special charm."

"We will send the bracelet and the charm to the jewelers, Cordelia, and they will attach the slipper," Maria Theresa said briskly, returning to business. "Leave it on the table there. Now take a look at the miniature of Prince Michael."

Cordelia reluctantly laid down the bracelet and unwrapped the small circular package that had accompanied the box. The portrait of her future husband looked up at her from a lacquered frame. It was hard to get any sense of the person behind the flat image. She saw pale eyes under beetling brows, a thin straight mouth, a jutting jaw. His hair was concealed beneath a curled and powdered wig. He looked humorless, even severe, but since she was accustomed to dealing with both characteristics in her uncle, she was untroubled by it. He had no obvious physical defects that she could see, except for his age. He was definitely not in the first flush of youth. But if that was all to object to in her future husband, then she was luckier than many of her peers who were sold, regardless of inclination, to whoever suited their family's needs.

Her gaze darted toward Viscount Kierston. Was he married? That strange fizz of excitement was in her blood again. Her eyes widened and she almost took a step toward him. But he moved away and there was such a sharp warning in his own eyes that she recollected herself abruptly.

"How recent is the portrait?" she asked dutifully.

"It was taken last month," the viscount replied.

"I see. And does the prince have a miniature of me?"

"Yes, of course," her uncle said with a touch of impatience. "He received it months ago. One wouldn't expect Prince Michael to offer for you sight unseen."

"No, of course not," Cordelia murmured. "But I, of course, must accept him as my husband." It was almost sotto voce, but Leo heard it. His lips twitched despite his unease at the unnerving intensity of her gaze.

"The viscount will be your escort on the journey to Versailles," the duke stated, thumping his cane on the floor. He hadn't heard what she'd said, but he knew his niece and guessed it was something impertinent.

"I will be most grateful for His Lordship's escort." Cordelia curtsied demurely to the viscount. "I am obedient to the wishes of my empress and my uncle in all things." Her eyes flicked upward to meet the viscount's, and again he was taken aback by the light of passion blazing in the blue-gray depths. What was she? An innocent on the verge of sensual awakening? Or a woman who had held the secrets of that territory in her blood since birth?

The fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickled with the chilling certainty that he was going to find out.

Christian lurked in the corridor outside the empress's audience chamber. He knew that Cordelia was with the empress and her uncle. The whole palace was abuzz with rumors. Gossip traveled on the tongues of servants faster than a panther on the heels of prey, and Lady Cordelia's name was on every tongue. Nothing specific had been said, but it was generally agreed that the arrival of the French delegation concerned Lady Cordelia's future as well as the archduchess's.

Christian nibbled a loose cuticle as he hovered in a window embrasure. He knew they wouldn't be able to speak openly in the public corridor, but he was too apprehensive and curious to wait patiently for Cordelia to seek him out. Something peculiar had happened earlier between her and the man in the gallery. He wanted to know what, and whether it had any bearing on whatever was happening now.

The door to the audience chamber opened, and a tall man in dark riding clothes emerged. He stood for a minute in the corridor, and his expression, which had been calmly neutral a second earlier, suddenly came alive. Christian didn't know who he was, but the glint in the hazel eyes was so inviting he almost stepped out of the window embrasure toward him. A puzzled frown drew the stranger's eyebrows together, and the light in his eyes was suddenly speculative. Then his taut mouth relaxed, turning up at the corners in an attractive smile. Still smiling to himself, he strolled down the corridor, passing Christian without so much as a glance, his short scarlet-lined riding cape swinging with his long stride.

Christian wondered what it was about the stranger that was so charismatic. He seemed to possess a curiously magnetic quality. Then he shrugged off the question and resumed his vigil. The empress was keeping Cordelia for an inordinately long time. Duke Franz Brandenburg emerged next, leaning heavily on his cane, his habitual scowl marring his jowly countenance. He stomped down the passage, ignoring the musician. A servant hurried past, half running, and still Cordelia didn't appear.

Christian turned to gaze down through the window into the court below. It was packed with wagons, carriages, and horses as the palace set about preparing to entertain those who had come to take the archduchess to her future life.

The light pattering of slippered footsteps brought him round to face the corridor again. Marie Antoinette was dancing down the corridor toward her mother's door. Toinette rarely walked anywhere.

Christian frowned as the archduchess was admitted to the audience chamber. Was there some trouble that both girls should be summoned to the empress? Had he and Cordelia been seen somewhere, exchanging urgent whispers in a corner of the gardens? In a fever of anxiety, he began to pace the corridor, unaware of the curious glances he drew from hurrying servants.