Royal 02 - Royal Passion (11 page)

"What a fine conspirator you make,” de Landes said from close beside her a moment later. “I chose well."

She turned on him. “What do you want?"

"How fierce you are! You would do well to remember your position and that of your beloved grandmother.” The man touched his mustache, smoothing it into the thin black line that led on each side of his red, moist mouth to a narrow, pointed beard. His smile was cold.

Mara stared at him. Inside her rose a virulent hatred allied with a chill fear. De Landes was handsome in a dark and diabolical fashion, an image he deliberately heightened with his black clothing and the pointed shape of his beard and mustache. During the short time of their acquaintance, she had come to the conclusion that he enjoyed his scheming and considered himself another Machiavelli. That egotism made him no less dangerous.

He gave a brief nod of satisfaction at her silent acceptance of his rebuke. “Quickly then. I congratulate you on your swift conquest of the prince. I had not thought you would find it so easy."

"Your congratulations are premature. I am living under his roof, nothing more."

"How disappointing. It must be remedied."

His voice was cold, the words precise. There could be no misunderstanding. She raised her chin. “I see no need."

"Don't you? I will explain once again. In a short time you are going to have to exert influence over this man, this prince. Your greatest hope of being heeded is for you to be on the most intimate terms possible with him."

"It's madness,” she cried in low tones, her hands clenched at her sides. “He isn't a man to be influenced by a woman, no matter how close his relationship with her."

"All men listen to their mistresses, especially if the affair is new and the woman is clever."

"You don't understand. The prince is suspicious. He doesn't believe in the loss of memory, I know he doesn't. I'm afraid he may have brought me with him to Paris only to watch me. It won't work!"

"You must see that it does. You can, if you will put aside your maidenly shrinking and foolish excuses. I assure you it's so, for even I feel your attraction."

She sent him a look of revulsion. “I can't do this, I can't!"

"You had best steel yourself to it.” His voice was sibilant, and there was a red tint to his white skin for her lack of response to his compliment. “In two weeks’ time the prince must attend a ball given by the Vicomtesse Beausire. It is your job to be certain that he is present. The consequences for failure you well know."

"But how—I can't—"

"An invitation will come. You will see that he accepts it."

"He may accept it regardless. There might be no need at all for my interference."

"And he could just as easily disregard it. Prince Roderic is known for being discriminating and also most politically astute when it comes to obliging a hostess with his presence. But this is an occasion he must attend. I depend on you."

"This is a political matter then?” Mara inquired.

De Landes ignored the question. “You will also see that the prince arrives at the proper time and that he is in the proper place. I will contact you later to tell you when and where."

"But how am I to do that without attending?"

"You will attend. The occasion will be such that a man may bring his mistress if it pleases him."

"What if I am recognized?"

"By then it won't matter."

"Not to you and your plans, but to me—"

"That is of no importance. There is much more at stake here than your good name, my dear."

"What is it? What are you doing? Why must I bring the prince to this ball?"

"It isn't necessary or advisable that you know these things, only that you realize what will happen to Madame Helene and to you if you do not comply exactly with my instructions."

"But I—"

"That will do. Remember what I have said. You have only two weeks. Use them well."

The shop assistant Worth was returning. De Landes bowed, smiling politely as if he had been doing no more than passing the time of day, before he turned and walked away.

Her hands were trembling, her whole body jerking. It was only by a great effort of will that she was able to turn back and complete her purchase. By the time she had given directions for where it should be sent, Luca had returned and the hired cabriolet was waiting. She thought Worth looked at her in some surprise as he wrote down the name of Ruthenia House, but she could not help it. Turning away, she allowed the gypsy to escort her from the shop.

There was a river of carriages of every make and description, wagons, carts, and handbarrows moving in jerking stops and starts along the narrow streets of the city. Drivers cursed, whips cracked, horses neighed, and people shouted out the windows at other drivers and occupants of passing vehicles. Iron-rimmed wheels rang as they thudded over the uneven cobblestones. Inside the cabriolet, the ride was so rough that Mara had to cling to the inside strap and so slow that people on foot continually passed around the vehicle, threading with insouciance through the traffic.

Luca, rather than sit inside with Mara, had swung up beside the driver. Alone and unobserved, Mara frowned in thought. What possible reason could de Landes have for wanting the prince to appear at a ball given by a woman of the petty nobility such as the Vicomtesse Beausire? The only thing that sprang to mind was a vendetta of some kind. Nothing else made any sense. De Landes had mentioned politics, but as a cause it seemed doubtful. The Frenchman was entrenched in the government of Louis Philippe of the house of Orléans and must therefore be assumed to be an Orleanist with personal reasons for supporting the monarchy. The prince was the heir apparent to the throne of Ruthenia, and it was obvious he would favor the same form of government.

Mara had little real interest in political matters, particularly those in France. It was her grandmother who had for years kept abreast of the various revolutions and factions, and particularly the delicious scandals that often erupted. It was as fascinating as a play, the things men got up to, Helene had said; sometimes the poses and attitudes they struck and their reasons for espousing certain ideas were just as ridiculous as the most popular farce. Because her grandmother had often read bits and pieces from the newssheets and journals to her, interspersed with her own sharp comments, Mara had a fair grasp of the situation.

With the fall of the empire of Napoleon some thirty years before, the Bourbons had returned to power in the person of Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, who had been beheaded in 1793, and uncle of the young Louis XVII, who had died in the Temple. In the words of Napoleon, the Bourbons had forgotten nothing and learned nothing. Though Louis XVIII was a prudent king who gave the people a constitution, he was also a cold and calculating one who in later years considered that his divine right to rule took precedent over the rights of the people. He was succeeded by his brother, Charles X, who was a kind man and an honest one, but even more inclined to rule absolutely. After a reign of just six years, King Charles's inability to compromise or to comprehend the nature of the changes in France had brought about a revolution that had resulted in his abdication in favor of his grandson, the comte de Chambord.

The country had, at the time, been in the hands of a provisional government that had had enough of the Bourbons, however. The throne was declared vacant, and the duc d'Orléans, a member of a minor branch of the Bourbon family, was handed the crown in a coup that was called the July Revolution. Rather than being styled the king of France, he had been given the title of “king of the French by the grace of god and the will of the people.” So he had remained until the present.

The seventeen years of Louis Philippe's reign had not been easy. The legitimist party, dedicated to returning a true Bourbon to the throne, considered Louis Philippe a usurper and despised him for being the son of the regicide Philippe Egalite. The socialists wanted a new republic, a government more representative of the people without the trappings of royalty. The reformists wanted changes wrought in the assembly that would deprive Louis Philippe of some of his powers, leaving him more like the figurehead monarchs of England. There were also the Bonapartists who felt that never had there been a more glorious and progressive era for France than during the time of the Napoleonic empire. The return of the hero Napoleon Bonaparte's body to France from St. Helena in 1840, and his internment at Les Invalides in a nest of six coffins, had given rise to a new impetus to bring the nephew of the great man to the throne. This man, Charles Louis Napoleon, was the third child of the emperor's brother Louis, king of the Netherlands, and Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Josephine.

Louis Philippe had come into office as a result of the approval of the middle class. He continued to court that support, becoming in fact a bourgeois king who was often seen on the streets, in restaurants, and in cafés in a dark coat and hat with a rolled umbrella under his arm. His habits were frugal, a trait he had acquired in exile when he had often gone hungry. He had also, while on a prolonged visit to Louisiana during that period, taken on the American characteristics of early rising and hard work. It was said that the king rose at dawn each morning, kindled his own fire, and worked at his desk until breakfast. These traits appealed to the bourgeoisie, but could not endear him to those who expected a king to act like a king.

The middle class was the largest and the most influential because of its wealth and the monopoly it held on representation in the assembly. Regardless, the furthering of its rights and prerogatives at the expense of the nobility or the common people was a mistake. Plotting was rife at both upper and lower levels, but particularly among the more radical elements propounding the rights of the working man.

In the past few years there had been numerous attempts on the life of the king, notably one by Giuseppe Fieschi who had constructed an “infernal machine” made of twenty-five guns arranged to fire simultaneously. The king and his sons had been unhurt in the attack, but eighteen people had been killed. Fieschi and the other conspirators had been sent to the guillotine. Bonaparte's nephew, Charles Louis Napoleon, had twice tried to bring about a popular insurrection. On the last attempt he had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment at Ham, but only the year before he had escaped, dressed as a laborer, and taken refuge in England.

Grandmère Helene, in common with most of the older women among the French Creoles of Louisiana, had, from long practice in tracing family relationships, an excellent head for the complicated genealogies of the current principals in the intrigues around the French throne. She had called it a squabble among thieves to steal a stolen throne. Louis Philippe, she had declared, had no right whatever to sit upon it. He was merely the great-great-great grandson of an Austrian princess and an Italian cardinal, no Bourbon at all. Those with an ear for old tales would remember that the second son of Anne of Austria, the queen consort of Louis XIII, was known to have been sired not by the king but by her lover, Cardinal Mazarin. As for Charles Louis Napoleon, his mother, the young Hortense de Beauharnais, had made a great scene over being wedded to a doltish man who was her uncle by marriage and had declared that she would never submit in the nuptial bed. Even if her first son had, perhaps, been born of the union, it was suspected that Charles Louis, her third, was the result of an affair with a famous Dutch admiral. Her lovers had been so numerous at the time, however, that it was possible Hortense herself could not have named the father. As for the older Bourbon line so acclaimed as royally pure by the legitimists, well! There were so many possibilities for dilution of that blue blood that naming them would be tedious beyond words.

What would Grandmère Helene say if she knew what her granddaughter was contemplating at this moment? Would the affair Mara was embroiled in seem as sordidly amusing as those of more prominent personages?

She must seduce the prince. The assignment was inescapable. She had wasted so much time with her reluctance and procrastination. The deed could have been done, she suspected, if she had been more forward.

Two weeks. She had two weeks in which to attach the prince, to gain his bed. It was not enough to merely become his mistress, she must also enthrall him so that he would accede to her requests. A light flirtation, a brief liaison would not do. This formidable man must be captivated by her to the point that he would enjoy pleasing her, bowing to her wishes.

How was it to be done? How?

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On the afternoon of the shopping excursion, Mara requested a meeting of the staff of Ruthenia House. Luca, having no set duties, chanced to be idling in the private salon just off the long exercise gallery of the cadre when she sent a maid with the message to the servants’ quarters on the lower floor. He made no comment, but when the servants filed into the room, he set aside the piece of wood he was carving and moved to stand behind her chair.

Mara, seated at a desk that she had taken as her own, was grateful for the silent gesture of support. She had managed her father's house for some years, ordering the buying of food and supplies, directing the slaves in the cleaning and repair. But that was different from handling French servants with their ancient notions of the perquisites of having a place in a household, their belief in their own worth that amounted very nearly to a sense of superiority, and their republican notions of equality. She would have to take a high hand if she was not to be overborne.

Twenty-one household employees had presented themselves. According to the account book listing their names and wages, there were a cook, two assistants, three scullery maids, four housemaids, two under-housemaids, four footmen, a gardener, an under-gardener, a coachman, and two men whose duty it was to dispose of garbage and slop. Mara sat for a long moment surveying the group. They were not impressive. The women wore no caps, and their aprons were grubby and stained. The men looked as if their coats and waistcoats had been hastily donned and in any case were of the kind they might wear in the street. There was a general air of slovenliness, and a sullenness with it, as if they enjoyed their easy positions and preferred to keep them the way they were.