Royal 02 - Royal Passion (27 page)

The smile quickly faded from Mara's face as she moved into the dressing room with the housemaid. The tears were close, but she suppressed them with an effort. It was ridiculous of her to feel this way. She should be happy that this sordid episode would soon be over, that she would be free of her false position here, that she would finally escape from the clutches of de Landes. What had happened with the prince had little meaning. She would return to Louisiana as soon as was humanly possible; that decision had been made in the last few hours. Once there, she would retreat to her father's plantation, if he would allow it, if he would accept a daughter so tarnished. In the slow passage of the days, in that quiet place, the world would forget her, and she would also forget. She would, if it took the rest of her life.

It very well might. She had not known what to expect, had not seriously considered what it would mean to become the prince's mistress. She had not known what it would be like to lie in his arms, to wake up in the morning beside him, to share the generosity, the caring, and the grace of his love-making. She would miss those things; this much she recognized even now. She would regret their loss in some deep, unreachable portion of her being.

It was wrong, she knew. She should be relieved that the hateful necessity of submitting to those embraces would soon be over. She should be overjoyed that the strain of her masquerade would be done, that she would be able to return to her former life. But life was never so simple. She had become involved with Roderic and the cadre, had come to care what became of them. It would be painful to part from them, never to know what would become of them. More painful than she would have believed possible.

Finally, her hair was done, piled in glossy curls on her head with ringlets falling from a high chignon in the Greek fashion, and a pair of small, perfect, pink hothouse rosebuds nestling behind her left ear. Silk stockings were rolled up her legs and her slippers placed on her feet. Her gown of pink-tinted white silk was lifted over her head and fastened in the back with a row of tiny pearl buttons, then settled into place over her petticoat, which was stiffened with
crin
, or woven horsehair. Long gloves of fine kid were worked over her hands and up her arms.

"Shall you wear your jewels, mademoiselle?” Lila asked.

They were not needed, Mara could see that, but Roderic had given the diamonds to her and would doubtless expect her to have them on. She nodded her acquiescence.
"Très belle,"
Lila murmured, stepping back to admire her handiwork when the necklace, earrings, and bracelet were in place. “There will not be a lady there who can compare!"

Mara thanked the girl, complimenting her most sincerely on her expertise with hair, then stood back as the housemaid tapped on the bedchamber door and opened it for her to pass into the other room.

Roderic turned from where he had been standing by the fire, staring into the flames. He came toward her at once and, taking her hand, brought it to his lips, inclining his head in a small bow of homage. “Ring the bells and sound the cymbals; she has come."

"Am I late?” Mara inquired in some confusion.

"You are beauty incarnate. Splendid and without blemish."

She smiled, her glance moving over the burnished perfection of his uniform as it was molded to the width of his shoulders and the long, muscled length of his legs; the decorations that glittered on his chest and the smooth, gold waves of his hair. “It's you who are splendid."

He acknowledged her comment with the faintest of smiles and a shake of his head, then went on, “There is only one thing, perhaps two—"

It was Lila who frowned, moving forward in a fashion that might have been called belligerent. “What is it, Your Highness?"

Roderic looked at Sarus, who came forward bearing a velvet-covered box in one hand and a bundle in the other. The elderly manservant flicked open the box to reveal a pa-rure of pearls that were shaded delicately with pink iridescence and had a clasp made of a large baroque pearl, also of an iridescently pale pink. Beside a double-strand necklace, there were earrings and a double-strand bracelet.

"A token of atonement,” Roderic said, his voice quiet, “if you will permit it, for my lapse of taste before."

It was a priceless gift. Pearls of so unusual a color, so perfectly matched for size and luster, and with their matched clasp, took years of painstaking care to find and assemble together. They blurred before Mara's eyes, and she swallowed hard before looking up at the prince. “There was no necessity."

"The need was mine."

He made an abrupt gesture to the maid. Lila unclasped the diamonds around Mara's neck and stepped back. Roderic lifted the necklace of pearls from its satin bed and placed it around Mara's throat. Deftly, he removed the earrings from her ears and the bracelet from her gloved wrist, tossing them aside as if they were worthless baubles, before replacing them with the pearls. Without pausing, he then turned and took the bundle that Sarus held, shaking it out to reveal an ermine cloak. This he swung around her shoulders, catching it close at the throat with a hidden clasp.

"You—you are too generous,” Mara said, her voice strained. She could not bring herself to look at him, so overwhelming was her sense of guilt and her pain. Instead, she focused her gaze on the blue ribbon of some order that slashed across his chest.

"I am selfishness made whole. It pleases me to see you decked with pearls of my choosing. If I were generous, I would give you the opportunity for refusing to be decorated for my pleasure. If I were generous, I would have let you go long ago, or else—"

He stopped abruptly. There were times when the habit of loquacity was inconvenient. He had very nearly said that if he had been generous, he would have taken from her the burden of her task; forced her to admit her lack of memory loss; wrung from her the reason she was with him so that she need go no further, need not bear with his demands upon her or suffer the suspense of wondering if she would be found out. That he had not done so was a transgression of his own code. It was too late now to rectify the matter. He had been selfish, indeed.

"Come,” he said, taking her hand and placing it on his arm, “the others are waiting."

The cadre milled around the fire in the salon, passing each other as they paced up and down. They were loath to sit out of regard for the unwrinkled perfection of their dress uniforms, which had gold bars across the jacket fronts and cerulean-blue stripes down the trouser legs. Juliana was also there, looking like a goddess in her gown of sea-blue, her height increased by her headdress of plumes and her grandeur enhanced by a small coronet of diamonds and sapphires set among her high-piled curls. The room seemed inordinately crowded with white uniforms, however. It was only an instant before Mara realized why.

"Luca!” she exclaimed. “How handsome you look."

"At last I am one of the cadre,” he said, pride in his bearing as he bowed. His uniform fit his lithe form to perfection, and as a token gesture toward the formality of the occasion he had even removed the gold ring from his ear. But there was a shadow in his dark eyes as he looked from her to the prince and back again.

"Just what we need,” Estes growled in mock annoyance, “a popinjay with sticky fingers and a talent for the knife."

Luca was unmoved by the insult. “You will appreciate my talents when someday you are starving as you live off the land and it is I who bring you food."

"Stolen chickens? Do you think we would eat them?"

"Every last morsel."

"Including the feet, as we have before,” Roderic said. “Shall we go?"

It was an order couched as a pleasant suggestion. Luca held a sable cape for Juliana, and the others shrugged into overcoats, then in high spirits they swept from the house. Mara and Juliana were put into a carriage; the prince and the others mounted horses. The grooms who had been holding the horses stood back, the coachman cracked his whip, then in a body they moved from the courtyard, streaming out into the cobbled street as the great wrought-iron gates were flung wide. Behind them was Ruthenia House, with its lighted windows and torches flaring at the entrance door into the cold north wind. Ahead was the darkness of unlighted streets in this older section of the city. And the ball.

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The townhouse of the Vicomtesse Beausire, located on the avenue d'Eylau in the quieter northwestern section of Paris, was an imposing pile in the darkness. Though of massive size, it was far from daring in style, boasting the same mansard roof, Italianate arched windows, golden limestone, and massive front doorway as a thousand others.

Inside was a grand marble entrance hall with great, verd antique columns reaching up from a chessboard floor of black and white squares toward a groined ceiling painted with a classic allegorical scene in the fashionable colors of the season, green, blue, and apricot. A pair of curving white marble staircases led upward to a gallery that ran around the inside of the great foyer. Directly in front of the point where the two flights of stairs met on the upper level were double doors gleaming with gilt, which were thrown open to receive the throng moving up the marble steps.

The members of the Ruthenia party were relieved of their wraps in the entrance hall by a swarm of servants and ushered up the stairs. The vicomtesse, a widow of unlimited means and impressive family connections, greeted them just inside the large open ballroom. The nodding plumes of an unlikely shade of green mixed with an insipid apricot that made up her headdress quite dwarfed those in Juliana's hair. Her gown of the same colors was so bedecked with ribbons and poufs of net in every hue that her shoulders sagged with the weight. Her face was round and heavily powdered to remove every trace of her natural high color for the necessary wan look, but it shone with good nature and enjoyment of her own role as hostess. She welcomed the prince with effusion and waved them all into the room. The king was expected at any moment, she said, and the party could begin then.

The gathering was indeed in a state of hiatus. Music played, but no one was dancing. Though waiters were stationed around the room, and there were numerous tables laden with trays of refreshments of various kinds set around enormous silver epergnes filled with hothouse flowers, no one was yet partaking of the bounty. The air was heated by great blazing fires at each end of the room. The fragrance of more flowers, placed on stands in alcoves, wafted on the warm air, vying with the perfume of the ladies. The guests, for the most part, stood waiting near the doorway to pay the required obeisance to the royal personages who would be attending. In the meantime they talked in voices of varying degrees of stridency and volume so that the room was filled with a dull roaring.

It was a highly fashionable assembly. The evening coats and trousers of the men in their rich black and gray were excellent foils for the lighter gowns of the ladies in silk and crepe de chine, in damask and brocade, in taffeta and satin
broché
and
mousseline de laine.
The colors of the season were much in evidence, along with ecru, pale blue, and the perennial lavender and gray of half-mourning. The skill of Parisian dressmakers was also on display in the current style of the gowns, with tiered skirts heavily embroidered; edged with lace, ribbon, and ruffles; or with alternating bands of color to create an appearance of large horizontal stripes.

The cadre in their sparkling white uniforms, with Mara and Juliana among them in their elegantly simple ensembles, caused a stir. Heads turned as the Prince's name was announced. A concerted whisper ran around the room. Women stared. Men craned their necks. There was a white-haired gentleman with a monocle in one eye standing nearby, and Roderic, as if oblivious of anyone else, moved toward him. Since he held her hand in the crook of his arm, Mara perforce went with him.

The prince introduced the white-haired man as a diplomat representing a small country near Ruthenia, while he presented Mara, with great delicacy, as a friend of his sister. The rush of gratitude she felt for that small but typical courtesy caused her to lose track of the conversation for an instant. She glanced away, surveying the crowd.

Abruptly, her gaze was caught and held by a man among the guests. De Landes stood not a dozen feet away. His gaze was fixed on her, as if by its intensity he could attract and hold her attention, could remind her of what she must do. She had allowed herself to forget for a few brief moments. Now it came back to her with renewed force.

This was not an evening of pleasure. There would be no dancing for her, no flirtation, no carefree enjoyment of the music and food and wine or of the society of the best families of France and the cadre in a festive mood. She was here for a purpose, and she must carry it out. She must hold Roderic beside her near the doorway where soon the king of France would enter.

He showed no inclination to move. It appeared, in fact, that he was established there within a few feet of the entrance. The cadre had spread out as if in some disciplined military maneuver so that there was a cordon of white uniforms in that area. Nearest to Roderic and herself was one of the twins—Jared, she thought—while beyond him Luca stood with Juliana as they both talked to a foppish little man in a lavender waistcoat. The other twin, Jacques, was on their left in conversation with a prelate in a bishop's robe. Michael held a place beyond him. Trude and Estes were on the opposite side of the circle with a short space separating them, Trude talking to an elderly roué and the Italian count paying such absurd gallantries to a matron and her daughter that the girl was smothering giggles with her hand.

For all the ease of their stances, however, there was about them a tingling alertness. The cadre was on guard; there could be no doubt of it. So watchful were they, so evenly spaced around the prince and about the door, that Mara felt her taut nerves tighten still further. She flung a quick glance at Roderic and found his attention upon her. His features were closed-in, his eyes as hard as blue glass.