Devil's Palace (10 page)

‘The Princess died yesterday.'

Louise's china-blue eyes clouded. ‘ But how sad. Monsieur Blanc will have lost one of his best patrons and you will have lost a lady I think you were inordinately fond of.'

‘Yes.' The painful racing of Charlotte's heart was subsiding.

Louise's quicksilver brain flew from sympathy to practicality. ‘What will you do now, Charlotte? Have you finances? A family?'

‘No.' Incredibly Charlotte felt a wry smile touch her lips. ‘No, Louise. I have nothing.'

‘But what will you do?' Louise's delicately featured face was perturbed.

‘I shall return to England. There is money owing to me—sufficient for my fare.'

A small frown furrowed Louise de Remy's brow. Money owing was all too often money never paid. She twirled her parasol. ‘I shall gamble for you this evening, Charlotte. If I win, my winnings shall be yours.'

Charlotte felt a rush of warmth towards her new-found friend. ‘That is exceedingly kind of you, Louise, but I shall be able to manage. Prince Victor will honour the Princess's debt to me.'

Louise de Remy's frown deepened. Prince Yakovlev was not a man likely to part with a single
louis
without gratification in return. Gratification it was obvious Charlotte was unwilling to provide.

The horses cantered into the elegant boulevard that ran past the entrance to the Villa Ondine. It suddenly occurred to Charlotte that she was riding with one of Europe's grande cocottes; that if she were seen her reputation would be ruined. She was uncaring. Friendship had been extended and Charlotte did not care that the source was unacceptable in polite society. Polite society had spared her little sympathy. Neither Lady Pethelbridge, the Countess of Bexhall, or any of the other ladies who had paid their respects to the dead Princess had concerned themselves with her welfare. Louise's long-lashed eyes held genuine concern.

As the carriage approached the stone lion-flanked gates of the villa the horses reined to a standstill.

‘You will not take exception, Charlotte, if I tell you there is no need for you to return to England. No need for you to suffer financially.' The parasol twirled. ‘The life I lead is one of comfort and leisure. It is one you could live on as grand a scale. You understand my meaning, Charlotte? You do not take offence?'

Charlotte shook her head. ‘ No. I do not take offence, Louise. I know that you are only trying to help me, but I could not be happy as a cocotte.'

‘It is very easy, Charlotte,' Louise laughed. ‘Delightfully easy and delightfully pleasurable. If you should change your mind, please contact me.' She handed Charlotte a gold embossed card. ‘And take care. No more compromising situations with gentlemen who are not gentlemen and …' Louise de Remy leaned forward, ‘… no man is a gentleman when alone with a beautiful woman.'

Charlotte smiled. Louise reclined once again against the satin upholstery. The posies of pink carnations bobbed in the sunlight as the horses once more began to trot in the direction of the Boulevard des Moulins and the splendid apartment where the grand duke waited impatiently.

Charlotte began to walk between the Villa Ondine's immaculately kept flower beds. The bronze knocker on the front door was draped in black crepe. The curtains and shutters at every window were drawn. To ask at such a time for money seemed to Charlotte to be the height of bad taste, yet what else could she do? She could not remain at the Villa Ondine now that there was no function for her to perform. And if she waited for a more suitable time to approach the Prince, it might well prove to be too late. The Prince had given no indication of how long he was staying in Monte Carlo. He could disappear at a moment's notice and she would be left destitute.

Heavy-hearted she entered the sombrely shadowed villa, filled with a presentiment of disaster.

Maria approached her, her face white and strained.

‘Prince Victor would like to speak with you, Mademoiselle. He is in the main salon.'

‘Thank you, Maria.' She had hoped to be able to bathe and change before facing the Prince. Now, not only would she have to face him in a gown dust-blown from her hasty flight, but she would also have to explain her absence. An absence he had given no permission for.

She knocked lightly on the satinwood door. On no account must she allow herself to be intimidated. The reimbursement she was about to ask for was reimbursement due to her. Without it, she could not return to England; could not survive.

‘Enter.'

Charlotte did so. The salon had been the Princess's favourite room. In it she had lain on the Louis Philippe
chaise longue
while Charlotte had read to her. In it she had sat, eyes clouded with memories, reminiscing to Charlotte about the days of her youth. Charlotte felt her stomach turn and tighten at the sight of the empty
chaise longue.
There would be no more such happy moments. The atmosphere in the villa had already changed. It was as if the very rooms were no longer so warm, so light. With a shock she saw that the Princess's personal stationery, her gold embossed pen, her crystal paperweight, had all been removed from the desk. Photographs, too, were missing. The Grand Duchess no longer smiled from her silver frame on the secretaire. Within hours the room had been robbed of the Princess's presence.

Prince Victor was sumptuously attired in military uniform. He had a weakness for gold braid and tasselled epaulettes. His military uniforms were splendid and various, and all entirely honorary. As he rose from the gilded chair behind the desk the scarlet of his jacket tightened dangerously. The Prince refused to accept his portliness and instructed his tailor to make all his jackets for a man of a lesser size, believing that the effect was complimentary. His hair was fine, effeminately soft, pale in colour. His moustaches were sparse and though grown long at either side of his mouth in order that they could be dashingly twirled, remained limp and drooping, no matter how much care was expended on them.

He was fifty-four. There had been a wife but she had died. He couldn't remember when or where. She had been a whey-faced creature who had given no satisfaction in bed and had not even had the courtesy to produce an heir. He would marry again. At his leisure. A girl of rank and wealth and tender years.

Prince Victor seldom exerted himself over any female over the age of fifteen, but the girl in front of him was an exception. He surveyed her appreciatively. ‘Please be seated, Mademoiselle Grainger. I have ascertained that there is money owing to you.'

Charlotte breathed a deep sigh of relief that was quickly quelled as the Prince sat himself disconcertingly close beside her.

‘And your family, you are no doubt desirous of returning to them?'

‘I have no family.'

‘Ah …' The Prince moved slightly. A bulging thigh pressed against Charlotte's skirts.

‘I know that the time is not fitting to discuss financial matters,' Charlotte began, painfully aware of his unwelcome weight and of the Princess's body only rooms away, ‘ but my position is … difficult.'

Prince Victor observed the long, slender fingers, the almond tipped nails.

‘Whilst in Princess's Yakovleva's employ I had little need of my salary and the Princess kept it in her care.'

Prince Victor's pale blue eyes gleamed. It was going to be even easier than he had anticipated. The girl had no money. She was entirely dependent on him. The seduction of a virgin of good breeding was always titillating. The seduction of a girl who had been in his mother's employ even more so, especially if that seduction were carried out only yards from where his mother lay in state, candles at her head and feet.

His hand moved up and clasped her shoulder.

Charlotte's eyes widened. She drew as far away from him as politeness would allow. His kindness was disturbing and his manner of showing it unwelcome.

‘And so, I must ask you if you will kindly pay me the money owing to me,' she said with a rush. ‘The amount is written in the Princess's account book. The book is in the top, right-hand drawer of the secretaire …'

‘Do not worry yourself on account of the money,' the Prince said, and there was a tone of unmistakable heat in his voice. ‘ I shall take exceedingly good care of you, my little Charlotte.'

Charlotte trembled. What had happened to the world? Was every man a lecher?

‘I will get the account book now, Your Highness.' Perhaps she had misunderstood the Prince. Perhaps his manner was merely unusual—European. She tried to rise to her feet and a hot, avaricious hand circled her waist.

‘We must become better acquainted, Charlotte. I am a generous man, a …'

Charlotte pushed his chest violently, sending him falling backwards against the
chaise longue
as she sprang to her feet.

‘I want none of your generosity, Prince Yakovlev! I want only that which is due to me … My salary!'

Her skirts whipped around her ankles as she marched across the room and pulled open the drawer of the desk. The Princess's leather-bound account book was in its accustomed place. She seized it, flicking through the pages with a trembling hand.

‘Here!' She held out the open book. ‘Here is the amount owed to me in the Princess's own handwriting. I ask that you honour that amount now, Prince Yakovlev!'

Prince Yakovlev was not a man accustomed to having his dignity insulted. Or to having his attentions spurned by those of lesser birth. A button had sprung from his jacket. A thin lock of hair had fallen across his forehead. He rose to his feet, breathing harshly, his face suffused an ugly dark red.

Viciously he snatched the book from her hand. Instinctively she stepped back.

‘
That
for your demands,' he said, ripping the page from the book, screwing it into a ball and throwing it into the waste basket.

‘But you cannot!' Charlotte's eyes were horrified.

‘I can.' There was sweat on his brow and an ugly tic had appeared in the lid of one eye. ‘Until you come to me with an apology, Mademoiselle, you will not receive one penny. An apology and
compliance
!'

Charlotte pressed her hand against her mouth to stifle her choked cry. Blindly she rushed from the salon. Reaching her own room she turned the key in the lock, leaning her head back against the door, her fingers splayed against the wood, tears coursing down her cheeks.

In the space of twenty-four hours her world had turned into nightmare. Count Sandor Karolyi had treated her as a woman of loose virtue. Comte Justin de Valmy had assumed she would be only too happy to live as his mistress, and, now, Prince Victor Yakovlev was demanding physical favours from her before he would pay her the salary owing to her. The salary that stood between herself and destitution.

She had no one to turn to. No friends—no family. She could not remain at the Villa Ondine. Despair engulfed her. Slowly she moved from the door and sat down on the bed. It was not true that she had no friends. Louise de Remy had declared herself her friend: and so had the great Sarah Bernhardt. She already knew what Louise's answer would be to her problems. She would go to Sarah. Perhaps Sarah would intercede on her behalf and speak to Prince Yakovlev.

Sandor strode across his vast, white-carpeted room and watched as Charlotte hurtled from the villa, running heedlessly down between banks of roses and magnolia.

Where the devil was the Yakovlev carriage? Charlotte continued to run, down between Beausoleil's flower-banked driveway and out through the gate. Tersely he rang for a footman.

‘Was a carriage waiting for the young lady at the gate?'

‘I think not, Count Karolyi.'

‘Then find out.'

The footman hastened to do as he was bid.

Sandor remained at the window, already knowing the answer. With Princess Yakovleva dead, Miss Charlotte Grainger would not think it proper to continue using Yakovlev
equipages.
She had walked the tiring distance from the Villa Ondine to Beausoleil. Not for the reason he had so foolishly assumed, but because her innate code of etiquette demanded that she did so. She had come to thank him and he had barely listened to her. Now, painfully, her words came back.

‘… your kindness … much appreciated.'

He smashed a fist hard into the carved wood that surrounded the window. The wood splintered. Blood spurted.

God's teeth! How could he ever have been such a fool as to imagine she would offer her body in exchange for shelter? He staunched the blood with a handkerchief and continued to stare broodingly at the road that led through orange and lemon groves towards Monte Carlo.

The footman knocked and was admitted.

‘There was no carriage. Count Karolyi. The young lady arrived on foot.'

‘Then send one after her!'

‘Yes, Count Karolyi.'

It would come back unused. Savagely he turned from the window and with his uninjured hand poured himself a glass of brandy. What would happen to her now Natalya was dead? She obviously had no financial resources of her own, so what other employment would she find? He thought of the cocottes who flaunted themselves so provocatively every evening in the Salle Mauresque. The brandy seared his throat. Charlotte Grainger would not become a cocotte. She would starve first. Nor a mistress. The decanter clinked against his glass as he poured more brandy. De Valmy's bed would not be warmed by Charlotte.

He rang for his secretary. A young gentleman entered, noticed the bloodstained handkerchief that was wrapped around his employer's hand and discreetly ignored it.

‘I want to know the financial position of Mademoiselle Charlotte Grainger, companion to the late Princess Yakovleva,' Sandor said curtly. ‘ I want to know her movements, her future plans, you understand?'

François nodded dutifully. Count Karolyi's barely controlled rage was evident. Yet rage at what? The English girl had arrived at Beausoleil uninvited and of her own volition. Surely she had expected nothing else but an amorous advance from a man with his employer's reputation. Yet she had fled in obvious distress and Count Karolyi's knuckles were clenched white, his winged brows meeting in a satanic frown. Why? Surely a rejection of his advances by an insignificant English girl could not have disturbed him so deeply? True, it would be the first time any woman had been known to do so, but pride was not one of Count Karolyi's besetting sins.