Devil's Palace (15 page)

No wonder that harsh mouth had held a suspicion of a smile as he had looked up at her. He had known all along what he intended to do. He had been savouring the moment of her humiliation—enjoying himself at her expense.

She felt sick and giddy and if it had not been for the press of bodies surrounding her, would have fallen…

Princess Natalya had been more accurate than she had known when she had referred to him as the Devil's spawn. Prince Victor triumphantly laid down two pairs. Count Karolyi topped them with a full house. Prince Yakovlev mopped his perspiring face with a handkerchief Sandor remained unperturbed, his mouth quirking in a humourless smile as Prince Yakovlev's distress grew more apparent.

Too late Victor Yakovlev realised he was no match for a man of Sandor Karolyi's cold, calculated expertise. He laid down the last of his cards. Three aces and two kings. The atmosphere round the table was electric. Sandor surveyed the cards in his hand and then, very slowly, laid them down.

Four queens. The room erupted around Charlotte. There were male shouts of ‘Bravo Karolyi!' and the popping of champagne corks. Prince Victor stumbled to his feet. He had entered the casino intent on a night of pleasure. He was leaving it a broken man. Dementedly, he pushed past Charlotte. He had publicly staked and lost her as if she were a chattel, and he did not spare her a cursory word.

Champagne exploded and fizzed. Glasses were lifted in toast to the victor. Slowly Sandor raised his eyes to Charlotte's, saw the burning shame and humiliation in her face and felt a knife twist and turn in his breast. There had been no other course of action open to him. By the morning she would have fled with her pittance and her pathetically few belongings. He would never have seen her again, never have known if she had accomplished the journey to England in safety. Now she would be in his care, hating and despising him.

He ignored the back-slapping, the champagne, the fortune lying on the green baize. He rose to his feet and faced Charlotte. She could smell the clean, starched linen of his evening shirt, the faint aroma of cologne.

‘And now, Mademoiselle Grainger, I think it is time that we left the casino.'

The lines of her jaw were tense with the effort she made to appear calm. She would not give him the pleasure of seeing her distress.

‘I think not, Count Karolyi,' she said, her voice trembling. ‘The entertainment is over. Your winnings are on the table. Goodnight.'

She turned, tall and slender, heartbreakingly dignified.

His hand closed around her wrist. There could be no explanation. He could not say he had won her in order that he might take care of her. She would never believe him and besides, to make such a statement would be to say far more. That she aroused and inflamed him as no other woman he had met. That she brought out in him feelings of love and tenderness he had previously believed himself to be incapable of. He had alienated the one woman in the world who might have accepted him for what he was: illegal inheritor of the Karolyi wealth, bastard son of a Hungarian gypsy. His own actions had destroyed any such chance of happiness. Since the night on the terrace when he had treated her so insultingly, kissing her against her will, she had regarded him with nothing but contempt and distaste. He didn't blame her. He felt only contempt and distaste for himself.

‘We will leave together, Mademoiselle.'

Her barely held self-control snapped. Her green-gilt eyes flashed with revulsion. ‘The charade at the table was meaningless, Count Karolyi! I am no man's to be lost or won at the turn of a card!'

She was only inches away from him. The nearness of her sent his blood coursing through his veins.

‘You are mistaken, Mademoiselle Grainger. I won you and I intend to keep you.'

Charlotte gasped and drew back her free hand to deliver a stinging blow to his cheek. He caught her wrist in a steel-like grip.

‘You are only adding to your entertainment value by such behaviour.'

Stunned she glanced around. In her fury and indignation she had forgotten the casino patrons who had surrounded the table with such interest and were now regarding the altercation between herself and Sandor with unconcealed delight.

‘We will leave.' It was a command. Forcefully Sandor pushed his way through the throng around them, Charlotte in his wake, her wrist still tightly held in his strong grip.

‘Just where do you think you are taking me, Count Karolyi?' she demanded in low, raging tones.

They had gained the ornate entrance hall. Their procession through the room had been watched with shocked expressions by ladies of title, by envious lechery on the part of their escorts, and with amusement by the ladies of the
demi-monde.

‘To Beausoleil,' he said curtly. ‘Where else?'

‘To my home,' she flashed, struggling to free herself from his grasp and failing.

He pivoted on his heel, seizing her shoulders so savagely that she cried out in pain. ‘You have no home! Would you return to the Villa Ondine and a man who would lose you at cards without a backward glance?'

‘No! Neither will I accompany a man who won me in such a manner!'

They glared at each other fiercely.

‘You have no option, Mademoiselle.' There was a cruel edge to his voice that chilled her. The Karolyi white stallions had cantered to a halt outside the casino's blazing entrance. The carriage door was open.

‘No!' Her protest lacked conviction. Where else could she go? Her fate was sealed. The Prince's treatment of her in the casino had branded her publicly as a lady of loose virtue. No one, now, would ever believe otherwise. Louise de Remy would help her, but only in securing her a rich lover. Justin de Valmy would help her, but only by making her his mistress.

The carriage door slammed shut. She was alone in the darkness with Sandor Karolyi. Despairingly she raised her hands to her eyes and began to weep.

He surveyed her with pain-filled eyes. He had had no wish to cause her distress but his action had made it inevitable. His mouth compressed in a hard line and the skin tautened across his cheekbones as her slender figure was wracked by sobs.

Gently he reached across and laid his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. She sprang away from his touch as if it had been fire, huddling in the corner of the carriage, staring at him with the huge, frightened eyes of a trapped doe.

Ice entered his heart. Had it come to this? That her anger had dissolved into fear of him?

‘Your fate is not so bad as it would have been if I had not intervened,' he said, and his voice held an underlying throb that was far distant from the cruelty of his tones in the casino.

Charlotte willed herself to look away from him but could not. The darkness of the carriage had cast him into deep shadow but she could still see the blue sheen on the midnight-black hair and his eyes pinned her in place like live coals.

‘You … shamed … me,' she whispered, wondering how it was that a man who could be so cruel one minute could emanate a sense of comfort and safety the next. His jaw tensed and small white lines framed his mouth.

‘No one could shame you,' he said curtly.

She brushed the tears from her cheeks but they continued to flow. She should not be even condescending to speak to him. He had humiliated her, taken her captive. Any kindness was nothing but a figment of her imagination.

He leaned towards her, and through the heavy silk of her skirt his knees brushed hers. Heat flooded her face and she was grateful for the concealing darkness.

‘Charlotte.' His voice was deep and caressing. Panic welled up in her. How could she hold on to her rage, her fear, when he had only to change the tone of his voice for her to feel faint with longing?

He made no move to take advantage of the intimacy of the carriage. Instead, very slowly, he held his hand out to her, palm upward, his eyes never moving from her face.

The carriage lurched and swayed as the horses began to climb the hill to Beausoleil and Charlotte stared at him, mesmerised.

‘I would not have willingly distressed you,' he said quietly.

Her heart pounded so that she could hardly breathe. She could no longer think clearly. She could see only his eyes, hear only his voice, gentle and coercing.

Hesitantly she inched her hand forward, slipping it tentatively into his. His fingers locked over hers tightly and she gave a gasp that he mistook for grief.

In one swift easy movement he was beside her and as his arms circled her shoulders she began to cry again, but for far different reasons than Sandor imagined.

His eyes darkened and he stroked the top of her head, marvelling at the thickness and softness of her hair. Perhaps, when Zara arrived, Charlotte would understand the reason for his actions. Zara. The love he felt for his sister and could never publicly show, tore at his heart. Wryly he reflected that if Monte Carlo society believed Charlotte was his mistress, it would make meetings with Zara far easier. And for once Monte Carlo society would be wrong. Charlotte would not be his mistress. She would never condescend to become so. He had hurt her too deeply. Humiliated her beyond forgiveness.

He leaned his head back against the padded upholstery, his dark eyes bleak. His whole life was a lie. Povzervslay was Count Istvan Karolyi's true heir. His sister was believed to be the daughter of Prince and Princess Katzinsky and as wife of Lord Beston, she could do nothing more than exchange meaningless pleasantries with him when they met. His heart could be given to no woman, for no woman would accept him once she knew the truth. Or … His eyes rested broodingly on the woman in his arms. Only a very rare woman. A woman who would risk her life for a child, whose grief for an elderly lady was deep and genuine. A woman who spurned the easy option of becoming the mistress of a count or a prince, preferring to seek work even as a maid if it would enable her to retain her honour. A woman to whom he had brought nothing but unhappiness and distress.

The lights of Beausoleil gleamed between the pines. As the carriage halted Sandor released her, alighting in silence. When his hand took hers to assist her from the coach, Charlotte shuddered.

His touch flared through her like a flame. Her inner fight had been in vain. The tears glistening on her cheeks were tears of shame at the knowledge that she felt only relief that the man about to take her to his bed was not the loathsome Prince Yakovlev nor even the pleasant-faced Comte de Valmy. Shame at the passionate desire he aroused in her, at the fever that was possessing her, rising higher and hotter as he strode with her into the chandelier-lit entrance hall of Beausoleil.

Would he be forceful? Tender? Why was he not speaking to her? Not looking at her? A moment ago he had held her in his arms. Her head whirled and she felt sick with anticipation.

‘Mademoiselle Grainger will be staying at Beausoleil indefinitely,' he told the maid that hurried forward. ‘See to it that a bath is drawn for her. She has had a tiring evening. Also, that the bed in the yellow room is aired.'

‘Yes, Count Karolyi.' The maid bobbed and scurried away to give orders to the undermaid to fill the swan-shaped bath in the room adjoining the yellow boudoir.

A valet removed Count Karolyi's discarded gloves. A footman hastened forward with a silver tray bearing a glass of brandy.

‘A drink for Mademoiselle Grainger, Georges. A lemonade I think. The evening is hot.'

‘Yes sir. At once, sir.'

‘Jeanne!'

Another maid hurried forward.

‘From now on you will act as Mademoiselle Grainger's personal maid. Please see to it that she has everything she requires.'

His voice caught and deepened as he turned once more to Charlotte. ‘I trust you will be comfortable, Mademoiselle. My goodnight.' He spun on his heel, knowing that if he stayed in her presence a moment longer he would be unable to control his raging desire for her.

She stared after him, uncertain and bewildered.

‘This way, Mademoiselle.' The little maid indicated that Charlotte follow her. Numbly Charlotte moved forward. A small cap of lace perched delicately on the maid's neatly upswept hair. Her dress was black and of good material, expensively cut. Her wisp of an apron was lace-edged.

She led the way up a magnificent staircase that wound in a delicate curve. The room behind the door she opened was already being tended. A footman was lighting candles. A maid was turning down the sheets on the chiffon-draped and canopied bed.

‘Your bath will soon be ready, Mademoiselle.'

Lemonade and biscuits were brought on a tray. No curiosity was displayed by the maids or the footman. Perhaps Count Karolyi often brought home young ladies possessing neither bags nor baggage and installed them in his bedroom. She looked around her. The room bore no masculine overtones. There was no sign of Sandor's occupancy.

The undermaid entered from the adjoining bathroom, bobbed deferentially, and announced that a bath had now been drawn. Charlotte wondered what army of servants had carried jugs of hot water so quickly up the back stairs. Jeanne began to assist her with her dress and Charlotte stood uncomfortably. She had never had a personal maid before. It felt strange to be so waited on. To her relief she was left to enjoy the luxury of the fragrant scented bathwater in privacy.

What would she do when she emerged from the water? She had no nightdress. No négligé. Would Sandor be waiting for her in the satin-sheeted bed?

His face burned against her mind. She was his without reservation. Did he know it yet? What would be his reaction when she entered his arms of her own volition? Her body felt as if it were on fire, throbbing with an excitement she had never previously known.

Thick, soft towels were at her disposal. She wrapped herself in them and with her heart thudding in her throat, slowly entered the bedroom. The giant bed dominated the room. Candlelight cast soft shadows on the walls and the heavy velvet curtains. A nightdress and négligé were laid across the bed-foot. Soft silk slipped over her head and shoulders, rippled around her hips. She gazed at herself in the mirror. The candles behind her silhouetted her slender body, the soft roundness of her breasts, the gentle swell of her hips. Would he find her pleasing?