Devil's Palace (24 page)

Charlotte felt the knife in her heart plunge deeper, inflicting even more pain, and then they were saying goodbye and she was dimly aware that Lady Beston was risking her husband's wrath by sweetly asking that she call on her for tea the next day. The door of the Beston suite closed behind them. The stilted and joyless meeting was at an end.

Her heart was racing as if she had run a great distance. She felt sick and dizzy. Sandor had not mentioned to Lady Beston that Charlotte was to be her companion back to England. He had introduced her to the Bestons as his guest. Surely Lady Beston would not expect to employ a young lady she had met socially, as a companion?

Her head throbbed. If Sandor had thought that his behaviour would make such an appointment impossible, he had underestimated her. She had been invited to tea the following day by Lady Beston, and she had accepted. It would be the ideal opportunity to ask Lady Beston if she might accompany her in an official capacity back to England.

She began to put on her gloves and realised she had dropped one in her distress. They were nearing the lobby. The glove was nowhere to be seen.

Hastily she retraced her steps. The white net glove was on the floor outside the door of the Beston suite. As she bent to retrieve it she could hear the sound of heart-rending tears. Feeling like an eavesdropper, Charlotte snatched up the glove and hastened to where Sandor waited impatiently in the hotel lobby.

‘I am sorry. I dropped my glove.'

Taut-faced he escorted her into the brilliant sunshine. Yesterday had been the happiest day of his life. Today he was faced with the difficulty of extricating Zara from a marriage that was untenable and of pondering on the identity of an unknown Englishman of no financial resources who had succeeded in winning from him the only woman he would ever love.

Charlotte's emotions were in turmoil as Sandor handed her into the landau. She had gone to the Hotel de Paris fully expecting to feel bitter jealousy for Lady Beston. She had left feeling only compassion for her. Lady Beston was not of the same ilk as Lady Pethelbridge and the Countess of Bexhall. Her sad mouth had held sweetness, her tragic eyes kindness. Help from that quarter would never have been refused.

Sandor struggled for self-control. He wanted to seize Charlotte's slender shoulders and shake her until she promised that she would not leave Beausoleil. Instead he said caustically,

‘May I be permitted to ask the identity of your future husband, Miss Grainger?'

Charlotte's imagination failed her. ‘I do not think such details can be of any interest to you, Count Karolyi,' she said tightly.

The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky. Ladies in passing carriages bent their parasol-shaded heads in acknowledgment on seeing the unmistakable Karolyi stallions.

‘But it is of the greatest interest,' he said relentlessly, fixing her with a steely gaze. ‘After all, if it had not been for my intervention, you would not have been in a position to return to the gentleman concerned.'

She felt hot colour stain her cheeks. ‘I have no wish to discuss my future husband,' she said, avoiding his eyes. If Lady Beston were not returning to England for some while, she would ask if she would lend her the necessary money, so that she herself could return to England immediately. Her pride, where Lady Beston was concerned, would not be at stake, and she would return the money as soon as she had found herself a position. Nor would the request be refused. She knew that intuitively. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would be reduced to such lengths, but there was no way she could remain in Sandor's company. His anger cut through her like a knife. She was no longer ‘ Charlotte' to him, she was ‘ Miss Grainger', and she could no longer call him ‘Sandor'.

‘As you choose,' Sandor said, his jaw tightening, and his eyes blazing.

Her heart began to throb painfully. Why was he so angry? Surely he could acquire another lady to provide a foil for his public meetings with Zara? The sun blinded her eyes. Is that how he had used the Vicomtesse de Salbris? And had the Vicomtesse, like herself, fallen in love with him?

The landau entered Beausoleil's sub-tropical gardens, the palms giving fleeting and cooling shade.

‘If you will excuse me, Count Karolyi, I must rest. I have a headache.'

With a leap of concern he saw the paleness of her face, the blue shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Of course.' His voice was stiff. He dared not trust himself to express his true concern.

Once in her room she closed the shutters, plunging the room into blessed shade. When Jeanne knocked and asked if she could be of assistance Charlotte merely allowed her to help her out of her dress and then said that she would like to rest and not be disturbed.

Jeanne retreated respectfully and Charlotte lay motionless on her bed. Roulette
coups. Grande cocottes
dancing can-cans in front of the Prince of Wales. Dazzling sun. Exotic flowers. Sarah's witchery. Louise's pertness. How would she accustom herself to life without them? And without Sandor?

She passed her hand across her eyes. How was it possible to love a man so much that she should suffer with him in his despair at not being able to make the woman he loved his wife? Her heart ached. For herself For Sandor. For Zara. It seemed that none of them was destined for happiness.

Lord Beston left his hotel suite shortly after Sandor and Charlotte had departed—his destination the villa of his English mistress.

Zara remained on the sofa where she had fallen in a flood of tears. Why had she married him? Vaguely she remembered the austere charm he had taken pains to exercise when courting her. Her longing for a fresh start in life. Her escape from her adopted home and its perpetual reminders of her bastardy. Through the long afternoon she remained on the sofa. If only she could live openly as Sandor's sister then she would be happy, but to do so would mean telling Beston the truth about her birth, and so would mean Sandor's ruin. Beston would not keep silent. He would tell Povzervslay that he had a claim to Valeni and then Count Istvan Karolyi's last wishes would be denied. Valeni tenants would not live happily under Sandor, but would be ruled in terror by Jozsef Povzervslay. It was a prospect too hideous to contemplate.

Her despair was total. She was thirty-two. Her husband did not love her; did not even care for her. She could see no happiness in her future, no peace or serenity.

She rose and poured herself a glass of mineral water, seeing with vague surprise that the shadows in the garden of the hotel were lengthening. Dusk was approaching. How much longer would Beston be gone? Dare she risk hurrying to see Sandor for a few snatched moments at Beausoleil?

She moved swiftly, setting a hat of flowers and veiling upon her blue-black hair, picking up silk gloves, a lace-fringed parasol, her hands trembling.

Rigid in his carriage, Lord Beston's pale grey eyes were like slivers of ice. It had been three months since he had last seen his mistress, the wife of a fellow peer, and he had expected his welcome to be a warm one. Instead he had been received with languid indifference. The lady in question had grown bored by his absence and had sought diversions elsewhere. The interlude was over. Lord Beston had not endangered his pride by asking that the lady reconsider. He had feigned dignified relief at the news and untruthfully stated that he, too, had embarked on a new
affaire
of the heart. With barely concealed hostility he had taken his leave of his former mistress and, reluctant to return to the hotel immediately, ordered his coachman to drive up into the hills.

Damn it to hell, but he would have to have a new lady on his arm to flaunt or it would be obvious that he had been lying. Calculatingly he reflected on the ladies in residence in Monte Carlo. None of them stirred his appetite. He had a sudden mental picture of Count Karolyi's companion and at the thought of Charlotte's red-gold hair and luminous green eyes the blood leapt along his veins. She was a beauty. Outstandingly so. And Karolyi would not be squiring her so publicly unless her pedigree was above reproach.

A thin smile curved his lips. Karolyi was not in love with her. He was in love with Zara. They thought he was a fool and unseeing, but he had known so for years. He had known also that his infuriatingly pure wife had not yet graced the Count's bed and it was for that reason he had remained silent. When she did so he would use the knowledge to break her spirit completely. God, how he hated her! So irreproachable. So long-suffering. He had married her believing he was aligning himself to a family of wealth. A family who had only one daughter to leave that wealth to. A daughter who was a princess. He remembered preening himself on his conquest the day the announcement of their betrothal had appeared in
The Times.
And he remembered his stunned incredulity after the wedding when he realised there was no wealth. That the Katzinskys had only an ancient family name littering the pages of the Almanac de Gotha like confetti.

An ugly red stain mottled his cheeks. His own greed had been his downfall and he had blamed his folly on his beautiful young wife. Never a day passed without him belittlling or ridiculing her, wishing her dead so that he could marry advantageously elsewhere.

His eyes narrowed speculatively. What spirit she had he had nearly broken. She spent her days weeping, eating only enough to keep a bird alive. If Karolyi should succeed in coercing her into his bed and he, Beston, then faced her with the truth, she would be a broken reed and might even lose the will to live. Zara was not like the majority of her contemporaries, entering lightly upon liaisons and
affaires.
Her purity was almost nun-like. The shame of breaking her wedding vows would be monumental.

He smiled grimly to himself as his carriage returned to the hotel. She had barely taken her eyes off Karolyi when he had visited that morning, and Karolyi, too, had not been as circumspect as usual. The tension in the air had been almost palpable.

He opened the door of his suite and froze Zara in the act of leaving. Slowly he closed the door behind him. ‘And just where do you think you are going?' he asked softly. ‘Who are you intending to see?'

‘I … no one.' Trembling convulsively Zara removed her hat and lay down her gloves. Beston eyed her curiously.

‘I'm not a fool, Zara,' he said, and the very silken quality of his voice intensified her fear.

‘I … I have just come in.' She forced a smile. ‘I would like to retire now. I feel most unwell.' Nervously she reached a hand out to ring for her maid, but her husband's hand closed around hers, restrainingly.

‘I think perhaps you have something to tell me, Zara.'

‘No. It is just that I feel most unwell.' His touch on her flesh made her shrink with revulsion. Sweat broke out on her forehead and the palms of her hands.

‘I am reliably informed that guilt often has that effect,' Beston said smoothly, noting with satisfaction that the blood had drained from her face and that her heart was palpitating wildly.

‘Guilt?' Her eyes widened and Beston felt a
frisson
of pleasure. She was hiding something. Had she received a communication from Karolyi? Had she been on the point of capitulation? Had she, incredible thought, already capitulated? Was she already Karolyi's mistress? Was now the time to strike?

‘Perhaps you would like to tell me his name, my dear, and relieve your conscience of its burden?'

‘There is no one. I swear …'

Beston laughed softly. ‘I doubt if an onlooker to this morning's little reunion would find that believable.'

Zara's throat contracted with fear. Her mouth opened and she tried to speak but no sound would come. Her husband released her hands and seated himself comfortably on the nearest sofa, pinning her with his eyes as if she were a butterfly on a mount.

‘I think the moment for truth has finally arrived, Zara.'

Zara's fingers splayed helplessly in an effort to find something upon which to lean for support. ‘I … I don't know what you mean. I was just going for a carriage ride.…'

Her distress held a quality he had never seen before. His suspicions became certainty.

‘You told me a moment ago, my dear, that you had just returned from a carriage ride.'

‘I… I am confused.'

Beston rose to his feet and poured himself a brandy. ‘Your talent for lying is as negligible as your other talents. And it is completely pointless. You see, my dear, I know the truth about you and Sandor Karolyi.'

Zara's nails dug deep into the back of a chair. ‘No … It isn't possible.'

Her husband sighed with satisfaction. ‘So … I
was
right in my assumption. It
is
true.'

‘Yes … No …' Zara began to weep unrestrainedly.

Something near to heat warmed Lord Beston's glacial gaze as Zara fell half senseless across the chair.

‘Do you realise the shame you have brought on my name?' he said relentlessly. ‘The ignominy.' His voice was like a whiplash. He rose to his feet, his shadow falling threateningly across her.

Zara clutched at his hand, falling to her knees. ‘No one need know! Oh please! Promise me you will not speak of it again. It will break Sandor's heart to relinquish Valeni!'

Lord Beston began to speak and then halted. Valeni. Why the devil should Karolyi be obliged to relinquish the family estates? The sixth sense that never failed him prompted him to silence.

‘It was my father's dying wish …' Zara was incoherent. Her head hurt. She could no longer think clearly. She had to protect Sandor. Had to make Beston see how important it was for him to keep silent. Tears strangled her throat.

‘I know you have no love for me, but I beg of you to keep it silent. To do otherwise would be to kill me.'

Lord Beston's eyes glinted. ‘Then let us have some truth, Zara. I think you have deceived me long enough.'

‘But there was no other course open for me.' Her eyes were wide, distraught. What she had lived in fear of all her life had occurred. Beston knew her secret. Knew Sandor's secret.