Devil's Palace (3 page)

The hill steepened. With relief she saw the warm ochre walls of the villa between the trees. Soon she would be free of his unwelcome presence. She would be able to bathe, brush her dishevelled hair and calm herself.

‘It is a long time since I have seen Princess Yakovleva. I am looking forward to meeting her again,' Sandor Karolyi said, shattering her barely recovered composure. ‘I trust she is well.'

‘Yes, very.' Her voice was barely audible. It had not occurred to her that he would alight from his carriage at the Villa Ondine. She had hoped to enter the villa discreetly; to make no mention of the incident to the Princess. Now she saw that to do so would be impossible. Her agony was to be prolonged. The Princess would chastise her for walking unaccompanied to the hotel, she would probably be outraged at having her companion make a public exhibition of herself. Once again she was acutely aware of her dust-marked dress; of the rent in the hem; of a stubborn curl spilling free from the hastily gathered knot in the nape of her neck. She looked more like a peasant girl than companion to a princess of royal blood.

Hot tears stung the back of her eyes. She blinked them away rapidly. She had behaved impulsively but in no way that she need be ashamed of. Her chin tilted defiantly. Anger replaced humiliation.

Watching her, Sandor's amusement deepened. For a moment her lips had trembled and he had seen the brilliance of tears in her eyes. They had been swiftly suppressed but her mouth was still softly vulnerable. He wondered what it would be like to kiss and thought that it would be an exceedingly pleasant experience but one he would have to forgo.

Her demeanour was one of modesty and breeding. A light flirtation would be misunderstood, a liaison disastrous. His mouth tightened. All liaisons were disastrous, bringing nothing but agony and pain. He thought of Irina, marble-white and beautiful in death, and his knuckles clenched fiercely. Damn it to hell; would it always be so? Would he never find happiness? Would the burden he carried continue to darken his life and destroy the lives of those he loved? Irina had not understood and so, in a foolish gesture, had taken her life. She had been a delightful companion, gay and tender, yet he had known instinctively that she would have been unable to live with his secret as he lived with it. And so, unable to marry her, he had severed the relationship. And she had taken her life.

At his sigh of despair Charlotte turned her head. The winged brows were pulled together in a deep frown. The suggestion of a smile had vanished. His mouth was a tight, harsh line. His hair tumbled low over his forehead as if he had just run his fingers hopelessly through the blue-black curls. He looked forbidding yet curiously vulnerable. Her anger fled. Her first opinion of him had been correct. Count Sandor Karolyi was a spirit tormented. She wondered what dark thoughts caused him such anguish and remembered the Vicomtesse who had taken her life when he had spurned her.

The carriage had halted. The coachman had dismounted and opened the door and still Sandor sat, lost in his inner hell.

Charlotte cleared her throat hesitantly.

‘Thank you for escorting me safely, Count Karolyi.'

He passed a hand across his eyes. The past was past. He was a fool to dwell on what could never be altered.

‘The pleasure is mine, Mademoiselle,' he said, once more himself as he alighted from the carriage and courteously held out his hand to assist her.

At his touch she trembled slightly. His mouth curved into a smile. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her copper curls were rapidly escaping the remaining pins. He wondered if the Princess would be willing to give up Miss Grainger's services. The English girl was exactly the kind of young lady Zara needed for companionship.

At the thought of Zara his smile faded. She would be in Monte Carlo within days. There would be distant courtesies exchanged in the presence of her insufferable husband. All too short and infrequent furtive meetings in his absence. There were times when he wished neither he, nor she, had ever been born.

‘Sandor!' To her alarm, Charlotte saw that the Princess had risen early and was walking towards them, black silk rustling, rubies shining blood-red. ‘Whatever has happened? Charlotte! Your face! Your gown!'

‘I had a mishap,' Charlotte said, hot with embarrassment. ‘If you will excuse me, Your Highness …'

‘Most certainly not!' The Princess thumped her cane smartly on the ground, her white-powdered face grim. ‘What is the meaning of this, Sandor? Why is Miss Grainger's face grazed and her gown torn?'

Sandor took the Princess's hand and kissed it.

‘Miss Grainger has been playing the part of heroine, Princess Natalya. She saved a child from being trampled to death by a bolting horse in the Boulevard des Moulins.'

The Princess's thinly arched eyebrows rose. ‘Is this true, Charlotte?'

‘I … Yes …'

The Princess pursed her lips. There would be time enough to ask what Charlotte had been doing walking down to the hotel unescorted when Sandor had taken his leave.

‘I trust the horse was not yours, Sandor?'

‘It was not.' He had taken the Princess's arm and was escorting her to the chairs and tables on the terrace. Charlotte, undismissed, was obliged to follow unhappily in their wake.

‘How long do you intend to stay in Monte Carlo?' the Princess asked as they sat down.

‘Until it bores me,' Sandor replied easily.

‘And how is that abominable cousin of yours, Povzervslay?'

‘As bestial as ever.' The words were languid enough but there was an intensity of feeling behind them that shocked Charlotte. Was this the cousin whose crimes were crimes of blood?

The Princess's fingers tightened over the knob of her cane. ‘I saw him at Marienbad last season and left the place immediately. He contaminates the very air. What is the matter, Charlotte? Surely you wish to change? Your hair looks like a peasant girl's.'

Charlotte's cheeks flamed. There was nothing she wanted to do more, and it was the Princess's fault that she had been unable to do so. There were times when, despite her fondness for Princess Natalya, she sympathised with her scores of predecessors.

‘Yes, Your Highness. Please excuse me.'

Her eyes caught Count Karolyi's for a brief second and met undisguised amusement. Her own sparked with a flash of anger. Any man who derived such amusement from a lady's misfortune was contemptible. With her head held high she swept from the terrace and walked swiftly to the sanctuary of her room. Her vexation increased when she stood in front of her mirror. Her face was smudged with dirt. Her hair disarrayed. And so she had sat opposite the elegantly attired Count Sandor Karolyi for the best part of half an hour.

‘Wretched man!' she said, wrenching at the small pearl buttons of her bodice. ‘Wretched, detestable,
hateful
creature!'

She bathed her face, applied salve to the graze, grudgingly grateful that Count Karolyi had insisted on cleaning it and that it showed no sign of infection. She brushed her hair vigorously, smoothing the curls high into a gleaming chignon. The dust-blown gown was exchanged for a pretty creation in lemon with long, full sleeves gathered tightly at the wrists. The bodice was
cuirass
, accentuating her tiny waist and the gentle swell of her hips. When the Princess's maid knocked on the door and announced that the Princess required her presence on the terrace, she gave one last, hasty look in the mirror and was well pleased with what she saw. When she emerged into the late afternoon sunshine to find the Princess alone and the Count gone, her disappointment was acute.

Princess Yakovleva gestured to her to sit down and she did so, wondering why she had been so eagerly looking forward to being once more in the Count's disturbing presence. She had no time to come to a conclusion. The Princess was saying crisply,

‘I congratulate you, Charlotte. You've achieved more than the Marquise Vermont achieved in a month.'

‘I beg your pardon, Your Highness.' Charlotte tried to concentrate on what the Princess was saying to her and not on disturbing black eyes.

‘Count Karolyi,' the Princess said with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘Ariadne, the Marquise Vermont, tried to attract his attention for a whole month at Bad Homburg. You attracted it within five minutes.'

‘Not intentionally,' Charlotte replied tartly.

The Princess laughed. ‘Maybe not, but you should be well pleased with yourself all the same. It's unlike Sandor to show such unnecessary civilities to anyone. He had no need to escort you all the way to the villa. He could quite easily have deposited you in the care of his coachman.'

‘I believe he wished to see you, Your Highness.'

‘He'll see me tonight, and every other night, in the casino,' the Princess said practically. ‘Don't throw yourself before any more bolting horses, Charlotte. The turquoise silk is ruined and will have to be discarded.'

‘The rent can quite easily be mended,' Charlotte began apologetically.

The Princess waved her hand dismissively. Charlotte had entered her employment wearing a serviceable and unbecoming gown and with only one other in her portmanteau. She had set about furnishing her with a suitable wardrobe and had taken great pleasure in doing so. Her only child was a son she disliked and seldom saw and Charlotte had become more like a daughter than a paid companion. She made a mental note to get in touch with her lawyer and have her will altered so that on her death Charlotte would be left with a suitable income.

‘If Sandor is residing at Beausoleil, why was he at the Hotel de Paris?'

‘He had been to call on Mademoiselle Bernhardt, Your Highness.'

The Princess nodded to herself, a smile playing on her wrinkled lips. ‘Young devil. I should have realised it was La Bernhardt that had drawn him away from Paris.'

A strange emotion suffused Charlotte. One that she had never experienced before. Her heart felt as if a knife had been plunged into it and cruelly twisted. The Princess continued to talk but Charlotte no longer heard her. Why did she feel such sweeping desolation at the knowledge that Sandor Karolyi had come purposely to Monte Carlo to see the divine Sarah? Why did it matter to her who he escorted?

Her head pounded. The afternoon had been traumatic. It was no wonder she was reacting perversely. The sight of the child in the path of the galloping horse; her impetuous dash; the throb of the ground as the horse raced down on her; the strong arms that had hurled her to safety.

The Princess eyed her with concern. ‘I think it would be best if you rested before dinner,' she said with a gruffness that disguised affection. ‘Today is the tenth of the month and ten is my lucky number. I have great expectations of alarming Monsieur Blanc by winning repeatedly at the tables this evening.'

With relief Charlotte returned to her room and lay down on her bed. The day had started so calmly, so ordinarily, and had contained so much. She closed her eyes. It was still not over. Tonight she would accompany the Princess to the casino and surely there, among the glittering throng, would be Count Sandor Karolyi and the beautiful Sarah Bernhardt.

Sleep drifted over her in waves. She wondered if the beautiful Sarah knew of Sandor Karolyi's other face; the brooding, pain-filled face that he was so careful not to show in public. What occasioned his anguish? Past sins? Past loves? An inexplicable sadness engulfed her. Count Sandor Karolyi and Mademoiselle Bernhardt. Sandor and Sarah. And then, as sleep claimed her, Sandor and Charlotte.…

That evening she dressed with extreme care, filled with a nameless excitement. Would he be in the Salle Mauresque when they entered? Would he pay her any attention? Her heart throbbed fiercely as she adjusted a camellia nestling in her hair. Of course he would not. She was Princess Yakovleva's paid companion. Why should Count Sandor Karolyi condescend to speak to her in a place as public as the Salle Mauresque? The full satin skirts of her gown swirled as she picked up her fan and turned her back on the mirror. Besides, she had no desire for such attention. She wished for nothing more than to forget the whole distressing incident.

She joined the Princess and allowed the coachman to assist her into the Princess's carriage. Eventually she would have to face the manager of the Hotel de Paris, but perhaps he would have the good manners not to embarrass her by making any mention of the near catastrophe. Fortunately, it had occurred at a time of day when very few people had been present to witness it. She could remember only Monégasques and the liveried bellboys of the Hotel surrounding her as Count Karolyi had carried her into the Hotel de Paris lounge. And startled faces at upper windows. Her fingers tightened on the ivory clasp of her fan. The occupants of the Hotel de Paris were
habitués
of the casino.

Her cheeks burned in the darkness of the carriage. Had her rash escapade been witnessed by Lord and Lady Pethelbridge and the Countess of Bexhall? Perhaps even by Princess Helena? She tilted her chin a defiant fraction higher. There was no way of rectifying the matter if they had. She could not have let the child be crushed by the flailing hoofs. Any gossip would just have to be lived with and ignored.

The Princess, guessing accurately that the pucker on Charlotte's brow was caused by memories of the afternoon, remained silent. While Charlotte was dressing she had summoned the manager of the Hotel de Paris to the villa and had heard a corroborated account of her companion's courage. She pursed her lips. She must settle the matter of Charlotte's future with her solicitor at the first opportunity. She would write to him immediately. It was impossible to think that Charlotte should be left unprovided for.

The casino flamed and shone by the sea, lit by hundreds of chandeliers. As they alighted from the carriage Charlotte could hear the monotonous surge of the waves merging with the distant voices of the croupiers, the rattle of gold, the click of ivory balls spinning round roulette wheels. This was the moment that normally filled her with pleasurable anticipation. Tonight, as she descended from the carriage and faced the brilliantly lit entrance, her pleasure was overcome with anxiety.