Royal 02 - Royal Passion (13 page)

She was greeted with cheers and a torrent of compliments from the cadre. They escorted her in to dinner, with Jared and Jacques giving her their arms on either side, Estes leading the way, and Michael and Luca bringing up the rear. Roderic, careless of the rules of precedence, strolled in last beside Trude.

The meal was a great success. The food was perfection, the wines that had been selected for each course delectable. The cook was toasted, as well as Mara for her abilities as a housekeeper, for her competence at organization, and for her beauty. They raised their glasses to the man who had pushed her from the carriage and so brought her to them; to the country of France where they had found her; to its ruler Louis Philippe; and for good measure, and not to show partiality, to their own homeland of Ruthenia and its strong King Rolfe, Mara ate little, but was forced to drink to the many subjects the cadre saw fit to honor with a toast. By degrees, the tightness inside her began to dissolve.

They were not expecting guests that evening. When the last crumb of cake had been eaten and the last spoonful of custard swallowed, they retreated to the private salon in Rolfe's wing, rather than to the public salon, for coffee. It was a smaller room, though still large enough for a fireplace at either end and three different groupings of chairs and settees. The cadre spread out, some gathering to throw dice, which they called knucklebones, others settling down around a chessboard. Roderic sat down at a pianoforte and began to play. Mara, after a moment's hesitation, moved to take a seat before the fire at the far end of the room. She had never joined the men here before, and despite the presence of Trude, who was in the thick of the dice game, she felt conspicuous in the predominantly male company.

The coffee tray containing the silver service, a plate of small cakes, and a fruit bowl was brought in and placed before Mara. When she had poured Roderic's coffee, Luca carried the cup to him where he sat playing a soft melody that Mara thought was one of Mozart's rhapsodies based on a Hungarian folk song. The others walked over to fetch their own coffee, pausing to exchange nonsensical banter and friendly jostling while they drank.

Mara had expected the cadre to disperse when the coffee tray was removed. They did not. Impervious to her desire to be rid of them, they returned to their games. She watched them, trying to think how she was to use her wiles upon their leader before such a large audience, especially one that might find the exercise highly diverting. She could not do it.

She sent a glance toward Roderic. The light from the candelabra on the candle-rest of the pianoforte made a warm golden gleam in his hair. It shone across his high, Slavic cheekbones, leaving dark hollows around his eyes. It caught the fine blond hairs on the backs of his fingers and threw the shadows of his fingers themselves across the keys so that they appeared even longer and more supple than they were in fact. He played on, as if oblivious to what was happening around him. Mara had reason to suspect the impression was false. Now and then he looked up, and that brief glance was intent, encompassing.

She cudgeled her brain for some way to see Roderic alone. She could think of an errand for one of the cadre, or even two, but nothing that would keep them away for any length of time. Anything she might suggest that would remove the entire group would most likely take the prince away also. She watched them hopefully for signs of sleepiness, but they appeared as fresh as when they had risen that morning. As a half hour passed, then turned into an hour, she grew desperate.

She rose, moving toward where the dice game progressed. “How very housebound you all are this evening,” she said, leaning over Estes's shoulder to peer at the dice as they clattered on the table. “Are there no salons to visit, nothing going on at the opera or the Comédie Françise? Surely Monsieur Dumas has a new production opening? Doesn't he always?"

Nearby, Michael looked up from his chess game. “I believe his latest is
Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge
at his Historical Theater on the boulevard du Temple."

"I was sure there must be one!"

"He's always good for a laugh or two, plus a few blood-curdling screams.” The comment was from Trude, whose broad face registered a certain interest.

"Ah, you know it's the tender love scenes that you like,” Jacques told her.

"You, rather,” Trude said without rancor. “I like the sword fights. There are never any good opportunities to whip out a sword these days."

"That's because you are living in the wrong neighborhood,” Estes told her.

"The wrong century rather. I would have enjoyed being one of Monsieur Dumas's musketeers."

"Don't repine, my goddess; for with us it's still all for one, and one for all!” The Italian count made a flourishing gesture.

"Is it, indeed?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"It seems to me these days that your allegiance, and that of the rest as well, is given to a female of the most useless sort, a
hausfrau
, vain in her new clothes and puffed-up with her puny accomplishment of tearing this barn of a place apart and putting it back together again."

The comment had not been meant for everyone to hear. Trude had spoken for Estes alone, but there had occurred one of those pauses in the conversation when words ring out loud and plain. An uncomfortable silence fell. Trude grew red around the ears.

"If the
hausfrau
does have our allegiance,” Estes said deliberately, “it may be because she has better manners."

"I didn't mean—” Trude began.

Roderic spoke then, the words slicing across the strained atmosphere. “Discretion seems in order. I suggest that the possible attraction of Dumas's gentleman of the red house should, nay, must be explored. What say you, my brave, my very brave ones?"

It was, in spite of the wording, an order. Agreement took less than a second.

Estes turned to Mara. “Do you go, mademoiselle?"

"I ... think not. I'm rather tired."

"What of you, my prince?"

Mara caught her breath, waiting.

"The prospects of screams and sword fights do not, at the moment, enrapture me. Another time."

Estes tipped his head, an audacious expression on his puckish face. “You forget the scenes of love."

"I try."

Within a few moments, they were gone. Only Luca was left behind. The gypsy waited until the door had closed on the cadre and the noise of their boots had died away down the hall. Then he bowed to Roderic."May I have permission to sleep outside this night, Your Highness?"

The prince finished the last notes of the piece he was playing, then lifted his hands and got to his feet. “The smell of soap is strong, I agree, but is it that overpowering?"

The other man shook his head. “I feel the need for an open sky."

"Need or desire? Some things can and should be conquered."

"I am a gypsy. It is a need."

Roderic gave a brief nod. “As you will."

Luca turned to Mara, saying in grave tones, “I do not insult your hospitality, your house, mademoiselle."

"It isn't mine,” she returned quietly.

"You are the woman. For us, woman is like the earth. The earth is our mother, our home, and so is woman. I express it badly, perhaps, but as you are woman, you are the home from which comes food and ease. It has nothing to do with owning, only with being."

"You express it well, Luca, and I thank you. Sleep well."

When he had gone, Mara turned away. The coffee tray still sat before her chair to one side of the fireplace. Moving to the tray, she picked up the pot and touched the side. Over her shoulder, she said, “I believe it's still hot. Would you care for another cup?"

"Thank you, no."

The sound of his voice was closer. In sudden nervousness, she set the silver coffeepot down so clumsily that it clattered on the tray. She picked up one of the tiny, individually iced cakes and bit into it. It was moist enough, but her mouth was so dry that she nearly choked trying to swallow. She put down the other half.

What was she going to do? How was she going to approach the prince? She could not just throw herself into his lap, could she? There were women who were able to walk up to a man and invite him to make love to them, but she was not one of them. There had to be some more subtle course. In the meantime, the silence was stretching.

"Are you certain you didn't care for the theater tonight?” Roderic asked. “Or was it a case of having misplaced, along with your name, your diamonds and opera glasses?"

It seemed that Trude's criticism of her was to be dismissed. She was just as happy to have it so. “Nothing so tiresome. I simply didn't feel like making the effort."

"You have done a great deal in a short time, perhaps too much."

"Are you displeased?"

"How could I be? You have performed miracles of cleanliness. But I have not, as yet, set up as a slave driver."

She turned to look at him where he stood with his back to the fire. How tall he looked in his white uniform and how far above her."Are you displeased with me for some reason? Did you wish to go to the theater? You need not have stayed behind for my sake."

They were mere words, polite mouthings, but she waited, barely breathing, to hear what he might say.

"I am not displeased."

What she had expected she could not have said; still, irritation at his answer welled up inside her. “Luca seems to have escaped your censure on the grounds of being a gypsy. Perhaps I should have said merely that I have a single reason also, that I am a woman."

"Unacceptable. Most women would be on their way at this moment to enjoy the lights and noise and dramatics, reveling in the escort of four attentive men and an amazon."

"I am not most women."

"I have suspected as much for some time."

What did he mean? She did not doubt there was something there, but she could not afford to pursue it. Regardless, it was more comfortable sparring with him with words than trying to find ways to entice him. She knew she was putting off the inevitable, but she could not prevent the impulse to keep the conversation going by any possible means.

"Luca was a little strange tonight, but then the gypsies are strange people."

"Tinkers, traders, and thieves, tarts and tellers of fortunes, all damned? They are perfectly understandable when you recognize that they have been hounded across the face of the earth for centuries. They recognize no home but mother earth, claim no ownership nor admit any for others, have no word for possession or, in fact, for duty. Is that surprising when time after time what they own has been taken from them, and they have been left to wander homeless, naked, and starving? When duty would only bind them to some master or require them to die for some state?"

"Where are they from, where did they start? Do you know?"

"The base of their language, the
calo
, is Indian, possibly a form of Hindu. They were dispossessed of their lands in that country near the time of Alexander the Great. They were not Hindu, however. Their religion was the most ancient known to man, one based on the supremacy of the earth mother, the goddess whose symbol is the cowrie shell, and their society was matrilineal. Their conquerors belonged to a patriarchal society that was threatened by their beliefs. They were turned into nonhumans, lower than an untouchable or an animal, without rights or privileges under the law. They fled into Macedonia where they joined the van of the armies of Alexander during the conquest, spreading over the known world."

"People tend to think of them as romantic nomads,” Mara said. “In reality they are to be pitied."

"Yes and no. They find occupation as herdsmen, horse traders and trainers, and workers with metal. They are often despised and killed, always hounded farther and farther onward until they have become consummate thieves and prostitutes and kidnappers of children in order to live. But they also have a passionate love for life, and for the music, the singing and dancing that serve as free expressions of it. They have been in Europe for perhaps eight hundred years, in western Europe almost five hundred. Here they have been looked on as pagans because they have little belief in the Christian religion. They have been called Minions of the Moon and Diana's Foresters and burned as heretics. Never have they had a home. They have now ceased to want one, and so are freer than you or me."

"You are very sympathetic."

"The gypsies have been in my country for as long as there has been a Ruthenia.” He smiled, a slow warming of his face. “Besides, my great-grandfather was a Russian, a count they called the Golden Wolf, a title since bestowed on my father. The old count was fond of fighting, drinking, and gypsy women. He married the daughter of the king of Ruthenia, a cold woman, but they do say that it was the son of a gypsy mistress that he smuggled into the nursery to become his heir and the future king."

"It's kinship you feel then?"

"Particularly when the weight of being the latest future king grows heavy."

"You would like to forget duty and become a vagabond?"

"Why not? In a hundred years who will care what I do now?"

"Perhaps your children?"

"Insufferable, snotty-nosed brats, destructive and degenerate? I remember my own childhood too well to feel a concern that they are unlikely to deserve."

His sons would be sturdy and proud, his daughters angelic with golden curls and sweet, self-contained smiles. At this time of night they would come in their long white gowns to be kissed good night. Mara banished the mental picture with an effort, and also with a sudden fear that had not plagued her in years, a fear that she might have inherited her mother's second sight.

Involvement with the house of Ruthenia will bring sorrow.
Had her mother's words been, perhaps, a prophecy? This memory, too, she pushed from her.

"You have obligations,” she said, her voice low. “You are the prince, like it or not. There are things you must do—things we all must do."

"Lamentable but true."

A log in the fire broke, crumbling into flames that leaped higher. Along the wall, a draft stirred the heavy draperies. Outside, the wind whined around the eaves and the gargoyle downspouts. The house was silent; the servants had gone to bed or else retreated to the warmth of the kitchens. Beyond the salon, the long corridors seemed to echo with emptiness.