The Diamond Slipper (41 page)

Had Sylvie been able to persevere in her doubts, she
would have won over her sister; however, the door opened to admit their governess, still in dishabille, and the nursery maid.

Louise brandished the two hair ribbons and without so much as a morning greeting had labeled each twin while they were still in bed and she thought she could be certain which was which. She gave orders to the nursery maid through compressed lips and communicated with the children with little pushes and pinches, lacing them into their gowns as if they were insensate dolls, scraping back their hair, thrusting pins into the tight braids, retying the ribbons until they both felt as if their scalps were about to split.

When their little corsetted bodies were clothed in the formal, heavy brocaded gowns over stiff damask petticoats and wide swinging hoops, their governess shooed them ahead of her into the small salon next to the bedroom. She sat them side by side on a slippery chintz sofa, their feet on footstools so that they were in no danger of sliding off, and told them dourly not to move a muscle. They were to wait there until the princess came to fetch them for their state visit to the dauphine.

Amelia glanced at her sister, whose mouth turned down with dismay. The hands on the pretty gilded clock on the mantel meant nothing to them, but they knew it was still very early and Cordelia had said the previous day that she would come for them at eleven in the morning. The dauphine was not an early riser.

Louise instructed the nursery maid to watch them and make sure they didn’t ruffle so much as a hair, and went off to her own chamber to dress.

“Are we to have no breakfast?” Sylvie asked timidly as her stomach grumbled beneath the stiff panel of her bodice.

“I don’t know, madame,” the nursery maid said. She too was hungry and lost in this vast palace. There was no kitchen attached to the children’s apartments, and she slept on a thin mattress in a small closet in the corridor outside. She didn’t know how to order food or fuel or water and felt as
powerless to look after her own wants as any prisoner in the Bastille.

Louise returned in half an hour, a suspicious pink tinge to her cheekbones, her pale watery eyes as usual slightly yellow and bloodshot. She glared at the little girls.

“Are we to have no breakfast, madame?” Amelia this time inquired.

“We’re very hungry,” Sylvie added.

Madame was hungry too, but she was no more
au fait
with the workings of Versailles than the nursery maid. Supper had been brought to them the previous evening without any effort on her part. But how to initiate the production of a meal was beyond her. She wasn’t about to admit that to her charges, however, let alone to the anxious nursery maid.

“You will wait,” she declared loftily. “A little self-denial is good for the soul.”

The children’s dismay increased as they understood that their governess hadn’t the faintest idea how to feed them. For four interminable hours, they sat side by side on the sofa, not daring to move a muscle, while their governess took nips from her silver flask to subdue her own hunger pangs, and dozed in between whiles. The nursery maid tidied the salon and the bedchambers, then stood miserably by the door. From beyond the closed double doors came sounds of life: hurrying footsteps, murmured voices, the occasional shout. There were smells too, food smells. In the courtyard below their window, horses clattered over cobbles, iron wheels clanged, military voices bellowed, trumpets sounded. Everyone, it seemed, in this vast place, was oblivious of the four newcomers huddling in a small salon on an outside staircase.

Until the door opened to admit Cordelia in her gray gown and heather pink petticoat, her hair cascading in loose ringlets as black as night to her creamy shoulders. “I give you good morning,” she declared, bending to take the girls’ hands in both of hers and kissing their smooth round
cheeks. Her eyes were haunted but her smile was as warm as apprehension and anxiety would permit.

“Oh, but you’re so cold!” she exclaimed. “How can you be cold on such a beautiful day?” She looked almost accusingly at the governess, who had risen, blinking, from her chair. “They’re frozen, poor darlings. They must have some tea or something to warm them.”

“We’re hungry!” they announced in unison.

“Hungry? But have you had no breakfast?”

Louise sniffed audibly. “The prince believes his children should exercise self-discipline on occasion.”

“I’m sure that’s very laudable,” Cordelia said acidly. “But I cannot believe he would expect them to starve.” She examined the woman in frowning silence for a minute, then cast a swift glance at the pale nursery maid. “Could it be that you didn’t know how to order breakfast?” she murmured wonderingly. She whirled around to pull the bell rope by the door. “This bell rings in our own apartments. It will bring Frederick from our own household. You may order whatever you wish from him.”

“I am aware, madame,” the governess said, pursing her lips. “But as I said, it’s good for children to—”

“It is not good for children to face the day on empty bellies,” Cordelia interrupted vigorously. “They have a long and tiring day ahead of them, and they look like ghosts. How long have they been sitting there?”

“Since early morning, madame,” the nursery maid put in, emboldened both by her own hunger and the governess’s clear discomfiture.

Cordelia spun round on Louise. “You exceed your authority, madame.” Her voice was ice, her eyes were blue flame. “As I understand it, you are paid to care for the prince’s children, not to torture them!” She turned back to the opening door in a gray and pink swirl of skirts. “Frederick, bring chocolate and brioche and jam for the children, and show the nursery maid where she may break her own fast.”

Silence fell in the wake of the footman’s departure with the maid. The governess fulminated, her chest swelling like an outraged bullfrog’s. The children, eyes bright with curiosity and excitement, still sat on the sofa, but their gaze never left Cordelia’s face. Cordelia paced the small salon, her brain working furiously. She had broken one of her rules in this new life and declared war on the governess, instead of offering an alliance. But the woman was so odious, how could she bear to court her?

She paused in her pacing for a minute, her eyes resting on the children. Something wasn’t right with their appearance. But what could possibly be wrong?

“Princess, I must protest your tone.” The governess finally gave voice to her anger. “My kinsman, Prince Michael, has entrusted his children to my care and authority since their infancy and—”

“Ah, here’s Frederick.” Cordelia brusquely interrupted this seething beginning. “Frederick, set the tray down there.” Having thus reduced the governess to the status of a piece of furniture, she issued a stream of orders to the returning footman, who set his laden tray down and scurried around, placing two chairs with extra cushions, lifting Amelia and Sylvie onto the chairs, pouring hot chocolate, shaking out napkins, passing a basket of brioches.

Cordelia hovered over the table, breaking the brioches, spreading jam, encouraging the children, who required little encouragement, to eat their fill of this succulent feast, so vastly different from their usual fare of weak tea and bread and butter.

When Louise realized that she was excluded from this meal, she stalked out of the room to her own chamber, banging the door behind her. Cordelia stuck her tongue out at the door and the twins choked on their hot chocolate, splattering drips across the table.

“I’ve spilled it on my dress!” Amelia wailed, rubbing fiercely at a spot of chocolate on her bodice, all desire to laugh vanished at this disaster.

“Oh, it’s nothing much.” Cordelia spat on the corner of a napkin and dabbed at the mark. “No one will notice.” She stood back to examine the tiny stain, and that same puzzled frown drew her arched brows together.

“But … but … we’re to see the dauphine,” Sylvie breathed, shocked at this insouciance.

“Toinette knows how easy it is to spill something,” Cordelia reassured, shaking off the moment of puzzlement.

“But … but what of the king?” Their eyes, twinned, gazed at her across the table.

“What of the king?” came a voice from the door.

“It’s Monsieur Leo!” they squealed in unison. “Did you find us?”

“It certainly looks that way,” he said solemnly, closing the door behind him. “I am sent by the king, who wishes to make the acquaintance of my nieces.” This last was directed more at Cordelia than at the girls.

His expression was calm, his manner easy. Leo was a past master at the courtly art of dissembling. Only in his eyes could the truth be seen. They were no longer lightless, but they burned with a dreadful rage, akin to despair, and Cordelia’s scalp lifted with cold dread. He was blaming himself. She had known that would be his first response, and she had no idea how to reach him in that bitter slough of self-denunciation. Even to attempt ordinary words of comfort would be insulting, especially since she had not known Elvira.

Michael was presumably still keeping to his bed, but he knew that she would be escorting the children to Toinette, so there was no danger of falling foul of him at this point. He could hardly expect her to refuse to obey a royal summons while she waited for him to recover.

“Then we should not delay,” she said neutrally. She didn’t look at Leo, because she knew that her eyes were filled with compassion and her own fear, and to see that would only add to his burdens. She wiped chocolate from one child’s mouth and turned to the jam on the other’s fingers.

The door to the governess’s chamber opened, and Louise stood glaring in silent accusation in the doorway.

Leo said with cold authority, “I have been sent by the king to escort your charges to his presence. Perhaps you would make certain their dress is in order.”

“The princess has made it clear that my services are not required,” Louise said spitefully, with downturned mouth. “The princess believes she can tend to her stepdaughters without assistance. Even though I’ve been doing it to the prince’s satisfaction for close on four years.”

Leo didn’t deign to reply, he merely looked through her as if she were some transparent insect. Cordelia said curtly, “Whatever grievance you may have, madame, this is not the place to air it.” She lifted Amelia and then Sylvie from their chairs, smoothing down their skirts, adjusting their muslin fichus.

Amelia, still troubled by the faint spot on her bodice, surreptitiously scratched at it with a fingernail while casting anxious glances toward the governess.

“Come.” Leo took their hands. “We mustn’t keep the king waiting.”

Louise didn’t move from her spot by her door until they had all left the room. Then she came over to the table. Her mouth was pursed, her eyes sharply speculative. Greedily, she began to eat the remains of the children’s breakfast, cramming brioche into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten in a week, swallowing jam by the spoonful in between sips of the now cold chocolate remaining in the jug.

She would appeal directly to the prince. He must surely regard an affront to her authority as an affront to his own. It was common household gossip that he ruled his young bride with the same rod of iron he held over the rest of his staff.

She brushed crumbs from her lips with the back of her hand, heedless of a smear of jam that transferred itself to her gown. She took a long nip from her flask and sat down beside the empty grate. It was obvious that the princess
was hand in glove with the viscount, which made the situation even more intolerable but would act in her favor with the prince. An alliance between stepmother and uncle would not be tolerated by the father. Prince Michael ruled alone.

“I know what it is!” Cordelia exclaimed suddenly as they began to walk down the corridor. She stopped and looked down at the children, stepping away to get a better look. “Amelia’s wearing Sylvie’s ribbon, and Sylvie’s wearing Amelia’s.”

“What?” Leo dropped their hands and looked in astonishment at the twins, who were now covered in confusion, giggling behind their hands, their faces crimson. “How can you tell?”

“Well, I couldn’t at first, but Sylvie has a beauty spot on the back of her neck.” She touched the almost invisible mole on the supposed Amelia’s neck. “I’m right, aren’t I?” The child nodded, still convulsed with giggles.

“I’ll be damned!” Leo shook his head. “How often do you play such a trick?”

Neither child answered, but they covered their faces with their hands.

“It must be such fun to fool everyone like that,” Cordelia said, much struck by the possibilities of the masquerade. “Don’t you agree, Leo?”

For a moment the shadows retreated. Leo couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the governess, not to mention, Michael, never knowing which child they were talking to. The game must have lightened their dreary days.

“How many times have you deceived me?” he demanded.

“Oh, never,” they assured him in unison. “
Never
!”

“Somehow I doubt that,” he commented wryly. “But you’ll not do it again, thanks to your observant stepmother.”

His smile faded as they renewed their walk through the thronged corridor, he and Cordelia each holding a child’s
hand. “I will have passports for you and the children within two days.” His lips barely moved as he spoke in the direction of her ear. “I must find a way to get the girls out of Versailles on some pretext. Something that will give you a few hours’ start.”

“Mathilde will come with us,” she returned in the same almost soundless murmur, responding as if this were merely the continuation of a long previous discussion. Of course, there was no choice, no decisions to be made apart from the when and the how. And she didn’t have to be told that Leo would not come with them. Michael might suspect his involvement, but he mustn’t be given proof. It would be for her to ensure the girls’ safety.

The children, hanging on their hands, gazed wide-eyed at the magnificence around them, their little feet taking the tiny gliding steps they’d been taught. The king’s audience chamber was crowded with courtiers, but a word from Leo to one of the king’s chancellors secured them clear passage to where the king sat with the dauphine and her husband. Amelia and Sylvie were engulfed. They saw only legs and hoops as they were wafted through the crowd, their cheeks brushing against rich silks and velvets, their tiny slippered feet barely touching the marble floors. They clung desperately to the supporting hands of their escorts, terrified that if they came adrift, they would be lost in the sea of gowns, drowned beneath the rising waves of noise way above them.