The Diamond Slipper (21 page)

The matter-of-fact statement did more than anything could to bring home the reality of what was to happen. Cordelia unscrewed the lid of the pot. “What is it?”

“Herbal ointment. It will prepare your body to receive your husband and will dull the pain if he’s not considerate.”

“Considerate? How?” Cordelia dipped a finger in the unscented ointment. Mathilde’s advice was important, she knew, and yet her words seemed to exist on some other plane, coming to her from a great distance.

Mathilde pursed her lips. “What happened between you and the viscount would have made the loss of your virginity less painful had he chosen to take it on that occasion,” she stated. “But few men think of their wives in these matters. So use the ointment quickly. Your husband will be here soon.”

Cordelia obeyed, and her actions seemed to belong to someone else. She couldn’t seem to connect with what she was doing. The door opened as she handed the alabaster pot back to Mathilde, who dropped it into her apron pocket before turning to greet the prince with a deep curtsy.

Cordelia could see two men standing behind her husband in the corridor—presumably her husband’s ceremonial escort to the nuptial chamber. Michael turned and said something softly over his shoulder. There was a laugh, then the door was pulled closed from the corridor. Michael stepped into the room. He was wearing an elaborately brocaded chamber robe, and when he turned his gaze onto the still, pale figure in the big bed, Cordelia saw the predatory light in his eyes, the complacent, almost triumphant, twist to his mouth.

“You may go, woman.” His nasal voice had a rasp to it.

Mathilde glanced once toward the bed. For a second her intent gaze held Cordelia’s, then, almost imperceptibly, she gave a decisive little nod before hastening from the room, closing the door quietly behind her. But once outside, she
moved into the shadows of the tapestry-hung wall and settled down to wait. There was nothing more she could do to help her nursling now, but she could stay close.

Cordelia stared fearfully as her husband approached the bed. He said nothing but leaned over and blew out the candles at the bedside. Then he reached up and pulled the heavy curtains around the bed, enclosing them in a dark cavern. Cordelia’s little sigh of relief in the black silence was lost under the creak of the bedropes as she felt him climb in beside her. He was still wearing his chamber robe.

Nothing was said during the next grim minutes. Her fear and revulsion were so strong, her body was closed tight against him despite Mathilde’s lubricating ointment. But her resistance seemed to please Michael. She heard him laugh in the darkness as he forced himself into her, driving into her unwilling body with a ferocity that made her scream. He seemed to batter against the very edge of her womb, plunging, surging, an alien force that violated her to her soul. She felt his seed rush into her, heard his grunting satisfaction, then he pulled out of her, falling heavily to one side.

She was shaking uncontrollably with the physical shock. Her nightgown was pushed up to her belly, and with a little sob she pushed it down to cover herself. The sticky seepage between her legs disgusted her, but she was too terrified of disturbing him to move. She lay trying to stop the shaking, to breathe properly again, to swallow the sobs that gathered in her throat.

The ghastly assault was repeated several times during that interminable night. At first she fought desperately, pushing him, twisting her body, trying to keep her thighs closed. But her struggles seemed only to excite him further. He smothered her cries with his hand, flattened hard across her mouth, and he used his body like a battering ram as he held her wrists above her head in an iron grasp. Blindly, she tried to bite the palm of his hand, and with a savage execration he forced her body over until her face was buried in the pillows
and he had both hands free to prise apart her legs while he plunged within her again.

The next time, she had learned the lesson and she lay still, rigid beneath him, not moving until it was over. Again, apart from his short brutal exclamations, he said nothing to her. He breathed heavily, snored during the times he slept, moved over her when he was ready again. Cordelia lay awake, trembling, nauseated, but filled now with a deep raging disgust both for the man who could treat her with such contempt and for her own weakness that forced her submission.

The memory of those moments of glory with Leo at Melk belonged to another life, another person. And she would never know what sensual wonders lay beyond that explosion of pleasure, never know what it was to share her body in love with another.

When dawn broke, Cordelia knew that somehow she must escape this marriage. Even if she couldn’t cease to be Michael’s wife in name, she must somehow keep her own sense of who and what she was, separate from the violation of her body. She must take her self out of the equation. She must rise above her husband’s contemptuous and contemptible acts of possession and maintain her own integrity. Only thus could she keep the self-respect that was so much more important than the mere brutalizing of her flesh.

Michael was now sleeping heavily. Gingerly, Cordelia slid from the bed, pulling back the curtains to let in the gray light of morning. Blood stained the sheet, stained her nightgown, smeared her thighs. Her body felt torn and broken; she moved stiffly like an old woman across to the washstand.

“Cordelia? What are you doing? Where are you?” Michael sat up, blinking blearily. He pushed aside the bedcurtains, opening them fully, then bent his eye on the bed-linen. That same complacent triumph quirked his lip. He looked at Cordelia, standing with the washcloth in her hand. He saw the blood on her nightgown. He saw the trepidation in her eyes as she waited to see if he would rape her again.

“I daresay you need your maid,” he said, getting out of bed, stretching luxuriantly. The chamber robe he still wore was untied and fell open as he raised his arms. Hastily, Cordelia averted her eyes.

Michael laughed, well pleased after his wedding night. He reached over and chucked her beneath the chin. She shrank away from him and he laughed again with overt satisfaction. “You will learn not to fight me, Cordelia. And you will learn how to please me soon enough.”

“Did I not please you last night, my lord?” Despite her exhaustion there was a snap to her voice, but Michael was so full of his own gratification he heard only what he wanted to hear.

“As much as a virgin can please a man,” he said airily, retying his girdle. “I’ll not require you to take the initiative in these matters, but you must learn to open yourself more readily. Then you will please me perfectly.” He strode to the door, a spring in his step. “Ring for your maid. You need attention.” He sounded mightily pleased with himself at this evidence of his potency.

Cordelia stared at the closed door, fighting for composure. Then she dragged off her soiled nightgown and began to scrub herself clean, to scrub as if she would remove the layer of skin that he’d sullied.

Mathilde had kept her vigil all night, and as soon as the prince appeared in the corridor, she stepped forward. “I’ll go to my mistress now, my lord?”

“Good God, woman! Where did you spring from? I just told the princess to ring for you.”

“I have been up and waiting this past hour, my lord.”

“Mmm. So you’re a faithful attendant at least. Yes, go to her. She needs attention.” He waved her toward the door with another smug smile. His bride had found him a most devoted husband, and he couldn’t remember when last he’d been so aroused, so filled with potent energy. Certainly not since he’d begun to suspect Elvira’s unfaithfulness.

But that was past history. He had a new bride and a new
lease on life. Cordelia would not disappoint him, he would make certain of it.

Mathilde bustled into the dimly lit chamber. “His lordship looked right pleased with himself.”

“He is loathsome,” Cordelia said in a fierce undertone. “I cannot bear that he should touch me ever again.”

Mathilde came over to her. Her shrewd eyes took in the wan face, the lingering shock in the blue-gray eyes. “Now, that’s a foolish thing to say. For better or worse, he’s your husband and he has his rights. You’ll learn to deal with it like millions of women before you and millions to come.”

“But
how
?” Cordelia brushed her tangled hair from her eyes. “
How
does one learn to deal with it?”

Mathilde saw the bruise on her nursling’s wrist and her expression suddenly changed. “Let me look at you.”

“I’m all right,” Cordelia said, “I just feel dirty. I need a bath.”

“I’ll have one sent up when I’ve had a look at you,” Mathilde said grimly. Cordelia submitted to a minute examination that had Mathilde looking grimmer and grimmer as she uncovered every bruise, every scratch.

“So, he’s a brute into the bargain,” Mathilde muttered finally, pulling the bell rope beside the door. “I knew there was something dark in him.”

“I got hurt because I tried to fight him,” Cordelia explained wearily.

“Aye, only what I’d expect from you. But there’s other ways,” Mathilde added almost to herself. She turned to give orders to the maid who answered the bell. “Fetch up a bath for your mistress …. And bring breakfast,” she added as the maid curtsied and left.

“I couldn’t eat. The thought of food makes me feel sick.”

“Nonsense. You need all the strength you can get. It’s not like you to wallow in self-pity.” Mathilde was not prepared to indulge weakness, however unusual and well justified.
Cordelia would need all her strength of character to survive untouched by her husband’s treatment. “You’ll have a bath and eat a good breakfast and then you’d best set about making your mark on the household. There’s a majordomo, one Monsieur Brion, who’s a force to be reckoned with, I gather. And then a governess.

“What about the governess?” Cordelia, as always, responded to Mathilde’s bracing tones. She wasn’t such a milksop as to be crushed after one wedding night. There was much more to this new life than the miseries of conjugal sex. Time enough to fret about it again tonight, when presumably it would be repeated. She shuddered and pushed the thought from her. She must not allow fear of the nights to haunt her days.

Mathilde turned from the armoire where she was selecting a gown. “Dusty spinster, I understand from the housekeeper. Keeps to herself mostly, thinks she’s too good for the servant’s hall. Some distant relative of the prince’s.”

“And the children?” Cordelia’s legs seemed to be lacking in strength. She sat on the edge of the bed.

“No one sees much of them. Governess pretty much has sole charge.” Mathilde came over to the bed with a chamber robe.

Cordelia slipped her arms into the clean robe. “Do they say whether the prince has much to do with his daughters?”

Mathilde bent to gather up the bloodstained nightgown. “Hardly sees them. But it’s his voice that rules in the nursery even so. That governess, Madame de Nevry she’s called, is scared rigid of him. Or so the housekeeper says.” She glanced sharply at Cordelia. “There’s a bad feeling in this house. They all fear the prince.”

“With reason, I imagine,” Cordelia said. She frowned. “I wonder why the viscount didn’t say anything when I asked him about my husband. I gave him every opportunity to tell me the worst.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know. A man can have one face for
the outside world and another for the inside. And you’ve got to live in a house to know its spirit.”

“But what of Leo’s sister—Elvira? She lived here, she must have known these things. Didn’t she tell him?”

“How are we to know that?” Mathilde shook her head in brisk dismissal of the topic. “We manage our own affairs, dearie.”

Cordelia had always had utter faith in Mathilde’s ability to manage affairs of any kind. She didn’t always know how she did it, but she hadn’t yet come across a situation that stumped her old nurse. The thought gave her renewed strength and courage. “I shall go and visit the nursery as soon as I’m dressed.” Forgetting her earlier queasiness, she broke into a steaming brioche from the tray the maidservant had placed on the table. In the small bathroom adjoining her chamber, footmen filled the copper tub with jugs of water brought upstairs by laboring boot boys.

“What should I wear, do you think? Something gay and bright. I want them to think of me as someone cheerful and not at all stuffy.”

Mathilde couldn’t hide her smile at the quaint notion that anyone might think Cordelia stuffy.

Cordelia eased her body into the hot water with a groan of relief. Mathilde had sprinkled herbs on the surface and emptied the fragrant contents of a small vial into the water. Immediately, Cordelia felt the soreness and stiffness fading away with the throbbing of her bruises. She let her head rest against the copper rim of the bath and closed her eyes, inhaling the delicate yet revivifying scent of the herbs.

Mathilde placed the breakfast tray beside the tub, and after a while Cordelia nibbled on the brioche and sipped hot chocolate as the steam wreathed around her. Her habitual optimism finally banished the lingering horror of the night. It had been hell, but the worst was over because she now knew the worst. And now there were two little girls in a nursery waiting to make her acquaintance. Were they scared? she wondered.

•    •    •

Madame de Nevry was in a very bad temper. Amelia and Sylvie, well versed in their governess’s moods, knew they were in for a miserable day the minute she marched into the nursery soon after dawn and ordered their nurse to prepare cold baths for them.

“But I am already so cold,” Sylvie whimpered, standing on the bare floorboards, shivering in her nightgown. It was too early for the rising sun to have taken the chill off the night air that filled the nursery from the perpetually opened window.

“It is your father’s wish that you should learn to endure discomfort,” Madame stated, pinning the child’s hair in a tight knot on the top of her head. The prince had actually said only that his daughters were not to be pampered, but the governess chose to interpret the instruction according to her own mood.

Sylvie whimpered again as her scalp was pulled back from her forehead and the pins dug into her skin. Nurse, looking very disapproving, lifted her and dumped her skinny little body in the tub of ice-cold water. Sylvie cried out at the top of her lungs and received a slapped hand from the governess for her pains. Amelia stood and watched, waiting her turn with rather more stoicism than her sister.