Cordelia dropped her foot, saying blunting, "I don't believe that, Mathilde. And I don't think you believe it either."
Mathilde bent over her to take her face between her hands. "Listen to me, dearie, and listen well. You must take what's given you in this world. I'll not watch you fade away from wishing, as your mother did. You're strong, I've made you so. You must look for what you can have, and forget what you can't."
"My mother didn't care for my father?"
"She didn't see what there was to care for in him because she was too busy pining for what she couldn't have." Mathilde released her face and straightened, her expression suddenly hard and determined. "I've not raised you to hanker for the impossible. I've taught you to take what you have and make the most of it Now, get up and get dressed. We don't have all morning."
Cordelia swung her legs off the bed and stood up, just as the maid reappeared with the coffee. "Oh, lovely. Thank you. I can't tell you how I long for coffee. Thank you for taking the trouble." She smiled at the maid with such warmth that the girl beamed and curtsied before filling a cup and handing it to the naked princess.
"No trouble at all, Your Highness." Still beaming, she backed out of the chamber.
"I really wouldn't have thought it of the viscount," Mathilde muttered. "If I didn't know how you always get your way, I'd not understand it at all. He seems such an honorable man."
"But he is an honorable man." Cordelia came quickly to Leo's defense. She took a deep revivifying gulp of coffee. "And I really didn't try to make it happen, it just did. And he made it stop, even though it must have been difficult for him."
"Aye, that it must," Mathilde said grimly. The thought gave her some satisfaction as she laced her charge a little more tightly than usual.
Cordelia endured without a murmur of protest. When Mathilde was this upset, it was best to let her get it out of her system. Involuntarily, she glanced at the bookshelves. Could she make them open again? She didn't know exactly how it had happened last night. Was there a knob she'd accidentally pushed, or a switch? Or did one just lean against the books at a certain spot? Not that she'd ever find out. They'd be long gone from this place in an hour.
"There, you'll do." Mathilde twitched Cordelia's starched stock into place at her neck. "Hurry away now." She waved her hands at her, shooing her from the room. Cordelia couldn't decide whether her nurse was vexed as well as concerned.
Deeply thoughtful, she stepped into the corridor just as Leo, in riding dress, emerged from the next-door chamber. "Good morning." She felt strangely shy. She curtsied, her eyes lowered.
"Good morning." His expression was somber, his eyes lightless, his mouth taut. He gestured curtly that she should precede him down the staircase to the hall.
Cordelia, most unusually, was tongue-tied. Throughout the ceremonial breakfast, her eyes kept drifting to his hands and she would remember where they had been on her body
and a surge of glorious memory would flood her with warmth. It was a relief to concentrate on the ceremonies as the dauphine took farewell of her brother Joseph, who would now return to Vienna, leaving his little sister to journey without family to Strasbourg, where she would be formally received into France.
Toinette was less emotional at taking leave of her brother than she had been of her mother, but it was still a solemn moment when the emperor escorted his sister to her carriage for the last time.
"I see you intend to ride today, my lord." Cordelia gestured toward Leo's riding dress, speaking to him for the first time since she'd greeted him on the stairs. It was supposed to be a neutral comment, but her voice sounded strangely intense to her ears in the monastery's busy, noisy courtyard.
"Yes," he said shortly. "We will ride behind the cavalry and to the side of the coaches." He surveyed the scene, frowning, looking for his groom with their horses.
"What made you change your mind?" Cordelia ventured. "You said yesterday that you would travel in the peace and quiet of the carriage if I was riding."
His brow darkened. "You're in my charge, Princess. Much as I might lament it, I'm responsible for you. If you're going to make anyone's life a misery, it had better be mine rather than some poor groom's."
He ordered his groom to help Cordelia to mount.
Cordelia cast Leo a covert sidelong look. His face was drawn, dark shadows beneath his eyes. He looked as if he hadn't slept a wink-a man haunted by conscience. She thought remorsefully of her own deep and dreamless sleep untroubled by guilt.
Leo mounted his own horse, waiting until Cordelia was settled in the saddle, the girths tightened, stirrups adjusted. Her Lippizaner mare was a beautiful animal, and he assumed that like the Hapsburgs with whom she'd grown up, she was an accomplished horsewoman, so he wouldn't need to worry about her safety on such a prime beast. But he also guessed from what he knew of her that Cordelia would chafe at the necessity of keeping her place in the procession.
"We will keep to a walk," he stated. "We cannot overtake the dauphine's carriage without offending protocol, so I'm afraid it will be dull riding."
"But we could leave the procession," Cordelia suggested. "Branch off across the fields and rejoin it later."
"That kind of suggestion is why I wouldn't entrust you to a groom," he said grimly.
Cordelia closed her lips tightly, gathered up the reins, and fell in beside him. The procession wound its way along the banks of the Danube as the sun grew stronger, burning off the early morning mists. Leo said not a word, and finally Cordelia could bear it no longer.
"Please talk to me, Leo. I feel as if I'm in disgrace, but I can't see why I should be."
He said gravely, "You don't seem to understand, Cordelia. What happened last night was unforgivable. I lost control."
"You feel you have betrayed your friend and my husband," she ventured.
Leo didn't answer. It wasn't as simple as that. He also felt he had betrayed Cordelia. She was in his trust and he'd betrayed that trust.
"I don't know anything about this man, my husband," Cordelia said into the silence. "It doesn't feel like a betrayal when I don't even know him, but I do know that I love you."
She looped the reins and then let them run through her fingers. The mare raised her head and high-stepped delicately. "I've been thinking," she said hesitantly while Leo was still trying to gather his forces in the face of her calm declaration. "While I accept that I'm married to Prince Michael, I don't see why I can't still be your mistress.
"It's perfectly acceptable in French society, I'm told," she rushed on as he exhaled sharply and seemed ready to break in. "If two people are in love but are forced to marry their family's choice, it's understood that society will turn a blind eye if they pursue a liaison discreetly. Even the king says so."
"And just who told you that?" he inquired, finding his voice at last.
"A cousin of Toinette's. He said that husbands say to their wives, "I allow you to do as you please, but I draw the line at princes of the blood and footmen." She glanced interrogatively at him. "Is that true?"
"What's true for some is not necessarily true for all," he pointed out dryly.
"But it is the court attitude, though. I mean, the king has had mistresses who were closer to him and more influential than the queen. Madame de Pompadour was the most important woman at the court for over twenty years. And isn't that true of Madame du Barry now? And I know all about the Pare aux Cerfs, where the king keeps his prostitutes," she added with the air of one delivering the coup de grace. "It's all true, isn't it?"