Elvira had taught him to be alert to all the tricks and wiles of a beautiful woman. To know that when they plotted deceit, they were at their most innocent.
"If you would excuse me, sir, I'll go my bedchamber to tidy myself." She executed another perfect curtsy.
Michael regarded her coldly. She looked up and met his gaze with a stare as unflinching and penetrating as his, and he knew he'd been right. She was far from subdued.
"Go. We leave for the opera in half an hour." He turned away with a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. Cordelia went into her own bedchamber to summon the hapless Elsie.
When she returned to the salon, Prince Michael was at the secretaire, writing. Cordelia paused in the doorway. She didn't think he was yet aware of her. She watched, almost holding her breath. Was he writing in his journal again?
Suddenly, he turned, his expression as dark as before. "Why are you creeping around?"
"I wasn't. I just entered the room. I didn't wish to disturb you."
He turned back to sand the sheet and closed the book with a snap. Cordelia took a step closer. It was a ledger. "Do you keep track of the household accounts, sir?" She was so surprised that the question popped out before she gave it due thought.
"When I feel the need," he said, and she could see that he was coldly furious, but for once not with her. "When I sense some discrepancy in my wine shipper's bill. When the wine I drink doesn't match with the wine I've bought." He snatched up the ledger, locked it in the drawer of the secretaire, and strode across to his dressing room. The door banged shut behind him.
Was Monsieur Brion robbing his master? All servants did it as a matter of course. A few bottles here and there would go unnoticed in most aristocratic households. But surely Brion wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave traces for the prince? Perhaps Michael just suspected it. If so, he'd look for proof.
Michael returned, his expression as cold and remote as before. He offered her his arm and they left the apartments to join the throng hurrying to the opera house in order to be at their places before the royal party arrived.
In every bay in the colonnaded opera house hung a half chandelier against the surface of a mirrored backdrop so that the reflection offered a complete illuminated piece. The auditorium was ablaze with light from fourteen massive crystal chandeliers suspended on blue rope to match the cold cobalt blue of the theater hangings. Cordelia was accustomed to magnificence, but she had no words to describe this scene. The courtiers of both sexes seemed to scintillate as their jeweled garments and rich adornments caught the light. The buzz of voices rose to the exquisitely painted ceiling, drowning out the strings from the orchestra pit as the members of the orchestra tuned their instruments.
The prince was responding to greetings as they made slow progress to their own box. Cordelia curtsied, murmured her own salutations, her eyes missing nothing.
Their companions in the box were already seated, but the two front seats had been left for the prince and princess. She sat on the low cushioned stool specially designed to accommodate her wide hoop, arranged her skirts, opened her fan, and looked around. Michael was in conversation with their companions, so for the moment she was unobserved.
She saw Christian strolling through the pit, and her heart jumped. She leaned over the velvet-padded rail of the box, fanning herself indolently, the painted chicken skin of the fan facing her husband so that he couldn't see her face. Christian looked up and she signaled frantically with her eyes. His own lit up and he began to push his way toward her box. Just in time he remembered and stopped in his tracks. His eyes, filled with frustrated rage, moved to her husband. Cordelia realized with a start that her gentle-tempered, pessimistically fatalistic friend was ready to do murder. Presumably he knew the full truth if he now shared a roof with Mathilde.
Embarrassment flooded her. How could she bear that people should know of her nightly humiliations? She who had always been so unfailingly optimistic, so self-confident, so much the stronger partner in her friendships. But Christian was not people, she reminded herself. Toinette was not people. They were her friends and there was nothing shameful about depending on friendship for comfort and support. She didn't always have to be the strong one; she could show weakness too.
She mouthed a message to Christian and he nodded with a quick ducking movement of his head. Then he turned and pushed back into the pit.
Leo Beaumont stepped into a box opposite. He turned and said something to a lady in a crimson turban, sporting peacock feathers with diamonds and turquoises for the eyes. She laughed and Cordelia could hear her high-pitched whinny as she tapped the viscount's wrist with her fan. Leo merely smiled and settled into his seat. Punctiliously, he bowed toward Michael's box. Michael returned the salute; Cordelia bobbed her head. She could feel Leo's tension on every current of air that crossed the space between them.
Michael, however, seemed quite unaware that there were two men in the opera house prepared to challenge him to the death. Casually, he took a snuffbox from his pocket. Cordelia had spent her life at court and knew that court rules forbade any public enmity between courtiers. It would be an insult to the king. Men met socially, always the epitome of courtesy, while murderous hatred frequently simmered beneath the affable surface.
The arrival of the royal party put an end to these reflections as she rose with the rest of the audience. The king and his family took their places in the royal box, the court sat down again, the music began.
It was a tedious opera, the music heavy and boring. The chandeliers were kept alight throughout so that people-watching rapidly became the chief entertainment as the performance lumbered along on the stage. Toinette was looking very bored, fidgeting in her chair, whispering to her companions.
Cordelia allowed her thoughts to run along their own channels until the interlude of ballet at the end of the first act. Toinette, who adored dancing, also sat up, leaning forward to watch attentively.
It was a charming piece, but Cordelia was particularly struck by one young dancer's solo. The girl was exquisite, dainty, and an excellent ballerina. Cordelia leaned over the edge of the box. Christian was sitting rapt in the first row of the pit, just behind the orchestra. Cordelia recognized the tilt of his head and knew that he was lost to the world, every fiber of his being concentrated on the music… and perhaps also the stage.
Could his attention also be held by the dancer? she wondered with a surge of interest. It would be a wonderful partnership. Christian's music and the girl's inspired dancing. Maybe more than a working partnership, she caught herself thinking. Christian needed someone to care for him, to love him for his genius and his gentleness and shake him out of his pessimistic glooms. And she wouldn't always be around to do it. Not if Leo took her away… Her fingers curled into her palms and she breathed deeply for a minute.
"Do you not find that dancer very talented, sir?" she observed to the man sitting behind her. "Does she dance often for the court?"
"She's been fortunate enough to catch the king's eye," the Due de Fevre told her.
His duchess chuckled behind her fan. "And we all know what that means. The little Clothilde is on her way to a nice little billet in the Pare aux Cerfs."
The king's private bordello-that would not suit Cordelia's tentative plans at all.
"She comes of a very respectable and devout merchant family, I'm told," Prince Michael remarked. "I understand her father is very resistant to her appearing on the stage, and one can only imagine how he would view her residing in the Pare aux Cerfs, even with the king as lover."