The Diamond Slipper, page 1
Jane Feather
The Diamond Slipper
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Epilogue
Prologue
Paris, 1765
"No… please, no more." The words emerged as barely a breath through the woman's dry, cracked lips. Feebly she tried to push aside the silver chalice held to her mouth.
"You must take it, my dear. It will make you well." The man held her head in the crook of his elbow. Her eyes were closed and she was too weak to resist as he tipped the contents of the chalice down her throat. At the familiar bittersweet taste, the woman groaned faintly. Her head fell back against his arm, and gently he lowered her head to the pillow. He hung over her, staring down at her beautiful white face, the skin so translucent he could almost see through to the bones of her skull. Then her eyes opened. For a moment they were as clear and brilliant as they had ever been.
For a long moment, her dying gaze held his. Then her eyelids dropped, her lips parted on a struggling sob of a breath.
The man stepped back into the shadows of the bed-curtains. He took up a glass of wine from the bedside table and sipped, his cold brown gaze never leaving the woman's face. It wouldn't be long now.
A whimpering snuffle came from beyond the bed-curtains. He moved them aside and stepped into the warm, firelit chamber. A nurse sat beside the fire, rocking a double cradle with her foot.
"Should I bring the babes to her, Your Highness?"
The man went over to the cradle. He looked down into two matching pairs of bright blue eyes, two sets of rosy cheeks, four dimpled fists clutched on top of the pale pink blankets.
Were they his? He would never know. And it didn't matter now. "Yes," he said. "They will bring the princess comfort, but don't let them tire her."
"No, of course not, sir." The nurse bent to scoop up the two snuffling bundles. She smiled and kissed them. "There, my pretties, your mama is waiting to see you." She carried her burden to the bed.
The prince sipped his wine and stared into the fire. The nurse returned the infants to their cradle in a very few minutes. "Her highness is so weak. I don't believe she'll last the night," she said sadly.
The prince didn't reply. He returned to his deathwatch in the shadows of the bedcurtains, listening to the rattle of his wife's labored breathing. He was still there when the sound stopped.
He approached the bedside, leaned over, pressed his lips to hers, felt their cold deadness, the total absence of spirit in her body. He straightened slowly and lifted the woman's fragile right wrist. He unclasped the charm bracelet she wore, holding it up to the dim light of the lamp burning at the bedside. The dainty charms glittered and glowed, shockingly frivolous in this dark chamber of death. He slipped the bracelet into his pocket and called for the nurse.
Chapter One
The procession of gilded coaches, plumed, gaily caparisoned horses, and officers resplendent in the blue and gold uniforms of Versailles wound through the great gold gates of the palace, coming to a halt in the center of the massive square.
"Look at those two carriages!" a fair-headed girl hanging perilously far out of an upstairs window exclaimed to her companion leaning out beside her. "They are both to carry me into France. Which do you prefer, Cordelia? The crimson one or the blue one?"
"I can't see it makes much difference," Lady Cordelia Brandenburg responded. "Of all the ridiculous things. There's the Marquis de Durfort riding into the city as if he'd traveled all the way from France, when instead he only left Vienna an hour ago."
"But it's protocol," the archduchess Maria Antonia said in shocked reproof. "It's how it has to be done. The French ambassador must enter Vienna as if he's come all the way from Versailles. He must formally ask my mother for my hand in marriage on behalf of the dauphin of France. Then I will be married by proxy before I go into France."
"Anyone would think you hadn't been promised to the dauphin for the last three years," Cordelia stated. "What a stir it would cause if the empress refused the ambassador's request." She chuckled mischievously, but her companion didn't see the joke.
"Don't be absurd, Cordelia. I shan't allow you to be so impertinent when I am queen of France." She wrinkled her pert nose.
"Considering your bridegroom is only sixteen, I imagine you'll have to wait awhile before becoming queen," Cordelia retorted, not in the least affected by her royal friend's scolding.
"Oh, pshaw! You're such a wet blanket! When I'm dauphine, I shall be the most popular and important lady at Versailles." Toinette twirled in a crimson swirl of silk as her hoop swung out around her. With an exuberant gesture, she began to dance around the room, her dainty slippered feet faultlessly executing the steps of a minuet.
Cordelia cast a glance over her shoulder and then turned back to the considerably more interesting scene in the court below. Toinette was a gifted dancer and never lost an opportunity to show off.
"Now, I wonder who that is," Cordelia mused, her voice suddenly sharp with interest.
"Who? Where?" Toinette came back to the window, pushing Cordelia to one side, her fair head a startling contrast to her companion's raven black curls.
"There. Dismounting from the white stallion. A Lippizaner, I think."
"Yes, it must be. Look at those lines." Both girls were passionate horsewomen, and for a moment the horse interested them more than its rider.
The man drew off his riding gloves and looked around the court. He was tall, slim, dressed in dark riding clothes, a short, scarlet-lined riding cape swinging from his shoulders. As if aware of the observers, he looked up at the creamy ocher facade of the palace. He stepped back and looked up again, shading his eyes with his hand.
"Come in," the archduchess said. "He's seen us."
"So what?" Lady Cordelia responded. "We're only looking. Don't you think he's handsome?"
"I don't know," Toinette said with a touch of petulance. "Come away. It's shockingly bad etiquette to stare like that. What would Mama say?"
Cordelia had little difficulty imagining what the empress Maria Theresa would say if she found her daughter and her daughter's friend staring out of the window like a pair of oglers at the opera. However, something kept her at the window, even as Toinette tugged at her arm.
The man continued to look up at her. Mischievously, Cordelia waved and blew him a kiss. For a moment he looked thoroughly taken aback, then he laughed and touched his fingers to his lips.
"Cordelia!" The archduchess was scandalized. "I'm not going to stay in here if you're going to behave like that. You don't even know who he is."
"Oh, some equerry, I expect," Cordelia said airily. "I doubt we'll come across him in all the palaver." She plucked half a dozen yellow roses from a bowl on the deep window-sill. Leaning as far out as she could, she tossed them down. They fell in a cloud around the horseman, one of them landing on his shoulder, caught in the folds of his cloak. He extricated it and carefully inserted it in the buttonhole of his coat. Then he doffed his plumed hat and bowed with a magnificent flourish, before moving out of sight as he entered the palace below the window.
Cordelia laughed and drew back from the window. "That was amusing," she said. "It is fun when people enter the spirit of the game." A contemplative little frown drew her thin arched
"No, of course not." The archduchess was still annoyed. "You've probably been flirting with a senior official from Versailles. He must assume you're a kitchen maid or something."
Cordelia shrugged. "I don't suppose he's important. Anyway, I'm sure he won't recognize me close to."
"Of course he will," Toinette scoffed. "No one else has such black hair."
"Oh well, I'll just powder it," Cordelia declared, selecting a grape from a bunch in a crystal bowl and popping it into her mouth. A silver clock on the mantel chimed prettily.
"Goodness, is that the time?" she exclaimed. "I must fly, or I'll be late."
"Late for what?"
Cordelia looked for a moment unnaturally solemn. "I'll tell you before you go to France, Toinette." And she had whisked herself out of the room in a cloud of primrose yellow muslin.
The archduchess pouted crossly. Cordelia didn't seem to mind that their friendship was about to come to an end. Versailles had decreed that when Maria Antonia married the dauphin and came to France, she must leave behind everything that was tied to the Austrian court. She was allowed to take none of her ladies, none of her possessions, not even her clothes.
Disconsolately, she plucked grapes from the bunch, wondering what secret Cordelia was holding these days. She was as ebullient and mischievous as ever, but she was always disappearing mysteriously for hours at a time, and sometimes she had the air of someone dealing with a weighty problem. Which was not in the least in character,
Cordelia, well aware of her friend's disgruntled puzzlement, sped down the corridor toward the east wing of the palace. She couldn't risk confiding in anyone: Not only was the secret too dangerous, but it was not hers to tell. Christian's livelihood was at stake. He was dependent upon the goodwill of his master, Poligny, the empress's court musician, and to lose it would mean losing the empress's patronage. And he would certainly lose that goodwill once he accused Poligny publicly of stealing his pupil's compositions. The accusation must be made from an unassailable position.
Cordelia turned down a little-used corridor and entered a long gallery through a massive wooden door. She was in the west wing of the palace. The gallery was lined with heavy tapestried screens. She ducked behind the third one.
"Where have you been? Why can you never be on time,
Cordelia?" Christian's great brown eyes were filled with anxiety, his mouth taut with concern, his countenance pale.
"I'm sorry. I was watching the arrival of the French wedding party in the courtyard," she said. "Don't be cross, Christian. I've had a brilliant idea."
"You don't know how dreadful it is to hide here, trembling at every mouse," he whispered fiercely, a tight frown wrinkling his broad brow. "What idea?"
"Supposing we produce an anonymous broadsheet, saying that Poligny's latest opera was actually written by his star pupil, Christian Percossi?"
"But how could we prove it? Who's going to believe an anonymous accusation?"
"You publish your original score in the broadsheet. Sign the statement 'A friend of the truth,' or something like that. Include a sample of Poligny's compositions to show the difference in the two hands. It'll be enough to start people talking."
"But he'll have me thrown out of the palace before anything can happen," Christian said glumly.
"You're such a pessimist!" Cordelia exclaimed, her voice inadvertently rising from the undertone they'd both been using. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother with you, Christian."
His smile was a little sheepish. "Because we're friends?"
Cordelia groaned in mock frustration. She and Christian Percossi had been friends for five years. It was a secret friendship, because within the rigid hierarchy of the empress Maria Theresa's court a close friendship was unthinkable between a humble pupil of the court musician and the Lady Cordelia Brandenburg, goddaughter of the empress and bosom companion of her daughter, Maria Antonia, known to her intimates by the diminutive Marie Antoinette.
"Listen," she said, urgently taking his long, slender, musician's hands within her own. "The empress is known for her fairness. She may be as starched as a ruff, but she won't permit Poligny to cast you off without a fair hearing. We just have to ensure that she sees the broadsheet and the evidence before Poligny can move against you. And we have to make certain that Poligny is taken by surprise. He mustn't have time to create a defense by attacking you."
Still holding his hands tightly, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly. "Don't lose heart, Christian. We will prevail."
Christian hugged her. Once, they'd thought they felt more for each other than simple friendship, but their naive experimentations had quickly convinced them both that they were not destined to be lovers. But he still enjoyed the feel of her lithe suppleness beneath her court dress, the scent of her skin and hair.
Cordelia drew her head back, smiling up into the musician's hungry brown eyes, enjoying the angular beauty of his face. Her hands moved through his crisp fair curls. "I do love you, Christian. Even more than I love Toinette, I think." She frowned, puzzled at this novel thought. She'd never before attempted to grade her feelings for her two best friends. Then she shook her head in characteristic dismissal of such an irrelevant issue. She wouldn't fail either of them if they needed her. "Try to get the evidence together and we'll talk later. But now I must go."
Christian let his hands fall away from her and looked helplessly into her face. "I wish we didn't have to hide in corners, snatching moments to talk. It was much easier when we were children."
"But we aren't now," Cordelia stated. "And now I'm much more carefully Watched. Besides, once you spring your surprise on Poligny, no one must suspect my involvement. Then I can work on the empress in your favor… or at least," she amended, "on Toinette while she's still here." She gave his hands another quick squeeze, trying to infuse him with some of her own optimistic determination. Christian was so sensitive, so easily cast down. It was because of his undeniable genius, of course, but it could be somewhat irritating.
"I'm going now. Wait for five minutes before you leave." On tiptoe she kissed him again and then was gone from behind the screen, leaving Christian with the faint fragrance of orangeflower water that she used on her hair and the lingering impression of her quicksilver personality like the diffusion of a fading rainbow.
Cordelia slipped backward into the long gallery. She smoothed down her skirts, turned to stroll casually toward the door at the far end of the gallery, and came to face to face with the man who rode the Lippizaner.
He turned from his contemplation of a particularly bloody hunting scene on a tapestry on the far wall. He still wore his scarlet-lined riding cape, startling against the impeccable white of his ruffled shirt.
