Cordelia was listening intently, but while this exposition on court travels was mildly interesting, it wasn't as pertinent as her husband. "But will I like him?" She leaned forward again, underscoring the seriousness of the question.
Leo shrugged carelessly and drew away from her maddening proximity. "How should I know, Cordelia. Many people do, but he has enemies. We all do."
"Is he kind?" Cordelia persevered, laying a hand on his knee. "Is he good to the children?"
He was a cold, indifferent parent, one reason why Leo was so anxious that they should have a concerned and caring stepmother. However, Leo kept this reflection to himself. "They are in the charge of a governess. I don't believe their father has much to do with them."
That, too, was not uncommon. She opened her mouth for another question when the blast of a trumpet rent the air. "Oh, we must be stopping somewhere. I own I shall be glad to stretch my legs."
Leo swung open the door when the carriage came to a halt in the center of a small village. He jumped down to the cobbled square and held out his hand to assist Cordelia in the delicate maneuver required to get herself and her wide skirts through the door. He dropped her hand the minute she was on solid ground.
Cordelia proceeded to tuck her hand in his arm. "You are my escort, proxy husband," she murmured. "You mustn't treat me as if I'm a pariah dog."
He looked sharply down at her. As he'd expected, she was smiling with that outrageous invitation in her eyes. "Behave yourself!" he commanded in a ferocious undertone.
Cordelia's smile broadened. "I haven't lost the wager yet, my lord."
He had no time to respond, as the village mayor came over to them, bowing low, offering the humble hospitality of his village. The dauphine and her brother were installed in chairs on a canopied dais in the center of the square, while village maidens brought them food and drink and the inhabitants of the countryside for miles around gazed in wonder at the august presence in their midst.
Cordelia and the viscount were escorted to the village inn, where hospitality for the dauphine's retinue was provided. There were so many people milling around in the small, low-beamed taproom that conversation was impossible and the heat rapidly became insupportable. Cordelia dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief. "Pray excuse my, my lord." She withdrew her hand from his arm and turned to leave the inn.
"Where are you going?"
"A matter requiring privacy, my lord." She gave him an impish smile and pushed her way to the door.
Leo drained his tankard of ale with a heartfelt sigh. Twenty-three days of her close company!
Cordelia found the single privy with a line of courtiers waiting to use it. Her nose wrinkled at the noisome little shed. It wasn't constructed for women with skirts five feet wide. She turned and made her way through the village into the fields beyond. A blackberry bush provided sufficient cover and the air was a deal fresher, despite the circle of cows solemnly regarding this extraordinary creature who'd I appeared in their midst.
She'd just moved her skirts and petticoats out of the way when she heard the crackle of footsteps beyond the bush. Of all the inconvenient moments for some village laborer to come along! She was not particularly embarrassed. Most of the public privies in Schonbrunn had no doors on them, and the commodes behind the screens in the corridors were hardly private.
"Cordelia, what the devil are you doing out here?" The viscount sounded distinctly annoyed and very close. She could see his feet beneath the bush.
A local peasant was one thing, Viscount Kierston quite another. "I'm behind the bush," she said hastily. "Don't come any closer."
"What the hell… Oh!" Laughter filled his voice. "I do beg your pardon."
Cordelia shook down her skirts and emerged from her open-air closet, "it was hardly chivalrous to follow me, my lord."
"When I see my charge hastening into the countryside at a moment when the dauphine and the emperor are about to reenter their carriage, chivalry doesn't come into it," he retorted. "Why couldn't you use the village privy like everyone else?"
"Precisely because everyone else was using it," she declared, smoothing a wrinkle in her skirt. "Women are at a serious disadvantage, you should know, Lord Kierston."
He laughed again. "I see your point. Now come along.
The carriages behind ours can't leave until we do." He took her hand, hurrying her back across the field, forgetting in his amusement to keep his hands off her.
Cordelia, for her part, made no protest at this unceremonious escort.
They reached the palatial monastery of Melk at six in the evening. The dauphine and the emperor had already entered the imperial apartments by the time the von Sachsen carriage passed beneath the west gate of the monastery, which dominated a bend of the Danube below.
Cordelia looked at the dainty fob watch pinned to her gown. She opened her reticule and drew out her folded sheet. "What did you project, sir?"
Leo pulled out his paper. "Six-thirty," he said with a confident smile. Half an hour out on such an impeded journey was barely worth considering.
But Cordelia laughed, her eyes gleaming with pleasure. "Six twenty-seven. See." She held out her folded sheet. "I never estimate regular times because in the real world nothing ever happens so neatly. I win."
"Yes, you do. But there's no need to crow."
"But it was clever of me," she insisted.
Leo stepped out of the carriage. "Yes, you may ride," he said, giving her his hand. "And I shall enjoy a peaceful day alone in the carriage."
Her face fell so ludicrously that he felt perfectly repaid for her gloating.
"How could you possibly wish to travel in a stuffy carriage?"
"As I said, it will be peaceful and quiet… Ah, here's the monk who will show you to your apartments." He handed her over to a smiling monk who introduced himself as Father Cornelius and declared himself responsible for the disposition of the monastery's honored guests.
"Your maid will be directed to your apartments as soon as she arrives, Princess." He gestured courteously toward the entrance to the building. "Her Highness the Dauphine has requested that you be lodged in the imperial apartments."
Cordelia hesitated. She turned back to Leo. "You will not ride with me tomorrow?"
"That was not part of the wager." He couldn't help enjoying this tiny moment of revenge.
But Cordelia was not long at a loss. "I'll ensure in future, my lord, that I phrase these matters correctly." She swept him a perfectly executed curtsy and glided away with Father Cornelius, leaving Leo wondering whether he'd won or lost that exchange.
"I am so unhappy, Cordelia!" Toinette flung herself into her friend's arms when Cordelia entered the dauphine's boudoir ten minutes later. "How can I bear to go so far away?"
"Now, now, Toinette, this is most undignified," the emperor protested, at a loss as to how to deal with his little sister's tears. He was not an unaffectionate man, but he'd been schooled to control his own emotions at all costs and was both embarrassed and shocked by Toinette's unbridled grief.
"Hush, now." Cordelia stroked her back. "It won't be so bad when you get used to it. Think of how excited you were before at the thought of being queen of France. Think of lording it over the court at Versailles. Think of all the amusements… think of the freedom to do as you please."
Toinette hiccuped in her arms, but her violent sobs slowed. Finally, she straightened and sniffed vigorously. "I know you're right, but it's so hard. I'll never see Mama again. Or my brothers and sisters."