Until the door opened to admit Cordelia in her gray gown and heather pink petticoat, her hair cascading in loose ringlets as black as night to her creamy shoulders. "I give you good morning," she declared, bending to take the girls' hands in both of hers and kissing their smooth round cheeks. Her eyes were haunted but her smile was as warm as apprehension and anxiety would permit.
"Oh, but you're so cold!" she exclaimed. "How can you be cold on such a beautiful day?" She looked almost accusingly at the governess, who had. risen, blinking, from her chair. "They're frozen, poor darlings. They must have some tea or something to warm them."
"We're hungry!" they announced in unison.
"Hungry? But have you had no breakfast?"
Louise sniffed audibly. "The prince believes his children should exercise self-discipline on occasion."
"I'm sure that's very laudable," Cordelia said acidly. "But I cannot believe he would expect them to starve." She examined the woman in frowning silence for a minute, then cast a swift glance at the pale nursery maid. "Could it be that you didn't know how to order breakfast?" she murmured wonderingly. She whirled around to pull the bell rope by the door. "This bell rings in our own apartments. It will bring Frederick from our own household. You may order whatever you wish from him."
"I am aware, madame," the governess said, pursing her lips. "But as I said, it's good for children to-"
"It is not good for children to face the day on empty bellies," Cordelia interrupted vigorously. "They have a long and tiring day ahead of them, and they look like ghosts. How long have they been sitting there?"
"Since early morning, madame," the nursery maid put in, emboldened both by her own hunger and the governess's clear discomfiture.
Cordelia spun round on Louise. "You exceed your authority, madame." Her voice was ice, her eyes were blue flame. "As I understand it, you are paid to care for the prince's children, not to torture them!" She turned back to the opening door in a gray and pink swirl of skirts. "Frederick, bring chocolate and brioche and jam for the children, and show the nursery maid where she may break her own fast."
Silence fell in the wake of the footman's departure with the maid. The governess fulminated, her chest swelling like an outraged bullfrog's. The children, eyes bright with curiosity and excitement, still sat on the sofa, but their gaze never left Cordelia's face. Cordelia paced the small salon, her brain working furiously. She had broken one of her rules in this new life and declared war on the governess, instead of offering an alliance. But the woman was so odious, how could she bear to court her?
She paused in her pacing for a minute, her eyes resting on the children. Something wasn't right with their appearance. But what could possibly be wrong?
"Princess, I must protest your tone." The governess finally gave voice to her anger. "My kinsman, Prince Michael, has entrusted his children to my care and authority since their infancy and-"
"Ah, here's Frederick." Cordelia brusquely interrupted this seething beginning. "Frederick, set the tray down there." Having thus reduced the governess to the status of a piece of furniture, she issued a stream of orders to the returning footman, who set his laden tray down and scurried around, placing two chairs with extra cushions, lifting Amelia and Sylvie onto the chairs, pouring hot chocolate, shaking out napkins, passing a basket of brioches.
Cordelia hovered over the table, breaking the brioches, spreading jam, encouraging the children, who required little encouragement, to eat their fill of this succulent feast, so vastly different from their usual fare of weak tea and bread and butter.
When Louise realized that she was excluded from this meal, she stalked out of the room to her own chamber, banging the door behind her. Cordelia stuck her tongue out at the door and the twins choked on their hot chocolate, splattering drips across the table.
"I've spilled it on my dress!" Amelia wailed, rubbing fiercely at a spot of chocolate on her bodice, all desire to laugh vanished at this disaster.
"Oh, it's nothing much." Cordelia spat on the corner of a napkin and dabbed at the mark. "No one will notice." She stood back to examine the tiny stain, and that same puzzled frown drew her arched brows together.
"But… but… we're to see the dauphine," Sylvie breathed, shocked at this insouciance.
"Toinette knows how easy it is to spill something," Cordelia reassured, shaking off the moment of puzzlement.
"But… but what of the king?" Their eyes, twinned, gazed at her across the table.
"What of the king?" came a voice from the door.
"It's Monsieur Leo!" they squealed in unison. "Did you find us?"
"It certainly looks that way," he said solemnly, closing the door behind him. "I am sent by the king, who wishes to make the acquaintance of my nieces." This last was directed more at Cordelia than at the girls.
His expression was calm, his manner easy. Leo was a past master at the courtly art of dissembling. Only in his eyes could the truth be seen. They were no longer lightless, but they burned with a dreadful rage, akin to despair, and Cordelia's scalp lifted with cold dread. He was blaming himself. She had known that would be his first response, and she had no idea how to reach him in that bitter slough of self-denunciation. Even to attempt ordinary words of comfort would be insulting, especially since she had not known Elvira.
Michael was presumably still keeping to his bed, but he knew that she would be escorting the children to Toinette, so there was no danger of falling foul of him at this point. He could hardly expect her to refuse to obey a royal summons while she waited for him to recover.
"Then we should not delay," she said neutrally. She didn't look at Leo, because she knew that her eyes were filled with compassion and her own fear, and to see that would only add to his burdens. She wiped chocolate from one child's mouth and turned to the jam on the other's fingers.
The door to the governess's chamber opened, and Louise stood glaring in silent accusation in the doorway.
Leo said with cold authority, "I have been sent by the king to escort your charges to his presence. Perhaps you would make certain their dress is in order."
"The princess has made it clear that my services are not required," Louise said spitefully, with downturned mouth. "The princess believes she can tend to her stepdaughters without assistance. Even though I've been doing it to the prince's satisfaction for close on four years."
Leo didn't deign to reply, he merely looked through her as if she were some transparent insect. Cordelia said curtly, "Whatever grievance you may have, madame, this is not the place to air it." She lifted Amelia and then Sylvie from their chairs, smoothing down their skirts, adjusting their muslin fichus.
Amelia, still troubled by the faint spot on her bodice, surreptitiously scratched at it with a fingernail while casting anxious glances toward the governess.
"Come." Leo took their hands. "We mustn't keep the king waiting."
Louise didn't move from her spot by her door until they had all left the room. Then she came over to the table. Her mouth was pursed, her eyes sharply speculative. Greedily, she began to eat the remains of the children's breakfast, cramming brioche into her mouth as if she hadn't eaten in a week, swallowing jam by the spoonful in between sips of the now cold chocolate remaining in the jug.
She would appeal directly to the prince. He must surely regard an affront to her authority as an affront to his own. It was common household gossip that he ruled his young bride with the same rod of iron he held over the rest of his staff.