With sudden decision she turned aside toward the staircase leading away from the state apartments. At least tonight she was safe from Michael, and poor little Elsie did her best.
She greeted the girl with a determined smile as she entered her bedchamber and fell back onto the sofa. "Help me with my shoes, Elsie dear. I can barely move a muscle."
"La, madame! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" Elsie rushed over solicitously and, despite much fumbling and self-recrimination, finally managed to ease her mistress out of her heavy court dress, unlace her corsets, and help her into her nightgown. "Shall I brush your hair, madame?"
"Yes, but very gently." Cordelia sat at the dresser. Her scalp felt tight and sore with tiredness. Elsie tried but she couldn't emulate Mathilde, and after a minute Cordelia took the brush from her and finished the task herself.
She climbed into bed with a sigh of relief, her body sinking into the deep feather mattress. "Blow out the candles, Elsie, and pull the curtains."
The maid had barely done so when Cordelia fell into a black and dreamless sleep.
Michael waited, dozing in the armchair in his dressing room. He needed his wife to be asleep because tonight he wasn't strong enough to overpower her without restraints and she would fight him. With Elvira, he had administered the initial doses of poison in the burned champagne that she enjoyed so much. After a couple of days, when the mixture had started its work and she was too weak to resist even if she'd known what he was giving her, he'd administered it neat. But she still hadn't guessed what he was doing to her. Not until those last hours, when he'd seen some dawning realization in her hollow eyes.
But there was no reason to conceal from Cordelia what he intended for her. In fact, he had no desire to do so.
He was beginning to feel that his draining weakness was abating as the hour approached two o'clock. Each time he awoke from a short doze, he felt stronger and more confident, and to his great relief the dizziness seemed to have disappeared. His head no longer swam when he stood up. He must have caught some minor infection, he decided. It was absurd to have contemplated witchcraft. The infection had weakened his brain.
The palace was quiet, his own apartments absolutely silent, the servants long gone to their beds. Cordelia had been in bed for an hour. She would surely be asleep now.
He picked up the four lengths of thinly braided rope, testing them between his hands. They would hold Cordelia's slight frame despite her supple strength. He looped them over his arm, then took up a shallow silver cup waiting on the dresser. He sniffed its contents. A bitter smile touched his lips. The juice of the herb savin. Not for nothing was it nicknamed Cover Shame in the underworld of procurers and midwives. It was well known as a "restorative of slender shapes and tender reputations," and it would suit his purposes this night.
He walked softly through Cordelia's dressing room and turned the handle on her door. The room was in darkness, relieved only by the faint moonlight from the open window. He padded to the bed and soundlessly drew the bedcurtain aside at the head of the bed. Cordelia was a still shape within the white covers, deeply asleep on her back, her arms thrown most conveniently above her head.
He moved behind the bed and had secured her right wrist to the bedpost before she awoke.
Cordelia struggled up from a deep sleep as the sense of something terrible forced its way through her unconsciousness. She was only half awake, disoriented, struggling to discover what was wrong, when the rope went around her other wrist. It was fastened to the bedpost before she could open her mouth to scream.
"Scream if you must. No one will pay any heed." Michael's cold voice came to her as if from some long tunnel. She struggled, writhed, and then he came into view. He stood looking down at her and his eyes were filled with indescribable menace.
Oh God, what was he going to do? He was going to kill her.
She pulled frantically at her imprisoned wrists, brought up her legs to kick at him. He grabbed one ankle and laughed, a harsh rasp of satisfaction, and she knew she was giving him what he wanted. Bitter experience had taught her that her resistance heightened his pleasure.
"No!" The scream of protest burst from her as he pulled her leg straight and fastened her ankle to the post at the end of the bed. "No!" But he had secured her other leg before the cry had died in the air, and she lay spread-eagled on the bed, shaking with terror, staring up at him, her eyes dark with fear.
"Now, my dear." He sat down on the bed at the head. "I am going to give you something to drink. The sooner you drink it, the sooner this, unpleasantness will come to an end."
She shook her head, her tangled hair framing her face, blackest black against the ghastly whiteness. He was going to kill her as he'd killed Elvira.
She tried to scream again, but the sound was thick and somehow curdled in her throat, so great was her terror. She tried to turn her head aside as he brought a shallow silver cup toward her.
He leaned over her and pinched her nostrils between finger and thumb. She gasped for breath, her mouth opening. And he poured the contents of the cup straight down her throat. She choked, swallowed before she drowned. It was bitter, herbal, medicinal.
He held her nose until he was certain she had swallowed every drop, then he let go and stood up. "You'll not breed a bastard," he said cruelly. "Whatever you're carrying, you'll lose before morning. And then, my deceitful whore of a wife, you'll lie beneath me night and morning until you carry and deliver my son."
Uncomprehending, she stared up at him, the horror of what she had endured, of what she feared, indelible in her eyes. "I'll leave you now to your reflections." He unfastened the ropes that held her, then stood looking down at her with his asp's smile. "I doubt you'll pass a comfortable night, my dear, but I believe the punishment is appropriate to the offense."
He walked away. She heard him lock the door to the salon, then he left through her dressing room. The door clicked shut behind him and the key turned from the outside. She was alone.
Merciful God, what had he given her? She fought to control the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, to banish all rational thought. What had he said? "You'll not breed a bastard."
Now she understood what he'd done. He had given her something to abort a pregnancy. A bastard pregnancy. He must have discovered her relationship with Leo. But how? And she didn't even know if she was pregnant, and, oh God, the final irony. If she was carrying a child, it would be Michael's. Leo was too careful.
She sat up, looking around the familiar room. When would it begin to work? What would it do to her? The thought that some alien substance was working within her to cause damage and destruction was so terrifying that the black mists of panic this time nearly engulfed her, but she pushed them away with every fiber of her being.
What would happen if she screamed? Nothing. He'd locked the doors, taken the keys. And besides, the servants were accustomed to the sounds that came from this chamber during the long hours of the night. And they were far too terrified of their master to intervene. Her alliance with Brion didn't encompass his risking his livelihood.
She closed her eyes on the bitter tears and tried to empty her mind so that she could sleep. Even ten minutes would be ten minutes gone of this interminable night.
The cramping began just before dawn. She groaned, curling onto her side over the pain, trying to ease the muscles in her belly. The pain was more violent than her customary monthly terms, and the flow of blood felt stronger. She was suddenly too debilitated to move, to examine what was happening to her. The sheet beneath her was soon soaked and sticky, and the great waves of lassitude broke over her, rendering her almost immobile.