"Surely you jest, Viscount." His voice was heavy with displeasure. Lack of harmony at Versailles was forbidden by royal decree.
"No, monseigneur. I do not." Leo turned and looked directly up at Prince Michael. "With a warrant for search and seizure, I can lay hands on evidence that Prince Michael von Sachsen poisoned Lady Elvira Beaumont, his first wife."
The collective gasp this time reverberated from the rafters. All eyes swiveled to Prince Michael's box. He was deathly pale, unmoving.
In the shadows, Cordelia struggled to clear her mind. What did Leo mean? What was a public trial of arms?
"What does this evidence consist of, Lord Kierston?"
"Prince von Sachsen's own words, taken from his daily journals."
At these words Michael jerked as if he were a puppet on a string. Involuntarily, he stared, horror-struck, at the king, who looked across at him, the royal expression cold with distaste.
"If such a warrant were issued, sir, would you have any objection?" the king demanded harshly in the deathly hush. All eyes remained fixed upon Michael. He had the attention of everyone in the theater; people unaccustomed to paying attention to the most sublime music, the most eloquent poetry, the most majestic prose, were stunned to silence.
Michael half rose from his chair. He moistened dry lips. He fought for words. On the stage below him, his accuser remained still against the scarlet and gold backdrop of the theater.
The silence in the theater was absolute. Then the king said with the same cold anger, "You could direct our investigators to this evidence, Lord Kierston?"
"I could, monseigneur. But I claim the ancient right of trial by combat."
Once more Leo looked up at Michael, and the icy triumph in his golden eyes chilled the prince to the bone.
"Prince von Sachsen?" The king spoke crisply now. "Do you accept Viscount Kierston's challenge?"
Michael rose. He bowed to the king. He bowed to Leo. "I will prove my innocence according to ancient law, Your Majesty."
"As the defendant, the choice of weapons is yours." "I choose rapiers, monseigneur."
Cordelia gripped her hands tightly together, the nails biting into her palm. Her head buzzed. She wanted to scream. She wanted to fall on Leo and pummel him to the ground. How could he do such a thing? Risk everything? His life, their future. The children. What kind of vengeance was it when the sword could as easily be turned upon the avenger?
No wonder he hadn't wanted her to witness this suicidal, prideful challenge.
"The public trial of arms will take place in the town square at sunrise tomorrow," the king announced. "You will both remove yourselves beyond the gates of Versailles until such time as this affair is settled and we make our pleasure known."
The king swept from his box, the dauphin and his bride on his heels. The silent court stood bareheaded until the royal party left.
Cordelia, still numb with shock and horror, stumbled blindly to the exit amid the tumult erupting in the auditorium after the king's departure. She had to get back to her own chamber, back into bed, before Michael returned. For the moment, she had to play the innocent whatever he suspected, while she tried to decide what to do.
Leo was abandoning her. If he died at Michael's hand, she was condemned. But as she hurried on shaking legs through the corridors to her own apartment, the angry turmoil of betrayal began to smooth out. Leo had wanted her and the children out of the palace before this whole business exploded. That way they were poised for flight. But what good was flight to her if there was no end to it? She could contemplate waiting for Leo for a year is she had to. But if he was dead on the dueling ground, there would be no future. By issuing this challenge, he was abandoning her. He was abandoning their own happiness for a personal vendetta.
Her mind was filled with the image of Leo's body limp on the ground, bleeding from her husband's rapier. Maybe Leo would win. But she could tolerate nothing but certainty, and there was no certainty in a duel.
She entered the apartment, breathless with haste and weakness. Monsieur Brion looked at her, first in astonishment and then in concern. "Madame… is something the matter?"
"Send Elsie to me." She stumbled across the salon and into her own chamber. She caught sight of her image in the glass and understood why Brion had looked so shocked. Her eyes were almost wild in her white face, her hair tumbling from its pins. She looked as if she'd seen and run from a ghost.
She began to undress with feverish haste, her fingers, slippery with sweat, fumbling with the hooks and buttons.
Elsie hurried in. "Oh, madame, I knew you shouldn't have got up," she said, wringing her hands. "You're not well enough. Shall I fetch the physician?"
"No, just help me back into bed."
In five minutes Cordelia was lying back against the pillows, praying her heart would slow its painful, nauseating banging against her ribs. She was exhausted, still conscious of the steady flow of blood from her body. But mercifully, it didn't seem to have worsened despite all the standing and running.
The door to the salon banged shut, and Michael's voice, harsh, savage, rent the waiting quiet. "Brion, pack a valise and send Frederick with it to the Coq d'Or in town. He's to await me there. At once, man! Don't stand there looking at me like a half-wit."
Cordelia held her breath, waiting. Then the door burst open and Michael strode in. "Get out!" He jerked a hand at Elsie, who, with a frightened gasp, curtsied and ran from the room.
Michael came over to the bed. His face was white, with a whiter shade around his drawn mouth. He looked at her, through her, with his cold pale eyes. "What do you know of this, whore?" His voice was surprisingly soft.
Cordelia said nothing. She turned her head away.
With a foul oath, he bent over her, wrenching her face back toward him. "Did you plot this with him? How did he know about the journals?"
His fingers squeezed her chin and it was all she could do not to cry out. But she was determined she would not show him her fear. "I don't know what you're talking about, my lord. I have been abed. You made certain of that."
"You can't fool me with your deceitful tongue," he spat, bringing his face very close to hers, so that she could smell the sourness of his breath, the muskiness of his skin. "I will kill your damned lover, and then, by God, whore, you will never escape me until I decide it's time for you to meet your death. Do you understand me!" His mouth was almost touching hers now in a vile simulation of a kiss. "Do you understand?" His spittle showered her face.
"I understand you," she managed to say through the waves of disgust. "And you understand, husband, that you will never break me. I will die first."
He laughed and abruptly released her chin. "I've broken you already, my dear wife. Don't you realize it?" He stood up. "You and my daughters will journey immediately to Paris. You will await me in the rue du Bac. When I have killed your lover, I will come to you."
Cordelia pulled herself up against the pillows. She wiped her face with a corner of the sheet. "And just how do you plan to kill him, my lord?"
He stared at her with an arrested expression. "You don't know?"
"How should I, my lord?" She met his stare calmly and had the satisfaction of seeing uncertainty scudding across his countenance.
"At sunrise tomorrow I will spit him on the end of my rapier," Michael articulated slowly. "I'm sorry you won't be there to see it, my dear, but I want you safely put away. Thanks to your damnable lover, we will be persona non grata at court after the duel until the king is prepared to forget this distasteful disruption." Michael's lip curled as he mimicked the king's austere euphemism for the duel unto death that would take place in his presence. "The dauphine will offer you no protection now, madame."