Leo strolled down the procession of carriages, horses, pack mules, and wagons. He was distracted, his mind in a ferment, and at first he didn't hear the woman's voice behind him. On the second "My lord, a word with you, I pray," he glanced over his shoulder.

A tall angular woman with sparse gray hair tucked up beneath a starched cap dropped a curtsy, but there was nothing subservient about her manner. She met his eye with a quiet dignity and an indefinable challenge.

"Mathilde, sir," she said when he looked puzzled.

"Oh, yes, of course." He ran a hand over his chin. Cordelia's nurse-the woman who knew what had happened the previous evening. He could detect no judgment in her frank gaze, however. He was not accustomed to concerning himself about the opinions of servants, but he thought with a flash of puzzling discomfort that he wouldn't wish to be on the wrong side of Mistress Mathilde.

"I wished to discuss Cordelia with you," she said.

There seemed no point pretending to misunderstand her. He gestured that she should accompany him along the bank to where it was quieter. "I understand Princess von Sachsen confided in you the unfortunate events of last night," he began stiffly.

"I know most things that go on with my babe, my lord." "So I understand."

"You should know, my lord, that the girl's like her mother. When she loves, she loves hard. And when she loves, she loves for all time."

"I don't know what you're saying, woman!" Leo exclaimed softly. "She's married to Prince Michael."

"Aye, married to him, but she loves you, sir."

"Are you as mad as Cordelia?" Leo swished at a bramble bush with his riding switch. "Whatever she feels, the facts cannot be altered to suit her own desires."

Mathilde nodded wisely. "I told her that, my lord. But she's not always inclined to take notice of what doesn't suit her."

"And I suppose my feelings in the matter are also an irrelevancy," he declared, with a sharply indrawn breath.

"You'd not foster this foolishness, then?"

"No, of course I wouldn't. I'm not a headstrong, spoiled brat."

"Then you'd best manage yourself around her, my lord. Because I doubt the lady will keep away from you," she said bluntly.

Leo found that he didn't resent the woman's advice or her blunt manner. She spoke but the simple truth. He had much more experience, much more sophistication, a much stronger will than sixteen-year-old Cordelia. It was for him to manage them both. Fleetingly, it occurred to him that in her absence the goal seemed much easier to accomplish than in her presence. "I would not harm her, Mathilde."

She looked at him for a long moment, then said, "No… no, I believe you wouldn't, sir. But that's to the good, because anyone who does harm to my babe does harm to me." The seemingly benign peasant woman had somehow disappeared, in her place a strangely menacing presence with the blackest eyes that were full of an ancient knowledge and a great threat.

Witchcraft sprang to Leo's mind. This was no ordinary nurse defending her nursling. This was a woman who knew things that a man was better off not knowing. "Well, it's to be hoped you can prevent her from doing harm to herself," he said roughly, controlling the urge to leave her in unseemly haste. Then he nodded, turned, and strolled back to the picnic.

The dauphine returned to her carriage, lamenting bitterly to Cordelia that her position made it necessary for her to journey in the state carriage while Cordelia had the freedom of her horse.

"It's not much of a freedom, Toinette. We can't overtake your carriage, so we have to crawl along behind you." Cordelia leaned into the window of the carriage. "Poor Lucette doesn't understand why she has to be so docile."

"I'd still rather be you," the dauphine said with a disgruntled frown.

Cordelia laughed bracingly. "No, you wouldn't. You're going to be queen of France, remember?" She stepped back as the royal coachman cracked his whip and the afternoon's progress began.

"Come, Cordelia. We mustn't keep people waiting." Leo spoke behind her. He was holding Lucette; his groom had the reins of the viscount's own mount. "Let me put you in the saddle." He cupped his palm for her foot and tossed her up. The smile she gave him was so radiant, it took his breath away.

"Shall we ride companionably this afternoon?" she asked, confiding artlessly, "I was so lonely this morning." She turned her horse beside him as they fell in behind the cavalry. "I do wish we didn't have to swallow their dust."

"We can ride to the side." He suited actions to words, Cordelia following him. The talk with Mathilde had cleared Leo's mind. Last night had been an aberration that by some miracle had been stopped in time. It was ridiculous to imagine that he couldn't control his own desires. He had always been a man of honor and resolution, and that had not changed. Cordelia was in his charge. She was a sweet if spoiled and willful child, and he was a grown man, twelve years her senior. He would cultivate an avuncular amiability in their dealings. There was no reason to force Cordelia to ride alone. She was such a gregarious creature it was as unkind as it was unfair to punish her for his own lack of control.

"Shall we have another wager on the time of our arrival this evening?" She glanced sideways at him with transparent pleasure in having company again.

"What stakes this time?" He sounded amused, indulgent, as one might humor an enthusiastic child.

Cordelia frowned. That tone was almost worse than vexation. She shrugged carelessly. "Oh, I don't know. It was just a way of passing time, but I don't think it's really that amusing."

Amiable avuncularity did not find favor, clearly. Leo let it drop, inquiring with neutral interest, "What kind of studies did you do in Schonbrunn?"

To his astonishment, he realized that he'd opened a floodgate. Cordelia began to talk eagerly and fluently about philosophy, mathematical principles, German and French literature. She was educated far beyond the norm for her sex, and he found himself wondering what Michael would make of this aspect of his bride. Elvira had told him once that Michael despised bluestockings and she'd learned to pursue her own intellectual interests out of his ken. Leo hadn't thought much about it then. Many men were suspicious of educated and eloquent women. He had assumed that Elvira had access to her husband's library, social entrance to the various salons that abounded in Paris, and didn't go short of intellectual stimulation. But Elvira had been older and both more sophisticated and devious than Cordelia. Would Cordelia learn quickly enough what it was wisest to keep from her husband?

When they stopped to cross a tributary of the Danube at Steyr, Leo left Cordelia in the charge of his groom and went to confer with the French delegation. Cordelia was fascinated by the operation involved in getting such a massive procession across the single-track wooden bridge. She trotted along the riverbank, the groom in attendance, watching as the great coaches lumbered and swayed perilously close the the edge of the creaking bridge.

"Cordelia?"

"Christian!" She turned with a cry of delight. Christian was astride a gangling chestnut gelding with an ungainly gait and looked far from at home. But he was not a natural equestrian. "How I was hoping you would come and find me. I'm not permitted to go off on my own down the procession. Protocol." She wrinkled her nose in laughing disgust. "Are you enjoying yourself? Are you comfortable? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No, nothing." Christian looked up at the red ball of the sun sinking below the river to the west. "A messenger came hotfoot from Vienna this morning. He brought me a letter from Hugh. You remember Hugh, he played the violin in Poligny's concerts."

"Yes, yes." Cordelia nodded eagerly. "What did he say?"

"The cat is really among the pigeons," Christian said with a chuckle of satisfaction. "Everyone's read the broadsheet. Poligny is defending himself from the rooftops, but Hugh said people are talking and pointing the finger. The empress hasn't said anything as yet, but palace rumor has it that she's thinking of sending him away."

"Oh, how wonderful!" Cordelia clapped her hands. "The story will reach Paris long before we do. You'll be a celebrity already."

Christian looked thoughtful. He plaited his mount's coarse mane with restless fingers. "I was thinking that perhaps I should go back to Vienna. If Poligny is really out, then there'll be…" He stopped, habitual modesty preventing him from continuing.

"There'll be a vacancy for court musician, and who better to fill it than Poligny's star pupil," Cordelia finished for him. She leaned over to take his hand. "Oh, love, I want whatever's best for you. But I shall miss you dreadfully. Particularly now that everything's become so confused."

"Confused?"

"It's this awkward business of being in love with the viscount," she said with an almost despairing sigh. "And after last night, I know he feels more than he'll admit to-"

"What about last night?" Christian interrupted.

Cordelia felt herself blushing. "Well, something happened. I… I accidentally blundered into his chamber and, well-"

"He didn't ravish you?" Christian's brown eyes were suddenly ablaze.

"Oh, no," she reassured hastily. "Nothing quite like that. But… things got rather out of hand." She looked at him helplessly, a rueful smile on her lips.

Christian leaned close to her, his eyes piercing in his pale angular face. "Did the viscount take your virginity, Cordelia? If he did, I'll kill him."