The prince closed the book and replaced it in the chest. The lid dropped with a thud and he turned the key in the padlock, dropping the key back into his pocket. A green log hissed in the grate, accentuating the silence of the room, indeed of the entire house at this dead hour of the night. He picked up his neglected glass of cognac and sipped, staring down into the spitting fire, before turning restlessly back to the secretaire where he'd been writing his journal.

He opened a drawer and took out the miniature in its mother-of-pearl frame. A young, smiling face looked out at him. Raven black ringlets framed her countenance-fresh skin, large, deep-set blue-gray eyes, a turned-up nose that gave her a rather impish look.

Lady Cordelia Brandenburg. Aged sixteen, goddaughter of an empress, niece of a duke. Impeccable lineage and a very pleasing countenance… but one that bore no resemblance to Elvira's. Cordelia was as dark as Elvira had been fair. His gaze lifted to the portrait above the mantel. Elvira, just after the birth of the twins. She reclined on a chaise longue, clad in a crimson velvet chamber robe. Her voluptuous bosom, even fuller after the birth, rose from a lace-edged bodice. A rich velvet fold caressed the curve of her hip. One hand rested negligently in her lap. Around her wrist glittered the charm bracelet that her husband had given her on the birth of the children. At first glance an observer would miss its curiosity, but the artist had caught the bracelet's intricate design, a ray of sunlight throwing it into sharp relief against the lush crimson lap. Elvira was smiling the smile Michael remembered so well, the one that drove him to madness. So defiant, so derisive. Even when she was terrified and he could feel her fear, she gave him that smile.

How many lovers had she had? With how many men had she betrayed him? Even now the question twisted in his soul like a fat maggot. Even now, when Elvira was no longer here to taunt him with her defiance.

He looked down again at the miniature on his palm. He had coveted Elvira in the early days, but he would never expose himself to such weakness again. He would take this woman because he needed an heir. And he needed a woman in his bed. He was not a man who enjoyed paying for his pleasures; it left a sour taste in his mouth. This fresh young woman would arouse his flagging energies, would bring him pleasure as well as the fruits of her loins. And she could occupy herself usefully with the twins. Leo was right that they needed more complex schooling than their governess could provide. The prince had little interest in them himself, but they needed to be educated in the duties of womanhood if they were to make satisfactory wives. He was already planning their betrothals. Four years old was not too soon to make the most advantageous connections for himself. They wouldn't marry for another nine or ten years, of course, but a wise man prepared early.

He hadn't mentioned these plans to their uncle as yet. But then, it wasn't really Leo's business, although he'd probably consider that it was. He was as devoted to the children as he had been to their mother. Her death had devastated him. He'd journeyed from Rome to Paris in less than a week when the news had reached him, and immediately after the funeral had left France for a twelvemonth. He would say nothing about what he'd done or where he'd been during that year of grief.

Michael took another sip of cognac. Leo's besotted attention to Elvira's children was a small price to pay for his continuing friendship. His brother-in-law was a very useful friend. He knew everyone at court, knew exactly which path of influence would be the quickest to achieve any particular goal, and he was a born diplomat. He was an amusing companion, a witty conversationalist, a superb card player, passionate huntsman, bruising rider.

And the perfect choice to take care of his friend's wedding details. Michael smiled to himself, remembering how delighted Leo had been at the prospect of the prince's remarriage. Not an ounce of resentment that his sister was to be replaced, just simple pleasure in the prospect of the twins having a mother, and an end to his friend's marital loneliness.

Yes, Leo Beaumont was a very splendid man… if a trifle gullible.

"Oh, Cordelia, I am so fatigued!" Toinette threw herself onto a chaise with a sigh. "I am so bored with listening to speeches, standing there like a dummy while they rattle on and on about protocol and precedent. And why do I have to play this silly game this afternoon?"

She leaped up again with an energy belying her complaint of fatigue. "Why do I have to announce in front of everyone that I renounce all claim to the throne of Austria? Isn't it obvious that I do? Besides, there's Joseph and Leopold and Ferdinand and Maximilian all in line before me."

Cordelia bit into a particularly juicy pear. "If you think this is tedious, Toinette, just wait until you get to France. The real wedding will be twice as pompous as all this palaver." She slurped at the juice before it could run down her chin.

"You're a great comfort," Toinette said gloomily, flopping down again. "It's all right for you, no one's taking any notice of your wedding."

"Yes, how very fortunate I am," Cordelia said dryly. "To be married in the shadow of the archduchess Maria Antonia and Louis-Auguste, dauphin of France."

"Oh!" Toinette sat up. "Are you unhappy that your wedding is to be so quiet? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It must be terrible to have no one taking any notice of you at such an important time."

Cordelia laughed. "No, it's not in the least terrible. I was only pointing out the other side of the coin. In fact, there's nothing I would like less than to be the center of attention." She tossed the core of her pear onto a silver salver and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Oh, you have the bracelet back from the jeweler." Toinette caught the flash of gold in a ray of sunlight.

"Yes, and it's most strange." Cordelia, frowning, unclasped the bracelet from her wrist. "I didn't notice its design when I first looked at it, but it's a serpent with an apple in its mouth. Look." She held it out to the archduchess.

Toinette took it, holding it almost gingerly in the palm of her hand. "It's beautiful, but it's… it's… oh, what's the word?"

"Sinister?" Cordelia supplied. "Repellent?"

Toinette shivered, and touched the elongated serpent's head where a pearl apple nestled in its mouth. "It is a bit, isn't it? It's very old, I should think." She handed it back with another little shiver.

"Medieval, the jeweler said. He was most impressed with it… said he'd never seen anything like it except in an illustration in a thirteenth-century psalter. Don't you think it's strange if it's that old that it should only have these three charms on it? In fact, really only two if you don't count the slipper, which is mine."

"Perhaps the others got lost somewhere along the line."

"Mmm." Cordelia fingered the delicate filigree of a silver rose, its center a deep-red ruby. Beside it hung a tiny emerald swan, perfect in every detail. "I wonder who they belonged to. Where they came from," she mused.

"I expect it's very valuable."

"Yes," Cordelia agreed, clasping it once again around her wrist. "Part of me doesn't like wearing it and part of me does. It has a kind of ghoulish fascination, but I do love the slipper. Makes me think of Cinderella going to the ball."

She chuckled at her friend's incredulous expression. "Oh, I know I'm not a beggar maid rescued by a prince, but we are going to Versailles, which everyone says is a fairy-tale palace, and we're escaping from all this prim protocol, and my uncle will never again be able to bully me. We can dance our lives away if we want, and never again have to sweep the ashes in the kitchen… Oh, lord, is that the time?" She started, exclaiming with a mortified cry, "Why am I always late?" as the chapel clock struck noon, the gong resounding through the courtyard beyond the window.

"Because you think it's fashionable," Toinette replied with a knowing chuckle. "What are you late for this time?"

"I was supposed to be in the chapel at quarter to twelve to rehearse my own proxy marriage with the chaplain. And I didn't mean to be late. It was the bracelet that delayed me." Cordelia grabbed another pear from the fruit bowl and headed for the door. "I don't suppose it'll matter. Father Felix never expects me to be on time."

"Your husband might," the archduchess commented, checking her reflection in a silver-backed hand mirror.

Cordelia grinned. "My proxy husband or the real one?"

"Prince Michael, of course. The viscount is just a puppet."

"Oh, I don't think that's the case," Cordelia said consideringly. "Leo Beaumont's no puppet. Anyway, I'm sure he's not expected to rehearse too." She blew Toinette a jaunty kiss as she left.

She had seen the viscount only from a distance since the encounter in the orangery two nights earlier. Strangely, she'd enjoyed the distance. She'd hugged the thought of him as a deep and joyful secret, treasuring his image, which had filled her nighttime dreams and her waking internal vision. But she'd been only half awake as she'd watched him from afar, dwelling on this extraordinary, all-encompassing, totally engulfing love that had felled her like a bolt of lightning, made her so hot with desire she could have been in the grip of a fever.

Now she was ready again for the man of flesh and blood. Her body sang at the thought of being close to him, of feeling his heat, inhaling his scent. Her ears longed to hear his voice, her eyes to feast upon his countenance. This afternoon, at the renunciation ceremony, he would be beside her, in Prince Michael's place.