The Diamond Slipper

Chapter Thirteen

It was late morning when Cordelia stepped out of the carriage in the great court of the palace of Versailles. They had left rue du Bac before dawn, and the thirty miles from Paris had taken hours as the long procession of carriages had wound its way single file along the narrow road. Half of Paris, it seemed, had come to see the dauphin wed. Burghers, merchants, even tradesmen mingled in the court with elegantly dressed courtiers, the women sporting plumed headdresses and skirts so wide they needed at least six feet of space around them.

The palace of Versailles was a city in itself, its doors ever open to the populace who wandered freely through the great rooms, uninhibited by the careless dismissal of courtiers and the haughty glares and commands of powdered liveried flunkies. The people of Paris regarded their king in the light of a father, and his palaces and entertainments were as much for their benefit as his. A royal wedding was a party to be enjoyed by everyone.

Cordelia listened to the buzz around her as she waited for Monsieur Brion, who had accompanied his employers, to summon carriers and footmen to deal with their luggage. The people of Paris had fallen in love with the dauphine, it seemed. They talked of her sweetness, her beauty, her inevitable fertility that would provide for the succession with a line of healthy sons.

Cordelia repressed a shudder as her husband came up behind her and only with the greatest difficulty kept herself from flinching when he put his hand on her shoulder. She knew now that any show of fear excited him, just as the merest hint of rebellion brought hideous punishment.

He punished her with his body in the dark cave of the bed-curtains, subduing her resistant flesh with a savagery that seemed to feed on itself. Only when she was reduced to a disgusted, pitiable quiver of mortification would he achieve his climax, and then, smiling smugly, he would leave her and return to his own bedchamber.

But this morning Cordelia sensed that he was preoccupied by much more than the perverted pleasures of ruling his wife. "We must get out of this crush." He raised a pomander to his nose with a fastidious sniff. "The people stink. Brion will direct you to our apartments, where you must wait until it's time for us to go to the chapel. I must go immediately to the Cabinet du Conseil to pay my respects to the king." He turned and vanished into the throng, the pomander still held to his nose, liveried flunkies clearing a path for him with shouts and swinging staffs.

"This way, my lady." Monsieur Brion set off for the flight of steps leading into the palace. He walked slowly so that Cordelia on her high heels could keep pace as he cleared the way for them. He knew full well that if he lost sight of the princess, it might take hours to find her again, and she would quickly become lost in the warren of staircases and passages in the vast palace. Newcomers were generally issued maps and could be seen scurrying along the corridors from one function to the next, their eyes glued to the parchment.

The prince's apartments were spacious and elegant, located on the north staircase, very close to the royal apartments. They looked out over the sweep of gardens at the rear of the palace, where myriad fountains played in the soft air and the parterres were massed with color. In honor of the occasion, a series of trellised arches ran along both sides of the canal. They were decorated like Venetian windows, and Cordelia could see the little lanterns that would illuminate them at night.

Two bedchambers, each with a dressing room, opened off the salon-a square, comfortable room with a dining alcove at one end. There was even a small kitchen where their own cook could prepare meals if the prince and princess were not dining elsewhere. The servants' quarters consisted of cubbyholes at the rear of the kitchen, furnished with sleeping pallets and very little else.

Mathilde arrived in a very few minutes under the escort of a footman, who carried on his shoulder the ironbound leather chest that Prince Michael kept in his library in the rue du Bac.

Mathilde was panting after the long haul up the stairs. "Goodness me, I must have walked miles." She plumped herself down onto a chair, fanning herself with her hand. "What a place. And the crowds! Everywhere. A body can't move. I can't think what the empress would have to say." It was clear her comparison of the orderly Schonbrunn with the chaotic magnificence of Versailles was not favorable.

Cordelia murmured a companionable agreement, watching as Frederick, the footman, under orders from Monsieur Brion, staggered with the chest into the prince's dressing room. His papers must be of vital importance if they had to accompany him everywhere, she reflected.

"We'd best touch up your dress," Mathilde said, finally dragging herself to her feet. "Your hair is coming loose too."

It had been four in the morning when Mathilde had dressed Cordelia for the wedding in a sacque gown of crimson damask open over a petticoat of ivory silk sewn with pearls. A pearl tiara glimmered in her black hair, pearls encircled her throat and nestled in her earlobes. But the long carriage journey had inevitably caused some disarray.

"I would kill for a cup of coffee," Cordelia declared. "Can it be arranged, Monsieur Brion?"

The majordomo hesitated. It went against the grain to admit that he couldn't fulfill his employer's every wish, but on this occasion the cook and the servants had not yet arrived or were still struggling to make their way through the crowds.

"I don't know if the kitchen is ready for use, madame."

"Oh, you leave it to me. Just show me the way, monsieur." Mathilde brushed off her hands with an air of unmistakable competence.

Monsieur Brion had decided early on that Mathilde should be left to her own devices. She was no ordinary servant and he sensed that his customary authority wouldn't wash with her; in fact, they were all just a little frightened of the princess's abigail, although she was always perfectly pleasant and never put on airs, but sometimes there was a look in her sharp eyes that gave a man the chills.

Cordelia wandered into the bedchamber that by its feminine hangings was clearly intended for herself. She wondered if Elvira had used it, if it was the same now as it had been in Elvira's time. Or whether the prince had had the delicacy to change the decorations. That thought brought a grim turn to her mouth. Delicacy was not one of Prince Michael's hallmarks.

She explored her own dressing room and then on impulse pushed open the connecting door that led to the prince's. The chest stood beneath the small, high window. She stepped hesitantly into the room. Even though Michael hadn't entered it as yet on this visit to Versailles, it felt as if she were trespassing. She hadn't set foot in his bedchamber in the rue du Bac, not that she could ever imagine wishing to. She grimaced in disgust.

She bent over the chest, examining the small padlock, then with a shock realized that it hung loose in the lock. Had Michael forgotten to lock it the last time he'd used it? Or had it broken open on the journey? Unable to help herself, with a sense of almost delicious terror, she lifted the lid and gazed at her husband's secrets laid out before her.

A key, presumably a spare one for the padlock, lay on top of a purple bound book. She picked up the key and tried it in the padlock. It was a perfect fit. An idea nibbled at the back of her mind. She picked up the purple bound book and stared at the title. The Devil's Apothecary. Whatever could it mean? She flipped open the pages and her jaw dropped. It was a poisoner's manual. She flicked through the book, hardly aware that she had almost stopped breathing. There were enough poisons to do away with an army in any number of ingenious ways. Each substance was meticulously described, its various dosages and effects analyzed with a chilling objectivity.

What on earth was Michael doing with such a book? Did he have some intellectual interest in the poisoner's art? She knew enough history to know herself how fascinating it could be. Lucrezia Borgia… Catherine de Medicis… they'd rid themselves of their enemies with abandon and incredible ingenuity. Poisoned gloves, lip salves, perfumes. But historically poison was a woman's weapon. It was an odd interest for a man like Michael.

She put the book down and examined the contents of the chest again. The identical spines of a series of volumes faced upward. They all bore the date of a single year. She picked out the most recent. It fell open on the previous day's date, marked with a purple ribbon bookmark. It was a daily journal. She read the entry, then the preceding one. His dealings with her were meticulously, sickeningly described right down to a description and rating of the strength of his climax. His pleasure was directly related to the degree of pain and humiliation he inflicted upon his wife. Cordelia had suspected as much, hut it had seemed too perverse to consider seriously. And yet it was here, written with cold objectivity, as if it were some clinical analysis in a medical report.

She dropped the book with a shudder of disgust. What else was contained in this daily record of her husband's life? In here, she would find out about Elvira. She would discover whether he had treated Elvira as he treated her.

"Holy Mary, child! What are you doing?" Mathilde's shocked tones brought her swinging round with a cry of alarm. The woman stood in the door, clutching a breakfast tray.

"I couldn't help it." Cordelia flushed to the roots of her hair. "I know it's despicable to spy, but…" With a sudden movement, she bent over the chest, replaced the book she'd been reading, and picked up the tiny key. She darted across to the washstand, and pressed it into the cake of soap on the dish. "I'm mad, I know. It's a dreadful thing to do, but there're things I must know, Mathilde." She was muttering this rushed torrent almost to herself as she wiped the key clean of soap and put it back in the chest.

Mathilde continued to stare at her as if her nursling had indeed run mad. "If the prince finds you in here…" she began.

"Don't even think of it." Cordelia shivered. "Quick, let's go back." She darted into her own dressing room and closed the door to Michael's. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her palms were slippery with sweat. Gingerly, she put the cake of soap on the washstand. The imprint of the key was clear and deep.

"Do you know how to get a key copied, Mathilde?"

"Now, what in the name of mercy are you up to, Cordelia?" Mathilde set the tray down and stood, arms akimbo, frowning fiercely. "That man would flay you alive if you gave him the excuse." Her eyes were bitter, her mouth thin. She had not yet worked out a way to deal with Prince Michael that wouldn't in the end make matters even worse for Cordelia. The man enjoyed giving pain, it was inextricably bound up in his sexual pleasure, and he would relish the slightest pretext to punish his wife in the darkness of the bedcurtains.

"I know, but I won't let him break me, Mathilde." Cordelia spoke with fierce determination. "He has secrets in that chest, and maybe they'll help me. It won't hurt to find out everything I can about him, will it?"

Mathilde shook her head doubtfully, but she took the cake of soap and wrapped it carefully in a linen handkerchief before dropping it into her apron pocket. "I'll get the key cut and then we'll see," she stated noncommittally. "Now, let me do your hair."

She gestured brusquely to the tray where sat a pot of coffee and a basket of fruit and pastries that she had somehow conjured out of the air. "You'd best eat something. It's noontime and there's no knowing when you'll have the chance to eat again before the banquet." She busied herself with adjusting Cordelia's coiffure.

"I wonder how Toinette is feeling," Cordelia mumbled through a mouthful of almond cake. "Monsieur Brion said she arrived here at half past ten this morning, but the queen's bedchamber is not renovated as yet. Something to do with repairs to the ceiling. Anyway, they had to put her in another room. They seem to be as disorganized here as at Compiegne. I wonder if the other royal palaces are the same."

"I daresay the archduchess is well enough." Mathilde removed the last pin from her mouth and drove it into the mass of black curls. "I just hope they remember to make sure she eats. When she gets excited, she forgets all about it, and we don't want her swooning at the altar."

Cordelia wished she could be with her friend at this moment. It would be especially hard for Toinette to have no intimate companion with her as she was dressed for her wedding. Cordelia felt years older than her childhood friend. True, Toinette was fourteen and a half to her own sixteen, but their age difference had never mattered in the past. Now she seemed separated from Toinette by much more than eighteen months.

Half an hour later, Prince Michael entered the apartment. Cordelia was standing in the salon, careful not to disturb her dress now that she was once more in perfect order. The prince's first thought, however, was not for his wife. "Brion, is my chest here?"

"In your dressing room, my lord."

The prince strode into the dressing room. Cordelia crept forward. She watched curiously through the open door as he bent over the chest. Then he let loose a bellow of fury. "Brion! Brion! Who's been tampering with my chest?"

"Oh, Your Highness… no one… what could you mean… what has happened?" Brion, his eyes round as saucers in his plump face, came racing from the kitchen.

The prince was raging. "The chest is unlocked! Look at it! The padlock is hanging loose!" He raised his cane and Brion cowered against the wall, all vestiges of his dignified major-domo persona vanished.

"Your Highness, I haven't touched it. I haven't been near it since Frederick brought it in from the coach," he babbled, creeping backward to the door.

"Where's Frederick?" The cane came down across a chair with a violent but harmless crack.

Cordelia darted to the window and stood gazing down into the gardens with every appearance of utter deafness.

Brion bellowed for Frederick, radiating relief at finding an alternative victim for his master. The footman came racing from the kitchen. "What is it? What have I done?"

Brion gestured with his head to the prince's dressing room, and Frederick nervously approached, the majordomo following him. Cordelia turned again, positioning herself so that she could see what was going on. It was not a pretty sight. The prince in a wild fit was belaboring the hapless footman with his cane, bringing it down over the man's shoulders even as Frederick protested his innocence.

Then the fit passed almost as quickly as it had arisen. The white-faced servants emerged from the dressing room and scuttled away to the relative safety of the servants' quarters, and silence emanated from the dressing room. Cordelia crept closer. Michael was kneeling before the chest, examining it so closely his head was almost inside. Her heart began to hammer again. Had she disturbed something, left some telltale sign of her intrusion?

Finally, Michael raised his head. He dropped the lid, locked it, and pocketed the key. He returned to the salon, his face wiped clear of all emotion, a beating pulse in his temple the only lingering sign of the fearsome rage of a few minutes earlier.

"The dauphine is to be conducted to meet the royal family in the Cabinet du Conseil at one o'clock. We must take up our positions in the Salon d'Hercule immediately." He examined his wife critically as he spoke.

"Is there some significance in the Salon d'Hercule?" Cordelia lifted her chin. She knew perfectly well that no fault could be found with her appearance and couldn't help resenting his scrutiny.

"It's the station immediately before the chapel. We will follow the royal party into the chapel. It's a great honor," he told her, frowning. That lifted chin was disagreeable. One of these days he could cure her of it, but now was not the moment. Tight-lipped, he offered his arm.

The Hall of Mirrors was lined on both sides by glittering courtiers, already awaiting the royal procession. Michael walked sedately between the lines, smiling and bowing to some, loftily ignoring others who tried to catch his eye. Cordelia's eyes darted from side to side as she tried to absorb the scene.

They continued through the long series of linked rooms that made up the state rooms, these also lined with men and women perspiring freely in the heat, packed too close together to wield their fans to good effect. The Salon d'Hercule, immediately before the royal chapel, was less crowded, and Cordelia guessed positions here were by royal command only. Her husband proceeded to the very head of the room. In this salon he acknowledged with a small bow everyone who caught his eye, and Cordelia, taking her cue, curtsied in her turn.

Viscount Kierston was one of the honored few. He was dressed in emerald green thickly embroidered with silver thread. The color deepened his eyes, accentuated the hazel glints. He was standing with Madame du Barry across the salon from Cordelia and her husband. He raised his eyes and bowed. His gaze was both troubled and intently questioning. The king's mistress smiled and dropped a slight curtsy. Cordelia responded in kind.

She had seen Leo twice since her wedding. On the second occasion, he'd brought her a letter from Christian and with obvious reluctance had taken her answer back to Christian. On that second time, she'd stood away from the light of the window, her fingers nervously adjusting the fichu at her neck. The bruises beneath the muslin were large and dark, despite Mathilde's ministrations and a liberal dusting of powder. She had not encouraged him to prolong his visit, and she'd seen how her behavior had puzzled and disturbed him.

Now Cordelia closed her gloved hands tightly, her nails digging into her palms, and forced herself to smile nonchalantly into his questioning gaze. Leo must not know. But she could see that he was not at ease. There was too much tension in his jaw, in the gripped mouth, in the set of his shoulders. She glanced sideways at her husband. The thin mouth, the slightly fleshy face, the cold eyes. She could feel his hands, clammy on her body, the weight of him when he fell onto her, satiated, before rolling sideways to snore until he'd recovered his strength. She closed her eyes on a graveyard shudder.

A herald's trumpet sounded. There was a stir around them. People leaned forward slightly, looking back down the series of rooms. The royal party was approaching.

Toinette was tiny. A slender, almost childish figure smothered in diamonds. But she looked around her, acknowledging the homage of the court with a grace and dignity that belied her childlike appearance. Beside her walked the dauphin, who seemed much more ill at ease than his bride. There was a moment when Toinette caught

Cordelia's eye, then she had passed and Cordelia wasn't sure whether the gleam in the round blue eyes had been laughter or tears.

During the wedding, gaming tables were set up in the chain of state rooms, with cards and dice for the king and his courtiers to while away the remainder of the day until the banquet. Roped barriers kept the witnessing crowds from getting too close as they gawked at the court at play. It had begun to rain heavily, sending the masses inside from the gardens, and the smell of wet cloth pervaded the air already heavy with scented candles.

Cordelia saw her husband and. Leo at the king's table playing lansquenet. The ladies of the court, including the dauphine, were also at cards. Cordelia strolled among the tables, trying to decide whether to dice or join the card-players. As she passed her husband, the king looked up from his cards. "Princess von Sachsen. Pray take a seat at our table. If you don't play, then you may bring your husband luck." He beamed with great good humor.

"Oh, but I do play, Your Majesty." Cordelia's eyes suddenly sharpened. Lansquenet, a game of German origin, had been played a great deal at the Viennese court. She and Toinette had perfected their somewhat dubious skills at the tables and had become adept at defeating the archdukes.

She took the chair held for her by a footman, arranging her skirts of crimson and ivory with a deft hand, her dazzling smile embracing the table.

Leo recognized that look. That mischievous, calculating, gleeful gloat. He had seen it in the carriage as they played dice to pass the time, and he had seen it over chess one memorable night. And now he was seeing it again, only she was at the king's table in the state rooms of Versailles, surrounded by courtiers and gaping spectators.

He shot her a warning look, but she smiled sunnily and took up her cards. He said, "I doubt you have so many bystanders at Schonbrunn, Princess? The Austrian court is less open to the world."

"Oh, I am accustomed to playing under the most watchful stares, my lord," she said with the same radiant smile.

Leo ground his teeth. He glanced at Michael, who seemed indifferent. He would expect his- wife to play. Everyone gambled. It was a social skill.

The king held the bank. "We play high, Princess," he warned with a jocular smile. "But I daresay your husband will stake you. A wedding gift, eh, Prince?"

Michael's smile was tight, but he drew a leather purse from his coat pocket and handed it to his wife with the patronizing comment "If you play at all competently, my dear, that should cover you for a few hands."

"I believe you will discover that I play competently, sir," she said serenely, opening the purse. She placed a golden louis on the table and fanned out the cards in her hand with an expert flick of her wrist.

Leo groaned to himself and took up his own cards. Apparently there was nothing he could do to avert catastrophe.

But catastrophe seemed long coming. Cordelia won steadily. She played intently, her expression utterly serious, except at the end of a hand when she would gather up her winnings with that little crow of triumph that he remembered so vividly. She beamed around the table, and even the king chuckled and told her she was a fine card player but a shameless winner.

Michael, however, looked blacker and blacker. He was losing to his wife, his golden louis piling up at her white elbow, and her triumph was a thorn in his side. It was directed at him. She threw it at him with every smile. She had the upper hand and she was relishing every minute of it. Even the thought that later he could have his revenge didn't help the sour taste of defeat in the face of her gloating. Had she been meek and modest, he could almost have borne her success, but this blatant exultation was intolerable.

Leo tried to see how she was doing it. He watched her hands, the slender white beringed fingers. Her sleeves reached only to her elbow, so the obvious hiding place for cards was denied her. She made no sudden distracting movements, and when he thought she had become blinded to danger by her success, she averted any possibility of suspicion by calmly losing the next three hands.

She had a purpose, more serious than mere winning, and it took him a while to see it. She lost when it seemed sensible to do so, but she never lost to her husband. She outbid him, outmaneuvered him, took every louis he had with him. And she smiled with such artlessly shameless satisfaction that, even though Michael was clearly livid, everyone at the table laughed and shared her pleasure, her husband obliquely becoming the butt of their laughter.

And when she sweetly offered to lend her husband some of the money he had so kindly given her to play with, the table rocked with amusement. "She's got you there, Prince," the king boomed. "Such a pretty little thing, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, but sharp as a rapier. If you ever need to repair your fortunes, just send your wife to the tables."

Michael smiled thinly and Leo wondered if he was the only one to feel the hostility and tension surging beneath the apparent bonhomie at the table. Finally Leo threw in his cards, laughingly admitted defeat, pushed his last coins across to Cordelia, and begged the king for permission to leave the game.

"I was always taught that a wise gamester knows when to close his game," Cordelia said swiftly. "Would Your Majesty excuse me also? I feel my luck is about to turn."

"You would deny us our revenge?" chuckled the king. "But we will have it another time, my dear Princess." He tossed his own cards to the table. "Ladies, gentlemen, I shall retire before the banquet."

His fellow players rose, as did the rest of the tables. The king passed through the salon, offering his arm to his new granddaughter-in-law. "Come, my dear."

Cordelia's head ached after the intensity of the game, but she was filled with jubilation. She would pay for it later, but it had been worth it. She scooped her winnings into her reticule under cover of the king's departure and left the table before Michael could summon her back.

Her initial impression of the palace had been of a succession of glittering mirrors, gleaming marble floors, rich tapestries, exquisite paintings. But there must be more to the place than that.

She moved unobtrusively through the series of rooms, keeping to the court side of the roped barriers. The massive Hall of Mirrors was disorienting, and she stopped, almost blinded by the reflections of the great candelabra in the vast expanse of looking glass. The crowded scene of glittering, jeweled courtiers and the massed throng of spectators were doubled by their reflection, and she felt as if she'd strayed into some infernal scene by Hieronymus Bosch. The acoustics in the gallery threw the noise up to the ceiling, where it bounced back in a discordant racket of voices, rattling dice, and above it all the gallant strains of a trio of musicians.

Cordelia reached the end of the gallery and turned aside into an anteroom. It was quieter here, with only a few people standing around looking out at the rain-drenched garden and discussing whether the evening's firework display would have to be postponed. Beyond the anteroom was a long windowed corridor that she guessed would lead downstairs and to some garden exit. She started toward it.

Leo broke off his conversation as he caught sight of the distinctive crimson and ivory figure crossing the anteroom. "Excuse me." He strolled casually in pursuit, waiting to catch up with her until they were out of earshot of the people in the anteroom.

"What the hell did you think you were playing at?" he demanded, catching her wrist, spinning her to face him.

"Lansquenet," she retorted, her eyes still sparkling with excitement. "Wasn't that what we were all playing, sir?"

"How did you do it?" He refused to respond to her mischief, unable to think of anything but what could have happened if she'd been discovered.

"I won," she said. "It was as simple as that."

"Damn you, Cordelia! Tell me how you did it!"

"Oh, don't be cross, Leo." She put a hand on his arm. "Nothing bad happened and I squashed Michael like a bug. Didn't I?" Bitter triumph laced her voice, glittered in her eyes, curled her lip.

Leo was shocked by the bitterness. It was as unexpected in Cordelia as malice would have been. She was wickedly mischievous, but never spiteful. She was determined, candid, frequently outrageous, but embittered… never.

"He was livid, could you tell?" she continued in the same tone. "Wasn't it wonderful? They laughed at him and I beat him." Her lovely mouth tightened. "I will not let-" Abruptly, she stopped, remembering who she was talking to, realizing that she had dropped her guard.

"Won't let what, Cordelia?" Leo asked quietly. He took her hands, holding them tightly. "What are you talking about?"

She tried to laugh, to avert her gaze. "I was just rattling on. I do when I get excited; it's a terrible habit. You know how I love to win-it just goes to my head."

"Are you in trouble, Cordelia?" His gaze was piercing, intent.

She shook her head. "Of course not. How should I be? No one guessed what I was doing."

"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. Something is wrong. What is it?"

"Nothing is wrong. Of course it's not. At last I'm here, in fairyland. How else would you describe this place, Leo? It's even more fantastic than I'd imagined. I can't wait to explore the gardens and-"

"Stop it!" he interrupted sharply. "What are you trying to hide?"

If Michael had treated Elvira as he treated his second wife, she had not told her brother. Cordelia was now convinced of it. Leo's concern was as puzzled as it was genuine. He had loved his sister dearly; it would be unbearable now, after her death, to suspect that she had suffered at her husband's hands.

There was one sure way to deflect him. "I'm trying to hide that I love you," she said simply. "I'm married to one man and I love another. That's what's the matter, Leo. Nothing else. Just what you've always known. I'm torn apart. I have to pretend with my husband, all the time. All the time," she added with pointed emphasis. "In bed, in-"

"That's enough," he snapped, wanting to close his ears to the words, his mind to the images they created. He dropped her hands. "If you cannot resign yourself to reality, Cordelia, you will only store up misery for yourself. Don't you see that?"

She raised a sardonic eyebrow. Nothing could be more miserable than the reality of life with Prince Michael. "Is Christian settled with the Due de Carillac?"

It was such an abrupt change of subject, he was taken aback. But it was easier to talk of Christian than to talk of futile love. And if that was all that was troubling Cordelia, then he could do nothing to help her.

"I believe Carillac made him a generous offer," he said neutrally. "I daresay Christian will be at Versailles at some point during the wedding festivities. Carillac will want to show him off."

"I wonder how we can contrive to talk," Cordelia mused. "Michael must have ceremonial duties, meetings and levees and things to attend. He can't watch me all the time." She shook her head suddenly and offered him a bright smile. "Forgive me, I have need of the retiring room."

She glided away in the direction of one of the rooms set aside as a tiring-room for the ladies, but her smile seemed to remain, hovering in the air, bright, and as brittle as crystal.

Leo went over to one of the long windows looking down on the gardens. He stared out into the rain. Why did she think Michael watched her? Husbands weren't spies. She had been keeping something from him, lying to him. But why?