LITMIR.BIZ

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join him in leading the court. Cynara moved quickly to the forefront with a flirtatious smile, half-dragging Diana and Fancy with her. Fancy wasn’t quite certain how it happened, but the king was suddenly tucking her small hand through his velvet-clad arm.

      He smiled down into her face. “Tell me about my colony of Maryland, Mistress Devers,” he said to her. His black eyes were hypnotic.

      Somehow she found her voice and, looking directly back at him, said, “It is a very beautiful land, Your Majesty. The Chesapeake is a series of deep blue bays coming up from the ocean. They are filled with all manner of sea life and game birds. The shores are forested in many places, but not so much now, my mother says, as when she first arrived. We call our estates plantations. My father grows tobacco, but not as much now as when he first came. He prefers raising horses. Slaves are needed for tobacco as it is very laborious work. My papa does not hold with slavery. He buys blacks, civilizes them, and trains them to serve us, or farm properly, and then he frees them. They usually remain with us and are paid for their work. He is thought odd by our neighbors, but I have seen the slavery system myself. It is inhuman in many cases. We also purchase the bonds of the English, the Scots, and the Irish who have been transported for crimes of one kind or another, or for debt. We have a lot of Irish at Bayview,” she concluded. “My father is sentimental for the land of his birth.”

      “Bayview is the name of your plantation,” the king said.

      “Yes, Your Majesty,” Fancy replied.

      “And your father, if I recall the gossip, is Irish-born,” the king remarked, “and a Catholic?”

      “Yes, Your Majesty. That is why my parents left Your Majesty’s Kingdom,” Fancy replied.

      “Prejudice is an evil thing,” the king said. And then, “Did you know that you have the most extraordinary eyes, Mistress Devers?”

      Fancy actually blushed. “I have my grandmother’s eyes,” she murmured softly.

      “Your grandmother is an extraordinary woman,” the king noted. “Was she really expecting you last evening?” His eyes twinkled at her.

      “Ohh, yes, Your Majesty!” Fancy replied. “She was awaiting us in her coach in the Great Court so she might escort us home.”

      “Will she await you again tonight?” he wondered softly.

      Fancy’s heart hammered nervously, but she said, “No, Your Majesty, she will not. My grandmother says that she is too old to come to court every night, and now that we have been properly introduced she says it will not be necessary, although she will come sometimes.”

      “A most discreet lady, your grandmama,” the king noted wryly. Then he said, “So if I were to send Mr. Chiffinch to escort you to supper you would come, Mistress Devers?”

      “I should be honored to take supper with Your Majesty,” Fancy said, and she smiled up at him, but it was not a flirtatious smile. Just a warm and friendly look.

      The king took her small hand from his arm and kissed it. Their eyes locked. “I shall look forward to this evening,” the king said. Then he released her hand.

      “As I will, Your Majesty,” Fancy answered him, and she curtsied before moving back to join her cousins who had now fallen behind into the midst of the troupe of courtiers. She felt strangely exhilarated. He was not the most handsome man she had ever met. Indeed, she was not certain he would qualify as handsome at all, but he did indeed have incredible charm, and again there had been that impression of kindness.

      “What happened?” Cynara hissed.

      “Later,” Fancy responded.

      “They are already gossiping that he singled you out,” Cynara said. Her blue eyes were sparkling with curiosity.

      Fancy remained silent, causing Diana to smile to herself. Diana fully approved of her older cousin’s discretion. While she wasn’t certain she favored Fancy’s obvious course of action, she did appreciate her discretion. But if the king took her cousin to be one of his mistresses, there would be little prudence involved.

      They napped in the apartments of the duke and duchess of Lundy. They ate a light meal that Bess had ordered from the palace kitchens. They bathed their faces and hands, and then prepared for the evening’s entertainment. The Christmas season was almost upon them, and tonight the lord of Misrule was to be chosen by the court to rule over the coming holidays. Bess helped them all to dress. Diana wore a velvet gown of pale lavender. Cynara was in burgundy. Fancy in a blue-green. Bess did each of the girl’s hair, fashioning the dark locks on the three heads into ringlets.

      There was music and dancing in the king’s banqueting hall. There was much laughter when Harry Summers, the earl of Summersfield, was chosen as the lord of Misrule. He was a tall, dark saturnine young man in his late twenties, whose sobriquet was Wickedness. Cynara eyed him almost greedily, remarking to her cousins that the earl was most outrageous handsome, no matter his reputation for mischief.

      “He is not the sort of gentleman one marries,” Diana said primly.

      “I don’t want to wed him, Siren,” Cynara said. “I just want to know him better and perhaps play with him a bit.”

      “He looks as if he would eat you alive and not even leave the bones,” Fancy observed. “I do not like men who are too handsome.”

      The evening wore on with Diana being surrounded as usual by a host of eligible, and not so eligible but hopeful, gentlemen while Cynara and Fancy found themselves once again on the perimeter of their cousin’s circle of admirers. Finally Cynara had had enough.

      “I am going to see if I can find the lord of Misrule himself, and get him to take notice of me,” she said.

      “Be careful,” Fancy told her, and Cynara moved off into the crowd of courtier. Fancy, however, remained where she was. She didn’t mind being ignored for it allowed her the opportunity to observe all that was going on about her. She watched the men attempting to gain Diana’s favor with interest. Two stood out. They were identical twin brothers The duke and the marquis of Roxley. Tall with wavy auburn hair and blue eyes, they vied eagerly for Diana’s attention.

      “Mistress Devers?”

      Fancy looked up into the face of the king’s personal servant, William Chiffinch. “His Majesty has sent me to escort you to supper,” Mr. Chiffinch said in quiet tones. “If you would please to follow me.” He turned and moved away.

      Fancy arose and followed him. She noticed that no one was paying the least bit of attention. Mr. Chiffinch was a man who could render himself invisible, and Fancy Devers was neither known yet by the court nor important enough to be noticed as she left the banqueting hall. She followed him through a maze of corridors, wondering if she would ever find her way out again. Finally Mr. Chiffinch stopped before a set of double oak doors. On either side of the doors stood a man-at-arms in the king’s livery. Mr. Chiffinch opened the door and escorted Fancy inside.

      “His Majesty will be with you shortly,” he said, and then withdrew.

      She looked about her, awestruck. She was in the most elegant room she had ever been in. The walls of the room were covered in red silk brocade and hung with huge magnificent pantings of landscapes and of romantic scenes. On one wall there was an enormous fireplace of red and black marble flanked on either side by carved pillars. The great andirons held large logs of applewood that burned with a sweet aroma. The furniture was golden oak, and the seats were upholstered in either dark tapestry or scarlet velvet brocade. Drapes of scarlet velvet brocade hung at the windows. A great crystal chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling. It was filled with beeswax tapers all burning brightly. There was a second door in the room as well as the one through which she had entered. Curious Fancy crossed the room and opening the portal peeped through.

      It was a bedchamber with white and gold silk walls, a second fireplace that was also burning brightly, and the biggest bed that Fancy had ever seen in all of her life. Blushing, she quickly closed the door and, not certain what she should do, sat down to wait for the

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