LITMIR.BIZ

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the king’s fine batiste shirts. She had sewn his shirts and embroidered the blackwork trim on them since the early days of their marriage, and she would never surrender the task now. At her feet, her pet monkey, clad in a tiny blue doublet, frolicked, while lovebirds chattered away in a cage by the windows. The animals’ high-pitched exclamations blended with the giggles of the ladies, their whispers and the crackle of the flames, the sound of a lute being played by the queen’s chief lady, Maria de Salinas.

      Thus far the talk had all been of fashion, of household matters, of Claudine’s forthcoming baby and Princess Mary’s education. Little enough to glean there, but Marguerite was patient. She had to be.

      She drew her needle through the fine, white cloth, embellishing a petal on a cornflower. One stitch, then another and another, and the scene would soon be whole. It was the same with listening. One seemingly insignificant detail built on another until the greater vision was apparent.

      “That is quite lovely, Mademoiselle Dumas,” one of Queen Katherine’s younger ladies, Lady Penelope Percy, said. She held out her own work, a hopelessly crooked pattern of Tudor roses and diamond shapes. “It is meant to be a cushion cover, but I fear I lack the skill you possess. No one will ever want to sit on it!”

      Marguerite laughed ruefully. “In truth, Lady Penelope, needlework is not a favourite pastime for me. I find it rather dull.”

      “You do it so well, though.”

      “In my position at Court, serving Princess Madeleine, there is little else to do all day. I had no choice but to become proficient. See, Lady Penelope, if you pull the thread thus, it keeps the tension in your needle and makes a neater stitch.”

      “So it does! How very clever.” They sewed in silence for a moment, then Lady Penelope leaned closer to whisper, “Your normal place is not in the household of the comtesse, then?”

      “No. She needed extra assistance to travel such a distance in her condition, and I was the most easily spared of the princess’s household. I confess I was glad of the opportunity to travel, to see England.”

      “As I wish I could see Paris! Alas, I fear I will be here in the queen’s service until my father finds some whey-faced squire for me to marry. I shall never have much merriment in life at all,” Lady Percy said, her lower lip protruding in a distinct pout.

      Ah-ha, Marguerite thought. A dissatisfied lady was always the best confidant of all, if she could persuade them to confide in her. Some were simply too jealous. But Lady Penelope Percy was quite pretty herself, and obviously lonely. “How very sad for you. Everyone should enjoy themselves when they are young, yes?”

      “Exactly so! Time enough for dullness later, when one is as old and fat as…” Her voice trailed away, but she glanced at the stout, complacent queen.

      “We all must dance while we can,” Marguerite said. “Yet I have seen few signs of dullness here at your English Court. The banquet last night was most delightful.”

      “That is because we must entertain you French!” Lady Penelope said with a laugh. “When we are alone it is much quieter, aside from a bit of hunting and dancing.”

      “No flirtations? In a Court so full of handsome gentlemen? Come now, Lady Penelope, I cannot believe it of a pretty young lady like yourself! You must have a favourite among all these charming courtiers.”

      Lady Penelope giggled, ducking her head over her untidy sewing. “I think the most handsome men are among your own party, Mademoiselle Dumas. The comte de Calonne, for instance.”

      The comte? Marguerite had scarcely noticed Claudine’s husband, but she supposed he was handsome. Certainly nowhere as attractive as Nicolai Ostrovsky…

      Marguerite closed her eyes against the sudden lurch of her stomach that the thought of the Russian inspired. That sick, nervous, excited feeling she hated so much. She remembered last night, the hot feeling of his body pressed against hers in the dark, his breath, his kiss on her skin. The vivid aliveness of him.

      Why did he haunt her so?

      “You admire the comte, then?” she said, opening her eyes and going back to her embroidery. Her stitches were now distinctly less even.

      Lady Penelope shrugged. “He has such fine, broad shoulders! I would wager he is a very good dancer. Yet his wife seems so sour.”

      Marguerite glanced at Claudine, who did seem pale and out-of-sorts in her ill-chosen tawny silk gown. “Many women are out of humour when they are in such a condition.”

      “Perhaps so.” Lady Penelope giggled, as carefree as only a girl who had never been pregnant could be. Or a lady who could not become pregnant, such as Marguerite herself. “But it leaves their husbands in such great need of consolation!”

      Marguerite laughed. That was certainly all too true. In her experience, men needed “consolation” for too many things far too often. That did not mean she had to be their consoler.

      “Who do you think the handsomest man is, Mademoiselle Dumas?” Lady Penelope asked.

      “I fear I have not been here long enough to judge.”

      “Well, just guess, then. From the ones you have met.”

      Marguerite thought again of Nicolai, of his golden hair against that red doublet. He looked like a flame, one that threatened to consume her if she got too close. “Perhaps your own King Henry.”

      Lady Penelope shook her head. “He still looks well enough, I suppose, for his years. But you would have to battle for him with Mistress Boleyn, and that I would not care to try. Her tongue is as sharp as her claws.”

      “I have not yet had a glimpse of this famous Mistress Boleyn. She must be quite beautiful.”

      “I would not say beautiful. Not like yourself, Mademoiselle Dumas! She is—interesting, rather. She was in France, you know, when the king’s sister was Queen of France, and is much more fashionable than the rest of us.”

      “I wonder when I shall see her.”

      “Tonight, no doubt. They say there is to be dancing after supper, and she never misses the chance to show off her dancing skills.” Lady Penelope lowered her voice even further to whisper, “She is meant to attend on the queen, but she is usually far too busy with her own pursuits.”

      “Indeed?”

      Lady Penelope nodded. One of the other ladies, a pale young woman named Jane Seymour, began to read aloud from The Romance of the Rose, and everyone else fell silent. There was no chance for Marguerite to ask Lady Penelope what those “other pursuits” might be, yet she was sure she could guess. Most interesting.

      She also ruminated on the comment about how Mistress Boleyn had been in France and was thus “fashionable.” Had not the Russian himself said she, Marguerite, lacked the famed French charm? It was hard to be charming in a knife fight, but she knew she had charm a-plenty when she needed it. Maybe it was time to employ it…

      Nicolai reached up to test the tensile strength of the tightrope, to make sure it was taut and firmly anchored. From outside his small, hidden nook in the theatre, he could hear Sir Henry Guildford directing his assistants. Their voices, the sounds of hammering and sawing, seemed far away, as if he hid in a cave where the real world could not touch him.

      If only there was such a place, a single, hidden spot of peace. Yet if there was, he had never found it in all his travels. Everywhere—Moscow, Venice, England, Holland, Spain—people were the same. Noisy and striving, beautiful and cruel, strutting about in all their vanity and longing until everything was extinguished in only a moment.

      Only in friendship had he found a true haven, a reminder of grace and kindness that could be found, if one searched hard enough. Cherished it when it was discovered, like rubies and gold. Nicolai had lost his family so long ago, had wandered the world alone until he discovered a new family—Marc and Julietta, Marc’s long-lost brother Balthazar, Nicolai’s

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