Notorious in the Tudor Court
A Sinful Alliance
A Notorious Woman
Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMANDA McCABE wrote her first romance novel at the age of sixteen – a vast epic starring her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers Choice Award and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle. She loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs and watching the Food Network – even though she doesn’t cook.

A Sinful Alliance

Prologue

Venice, 1525

Her quarry was within her sight.

Marguerite peered through the tiny peephole, leaning close to the rough wooden wall as she examined the scene below. The brothel was not one of the finest in the Serene City, those velvet havens purveying the best wines and sweetmeats, the loveliest, cleanest women—for the steepest prices, of course. But neither was this place a dirty stew where a man should watch his purse and his privy parts, lest one or the other be lopped off. It was just a simple, noisy, colourful whorehouse, thick with the scent of dust, ale and sweat, redolent with shrieks of laughter and moans of pleasure, real or feigned. A place for men of the artisan classes, or travelling actors here for Carnival. A place where the proprietor was easily bribed by women with ulterior motives.

She had certainly been in far worse.

Marguerite narrowed her gaze, focusing in on her prey. It was him, it must be. He matched the careful description, the sketch. He was the man she had seen in the Piazza San Marco. He did not look like her vision of a coarse Russian, she would give him that. Were they not supposed to be built like bears, and just as hairy? Just as stinking? Everyone in France knew that these Muscovites had no manners, that they lived in a dark, ancient world where it was quite acceptable to grow one’s beard to one’s knees, to toss food on to the floor and blow one’s nose on the tablecloth.

Marguerite wrinkled her nose. Disgusting. But then, what could be expected from people who lived encased in ice and snow? Who were deprived of the elegance and civility of France?

And it was France that brought her here tonight, to this Venetian brothel. She had to do her duty for her king, her home.

A bit of a pity, though, she thought as she watched the Russian. He was such a beauty.

He had no beard at all, but was clean shaven, the sharp, elegant angles of his face revealed to the flickering, smoking torchlight. The orange glow of the flames played over his high cheekbones, his sensual lips. His hair, the rich gold of an old coin, fell loose halfway down his back, a shimmering length of silk that beckoned for a woman’s touch. The two doxies in his lap seemed to agree, for they kept running their fingers through the bright strands, cooing and giggling, nibbling at his ear and his neck.

Other women hovered at his shoulder, neglecting their other customers to bask in his golden glow, in the richness of his laughter, the incandescence of his skin and eyes.

And he did not seem to mind. Indeed, he appeared to take it all as his due, leaning back in his chair indolently like some spoiled Eastern lord, his head thrown back in abandoned laughter. He had shed his doublet and his white shirt was unlaced, hanging open to reveal a smooth, muscular chest, glimmering with a light sheen of sweat. The thin linen hung off one shoulder, revealing its broad strength.

No lumbering Russian bear, then, but a sleek cat, its power concealed by its grace.

Oui, a pity to destroy such handsomeness. But it had to be done. He and his Moscow friends, not to mention the Spanish and Venetian traders he consorted with, stood in the way of French interests with their proposed new trade routes from Moscow to Persia, along their great River Volga and the Caspian Sea. It would interfere with the French trade in silks, spices, furs—and that could never be. It was even more vital now, after the king’s humiliating defeat at Pavia. So, Nicolai Ostrovsky would have to die.

After one last lingering glance at that bare, golden skin, Marguerite turned away, letting the peephole cover fall into place. She had her task; she had done such things for France before, she had done worse. She could not hesitate now, just because the mark was pretty. She was the Emerald Lily. She could not fail.

There was a small looking glass hanging on the rough wall of her small room, illuminated by candles and the one window. She gazed into it to find a stranger looking back. Her disguises often took many turns—gnarled peasant women, old Jewish merchants, milkmaids, duchesses. She had never tried a harlot before, though. It was quite interesting.

Her silvery blonde hair, usually a shimmering length of smooth waves, longer even than the Russian’s, was frizzed and curled, pinned in a knot at the back and puffed out at the sides. Her complexion, the roses and lilies so prized in Paris, was covered with pale rice powder, two bright circles of rouge on each cheek and kohl heavily lining her green eyes.

She was not herself now, not Marguerite Dumas of the French Court. Nor the lady who had strolled, modestly veiled and cloaked, through the Piazza San Marco in the bright light of day, watching Nicolai Ostrovsky in his guise as an actor. An acrobat, who juggled and jested and feinted, always hiding his true self behind a smile and the jangle of bells. Just as she did, in her own way.

Voila, now she was Bella, a simple Italian whore, come to Venice to make a few ducats during Carnival. But hopefully a whore who could catch Nicolai’s eye, even as he was the centre of attention for every woman in the place.

Marguerite stepped back until she could examine her garb in the glass. It was scarlet silk, bought that afternoon from a dealer in second-hand garments. It must have once belonged to a grand courtesan, but now the gold embroidery was slightly tarnished, the hem frayed and seams faded. It was still pretty, though, and it suited her small, slender frame. She tugged the neckline lower, until it hung from her shoulders and bared one breast.

Hmm, she thought, examining that pale appendage. Her bosom was good, she knew that; the bubbies were not too large or small, perfectly formed and very white. Perhaps they were meant to compensate for her rather short legs, the old scars on her stomach. But they seemed a little plain, compared to the other whores’. Marguerite reached for her pot of rouge and smeared some of the red cream around the exposed nipple. There. Very eye-catching. For good measure, she added some to her lips, and dabbed jasmine perfume behind her ears. Heavy and exotic, very different from her usual essence of lilies.

Now she was ready. Marguerite lifted up her voluminous skirts, checking to see that her dagger was still strapped to her thigh, its point honed to perfect sharpness.

She smoothed the gown back into place and slipped out of the small room. The corridor outside was narrow, running behind the main rooms of the house, the ceiling so low she had to duck her head. It was also deserted. But even here she could detect the sounds of laughter and moaning, the clink of pottery goblets, the whistle of a whip for those with more exotic tastes. Marguerite hoped that was not a Russian vice. Baring her backside for the lash would surely reveal the dagger.

She turned down a small, steep flight of stairs, careful on her high-heeled shoes. The low door at the foot of the steps led out of the secret warren into the large, noisy public room.

It was like tumbling into a new world. Noises here were no longer muffled, but loud and clear, echoing off the low, darkened ceiling. Smoke from the hearth was thick, acrid, blending with the perfumes of the women, the smell of flesh and sex and spilled ale. The wooden floor beneath her feet was sticky and pockmarked.

Marguerite stood for a moment in the doorway, her careful gaze sweeping over the entire scene. Card games and dice went on by the hearth, serious play to judge by the great piles of coins on each table, the intent expressions on the players’ faces. There was drink and food, plain fare of bread, cheese and prosciutto. But whores were the first commodity, any sort a man could fancy. Short, tall, fat, thin, blonde, brunette. There was even a young man clad in an elaborate blue satin gown. He was quite good, too, with smooth skin and silky, black hair. ‘Twas a shame he couldn’t do something about that Adam’s apple.

Marguerite surveyed them dispassionately, her competition for this one night. She knew she was beautiful, had known it since she was a child, taken to Court by her father. She was not vain about it. It was merely an asset to her work, particularly at times like this. She was fairer than any of the others here, even the boy in blue. Therefore she should be able to catch Nicolai’s attention.

Her competition was less now, anyway. Many of the women who had clustered around him were scattered, sent by the proprietor to see to the other patrons. There were just the two on his lap, half-dressed in their camicias, wriggling and giggling. Marguerite straightened her shoulders, displaying her bosom in its red silk frame, held her head high, and sauntered slowly past the Russian and his harem. She let her train trail over his boots, let him smell her perfume, glimpse her white breast, her half-smile. Once past him, she glanced back and winked. Then she went on her way, seeking a cup of ale.

Now—well, now she waited. In her experience, a touch of mystery worked better than fawning attention, which he obviously got enough of anyway. She sipped at her ale, carefully examining the room behind her in an old, cracked looking glass hanging on the wall. The two whores were still on his lap, but she could tell his full attention was no longer on their full-blown charms. He sat forward on his chair, watching her, a small frown on his brow. She turned slightly toward him, her pretty profile displayed. A slight impatience made her fingers tighten on the cup. He had to come to her before anyone else did! She flicked lightly at her lips with her tongue, and tossed her head back.

Whatever the secret charm, it worked. She turned away again, and in a few moments she felt him close to her side. How warm he was, yet not in a heated, lascivious, overpowering way, as most men were. More like the summer sun in her childhood home of Champagne, touching her skin with light fingers, beckoning her ever closer. He smelled like the summer, too, of some green, herbal soap behind the salty tang of sweat and skin. Of pure man.

She swivelled toward him, smiling flirtatiously. He had eased his shirt back over his shoulders but his chest was still bare, and he stood near enough that she could see the faint sprinkling of wiry blond hair against his skin. Gold on gold.

“Good evening, signor,” she said, every hint of a French accent carefully banished.

“Good evening, signora,” he answered, giving her a low bow, as if they were in the Doge’s palace and not a smoky brothel. His eyes were blue, she noticed. A clear, sky-like expanse where anything, any wish or desire or fear, could be written.

And they watched her very carefully. The laughter he shared with the other women was still there, but lurking in the background. He was a wary one, then. She would have to be doubly cautious.

For an instant, as that blue gaze met hers steadily, unblinking, she felt a prickle of unease. A wish that she had worn a mask, which was ridiculous. The heavy make-up was disguise enough, and he would not see her after tonight.

Marguerite shoved away that unease. There was no time for it. She had to do her task and be gone.

“I have not seen you here before,” he said.

“I am new. Bella is my name, I have just arrived from my village on the mainland to work for Carnival,” she answered, gesturing for more ale. “Do you come here often, then?”

“Often enough, when I am in Venice.”

She laughed. “I would wager! A virile man like yourself, I’m sure the pale, choosy courtesans of the grand palazzos could never keep you satisfied.” The ale arrived, and she handed him one of the goblets. “Salute.”

“Na zdorovie,” he answered, and tossed back the sour drink. “Venice is truly filled with the most beautiful of women, signora. Lovelier than any I have ever seen, and I have travelled to many lands. But I do prefer company more like—myself.”

Marguerite glanced toward the boy in blue. “Yourself, signor?”

He laughed, and she was again reminded of summer and home, of the warm, sparkling wine of Champagne. “Not in that way, signora. Closer to the earth.” She must have looked puzzled, for he smiled down at her. “‘Tis a saying from my homeland.”

“You are not from here, either.”

“Nay. I can see where you might mistake me, though, given my excellent Italian,” he said, giving her a teasing grin. “I am from Moscow, though many years removed from that place.”

“Ah, that explains it, then.”

“Explains what, signora?”

“The virility. For is Moscow not snowbound for much of the year? Much time to spend in front of the fire. Or in a warm bed.”

“Very true, signora.” His arm suddenly snaked out, catching her around the waist and pulling her close. For one flashing instant, Marguerite was caught by surprise and instinctively stiffened. She forced herself to go limp, pliant, arching back against his arm.

Through her skirts and his hose she felt the press of his erection, hard and heavy. “No ice tonight, I see, signor.”

“The Italian sun has melted it away—almost.”

She smiled teasingly up at him, twining her arms about his neck. His hair was like satin spilling over her fingers, cool and alluring. She tangled her clasp in its clinging strands, inhaling that clean, warm scent of him. “I’m sure this Italian sun could finish the job completely, signor. You would never feel the touch of ice again.”

In answer he kissed her, his lips swooping down on hers so quickly she had no time for thought. She could only react, respond. His kiss was not harsh and bruising, but soft, gentle, nibbling at her lips, luring her to follow him into that sunshine and forget all. For a moment, she did forget. She was not Marguerite Dumas, not the Emerald Lily. She was just a woman being kissed by a handsome man, a man who ensnared her with a blurry, humid heat, with his scent, his strong arms, his talented lips. She pressed closer to him, so close the edges of her being melted into his and she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. His tongue pressed into her mouth, presaging an even more profound joining.

Overwhelmed, Marguerite eased back. She needed her own ice now, the cold thoughts, precise actions. Not this, this—lust. This need. The Emerald Lily did not have needs, especially not carnal ones. Nicolai Ostrovsky was a task, nothing more.

Why, then, was it so very hard to remember that as she stared up into his pale blue eyes?

She made herself smile. “You are hot tonight, signor.”

“I told you the Italian sun has made me so.”

“Then come with me, signor, and I’ll cool you off—eventually.” She untangled her clasp from his hair, reaching down to take his hand. His fingers held hers tightly, holding her prisoner as she led him toward that small doorway she earlier emerged from.

They climbed the narrow stairs, Nicolai ducking to avoid the rafters overhead. The quiet enclosed them again, the loud, bright world shut away, and Marguerite felt her heart thud in her chest, felt her skin grow chilled. The time was almost upon her.

At the entrance to her little room, Nicolai suddenly reeled her close to him, spinning her lightly around to press her to the wall. Marguerite’s heartbeat quickened—had he discovered her, then? Was she caught in a trap of his own?

He did not slit her throat, though. He merely held her there, pressed against her in the half-light, staring down at her with those otherworldly eyes as if he could see into her soul. Her sin-riddled soul.

“Where did you come from, Bella?” he said softly. His accent was more pronounced now, the edges of his words touched with some icy Russian music.

Marguerite smiled at him. “I told you, from the mainland. This is our most profitable time of year, but one has to be in Venice to make the coin.”

“Have you been a whore long, then, dorogaya?”

She laughed. “Oh, yes. Decades, it seems.”

“Miraculous, then. For you still have your teeth, your clear eyes…” He reached down to trace the underside of her naked breast, the soft, puckered flesh. His thumb flicked lightly at the rouged nipple, making her shiver deeply. “Your smooth skin.”

“I was born under a lucky star, signor. My father always said so,” she said, still trembling. And that was one true thing she said tonight. Her father had told her that when she was a child, holding her up on his shoulder so she could see the clear, bright stars in the Champagne sky.

But then her star faded, and here she was in a Venetian brothel. Bound up with this beautiful puzzle of a man.

“A lucky star on the mainland,” he said.

“Just so. You must have been born under an auspicious sign yourself, to be so handsome.” She spoke teasingly, but it was also true. Such beauty and charm should belong to no ordinary mortal. He was blessed. Until tonight.

This was a fateful hour for them both, then.

“If we are both so fortunate, then, Signora Bella, why are we here?” he murmured, as if he truly could read her thoughts. “A whore and an actor, who must both sing for their supper. Can we even afford each other?”

“I am not so expensive as all that,” Marguerite said. She went up on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “Not for you. I think we are alike, you and I, whores and actors both in one. And we do love our homelands, though we don’t want to admit it.”

He pulled back, staring at her as if surprised by her words, but she wouldn’t let him go. She caught him closer, kissing him with every secret passion of her heart.

“You didn’t come from any human land,” he muttered roughly against her neck, his lips trailing a fiery ribbon of kisses along her throat, her shoulder. “You come from an enchanted fairy realm, and you’ll surely vanish back there at the dawn.”

“‘Tis hours until then,” Marguerite gasped. “We have to make the most of the night.”

Nicolai captured her breast in his kiss, laving the pebbled, rouged tip with his tongue until she added her hoarse moans to the others of the house. That hazy, hot passion descended on her again like a grey cloud, and she felt so weak, so warm and yet shivering. Through that fog, she felt him reach down and grasp her hem, drawing her skirt up.

The cold draught on her bare leg brought sanity crashing down around her. Non! He could not see her dagger, or all would be lost. She pulled away, laughing. “I said we had all night, signor! We don’t have to rut against the wall.” She drew him toward the small cot tucked beneath the room’s one window. Later, when her task was done, she would escape through that portal, vanishing over the rooftops of Venice. Not to any fairy kingdom, but to a curtained gondola where “Bella” would disappear for ever.

She lightly pushed Nicolai, unresisting, on to the sheets, standing above him for a moment, studying him in the moonlight. His golden hair spilled around him on the rumpled, dingy linen. So handsome—so unreal. He smiled wickedly up at her, a fallen angel.

“So, we can rut on a bed like civilised beings?” he said.

“Exactly so.” She leaned over him, tracing the muscled contours of his chest with her fingertips. The arc of his ribs, the flat, puckered discs of his nipples. So glorious, like a map of some exotic, undiscovered country. She felt the pace of his heartbeat, racing under her caress. “We can savour each moment. Each—single—touch.” She kissed his nipple, tugging its hardness between her teeth, tasting the salt of his skin.

Nicolai shivered, and she felt the pull of his fingers in her hair, the shift of his body under hers. He was so hard against her hip, his whole body taut as a bow string. Oui, he was under the spell of desire now. She couldn’t let herself fall prey to it, too.

“How much will this cost me?” he said tightly.

Marguerite eased up his body until she lay prone atop him, pressed close. “Your soul,” she whispered.

Then she acted, as she had before. As she was trained to do. She drew up her skirts and snatched the dagger, in the same smooth motion rising up from his chest and lifting the blade high. She had a quick impression of his eyes, silver in the moonlight, his body laid bare for her to claim. She had only to plunge the dagger down into that heartbeat, and an enemy of France would be gone.

But those eyes—those inhuman, all-seeing eyes. They watched her steadily, not even startled, and she was captured by their sea-like depths.

Only for an instant, one quicksilver flash, but it was enough to lose her the advantage. Nicolai seized her wrist in a bruising grip, tightening until her wrist bone creaked and she cried out. Her fingers opened convulsively, and the dagger clattered to the floor. He swung her beneath him, pinning her to the bed. No lazy, debauched, lustful actor now, but a swift, pitiless predator. Just as she was.

Marguerite was well trained in swordplay and the use of daggers and bows, in courtly fencing and rough street brawling. She knew tricks and dupes to compensate for her small size and feminine weakness. Yet she also knew when she was truly defeated, and that was now. She knew what it was she saw in those eyes. It was doom.

As she stared up at him now, she felt strangely calm, as if she was already hovering above her body, watching the scene from the rafters. Her victim became her murderer, and it was no less than she deserved for her sins. This day had been long in coming. If only she could not die un-shriven! She would never meet her mother in heaven now.

But she did see her avenging angel, rising above her in the darkness. He scooped up her dagger, examining the blade while he held her firmly down with his other hand, his strong body. She felt the full force of that lean strength; the smooth, supple muscles that held him on a tightrope or in a backflip now held her easily in place.

He stared at the dagger, so thin and perfectly balanced. So lethal. The small emerald embedded in the hilt gleamed. “Why me?” he said roughly. “Why try to kill a poor actor?”

“You are not a poor actor, Monsieur Ostrovsky, and we both know it,” she said in French. “You have secrets to equal my own.”

“What are your secrets, mademoiselle?” he answered in the same language.

Marguerite laughed bitterly. “It hardly matters. I have failed in my task, but I take my secrets to the grave.”

“Do you, indeed? Well, that might be a long time from now, mademoiselle. I have the feeling that fairies, like cats, have many lives. You are young; I’m sure you have some to go.”

Marguerite stared up at him, baffled, but his face gave nothing away. He was as beautiful, as cold, as the marble statues in the piazza. Her passionate lover was gone. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, mademoiselle whatever-your-name-is, that this is not your night to die. Nor mine, though you would have had it otherwise.” The dagger arced down, but not into her heart. It sliced into her skirt, cutting away thick strips of silk. Holding the blade between his teeth like a corsair, he bound her hands and feet tightly, with expert knots.

“What are you doing?” Marguerite cried, bewildered. This was not how the game was meant to be played! “I would have killed you! Do you mean you won’t kill me? You won’t take your revenge?”

“Oh, I will take my revenge, mademoiselle, but not on this night.” He tied off the final knot around her wrists, so firm she could not even wriggle her fingers. “It will be some day when you least expect it.”

Once she was trussed up like a banquet goose, he leaned down and pressed one gentle kiss to her lips. He still tasted of herbs, ale and her own waxen rouge. And he still smelled of an alluring summer day. Quel con!

“I just can’t bring myself to destroy such rare beauty,” he whispered. “Not after your fine services, incomplete though they were. Adieu, mademoiselle—for now.”

He tied the last strip of silk over her mouth, and opened the very window Marguerite had planned for her escape. As she stared, infuriated, he gave her a wink, and with one graceful movement leaped through the casement and was gone.

Marguerite screamed through her gag. She arched her back and kicked her legs, all to no avail. She was bound fast, caught in her own scheme. And the cochon didn’t even have the decency to kill her! To follow the code all spies and assassins adhered to. At least French ones.

“Have his revenge,” would he, the beautiful, arrogant Russian pig? Never! She would find him first, and finish this task, no matter what. No matter how far she had to go, even to the frozen wastes of his Russia itself.

For the Emerald Lily never failed.

Chapter One

The Palace of Fontainebleau, January 1527

Marguerite Dumas walked slowly down the corridor, gaze straight ahead, hands folded at her waist, her face carefully blank as she ignored the whispers of the courtiers loitering about. In her fingers she clutched the summons of the king.

She had known this day would come. A new assignment. A new mission for the Emerald Lily. If only this one ended better than the last, that night in Venice!

Marguerite paused at the end of the corridor, where a shadowed landing became a narrow staircase. Here, there was no one to see her, and she closed her eyes against the spasm of pain in her head. It was no illness, but the memory of Venice, the thought of the handsome Russian encule. The coppery, bitter taste of humiliation and failure.

The king had said nothing when she returned to Paris with her report of the Russian’s escape. He had said nothing when he sent her back to her “legitimate” duties as fille d’honneur to Princess Madeleine, her ostensible reason for being at Court in the first place. There she had languished for months, walking with the other ladies in the gardens, reading to the princess, dancing at banquets. Fending off the advances of useless, arrogant courtiers.

They could do her no good, those perfumed popinjays who pressed their kisses on her in the shadows. Only one man was useful here, King François himself. And he maintained his distant politeness, merely nodding to her when they happened to pass in the garden or the banquet hall.

Marguerite knew the whispers, that she and the king had been lovers who were estranged now that he was involved with the Duchesse de Vendôme. If they only knew the truth! They would never believe it. Not of her.

She scarcely believed it herself, in these days of quiet leisure in the princess’s apartments. Had she truly ever been sent to the far corners of Europe, to defeat the enemies of France? Had she once used her wits, her hard-learned skills, to find a secret victory over those who would defy the king? It did not seem possible.

Yet at night, alone in her curtained bed, she knew it was true. Once, she had had adventures. She had won a place for herself in the wider world. Had one mistake, one instant’s miscalculation, cost her all she worked for?

It had made no sense to her that she would be dismissed in only a moment, when now more than ever her special skills were needed. Since the king’s humiliating defeat against the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor at Pavia, since his two sons were sent to Madrid as hostages, dark days had descended on France. Her enemies were becoming ever bolder.

Marguerite knew she could be of use in these new, dangerous games. Why, then, was she relegated to dancing and card playing? All because of the Russian, damn his unearthly blue eyes!

But those days seemed to be at an end. She held the king’s note in her hand, so tightly the parchment pressed her rings into her skin. It was time for her to redeem herself.

As she climbed the narrow, privy staircase, the sounds of hammering and sawing grew louder, more distinct, shouting of the king’s new mania for building. Since his return from Spain in defeat, François had thrown himself into a frenzy of remodelling, of making his palaces ever grander.

Fontainebleau, one of his favourite castles thanks to the seventeen-thousand hectares of forest ripe with deer for hunting, was his latest focus. Since the Christmas festivities, so muted without the presence of the Dauphin and his brother, work was begun in earnest. The old keep of St Louis and Philipe le Beau was being demolished, replaced by something vast and modern.

Marguerite lifted the hem of her velvet skirt as she stepped over a pile of rubbish. A shower of stone dust from above nearly coated her headdress, and she hurried to the relative safety of the great gallery.

This was one of the few rooms in the place to be almost finished. A long, echoing expanse of polished parquet floor swept up to walls of pale stuccowork, inlaid dark wood in the panels of the boiserie. A few of the many planned flourishes of floral motifs, gods and goddesses, fat little Cupids, were in place, with blank spaces just waiting to be filled.

At the far end of the gallery, leaning over a table covered with sketches, was King François himself. He was consulting with one of the Italian artists brought in to take charge of all this splendour, Signor Fiorentino, and for the moment did not see her. Marguerite slowed her steps, studying him carefully for any sign of his thoughts and intentions. Any hint that she was truly forgiven.

François was very tall, towering over her own petite frame, and was all an imposing king should be, with abundant dark hair and a fashionable pointed beard. His brown eyes were sharp and clear above his hooked Valois nose, missing nothing. After Pavia and his captivity, he seemed leaner, more wary, his always athletic body thin and wiry.

But his famous sense of fashion had not deserted him. Even on a quiet day like this, he wore a crimson velvet doublet embroidered with gold and silver and festooned with garnet buttons, a sleeveless surcoat of purple trimmed with silver fox fur to keep the chill away. A crimson cap sewn with pearls and more garnets covered his head, concealing his gaze as he bent over the drawings.

“There will be twelve in all, your Majesty,” Fiorentino said, gesturing toward the empty spaces on the gallery walls. “All scenes from mythology, of course, to illustrate your Majesty’s enlightened governance.”

“Hmm, yes, I see,” Francois said. Without glancing up, he called, “Ah, Mademoiselle Dumas! You surely have the finest eye for beauty of any lady in my kingdom. What do you think of Signor Fiorentino’s plans?”

Marguerite came closer, peering down at the sketches as she tucked the king’s note into her tight undersleeve. The first drawing was a scene of Danaë, more a stylish lady of the French Court in a drapery of blue-tinted silk and an elaborate headdress than a woman of the classical world. But her surroundings—broken columns and twisted olive trees, her attendants of fat cherubs and even more fashionable ladies—were very skilfully drawn, the scene most elegant.

“It is lovely,” she said. “And surely the dimensions, the way the scene is framed by these columns, make it perfect for that space there, where the afternoon sunlight will make Danaë’s robe shimmer like a summer sky. You will use cobalt, signor, and flecks of gilt?”

“You are quite right, your Majesty! The mademoiselle has a most discerning eye for beauty,” Fiorentino said happily, clapping his paint-stained hands. Perhaps he was just glad he wouldn’t waste expensive cobalt.

“Bien, signor,” the king said. “The Danaë stays. You may commence at once.”

As the artist hurried away, his assistants scurrying after him, François smiled at Marguerite. Try as she did to gauge his thoughts, she could see nothing beyond his courtly smile, the opaque light of his eyes. He was even better at concealing his true self than Marguerite herself.

“Shall we stroll in the gardens, Mademoiselle Dumas?” he asked lightly. “It is a bit warmer, I think, and I should like your opinion on the new fountain I have commissioned. It is the goddess Diana, a great warrior and hunter. A favourite of yours, I believe?”

“I would be honoured to walk with you, your Majesty,” Marguerite answered. “Yet I fear I know little of fountains.”

“Egremont will loan you his cloak,” he said, gesturing to one of his attendants, who immediately presented her with his fur-lined wrap. “We would not want you to catch a chill. You have such important work, mademoiselle.”

Important work? Was this truly a new task, then? A chance for the Emerald Lily to emerge from hiding? Marguerite was careful not to show her eagerness, settling the cloak over her shoulders. “Indeed, your Majesty?”

“Oui. For does my daughter not depend on you, since the death of her sainted mother? You are her favourite attendant.”

“I, too, am very fond of the princess,” Marguerite answered, and she was. Princess Madeleine was a lovely child, charming and quick-minded. But she was hardly a challenge. She could not offer the kind of advancement Marguerite’s ambition craved. The kind she needed for her own security. She thought of the stash of coins hidden beneath her bed, and how they were not yet enough to gain her a vineyard, a life, of her own.

“Indeed?” François led her down the stairs and out into the gardens, now slumbering under the winter frost. They, like the palace itself, were in the midst of upheaval, their old flowerbeds being torn up to be replaced by new plantings, a more modern design. For now, though, everything was caught in a moment of stasis, frozen in place, overlaid by sparkling white like an enchanted castle in a story.

François waved away his attendants, and led her down a narrow walkway. The air was cold but still, holding the echo of the abandoned courtiers’ voices as they lingered by the wall.

“It is most sad, then, that my daughter will have to do without your company for a time,” the king said.

“Will she?”

“Yes, for I fear you must journey to England, mademoiselle. And the Emerald Lily must go with you.”

England. So the rumours were true. François sought a new alliance with King Henry, a new bulwark against the power of the Emperor.

“I am ready, your Majesty,” she said.

François smiled. “Ma chère Marguerite—always so eager to serve us.”

“I am a Frenchwoman,” she answered simply. “I do what I can for my country.”

“And you do it well. Usually.”

“I will not fail you. I vow this.”

“I trust that is true. For this mission is of vital importance. I am sending a delegation to negotiate a treaty of alliance with King Henry, and to organise a marriage between his daughter Princess Mary and my Henri.”

Marguerite considered this. Despite flirting with English alliances in the past, including the long-ago Field of the Cloth of Gold, which was so spectacular it was still much talked of, naught had come of it all. Thanks to the English queen, Katherine of Aragon, aunt of the Emperor, England always drifted back to Spain. Little Princess Mary, only eleven years old, had already been betrothed to numerous Spanish grandees as well as the Emperor Charles himself, or so they said.

“What of the Spanish?” Marguerite asked quietly.

“I have heard tell that Henry and his queen are not as—united as they once were,” François answered. “Katherine grows old, and Henry’s gaze has perhaps turned to a young lady who was once resident of the French Court, Mademoiselle Anne Boleyn. Katherine may no longer have so much influence on English policy. Since the formation of the League of Cognac, Henry seems inclined to a more Gallic way of seeing things. I will be most gratified if this treaty comes to completion.”

Marguerite nodded. An alliance with England could certainly mean the beginning of brighter days for France. Yet she had dealt with the Spanish before. For all their seeming piety and austerity, they were just as fierce in defending their interests as the French, perhaps even more so. It was said that in their religious fervour they often employed the hair shirt and the scourge, and it seemed to sour their spirits, made them ill humoured and dangerous as serpents.

“The Spanish—and Queen Katherine—will not let go of their advantage so easily as that,” Marguerite said. “I have heard Katherine seeks a new Spanish match for her daughter.”

“That is why I am sending you,” François answered. “I have assigned Gabriel de Grammont, the Bishop of Tarbes, to head the delegation, and I am sure he will do very well. As will his men. But women can see things a man cannot, go places a man cannot, especially one as well trained as my Lily. Keep an eye on the queen, and especially on the Spanish ambassador, Don Diego de Mendoza. It is entirely possible they have plans of their own, of which Henry is not aware.”

“And if they do?”

François scowled, gazing out over his frozen gardens. “Then you know what to do.” He drew a small scroll from inside his surcoat and handed it to her. “Here are your instructions. You depart in two weeks. I will have dressmakers sent to you this evening—you must order all that you require for a stay of several weeks.”

With that, he turned and left her, rejoining his waiting attendants. They all disappeared inside the château, leaving Marguerite alone in the cold afternoon. There were no birds, no bustle of gardeners or cool splash of fountains, only the lonely whistle of the wind as she unfurled the scroll.

The words were brief. The king’s kinsman, the Comte de Calonne, was to be part of the delegation, along with his wife Claudine. Marguerite was ostensibly to serve as companion to Claudine, to accompany her when she called on Queen Katherine and attended banquets and tournaments.

But Marguerite knew well what was not written there. At those banquets, she was to flirt with the English courtiers when they were in their cups, draw secrets from them they were not even aware they were sharing. To watch the queen and the Spanish ambassador. To watch King Henry, and make sure the notoriously changeable monarch did not waver. To watch this Anne Boleyn, see if she had real influence, if she could be turned to the French cause.

And, if anyone stood in France’s path, she was to remove them. Quickly and neatly.

It was surely the most important task she had ever received, a test of all her skills. The culmination of all she had learned. If she did well, if the treaty was safely signed and the betrothal of Princess Mary and the Duc d’Orléans sealed, she would be handsomely rewarded. Perhaps she would even be given leave to travel, to seek out the one man who had ever defeated her and thus finally have her revenge.

The Russian. Nicolai Ostrovsky.

The soft crackle of a footstep on the pathway behind her startled her, and she spun around, her knees bending and hands forward in a defensive position.

It was Pierre LeBeque, a young priest in the employ of Bishop Grammont. His eyes narrowed when she turned on him, and he fell back a step, watching her warily.

Marguerite dropped her hands to her sides, but still stood poised to dash away if need be. She did not often see Father Pierre, for he was usually scurrying about the Court on errands for the bishop, but when she did encounter him she didn’t care for the sensations he evoked. That prickling feeling at the back of her neck that so often warned her of “danger.”

What danger a solemn young priest, tall but as thin as a blade of grass, could hold she was not sure. He seemed to bear nothing but dutiful piety on his bony shoulders. Yet he always watched her so closely, and not as others did, in admiration and awe of her beauty—it was as if he was trying to see all her secrets.

And she well knew how often appearances were deceiving.

“Father Pierre,” she said calmly, drawing her borrowed cloak closer around her. “What brings you out on such a chilly day?”

He did not smile, just stared solemnly. His face, white as the frost, was set in stony lines too old for his youthful years. “I am carrying a message to the king from Bishop Grammont, mademoiselle.”

“Indeed? Such industrious loyalty you possess, coming out on such a day, when everyone else is tucked up by their fires.”

“You are not,” he pointed out.

“I felt the need for some fresh air. But I am returning to my warm apartment now.”

“Allow me to escort you back to the palace, then.”

Marguerite could think of no graceful way to decline his company, so she merely nodded and turned on the pathway. Pierre fell into step beside her, the hem of his black robes whispering over the swept gravel.

“I understand from the bishop that you are to join our voyage to England,” he said tonelessly.

Alors, but news did travel fast! Marguerite herself had only just learned of her assignment, and here this glorified clerk already knew.

What else did he know?

“Indeed I am. The Comtesse de Calonne requires a companion, and I am honoured that my services have been requested.”

“You are very brave then, mademoiselle. They say the English Court is coarse and dirty.”

“I have certainly heard of worse.”

“Have you?”

“Oui. The Turks, for one. And the Russians. I have heard that the Muscovites grow their beards so very long, and so tangled and matted, that rats live in the hair with their human owners none the wiser.”

Father Pierre frowned doubtfully. “Truly?”

Marguerite shrugged. “So I have heard. I have seldom met a Russian myself, except for the ambassadors who sometimes visit Paris. Their fur robes are antique, but their grooming is fine.” And there was one, who had no beard at all, but hair as golden and soft as a summer’s day. One who always popped into her mind at the most inconvenient moments. “Surely the English cannot be as crude as rats in beards. I am certain our weeks there will be most pleasant.”

“Nevertheless, we will be in a foreign Court, with ways we may not always understand. I hope that you will feel free to come to me for any—counsel you might require, Mademoiselle Dumas.”

Counsel? As if she would ever need advice from him! Marguerite curtsied politely and said, “It is a comfort to know there is always a French priest ready to hear my confession if needs be. Good day, Father Pierre.”

“Good day, mademoiselle.”

She left him at the foot of the grand staircase, now a bare expanse of marble waiting to be refurbished, reborn. As she made her way up, dodging workmen and stone dust, she could feel the priest’s cold stare on her back.

Tiens! Marguerite rolled her eyes in exasperation. Would she have to avoid that strange man the whole time they were in England, in addition to all her other duties? It was sure to be a most challenging few weeks indeed.

Chapter Two

The sea was calm at last, after cold storms that had lengthened what should have been a short voyage into one that seemed endless. Today, though, the sun struggled to break through the thick banks of grey clouds, casting a strange amber glow over the sky, over the choppy, pearly waves. The air was chilly, humid, smelling of rain, but blessedly none yet fell. Hopefully it would hold off until they made landfall.

Nicolai Ostrovsky leaned his elbows on the ship’s railing, staring out over the vast water. Soon they would land at Dover, and have to make good time if they were to arrive at Greenwich before the French. It would be a hard push, with women and servants and baggage, yet it had to be done.

Nicolai laughed at his own foolishness for setting out on this task in the first place. It was folly indeed to travel across the continent, when wise people were tucked up by their firesides to wait for spring! Friendship got him into trouble wherever he went.

He reached inside his quilted russet doublet and drew out the letter from his friend Marc Velazquez, which had arrived most inopportunely when Nicolai had just settled down for a peaceful winter of wine and beautiful women in a small town in the Italian Alps. He had just finished an onerous task, one that nearly cost him his life—again. Surely he deserved a few months of ease and pleasure!

Then the messenger knocked on his door, that door he thought so well hidden from the outside world.

“I cannot trust anyone but you, my friend, with such a task,” the letter read, the black ink words now stained and mottled with salt sea spray. “My mother has recently left her retirement at the Convent of St Theresa and remarried. Her husband, the Duke de Bernaldez, has been sent to join a mission to England with the new ambassador Diego de Mendoza, who is his kinsman. Their errand is very delicate, as the French are trying to negotiate a new treaty with King Henry, and they must be defeated at all costs—according to my new stepfather.

“My mother insists on joining him in England, and I worry greatly about how she will fare there. She is so very gentle, and her years in the convent since my father died have not prepared her for a royal Court. I must beg that you accompany her, and look to her welfare, as I must stay close to Venice at this time. Julietta will give birth to our first child any day now.

“My friend, I know this is a great deal to ask, but I trust no one as I do you. I will be deeply in your debt, even more so than I already am.”

Nicolai refolded the letter, staring again at the cold, grey expanse of sea. How could he refuse? The claims of friendship and the protection of a gentle lady were his two greatest weaknesses. So, he had written back to Marc, stating that he expected this new baby to be named Nicholas if a boy, Nicola if a girl, and set out to meet Dona Elena Maria Velazquez, the new Duchess de Bernaldez.

And he found that his friend quite underestimated his mother. Yes, she was sweet and lovely, but the convent had not softened her core of iron. Her current mission was to see Nicolai wed to one of her ladies by the end of their time in England, and she was most determined. His protests that he led an aimless, mercenary life, most unsuited to fine ladies, made not a whit of difference.

“A good wife would settle you, Nicolai, make a home for you, as Julietta has for my son,” she said. “Do you not desire a family?”

Fortunately, he was saved from her matchmaking by a round of seasickness that overcame Dona Elena and many of her ladies. He did not have time to fend her off and plan for their troubled mission in England!

Ostensibly, he was meant to be a sort of Master of the Revels to the Spanish party, devising entertainments to impress the English Court and the French, to show off Spanish wealth, piety and strength in the face of all their challenges. His years as a travelling player and acrobat would stand him in good stead in such a task, and in his less obvious assignments as well. Not only was he to protect Dona Elena and her new husband, he was to keep an eye out for the interests of the Tsar of Russia. Tsar Vasily III had seen much success in his new trading schemes with the East, and now thought to expand westward as well.

Tricky, indeed, to balance France, Spain, England, Venice, Russia on an acrobat’s tightrope. And a far cry from the pleasurable winter he had once envisioned! But it was blood-stirring, as well. Masqueing was his life’s work, and there was none better at it than he was. This English meeting was a challenge greater than any he had faced in a long time, and he was ready for it. And, if he had his way, it would be his last dangerous mission, as well.

Nicolai reached for the sheath at his waist and drew out a dagger, balancing it on his gloved palm. The emerald in the hilt gleamed in the pale light, glinting with a silent threat—a promise—that had yet to be answered.

He tossed it lightly into the air, catching it so he could see the tiny lily etched into the finely honed steel. He carried the dagger everywhere, a reminder that once he had met the notorious Emerald Lily, the shadowy French assassin feared throughout Europe. Met her—and bested her, though more by luck than any great skill on his part.

He never spoke of that strange night in a Venetian brothel to anyone, not even Marc and Julietta. For one thing, except for this dagger, he could not be sure it was not a dream. For another, he could never convey the power those eyes, as green as this emerald, held over him, from the first moment he glimpsed them through the smoke and haze of that whorehouse’s common room.

She was beautiful, truly, like an angel or a fairy with that silvery hair, yet her allure that night was far more than mere loveliness. A thousand women possessed that. It was those eyes. So hard, so cold, yet with a spark underneath that could not be extinguished.

It was foolish of him to leave her alive, to show a mercy that was so unlike him, and that she would never have shown him. The Emerald Lily was rumoured to be ruthless, and she would not take well to being made a fool of. She would come after him again one day, probably when he least expected it.

Perhaps that was what made him leave her there, trussed up on the rumpled bed. The knowledge—or was it hope?—that they would one day meet again. She would want her dagger back, after all.

The trouble was, another meeting would surely leave one or both of them mouldering in the grave.

Nicolai tossed the blade in the air again, catching it with a light twirl of his fingertips. Until that fateful day, he had more to worry about than beautiful, green-eyed killers.

And his chief worry was coming toward him right now.

Dona Elena appeared on deck, followed by two of her ladies who had recovered from their mal de mer. She certainly seemed the pious Spanish matron, her coffee-brown hair, only lightly streaked with silver, smoothed back beneath a pearl-edged, veiled cap, garnet-crusted cross clasped around her throat. A black cloak covered her dark red gown, shielding her from the salty wind, and her gloved hands held a gilt-edged prayer book. But her soft brown eyes were full of determination.

Her son, Marc, surely got that from her. The Velazquez family always got their own way.

“Ah, Nicolai, there you are!” she said, joining him at the rail. “The captain says we will without doubt make land today.”

Nicolai gestured toward the horizon, where towering, stark white cliffs were just peeking through the mist. “At any moment, Dona Elena.”

“Thanks be to God.” She quickly crossed herself. “This voyage has not been enjoyable.”

“It is seldom a good idea to set out in the middle of winter.”

Elena sighed. “Especially for someone as accustomed to the comforts of land as me! I know Marc would have preferred I stay at home in Madrid and wait for Carlos to return, yet he does not understand. He and his wife are always together now, but it has been a long time since I enjoyed the pleasures of marriage.” She frowned, and Nicolai knew all too well what was coming. “The comforts of a home, Nicolai, are inestimable. If you only knew the great benefits…”

By the time he had fended her off, and sent her and her ladies below decks to finish their packing, the ship had drawn closer to the rocky shore, those cliffs looming like a stark white welcome.

The rough sea voyage was ending at last, yet Nicolai feared his travails were only just beginning.

Chapter Three

Marguerite sat bundled in her cloak at the back of the barge as they made their way along the Thames, her sable-edged hood eased back so she could observe the scenery as it glided past. The English were so proud of their little river, lined with the estates of their nobles! Their escorts, a brace of Henry’s courtiers sent to guide them to Greenwich, gestured toward stone towers and brick halls, declaring them the abodes of the Carews, the Howards, the Poles.

Marguerite sniffed. If they could only see the vast, fairy-tale spires of the châteaux along the Loire! They would not be so quick with their boasts then, these swaggering English boys.

She had to admit, though, they were handsome enough. Rumour said that Henry enjoyed being surrounded by young people, full of energy and fun and high spirits, and their escorts seemed to confirm that. Tall, strong men, bright-eyed, lavishly dressed—if not as stylish as Frenchmen, of course. Quick with a jest as well as a boast, and with a keen eye for a pretty face. Each of them had already bowed before her, and she was one of the least of the French party.

Still pretending to study the river, she actually watched them from the corner of her eye, those exuberant young men. If they were full of guile and trickery, as all men were, they hid it well. There was no hint of suspicion on their handsome faces, no flicker of deception in their laughing voices.

Her task here was either going to be easier than she expected, or far harder.

“Have you even been to England before, Mademoiselle Dumas?”

She turned to see that one of the English courtiers, the raven-haired Roger Tilney, had sat down beside her on the narrow bench.

She smiled at him. “Never. I have been to Italy, but not your England. It is fascinating.”

“Wait until we arrive at Greenwich, mademoiselle. The king has prepared a great surprise there, and there will be many entertainments every day from dawn until midnight.”

Marguerite laughed. “Many entertainments? And here I thought you men had most important business to see to!”

“One cannot work all the time, especially with such welcome distractions in sight.”

He leaned closer, and she found Englishmen did not smell like the French, either. His cologne was spicy rather than flowery, overlaying the crisp cold of the day, the scent of wool and leather.

Hmm. Surely this Master Tilney was correct—one could not work all the time.

Yet that was exactly what she had to do. Work all the time. For it was in the instant she let her guard down that all went awry. The Russian had taught her that.

“I do love to dance,” she said. “Will there be time for such frivolous pastimes?”

Tilney laughed, and she felt the swift, warm press of his hand on her arm through her thick cloak. “Dancing is one of King Henry’s greatest delights.”

“I am glad to hear it. A Court that does not dance or make merry music could be called…”

“Spanish, mayhap?”

They chuckled together at the naughty little dig. As Marguerite pressed her hand to her lips to hide her giggles, she noticed Father Pierre watching her, a frown on his pale, thin face.

She turned resolutely away from him, determined that his stares would not distract her today.

“I do hear that the Spanish care little for such worldly pursuits,” she murmured. “But is your own queen not Spanish? What does she think of dancing?”

Tilney shrugged. “Queen Katherine is usually of good cheer. She is most indulgent, and famous for her serene smile and even temper. She may no longer dance herself, but she is a gracious hostess.” “Usually?”

He opened his mouth to reply, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he smiled, and gestured to the bank of the river. “See there, mademoiselle. Your first glimpse of the palace of Greenwich.”

Marguerite leaned to the side, watching closely as the barge slowed on its approach. Greenwich was not pale and graceful, as François’s plans for Fontainebleau were. It obviously did not intend to convey a deceptive delicacy. It was long and low, and pretended to nothing but what it was—a strong palace, a home yet also the receptacle of power.

The pitched roof was as grey as the sky above, blending with the wispy smoke that curled from its many chimneys, but the walls were faced in red brick in the old Burgundian style.

There was no moat or fortifications; that would have been too old-fashioned even for the English. Instead, narrow windows, glinting like a thousand watchful eyes, stared out over the river.

“It is very pretty,” she said. “A fit setting for revels, I would say.”

“It is built around three courtyards,” Tilney said. “Perfect for games of bowls. And there are tennis courts and tiltyards.”

Marguerite laughed. “It does sound a merry place. Dancing, bowls, tennis…”

“Ah, mademoiselle, I fear you will think us nothing but frivolous! Look you there, the Church of the Observant Friars of St Francis. The queen is their patron, and they are always there to remind us of a higher purpose.”

“And to immediately take your confession when needed?”

“That, too.” Tilney was summoned to join the English courtiers as the barge docked, and Marguerite went to see if Claudine, the Comtesse de Calonne, required her assistance. The young comtesse was enceinte, and the voyage was not a comfortable one for her. She bore it all well enough, her face so pale that her golden freckles stood out in stark relief, but she spent most of her time with eyes tightly shut, listening to one of her ladies read poetry aloud while another massaged her temples with lavender oil. She did not often need—or want—Marguerite’s assistance.

The rumours of her handsome husband’s many infidelities could not help her temper, either. The comte and comtesse were cousins, married very young, but it was said Claudine cared more for her husband than he did for her.

“We have arrived, madame la Comtesse,” Marguerite said, kneeling beside Claudine to help her gather her gloves and smooth her cloak and headdress. “Soon you will be tucked up in your own feather bed, with a warm fire and a cup of spiced wine.”

Claudine smiled tightly. “Or more likely pressed into a cold room with ten other people and only ale to drink! These English—pah. They do not understand true hospitality.”

“Then we must teach them, madame!” Marguerite nodded to one of Claudine’s maids, and between them they helped her to her feet so she could join her husband in disembarking. “We will set a fine French example.”

“At least they sent a cardinal to greet us,” Claudine said, gesturing to the man in scarlet who awaited them, surrounded by so many attendants in black he seemed enmeshed in a flock of crows. “Not some mere clerk.”

“I am sure King Henry has a better sense of protocol than all that,” Marguerite replied, examining the man. It had to be Wolsey himself—the dangerous, all-powerful Wolsey—for he had the wide girth and long, bumpy nose of his portraits.

She had heard tell that the great Cardinal, Archbishop of York, the one man Henry relied on above all others, wore a hair shirt beneath his opulent scarlet velvets and satins. And Marguerite could well believe it, to judge by his pinched, grey face. He did not look like a well man. Still, she would not like to cross swords with him. It was fortunate he promoted the French treaty so assiduously.

Marguerite fell into step behind Claudine as they all left the barge and the play commenced at last.

Claudine’s fears proved to be unfounded, for she was given an apartment to herself, albeit a rather small one almost beneath the eaves of the palace. Marguerite had an even tinier room tucked behind, a closet with scarcely space for a bed and clothes chest, and one tiny window set high in the wall. But the insignificant space was perfect for her needs—private, quiet, and, as the page told her, near a hidden staircase that led to the jakes and then out to the gardens.

Ideal for secret errands.

Left to her own devices while Claudine rested before the evening’s festivities, Marguerite set about unpacking her travelling cases. All the velvet gowns and silk sleeves, the quilted satin petticoats and jewelled headdresses, were shaken, smoothed and tucked with lavender into the chest. The high-heeled brocade shoes and embroidered stockings, her small jewel case and fitted box of toilette items, were arrayed on top.

Once the case was emptied of its fine, feminine cargo, Marguerite lifted out the false bottom. There, carefully swathed in cotton batting, were her daggers and her sword.

The blades were made to her own specifications in the king’s own forge, smaller and lighter to fit her size and strength, perfectly balanced, delicate as a dancer, strong as marble.

Holding her sword outstretched, she took up a fighting stance and thrust once, twice at the air. The steel sang in the cold breeze, a quick, fatal whine, then perfect silence. It was truly a thing of beauty.

Smiling, she tucked it safely away, where it could rest until needed. She took up one of the daggers, a thin blade that appeared almost as dainty, and useless, as a lady’s eating knife. But it was designed to slip quickly, neatly, between a man’s ribs, leaving only a fatal drop of blood behind.

The hilt was set with tiny rubies, winking in the hazy light like serpent’s eyes. For a moment, she remembered her old blade, her favourite, with its rare emerald.

She remembered, too, how she had lost it. But one day she would get it back.

Marguerite lifted the hem of her skirt, tucking the blade into a sheath attached to her garter. She couldn’t think about him now. He had no place here. She had her errand laid out before her, and it would begin with tonight’s formal banquet to welcome their delegation. She needed to bathe and change her gown, to don her disguise of velvet and pearls.

Why, then, did it seem like the Russian followed her everywhere she went, and had for more than the last year? Those icy blue eyes…

Marguerite slammed the lid of her case and pushed it beneath the window, as if she could break his memory in two. The tiny pane of precious glass was so high she had to climb atop the case to see out. Her room looked down on one of the three courtyards Tilney had told her of, a carefully laid-out garden that slumbered in the winter chill. The square and diamond-shaped flowerbeds were brown and brittle, the trees bare, the fountains still. Yet she could clearly see that come summer it would be spectacular, a riot of roses, lilies, violets, gillyflowers, scented herbs, green vines twisting over the low railings and trellises.

The gardens were hardly dead now, for people strolled along the white gravel pathways, their Court raiment as bright as any flower could hope to be. Were they English, French, Spanish? She could not tell from her high perch. But she would know all soon enough.

Chapter Four

“And you see there, Master Ostrovsky, the king’s newly built banquet house. And, over there, at the other end of the tiltyard, the theatre,” Sir Henry Guildford, the king’s Master of the Revels, said, waving toward a long, low wooden building as they strolled through the gardens. Even at this late moment, as the sun set on the first day of this vital meeting, workmen scurried about, hammering, sawing, putting the last details in place on these new structures.

“That space shall be for the planned pageants and masquerades,” Guildford said, leading Nicolai toward the theatre. They ducked around a crowd of servants building two towering silk trees, a Tudor hawthorn and a Valois mulberry. “The king is also very fond of spontaneous disguisings, but one never knows when those will occur, no matter how organised my office strives to be.”

The tightening of Guildford’s mouth in his plump face was the only sign of the vexation such “spontaneous” displays engendered. The Master of the Revels was meant to oversee all the Court’s entertainments, even to keeping account of all the costumes and properties, the casting of various roles. That could not be easy when the one person most meant to be impressed by these careful displays kept subverting them!

Nicolai had a hard enough time herding his own small troupe on their travels. He did not envy Sir Henry his task of shepherding an entire Court. “It must be a fine thing to have your own space for this great task, Sir Henry,” Nicolai said, nodding toward the new theatre.

“‘Tis not only my space, Master Ostrovsky. We must share it with the Master of the King’s Minstrels and his musicians,” Guildford answered. “But there is room for us to store our properties, which is a blessing. Usually they must be fetched from a great distance.”

Nicolai’s props were often stored in a painted wagon, with more dangerous items hidden among the masks and bells. Items for more—discreet tasks. But he merely nodded understandingly.

“We are very glad to welcome you here, Master Ostrovsky,” Guildford went on. His smooth tone gave no hint of curiosity about what Nicolai, a player and a Russian to boot, might be doing among the Spanish party. “Assistance with our revels is always greatly to be desired, and Señor Mendoza tells us you have much experience with Italian pageants. All things Italian are very fashionable, you know.”

“It is true I am recently come from Venice,” Nicolai answered.

“Ah, yes, the Venetians. They do enjoy their masquerades and fêtes, do they not? Excellent, excellent! I have so very many tasks, and most of my idiotish assistants can do naught unless I watch them at every moment.”

“I am happy to assist in any way I can, Sir Henry.” In Nicolai’s experience, it was often the actors at Court—both the professionals from the Office of the Revels and the courtiers who so often took on roles—who knew most of the secrets. The hidden plans and desires. If he could do what he did best, insinuate himself into a play, his task would be that much easier.

“The king has ordered a different entertainment for almost every evening. I will be happy of your assistance in directing some of our players.” Sir Henry shook his head, muttering, “The ladies all want to take part, but they do not want to work, you see. Merely gossip and giggle together without learning their lines and postures.”

Nicolai laughed. “I am told I work well with the ladies, Sir Henry.”

“I would wager you do. They always seek to impress a handsome face. Well, here we are at the theatre, then. Just long enough for a quick glance round, I think, before the sun quite vanishes.”

Sir Henry opened the tall double doors of the new theatre, the rich wood carved with vines and flowers, surmounted by the king’s Tudor roses and portcullises, the queen’s pomegranate of Granada and arrow-sheaf of Aragon.

How long, Nicolai wondered, would those badges remain, if the rumours were true? The tales of a certain Mistress Boleyn and the king’s anguish over his lack of a son. And what vast trouble would their removal cause?

Today, though, the pomegranates were firmly in place, boasting of a long, solid marriage, a firm dynasty. Sir Henry led Nicolai into the interior of the theatre, so new it still smelled of paint and sawdust. It was beautiful, unlike any place Nicolai had ever performed in before. Long, soaring, lit with a profusion of flickering torches, the theatre gave the impression of a celestial realm. The ceiling was painted the pale blue of a summer sky, while below was hung a transparent cloth painted in gold with stars, moons and the signs of the zodiac.

Seats rose in tiers along the walls, while at the far end a large proscenium arch marked the performance space. Workmen were still putting in place terracotta busts and statues.

“‘Tis a most glorious space, Sir Henry,” Nicolai said truthfully. “And yet you say it is just temporary?”

“Oh, I am sure we will find a use for it once the French depart,” Sir Henry said. “But it is all wood and gilt, meant to deceive.”

He led Nicolai behind the arch, where several trunks were stacked. Scrolls, lengths of bright satin, cushions and spangles spilled forth in a confusing jumble. As Sir Henry dug through the glittering array, a chorus of angelic voices rose up somewhere in the shadows, a tangle of silvery sound that grew and expanded, soaring up to the ceiling-sky. Nicolai turned his head to listen, enchanted.

“The chorus of the Chapel Royal,” Sir Henry said. “They are to give a recital after tonight’s banquet. Fortunately, they are not my responsibility. Ah, here we are!”

He drew out a scroll, untidily bound with a scrap of ribbon, and handed it to Nicolai. “This is to be the pageant to follow the king’s great tournament a few weeks hence. With your permission, Master Ostrovsky, I put you in charge of it.”

Nicolai quickly read over the programme. “The Castle Vert?”

“The Green Castle, yes. An old piece, perhaps, but always a Court favourite. As you see, there are roles for all of sixteen ladies.”

Sixteen? “Are the parts already cast?”

“Not at present. Lady Fitzwalter and Lady Elizabeth Howard must have a turn, of course. And Mistress Anne Boleyn, who at least knows how to sing and dance already. Oh, and they say there is a lady among the French who is uncommonly lovely. A veritable angel, according to Master Tilney. Perhaps it would be a diplomatic gesture to cast her as Beauty. But, Master Ostrovsky, I leave it all up to you. I must work on The Fortress Dangerous, which fortunately only calls for six ladies.”

Sir Henry clapped Nicolai affably on the arm, and turned to hurry off on some new task. “Good fortune, Master Ostrovsky, and my deepest thanks! I will send some of my staff to assist you on the morrow.”

Nicolai grinned ruefully, slapping the scroll against his palm. Fifteen English Court ladies, and one French angel, all vying for their selected parts. All of them with the force of family and faction behind them.

Oh, Marc, Nicolai thought. I hope you appreciate what I do for the sake of friendship!

The French delegation was to gather in Queen Katherine’s presence chamber before progressing to the great new banquet hall. Once Marguerite was bathed and dressed, in a gown of emerald green velvet over an embroidered petticoat of gold satin, her wide oversleeves turned back to reveal more gold and a sable trim, she joined the others in Claudine’s apartment to wait for Bishop Grammont and his officers, including Claudine’s husband, the Comte de Calonne.

A rest seemed to have done Claudine some good, Marguerite observed. She was not as pale, and even looked a bit rosy in her dark crimson silk gown, her stays loosely laced over her swelling belly. That was very good. If she was confined to her chamber, then Marguerite, her ostensible attendant, would be hard pressed to find excuses to go about in Court.

Claudine’s maid was putting the finishing touches to her gingery red hair, lowering a stiffened gold headdress into place. Marguerite’s own headdress was the newer, lighter nimbus shape, of green velvet trimmed with pearls, her silvery hair falling free down her back under the short, sheer gold veil.

Claudine’s gaze narrowed when she saw Marguerite in her fine raiment. “How very youthful you look, Mademoiselle Dumas,” she muttered.

“Merci,” Marguerite answered lightly, smoothing down her sleeves. “I am sure we will all put the English and their rustic garments to shame!”

“And especially the Spanish,” Claudine’s husband, the Comte de Calonne, said, as he came into the room with his own richly clad attendants. “Michel tells me they are all in black, like a flock of crows!”

Everyone laughed, and fell into their places to be led into the English queen’s presence. There could be no Spanish jests there, naturellement!

Marguerite did not know what she expected of this lady, who had been daughter to the legendary Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Queen of England for nearly twenty years. A lady renowned for her piety and great learning, beloved by her subjects. A woman who, as aunt to the Emperor Charles, stood in the way of France’s interests on these shores.

Yet she did not look so formidable as she greeted them with a gracious smile, a few polite words in perfect French. She looked like a settled, contented matron of middle years, not very tall, stout from a plethora of pregnancies that had only produced one living child, Princess Mary. Her once fair hair was liberally streaked with grey, drawn back under a peaked pearl cap and gauze veil. She wore a fine gown of red-and-black figured brocade, flashing ruby jewels and a pearl-encrusted cross, yet all the finery did not conceal the deep lines of worry and care on her round face.

She took them all in with a sweeping glance of her dark eyes. “How very kind you are, Bishop Grammont, to relieve our winter doldrums with your presence!” she said, holding out a be-ringed hand for Grammont’s salute. “We have a great deal of merriment planned for your stay.”

“We thank your Majesty for such a gracious welcome,” the bishop answered. “Our two nations are united, as ever, in the warmest bonds of friendship.”

After a few more pleasantries, Grammont offered Katherine his arm, and they led the whole party along a gallery hung with tapestries of the story of David, lit on their way by green-and-white clad pages bearing torches.

“May I escort you, Mademoiselle Dumas?” a quiet voice asked, as Marguerite moved to take her place behind Claudine.

She turned sharply to find Father Pierre LeBeque standing close, his arm in its black woollen sleeve politely extended. His eyes glowed in the dim light, and he watched her with a tense expectation.

Marguerite glanced hastily around, but there was no one to come to her rescue. At any second it would be their turn to move forward, and she could not fall behind.

She nodded, and placed her hand lightly on his arm. It was coiled beneath her touch, stiff and bony. Was he frightened of something, then, to be so tense?

She had little time to ponder the oddities of Father Pierre. The long gallery opened to a vast banquet hall, where it seemed all the world waited in glittering array.

For a moment, her eyes were dazzled. This must be an enchanted kingdom, like in tales her father told her when she was a child! A land of gods and goddesses, powerful witches and princesses, not the stolid red-brick English world she saw outside. Roger Tilney had told her this space was newly built for this meeting, at vast dimensions of one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, and she well believed it. The walls and floor were painted to look like marble, with gilded mouldings, the low, timbered ceiling covered with red buckram and embroidered with roses and pomegranates. Tiered buffets lined the walls, displaying a vast amount of gold plate. Bright banners hung from the ceiling.

And the people were clad in such sparkling raiment they added to the golden dazzlement. Many of the Spanish were in black, or wine red or burnt amber, but they served as an outline, a counterpoint to the English in their violet purple, silver tissue, sky blue, vivid rose, tawny and turquoise and sunny yellow.

And, at the end of the room, rose a triumphal arch painted with a large scene of—non! It could not be.

But it was. A painting of Henry’s long-ago victory over the French armies at the Battle of The-rouanne.

Alors! That was not so very diplomatic of the English king. Marguerite’s dazzlement faded into cold clarity. That audacious scene was just the reminder she needed of why she was really here. Why they were all here. To protect France from just such another defeat.

“Welcome, welcome!” a stentorious voice boomed, soaring above the hum of laughter and conversation. All other voices echoed away, and the crowd parted. “Bishop Grammont, for the great love we bear our brother King François, welcome to our Court.”

And the king himself appeared, for it could be none but the legendary Henry. He leaped down from a dais set up beneath the arch, a tall, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested figure swathed in cloth of gold trimmed with ermine and diamonds. He, unlike the queen, was just what Marguerite imagined. His redgold hair cut short in the French style, covered by a crimson velvet cap, his square face framed by a short beard.

He was all bluff heartiness, tremendous good cheer as he greeted the French. All lighthearted welcome. Yet Marguerite saw that his small, shining eyes missed nothing at all. They moved over her—and widened.

She gave him a deep curtsy, and he grinned at her. So, his rumoured regard for the ladies was true! But was it also true he now had attention only for Mistress Boleyn?

Which one was she? Marguerite wondered, studying the array of ladies behind the queen. She saw none there whose beauty could rival her own, but there would be time to look for Anne Boleyn later. They were shown to their seats, at a long table to the right of the hall. The Spanish were to the left, and Henry escorted Katherine back to the dais where they were seated with Grammont and Ambassador Mendoza.

The tables were spread with white damask cloths, embroidered with roses, crowns, and fleurs-de-lis; the benches where they sat were lined with soft gold velvet cushions. In the centre of the table was a golden salt cellar engraved with the initials H and K, and each place boasted a small loaf of manchet bread wrapped in a cover of embroidered linen and a tall silver goblet filled with fine Osney wine from Alsace. Servants soon appeared with great golden platters of venison, capons, partridge, lark and eels, game pie with oranges and King Henry’s favourite baked lampreys. A peacock, redressed in its own feathers, was ceremoniously presented to the king amid copious applause.

A lively song of recorders, lutes and pipes struck up from a gallery hidden behind one of the tapestries, and the conversation grew in vast waves around Marguerite. She nibbled at a piece of gingerbread painted with gold leaf, listening with half an ear as Father Pierre talked to her. All around her were the people she would have to get to know, would have to guard against and fend off, and perhaps even destroy in the end. Her first glimpse of the opposing army.

She knew she was not likely to learn much of use tonight. Everyone was on their best, most guarded behaviour, despite the flowing wine. They, too, were unsure of their surroundings. Unsure of the enemies’ real strength. In a few days, when everyone had settled into long days of delicate negotiations and longer evenings of revelry, when enmities and flirtations had both sprung to full flower, she would be better able to gauge the atmosphere. Better able to take full advantage of rivalries and passions.

Tonight she could only observe, perhaps begin to collect precious droplets of gossip.

An acrobat in motley livery and bright bells performed a series of backward flips along the aisle between the tables, followed by a gambolling troupe of dwarves and trained dogs. Pages poured more wine, carried in yet more platters of fine delicacies. Marguerite laughed at the antics, nibbled at what was put before her, yet always she watched. Watched and listened, as the voices grew louder and the laughter heartier as the night went on.

King Henry, she saw, betrayed no hint of ill will toward the queen. Indeed, he was all solicitude, making sure her goblet was full, that she had the choicest morsels of venison and capon. He laughed heartily at his fools’ jests, and listened intently when Wolsey murmured in his ear.

Princess Mary, the proposed bride of the Duc d’Orléans, sat by her mother, pale-faced and bright-haired, small for her age in her fine white brocade gown. She seemed shy and serene, speaking only to her mother, or to the Spanish ambassador in perfect Castilian Spanish.

The Spanish party across the aisle were not as raucous as the English, but neither were they so dour. They talked and jested just as everyone else did, led in conversation by a pretty woman of near Queen Katherine’s age, a lady with a ready smile and soft brown eyes. As Marguerite watched, the lady laughed gently, holding out her goblet for a man seated next to her to refill.

He leaned forward, illuminated by the rich amber glow of the candelabra. His loose, long hair, golden as the summer sun, fell forward like a curtain, and he swept it back over his shoulder in one smooth movement. His profile, sharply etched as an ancient cameo, was limned in the light.

Marguerite gasped, and shook her head hard, certain she was dreaming! That she had imbibed too much of the fine Alsatian wine and was imagining things. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Yet when she opened them, he was still there. The Russian. Laughing boldly, and just as beautiful as that night in Venice. The fallen angel she had vowed to kill if ever their paths crossed again. There he was, mere steps away, in the last place she ever expected.

She banged her goblet down on the table so violently that vivid red wine splashed over its etched lip, spilling on to her fingers. Bright spots, like blood, bloomed on the white damask cloth.

“The bold cochon,” she muttered roughly.

“Are you ill, Mademoiselle Dumas?” Father Pierre asked solicitously.

Marguerite shook her head. “I am quite well, thank you. Merely tired from the journey, I think.”

“Perhaps a bit more wine will help,” he said, gesturing to one of the pages.

As the boy refilled her goblet, Marguerite surreptitiously studied Nicolai Ostrovsky. He did not appear to have noticed her yet. He sat there laughing and jesting with his companions, making sure the lady had the finest sweetmeats on her plate.

He was certainly far better dressed than in Venice! Or at least more elaborately so. Nor was the motley he wore to walk the tightrope in the Piazza San Marco in evidence. He was clad in a fine silk doublet of dark red trimmed with dull gold braid, his only jewel a single pearl in one ear, half-hidden by that shining golden hair.

What game did he play now?

She would just have to find out. Very soon, before he found her out first.

Chapter Five

The palace was quiet as Marguerite slipped out of her chamber, muffled in a hooded cloak. It was surely somewhere near morning, for the banquet and recital had gone on for long hours. And it was no easy thing to persuade hundreds of courtiers to retire! But all was silent now, almost eerily so in the purple-blackness of deepest night. The only sounds, so soft they were almost imperceptible, were the shuffles of the pages who slept on pallets outside doors, the whispers of Claudine’s maids in their truckle beds.

Marguerite crept down the narrow back stairs, lit on her way by the smoking torches set high in their sconces. She had changed her heeled brocade shoes for soft-soled leather boots and left off her cumbersome petticoats, tucking her skirts into a kirtle to keep them out of her way. Her progress was swift as she dashed down the stairs and out into the gardens.

She had bribed one of the pages into telling her where the Russian was lodged, but it was in a section of the palace off one of the other courtyards, behind the Spanish apartments. She hurried along the twisting pathways, so crowded only that afternoon but now completely deserted. Only the stars and the moon, like tiny crystals in the violet velvet of the sky, watched her progress. The darkened windows of the buildings were blank, turning away from her actions as they had so many others in the past. The doings of humans were swiftly gone, those windows seemed to say, and of no interest at all. Only bricks and mortar, and the river beyond, were eternal.

Or perhaps it was all her own fancy, Marguerite thought, her own imagination taking strange flight. Well, she had no time for fancy now. This was the moment for action.

She had not expected to see Nicolai Ostrovsky again so soon in her life, to have him dropped before her like a ripe prize plum. She had watched him throughout the banquet and during the recital in Henry’s fine new theatre, observing him closely while staying out of his sight.

How very careless he seemed, how caught up in laughter and jokes, the doings of his own companions! How had he ever survived his life of travel and intrigue? She had heard tell of how deftly he moved through the treacherous Courts of Venice, Mantua, Naples, Madrid. Yet he seemed to take no notice of the danger swirling around him.

He could not be so careless and still live, Marguerite knew that well. He and she were two of a kind in many ways, making their way in a cold world with only their wits, their blades, their good looks—their ability to pretend, to be all things to all people. But in his eyes she saw no flicker of awareness, no tense watchfulness like she always felt in herself. And she had watched him very closely all evening.

She finally had to conclude he had indeed taken no notice of her, and that was all to her advantage. Seldom had she found a task so easy. And now it was near to completion. She saw the wing housing the Spanish party just ahead, its silent brick hulk slumbering peacefully.

She slowed her steps, automatically rising on to the balls of her feet as she rounded a marble fountain. The faun poised at its summit stared down at her knowingly, her only witness as she slid the dagger from its sheath beneath her skirt. The hilt was cold and solid in her grasp, a stray beam of moonlight dancing down the polished blade. She was so close now…

Suddenly, a hand shot from behind the fountain, closing like a steel vise on her arm. Startled, Marguerite opened her mouth instinctively to scream, but another hand clamped tight over her lips. She was jerked off her feet in one quick movement, dragged back against a hard chest covered in a soft silk doublet.

Marguerite twisted in that steel trap of an embrace, kicking back with her heels. She managed to work her hand free, and stabbed out with her blade. The sound of tearing fabric echoed loudly in the cold, silent night, but she felt no solid thud of dagger meeting flesh.

“Chert poberi!” her captor cursed roughly. His grasp slid down to her wrist, squeezing until her fingers opened and the knife fell to the pathway.

Of course. She should have known. The Russian. Had she not been sure no one could be as careless as he appeared? Now it seemed she was the careless one.

Her anger at herself, at him, flared up like a white-hot shooting star, and she lashed out madly, kicking and squirming like a wild animal caught in a steel trap.

“Couilles!” she cried out behind his hand.

“Parisian hellcat,” Nicolai growled, his arms tightening around her in a vise. She remembered, in a great fireworks flash, that night in Venice. The coiled, lean strength of his chest and abdomen, the way his long, lazy body, so lithe from years of backflips and somersaults, concealed a core of steel. Her only weapon against such hidden strength was speed and surprise, and she had squandered those with her own carelessness.

She had underestimated him twice now. She could not do so again.

If, that is, she ever had another chance. He could very well slit her throat now, and leave her for the English crows.

The thought was like a cold, nauseating blow to her stomach, and she bent forward in one last struggle to break free. He was too lithe to let her go, though, his body moving with hers.

“We meet again, Emerald Lily,” he said in her ear, his voice full of infuriating amusement. “Or should I say Mademoiselle Dumas?”

“Call me whatever you like,” she said, as his fingers at last loosened over her mouth. “I shall always think of you as cochon. A filthy, barbaric Russian!”

He clicked his tongue chidingly. “How you wound me, mademoiselle. And one always hears of the great charm of the French ladies. How sad to be so disillusioned.”

“I would not waste my charm on you. Muscovite pigs have no appreciation of such delicacies.”

“How you wound me, petite.” He spun her around, backing her up until she felt the solid brick wall at her back, chilly through her velvet. He was outlined by the moonlight, his hair a shimmering curtain, falling in a golden tumble over one shoulder. His face was in shadow so she could not read his expression, but his breath was cool on her cheek, his clean, summery scent surrounding all her senses. He wore no wrap against the cold, and his body in the thin silk was hot where it pressed against her.

She shivered, suddenly frightened beneath her anger.

“I should be the one hurling angry names about,” he said chattily, as if engaged in light conversation in the banquet hall. “After all, mademoiselle, you are the one who tried to kill me. Twice now, if I am not mistaken.”

“You have something that belongs to me.”

“Your pretty dagger, you mean? Ah, but I believe it belongs to me now. I claimed it as a forfeit that memorable night in Venice.”

Marguerite twisted again, overcome by the nearness of him, his heat and strength. She hated this sensation of losing herself, of falling into him, of drowning! “You should have died then.”

“Perhaps I should have, but it seems I have one or two lives yet to go. Fate, mademoiselle, has other plans for me. For us both, it would seem, for here we meet again. What are the odds of that?”

“Fate? Do you believe in it?”

“Of course. Do you not?”

“I believe in skill. In hard work. We all make our own fate, monsieur.”

“Ah, ‘monsieur’ rather than cochon! I must advance in your estimation.”

Marguerite tilted her head back against the hard wall, staring at him in the moonlight. He was certainly still handsome, the sharp, symmetrical angles of his face softened by that mocking half-smile, his pale blue eyes glowing. His hair, his lean acrobat’s body—all perfection. But beauty, as Marguerite well knew, was only a tool, a weapon like any other that a person could learn to wield with skill. She was usually unmoved by that weapon, both in herself and in others. Unmoved by a handsome man’s touch.

Why, then, did his clasp make her tremble so? Make her thoughts tilt drunkenly in her mind? She had to get away from him, to regroup.

She pressed back tight against the wall, but he followed, his hair trailing like silk over her throat, her bare décolletage above the velvet bodice. “I have esteem for any worthy enemy.”

“Am I a worthy enemy?”

“You have defeated me twice now, which no one else has ever done. You are obviously strong and clever, monsieur. Yet you will not defeat me three times.”

His smile widened. “I see I shall have to watch my back while I am in England.” “At every moment.”

“I shall consider myself fairly warned, mademoiselle.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, studying each other warily. Marguerite glanced away first, her gaze shifting over his shoulder to the stone faun, who seemed to laugh at her predicament.

“What are you doing here?” she asked tightly. “Do you work for the Spanish now? Was your task in Venice complete?”

He laughed, a low, rough sound that seemed to echo through her very core. “Mademoiselle, you must know I work for no one but myself. As do you. And as for what I am doing here at Greenwich—well, I must keep some secrets, yes?”

Secrets. That was all life was. Yet Marguerite had spent her own life keeping her own secrets, and discovering those of other people. Even ones they thought so well hidden. She would find his, too.

He seemed to have read her very thoughts, for he leaned closer, so close his breath stirred the fine, loose curls at her temple, and his lips softly brushed her cheek. “Some things, petite, are buried so deeply even you cannot dig them out again.”

“Secrets are my speciality,” she whispered back. “I have not met a man yet who could withhold them from me. One way or another, I always fulfil my task.”

“Ah, but I am not as other men, Mademoiselle Dumas.” He pressed one light, fleeting kiss to her jaw, so swift she was not even sure it happened. “I shall look forward with great anticipation to our next battle. Do svidaniya.”

Then he let her go, his hands and body sliding away from her as one long caress. He melted away, vanishing into the night as if he had never been there at all. Except for the spot of fire that marked his kiss.

Marguerite spun around, but she could find no glimpse of him, no trace of his bright hair or red silk doublet. She was completely alone in the cold garden.

“Abruti,” she muttered. Her whole body felt boneless, exhausted. She longed to fall to the walkway in a heap, to sob out her frustration, to beat her fists against the jagged gravel until they bled!

But there was no time to give into such childish, useless tantrums. Womanish tears would never gain her the revenge she sought, would never achieve her goals for her. So, she scooped up her dagger where it had fallen and hurried back toward the palace, running up the stairs to her quiet little room.

Soon, very soon, a new day would dawn. A new chance to at last best the Russian and get back her emerald dagger.

This time, she would not fail.

Nicolai closed the door to his small chamber, sliding a heavy clothes chest in front of it. He was wary enough to take the Emerald Lily at her word. She would be coming sooner or later for her dagger. At least this way she would have to make a great deal of noise forcing the door open. Unless she could somehow transform herself into a column of mist and come down the chimney, which would not surprise him in the least.

She was not like any woman he had ever met, this French fairy-sprite. She looked so very delicate, so angelic, and yet she was a veritable hellcat. A powerful, shrieking vodyanoi, a sea witch, just like the terrifying tales his nurse told him when he was child.

Perhaps her claws only came out in the moonlight, though, for at the banquet she was all smiles and light charm, even with the dour young priest who sat beside her. None of the men in the vast hall could turn his eyes from her, and that included him, though he carefully did not let her see that. He pretended not to notice her at all, to let her think herself safe, yet in truth he had seen her as soon as she walked in at the end of the French procession.

How could he help it? It was as if she was surrounded by a silvery pool of light. His Emerald Lily. The woman who incited his lusts and then tried to murder him.

He knew she would come for him. She was rumoured to be ruthless to the enemies of France. Such as what had happened to a certain Monsieur Etampes, who dared attempt to be a double agent for Spain! A grotesque end indeed. And Nicolai had slighted her by daring to live.

But over the long months since Venice, he had forgotten how very potent her presence was. Her exotic perfume, the cold light in her eyes—they were like a strong wine, lulling and lovely. He would have to be more cautious in the future, and find a way to fight her from a safe distance. Or he would end up like poor Etampes, or Signor Farcinelli in Milan. Another bad end.

Nicolai laughed, suddenly exhilarated. He was always buoyed by a good fight, and the Emerald Lily—or Marguerite Dumas, as he had learned she was called—certainly gave as good as she got. Despite her small size, it took a great deal of strength for him to hold her still, to keep her from kicking and clawing. It also took all his strength to ignore the feel of her in his arms, the press of her soft body against his.

He unfastened his doublet, and tossed it along with his shirt over the narrow bed, letting the cold breeze from the open window wash over his face, his naked chest. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, a thin line of pinkish-gold light that promised bright hours ahead.

He would have to write Marc and thank him for sending him on this fool’s errand. This English meeting seemed suddenly full of colour and interest. Surely anything at all could happen in the days ahead.

Chapter Six

Marguerite bent her head over her embroidery, pretending to be absorbed by the tiny flowers in blue-and-yellow silk as she listened to the soft murmur of voices around her. Queen Katherine had invited Claudine and her ladies to sit with her in her privy chamber for the afternoon, while her husband and the other men were occupied with their “dull” business in the council chamber.

In truth, Marguerite was sure that far more of interest was happening here than in the king’s group. The men, with their bluff deceptions, their great egos that convinced them of their imminent victory, could learn a great deal about prevarication from their ladies, whose gentle smiles and soft, flattering words were veritable poniards.

Queen Katherine sat by the fire in her carved, cushioned chair, stitching on one of 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 own acting troupe.

Only these bonds, so precious and fragile, could have brought him to this nest of French, Spanish and English vipers, all spitting and hissing. Yet, now that he was here, he felt some of the old excitement coming back to him. The soaring exhilaration only danger could create.

He felt restless today, filled with a crackling energy. A good fight would take that edge off, yet thus far at Greenwich everyone was behaving with disappointing civility. Except for Marguerite Dumas, of course, but she was nowhere to be seen. Probably she was safely ensconced with the other French ladies in Queen Katherine’s chamber, where she could hopefully cause very little trouble.

And she was part of this restlessness, if not its entire cause.

So, that left acrobatic tricks. Nicolai shed his fine velvet doublet, his Spanish leather boots, and, clad only in shirt and hose, swung himself up on to the rope. He balanced there on his bare feet, tall and straight, carefully centred, and took a few steps.

He was stiff from the long, idle days aboard ship and on horseback, out of shape after too much rich food and fine wine. It was fortunate the Emerald Lily was not able to overpower him last night, when he was foolish enough to ambush her in his poor condition!

But as he traversed the length of the rope, balancing on one foot and then the other, he felt his muscles warm, felt them grow pliant and supple again. His mind, too, was centred, leaving England and Marguerite Dumas and Marc’s mother behind, until there was only his body and the thin rope.

Nicolai tucked and rolled into a forward somersault, springing up to do a backflip. One, two, then he was still again, his arms outstretched.

A flurry of applause burst the shimmering, delicate bubble of his concentration. He glanced up to find Marguerite standing in the curtained doorway, clapping her jewelled hands.

He would have expected to see sarcasm written on her face as she watched him, cold calculation. Yet there was none of that. Her cheeks glowed pink, and her eyes were bright, clear of their usual opaque green ice. Her lips parted in a delighted smile.

How very young she looked in that moment, young and free and alive. If he had thought her beautiful before, he saw now he never knew what real beauty was.

“Oh, Monsieur Ostrovsky, how very extraordinary that was,” she exclaimed. “How can a human being perform such feats?”

Nicolai swung down from the rope, landing lightly on his feet. He stayed a wary distance from her, not trusting that she did not conceal a blade up her fine brown velvet sleeve. Not trusting himself to be near her, to step into the circle of that silvery glow she seemed to carry everywhere.

“‘Tis merely practice, mademoiselle,” he answered. “Many years of it.”

“You must have a great gift,” she said. “Anyone else would have cracked their skulls open!”

“And so I did, a dozen times.”

“Yet you lived to tell about it.”

“I have a very hard skull.”

“And so you do. Thick-headed, indeed.” She stepped closer to the rope, reaching up tentatively to test its strength. “Why, it’s as thin as my embroidery silks.”

“It’s harder to find your balance if the rope is too wide.”

“Truly?”

“Would you like to try it? It would not be easy in those heavy skirts, but you could surely stand.”

She looked toward him, her eyes wide. That impression of youth, of wonderment, still clung about her, and Nicolai was surprised to notice she could not be more than two and twenty. What could have happened to such a girl, so lovely and graceful, so full of a wonder she hid even from herself, to run her to such a hard life, to the shadowy, sinful existence of a spy and assassin?

He suddenly had the overpowering desire to take her in his arms, to hold her close until whatever those hardships were faded away and she was only that young girl again. His cursed protectiveness. It always got him into trouble.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “I can help you.”

But she stepped back from the rope, tucking her hands into her wide sleeves. She laughed cynically, and he could see the veil fall again over her eyes. “Nay, Monsieur Ostrovsky! I am sure you would let me drop at the first opportunity. I am too fond of my neck to see it broken on these paving stones.”

He let his own hand drop, and turned away to fetch his doublet and boots. “How very suspicious you are, mademoiselle.”

“One has to be, to survive.”

Nicolai shrugged into his doublet, fastening the tiny pearl closures. The room had suddenly grown very cold. “What do you do here, Mademoiselle Dumas? Are not all the ladies attending on the queen today?”

“I was, but they have joined the Spanish ladies for a stroll in the garden. And I received a note from the Master of the Revels summoning me here. Lady Penelope Percy says he wants to cast me in one of the pageants.”

Ah, yes, the pageant. Nicolai had forgotten about it for a blessed five minutes. “I should have known you were the French angel.”

“The French angel?”

“It seems one of Henry’s attendants suggested that a lady of the French party, one who was ‘beautiful as an angel,’ should be given a role as a diplomatic gesture.”

Marguerite laughed. “I know little of acting.”

“Oh, mademoiselle, I beg to differ. You played the Venetian whore to perfection.”

Her lips tightened, but other than that she betrayed no emotion. “I suppose I could always come to you for advice, Monsieur Ostrovsky. I’ve seldom met such a consummate player as you.”

“I am at mademoiselle’s disposal if you ever need advice, as always.” Nicolai reached back for his hair, tied with a narrow black ribbon to keep it out of his face while he worked, and started to plait it. It was such a bother, the thick fall of it halfway down his back.

Marguerite’s eyes widened and she took a step closer to him. “It does seem such a shame to confine it,” she murmured.

“It is tangled, and I haven’t the time now to see to it properly.”

“Here, I will help you. If there is one thing I am good at, it’s a proper toilette.”

“I would wager you are good at many things, the least of which is wielding a comb.”

A smile twitched at her lips. “I was told only this morning that my embroidery is rather fine. Now, sit here, and I will see to your hair before you hurry on your way.”

She gestured toward a stool, which Nicolai eyed warily. “You will just take the chance to slit my throat, I fear.”

Marguerite laughed, a clear, sweet sound. “Indeed I will not! I will appear as avenging angel when you least expect it, Monsieur Ostrovsky. At this moment I am only a woman who appreciates masculine beauty.” She turned back the edges of her fur-trimmed brown velvet sleeves. “See, I have no daggers today.”

“Except for what might be hidden in your garters,” Nicolai said, quite beguiled against his will. Beguiled by her smile, the glow in her eyes.

“You shall not be allowed to search there, sirrah! Come, I give you my word, no sneak attacks today.”

Nicolai slowly sat down, holding himself tense, ready to spring up if she made any lethal movements. She merely stepped behind him, her hands gentle as she untied the ribbon and spread his hair over his shoulders.

“Any lady would envy such hair,” she murmured, running her fingers through the strands, untangling them slowly, massaging his scalp as she went. “You do not use a lemon juice solution on it? Or saffron?”

Nicolai laughed. “Why would I squeeze lemons on my hair? I am not a baked salmon.”

“To brighten it, of course. Many ladies do, you know.”

“Do you use such things?”

“Not usually.”

“Nay. You would use your dark arts to capture moonbeams to colour your hair, and sunsets for your cheeks.”

“Shh, Monsieur Ostrovsky! You give away my secrets.” She hummed softly as she worked, a low, gentle lullaby that emphasised the quick, light movements of her fingers.

Nicolai slowly relaxed, lulled by her voice, her touch, the scent of her exotic lily perfume that seemed to curl around him in a silken net. He would hardly have guessed, after Venice, after their encounter in the garden last night, that she possessed such softness. What endless facets she had, like the fine emerald set in her dagger.

How very easy she must find it to winnow secrets out of men, who were so vulnerable to gentleness and sweetness. And he was a man like any other. His body stirred at her touch, becoming hard and hot, and he longed to fall into her arms, bury himself in her complex beauty and never emerge again.

Was this truly what she wanted, then, what she worked for? His complete eradication? If so, in that moment he would have happily given it to her.

Her fingertips lightly skimmed over his temples, his cheekbones, down his throat to rest on his shoulders. “There, Monsieur Ostrovsky, you are quite tidy now.”

“You are indeed most gifted at the toilette, mademoiselle,” Nicolai muttered, slowly coming back to the hard ground, to himself. It was a bit like emerging from the spell that overtook him on the tightrope.

“And a woman of my word, too, yes?”

“My throat does seem to be intact.”

Marguerite laughed. “For now, monsieur.”

Nicolai stood and gave her a bow, his hair falling forward like a shining length of silk, all knots removed. “I am most obliged to you, mademoiselle, for sparing my poor life one more day.”

“I do not have time to deal with you properly,” she said, sounding quite surprised as she seemed to recall her original errand. “I must find Sir Henry…”

“No need, Mademoiselle Dumas, for he is here,” Sir Henry’s voice called from the doorway, where he had thrown back the curtain. Nicolai turned to find the Master of the Revels standing there, the crook of his arm filled with scrolls, a page behind him laden with russet satin costumes. “I am very glad to see that the two of you have already met.”

“Already met?” Marguerite said.

“Ah, yes, for Master Ostrovsky has generously offered to supervise the great pageant of The Castle Vert,” Sir Henry said, obviously eager to be on his way. “And you, Mistress Dumas, must take the most important role, that of Beauty, for I see now that you are perfect for it. I am sure the two of you will work together marvellously well! Master Ostrovsky will tell you all about it, as I fear I must now take my leave. The play for tonight, you know.”

As Sir Henry hurried away, Nicolai smiled at Marguerite, who watched him with narrowed eyes. “Well, mademoiselle,” he said. “It seems we are to be colleagues…”

Chapter Seven

That did not go at all as she planned.

Marguerite stalked along the garden pathway, her hands balled into tight fists against her skirts. She didn’t even feel the chilly breeze, for her cheeks burned hot! She hurried around the corner of one of the buildings, away from the better-travelled thoroughfares. No doubt her face was as red as it felt, and she did not want anyone commenting on her agitation.

Here, close to the kitchen herb gardens, there were only a few servants, maids and pages too intent on their own errands to question hers.

She sat down on a stone bench, drawing out a book and pretending to read as she drew in deep, steadying breaths. What a fool she was! She had sought Nicolai out to use her “charm,” her femininity, to beguile him, lull him into trusting her. Into telling her what his true errand was in England.

Instead, she came away far more beguiled than he could ever be.

When she went to that doorway in the theatre, she was determined to coldly draw him in. But she was brought up short by the vision of him balanced on that rope, so graceful and strong. He took feats that should have been impossible for any human body and made them appear effortless. He seemed to fly lightly through the air, as naturally as any bird.

Any bird of prey.

She stared, hardly daring even to breathe, as he leaped backwards, landing perfectly straight and unwavering on that flimsy rope every time. It was surely magic!

And she was swept away, her errand completely forgotten in the flurry of his movements, the musical flexibility of his body. She watched, completely mesmerised, out of all time, until he landed on the ground. He scarcely seemed even out of breath, and only when she drew near did she see the faint, glistening sheen of sweat on his bronzed skin, the tangle of his tumbled hair. He appeared golden all over, an ancient god flown down to earth.

Marguerite had met many men in her life, men with high opinions of themselves—some even deserved, by force of their great intellect, their fine looks or their artistry. Many who were fools, but never knew it. But never had she met a man who had her so entranced as Nicolai Ostrovsky. What was behind his lightness and ease, his lazy, graceful sensuality? What did he hide in those pale blue eyes?

She found she wanted his secrets, not to use as weapons, not to gain the power that secrets always bestowed, but just to know.

She lost her careful concealment in that little room, giving in to the force of her wonder and awe, her attraction for his glittering goldeness. Only for a moment, yet long enough to show her the graceful danger he posed.

When he offered to help her walk the tightrope herself, when he held his hand out to her, she was seized by such longing. Longing to feel the freedom he must know when he flew high above the sordid world. Longing for things she knew could never be hers.

She did avoid that temptation, the desire to feel the rope under her feet, his hand in hers. But she gave in to a darker desire—she actually touched his hair.

Marguerite groaned, burying her face in her book as she remembered that compulsion which would not be denied. That rush of need to feel the cool silk of his hair against her skin. Pressed close to him in that dim, dusty space, inhaling the scent of him, the green, herbal freshness of his soap overlaid by the salty tang of honest sweat, she had wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him, throw herself into his lap and kiss him, until they drowned in the hot tide of passion.

She remembered too well the taste of his mouth in Venice, the feeling of his lips on her body, those graceful fingers on her stomach, her breasts. He was surely as skillful in the arts of lovemaking as he was on that rope.

Yes, she lost herself for a moment, drowned in the force of that cursed Russian’s allure and charisma. Only Sir Henry’s arrival saved her, and she had to flee when she heard she was actually to be working with Nicolai!

“Idiot,” she muttered. She could not succumb to weakness now. There were yet long days ahead here in England, and she needed her wits and skills to see her through. She would not give in to the allure of a lithe body and golden hair.

Remember, he stole your dagger, she told herself sternly. She had to get it back, and find out what his business was among the Spanish.

She closed her eyes, envisioning a sheet of pure, white ice encasing her whole body, her mind and heart, erasing the heat and light of Nicolai Ostrovsky. When she opened them again, she felt calmer, more rational.

She lowered her book to her lap, hands steady. Passion, agitation, achieved nothing. Her feelings for Nicolai were a mere physical manifestation, her weak, womanly body clamouring for pleasure. Focusing on her work would soon overcome such foolishness.

Marguerite heard a burst of laughter, a flurry of chatter in Spanish, and she turned to see a group of ladies strolling toward her. At their head was the woman Nicolai sat next to at the banquet, the one with the sweet smile. That smile was in evidence now as she drew near Marguerite’s bench.

“Ah, señorita, are you alone this afternoon?” she asked. As she stopped before Marguerite, her dark red velvet skirts swaying in a cloud of violet scent, Marguerite saw she was older than she first appeared. Tiny lines fanned out from her brown eyes and her lips, and grey threaded her brown hair at the temples. She was obviously quite wealthy, too, with a heavy garnet-and-pearl cross around her neck, hanging low over her fur-trimmed surcoat, and pearl drops in her ears. An important member of the Spanish party, then, Marguerite decided. But her eyes were kind.

Marguerite stood up to make a curtsy. “I am reading, señora…”

“This is the Duchess of Bernaldez,” one of her attendants said sternly.

The lady waved these words away. “Dona Elena when we are outdoors, if you please, Esperanza.” She whispered to Marguerite, “I have spent many years at a quiet convent, you see, and have yet to become accustomed to the strict etiquette my husband seems sadly to enjoy so much.”

Marguerite laughed in surprise. “I, too, prefer informality. I am Marguerite Dumas, Dona Elena.”

“I know. You are quite famous, Señorita Dumas.”

“Famous?” Oh, no. That would surely make things so much more difficult! It was hard enough to engage in subterfuge in a crowded Court without being well known.

“Of course. The men can talk of nothing but your rare beauty. I see now why that is so.”

“You are very kind.”

“I just speak as I find, and I must say I enjoy having beauty around me as much as anyone. It brightens these grey English days. Would you care to walk with us? We were going to take a turn by the river.”

Ah, an opportunity! They so rarely just fell into her lap like that. Hoping to compensate for her silly behaviour with Nicolai, Marguerite nodded and said, “I would be honoured, Dona Elena.”

She fell into step next to the duchess as they strolled around the palace to the long walkway that ran beside the Thames. The river was placid today, grey and flat as a length of sombre silk, broken only by a few boats and barges floating past on their way to London and the sea. Dona Elena’s attendants gradually went back to their conversations, their whispers like those waves that broke and ebbed along the banks.

“You have not long been married, then, Dona Elena?” Marguerite asked.

“A few months only. My first husband, a sea captain, died many years ago, señorita. I loved him a great deal, and when he was gone I sought the refuge of a convent. I thought to stay there for the rest of my life.”

“Until the duke swept you off your feet?” Marguerite teased.

Dona Elena laughed. “You certainly have it aright! His sister, you see, is abbess of the convent, and we met when he came to visit her. We spent a great many hours walking in the garden together, and before he left he asked me to marry him.”

“Such a romantic story!”

Dona Elena gave her a wink. “And an unlikely one, you are thinking. An old lady like myself—why would an exalted duke choose such a wife?”

“Not at all, Dona Elena. You can hardly be so ‘old’ and still be so beautiful.”

“You do possess the art of flattery, Señorita Dumas. I had heard that of the French.”

“Like you, I must speak as I find.”

“Are you married yourself?”

Marguerite shook her head. “I fear not.”

“I was first married when I was fifteen. My new husband was also wed when he was quite young, and his wife gave him many children before she died. We did our duty in our youth, you see; we have our families. Now we are blessed to find companionship and affection in our old age.”

“It sounds a marvellous thing indeed, Dona Elena. I can only pray to find such contentment myself one day.”

“You must surely have received many offers!” Dona Elena examined her closely, until Marguerite felt her blush returning. “I wonder you are yet unwed.”

“My duties at Court keep me very busy. And, too, I am an orphan, with no one to see to such matters.”

“Oh, pobrecito! How very, very sad.” Dona Elena took Marguerite’s hand in her plump, be-ringed fingers, patting it consolingly. “Have you been alone in the world very long?”

“My mother died when I was born, and my father died above seven years ago.”

“And you were their only child?”

“I fear so.”

Dona Elena sighed. “I have but one child myself, my son Marc. He has been the greatest blessing of my life, but I would have wished to give him brothers and sisters.” She drew a gold locket on a chain from inside her surcoat, opening the engraved oval to show Marguerite the miniature portrait inside.

Marguerite peered down at the painted image of a dark-haired young man. “He is certainly very handsome.”

“That he is. And he is soon to make me a grandmother!”

“How very gratifying. You must wish to hurry back to Spain to see the new baby.”

Dona Elena pursed her lips as she snapped the locket shut. “Alas, he makes his home near Venice now. But I hope to see him again soon after we leave England.”

Whenever that would be. Marguerite feared they would all be at Greenwich, strolling round and round the gardens for weeks to come, with nothing at all resolved. And she could not even devise how to discover what this lady knew of Nicolai.

“You must wish for children of your own one day, Señorita Dumas,” Dona Elena said.

For one flashing instant, Marguerite remembered the kicks of the horse’s hooves, the burning, searing pain in her belly. Her twelve-year-old body, barely budding into womanhood, bleeding on to the ground. “If God wills, Dona Elena,” she said, knowing full well His will for her had already been revealed. He turned from her long ago.

“If you were one of my ladies, I would have you settled with a fine husband in a trice,” Dona Elena said confidently. “Even from the convent, I arranged seven happy marriages among the children of my friends! I am known for my eye for a good match.”

Marguerite laughed. “That must be a useful gift indeed, Dona Elena.”

“It gives me great satisfaction. Some people, though, do not trust my skills. They resist what is best for them.”

“Do they? I vow I am convinced, Dona Elena! I would be happy to put my fate in your hands, if I was fortunate enough to be one of your ladies.”

Dona Elena shook her head ruefully. “If only you could help me convince poor Nicolai.”

“Nicolai?” Marguerite asked innocently, a bubble of excitement rising up in her at the mere mention of his name. She was a fool in truth.

“Nicolai Ostrovsky, who is a friend of my son. He leads such a disorganised life, señorita! Travelling up and down, no home of his own, though his fortune could surely afford one. Such a lovely gentleman.”

“Is he the handsome one, with the golden hair?” Marguerite whispered.

“Ah, you see, Señorita Dumas, even you have taken notice of him! All the ladies do. I have told him many times that any of my young attendants would be most happy to marry him, but he refuses.”

Marguerite glanced back over her shoulder at Dona Elena’s chattering ladies. They were pretty enough, she supposed, with their smooth, youthful complexions and shining dark hair. Surely too young and pious and—and Spanish for Nicolai! How could any of them possibly understand a man like him, when not even Marguerite herself could?

“Does he give a reason for his refusal?” she asked casually.

“Only that his life has no room for a wife. But I say he grows no younger! If his life has no room for a family, he must change his life. Make a home before it is too late.”

A home. Marguerite feared she did not even know what the word meant, as wondrous as it sounded. “He must be a great friend to your son, Dona Elena, for you to take such concern.”

“He is indeed! He saved Marc’s life.”

Very interesting. “How so?”

“I do not know the particulars. It happened in Venice. Or was it Vienna? No matter. He saved my son, and I shall always be grateful to him. And now he comes all this way to watch over me! Such a good man, señorita. If only he would let me repay him by finding him a fine wife.”

They walked on, the conversation turning to lighter matters of fashion, but Marguerite’s thoughts whirled. Could it really be that Nicolai was not here at Greenwich on matters of state and politics, but merely—friendship?

It scarcely seemed possible. Marguerite had never heard of such a thing. There must be something else, something Nicolai hid from the sweet Dona Elena, that brought him to this meeting. He had to be in the pay of someone else. But what was it he really sought?

Marguerite was more determined than ever to find out.

Chapter Eight

“What will you wear tonight, mistress?” asked Marguerite’s borrowed English maid, sorting through the clothes chest.

“Hmm?” Marguerite asked, distracted. She was sitting before her small looking glass, restlessly moving combs and jars about though she was meant to be dressing her hair. She would never be ready for the banquet in time if she carried on like this! Then she would have to go down in her chemise and stays. “What do you think?”

The maid examined the jumble of garments, at last holding up a skirt and bodice of silver-and-white satin. “This one, mistress! And the gold tissue sleeves.”

It was one of Marguerite’s best outfits, with the trim worked in a flower pattern of tiny crystals and silver-gilt embroidery, and she had meant to save it for the end of their English stay. But she remembered Dona Elena’s pretty attendants, her vow to see Nicolai married to one of them. It aroused in Marguerite a fierce, irrational yearning to outpretty them all, to capture Nicolai’s gaze and hold it only to herself. To never surrender it to some Spanish ninny, who might indeed make a fine, sweet wife, but who could never keep his interest for long.

“Abruti!” she cursed, throwing down a comb so hard one of the delicate teeth snapped. What was wrong with her tonight? She didn’t want Nicolai’s attention. Indeed, those unearthly blue eyes watching her just made her task that much harder. And it was nothing to her if he married fifty featherbrained Spanish girls. A hundred, a thousand!

Marguerite pressed her hands to her temples, feeling the throbbing veins just under her skin. She had sometimes heard of François’s spies going mad under the unceasing pressure of their work, turning into raving lunatics who had to be locked away because they no longer knew friend from foe. Was that what was happening to her?

“Non,” she whispered.

“Mistress? Is aught amiss?” the maid asked, her voice full of concern. Perhaps she did not often see ladies throw small tantrums, as the placid, polite English queen kept everyone under such control.

“Nay, I think I am just tired,” Marguerite answered steadily. “The white will do very well. You have a good eye.”

As the maid laid out the garments, Marguerite reached for her bottle of perfume. It was a special scent, blended for her by the royal perfumer. Her father used to tell her how her mother wore the fragrance of springtime lilies all the time, so Marguerite wore it, too. Its fresh sweetness seemed to revive her now, quiet the rush of her blood.

She was tired, that was all. The long journey, and now this unceasing round of activity. She could scarcely draw breath, let alone think. And Nicolai was just an unexpected complication.

She had to confess she did not understand him, could not decipher him at all. She, who prided herself on her knowledge of people, her ability to discover what motivated them, what they craved, and then using that for her own ends. She had no idea of what Nicolai desired, what brought him here to Greenwich. For all his lightness, his seeming good humour, he had depths she could not read.

Unless he was just here for the Spanish ladies…

The maid held up the white satin skirt, and Marguerite left the looking glass and the mess she had made of her toiletries to let her fasten it over the petticoats, the quilted silver underskirt. Marguerite stood still as the maid adjusted the bodice, the stiff silver stomacher, and tied on the delicate gold sleeves.

Every person had weaknesses, desires. Every person had a price. Nicolai Ostrovsky’s was just harder to find—and surely far more expensive—than most. He had to be up to something—no one would come all this way for the sake of mere friendship. To leap into the fray of Henry, François and Emperor Charles just because a friend asked? Absurd!

Non, he had some agenda, and the Spanish were surely part of it. She just had to be patient and steady, and she would find what his motives were. What price he asked.

To do that, she would have to be very careful. No more temper tantrums. And no more touching his hair! It was clear she could not trust herself in that direction.

She fastened her silver brocade shoes, and let the maid settle the nimbus-shaped headdress over her smooth hair. It was made of stiffened silver satin, embroidered with crystals and pearls that sparkled in the candlelight. The effect was of an angel’s halo, shimmering atop her pale hair.

It was a good fashion choice the maid had made, Marguerite thought, examining herself in the looking glass. Who would suspect an innocent, shining angel of any subterfuge?

Except perhaps Nicolai himself. For had she not compared him to an angel? And he was full of prevarication, of feints and dodges.

Marguerite opened her jewel case and took out a piece she rarely wore but always treasured, a large, square-cut diamond on a thin silver chain. Like the essence of the perfume, it had been her mother’s. Tonight it would give her courage.

When the doors opened on the banquet hall, a gasp went up. Marguerite stood on tiptoe, peering around Claudine’s shoulder to see that the arrangement of the tables was changed. Rather than two long, straight tables, French and Spanish, on either side of an aisle, they were arranged as a large horseshoe, facing the king’s dais.

“My beloved guests!” King Henry boomed, striding toward them like a purple velvet-clad bull, all hearty enthusiasm and good fun. He held Princess Mary by the hand, clad in a matching purple gown. Her large eyes were wary in her pale face.

“Welcome to our feast,” Henry went on. “It is much deserved after all our hard work this day. As we are united in the great cause of peace, so must we be united at the banquet table. My servants will show you each to your seats. We can no longer be divided!”

A murmur of speculation rose up, mutters of excitement and protest. “How can one know one’s proper place, in such an arrangement?” Claudine said, gesturing angrily toward the rounded table.

“Just play along with the English king’s whims, chère,” her husband answered through gritted teeth. “It will be over soon enough.”

Marguerite watched with interest as they were each led away to their assigned seats, men and women, French, Spanish, and English alternating. This could serve her purposes very well indeed! An easy way to chat with the enemy, much like her stroll with Dona Elena. Simple, informal, completely unsuspicious.

Plus, it would get her away from Father Pierre, who appeared to have assigned himself as her official escort, or perhaps guard, while they were at Greenwich. His silent presence at her side, the rustle of his black robes, his strange watchfulness, was becoming an irritant.

She waved to him as he was led away, protesting, to a place at the far end of the horseshoe. A page took Marguerite to a seat at the middle curve, where she was between Roger Tilney and Dona Elena’s husband, the Duke of Bernaldez. Dona Elena, across from them, greeted her happily, telling her husband of their afternoon walk by the river.

“And she listened to me prattling on about Marc, and about how you and I met, mi corazon, with nary a complaint!” Dona Elena said. “Such great patience.”

“Not at all, Dona Elena,” Marguerite answered. “I enjoyed our meeting very much. It can get lonely, being in a strange country, and your wife, Don Carlos, is so very amiable.”

He gave her a cordial smile, and Marguerite saw that he matched his wife for fine looks and kind eyes. Despite the stark formality of his black velvet clothes and thick white hair and beard, his glance was most gentle when he looked at Dona Elena. “She is indeed amiable, Señorita Dumas, and I am grateful she has found a new friend here. It is not easy for her to be so far from her son at this time. I’m happy for any distraction you can provide for her. Perhaps you would do us the honour of joining us for a small card party in our apartment after the banquet?”

“Oh, yes, do say you will come, Señorita Dumas,” Dona Elena urged. “It is only a few friends for a hand of primero, and will be much quieter than these great feasts. I would enjoy knowing you better.”

“Merci, Dona Elena. I happily accept your invitation.”

That was even easier than she expected. Marguerite sat back, satisfied with her progress. Then she felt a sharp, stabbing prickle on the back of her neck, like a sewing needle jabbing at her skin. She laid her fingers over the spot, under her hair, and glanced down the table to find Nicolai watching her.

For an instant, she caught him unaware, and his mask of merriment was down. His face was hard and serious as he looked at her, his eyes hooded. Even thus she could feel the force of them, like celestial blue daggers. She felt caught, pinned in place, unable to move or think. The entire vast, crowded hall vanished, narrowed to that one point—just him.

He grinned at her, breaking the spell, and lifted his goblet to her in mocking salute. As the room widened out again, she saw that he sat next to one of Dona Elena’s ladies, a young woman who stared up at him with shining adoration writ large on her pretty, heart-shaped face.

Marguerite turned away, taking a large gulp of her wine. It was fine stuff, a golden sack from Provence, that even her father, who firmly believed only his home in Champagne could produce truly fine wine, would not have scorned. Yet she hardly even tasted it.

Across the table, Dona Elena caught her eye and gave her a wink. “My plan is working!” she mouthed.

She could say nothing else, though, for a procession arrived bearing an enormous subtlety for the courtiers’ applause. It was a rendition of Greenwich Palace itself all in sugar and almond paste, its turrets and courtyards and windows, even a river of blue marzipan dotted with tiny boats and barges. Yet, like the wine, Marguerite did not fully appreciate the fine artistry. Her skin still prickled, and it took all her strength not to turn back to Nicolai. Not to stare at him like a dull-witted peasant girl.

The subtlety was presented to King Henry and Queen Katherine, and followed by more practical fare of meats, fish and stewed vegetables.

Roger Tilney laid a tender morsel of duck with orange sauce on her plate. “How are you enjoying your time in England thus far, Mademoiselle Dumas?” he asked.

Marguerite smiled at him, and speared the duck with her eating knife. She imagined the blade entering Nicolai’s golden flesh, and it gave her a childish flash of satisfaction. “Very well, Master Tilney. You were right, Greenwich is endlessly fascinating.”

“I am glad you find it so. I hear of nothing else but ‘the beautiful Mademoiselle Dumas’ everywhere I go!”

Marguerite laughed, reaching for a bite of the soft white manchet bread. “I doubt that. Perhaps two people have said that, including yourself. But I do hear that I have you to thank for one thing. Thank—or curse.”

“I am most intrigued. Ladies have surely cursed me before, but rarely on such short acquaintance. What must I beg pardon for?”

“For recommending me to the Master of Revels for his pageants.”

Tilney laughed. “I merely suggested that it would be a fine gesture to include some of the French ladies. Your beauty and sweetness recommended themselves.”

“I am scarcely sweet, Master Tilney! In fact, I have often been told quite the opposite.”

“Mademoiselle Dumas, methinks you protest too much.” He reached for a sugar wafer from one of the silver platters, offering it to her with a flourish. “These rare delicacies could not be more agreeable than you.”

Marguerite accepted it with a smile, but the delicate flavor turned dry in her mouth as she saw that Nicolai still laughed with his pretty Spanish companion. Her sweetness no doubt far surpassed any honey or sugar.

The banquet went on for what seemed like hours, a succession of artichokes in cream sauce, whole pigs stuffed with spiced apples, swan and peacock, lamb dressed with mint, and sweetmeats coloured pink and pale green and dusted with more sparkling sugar.

As the wine flowed, the shrill laughter grew, until Marguerite could scarcely hear above the hum in her head. She ate little and drank less, her smile growing more pained as the revelry went on. Would her face simply crack, like one of the statues in the garden? The marble of her skin corroding under the bombardment of rain and laughter, flaking away until she was nothing at all, just a handful of white dust.

At last, the platters and cloths were carried away, the curved table pushed forward so there could be dancing in its hollowed space. The musicians, who had been playing sweet madrigals practically unnoticed during the feasting, struck up a stately pavane. King Henry led the dance with his daughter, her tiny hand in his giant paw.

Princess Mary was a graceful little thing, Marguerite observed, pointing her toe, turning with a flourish of her wrist. Her thin face was solemn with concentration, but her father beamed down at her. Queen Katherine watched it all with a serene smile. Would the princess truly marry the Duc d’Orleans one day, and be a credit to the French royal family? Marguerite could not yet say. It was early days yet in the treaty negotiations, and Princess Mary seemed so solemn, so—Spanish. But it could be an important, and long-lasting, alliance for François and Henry both.

As the music ended, Henry lifted Mary high, twirling her around as he laughed. “You behold here, gentles, my pearl of the world!” he announced. Amid applause, the princess bowed prettily.

“Pearl or not, girls need their rest,” Queen Katherine said placidly. She took her daughter’s hand as Henry lowered Mary to her feet. “I will take the princess to her apartment.”

With the queen and her ladies gone from the hall, the music changed. From the slow, traditional pavane, the tempo increased to a lively saltarello, the newest dance to arrive from Italy. Marguerite watched closely as King Henry led a new lady on to the floor, and the other couples edged to the sides of the pattern to make room for them.

This, then, must be the famous Anne Boleyn, Marguerite thought. Lady Penelope Percy had been right, Mistress Boleyn was not beautiful. She was small and very thin, her complexion too sallow to ever aspire to the fashionable roses-and-lilies. Her hair was almost as black as the night sky outside, thick and straight, glossy, held back from her pointed face by a jewelled band. Her dark eyes flashed with a bright, naughty wit as she smiled up at the king.

But Marguerite saw that she possessed something deeper, more valuable than mere prettiness. She had style, and a light, lithe grace. She had self-possession and confidence. She looked at the gathering as if she owned it, as if they were all—Henry especially—hers to command. And the king in turn stared at her as if he would be commanded in an instant by anything she said.

Non, Anne Boleyn was not someone Marguerite would care to tangle with. She would just have to take care to steer clear of her. If such a thing was possible.

“That must be the English king’s new harlot,” Marguerite heard a low, hard voice murmur. She glanced up to see that the Duke de Bernaldez had moved to sit beside his wife, and Father Pierre had taken his place. The priest watched the dance with burning, disapproving eyes.

“I would not let King Henry hear you say such things,” Marguerite warned. “You could find yourself sent back to Paris in a trice.” Which might not be such a bad thing, Marguerite reflected, except for the bad light it would cast on the whole French party.

“And why is that? She will surely be gone soon enough, just like Elizabeth Blount and Mistress Shelton.”

Marguerite reached for her goblet, sipping at the wine left in its gilded depths. “What do you know of them?”

“I know they are not at Court, even though Mistress Blount gave the king a son. They have no place here once the king tires of them. They were sent away, an embarrassment, and Mistress Boleyn will be, too. Just as her sister was before her.” Father Pierre’s voice was filled with low, bitter spite.

Marguerite watched the dancing. Mistress Boleyn was very deft; she leaped and ran, snapped her fingers, twirled in a graceful snap of her sky-blue silk skirts. And Henry stared, enraptured, his hands reaching for her as a praying supplicant would touch the Virgin’s robe. “I am not so sure of that.”

“Why, these English dances are only trotting and running,” Don Carlos said, laughing. “Not at all graceful. We should show them what true dancing looks like, querida.”

Marguerite looked back to see Dona Elena hide her own laughter behind her fan. “My dancing days are long done, I fear.”

Her husband smiled ruefully. “As are mine.” He pressed his hand to his wife’s arm, a couple obviously united in deepest contentment.

Marguerite’s heart gave a sour pang, and she longed to turn away from the whole room. All these damnably loving couples. Dona Elena stopped her with a word. “I am sure Señorita Dumas’s dancing days are in their prime!”

“Oh, no, Dona Elena,” she protested. “I do not care to dance tonight, and my skills in the saltarello are nothing to Mistress Boleyn’s.” Beside her, she felt Father Pierre’s stare burning on her skin.

Dona Elena would not hear it, though. “Nonsense! They say you French ladies are the finest of all dancers, that you begin to learn as soon as you can walk.” She waved her hand, calling, “Nicolai! Come here a moment, I need you.”

The duke laughed, giving Marguerite a complicit shrug. “My wife, you see, will not be turned when she gets a thought into her head. If she wants to see you dance, mademoiselle, you will surely dance.”

Marguerite had to laugh. Was that not what she always did? Dance when commanded? First for her father, then King François. Why not for Dona Elena?

But did it have to be with Nicolai? She watched warily as he drew nearer, the abandoned Spanish girl taking his departure with a pretty little pout. He went down on one knee next to Dona Elena, smiling up at her. Marguerite saw, though, that he was also cautious, his blue eyes shadowed.

“I am at your command, as ever, Dona Elena,” he said gallantly. “What is your desire? Shall I fetch oranges from Madrid? Cinnamon from the Indies? Pearls from the depths of the seas?”

Dona Elena laughed merrily, patting his cheek with her soft hand. “Perhaps later! For now, I have a far simpler task, one I think you will enjoy.”

“Merely name it, my duchess, and it is yours.”

“You must partner Señorita Dumas in the next dance. I want to see her dance, and there is no more skilled a partner than you.”

Marguerite remembered Nicolai on his tightrope, the light, effortless movements of his bare feet, the powerful contraction of his lean body as he leaped in a backwards arc. Oui, he would be a skilled dancer indeed. She shivered as she imagined his steps guiding hers, his touch on her body. The friction and caress as he lifted her. Could she trust him?

Could she trust herself?

Nicolai glanced at her from the corner of his eye, as unreadable as a cat. “It would be my pleasure to dance with Mademoiselle Dumas, if she will have me as a partner,” he said.

Dona Elena smiled with obvious satisfaction, like a soft, devious kitten who had just filched a dish of cream. That was what the entire Spanish contingent was like, then—a pack of cats, sly, changeable, beautiful, untrustworthy.

As Nicolai came around the long table, Father Pierre suddenly seized her arm in a hard grasp. Marguerite stared at him, startled. He was so silent she had almost forgotten he was there, lurking beside her.

“You should not be so involved with these people, mademoiselle,” he hissed. “They are not what they seem!”

Marguerite tried to laugh lightly, tried to extract her arm from his dry, fevered touch. What had possessed him? True, she did not care at all for his intent stares, but he had never grabbed her before. “La, Father Pierre, I am only dancing with the man! I am not running away to Madrid with him.”

Though, at that moment, fleeing this place, all these people with their hidden agendas, for the sunny dustiness of faraway Spain was tempting. She wrenched her arm away just as Nicolai reached her side, and gratefully accepted his hand. He led her to the edge of the floor, where they waited for the saltarello to end. The king and Anne Boleyn were lost to sight now amid a press of dancers, a shifting constellation of bright silks and flashing feet. The thunder of stamping and clapping.

“Who is that skeletal young man?” Nicolai asked.

Marguerite glanced back at Father Pierre, who still watched her, and shivered. He did look rather skeletal, like a figure in an old memento mori painting, death come to the banquet. Pale and solemn, an ever-present reminder of duty and fate.

As if she needed him to remind her she was damned! She knew it every moment.

“Father Pierre LeBeque,” she answered. “He is one of Bishop Grammont’s attendants.”

“He seemed most reluctant to let you go, though I can scarcely blame him.”

“I do not know what he wants,” she said impatiently. She turned resolutely away from the priest, fiddling with a ribbon at her sleeve. She had to keep her fingers busy, to prevent them from reaching instinctively for the beckoning golden flame of Nicolai’s hair. It rippled down his back like a smooth, bright banner, warm as the summer sun after a long winter.

But his eyes were so, so cool.

“I am sorry Dona Elena importuned you,” she said. “I told her I did not care to dance tonight.”

Nicolai shrugged. “As the duke said, once she has a thought in her head you will never get it out again. Besides, it is no great hardship to dance with the most beautiful lady at the banquet.”

Marguerite laughed, ridiculously pleased at the gallant, empty compliment. “More beautiful than your Spanish companion? She seemed so very fascinated by all you had to say.”

“You noticed that, did you? How very observant you are, mademoiselle.”

“I like to know all things about all people.”

“An ambitious goal indeed. And yes, Señorita Alva is quite pretty.”

“Dona Elena told me how convinced she is that a fine wife and home would surely add greatly to your happiness, Monsieur Ostrovsky.”

Nicolai gave a startled laugh. “She confides in you already, does she? You do have a gift for drawing people in.”

“We took a stroll by the river this afternoon. I think that Dona Elena would not be a difficult person to ‘draw in’ by anyone. She seems a very sweet-natured lady, so open and artless. Perhaps it was the convent that made her so?”

“Ah, Mademoiselle Dumas, and here I thought you knew better. The people who appear the most artless are usually the most dangerous of all.”

The music ended and the floor cleared, sets forming for the next dance. Once again, King Henry and Mistress Boleyn were at the head. Nicolai led Marguerite to their places at the end of the line.

But she had to ask one more thing before the steps of the dance parted them. “Will you marry your Señorita Alva, then?”

Nicolai laughed. “Mademoiselle Dumas, marriage is not for such people as you and me. Another lesson I thought you had learned.”

The music began, and he blew her a kiss from his fingertips. Marguerite could vow she felt it land softly on her cheek, where he had kissed her earlier.

The dance was a passamezzo, a livelier version of the pavane and much less dignified. Henry and Anne clasped hands and twirled down the line, all the other couples peeling off after them. Marguerite’s hand reached out for Nicolai’s, and they, too, spun away.

The steps were quick—as the duke said, prancing and trotting. Marguerite hopped and swirled around Nicolai, until his hands caught her about the waist and lifted her from the floor, spinning her around and around. The crowd shifted and blurred, a humid, wild tangle, like a dream. Marguerite laughed helplessly, leaning her hands on his strong shoulders as he lifted her higher and ever higher. Surely, with his touch she could fly!

It was even better than running away to Madrid. This was leaving the ugly, deceptive earth altogether, free of everything but his touch, which kept her safe.

At last he lowered her back to the floor, grounding her, yet she still felt as light as the earth itself.

Yes, he was a fine dancer, just as she suspected he would be. He turned and moved her so easily, she was hardly aware she moved at all. The banquet hall, the other dancers, even all that awaited her when the music ended, disappeared.

The music built and built, faster and faster, the lines growing tighter and closer until at last the great finale arrived. Nicolai lifted her again, spinning her until she gasped dizzily, laughing in sheer delight. She stared down at him, at his smile, his glowing face. Had she thought his eyes cool? Nay, they burned with the light of a dozen suns, and she basked in their heat.

The song ended in a crash, and Nicolai lowered her for the last time, slowly, slowly, their bodies in a delicious friction of satin on velvet, flesh on flesh. In the rush of the crowd, Marguerite pressed her forehead to Nicolai’s shoulder, inhaling the heated scent of him, her breath tight in her throat.

She had the fearful sense that, if she let go of him, she would fall.

His hands held on to her arms, strong and solid, warm through the thin silk of her sleeves. She felt the rise of his chest as he breathed, and her own breath moved in unison with his. For this one, ephemeral moment, she sensed what it was to have something to cling to when the cold winds of the world howled.

But then the moment was gone. Nicolai stepped back, and the winds swept around her again. Marguerite threw her shoulders back, held her head high, resisting the urge to wrap her arms tightly around herself against that icy hollow in her belly.

Nicolai did not smile, did not even really look at her, gazing somewhere above her head. “Shall I take you back to your seat, mademoiselle?” he asked tightly.

Marguerite shook her head. She couldn’t face Father Pierre just yet, nor even Dona Elena with her sweet smiles. “I cannot breathe in here,” she murmured. “I think I shall walk outside for a moment.”

“Let me go with you.”

She shook her head again. He was part of her confusion, the very worst part! When he was near she could not think clearly. She could not be the Emerald Lily, cold, merciless. “You should return to Señorita Alva.”

Nicolai laughed. “In truth, Mademoiselle Dumas, I cannot catch my breath in here, either. There are far too many people, too many wine fumes. And I would not like to encourage Dona Elena where any of her ladies are concerned. Please, at least let me see you safely to your lodgings.”

Marguerite longed to protest, to run away, but she feared her legs would not carry her. She felt lightheaded, and so very sad. She nodded, and he took her hand in his and led her through the milling, laughing crowds. The press of people, the roil of their drunken chatter, King Henry’s loud bellow—it was all too much. It was her world, the one she had fought so hard to belong to, make a place in, but tonight she couldn’t bear it.

What was wrong with her? Surely she just needed fresh air. Needed to clear her muddled head and regain her sense of purpose.

Maybe the only way to do that was by pushing Nicolai Ostrovsky into the Thames!

As they emerged from the banquet hall into the chilly night, Marguerite chuckled at the image of Nicolai cartwheeling into the river. Vanishing under the waves, leaving her to be as she was before, whole and cold and untouchable. The only trouble was, he might very well drag her in with him.

“And what makes you laugh so, mademoiselle?” he asked, as they turned down one of the pathways, shining white in the starlight. They ducked behind a concealing hedge, away from curious eyes.

Marguerite shook her head. “Merely a jest of my own.”

“I am glad to see you catch your breath enough to make jests.”

She drew in a deep breath of the cold, smoketinged air. She was surprised to find that she had caught her breath, that her lungs were expanding, opening up so she could smell everything. The clear breeze, the chimney smoke, the frosty river, the flowers slumbering under the ground. The stones and grass and wine. Nicolai’s scent, his hair and wrist and neck.

Her world tonight kept expanding and retracting in ways she could never have imagined. She remembered what it was to fly free in the dance, and now she twirled in a circle, her head tipped back to take in the night sky. The endless expanse of stars. She imagined herself soaring up into the endless blackness, free.

What had got into her tonight? The wine, the music? She could not fathom it. She could only twirl faster, her arms outstretched to take it all in.

The world would retract again soon enough, pull back inside to that one pinpoint that was her life—to deceive and defeat.

Nicolai laughed, catching her hands in his as she twirled. He tried to still her, but she would not let him. Instead, she pulled him into her circle, and they whirled and whirled until the sky and the palace and England itself were nothing but a buttery blur.

“Who is this mad creature?” he cried. Just like in the dance, he caught her around her waist, lifting her up and up until she flew into the sky. She lifted her hands as if she could grasp the very stars and pull them down to put into his beautiful hair.

“What has possessed you, Marguerite?” he said. “My wild rusalka.”

“I am possessed,” she gasped. She buried her fingers in his hair, the warm strands slipping silkily from her grasp. “Come, Nicolai, be mad with me. We shall have to be sane again soon enough.”

“I fear one of us will have to be sane right now,” he said, lowering her to her feet. “Or trouble such as we have never known in our very troublesome lives will descend on us.”

“Non, non,” she said, still caught deep in the moon’s spell. “Kiss me, Nicolai.”

“Marguerite…”

She grasped his hair again, and drew him toward her. Their lips met, and there was no practice to it, no artifice. Just a hot, blurry melding of their mouths, their passionate needs, so long denied.

She remembered Venice, how for one fateful moment she lost herself in him there. Just as then, she fell into him, into that bright essence of him, drowning, overwhelmed. She could not pull away, could not reach for her dagger. She threw herself heedlessly into him, deeply, madly. She held onto him as if she would never, ever let him go. She was his captive, but he would be hers, too.

He tried to draw away, to resist her. She could feel it in the tension of his shoulders, the supple arc of his back. She refused to let go, though, and he surrendered with a groan, falling into her as she did him. His arms closed around her, drawing her close against him, so close she could feel every inch of his body, every lean muscle and sharp curve, the heavy press of his penis through her skirts.

His lips dragged from hers, tracing fiery kisses to her jaw, her throat, the tiny fluttering pulse where her blood burned so hot just above her diamond. The plump curve of her heartbeat, concealed by her bodice.

How she wanted him! Every bit of him, his beautiful acrobat’s body, his laughter, his strength, his sex and, yes, his kindness, too. All that tenderness he showed Dona Elena and her son, she wanted it for herself. The terrible, desperate sense that it could never be hers, that it—he—was too good for her made her all the more desperate on this strange night.

She buried her fingers in his hair, pressing him closer to her heartbeat, the very life of her. “Mon ange, mon beau ange,” she whispered. And she meant it. Only an angel, or the worst sort of demon, could make her forget everything as he did.

He went still, perfectly still, his lips to her breast, and just like that she felt his soul fly away from her. It was as if her voice broke their spell. She clung to him, as he did her, his arms around her waist, his lips moving to the curve of her neck, their breath mingling. They were nearly as close as a man and woman could be, yet he was gone from her.

“Will you kill me now, Emerald Lily?” he said roughly. He slid his clasp to her hand, drawing her arm straight as he peeled back her sleeve to reveal the small blade strapped to her forearm. She had forgotten it was there, forgotten all but his kiss.

Now, as she stared down at the polished steel, she felt everything again. The cold night, the hollowness at her centre. She heard the distant thunder of revelry from the banquet house, and remembered where she was.

She pulled her arm away, shaking the sleeve into place. “If I had wanted to kill you tonight, you would have been dead long ago.”

“So, why am I not? What is it you want?” His Slavic accent, usually so faint, so lightly musical, was hoarser, rougher. He stepped back from her, wiping his lips with the back of his hand as if to erase the very taste of her.

Marguerite turned away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. Her madness leached away, leaving her feeling brittle, angry. But angry at who, what? Nicolai—or herself?

She forced herself to laugh mockingly. “La, monsieur, I only desired a kiss! A kiss from a handsome man—is it so much to ask? So odd to you that it must be madness?”

He stood there in silence, just watching her as if to say he knew her too well now to believe that. To believe that her only motive could be a stolen kiss in the moonlight.

How infuriating he was, with those knowing eyes! How she wanted to kill him—or to weep.

But she would never give in to tears, especially not here and now. “I am sorry, monsieur, if I offended your modesty,” she said teasingly. “I assure you it won’t happen again. Now, shall we go back inside? I have an invitation to join Dona Elena for cards later.”

He gave her a low bow, his hand flourishing in a gallant, theatrical gesture toward the palace. “By all means, mademoiselle, let us go play games—of cards.” His voice lowered to a rough whisper, just loud enough for her to hear as she brushed past him, “But you know well this is not over.”

Ah, yes, she knew that all too well. This, whatever it was, would not be over until one of them was dead.

Chapter Nine

The scene in the Duke and Duchess de Bernaldez’s apartment was very different from that of the grand banquet hall. Indeed, it could almost have been taking place in an entirely different palace, Nicolai thought.

He gazed around the room as he strummed lightly at his lute, taking in all the people. The players in this little pageant. It was mostly the Spanish party, friends of the duke, the lilt of their Castilian accents soft above the music, the flicker of gilt-edged cards, the clink of golden goblets. Their laughter was gentle and muted, unlike the raucous banquet, the colours of their rich clothes subdued, glowing like ancient jewels. The whole room was dim, full of shifting shadows, hidden nooks that melted into the dark linenfold panelling.

Except for one spot of bright silver, where all the light in the room gathered. Marguerite Dumas. She sat at a table with Dona Elena and two of the Spanish gentlemen, her eyes demurely cast on to her cards, an untouched goblet of wine at her elbow. She never glanced toward Nicolai, not even the merest flicker. Yet that thin, shimmering, unbreakable cord that seemed to bind them since the moment they met tightened between them.

“How do you find England thus far, Señorita Dumas?” one of the men asked.

Marguerite smiled. “Very cold, señor.”

The others at the table laughed. “And not just the weather, si? The people are so strange, so rough.”

“Queen Katherine is very charming,” Dona Elena protested. “She has been most welcoming to my ladies and me, and her hospitality cannot be faulted.”

“Ah, but she is Spanish, is she not, my love?” her husband said from the next table. “The daughter of our own sainted Queen Isabella. Of course she will be charming and gracious! It is in her blood.”

“If not for her,” one of Dona Elena’s ladies said, “this place would be quite unbearable. They do not correctly observe etiquette. They do not even dance properly!”

“Poor Princess Mary,” another lady said. “Her mother does her best to raise her properly, I am sure, but to be trapped in such a barbaric place…”

“With women like that Boleyn creature, flaunting about,” a man added. “In Spain, such a thing would never be.”

“A virtuous and faithful queen would never be so disregarded,” Dona Elena agreed sadly. Then she brightened, laying down her cards. “Ah! A double six. I am in good fortune tonight.”

“And you, Señorita Dumas?” one of the men asked.

Marguerite shook her head. “Alas, I have not Dona Elena’s luck! The cards are against me.” She fanned her losing hand out on the table, studying their configuration wistfully. Her gaze lifted, meeting Nicolai’s across the room for only a moment. A quick flash, but long enough for him to see the hollow ache deep in those sea-green pools.

It seemed she found fortune against her tonight, in more than just cards. He remembered the mad fairy creature in the garden, twirling under the moon, arms outstretched to take in all the world had to offer. He remembered her lips on his, her hands grasping at his body, hungry, passionate, desperate.

It awakened an answering desperation in him, too, a feeling like a drunken craving deep inside. He wanted her, needed her, and not just her beautiful body, the fragile, fleeting allure of a lovely face. Her secrets, too. Her true soul, hidden so deep beneath deception and double-cross. He did not understand her, but he wanted to, so very much. And, for one moment in that winter garden, he felt he came so close.

Now, her gaze dropped back to the cards, and she laughed merrily. The gossamer cord slackened, and she was an opaque mystery again.

Surely he would never know what madness came upon her, upon them both, in the garden. She would kill him if she could, yet that cold fact never lessened the flame of pure need that seemed to flare up whenever they were near each other.

He would just have to take care not to come near her.

She was obscured from his sight by a line of pages bearing platters laden with more wine and fresh sweetmeats. Suckets of fruit in syrup, marchpane, jellies, “kissing comfits” made of sugar fondament, all to fortify the hungry gamblers.

“Nicolai!” Dona Elena called. “Would you sing for us?” She turned to Marguerite. “Señorita Dumas, Señor Ostrovsky has the loveliest voice, a veritable Orpheus. Yet he has rarely favoured us with it on this journey.”

Marguerite smiled at her, not looking at Nicolai. “I hope that this will be an occasion for a song, then. I adore music, and have missed it sorely since I left Fontainebleau.”

“I knew it,” Don Carlos said. “You French could never be as cultured as the Spanish, señorita, but you do share our love of fine music.”

Marguerite laughed. “Unlike our English hosts?”

“Do the English compose any good songs at all?” Señrita Alva asked, wrinkling her pretty nose. “Surely the queen must listen to some in her own apartments, but I have heard little but noise.”

“Do you know of any fine English songs, Monsieur Ostrovsky?” Marguerite said, looking to him at last. Her eyes were no longer sad and hollow, just flat and icy. Unreadable as a deep green forest. “You have travelled so much, I hear, you must know much of other lands and their music.”

Nicolai shrugged. “Perhaps I know one fine English song, yet I could not say if it would please you, Mademoiselle Dumas.”

“Oh, la, I am not so difficult to please as all that! A goblet of wine, some sweets…” She held up her bowl of suckets, skewered with a long, forked sucket spoon. “A melodic song from a handsome man, and I am most content.”

“You see, Nicolai, you cannot disappoint our fair guest,” Dona Elena said. “She is a homesick stranger in this cold land, just as we are.”

“And music is the universal language to warm any chilly night,” said Marguerite.

“I would never wish to disoblige two lovely ladies,” Nicolai answered. “If it is an English song you desire, ’tis an English song you will have.”

Nicolai tuned his lute again, strummed a few chords, standing as he began his song. The words were only half-remembered, a poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who, like Nicolai, had led something of a nomadic life. They had caught Nicolai’s fancy and he set them to music, only for his own amusement. He had never sung them for an audience until now.

And truly it seemed only an audience of one. Marguerite’s steady gaze followed him as he strolled around the room, stopping beside this lady and that while really he sang only to her.

“‘And wilt thou leave me thus, that hath loved thee so long in wealth and woe among? And is thy heart so strong as for to leave me thus? Say nay, say nay!’”

Marguerite propped her chin in her cupped hand, wine and sweetmeats seemingly forgotten as she watched him. Her face was bland, serene, she gave naught away, yet she did not turn from him. And, deep in her eyes, there was spark like a ray of light in that ancient forest.

“‘And wilt thou leave me thus, that hath given thee my heart never for to depart, neither for pain nor smart? And wilt thou leave me thus? Say nay, say nay!’”

He smiled at Señorita Alva as he rounded her table and she giggled back, but he ended his song next to Marguerite. Her shoulders tensed warily beneath the white satin of her gown, yet she did not turn away.

“‘And wilt thou leave me thus, and have no more pity on him that loveth thee? Alas thy cruelty! And wilt thou leave me thus? Say nay, say nay!’”

Nicolai strummed out the last of his tune, a soft flurry that echoed the “say nay, say nay,” and the song died away. He bowed amid applause, his watchful gaze never leaving Marguerite.

“Well, mademoiselle, what say you to my song?” he asked. “Did it please you?”

She paused for a long moment. “Perhaps there is one fine English song. When it is sung by a Muscovite.”

There was a wave of laughter, a round of more wine. “Perhaps you would favour us with a French song, Señorita Dumas?” Dona Elena asked. “I am sure you must have a pretty voice.”

“Not as pretty as Monsieur Ostrovsky, I fear,” Marguerite said. “I would make a poor showing after him, especially as I am rather weary. I would be most happy to sing for you on another occasion, though, if I am given a Spanish song in return.”

“Another time, then, Señorita Dumas. We will look forward to it,” Dona Elena said kindly. “Nicolai, will you escort Señorita Dumas to her chamber? We have kept her too long tonight.”

“Oh, no, Dona Elena, one of the pages will light my way back,” Marguerite said. “It is not far, and I would not wish to deprive you of Monsieur Ostrovsky’s interesting company. Thank you for your kind hospitality tonight, I have greatly enjoyed it.”

With a graceful curtsy, a swirl of white-and-silver skirts, she was gone, led by one of the eager young pages. The chamber went back to its low hum of conversation, the soft flicker of new hands of cards being dealt. But to Nicolai it seemed that all the light had vanished, leaving only smoky, smudged shadows.

Dona Elena beckoned him closer. “She is very beautiful, is she not?” she whispered.

Nicolai smiled. “I think that can hardly be denied.”

“Yet she seems so sad. She is an orphan, you know, with no one to look after her interests in this world.”

Nicolai thought Marguerite more than capable of seeing after her own “interests.” But Dona Elena was right about the sadness. Sometimes it seemed to cling to Marguerite like a winter mist, blurring and obscuring her real self, hidden behind that beauty, which was all anyone seemed to see. “It was kind of you to befriend her.”

“And you, too, Nicolai? Your song tonight seemed to cheer her. Truly, amado, you are the most merry person I know!”

“Dona Elena, are you trying to matchmaker again?” Nicolai teased.

She laughed. “You could not marry a French woman! But everyone needs music, diverting company. Especially lonely young ladies—as long as it does not go too far.”

Nicolai remembered Venice, his hand on Marguerite’s naked thigh, his mouth on her breast, the smell and taste of her wrapping around his senses, driving him to lunacy. They had already gone past “too far”!

“I fear Mademoiselle Dumas could hardly escape my company,” he said. “We are to work on a pageant together.”

“Very good! I am sure it will be the finest ever seen in this dull place. Now, will you sing us another song? Señorita Alva seemed to enjoy the last one as well…”

Chapter Ten

Marguerite slipped the thin wire into the lock and, with a quick flick of her wrist, popped it upward. She felt the give of the mechanism as it parted, and the lock fell from the box’s clasp.

Really, she thought. These Spanish are surprisingly lax. That lock was far too easy to pick. Could it be some kind of trap, a test? She glanced back over her shoulder, but the room was empty. Silent.

She had noticed this box during the card party, a plain, unadorned wooden chest of the sort often used to transport or store documents. It sat amid a welter of empty diplomatic pouches and blank sheets of parchment on a table near the window, too tempting to resist. It could not contain anything too secret; Don Carlos did not strike her as a fool. But any information at all could prove useful.

And Marguerite sorely needed a distraction from thoughts of Nicolai. When she went to lie down in her bed she could not sleep, for she kept hearing his song in her mind. And have no more pity on him that loveth thee.

Marguerite frowned as she slid the lock free and raised the lid of the box. He was a talented actor indeed, for his words, his countenance, his entire being reflected the words as he sang, as if he truly knew what love was, what it could be. As if he alone possessed the secrets to all hearts.

She could never share that knowledge, for love was only a mystery, a puzzlement, to her. She had seen it only as a lie, a game, a flirtatious song with no meaning behind it. A hollow, shining little bubble.

And that was all Nicolai’s poetry was, too. Yet his eyes imbued the sweet words with more…

“Couilles,” she cursed. The wire she still held bit into her hand as her fingers tightened over it, leaving a thin line of blood. Nicolai Ostrovsky was a distraction, and she had to forget him. Work was all that mattered.

Hastily wrapping her hand in a handkerchief so she wouldn’t leave telltale spots of blood, she began to sort through the box. The papers appeared to be personal letters to Don Carlos and his attendants, as well as an inventory of the rich gifts brought for King Henry. She had been right, there was not much here to be of help to King François. All the information she gleaned as she surveyed the missives told her only what she already knew, that the Spanish were to stop the French alliance in any way they could. That they were allied with Queen Katherine, as always.

She quickly memorised a few useful titbits, and started to put them back carefully in the order she found them. But in the bottom she found one more letter.

Marguerite unfolded the parchment, soft from its journey, from having been read many times, even though the date written on the back indicated it had only been delivered yesterday.

“For the most exalted Duchess de Bernaldez—or should I say Mother? I trust your journey was safe and England all you expected. May you and Don Carlos achieve all your ends and return home to meet your new grandson, Antonio Velazquez. Julietta was safely delivered…”

Ah, a letter from her son. For the first time, Marguerite felt she was intruding by reading those words. She started to refold the letter, when Nicolai’s name caught her eye and she glanced at it again.

“…as I cannot be there to guard you myself, you must always continue to put your faith in Nicolai and trust him as you would me. I know I told you this before, when I sent him to you, but I will rest easier knowing he watches over you. My dearest Mother, you go into the lion’s den at Greenwich, yet Nicolai’s sword arm is strong, his mind shrewd. He saved my life, and Julietta’s, too, or there would be no Antonio crying in his cradle this morning. Listen to his counsel and stay close to him, and with God’s blessing we will all be together this summer.”

Strong and shrewd. Truly he was both, the most formidable obstacle she had found in England. The Englishmen, like Tilney and his ilk, were blinded by her good looks and fine clothes, her sweet smiles. They did not suspect she was anything more than a French featherhead. And King Henry was too occupied by his diplomatic meetings and Mistress Boleyn to even look about him. Her face, the face she inherited from her beautiful courtesan mother, was always the best mask to hide behind.

Yet when Nicolai looked at her with those sky-blue eyes, she sensed that he saw more than her pretty façade. That his own life of masks enabled him to peer right through hers, to all the tangled, black ugliness beneath.

Why could he not just go away, back to Venice or Russia or—or anywhere but here?

Marguerite put the missive back in the box and slammed the lid. In the next room, Dona Elena’s bedchamber, she heard a burst of laughter and chatter as maids came in to clean. It reminded her that she had lingered too long over the papers. She clasped the lock and dashed out of the room, silent on her tiptoes, skirts held close to her sides. Once in the corridor, she smoothed her hair and glided slowly away, as if she hadn’t a care in the world and no reason to hurry.

It was quiet in this wing of the palace, aside from the servants airing the rooms and setting fires in the grates. The men were all in conference with the English king, and Dona Elena and her ladies walked in the gardens again. Marguerite had seen them set out from her window, and excused herself from Claudine to check this box while she had the chance. Marguerite doubted Claudine, embroidering with her attendants and snappish from morning sickness, missed her at all.

She started to turn back toward the French apartments, but realised she had no desire to sit placidly and sew with a woman who did not like her, who thought she dallied with her husband. Marguerite had listened to the other ladies giggle over the démodé English fashions until she thought she would scream from it. Whatever had come over her in the gardens last night—that wild madness that made her long to fly away into the sky—had not left her. Not entirely.

Rather than go to her room, she turned instead down the staircase and followed it until she was out the palace doors and into the garden once more. She did not wear a cloak or surcoat, only her black-and-gold velvet gown, but she did not feel the bite of the wind as she hurried along a gravel pathway.

There were not so many courtiers out this morning, just a few people whispering together as they strolled along. They watched her curiously as she passed, yet no one stopped her. She feared she could not make polite conversation right now anyway.

She hardly knew where she was going, she just walked and walked, hoping that the exercise would burn away that strange restlessness. She rounded a corner of one of the tall, sculpted hedges, and found that her steps had led her to the theatre.

The doors stood half-open to the winter breeze, and she drifted toward them, as if compelled to move forward by some dream or spell. She didn’t want to go in there. What if Nicolai waited, luring her to him with his tightrope, with a freedom she knew was not hers? But her steps wouldn’t turn, and she soon found herself inside.

The splendid theatre, with its elaborate painted sky, its shimmering hangings, was silent and darkened. The only sound was a faint, distant hammering as Sir Henry Guildford’s servants built new scenery. The air was chilly, smelling of new paint, sawdust, sweat and stiff satin. Like all places of night-time merriment, in the day it had a forlorn, shabby air, a deep loneliness that suited her strange mood today.

Marguerite shut the doors quietly behind her and crept deeper inside. Soon, this space would be a castle or a meadow, Mount Olympus or a heavenly cloud. She preferred it like this, quiet and empty, all its possibilities still ahead, still intact.

She tiptoed into Nicolai’s little room. The rope was coiled in the corner, a few travelling chests stacked against the walls. Had she not just determined to stay away from Nicolai, that he was a distraction she did not need? Yet here she was.

He was not there, but she could vow that the smell of him lingered in the air, that clean, fresh herbal scent. The very essence of him.

Marguerite opened one of the chests, peering inside to find thin, shining rapiers wrapped in a length of brown velvet. They were stage blades, of course, not as sharp and lethal as her own hidden sword and daggers, but dangerous enough if wielded correctly.

She remembered one afternoon in the Piazza San Marco, when she watched Nicolai and his troupe performing for a raucous Carnival crowd. It was a scene where an adventurous wife and her lover were confronted by the buffoonish husband. Nicolai was the lover, of course, and even masked, clad in closefitting, multi-coloured motley silk, he radiated sexuality, bawdy good humour. All the comic wiles of the wife and lover did not turn away the angry husband, and Nicolai at last had to fight him. Perhaps with these very blades, he had parried and feinted, pricked and prinked, tumbling and leaping out of the increasingly clumsy husband’s way.

At last the husband was defeated, frustrated, his black robes in rags, as the Arlecchino ran off with his wife. By then, every woman around Marguerite would have gladly shared the wife’s fate.

Marguerite, though, now sympathised with the husband. She, too, was most thoroughly befuddled by Nicolai.

She drew out one of the blades, balancing its gilded hilt on her hand. The thin cut still stung a bit, but the hilt was light on her palm, well balanced, shimmering in the dusty light. She lifted the blade in prima, the first guard position, with her arm high to the right, palm facing out. She moved smoothly into seconda, the second guard position, palm down, arm at shoulder height. Terza, arm at waist level, palm to left.

Then she raised her arm again, lunging forward on the right foot, sword thrusting ahead. She imagined it plunged into Nicolai’s maddening, confusing heart. The blade was light, and whistled in the still air as she sliced it across and stepped into a reverse pass, her right foot moving back, kicking her skirts out of the way.

“Brava, mademoiselle,” she heard Nicolai’s Slavic voice say. She whirled around to find him standing just inside the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her intently. “You are very deft.”

“I was trained by Signor Lunelli, the famous sword master from Milan,” she answered. Her heart still pounded, and she remembered pretending it was him she stabbed at, his muscled chest that met her slicing blade. “But I fear I am out of practice, with these easy days at Greenwich.”

“You? Ah, no, mademoiselle. I am sure you could never be—out of practice.”

“Perhaps not any longer.” She reached down and slid the tip of her sword beneath the blade that still lay on the ground. She caught it up, flipping it in one neat movement toward Nicolai.

He caught the hilt in his hand, reflexes sharp despite his lazy appearance. He gave her an amused half-smile.

Marguerite adjusted her stance, lifting her blade invitingly while also carefully situating her guard. “En guard, monsieur.”

Nicolai’s smile widened, and he took up his own stance. At first they circled each other warily, blades poised, trying to gauge weaknesses, techniques, strengths. Marguerite’s senses shimmered with tense awareness; it was as if time slowed around her, and she was attuned to every tiny flicker of his muscles. Every shift and movement and breath of his body.

There was a small noise outside their hidden room, the distant fall of a hammer. Nicolai did not turn, but she saw his eyes widen slightly and she took the perceived advantage. She moved in with a lunge and a low, straight thrust.

But he was not distracted. His blade came up in a smooth stop-thrust. Marguerite fell back, bringing her sword up to attack again.

She heard the echo of Signor Lunelli’s voice in her head. Remember, signorina, your male opponents will have two advantages over you—reach and strength. But you, you have speed and agility. Use them! And never lose your calm centre. That is fatal.

She rose up on the balls of her feet as if dancing, her blade flashing in delicate, swift feints, faking her line of attack. Speed and agility—he would think she was one place, as she delivered quick, small blows until she moved into compound attack.

Yet Nicolai did not fight as she expected. He parried her blows, his blade shifting as hers did, almost imperceptibly. He had a lean, easy strength she could not match, and that infuriating half-smile never left his lips.

Marguerite felt her calm centre, so essential to Signor Lunelli’s instructions, melt away under a hot flare of anger. She rushed in close to his strong side, wrapping her weaker arm about his sword arm and twirling her body around to slide her blade into place. She had to do it quickly, before he realised her impulsive plan and dropped his sword to grapple with her. Then all her agility could never stand up to that strength.

The tip of her blunted blade just touched him when he did drop his sword, his fingers closing tightly over her wrist, like an iron vise.

“Chert poberi!” he growled. “You do fight dirty.”

“Oui. But I always win.”

“Almost always.”

His grip tightened on her wrist, not painful but numbing, until the blade fell from her nerveless grasp to clatter on to the floor. Marguerite cursed herself for forgetting all her training, for getting too close to him, allowing him to gain the advantage. That speed and agility had availed her naught in the end, it was too bound up in that boiling anger.

He didn’t let go of her wrist, and she stared up at him, her breath quick. His breath, too, was hard and uneven, his pulse thrumming through his veins and into hers, their heartbeats mingling. She still stared up at him into the glow of his eyes. His face was expressionless, yet she saw the faint flush of his cheeks, beneath the sun-bronzed colour of his Italian life. A muscle ticked along his jaw. So, he was not unaffected by their nearness, by whatever this was that flowed between them so inexorably.

Marguerite stretched up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, unable to resist for an instant longer. She had to taste him, feel him. Maybe then she could decipher this mysterious force that turned her cold, careful life tip over tail. Exorcise his spell. But she made another mistake, for his kiss only bound her tighter in the silken noose of anger, lust and painful need.

His lips opened beneath hers, and he let go of her wrist, freeing her to wrap his arms around her, to draw her closer and closer. If she was to be his prisoner, he would be hers, too, the two of them bound together as they tumbled down into the abyss. He groaned, a low, hoarse sound she felt deep inside of her. Their tongues met and clashed as their swords had, a humid blur that erased everything else. There was only Nicolai, the dark taste of him, the heavy press of his hard arousal against her skirts.

Not breaking their kiss, Marguerite snatched at his clothes, tearing the fastenings of his doublet, the thin linen of his shirt until her touch met naked, smooth, hot skin.

Nicolai dragged his lips from hers, pressing a kiss to her temple, her cheek. “Marguerite,” he groaned. “Dorogaya. What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her fingers playing lightly over his bare chest, the uneven pounding of his heart. She traced a circle over the flat disc of his nipple, and felt his breath suck in. “I tried to fight it, deny it. But you have some strange spell, you beautiful demon, some magic…”

He gave a harsh laugh, and took her hand to drag it down over his hard penis, sheathed in the rough cloth of his hose. “Is this magic?”

She laughed, too, running her touch over his throbbing erection, feeling it strain for her caress. “Do you not think so?”

“You are the one with the spell, vedma!”

“What does that word mean?”

“It means you are a witch. A sorceress, come from the dark fairy realms to torment us poor mortals. You tried to kill me once in the midst of passion.”

Marguerite swallowed hard, remembering Venice, her dagger arcing toward that heartbeat. The thought of his lifeblood spilling out, of the warm flesh she now caressed turning ice-cold, made her shiver.

She stepped back from him, reaching up to unlace her sleeves and draw them off, dropping them at her feet in a black velvet puddle. “I have no hidden daggers today,” she said, loosening the thin sleeves of her chemise. “Not there—not here.”

She clasped the hem of her overskirt and petticoat, drawing the heavy fabric up, up, until his narrowed gaze could take in the length of her legs, clad in silk stockings and jewelled garters. She drew it up farther until he could see the shadow of her womanhood, damp with desire.

Still holding her skirts with one hand, she reached up with the other to free her hair from its gilded veil, shaking the silvery length free over her shoulders.

“I will not try to kill you this day, Nicolai,” she said. “I give you my word. Now, will you kiss me again?”

In answer, Nicolai gave a low growl, and lunged forward to catch her around her waist. As their lips met again, he lifted her high, twirling her around to press her up against the wall. Marguerite wrapped her legs tightly about his hips, drawing him into the curve of her body. His hose abraded the soft skin of her thighs, but she didn’t care or even notice. She just wanted him closer, closer.

He trailed a ribbon of kisses to her throat, biting and licking at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, the hollow where her pulse pounded. She let her head fall back against the wall, offering him all she had, all she was.

He tugged her low-cut French bodice down to bare her breasts. Her nipples strained for his kiss, aching.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “So very beautiful.”

She had heard those words so often, but never, not until this moment, had she believed them to be true. Perhaps she was beautiful—in his eyes.

He could not see her black-spotted soul. “Not as lovely as you, mon ange,” she whispered.

He captured her nipple between his lips, rolling it, biting gently, teasingly, before he at last gave her what she craved, longed for, and drew it deep into his mouth.

Marguerite found she could stand the intense need, the fire, no longer. She pushed him back until her breast was free of his kiss, until she could touch her feet to the earth. Then she clasped him by the shoulders, moving his unresisting body to the floor.

He watched her closely in the dim light as she straddled him, reaching out with desperate hands to strip him of his doublet and shirt, to tug at the lacings of his hose.

“Marguerite…” he said roughly.

“Non!” she answered. “Don’t say anything, Nicolai, not now.” Words would just break the witch’s spell, and she did not want to awaken. Not yet.

He lay back, his hair pooling around him like the golden allure of the sun. His eyes glowed as he stared up at her, wary and lustful in equal measure.

Marguerite wanted to erase that wariness, to find only passion, a deep need to match her own. She swooped down on him, like a little, lethal kestrel after her prey, trailing her mouth over his throat and naked chest, tasting the clean salt of his skin. Breathing in all his heat and life until she found her own soul stir.

As she kissed him, his fingers moved through her hair, wrapping the strands over his chest, binding them together. Marguerite smiled against his shoulder, and reached down to free the heavy, throbbing length of his erect penis into her hand. It was weighty under her gentle touch, and he shuddered as she ran her fingers up and down its iron-satin, veined shaft. She carefully balanced his balls on her palm, her embrace tightening with a threat—or promise.

In answer, Nicolai grasped her waist, rolling her beneath him in one quick, smooth movement. He pulled her skirts out of his way, parting her legs as his thumb slipped inside her wet, welcoming folds.

“Oui, oui,” she groaned. She would surely burst into flame at his touch! She spread her legs farther, urging him over her, into her, urging him to make her his. Her eyes closed as her head fell back, her body tense as a bowstring as he eased himself into the very core of her.

Their joining was not slow or gentle. They came together with the force of a summer storm, fast, violent, desperate. He thrust into her, and Marguerite wrapped her legs about his back, keeping him inside her as the delicious friction, the heat, built and built. The world turned red and bright orange around her, and a high-pitched sound grew in her ears. Greater and greater, higher and higher.

She exploded in climax, a shower of bits of the sun and stars, too bright. Too much.

Above her, around her, Nicolai shouted out, “Moya dorogaya!” Marguerite grasped his hair, clutching at the tangled strands as his back arched. At the very last instant, he drew out of her body, spilling his seed on the floor. Then he collapsed beside her, their limbs entwined.

Marguerite still held on to him, running her trembling fingers through the bright strands of his hair, smoothing them, spreading them over her breasts and throat. How heavy she felt, as if she could sink down into the earth itself and never be seen again. She was weighted, replete.

And not at all sorry. Remorse would surely come later. At this moment, she felt something she had never known before.

Contentment.

Chapter Eleven

Nicolai slammed the leather ball against the curved wall of the tennis court, his racket arcing through the air with a sharp, swift whine. Again and again he swung, practising his serve, his arm twisting back and overhand, until his shoulder muscles shrieked with the ache and sweat poured down his back. His shirt clung to his damp skin, yet still he swung, beating at the helpless ball in the empty, echoing court.

When he came here, he was sure this would be the one place at Greenwich he could be alone, could sweat out his anger and frustration. Everyone else was in the banquet hall, feasting and drinking yet again. Including Marguerite.

At the thought of her, the mere breath of her name, Nicolai swung the racket harder, the “crack” as loud as a cannon. Yet still she would not be banished. That image of her, sprawled out on the theatre floor with her breasts bare, her hair spread around her, her legs open to him, smiling up at him as she welcomed him into her body—it was all still there. Burned into his memory, his senses. The way she smelled, of lilies and clean water. The smooth feel of her skin, satiny and warm.

The way her green eyes glittered, like the emerald she was named for, as she whispered his name.

Chert poberi! He did not trust her. What was the woman about? Did she try to kill him with sex now, as she could not with her dagger? If so, she was doing wondrously well.

He still hardly knew what had come over them there in the theatre. He had lusted for women before, of course, desired them with what he thought was overwhelming passion. He loved women, loved their laughter, their soft voices, the clean sweetness of them, the complex, mysterious ways their minds worked. And often they loved him back.

But never in his life had he felt anything like what happened with Marguerite Dumas. One moment he sparred with her, his muscles moving in the practised way he employed in so many fights before. To give in to anger was the kiss of death in swordplay, especially with an icy, untrustworthy opponent like the Emerald Lily.

But then the next minute it was as if his body was consumed by a great sun flare, his mind drugged, full of only her. Desperate need. Fully dressed, they copulated on the floor, their bodies bound together in a lust gone unfulfilled since Venice.

Yet why, then, did he still feel so very frustrated? So tied up in anger, tension?

He swooped up another hard leather ball from the bucket and slammed it against the wall. He imagined it was Marc Velazquez’s head, cursing his friend for sending him into this snakepit of a palace. A snakepit ruled by an emerald-eyed viper, as alluring as she was dangerous.

“I am too old for this,” he muttered.

“Oh, on the contrary,” Marguerite’s voice said from behind him, “only a man in the very prime of his life could wield a racket like that.”

He spun around to see her standing in the doorway, outlined by the torchlight. The dishevelled, flushed woman who had fled the theatre after their lovemaking was no longer to be seen. She was again an elegant lady of the French Court in her rosy-red silk gown, her silvery hair parted in the middle and swept back beneath a jewelled band.

But her eyes shimmered with the dark light of memory. Her hand was tense where she braced it against the doorframe. That thin, delicate cord grew tense in the air between them, taut and quivering.

Nicolai tossed aside the racket, swiping his sleeve over his damp brow. His hair clung to his neck. “How did you find me?”

“Dona Elena asked me to discover what had become of you, and one of the pages told me of the ‘mad Spaniard’ in the empty tennis court,” she said. “I did not take the time to explain the difference between Spain and Russia.”

He gave a rough laugh. “It would seem a pointless exercise. What did Dona Elena want?”

“She was worried about you, and did not believe your excuses to avoid the banquet.”

“She is surrounded by her attendants. I’m sure she can do without me for an hour. I will join her for the pageant after.”

“’Tis true that King Henry’s banquets seem to last far past the point where they are amusing,” Marguerite said, taking a step closer. Her hands clasped at the fine fabric of her skirts, and she seemed uncharacteristically hesitant. “But I think she was concerned you might be ill.”

He grinned at her. “I have never felt better, thanks to you, mademoiselle.”

She laughed, ducking her chin so her face was cast half in shadows. “I was glad of the excuse to escape the feast. All that noise, the stares…”

“The stares of your companion, the priest?” Nicolai said, remembering the thin, pale cleric who seemed to be her Court shadow.

“Father Pierre, yes. He is always warning me to beware of spending too much time with the Spanish. He says you are all not as you seem.”

“That seems a pointless warning to someone like you.”

Her head tilted quizzically. “Someone like me?”

“Someone who lives at Court.”

“Hmm, yes. Surely your own life as a travelling player has prepared you well to be a courtier.”

“The ability to pretend to be someone we are not is useful anywhere. To be able to shift and change whenever we desire.”

“To deceive,” she murmured.

Nicolai moved closer to her, reaching out to gently take her chin in his hand, lifting her face toward him, into the light. The shadows played over her fair skin, the slant of her cheekbones. She stared up at him solemnly, giving nothing away.

Yet she trembled under his touch, like a tiny captive bird trying to escape.

“Who are you, really?” he said softly. “I called you a fairy enchantress, a witch, and so you seem to be.”

“I could not tell you.”

“Because you do not trust me?”

She reached up to take his fingers in hers, bending her head to press a kiss to them. It was a soft, gentle salute, strangely sad. “Because I do not know.”

She let him go, stepping back, easing away from him, from their situation. “I have to go back. I will tell Dona Elena you are well, and will see her at the pageant.”

Then she spun around and dashed away, leaving her lily scent, and her cryptic words, heavy in the air. Nicolai followed to the doorway, watching after her as she hurried into the night, a shimmering, silken figure, like the fairy he called her. She vanished not into some enchanted, misty realm, but into the well-lit, noisy banquet hall. Into her courtiers’ life.

As Nicolai stared after her, a tall, thin shadow detached itself from the night and trailed behind her. An ominous crow flocking after the bright, trembling bird. Father Pierre.

So, Marguerite was far from the only French person with secrets tonight.

Marguerite sat on her clothes chest, her body erect, tense, as she listened to the palace around her. It was deep into the darkest part of the night, the sky outside her little window a purplish indigo. Almost everyone tucked inside Greenwich’s stout walls slept. Claudine’s chamber next door was silent.

But Marguerite could not sleep, could not even lie down on her turned-back bed. She was too restless, every sense humming with acute awareness of the world around her.

What had she meant when she told Nicolai she could not tell him who she was, because she did not know? Of course she knew who she was! She was Marguerite Dumas, the Emerald Lily. Faithful servant of France. Dependent on no one as she made her way through the world. It was all she had worked for, all she had wanted since she was fifteen years old.

Yet when she was near Nicolai, all that vanished. Her world shifted, cracked, reformed into something new and strange, something she did not recognise. When she was near him, these restless longings for she knew not what overwhelmed her.

And she did not know who she was.

Marguerite rose from the chest, drifting toward the looking glass. She wore only a sleeveless sleeping chemise, as thin and light as cobwebs, her hair loose over her shoulders. The glow from the one candle shone through the fine fabric, revealing the slender lines of her body, the high, erect, pink circles of her nipples. She was all white and silver, like a ghost in the night.

She hardly recognised herself. Surely she would just vanish like a wisp of mist, and no one would remember she was there at all.

Marguerite shrugged one long strand of hair back from her shoulder, staring at the tiny red mark just at the upper curve of her breast. Nicolai had left it there, his kiss on her skin a reminder of their wild sex on the theatre floor. A reminder of his touch, of the exploding need that overcame her.

It couldn’t go on. He was a distraction from her work, and any misstep now could prove fatal. She was given this chance after her failure in Venice, this one last chance. She balanced on that acrobat’s tightrope, wobbling, wavering, unable to move forward or back.

She had to decide which way to jump.

Marguerite spun away from the glass, reaching for her cloak before she could let caution overtake her. She swung the black velvet over her chemise, and left her chamber on silent, bare feet.

The corridors were silent, filled only with the soft snores of the pages on their pallets, the sputter of torches in their sconces. From behind some of the closed doors could be heard the cries and sighs of passion. No one stopped her as she crept down the stairs and through the labyrinthine halls, her hood up to cover her pale hair and conceal her face. Surely she was turning to mist already.

The wing housing the Spanish was just as deserted as the rest of the palace, though there were signs of an abandoned gathering in empty goblets and scattered cards, a lute in the corner. Marguerite tiptoed up to a door, half-hidden behind a tapestry, and reached down to test the latch. It was not locked, and clicked open at her touch. She slid inside, hardly able to breathe, and closed the door behind her.

Nicolai was not asleep. He lay propped up in his bed, a book open beside him, candlelight flickering over the tumble of the bedclothes. She could see that he was naked under the sheet, his skin glistening gold against the white linen, the thin fabric skimming lightly over the lines of his body. She shivered as she recalled the slide of that body against hers.

He frowned as he glanced up, one hand edging toward a bolster where she was sure a dagger was hidden. But he went still when she folded back her hood, his eyes widening as the light fell over her face.

There was surely a price for what she did tonight, Marguerite knew that well. She was willing to pay it.

Would he?

Nicolai sat straight up, watching her in the tense silence. The sheet fell back, revealing the lean, muscled contours of his body. The light glimmered on the fine blond hairs of his legs and arms, making him seem gilded, like an ancient idol.

She shrugged the cloak away, leaving it in a pool on the floor as she moved slowly toward the bed. She didn’t know what he would do. Kill her? Kiss her? Laugh at her, and send her away? She would rather he plunged his dagger into her heart than do that!

He said nothing, just studied her with his unearthly eyes as she slowly climbed on to the mattress beside him. She reached out and gently pushed him back on to the tangle of sheets and velvet blankets.

“Marguerite…” he said tightly.

“I am not Marguerite tonight,” she whispered. “I am your fairy enchantress.”

She leaned over his taut body, her hair falling around them in a pale curtain, closing off the world. She touched the hollow of his throat with the tip of her tongue, feeling the pulse of his life, tasting the salt of the tiny bead of sweat that pooled there. He was so tense under her, like a drawn bow, but he leaned back, gave her her own way.

As she trailed kisses across his shoulder, she reached her fingers down to lightly trace the circle of his flat, brown nipple, which pebbled under her caress. Her tongue followed, darting out to lick before blowing on it gently. Ever so softly.

“An enchantress indeed,” he groaned.

Marguerite laughed, revelling in the sudden wave of power that rushed through her. The heady, giddy pleasure. Her lips trailed along his chest, over his taut abdomen, soft, quick, teasing kisses.

At last her mouth closed over the throbbing length of his manhood. His fingers clasped in her hair, as if to push her away—or hold her closer. In that one, perfect moment, he was hers. And it was everything she wanted.

Chapter Twelve

Marguerite drowsed in Nicolai’s loose embrace, lying on her side in his bed, curled back against him as she ran her fingertips lightly along his arm. From his wrist to his elbow and back again, until she twined her fingers with his and pressed his hand to her stomach.

There were old scars there from the horse’s kicks, the cuts of the iron shoes, a tracery of rough red lines she had never let anyone see before. But now she let Nicolai touch them, his fingertips playing over them gently.

“What will you do when you leave England?” she asked quietly.

Nicolai chuckled, his warm breath stirring her hair. He drew her even closer into the heat of his body. “Why? So you can chase me when I go? Run after me across the continent until you kill me at last?”

“If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead tonight, Muscovite!” she said, kicking back at him. “Remember, I had your most precious organ balanced right in my hand.”

He laughed, spinning her in his arms until her head rested on his shoulder. “How could I forget?”

Marguerite propped herself on her elbow, gazing down at his face in the sputtering candlelight. He was relaxed, laughing, so young. “I will not kill you in bed. I will face you fairly on a dueling field.”

“Would you indeed, dorogaya?” He took her hand, kissing each fingertip in turn. He sucked her littlest finger into his mouth, laving it lightly until she shivered. “Well, you will not have to search for me very hard for our duel. I intend to stay in one place for a good long while once this errand is done, and Dona Elena safely on her way back to Spain.”

“But you are a travelling player!”

“And so I’ve been nearly all my life, since I was nine years old, and I am twenty-seven now. I grow weary now, too old for this life. Too old to don motley and walk the tightrope.”

Too old to spy? Surely she did know how he felt. She was barely twenty-one years of age herself, and yet there were times she felt so very ancient. “What will you do instead?”

“I fear you would laugh at me, my sophisticated mademoiselle. My worldly fairy queen.”

“I could never laugh at you. Unless you play the Arlecchino. Then you are diverting beyond measure!”

“Ah, so you have seen my Arlecchino, then?”

“Once, in the Piazza San Marco, when you and your pretty young lover outwitted her sour old husband.”

“Then you know what I mean. I would soon be more likely to play the husband.”

“Au contraire, monsieur!” She traced a light, teasing caress along his chest, his taut abdomen. “There can be no player in all Europe who would look finer in those tight silks.”

“Lecherous lady! Now I know why you came to me—your lust for Arlecchino.”

“Can you blame me?” She rested her head on his shoulder, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the pulse of his very life. “So, if you will be a player no more, what will you do?”

“I will turn farmer.”

“Farmer? You? In Russia?”

“Nay. I have lost my taste for bitter winters. I bought some land from my friend Marc’s wife Julietta, on the mainland near Venice. It is an overgrown tangle right now, and the villa burned. I will build a new house, though, one that is entirely mine. And I will tend my grapevines and fields of barley, will learn to make wine and press olive oil. I’ll grow old in peace there, under the warm sun.”

Marguerite closed her eyes, picturing it all in her mind. The house, glistening white stucco crowned with a rust-red tiled roof, shimmering under that bright light. White curtains fluttering at the open windows; tables spread with bread, cheese, olives, and the vineyard’s own wines on the warm terrace, shaded by cypress trees. The twisting, beautiful vines, spread out as far as the eye could see, plump grapes ripening happily, full of sugar, until they could be gathered and turned carefully, painstakingly, into that magical elixir—wine.

“My father, he had one passion in life besides the memory of my mother, and that was wine,” she said dreamily, looping one satin strand of his hair around her finger.

His finger traced a lazy pattern on her shoulder. “Do you mean to say you had parents, Marguerite?” he teased. “Human beings? That you were not left on their doorstep as a changeling?”

She laughed. “Of course I had real, human parents! I do not remember my mother, but my father used to carry me through his vineyard when I was a child, talking about his hopes for the grapes, his plans to improve the harvests. New methods for producing the wine, which he read about in agricultural treatises from Spain or Italy.”

“Your father’s vineyards did well under his care?”

She shook her head. “Not at all, yet he never ceased to try. We lived in Champagne, you see, in the north of France where the winters are cold and come early. But the soil was good for grapes, or should have been—chalky, so it drains well and doesn’t dry out quickly. Loose, so the vines could penetrate deep and retain the precious heat of the day. My father, he was working on pressing the red grapes without much skin contact, producing a white wine with only a faint colour, a vin gris, much desired at Court.”

“Was he successful?”

“Nay, there was a blight on the fields. It nearly ruined harvest after harvest when I was a child. But he never ceased to study, to try to find which vines would best flourish, how to best handle and mature the grapes.”

Nicolai’s fingertips moved lightly up and down her spine, until she laughed at the soft, tickling feeling. “It sounds like he passed his knowledge on to his daughter.”

“A bit. I don’t have time now to study as I would like, to experiment. But one day…”

“One day what?”

She shook her head. She could not say it aloud, could not give voice to longings she only half-understood herself, and dared not hope for. She shouldn’t have spoken about her father and the vineyards at all, but Nicolai’s plans had brought them out. The white villa, the fields under a sky as blue and endless as his eyes…

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.