To Shield the Queen Read Online Free Page B

so pointed, that it was hard to believe that a human body could be held within it. I saw many ropes of pearls; a close ruff of lace, with more pearls at the edges; matching wrist-ruffs; a pearl headdress; pale red hair crimped into a cap of curls.
    Her clothes were like the outer defences of a castle. I had to gaze hard to see past them, to the shield-shaped face, the golden-brown eyes under faint, arched eyebrows; the well-defined mouth. These too were defences of a kind for they told one nothing: her face was truly a shield. The eyes were watchful, determined to reveal nothing of their owner’s thoughts; the eyebrows were immobile; the shapely mouth devoid of passion. She looked more like a faery being than a human one.
    A hand, long and slender, the nails softly burnished, the length of the fingers deftly shown off by jewelled rings, was extended to me to kiss. “So you are Mistress Ursula Blanchard, formerly Faldene, and your mother, Anna Faldene, once served—at court.”
I heard the faintest pause before the words “at court.” Carefully, I said, “That is so, your majesty.”
    “You may address me as ma’am. We see that you are in mourning, Mistress Blanchard. That is for your husband?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “We will do what we can to fill your days and heal your grief. Here at court it would be perfectly proper for you to relieve your black clothes with a little more white or silver. A white or silver under-kirtle, perhaps, with matching sleeves. You have our permission.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, recognising that this was an order in disguise.
    “Black and white become you, however,” said Elizabeth. “They are my colours: did you know?”
    “N-no, your maj—ma’am. No, I didn’t know that,” I said, stammering a little in spite of all Lady Katherine’s strictures. I looked the queen in the face, hoping she hadn’t noticed or at least was not irritated.
    She hadn’t and she wasn’t. Suddenly she smiled, and fleetingly, I saw the girl beneath the satin and gold and pearls, the living, breathing princess inside the castle.
    “Welcome to our court, Mistress Blanchard,” said Queen Elizabeth.
    • • •
    The memory of that sudden, human smile stayed with me all the rest of that day, but when that night I retired alone to the tester bed in the corner room, sorrow and anxiety overtook me again. I lay there, longing uselessly for Gerald and Meg, and on top of all that, desperately worried about money.
    The magic of Elizabeth’s smile was forgotten. I remembered instead that she had practically ordered me to buy white or silver sleeves and under-kirtles, which I couldn’t afford, and that I must also, somehow, pay a maid I didn’t want and still support my daughter.
And so it began, my slide towards unlikely adventures, down a slippery incline called economic necessity.

2
Slippery Footing
    I woke next morning heavy of heart and jaded from my restless night. However, my window showed me that the weather was still bright, and sunshine is encouraging. I made an effort, rose in good time and faced the business of the day. One of my first tasks was to interview the lady’s maid Katherine Knollys had found for me.
    To my relief, the woman was so anxious for a post that she didn’t haggle about her pay. Fran Dale was past her youth, with no savings and no family and was already regretting her refusal to go back to Yorkshire with her former mistress. In fact, she was on the point of retracting her resignation when I appeared, like a gift from heaven. I hired her, I confess, at a bargain rate, and tried hard to think of her as a bargain and not as a maddening expense. I did have some money left from Gerald’s small savings and his last salary payment. What I would do when that ran out, I preferred not to think.
    The next thing was that Lady Katherine Knollys introduced me to the queen’s principal lady, Kat Ashley, who came as a surprise, for she was not the impressive figure I