Palace of Spies

by Sarah Zettel

  She was right. More important, she was the Princess of Wales. That fact severely limited the replies I could make to being lectured, or poked. I could not, for example, inform Her Royal Highness that I would much prefer to simply be removed to some place of quiet retirement, such as the Tower.

  “I’ve made sure of everything, miss. I promise you.” Libby might have been behind me, but the face she pulled showed clearly in the looking glass on my vanity table. “Now hold still, or I’ll have this pin right in your scalp.”

  “On purpose, too.”

  “Now, miss, would I ever do that?”

  “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “Then you’d better be sure you sit still, hadn’t you? Miss.”

  The perceptive reader will see by this exchange that my luck with maids had not improved since we last communicated. When I first came to court, my maid was a large, raw-boned woman called Mrs. Abbott. We had what might be charitably described as a troubled relationship. That I once accused her of plotting murder did not assist matters. Libby, by contrast, was a tiny girl about my own age. She was so tiny, in fact, that she had to stand on a footstool to properly pin and pomade my hair. Her olive skin and dark eyes might have indicated descent from a Spaniard, or a Roman, or a gypsy rover. Libby pretended ignorance on the matter and I pretended to believe her.

  I might have tried to find a different, gentler person with whom to entrust the care of my person but for one grave and overwhelming concern. Libby had mastered the New Art of Hairdressing.

  It was a dread and terrible time to be a maid of honor, for we found ourselves in the midst of the storm of revolution. For women, the wig had gone out of fashion.

  The wig, or more properly, the fontage, had been seen as an indispensable portion of the fashionable lady’s toilette since the days of Queen Anne. Its purpose, as far as I could tell, was to ensure Woman’s rigid adherence to the first two of the Great Rules of Fashion. I will set those down here as a warning to future generations.

  Rule 1: Any item of dress for ladies must be both more complicated and less comfortable than that same item for gentlemen.

  Rule 2: No woman can show any portion of her personage in public without it being severely, and preferably painfully, altered.

  The fontage satisfied both criteria admirably. It was an assemblage of horsehair and wire framework pinned and strapped to the lady’s Delicate Head, over which her own hair was then arranged to create sufficient height and approved shape, with the whole topped off by a tall comb or similar adornment. But recently, some daring woman had appeared before the new regent of France with a smooth, sleek head of her own hair on full display. Instead of being shocked beyond endurance, the regent liked it. He liked it and he said so. Aloud. In public.

  Thus are mighty storms generated by the tiniest gust. En masse, the ladies of Versailles cast off the fontage to freely and wantonly display their own tresses. Many were scandalized, but where Versailles’s ladies led, we lesser mortals were condemned to follow.

  For me, this all meant an extra hour in front of the mirror. The fontage might have been consigned to history alongside the neck ruff and the codpiece, but Rules 1 and 2 were not to be altered with in any particular. My coarse dark hair could not be shown in public until it had been cemented into orderly ringlets and lovelocks, then pinned with pearls and flowers and other such maidenly adornments. This was a feat that, unfortunately, Nell Libby the Sharp could easily accomplish.

  There was a knock at the door. Libby snorted and jumped off her stool. By then, however, the closet door had opened and Mary Bellenden was sauntering in.

  “Hello, Peggy. I’ve come for that bracelet you said I could borrow.” Mary was not a friend to me, or to anyone as far as I could tell. She was, in fact, one of the few genuinely careless people I’d ever met. A diamond and a hen’s egg were both the same to the lively Miss Bellenden, as long as they were accompanied by a flattering turn of phrase and the chance to make a good joke.

  Without pausing to do more than smile at my reflection, Mary flipped up the lid on the first of the jewel boxes set out on my vanity table and began rooting through the contents. I was not surprised. Mary Bellenden did not believe in pausing for such trifles as permission.

  “It’s here.” I pushed a smaller, sandalwood box toward her, trying not to move my head as I did so. Libby had resumed her stool and taken up her pins. She held one up for me to see in the glass. It was a gentle reminder that she was in a position to make my life yet more uncomfortable if I executed any sudden moves.

  “Thank you for taking my turn at waiting tonight,” I said to Mary, making sure to keep my head rigidly still.

  “Not at all.” Mary held up the pearl and peridot bracelet. It was a pretty thing, and I rather liked it. However, this loan was understood to be of long duration. Those of us in waiting to the royal family were kept to a strict schedule. We had three months on duty, followed by a month off, during which we might return to our family homes, if we had them. This might not sound terribly onerous, but we were expected to be in attendance between six and seven days each week. If it was a state occasion, a day could stretch to twenty hours out of the twenty-four. Maids of honor, like the other “women of the bedchamber,” could take a day off only as long as at least two of us remained in attendance. This resulted in the trading of all sorts of favors and small valuables in return for time.

  “But poor Mr. Phelps!” Mary fastened the bracelet onto her slender wrist and turned it around, testing how well the gold and jewels glistened in the candlelight. Mary had the alabaster skin, sloping shoulders, and pale eyes expected of the Maid of Honor Type. She carried the looks, and the style, with an ease I envied. “He will be quite distraught when he sees me wearing his gift instead of you!”

  “Well, you’ll just have to soothe his spirits, won’t you?” I will not deny that there was a certain amount of ulterior motive in my choice of which bracelet to “loan” Mary. Mr. Phelps was one of the many court gentlemen I had to tolerate, but not one I wished to encourage.

  “Perhaps I will. He certainly has excellent taste.” Mary leaned in toward the glass, touching her patches. This blocked Libby’s view and caused my maid to eye her last silver pin, and Mary’s neck, thoughtfully. “I note you have not yet smoothed things over with our Sophy.”

  “As a good Christian maid, I know I should turn the other cheek, but both mine are already burned.” When Sophy Howe thought I was Lady Francesca, she had done her best to make my life miserable. Now that she knew I was a mere “miss” rather than a titled lady, she seemed to take my continued existence as a personal insult.

  “And you will have heard by now that Molly Lepell has returned,” Mary went on, with a great and obvious show of insouciance.

  “Oh? How is she?” I strove to match Mary’s unconcern, and failed. First, because no one could match Mary Bellenden when it came to complete and marvelous unconcern for others. Second, because Molly Lepell had been the closest thing to a friend as I had at court. Unfortunately, that friendship had been formed while she believed I was someone else. When it was revealed just how badly I’d been lying to her, and the rest of the world, Molly did not take it well. She’d left the court for her interlude at home before I’d found a chance to try to mend things.

  “I’m sure I couldn’t tell how she is.” Mary turned a bright eye toward me. “You need to apply to quite a different quarter to find out what little nothings Molly Lepell whispers these days.”

  “Mary, what are you talking about?” My patience was stretched dangerously thin. Miss Bellenden might have nothing better to do than flirt and gossip tonight, but I was under orders to make peace out of a private war with a man I detested.

  “It seems that while she was at home and out of our tender care, a certain gentleman quite captured Molly’s attention.”

  That stopped all other thoughts dead in their tracks. “Molly Lepell’s forming an attachment?” It was Molly who had warned me against losing my heart to an
y man at court. I found the idea that she might have abandoned her own excellent advice more than a bit disturbing.

  “It sounds absurd, doesn’t it? I thought her quite impervious.” Mary fussed with the fashion-mandated three tiers of lace ruffles trailing from her sleeves, making sure they fell in such a way that they would not obscure her new bracelet. “But I know what I saw, and what I saw was anything but impervious.” She tipped me a happy wink. “I fear that with all that’s going on, you’re going to have to work very hard to recapture anyone’s attention, Peggy. I am so looking forward to seeing what invention strikes.” She dropped a quick kiss on my cheek and sailed out of my closet under a wind of cheerful anticipation as strong as the one that blew her in.

  “Invention,” snorted Libby. “She knows too much about invention for her own good, that one.”

  “She’s all right,” I answered, somewhat distractedly. Mary Bellenden was indeed all right, simply because she was uncomplicated. She sailed through life as well as doorways. Molly Lepell was another matter. She was beautiful, of course, but she was also deeply intelligent and practical regarding court matters. I wondered who had found her heart. I wondered if he was worthy. I wondered if I’d ever get a chance to explain myself to her, and to be her friend again.

  “Oh, Peggy!” Mary’s voice rang quite unexpectedly from my outer chamber. “You’ve a visitor.”

  “What?” I struggled to my feet, ignoring Libby’s annoyed exclamations. “Who? The Pierponts aren’t due for two hours yet . . .” Could it be Molly?

  But the youth I caught in the act of straightening up from the bow he made to Mary Bellenden was no member of my family, much less a maid of honor.

  “Heaven defend us,” I croaked as the blood drained out of my painted cheeks.

  This man was tall and slender, with arresting blue eyes set into a hatchet-sharp face. He was the Honorable Mr. Sebastian Sandford. I met Mr. Sandford in spring, when he attempted unceremoniously to seduce me at a birthday party. When seduction failed, he, with equal lack of ceremony, attempted rape.

  He also happened to be my betrothed.

  About the Author

  SARAH ZETTEL is an award-winning science fiction, fantasy, romance, and mystery writer and the author of the American Fairy trilogy. She is married to a rocket scientist and has a cat named Buffy the Vermin Slayer. Visit her at www.sarahzettel.com.