AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I must dress.” Justine began to unbutton her fencing jacket. “Something... I don’t know what, but somethingquitedazzling. Do I have something dazzling, Sevie?”
“Je,ma’am, you have several dazzling things.”
“Dazzling!” Amelia laughed as she fell in awhooshof silk onto a chaise. “It’s only tea.”
“May I suggest the blue and white?” Seviana asked.
“Yes!” Justine loved that gown. It had come from Paris. “That suits me very well. Thank you, Sevie.”
She shrugged out of her fencing jacket and tossed it onto the back of a settee as Seviana went to fetch the gown. She caught sight of herself in the mirror at her vanity. “Lord save me, my hair!”
“What is the matter with you? Why are you behaving like you’re about to meet someone loftier than the Queen of England?”
“Loftier!” Justine snorted. “No one could possibly be lower in my estimation. I am dressing in my best because I hate him, Amelia.” Hate may seem an odd reason to want to look her best, but there it was, the very word tossed down between them as evidence.
“That makes no sense,” Amelia said, giving voice to what Justine was thinking.
“It makesallthe sense,” a female voice intoned.
And like clockwork, here she came, the venerable and reviled—by Justine and Amelia, anyway—Lady Bardaline. Justine’s lady-in-waiting. At least that was the title her mother had given her. To Justine, she was merely a nuisance not to be trusted. Justine and Amelia didn’t always see eye to eye, but on the subject of the Bardalines, they did.
Lady Bardaline had been sent to accompany Justine to England by her mother, the queen. She was here, her mother had said, to advise Justine and guard her virtue. Justine had argued that at her age, she didn’t need anyone to guard her virtue; she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. Alas, she’d made a terrible mistake with one man, and it seemed she would be forever held to account for it. Now an entire kingdom watched her virtue as if she were a nun in a convent.
Nevertheless, Justine knew the true reason for Lady Bardaline’s presence was to report back to the queen every little thing she and Amelia said or did. Justine received a telegraph from her parents once a week, and every week, without fail, her mother mentioned events that happened, words that were said...things only someone in close proximity to Justine could possibly know. It was entirely possible the informant was hermaster of the chamber,that officious bloated ego, or any number of Weslorian servants who swept in and out of her days with various tasks...but Justine would bet her future throne it was Lady Bardaline. She and Amelia had been making a game of it lately, saying things just to see what came back to them in their mother’s letters.
“May I ask who it is we hate?” Lady Bardaline asked, as if she were a friend and had just caught the bit of conversation that was meant for the three of them.
“No one, really,” Justine said airily.
Amelia caught Justine’s eye and flashed a hint of a smile. “We don’thateLord Douglas, but he did indeed call here today.”
“Who?”
“Lord William, the Marquess of Douglas,” Justine said. She could still remember how he’d introduced himself years ago.I am a marquess. The son of a duke.
“Oh.” Lady Bardaline frowned lightly, as if trying to recall him.
“We met the gentleman when we were in London before,” Amelia explained. “At a supper or a ball—oh, who can remember? It was so long ago I hardly recall him at all.” Apparently, Amelia had decided that if he didn’t remember her, then she would certainly not remember him.
But Justine remembered him with crystal clarity. They had been in each other’s company several times. At suppers, at soirees, at a ball or two and, of course, that wretched Christmas party. “I didn’t care for him,” she said, and caught Amelia’s eye in the mirror and winked. “How could I? He was soterriblyrude to Mama.” That, of course, was a total fabrication. But when her mother heard this bit of talk, she would spend all her days trying to recall who was rude to her.
Seviana returned, the blue-and-white-striped gown in her arms.
Justine loved the off-shoulder sleeves and the dark blue silk bow at the bodice. She stepped behind a tri-fold screen and quickly shed her fencing attire.
“If I may, Highness, why not invite the gentleman to dine?” Lady Bardaline suggested. “Then you might have all the time you need to reacquaint yourself.”
Justine rolled her eyes. “I don’t need time with the gentleman at all. I would have saved him the call had I known he was coming.” She popped her head out from behind the screen. “I wonder, Lady Bardaline, why no one told me he was coming.”
Lady Bardaline blinked quite innocently. But the color in her cheeks proclaimed her guilt. At least that was what Justine wanted to believe. “Icertainly have no knowledge of who calls on you, Your Royal Highness.”
“Really? None whatsoever?”
Lady Bardaline’s hand fluttered to her chest.“No,”she said, as if mortally offended Justine would ask.
Justine moved back behind the screen. Why had he come? Why had no one told her? How did he know she was here? Sometimes it felt as if she had nothing but her gut instincts to guide her. Her father had told her once that no one, save Amelia, could be considered a true friend, and even Amelia could be persuaded to turn against her under the right circumstances.
“Amelia would never, Papa!” Justine had said firmly, incensed on her sister’s behalf.
