Behind Closed Doors

by Betina Krahn

Genres: Historical Fiction; Women's Fiction; Tudor Romance

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Betina Krahn’s passionate romance classic goes behind the closed doors of Tudor England’s royal court—to reveal glittering surprises . . . UNDER THE QUEEN’S EYE . . . As Queen Elizabeth’s prized new lady-in-waiting, Corrina Huntington is beautiful, innocent, and eager to know the world beyond her sheltered home—especially the mysteries of love. Despite the queen’s vow of protection, Corrie soon finds herself swept into the intrigues of the court, rampant with plots and pleasures—and discovers more than she ever imagined . . . Manly and magnificent, Count Rugar Kalisson swears vengeance on the insulting, overbearing English who scorn him for his Swedish heritage. He vows to best the vain queen’s knights in contest, and her ladies in seduction—including her latest pet. Love is not part of his plan, yet he and the sheltered English rose are soon drawn together by a reckless passion—a forbidden bond that will not only inflame the wrath of a jealous Queen, but provoke a diplomatic scandal . . . Praise for A Good Day to Marry a Duke “The very essence of romance . . . endlessly entertaining.” —Booklist (Starred Review) “Readers will gallop through the lighthearted love story.” — Kirkus Reviews “Full of wit, deceit, manipulation . . . thoroughly entertaining . . . this amusing romance has set the bar high for the sequels.” — Publishers Weekly

Release date: October 29, 2019

Publisher: Zebra

Print pages: 420

Sample

“B-but . . . bosoms are in fashion!” The Earl of Straffen settled his fists upon the waist of his peascod doublet and summoned yet another desperate objection.

“My dearest Jack. Bosoms have always been in fashion.” The Countess of Straffen looked up from her stitchery to cast a half-amused, half-flirtatious glance at her tall, handsome husband. She let her eyes roam his elegant, broad-shouldered figure as he turned to stare out the leaded window into the side court below Straffen Hall. His shoulders had lost none of their commanding width to aging; his jaw was still as square and stubborn as it had been. His hair was just as dark—except for intriguing silver wings at his temples that bespoke his years and experience. “At least they’ve always been popular with you.”

The earl reddened and turned on his heel to stare at his lovely wife. There was a knowing sparkle in the deep, velvety blue of her eyes. He knew that look and what it betokened. She was being reasonable, so damnably reasonable.

“I mean, they wear them open . . . with no partlets, no in-filling for decency,” he insisted. “All laced and lashed up so that they bulge out, Italian-style... ’neath scanty little ruffs. Lord-love-it, Merrie . . . I was at court last spring and saw for myself!” He stalked across the great bedchamber and towered above her, his arms dangling at his sides. Horror crept into his voice, constricting it. “Merrie,” he whispered hoarsely, “they rouge their bubbies. Prop them straight out and dab them up like cherries!”

The fatherly worry visible beneath his indignation brought a rueful smile to the countess’s lips and sent a sympathetic quiver through her heart. He was frantic to keep his precious jewel of a daughter at home, away from the worldly intrigues and debauchery of London’s glittering but jaded court. And for the past two days, he’d been conjuring excuses, reasons, and rationales to bolster his refusal to let her go.

“And just how would you know how they rouge their bubbies, Jack?” she asked with a look askance.

The earl straightened as if stung and reddened prodigiously. “I . . . I . . . looked. Dammit, Merrie, I looked.” He shoved his arms behind his back and locked one wrist fiercely in the other hand, bracing.

There was no gasp of outrage, no explosion of righteous anger. Instead, the countess let her gaze slide pointedly down his exquisite velvet doublet until it came to rest on his handsomely embroidered codpiece. She lowered her hoop of needlework and gave his manly accoutrement a penetrating stare.

“Well, as long as you only looked,” she said dryly. Then she dragged her eyes up with a smile. “I trow that’s what most men at court do . . . look. And I suspect there are precious few of the queen’s waiting ladies that rouge anything a’tall.”

“God’s Nightshirt!”

“Jack, lower your voice—there are guests everywhere.” she reminded him in a firm whisper.

“That’s yet another thing I despise”—he bristled, lowering his voice—“being saddled with half of the queen’s wretched hangers-on, just because our lands border hers.” His arms flew out at his sides, palms up, in exasperation. “Elizabeth pauses at her own estates, on her summer ‘progress’ through the countryside but sends us more than half of her retinue to house. We’re swarmed by her feckless hounds—strutting hedgecocks, pretentious strumpets, and gouty old croats—each demanding food, attendance, and entertainment. We’ll be paupered for months to come. Now she wants our daughter as well!”

He strode back to the open window to stare hotly at the goings-on around his bustling estate. “Lord, look at them.” He gestured to the courtiers teeming on the grounds below. “Crammed into every nook and cranny—I can’t go to the damned privy without half the court taking note. Things have come to a fine pass in England when a man cannot have a satisfying squat or utter a decent oath in his own abode without dread of giving offense! And it’s a dark day indeed when a man has to retreat to his bloody bedchamber to manage a close word with his wife.”

But even in the privacy of the vaulted and paneled master bedchamber of Straffen Manor, the earl and the countess were not totally proof against prying eyes and ears. At that very moment, they were being observed through the crack of the partly opened door that led into the servants’ passage on the far side of the great master bed.

A pair of jade-green eyes blinked, then withdrew from that opening during the lull in the earl’s tirade.

Rouge? Corrie Huntington stood in the dim hallway, frowning, puzzled. She looked down at her own plain, modestly buttoned bodice and pressed first one, then the other of her breasts experimentally. Why on earth, she wondered, would court ladies apply rouge to their bubbies? Her mouth pursed thoughtfully. Why rouge them up if they were just going to be stuffed out of the way in a body stitchet? And why should the fact that the ladies did it outrage her father so?

She closed her eyes briefly, imagining the way a gentleman’s eyes might drift over what a court lady’s sparingly cut bodice revealed . . . looking, as her father admittedly had looked. A spark of insight was struck in her stunning eyes as they suddenly opened and refocused. Men sometimes looked at what women bore beneath their garments . . . and women must sometimes let them, else there’d be no need for rouge!

For a moment she was perfectly stunned. Color flooded her face in a rush, and a sudden chill raised gooseflesh all over her demurely covered shoulders. She sagged against the doorframe.

Pitch and dunk, she groaned silently. She’d never learn anything about the world if she didn’t keep her ear to the ground and her nose to a door crack. She was going to be stuck with tutors and books and stuffy old music masters until she was ninety, she knew it . . . while the rest of the whole, wide, fascinating world rumbled on, around and past her. Her head tilted so that her temple rested against the doorframe, and a wistful expression crept over her features.

Outside the circumscribed borders of Straffen Manor lay all manner of wonders. There were great cities, vast oceans, and exotic lands . . . places so cold that the snow never melted, and places so hot that the peoples were burned brown and went as naked as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. There were teeming bazaars and lofty pagan temples and exotic forests filled with strange and marvelous beasts . . . some as big as mountains with snakelike snouts and some like deer with ten-foot-long necks! Out in the wide world were fearsome armies, noble courts, universities filled with erudite scholars, and cathedrals so vast and beautiful they made one weep. And there were sages so wise that they knew the secrets of turning lead into gold, and monks so holy that they had actually beheld the fluttering tips of angels’ wings.

Then there were the marvelous inner mysteries of mankind that beckoned to her; the intricacies of human nature, emotion, and experience . . . most especially love.

Courtly love, holy Christian love, love of sovereign and country. But the one that intrigued her the most was the unfathomable and irresistible love between a man and a woman, which found expression in the lofty pinnacles of art and music and poetry. More and more she found herself thinking about it, watching her parents, and wondering about this hallowed but elusive force, this love that seemed to bind a man and woman together in mysterious ways.

She sighed heavily. There was a huge world outside Straffen, just waiting to be experienced. And until a week ago, she’d glimpsed it only in the tantalizing text, tale, and verse of her studies. Then the queen’s miles-long retinue of courtiers and servants had descended like a storm, catching her up in its dizzying swirl of spectacle and revel. Suddenly the first lords and ladies of the realm were stacked three abed and six-deep at table all over the manor. It was the grandest of Corrie’s imaginings come to life; England’s glittering court had journeyed to her very doorstep.

Then the great Elizabeth herself had come. Her majestic eye had paused, then fixed upon Corrie. Corrie was stunned that their sovereign lady talked with her at length and even invited her to games of chess. At her parents’ request, Corrie had played the virginal and performed recitations in Latin from the writings of Seneca, known to be the queen’s favorites. She had been invited to dine at Elizabeth’s side and to meet her closest ladies. For Corrie, it had been like beholding the face of the sun itself to experience the queen’s sharp wit and prodigious learning. And it was a thrill beyond measure to have the Queen of England praise her modest accomplishment.

Then, inexplicably, Corrie’s father had restricted her to the tiny, isolated garret beneath the roof gables, where she had slept since surrendering her own chamber to several of their lady guests. It was wholly infuriating!

All her life, she’d been encouraged to seek and to search, to think and to question. It simply wasn’t possible to stanch the tide of her curiosity now, even to please her beloved father. In desperation she’d begun to sneak and to snoop.

A rattling came at the main bedchamber door, jarring Corrie back to attention, and she again applied her eye to the slit in the doorframe. A veritable tide of humanity surged into the great bedchamber: guardsmen, waiting ladies, pages, and at last, when it seemed there was no more room, Elizabeth herself. She paused in the doorway, drawing all eyes upon her while surveying the chamber and its occupants.

She was resplendent in a gold velvet gown, a large, lace-rimmed ruff, and slashed and picked sleeves set with pearls and crusted with blackwork embroidery. Her thinning red-gold hair was mostly concealed by her demi-wig, and her mannish, short-brimmed hat was cocked at a rakish angle. A riding quirt in her gloved hand tapped restlessly at her skirts, as if venting the energy trapped in her tall, slender body. Her piercing brown eyes seemed to capture and catalog everything and everyone in a single sweep.

“Leave us. I would speak with my earl and countess privately.” She waved a dismissing hand at her entourage. In moments the wave of humanity that always surrounded her imperial presence withdrew, and she strolled purposefully about the chamber, coming to stand before an ancient wardrobe with a ghost of a smile.

“You are fortunate indeed to have so fine a house . . . and family.” The angular hauteur of her pale, faintly lined face faded. “What a pearl you have cultivated in your bosom, here. Corinna is a gell of exceptional learning and accomplishment. She gives such a twist to a Latin phrase! Your doing, I trow,” she said, looking at Merrie, who flushed with embarrassed pleasure. “I cannot wait to present her to my old friend and tutor, Roger Ascham, when she gets to court, to see what he will make of her.” The glint in her eye said she knew that she presumed—and that she fully intended to get by with it.

“Your scholar, Ascham, may have a long wait.” Jack stepped forward stiffly, searching the determination in her face while deciding how much of his own to reveal. “Regrettably, we must decline your kind offer to take Corinna to court as a lady of your chamber. She is far too young and tender to leave her home.”

“Ye gods, Straffen, she’s eighteen years.” Elizabeth exploded with a sardonic laugh. “Most gells are long wedded and well on toward childbed by eighteen.” The crinkles at her eyes and the lines at her mouth deepened, turning her genial expression into flint. “You’ve ignored her future quite long enough to keep her near you,” she declared bluntly. “It’s time someone else took up her interest. And who better than her sovereign queen?”

Jack winced inwardly and glanced at Merrie, whose face was draining of color. They had indeed dissuaded matrimonial overtures toward Corrie, and in truth, not solely to spare her the hazards of childbed until she was older. She had been their only child for ten years, until their twin daughters were born almost nine years ago, and they were loath to part with her on any account.

In the servants’ passage, Corrie stood frozen, shocked witless by what she’d heard. She? Invited to court . . . to join Elizabeth’s own ladies? Oh, precious thought—court! And at Elizabeth’s side—Lud!—in her circle of intimates! Her thoughts went spiraling off into vistas of magnificent chambers and elegant clothes, discussions amongst sage and learned councillors, and spectacles of ambassadors from exotic lands come to pay homage to England’s sovereign lady. The whole world came to England’s court, and she was being invited to witness—

Wait! Her father was declining it. Her eyes flew wide with horror. How could he do such a thing to her?

“—to have a home and children about her someday,” her father was saying. “I shall find her a worthy husb—”

“God’s Death!” Elizabeth swore, spreading her feet and setting beringed hands at her waist. Her combative pose warned of royal prerogative about to be unleashed. “There are brood mares aplenty for England’s noble houses!

“Corinna is no ordinary gell—she has a wit and a way about her that fit her for something beyond the common burdens of womanhood . . . for something rare and splendid. You did not teach her the orations of Cicero and the dialogues of Plato so that she might recite them while trapped, bare-arsed, beneath some fat nobleman’s heaving, pussley gut!”

Merrie blanched and Jack’s jaw slackened at their queen’s bawdy and venomous reproach, which was intended to leave a horribly vivid image in both their minds—and succeeded. Their shock was so profound that Elizabeth reined her ire slightly and lifted her chin. “Corinna deserves a better fate than disposal in a barter of flesh and property.”

“She deserves better than the moral corruption and disillusionment she’ll find at court,” Jack insisted. “Being pawed by every randy young blood and horny old croat—”

“She will be a maid of honor of the Privy Chambers, under my personal protection,” Elizabeth countered with regal heat, jabbing an imperious finger at him. “No man would dare approach or molest a maid of my chambers . . . unless he be afflicted with a perverse loathing for his own neck. Corinna would be as safe as in a nunnery . . . sharing my personal guard and guaranteed safe conduct, day and night.”

Jack’s smile came perilously close to a smirk. “Forgive me, but I’ve seen how loosely the rear doors to the ladies’ apartments are guarded, Your Grace. I know full well how easily the sanctity of the queen’s attendants may be breached.”

“Mayhap in the old queen’s time.” She burned fiercely at his bold male challenge, knowing that he spoke from personal experience. “But never in mine.”

Merrie watched the confrontation with mounting alarm. Corrie’s future—perhaps all their futures—hung in the balance between her strident queen and her stubborn husband. Conflict boiled up in her loyalty to both her husband and her sovereign queen, and concern for Corrie’s welfare.

“Perhaps we should send for Corrie,” Merrie offered in a small, choked voice, “to determine her wishes.”

Both Elizabeth and Jack turned on her in an instant, one in disbelief, one in delight. “By all means!” Elizabeth’s mood lifted instantly. “The gell has a finely wizened head on her shoulders. Let her hear and state her wishes.”

“She’s a mere gell,” Jack protested, “bedazzled by all—”

“Send for her.”

Jack swallowed hard against the hot words rising in his throat. His shoulders sloped as he stepped to the door and ordered a houseboy to fetch his daughter.

In the servants’ passage, Corrie whirled from the door, shaking her hands and groaning silently. A heartbeat later, she snatched up her skirts and flew down the narrow hall to the servants’ stairs, which led upward toward the garret.

In the master chamber, Elizabeth studied the conflict evident on Merrie’s face. “We have weathered much together, Straffens, in perilous days gone by.” Her voice lost much of its brittleness, and the depth of the need in her eyes stopped Merrie’s breath. “The cares of the Crown are many, and they bear heavily upon me. Alas, there are few I can trust and fewer still who give me pleasure and peace of mind in companionship. Your Corinna is one such. Her freshness and buoyant spirit, her learning and the delightful facility of her mind—she renews me, just by her presence.”

Elizabeth seated herself in one of the large chairs by the cold hearth. Her tautly held body relaxed, as though briefly released by the reins of power and obligation that held her even as she held them. Her sharp features softened, taking on a grave and wistful look that revealed Elizabeth was indeed a woman underneath, with a woman’s heart and a woman’s need for comfort and companionship. “I would not ask,” she said quietly, “if I did not need her.”

There was a scrape of hurried footsteps on the gallery outside, and the chamber door was flung open. Corinna lurched into the arched doorway and stopped on her toes, settling back on her heels to a more ladylike decorum.

Three pairs of eyes fixed on her as she curtseyed and stood waiting to hear the reason for their summons. Her hip-length hair was black as midnight and given to a slight curl, so that it seemed to caress her shoulders and waist as it flowed from beneath her pearl-rimmed cap. Her exquisite ivory skin was blushed with rosy excitement, and that same emotion sent golden sparks into the deep, jewellike green of her thickly lashed eyes.

The vivid contrast of her coloring was what first beckoned to the eyes, but it was the features of her heart-shaped face that bade them linger in admiration. Her satiny skin was molded over high cheekbones, a straight, slightly upturned nose, and a delicate chin that flared to a determined jaw. Her mouth was the only part of her face that could not have been described as delicate, and the only acceptable term for it was lush.

Yet for all her classic beauty, there was an air of sweet impetuosity about her which threatened to overtake her at any moment. The velvet bow of her lips seemed continually on the verge of curling into an enchanting curve of pleasure, and the demure set of her shoulders poised continually on the edge of melting into seductive movement. Corinna Huntington was no remote, untouchable lovely; she was warm and accessible, temptingly alive and caress-able. It was precisely that inviting, sensual quality about her that had given her worldly father sleepless nights of late.

“Corinna.” Jack motioned his daughter forward. “I would know your mind on a matter touching you.” He drew a ragged breath, struggling with the heaviness in his heart. “Her Grace has invited you to court, as one of her maids of honor.”

“Oh! Oh, Your Grace . . .” She turned to Elizabeth, then back to her father, her eyes alight. Excitement boiled up in her, causing her tightly clasped hands to tremble. Her whole being was coming alive with the buoyant spirit that Elizabeth had just laid sovereign claim to.

“Oh, I would do as our sovereign lady would have me do,” Corrie said in a breathless rush. Then, seeing the darkness in her father’s expression, she amended it dutifully. “Of—of course, with my father’s blessing.”

“Court is a difficult place at best, Corinna,” Jack admonished, his distress overlaid by sternness. Corrie’s smile faded as she sought a rebuttal. Her chance to go to court now hinged on the suppleness of her wits.

“But a smooth sea never made a skillful mariner,” she declared, hope rising. “We often learn best through adversity.”

Her father’s brow knitted at her pithy response, and he tried again. “At court, manners are all in all, Corinna. You have not been schooled in such strict disciplines and protocols.”

“Experientia docet stoltos,” she countered earnestly. At his irritable glare, she translated contritely: “Experience teaches even fools.”

Jack’s jaw clenched as a soft chuckle came from Elizabeth. He drew a long breath for one last try. “I see I am forced to speak bluntly. The morals at court are, alas, far from exemplary, Corinna. Men and women behave in depraved ways toward one another . . . using deceits to satisfy their foul urges for lust and power. I would spare you the sorrow that comes with encountering such wickedness.”

“Do not the Scriptures teach that every man carries within his breast the seeds of both good and evil?” She came closer, her eyes bright with the artless sagacity her parents had cultivated in her. “May not morals fail and hearts be broken in cottages as well as in palaces? Is there any place on earth, no matter how grand or humble, which is proof against wrong and hurt and sickness?” She stood before her father, entreating irresistibly. “Has there never been a deceit or a wrong done here, upon Straffen land?”

Jack drew his chin back abruptly, and his ruddy color deepened. He had no answer to her weighty questions and no justification for further refusal—except her oddly wizened innocence and his own experience in the wicked ways of the world. He glanced at Merrie, whose eyes held the ache of remembrance, and he recalled the wrongs that had been perpetrated against her innocence, many years ago, in this very place.

He felt Elizabeth’s hard gaze burn into his back as he turned to his daughter. There was an aching void in his chest. “It will pauper me to wardrobe you for court,” he said thickly, announcing the only decision left to him. “And it will take some time. You cannot possibly go before autumn.”

Corrie squealed and abandoned every grave and goodly manner she’d been taught to throw her arms about her father’s neck. She hugged her mother tightly, then knelt before her queen and benefactor, to press the hand that was offered against her forehead.

She was flushed, dizzy, and trembling with excitement. She wasn’t just going to London, she was going to life! She’d learn about far lands and cultures and languages . . . and perhaps someday the mysteries of love. From now on—the realization left her speechless—the world itself would be her tutor!

Elizabeth rose, smiling broadly, and raised Corrie by the hand to lead her to the door. She had won, as always, with her characteristic blend of cajolery, brute force, and disarming candor. And she was disposed to be magnanimous in victory. “I shall see to her welfare, Straffens. You needn’t fear.”

Corrie learned literally hundreds of things in her first days at Whitehall with the queen: to always keep a fragrant pomander near her nose, that the sprawling red brick palace was a veritable rabbit warren of courtyards and corridors, that courtiers were a cool and clannish lot—but most especially, that to keep up with her royal mistress required the stamina of a regiment of horseguards.

From the moment of her arrival at court, she had scarcely stopped to catch her breath. Early mornings were spent in private with the queen and her closest ladies, and the strongest daylight was spent in scholarly endeavor: reading and translating, searching the marvelous old texts assembled in the queen’s library. Late afternoons were filled with the queen’s audiences or rides in the great park which lay just outside the palace. Each evening there was the ritual of the queen’s dining, vespers, and finally dancing or other court amusements to attend. Through those long and sometimes hectic days, Corrie was frequently called to the queen’s side to recite, ride, play the virginal, or simply watch her mistress at the work of statecraft.

Corrie’s favorite times, by far, were the spectacles of the grand audiences, in which the world presented itself before England’s sovereign lady. The French Ambassador, Monsieur Pasquier, introduced a delegation of legal scholars from the Seine, who made the queen a gift of a copy of their revised codex of laws for her library. A delegation of Spaniards—with their elegant black velvets, sculptured beards, and dramatic posturing—came seeking redress against a broken marriage contract. An envoy arrived bearing gifts from the powerful Medicis of Florence, and a pair of dashing sea captains reported on a lucrative voyage chartered by the queen and presented her with her share of the profit. It was exotic, exciting—purely marvelous for Corrie to behold.

Occasionally, Elizabeth paused in the proceedings and turned to Corrie to discuss a translation, an opinion, or to share some juicy tidbit. Once, the queen recognized an emissary from Scotland and halted his prepared speech in midstream. She turned pointedly to Corrie.

“Be so good as to offer an opinion, Lady Corinna. How accountable should a man be held for the thoughts he expresses. . . and publishes?” The long-bearded Scot sputtered, but a severe look from Elizabeth silenced him.

Corrie swallowed hard and glanced about her at the many faces turned her way.

“I believe it is as the proverb says: ‘An ox is bound by ropes and a man by his words.’” When the queen settled back in her chair, looking pleased by the response, Corrie ventured more. “A spoken word will die away, but a written word—a published word—has many lives; it is reborn in the mind of every person who reads it. A man should always be careful in what he speaks, but he should be four-fold cautious in that which he writes. It is a sobering lesson from the ages past that a man’s words, committed to parchment, often outlive him.” She all but melted with relief when Elizabeth beamed approval and turned to the Scot.

“I am of like mind, Sir Edmund. John Knox should be bound by his words . . . preferably bound and gagged!” Bold laughter erupted around the chamber, and Corrie’s face flamed as she realized the queen had wielded her opinion against the fiery Scottish religious reformer, John Knox. “His cursed pamphlet, First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, declared the rule of women to be unnatural and repugnant.”

“B-but that was long ago,” the ruddy-faced Scot protested, squirming under her fierce regard. “He has since written that Your Grace is the exception to the principle of female unfitness—exempted by God’s mercy, given the facility to rule—”

“Unlike John Knox, I am one to honor my words,” Elizabeth intoned regally. “I once declared he would not set foot within the sovereign borders of this realm so long as I am queen. His request to enter England and travel to Cambridge is once again denied.” As Sir Edmund withdrew, she gave Corrie a conspiratorial smile.

The moments Corrie spent away from her royal benefactress were usually claimed by Lady Blanche Parry, one of the great ladies of the Privy Chamber, who had undertaken to introduce Corrie and teach her the protocols of court and her duties as a maid of honor.

There were scores of personages, great and small, who each held a place in the Privy Chambers: Elizabeth’s “great ladies” and the dozen other maids of honor; members of the Privy Council; Elizabeth’s renowned Secretary, William Cecil, now Lord Burghley; and a legion of undersecretaries, envoys, and advisors. Old Lady Blanche seemed determined that Corrie learn them all.

Her head buzzing, Corrie seized her first free afternoon in a fortnight to explore the expansive Privy Garden. The setting sun found her on a stone bench in an isolated bower, gazing dreamily upward, watching nighthawks soar above, silhouetted against gilded clouds. An unseasonably warm evening breeze lulled her fatigued wits and overworked senses, so that she forgot the time altogether.

Rousing with a start, she cradled to her bosom the precious, velvet-bound book she’d been reading and hurried down one path, then another, trying to recall the way back to the Privy Chambers. Two left turns, then the statue of the painted lion. Or was that supposed to be a unicorn?

As she turned a corner, she spied two elegantly dressed gentlemen of the court, strolling and conversing. Recognizing one of them as a gentleman she’d been introduced to by old Lady Blanche, she approached to ask directions. Sir Christopher Leighton seemed to recognize her and, upon hearing her difficulty, brusquely demanded to know where her attendants were. When she confessed that she had ventured into the gardens alone, he insisted on escorting her back to the Privy Gallery straightaway.

As Sir Christopher joined her on the path, she glanced up at him, examining the way his fashionably trimmed beard complimented his regular features. He caught her in the act of looking at him and stiffened, turning his face away as if she’d offended him. She lowered her eyes, her cheeks reddening. She’d seen him in the Presence Chamber for the past several nights, during the evening revels and dancing. His handsome smiles came readily for the other ladies . . . which made his aloofness toward her all the more disheartening.

They walked, unspeaking, until they reached the great Stone Gallery, where servants were lighting torches and placing them in the iron brackets which hung high upon the stone walls. The silence worked on Corrie’s pride, and she grew determined to make him speak to her. She slowed and paused, drawing him to a reluctant halt, but when she opened her mouth to speak, the tolling of distant bells, vibrating through the long, leaded windows and echoing