The Queen's Gamble by Barbara Kyle

Author:Barbara Kyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780758271747
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

18

The Enemy Queen

That evening the officers’ hall was festooned with flags for the banquet, some emblazoned with the elegant blue fleur-de-lis, some with the austere coat of arms of the Queen Regent. Servants scurried with jugs of wine while musicians sawed and piped from the gallery, though little of their music could be heard above the banter and laughter of the officers. They were milling about, enjoying the fine burgundy and freewheeling talk before the Queen Regent’s arrival, when formal decorum would be necessary. There was little enough at the moment. A captain was balancing a spoon on his nose to the raucous amusement of his friends, and a lieutenant was groping a girl in a doorway, a pretty girl with rouged lips, as though he was getting all he could before she was banished to the backstairs and the Queen Regent and her ladies welcomed in.

“To the valiant Señora Valverde!” Captain Lescarbot made the toast with panache, his glass held high. The dozen men around Isabel enthusiastically raised their glasses. “Señora Valverde!” they chorused, and drank to her.

Isabel forced a smile of thanks, overwhelmed at being the focus of such attention. The story of her ordeal on the road to Edinburgh had spread through the garrison, embellished every time it was retold, until when it reached her ears again she heard that ten barbarian Scots had attacked her and Tom, that she had killed two with her dagger, and that before galloping off they had cut out Tom’s tongue and hanged him from a tree. When she and Carlos had arrived in the hall, the men greeted her with an admiring “Huzzah!” as though she were some Amazonian heroine. She caught Carlos’s eye and he winked at her, enjoying himself now that he’d had time to get used to her turning up out of the blue.

But that had taken a great effort on her part. He had brought her to his billet above the hall, a small room that he shared with an officer, and the moment they were alone she knew a barrage of questions would be coming. Her best course was to try to control it herself, so she told him again how she had come north with Frances. “She’s staying with her brother at Yeavering, you see. From there Edinburgh is so close, I decided to come and see you.”

“Yeavering?” He seemed utterly baffled. “But why didn’t you go home like I told you?”

“I thought you understood. I promised Adam I would look after Frances.”

“That was two months ago. She’s had the baby. She has servants to help her.”

“She’s still not well, Carlos, not strong. I simply couldn’t leave her.”

He let out a puff of breath, struggling to take it in. “I wanted you to go. You and Nicolas. Away from all this.”

“I know. But Frances needed me.”

“Is he with her? In Yeavering?”

Nicolas. “No. It’s a bitter journey north for a child. I left him in London.” She hoped he would assume she had left him in the care of her mother.

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