Fools' Gold by Philippa Gregory

Author:Philippa Gregory
Format: azw3, epub, mobi

They were expected, and at once a lady-in-waiting took the two young women up the sweeping stairs to the upper floor where the lady of the house was entertaining her friends. Menservants greeted Luca and Brother Peter and took their capes and hats, leaving them in their dark masks, and showed them up to the first floor. Freize, always at his happiest when he was heading towards dinner, stepped into the servants’ hall at the canal side.

As she climbed the stairs, Isolde looked back and saw Luca swallowed up by the crowd of young men, and heard the rattle of dice and a cheer as someone won a small fortune at cards, and a ripple of laughter from the courtesans who would entertain the men, while the ladies had to go up to the next floor.

‘Greetings, how pleasant to meet you.’ The lady of the house, Lady Carintha, came forward and took their hands. She was an elegant woman, dressed in dark blue, almost the match of Isolde’s gown, except that hers plunged low at the front and almost slid off her broad shoulders in an open invitation. Her shining gold hair was piled up on the top of her head, in a swirl of blue silk, except for three ringlets which fell over her creamy naked shoulders. Her eyes, a calculating blue, scanned the two young women and her rouged mouth smiled without warmth.

‘You can take your masks off now we are indoors and among friends.’ She exclaimed at their beauty. ‘Oh my dears! How you are going to break hearts in this wicked city of ours! One of you so very fair and one so very dark, no man could resist the two of you. Most of them will want both of you together!’

She drew them forwards and introduced them to other ladies, who were drinking wine from brightly coloured glasses and eating small sweet pastries. ‘Some wine?’ She pressed a couple of glasses on them. ‘But I daresay I should not praise your looks, for you will have heard it all before. You will have dozens of lovers already, you must tell me all about them.’

‘Not at all,’ Isolde said, flushing.

The lady laughed and patted her cheek. ‘Only a matter of time for both of you, only a matter of moments, I swear it. Indeed! Why not tonight? I can’t believe how beautiful you are, and you match so well together. You must always go around together, you are each a perfect foil for the other.’ She turned to Ishraq. ‘You must have a lover, I am sure! Someone who prefers brunettes?’

Ishraq shook her head, not at all flattered by the woman’s cloying warmth. ‘No. We have been brought up very carefully. I have no husband.’

‘Someone else’s husband then?’ someone suggested, prompting laughter from all the ladies.

‘My lady’s brother is very strict,’ Ishraq said, hiding her irritation behind a polite smile. ‘We go out very little.’

‘The older brother, yes! You can see it clearly. No one would invite him for an affair of the heart.

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