Chapter 38
Margaretha
The queen’s chambers were unusually silent. No gentle lute melody floated in the air. No pleasant conversation or even hushed whispers interrupted the quiet. I kept my eyes on my needlework, especially when I felt Queen Mary’s gaze resting on me, which it did quite frequently.
A page boy entered the room, earning everyone’s watchful eye as the only distraction for the last hour.
He seemed to feel it, for his self-conscious gaze darted over the ladies as he handed Dame Thieuloye a letter.
She read it and presented it to the queen, who glanced it over, then nodded her chin at me.
Instead of bringing me the letter, Thieuloye only motioned for me to follow her.
Setting aside my needlepoint frame, I trailed the dame out the door. We were up the stairs and moving down the third-story hallway of nearly empty chambers before she offered any explanation.
“You have a guest. Your stepmother has come from Waldeck.”
“Belinda is here?” Joy made my steps quicker, and I soon outpaced Thieuloye to reach the one open room.
Inside, Belinda sat on the bed while Ilsa worked with a servant girl I didn’t recognize to unpack a set of trunks into the press.
The sheer number of trunks weighed down with new, fine clothes had me gawking.
How on earth had Father paid for all of this?
Hadn’t Belinda been complaining of money troubles in her letters to me?
“Margaretha!” Belinda jumped to her feet, wrapping me in a fierce hug, and I had to hold back the threatening tears, realizing how much I’d missed her.
She’d been the one constant in my life. Her voice, her scent—everything about her was so familiar.
After nearly two years apart, her embrace was like coming home.
“Stepmother, what are you doing here? I had no word you were coming.”
Belinda puckered her face. “Don’t consign me to that odious title.
It makes me feel twenty years your senior.
” She took my hands in her jeweled grasp and sat me down on the bed.
“I hadn’t time to write of my coming. After your last letter regarding Samuel, your father and I agreed I should leave immediately.
But tell me, how fares your brother? What is being done for him?
The prince is ensuring his good health, is he not? ”
“The prince offered to help, even having his father’s physician look Samuel over last week.
Felipe said he would have Samuel freed by week’s end, but only if .
. .” I shot an uncomfortable glance at the maids and lowered my voice, “if I consent to be his mistress.” I didn’t fight the blush creeping over my cheeks as I anticipated Belinda’s shocked gasp, but it didn’t come.
Her face was expressionless, almost bored.
“Well, did the physician think Samuel will last the week?”
“He hopes so . . .” I spoke slowly, confused by her dispassionate response.
“Good. I’ll send word to your father that I’m bringing Count Samuel home and that he is to have our physician ready.” She moved to the little writing table and dipped a quill in the ink bottle.
Surprise bound my tongue, leaving me mute until I choked out, “What? You encourage me to do this?”
“Hoyday, Margaretha, the whole court already thinks you have. I can’t tell you the kind of gossip Hette heard after less than an hour here.”
The little maid glanced at me with a guilty look.
“This isn’t about your name’s honor anymore,” Belinda continued. “That honor is gone. It’s about saving Samuel, doing whatever it takes to save him, as you promised you would.”
“I was willing to risk my life, not sell my soul.”
Belinda returned to me beside the bed, kneeling in front of me to whisper, “Our souls were lost long ago. But if we rescue one so noble as your brother, maybe God will forgive us our lies.”
Looking down at my hands, my eyes traced the borders of my scar.
“I would do it,” she said. “Be the prince’s mistress to save Samuel.”
I scoffed. “You would do no such thing.”
“I would,” she insisted, “but it’s you he wants. Does that not soothe you some to know he cares for you?”
If I could believe he cared. He’d seemed so sincere. “He said he would marry me if he could, that he wishes to be my husband in spirit.”
“There, you see? No doubt he’d even let you perform a ceremony if you wished. Unsanctioned, of course.”
Belinda spoke madness.
And yet, seeing my brother free and well was a heavy temptation. “But, no.” I pushed myself off the bed and whirled to face her. “Becoming a man’s mistress was never part of our plans. I have more respect for myself than to stoop to playing the harlot.”
Belinda approached me carefully as if I might startle and take flight.
She lifted my hand in hers, her thumb brushing against my scar.
“Do not forget what we have done, the life we took. That thing you call self-respect is only pride, and you have no right to it, considering your sins. You should be humbled beyond the lowest beggar, even as I am humbled. Samuel is in prison. Dying.” Her voice cracked.
“There are no other options, no other suitors lined up willing to speak for his freedom. There is only Prince Felipe, a man with greater power than you dared dream of. The man who has offered to save your brother. The time for thinking is done. Now is the moment to act and act selflessly.”
I sat with her words, hating that pieces of her logic were beyond argument.
Samuel’s time was short. There was no one else I could turn to for help.
But with no other options, was I really ready to trade myself like a dark-alley purchase for my brother’s life?
Or maybe Belinda was right there too; the time for thinking was done.
We’d spent so long thinking and planning and working and sacrificing that to balk now and see my brother die would be the acutest torture.
Could my soul handle the weight of another death, or was this my last chance for redemption?
Belinda’s smile made me suddenly conscious that she’d been watching my face and was pleased with whatever she saw. “Ilsa, look through Lady Margaretha’s press and fetch me some of her best dresses. I should like a few options for what she might wear when she meets with the prince.”
Ilsa pinned me with a heavy stare, lifting her brow in disdain before dropping a quick bow to leave the room.
“Belinda, you are too hasty,” I insisted. “I’ve made no decision.”
“But you have. And Samuel thanks you for it.”
***
Friedrich
I slid into the open seat at the servants’ tables, scooping up a plateful of mushroom pasties and pork pie.
Ilsa watched me gather food. “I’m surprised to see you. The countess hasn’t sent you packin’?”
I paused with my hand over the breadbasket. “Why should she?”
“Well, I doubt she’d approve of you and Lady Margaretha starin’ starry-eyed at each other day and night.”
It took a few seconds for understanding to click into place. “Mistress Hatzfeld is here? In Brussels? Why?”
She picked up a piece of meat with her fingers. “Somethin’ to do with Lady Margaretha’s special new relationship with the prince, I’d imagine.”
“What do you mean?” I worried I knew too well what she meant and fought to push back the anger.
Rolling her eyes, she said, “You’re a smart man, Friedrich. I think you can puzzle it out.”
I didn’t believe Ilsa’s insinuations. I wouldn’t. But of its own accord, my gaze jumped to the dais, searching over the faces for Margaretha.
“She’s not there.” Ilsa smiled from across the table, popping the meat into her mouth with two delicate, dripping fingers. “She has other plans this evenin’.” I shot her a warning glare, but she continued. “We spent all afternoon pickin’ out just the right gown for the prince—”
I slammed my fist against the table, rattling the dishes. The conversations around us went silent as diners watched with excited eyes to see what would happen next, but I did my best to keep my voice to a low growl. “Your idle gossip does your mistress harm. Steady your wagging tongue.”
Ilsa’s face was too calm, too confident. “I’m her maidservant, Friedrich. Do you truly think my words only idle gossip?”
A stone dropped in my stomach, burying any appetite, and I pushed my plate away, swinging my legs over the bench and stalking toward the doors.
But partway out of the hall, I changed my mind and went back to the table, putting my face right in front of Ilsa’s.
She stopped chewing and stared at me with her mouth hanging half open.
I spoke low, so only she could hear. “You want to compete with the countess, but if you think your lies will somehow give you an advantage over her, you’re wrong. All you do is expose a deep ugliness inside that can never be covered by the beauty of your face.”
I left her behind with her eyes wide and her mouth still hanging open.
Pushing out of the Aula Magna, I took a deep breath of the biting morning air.
Ilsa was wrong. Margaretha said she could handle the prince, and she’d been doing well enough from what I’d seen.
She’d even rebuffed him right in front of me after he’d suggested she was his mistress. Why would that suddenly change?
Clomping through the courtyard, I could think of only one reason.
Hatzfeld.
That woman always had an inexplicable influence over Margaretha.
If she was here in the palace, I was less sure of Margaretha’s resolve.
And with Count Samuel being ill, how much convincing would it take before Margaretha justified drastic action?
She’d already justified much in the last two years of her work in Brussels, shifting from an innocent, awkward flirt to one easily toying with men to meet her ends.
Black sludge slithered in my marrow, and I worried it might be true.
Margaretha might very well have succumbed to the prince.