The Betrayal Read Free Page B

missing my ma – had never regretted it for a minute.
    As we neared the magician’s house the wind began to blow off the Thames, cold enough to make us gasp.
    ‘Will it snow today?’ Beth asked as we huddled further into our shawls.
    I looked up at the sky, which was darkening, but not with the leaden tinge a snowy sky usually takes on. ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘If it does, can we make blocks of it and build an ice house?’ asked Merryl. ‘Then we can make snowballs and keep them until next July.’
    ‘If you wish,’ I said, smiling, for with all the extra padding against the cold she was wearing, she was as round as a snowball herself.
    We turned into the lane running alongside the river to reach the back door of the house, for only Dr Dee’s clients went in the front way.
    ‘Did you think that lady was pretty?’ Beth asked.
    ‘Oh,
very
pretty,’ Merryl answered immediately. She looked at me. ‘Did you think she was pretty, Lucy?’
    ‘Whoever do you mean?’ I asked.
    ‘The new lady-in-waiting!’ they chorused.
    ‘I can’t say I noticed.’
    ‘I liked her pink boots and cap,’ said Merryl.
    ‘They call that
cerise
,’ said Beth. ‘I expect that’s thelatest colour from Paris.’
    ‘But
velvet
!’ I said, and sniffed. ‘Velvet is hardly practical in this weather. One spot of mud and those boots will be ruined.’
    They both looked at me curiously. ‘I thought you didn’t notice her,’ Merryl said.
    ‘Things like getting your boots marked don’t matter if you’re a real lady,’ said Beth, ‘because you’ll have a maid to clean them for you. And anyway, she’ll probably get picked up from her pony and carried into the palace, so she won’t have to tread in any mud.’
    ‘Yes,’ Merryl nodded solemnly. ‘I expect Tomas will carry her in.’
    They both looked at me again and I forced myself to smile and say that he probably would do, and yes, now that I’d thought about it, the new lady-in-waiting was quite passably pretty.
    Letting ourselves in the kitchen door we found Mistress Midge sitting with her feet up in front of the fire. Mistress Midge is a large and rather dishevelled woman, her stockings bagging around her ankles and her dress and apron covered in spots and blotches of this and that – so much so that our meals for the last week might well have been discerned from a careful study of them. It was most unusual to find her sitting quietly before the fire, for she has a fidgety nature and hot temper, and these things usually combine to make her a woman not often to be found in a good humour.
    The girls’ pet monkey, named Tom-fool after the jester, was in the grate, as close as he could get to the fire without being burned, holding out his little monkey-hands to the flames. I looked at him pityingly; I was not at all sure where monkeys came from but reasoned it must be one of those countries with palm trees and hot sunshine, so the poor animal must have been feeling the cold dreadfully.
    When I’d first come to live in Mortlake it was not long after Beth and Merryl’s little brother had been born and the whole house had been in a topsy-turvy mess, for the nursemaid had run away with the valet and several other members of staff had walked out. At first I thought they’d gone because they hadn’t been paid, but – although this must have been a factor – Mistress Midge maintained that it was also due to the fact that, knowing they were working for a magician, their imaginations had run away with them. In other words, they’d looked into dark corners and seen wraiths and ghosts where there were only cobwebs and shadows. Mistress Midge, at that time, was acting as the Dee family’s cook, housekeeper, parlour maid, housemaid and nursemaid. Her only help was that small amount given by Mistress Allen, who was Mistress Dee’s companion (and who rarely left the upstairs rooms), so I’d come along at just the right time.
    As I began to divest the girls of their outdoor