The Reluctant Queen Read Free Page A

‘I can stay no longer in this hot house of intrigue and danger. I need to be free to live and breathe and not be constantly checking my own shadow.’
    They’d talked for some time, and made love with a desperate, burning passion. Then he’d captured her face between his two hands and sworn his undying love for her. ‘I too would feel happier if you were safe. But not a day will go by when I will not yearn for you.’
    Despite its softness, his last kiss had been filled with both passion and love. When it was done, he’d gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Go in peace, my Queen of Hearts, and remember my promise to you. Should you ever be in need of my help, I am yours.’
    This was a fresh beginning for Margot, a new dawn, and although she could call on her lover if the need arose, she most of all must depend upon herself.
     
    The Queen Mother was feeling old. She was travelling with her daughter not out of love or even affection, but to see her safely restored to her husband and take up her rightful role as Queen of Navarre. She had a second, more important mission, to bring peace to France, and Catherine kept up her spirits as best she may while secretly dreading the many months of travel and hardship she faced.
    She was fifty-nine, a large woman, her girth increasing with age, and bore the characteristic long Valois nose, double chin, slightly bulging eyes and a full mouth. She suffered from gout and rheumatism, although her energy was as boundless as ever; and was sometimes so stiff from travelling in her coach that she would take to riding a mule, so long as one could be found strong enough to bear her weight.
    ‘How my son the King would laugh to see me,’ she would chortle, still able to laugh at herself.
    Dressed in her customary black, she was today wearing a gown with wide wing sleeves, a bodice pointed at the front and rounded at the back, and a white ruff encircled by a high black collar. It was much adorned with beadwork and jewels, and a black mantle hung from her shoulders. A peaked widow’s hood covered most of her hair which had once been black and was now largely grey, although she sometimes wore a peruke. Unlike the English Queen Elizabeth I, she did not pluck her eyebrows, nor widen her brow, but she did like a touch of rouge on her cheeks to brighten skin kept fashionably pale with a white lead paste.
    Catherine was never less than elegant, even magnificent in her dress, but she was just a little envious of Margot’s youth and beauty.
    ‘My daughter, you look splendid,’ she acidly commented as Margot prinked and preened herself for the dinner to be held that evening by some local lord, who would no doubt near bankrupt himself in his attempt to impress.
    ‘Madame, I am wearing only the dresses and ornaments I brought with me from court, for when I return there I shall not take them back with me, but shall simply arrive with scissors and materials, which I shall have made up in the current fashion.’
    Catherine gave her loud booming laugh. ‘Why do you say that, for it’s you who sets and invents the fashions, and wherever you are, the court will copy them from you, not you from the court.’
    But the Queen Mother was more concerned with winning over the south, a haven for Huguenots, than worrying about finery. Her entourage largely replicated those of her daughter’s, plus a small cabinet , her old friend the Duchess d’Uzès, and the Cardinal of Bourbon, as Catherine never stopped working or wasted a moment. The long hours in the coach were filled by reading State papers and signing documents.
    She’d taken something of a risk by accompanying her daughter on this journey, but hoped that Navarre would not refuse to talk with her. He surely wouldn’t wish to risk offending the King of France, and he did seem surprisingly anxious to have his wife returned to him. Catherine hoped that Margot would bring her husband back to the rightful church, which might then help to solve all their