A Love for All Time by Bertrice Small Page B

at yer Pearroc Royal ?” demanded Linnet.
    Aidan laughed. “If there were, Linnet, I should have been home long since! Now come, ye silly child, and kiss me good-bye!”
    Each girl had stepped forward and pecked Aidan upon her cheeks, and then without further ado they trooped out of the room. As the door closed behind them Aidan felt a funny sort of sadness. They had not really been her friends for they were far too young, and much too feather-headed, but they had all been companions in the queen’s service, and they had been kind to her. She must remember in the spring to send each of them a dress length for none came of wealth, and they would appreciate her practical thought.
    “I want a bath,” she said to Mag. “Go and bribe some of the footmen to bring enough hot water to fill my little tub before it must be packed. I will be so glad to get home where I may bathe again each day.”
    The footmen who had served this part of Greenwich Palace thought Mistress St. Michael’s concern with her own personal cleanliness a great eccentricity, but they liked the piece of silver her tiring woman tipped them each time to bring up the hot water. They were sorry to learn that this would be the last time the silver would be theirs. After the tub was filled Mag shooed them out, and poured a goodly dollop of bath oil into the steaming water. Instantly the room was perfumed with the scent of lavender, and Aidan smiled.
    “It may not be as elegant a fragrance as some I’ve smelt here, Mag, but it reminds me of home, and it makes me happy,” she said.
    “Aye,” said the tiring woman helping her to disrobe, and sit down in the little tub, “and glad I’ll be to see Pearroc Royal again, m’lady.”
    “M’lady?”
    “Well, ye will be in a few short hours!” Mag pinned Aidan’s long hair atop her head. “And high time ye were getting married! Ye should have been wed years ago but neither ye nor yer father could see it. It’s a mercy he went when he did lest ye end up an old maid like the queen! I’ve saved two buckets of water for yer hair. I’ll not have ye louse-ridden like so many of these fine ladies!”
    She was bathed, and her hair was washed, and then as she dried it by the fire Mag went to the kitchens to fetch her a bit of supper, but she found her normally good appetite gone, and when she went to bed she could not sleep although Mag snored comfortably next to her. She finally slipped into a restless doze only to have Mag shaking her awake. Already a bright fire burnt in the grate, but the room was chill with winter, and she dressed in her undergarments and stockings while still beneath her down coverlet. Mag had thoughtfully warmed them before the fire, but once out of bed it didn’t help.
    “Brrrr,” she shivered.
    “Ye’ll be warmer when ye put yer dress on,” Mag promised, and she helped her mistress into the gown. “I’d always hoped to see ye wed in yer mother’s satin wedding finery, but there was no time to send for it. I’m not certain I approve of this kiss-me-quick ceremony the queen has planned for ye.”
    “Master O’Malley must leave court, Mag. Don’t deny that ye know the scandal he has caused.”
    Mag chuckled lewdly. “What a rare devil he is, m’lady Aidan! The mother and the daughters both! Then the ambassador’s wife! Hee! Hee! Hee!”
    “I would have thought ye’d be shocked,” Aidan said puzzled.
    “If ye’d been wed to him then I would have been, but a bachelor is entitled to his little adventures, and since time began there have always been women who were willing. Besides it attests to his virility, m’lady. Ye’ll be with child quick enough, and that will be good for Pearroc Royal. ”
    Aidan barely heard her for she was staring at herself in the pier glass. I am pretty, she thought. In this dress I am really pretty! It was a gown that had been made by the dressmaker who sewed for Robin’s mother, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever owned. It had been