By His Majesty's Grace by Jennifer Blake

meats to those who begged at the back gate. Menservants moved here and there with jugs of wine that had been decanted in the buttery, setting them out on side tables. Great baskets piled high with more trenchers, warm from the oven and smelling delectable, had been placed on the sideboards beyond. Courtiers and their ladies, diplomats from half a dozen countries, members of the king’s new yeomen guard, nobles, families from the country and hangers-on of all kinds lounged around the room. They talked and laughed in a low roar, playing at cards and dice and getting in the way of the servants who scurried about.
    Among the throng, Isabel caught sight of the bright heads of her two sisters. Moving easily, nodding and speaking to an acquaintance here and there, she wended her way toward where Cate and Marguerite sat on a padded bench.
    A gentleman stood next to them with one foot propped on their seat and a lute resting across his raised knee. His fingers moved on the strings in the faintest of melodies as he made some quick observation that brought trills of laughter.
    Cate glanced away from the troubadour just then. Her face lighted in welcome and she lifted her hand to beckon. The gentleman, following her gaze, looked over his shoulder. He straightened at once as Isabel came near.
    “Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, sketching a deep bow, “what felicity to see you among us! We thought you lost to us for months, perhaps forever, yet here you are again. I shall compose a madrigal for the event, one to astonish the company and make glad your girlish heart.”
    It was Leon, Henry’s Master of Revels, the gentleman who had so obligingly spread the tale of the Three Graces curse. A Frenchman of boundless charm, he gravitated naturally to the most attractive women in any room. Isabel, like her sisters, enjoyed his extravagant nonsense, but never made the mistake of taking it seriously. She sometimes thought it was the reason he sought their company so often.
    “Spare yourself the effort, sir,” she answered with wry humor. “My return will no doubt be short-lived, and then where would you be? Possessed of a rare song with no occasion to sing it.”
    “A smile from your lips would make it worthwhile.”
    Leon’s gaze was meltingly tender. It was no wonder so many ladies succumbed to his blandishments. With dark hair that curled wildly over his head, eyes so black the pupils blended into their gleaming sable-brown and olive skin touched with hints of rose on his cheekbones, he should have appeared effeminate. He was, instead, like some archangel painted by a master, the very epitome of masculine beauty. He knew it, too, but made such a jest of it that it was near impossible to accuse him of vanity. His dress this evening was eye-catching, as always, a doublet of crimson velvet over hose striped in gold, and with a yellow-brown acorn hat on his curls that sported a pheasant’s iridescent feather. The lute he began to strum once more was fig-shaped and finely crafted, decorated with inlaid wood of many varieties in the Italian fashion.
    “I am desolated, Leon,” Cate said in mock chagrin. “I thought you were composing a verse to my lips, comparing them to the sunset.”
    “So I was, my sweet, and have it still in mind. It will require no great labor, given such inspiration, so will be finished in a trice.”
    “When you are free from more important commissions, I suppose you mean to say. What a dastard you are.”
    “You wound me, fair one,” he complained, his handsome features taking on a lugubrious look.
    “Never mind that,” Marguerite said, pinning him with a stern look from her dark brown eyes. “You were telling us of your scheme for a future night of mummery.” She turned to Isabel. “It’s to be a fine piece with lots of screams and moans and fire.”
    “Vastly entertaining, I’m sure,” she said drily.
    “A critic, heaven protect me,” Leon moaned. “I must go labor to produce a new and better