by Jenny Plumb
But Broderick, who’d worked as a creative team leader for Clarkson’s head office in Melbourne, had applied and gotten the job instead.
Not getting the job had capped what had been a year from hell for Lucinda.
She’d thrown herself into work after Matt had dumped her back in July, when they’d been island hopping in Greece. Her whole life had changed that night on Ios. Forced to move out of his north London flat, she’d ended up in a house-share with two strangers. She’d worked long hours, won the award, set her sights on promotion. The acting manager’s job had given her hope, even if it was only a six-month position. She’d even started looking on real estate websites, because promotion meant more money, and she’d be able to put a deposit on a flat.
Broderick’s appointment had scuppered that.
Even worse, his arrival had coincided with the departure of one of her housemates, and he’d moved into the Turnpike Lane house, saying it wasn’t worth buying a place when he was only in England for six months. He said he didn’t want to live over here on his own, he wanted people around him.
The only good thing Broderick’s arrival had done for Lucinda was to galvanise her into action. She’d started looking for a new job; after all, Lisa was coming back to work and there’d be no more possibilities for promotion at Clarkson’s for a very long time. She’d gone on a diet, determined to get back to her old weight after all the comfort eating she’d done when Matt dumped her. If this year had been rubbish, next year was going to be awesome. She’d make sure of that.
Now, Broderick said, “Oh, the sun doesn’t shine all the time in Melbourne, I can tell you that!” before changing the subject. “I was thinking we might have a house meal tonight and then put up the decorations for Christmas. I spoke to Morag and she’s at home, she doesn’t have a concert or anything.”
Morag was their other housemate, a classical flautist, much in demand in the run-up to Christmas.
Lucinda lied swiftly. “I can’t, I’m having dinner with a friend after work. It’s been arranged for ages.”
“Oh.” Lucinda glanced up at Broderick in time to spot of flicker of disappointment. “That’s a shame. I’m not a bad cook, you know.”
“I know that,” she said. “I’ve smelt your cooking.” Delicious smells wafted up from the kitchen most evenings since Broderick had moved in. He seemed to enjoy cooking. His shelf in the pantry was filled with jars of spices and herbs, whereas Morag’s contained staples like soup and beans, easy to prepare when on the run between work and concert. And Lucinda’s right now contained… nothing.
They’d reached the tube station. A huge Christmas tree stood in a corner of the concourse area, and tinny Christmas carols blared from speakers as the escalators whisked commuters down to the tube platforms. Lucinda was hit by a wave of nostalgia. As a child she’d decorated two trees every Christmas – their big one at home, and then her gran’s small one, which had stood on a table in the bay window. Lucinda had loved doing it, had her favourite baubles and bells that had always been placed on the tree first.
“I won’t be too late tonight,” she said. They walked onto the platform, hit instantaneously by the familiar blast of wind, smell of dust and rumble of train on tracks that signalled an approaching tube. “I’ll probably be back in time to help with the decorations.”
Broderick smiled. “Great,” he said. He was making a huge effort to be friends with her – Lucinda had to give him credit for that. But she didn’t want to be pals with someone who’d taken the job she’d so badly wanted – even if he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen.
The tube arrived, already crammed with commuters. As they joined the crush, and Lucinda manoeuvred herself into a position where she could hold on to a strap handle, she and Broderick were separated. She forgot about Christmas decorations and started thinking about her diet plans. Another ten pounds to go and she’d be her ideal weight.
A MidWinter Marriage
By Bryony Kildare
It was cold. The Danish ambassador to Bohemia had joked that they would bring Scandinavian winter with them as part of Margrethe’s dowry, and it was beginning to seem more truth than joke. The horses’ breath steamed in the icy air, and Margrethe was entirely wrapped from head to toe in furs, only able to put her head out the carriage to peer at the snow-frosted pines as they approached the castle. She imagined that if she could stretch out her hand far enough to break a sprig of the evergreen tree, it would snap in her fingers, frozen solid. It was Christmas Eve, but cold even for that wintry season.
“Your Highness, you must mind us,” came a gentle voice at her elbow. “What will you do if King Rupert sneaks into your chambers in disguise and you do not recognize him? We will certainly reach Prague Castle today, and he might visit you this very evening!”
Starting from her quiet reverie, Margrethe pulled her head back in and tried to pay attention to Lady Birgitta, who had spoken to her from out of the quiet chatter of her attendants. “Why should he wear a disguise?”
“So that you will fall in love with him without knowing who he is!”
Margrethe’s brow furrowed as she tried to process the logic. “And he will sneak in?”
“Yes, he will come like a paramour from the old romances of chivalry, to steal your heart.”
“So I shall believe a masked scoundrel has come to seduce me on the eve of my marriage to the king, but I am to fall in love with this masked scoundrel, thus jeopardizing the harmonious relations between our countries by betraying King Rupert?”
“But he is King Rupert,” Lady Anneka, one of her youngest ladies, explained, her big blue eyes alight with the excitement. “Only you must pretend not to know him.”
“So I must know him – so that I may properly bestow my affections, but pretend not to know him so I may pretend my heart has been stolen by this masked scoundrel? And then, I suppose, show great surprise and pleasure when I learn who he is?”
“Yes, just that!” Anneka exclaimed.
“That sounds very complicated. Should I give him a favor, or just smile and blush? How do I pretend to love him?”
“Give him a favor,” Birgitta said judiciously, “but make sure he knows you know, or else he may think you light in your affections.”
“Yes, you might say, ‘Oh, Anneka, this gentleman has such a regal form. If this is the type of the Bohemian man, how much more handsome surely will my husband the king be,’” Anneka piped up.
Margrethe rubbed her forehead, exasperated in this new, ridiculous entry to the long list of protocols she was expected to remember and abide by. “He does not speak Danish, Anneka. He will not know what I say if I speak to you.”
“Then say it in Bohemian – it doesn’t matter if we really know what you say,” Lady Cristina, Margrethe’s best friend, suggested. “It is only a sort of game.”
“Anyway, this sort of comedy hardly accords with what Lord Hevelsheim has told us about the king,” Margrethe reminded them gently. “He said King Rupert was discreet and solemn beyond his years. There is nothing discreet or solemn about coming to bother your bride only a night or so before you will be able to properly enjoy her.”
There was a good deal of giggling at this delicate description of the marriage bed, and Margrethe let her attention wander again. Already the spires of Prague Castle were just within sight, snow-tipped like the sharp pines, and she squinted at them, trying to guess what kind of rooms – and what kind of people – they might house.
Within a few hours, though, the castle loomed hugely before them, and, after a last, frantic effort among the ladies over Margrethe’s hairpins, which had not been disturbed by the journey at all, the princess descended from the coach, laying her hand in Ambassador Hevelsheim’s to accept his assistance. Margrethe looked around and saw a line of liveried servants, both men and maids, waiting for her, but there seemed no personage of importance, and she looked up at the ambassador curiously. “My lord?”
Hevelsheim was frowning, just a little
bit – Margrethe could only see the frown in his usually placid eyes; his face was calm. “I am sure you will be properly greeted within, Your Highness.”
Margrethe nodded, for there was no good at all in finding slights in her new home as soon as she set foot on the ground. The people of Bohemia would, naturally, not know what to make of her as a stranger coming to marry their king. It was her duty to make sure they found no fault to complain of in her, not to complain of faults in them. “Of course.”
They were escorted into the enormous hall at the castle’s entrance, and Margrethe’s ladies took her fur wraps and handed them off to some of the Bohemian maids that were in attendance. The young princess straightened herself as tall as she could, but there was no disguising the tight, pale worry on her face. Cristina dared whisper, very quickly, “Your Highness has every perfection of form, education and character that might be desired – surely you know there is nothing to fear.”
Margrethe only had time to give her a smile, but it was hard to do. What Cristina said was, she certainly hoped, true. As the King of Denmark’s eldest daughter, Margrethe had been betrothed to King Rupert – Prince Rupert then – since she was in the cradle, and her father had made sure she had tutors in Bohemian to make her fluent in the language of her future husband. But she knew herself very well; she was not gay, or quick with repartee in company, nor had she the charm that would make a fault seem like a daring innovation. Whenever she made a mistake, Margrethe blushed heavily and could scarcely find her voice. In her own person, although she possessed the smooth, golden hair of her countrymen and intelligent sea-green eyes, Margrethe’s face was very pale and had more than once earned such dubious compliments as “seeming to belong to a statue rather than a living maid” and “the perfection of a master artificer.”
Here she was, though. The whey-faced, fearful Danish princess, ready to be wedded to a strange king. There was no time left to promise herself that tomorrow she would be braver or bolder. Tomorrow was today, and if she was ever to be brave, it must be now. A gray-bearded man in dark, fur-trimmed velvets came down the grand staircase, taking them at a very precise pace. Ambassador Hevelsheim stepped forward. “Lord Gottwald.” Though he was imperturbable as ever, there was unusual coldness in his address, and Margrethe could read the quarter inch he reserved in his bow: he was deeply offended, probably on her behalf. When Gottwald had bowed in return, the ambassador turned to her ostentatiously. “Your Highness, I beg leave to present Lord Gregor Gottwald, Chamberlain to His Majesty King Rupert.”
Margrethe nodded her permission and the thickset Bohemian chamberlain stepped forward and bowed before her. In his bow, there was a good half-inch of insult. Things were going from bad to worse. “Your Highness. It is my privilege to welcome you to your new home. King Rupert is occupied with matters of state, but he will sup with you this evening, and,” he continued, narrowing his eyes a little, “the Dowager Queen Carlotta offers her salutations and asks that you join her for tea this afternoon.”
Everyone was angry now – including Margrethe. To have her betrothed husband too busy to meet her upon arrival was excusable, if unpleasant. But for him to have sent no message, nor any word except that he would sup with her – it was unbearable. The Dowager Queen... that was Margrethe’s future mother-in-law, the notorious Carlotta. She had come from Spain thirty years ago in the state befitting the Infanta and proceeded to gain a reputation as one of the most frightening women in Europe. They said she had ruled her husband, King Ladislaus, absolutely – and some even whispered she had plotted his death, although Carlotta had been on pilgrimage for two months when King Ladislaus fell suddenly ill. There were whispers of poison – there were always whispers of poison. If the king had been poisoned, there was no proof who had arranged it. Nobody benefited, and everyone stood to lose, from open inquiry into the matter. But nothing could stop talk flitting from court to court like a strange butterfly, fertilizing the air with rumor along the way.
But if Margrethe responded to Gottwald’s rudeness with rudeness, things would only deteriorate further. He was obviously predisposed not to like her; that meant his rudeness was impersonal, like a man kicking a stone on the road in frustration. She drew in a deep breath and tried to smile. “Lord Gottwald, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please convey my best regards to Their Majesties.” She beckoned slightly with her left hand, and Anneka stepped forward, carrying a medium-sized rosewood casket from the luggage. “And, if you will, convey to His Majesty this gift from my father.”
The casket was filled with eighteen rubies as large as hawks’ eggs, and a note reading, I send you one ruby for each year of my daughter’s life, that you may know her far more precious than these. Her father had shown her the note before he put it in the casket, and kissed her very tenderly. Margrethe felt her throat tighten when she thought of it, but she hoped she did not betray her sudden swell of homesickness.
Gottwald flipped open the top of the rosewood box with two fingers, and at that, a spasm of annoyance did pass over her face, but fortunately he only poked at the darkly lustrous gems and grunted. He certainly was not looking at her. He closed the box again and said, “I shall certainly convey them to His Majesty.” A manservant came forward to take the carved jewel coffer. Gottwald gestured to a well-dressed man wearing a heavy steward’s chain. “The steward will convey you to your chambers. If Your Highness will excuse me.” His parting bow was still an insult, but less than the first, and Margrethe chose to understand that as progress.
She followed the steward through the enormous castle, looking around her in quiet wonder at the cavernous halls through which they passed, where dark wood gleamed richly underfoot and the warm fragrance of beeswax filled the air from the prodigal use of candles, lighting the ornately fan-vaulted ceilings. The chambers, when at last they reached them, were warm – that was a relief anyway, and once Cristina and her other ladies had managed to shoo away the Bohemian servants, she gratefully allowed herself to sink into a low chair by the fire. Birgitta, who was a good deal older than Margrethe and so tended to mother her, took her gloves and began making the princess more comfortable.
“That could have gone better,” Margrethe said flatly as soon as they were alone.
“They were so rude,” Anneka burst out, as though Margrethe’s words had removed a cork from between her lips. “That chamberlain didn’t even behave like a gentleman. He was pawing the rubies like...”
“Sweetmeats,” Cristina proclaimed, but she didn’t expand on the point. Her eyes were worriedly fixed on Margrethe, who was staring into the fire, looking very blank. “Princess, are you all right?”
“I am well,” Margrethe answered, but without sounding very convinced. “Somebody had better find out what time tea is served here – and what I must wear,” she added, rubbing her forehead with a sense of nervous fatigue. She had asked Lord Hevelsheim a great many questions about Bohemia, but while he had done his best to answer them, he had not noticed the kind of details that she would be expected to master, including points of fashion.
There was, as it turned out, only about an hour before Margrethe had to be ready to meet her new mother-in-law. There was barely time to press a blue velvet gown and hurry Margrethe into it before she was entering the Dowager Queen’s rooms. Carlotta was a small woman, with dark, intense eyes, which fixed searchingly on Margrethe’s face, though she was all smiles and her voice was very warm.
“My dear Princess,” she said, squeezing Margrethe’s hands, “I have been so looking forward to your arrival. You must forgive my son for seeming so rude. He is just like his father – all work and no sentiment, but I am sure he will be charmed by you. Your portrait hardly did you justice.” Carlotta was heavily perfumed, and the reek of it in the warm room made Margrethe giddy.
Still, she managed a smile of her own and murmured her thanks. She felt an instant dislike toward the older woman, though perhaps she was only prejudiced by all the gossip she had heard. In any case, she could hardly be r
ude to the one person in the Bohemian court who seemed kindly disposed towards her. “I hope His Majesty will share your opinion. You must tell me all about King Rupert, for I really know little about him.”
Carlotta’s smile broadened. “Poor child, you must be so nervous. And ambassadors are never any help in these matters. My son is very reserved, but he likes being fussed over. I suppose it is my fault – I have always spoiled him. He may have a hundred servants, waiting on his commands, but he had rather be served by his mother – or his wife. But he would never admit it, of course.”
A spoiled young man who wanted to be doted on by his women didn’t sound like the grave, reserved young king the ambassadors had described to her, but then perhaps Rupert gave a different face to his family than he did to his courtiers? That wasn’t unreasonable, and certainly his own mother ought to know him better than an ambassador who, after all, spent most of his time abroad. Margrethe listened intently as Carlotta talked on, serving tea and rich, dense cake which Margrethe only picked at a little, for she was much more interested in what she was hearing than what she ate. Carlotta, with her low compelling voice and quick-moving hands, painted what the princess considered a very strange picture of her future husband.
When the meal was at last done and Margrethe was again with her ladies, she was finally able to pick at the thing that had really bothered her. “Cristina,” she said softly, as she was being bathed. Her best friend was always by her in such quiet moments so that the young princess could speak in confidence. The court in Denmark, being so far north and thus considered scarcely civilized, was a good deal less formal than this place. But Margrethe had still been raised to understand the importance of her duties, so she was very docile while her fair, soft body was washed and perfumed with very little regard for the young woman within. “Cristina, why did he not come to greet me? If he is so eager for women’s love, as the Dowager Queen says?” It was the chief fault in the account Margrethe had been told. For while a man might well behave differently with his family than his ministers, he had already ignored her and sent his chamberlain to greet his betrothed in what was not quite an insult, but neither was it a good beginning to the marriage.
