The First Princess of Wales by Karen Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

instructive reading. Her eyes darted about and she twisted the silver tasseled cords of her pearl-studded girdle. Her blue eyes snagged on Joan and then jumped to Lady Euphemia as a quick smile lifted her pouting red lips to a grin.
    “Master Robert, a pause, only a pause for a moment’s respite,” the princess chirped, her voice dancing like little bells on a winter sleigh. “Euphemia,
mon amie.
Look,
mes belles
! Euphemia has brought us my distant cousin Joan of Kent, a fair maid indeed to grace our bowers and our halls. Come, come, Joan. Come to meet your new friends.”
    Joan’s uneasy heart flowed out in gratitude to the lovely, young princess at this effusive welcome, more wonderful and charming than she had dared to hope for. With Lady Euphemia pushing her ahead and clucking something about “butterflies” again, Joan self-consciously wended her way past the ladies who hastened to rise in a rustle of skirts when the princess did. Lady Euphemia went out and quietly closed the door.
    Isabella’s dainty hands grasped her own and held them wide to look at her. Then she moved closer in a rush of crushing silver silk and jasmine scent for a hug so quick and light Joan had no time to return it. “My dearest, dearest Joan. How we shall all delight in having you with us, will we not,
mes amies
? Here, let me introduce you to everyone before we go back to the lesson for the day. Her dearest grace, the queen, insists my sister Joanna and I hear instruction from Master Robert every day, you know. Joanna is eleven and she has gone to visit the queen for a bit and escaped this reading today, it seems. You shall take her place then.”
    She winked slyly at Joan as though there were some unspoken message there and tugged her hand so that Joan faced the curious circle of pretty faces. “Constantia Bourchier, Mary Boherne, Nichola de Veres,” the names began and rushed by as Joan nodded and smiled at each new face. Yet the fluttering eyes were more than merely polite or simply curious, Joan thought—nervous perhaps, resentful, even critical. She was much relieved when the petite and charming princess indicated a velvet-tufted stool near her own, and everyone rustled to her seat again so that the queen’s Master Robert and his lutenist might finish.
    The reading, Joan soon realized, was from a manual of virtuous conduct for women by someone named Ménagier of Paris. She tried to focus her mind on the words but she was too excited to listen. Besides, it was obvious from the princess’ fidgeting that she scarcely took in the ominous warnings to ladies to always be obedient to their dear lords and on and on—that the man’s pleasure in all things must come before the lady’s. A lady must never nag whatever her lord’s follies—here to Joan’s surprise and dismay, the princess nudged her foot with her slippered one and surreptitiously rolled her light blue eyes—and again, Master Robert intoned, let your lord’s pleasure be before your own in all good things. At the shared innuendo of that repeated line from the serious, black-gowned Master Robert, Joan, too, bit her lip to keep from giggling. Her heart soared; this lovely, young princess was not at all grand and austere. Here, with her, mayhap there could be friends and fun and freedom!
    Master Robert and the little canary-garbed lutenist were no sooner out the door than the room erupted in giggles and murmurs and darting females.
    “Oh, I cannot
believe
what Her Grace chose for us to hear today,” the princess squealed, holding her sides. Tears of laughter streamed down Mary Boherne’s pretty face and the red-haired girl in green whose name had slipped by Joan was holding her sides in quivering laughter.
    “The next reading tomorrow,
demoiselles,
” Princess Isabella went on, her girlish voice deepened ludicrously to imitate the stern tones of Master Robert, “will be about how all you young, sweet, and quiet little things must fall at your master’s feet if he