Her mistress smiled. “May not the king come here—if he chooses?” she said mischievously. “The brocade, Alice.”
Unconvinced, Alice brought the garment, a beautiful and costly thing frosted with rare lace, and as she helped Lady Betty put it on she was more and more impressed with its charms.
“Oh, my lady,” she murmured, “you do look lovely in it—’tis too fine by half.”
Betty craned her neck backward, looking over her shoulder into the glass; the folds of the sheeny satin fell about her, the bodice fitted like a glove, displaying every curve of her well-rounded form, and it was low cut, revealing a neck and shoulders like snow. The beauty smiled.
“Bring me my string of pearls,” she said.
Alice brought them without a word and helped her fasten them about her throat. Betty looked into the mirror again and then fell to fingering the bracelet on one round arm.
“Alice,” she said, half laughing, “he is here.”
The handmaid started, looking at her in wonder.
“Who, my lady?—not Lord Clancarty?”
“The stranger we met in the woods at Althorpe,” her mistress replied, “who would have kissed me for a milkmaid.”