Dougless guessed that that was a lady of ill repute. She turned angry eyes on him. “Look who’s talking. You and Arabella Sydney can’t keep your hands off one another.”
Nicholas’s face turned purple, and he took a step toward her.
Lady Margaret coughed to cover laughter. “Nicholas, fetch Honoria to me. Go! Now!”
With one more look of anger at Dougless, he obediently left the room.
Lady Margaret looked at Dougless. “You amuse me. You may remain in my care until a messenger can be sent to Lanconia to ask after your uncle.”
Dougless swallowed. “How long will that take?”
“A month or more.” Lady Margaret’s eyes were shrewd. “Do you recant your story?”
“No, of course not. My uncle is king of Lanconia.” Or will be, Dougless amended to herself.
“Now the tablet,” Lady Margaret said, leaning back on the pillows. “Then you may go.”
Dougless got a cold tablet from her bag but hesitated. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”
“My son will tend to you.”
“Your son locked me in a hideous little room, and there were bugs in the bed!”
Judging from the look on Lady Margaret’s face, she didn’t seem to see anything wrong with what her son had done.
“I want a proper room and some clothes that won’t make people stare at me, and I want to be treated with the respect due to . . . to my station in life. And I want a bath.”
Lady Margaret looked at her with cold, dark eyes, and Dougless saw where Nicholas got his imperious manner. “Beware you do not amuse me too much.”
Dougless tried to keep her knees from knocking. Once, as a child, she’d seen a wax museum that showed a medieval torture chamber. Now she remembered the instruments of torture too well. The rack. The Iron Maiden. “I mean no disrespect, my lady,” she said softly. “I will earn my keep. I will do my best to continue to amuse you.” Like Scheherazade, she thought. If I don’t amuse this woman, tomorrow it’s off with my head.
As Lady Margaret studied her, Dougless knew her fate, her very life, was being decided in this single moment. “You shall attend me. Honoria will—”
“That means I can stay? Oh, Lady Margaret, you won’t regret this, I promise. I’ll show you how to play poker. I’ll tell you stories. I’ll tell you all of Shakespeare’s stories. No, I better not do that, it might upset things. I’ll tell you about . . . ah, The Wizard of Oz and My Fair Lady. Maybe I can remember some of the words and music.” Dougless, who had always refused to sing out loud, began to sing, “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Funny what the threat of being burned alive could make one do.
“Honoria!” Lady Margaret said sharply. “Take her, clothe her.”
“And food and a bath,” Dougless added
.
“The tablet.”
“Oh, sure.” Dougless handed the cold tablet to Lady Margaret.
“Let me rest now. Honoria will see to you. She will stay with you, Honoria.”
Dougless hadn’t heard the other woman enter. She looked to be the same woman who had been in the room last night, but Dougless couldn’t see her face as she kept it turned away. Dougless followed Honoria from the room.
She felt better now knowing that she had some time before Lady Margaret found out she wasn’t a princess. Was lying to a lady punished by death or merely torture? Or torture then death? But perhaps if Dougless could entertain Lady Margaret well enough, she wouldn’t care whether she was a princess or not. And, too, perhaps a month was long enough to do what she must.
Clasping her travel bag tightly to her, Dougless followed Honoria to her room, which was next to Lady Margaret’s. It was about half the size of Lady Margaret’s room, but, still, it was large and very pretty. There was a white marble fireplace on one wall, a big four poster bed, some stools, two carved chairs, and a chest at the foot of the bed. Sun came in through a window that had small diamond-shaped panes of glass.
Looking about the pretty room, Dougless was beginning to relax somewhat. She had managed to keep herself from being thrown into the streets.
“Is there a bathroom around here?” she asked the back of Honoria.
Turning, the pretty woman gave Dougless a blank look.