Shall We Dance? Read Online Free PDF

destroy her no longer stood in the way of that destruction.
    If the princess—now the queen—had decided to remove herself overseas and at last live up to her terrible reputation, to enjoy life after her near imprisonment byher husband…? Well, what of it? Her only child was dead, her grandson dying with her. Why shouldn’t she seek some happiness for herself?
    And they had been happy, hadn’t they? The traveling, the adventures, all the glorious people they had met. Even Pergami; laughing, teasing, lighthearted Pergami. They’d frolicked on the shore of Lake Como; the princess had danced the nights away, laughed the days away, hidden her sorrows, her demons. They’d ridden into Jerusalem on donkeys, visited all the Holy Places, gone by water to Syracuse. The princess had been happy, or at least as happy as she could be.
    But then she became the queen.
    â€œAnd now this,” Amelia said aloud, turning away from the mirror, to glare at the official document that had so disrupted their small household. “The lengths to which he will travel to humiliate and debase his own wife. How can anyone hate so much? Why the horrible man doesn’t simply find a way to have her beheaded and be done with it is beyond me.”
    Amelia, startled at her own words, turned back to the mirror, to confront her reflection. “My God. Would he? Would he dare…?”
    Â 
    â€œS HE BELIEVES THIS ? Stap me, Mama, next she’ll be telling us she sees multicolored elephants copulating on the ceilings.”
    â€œNathaniel, don’t be crude,” his mother said. “And be quiet, for goodness sake, or your father will overhearus. You know how he always manages to be around just when I want him elsewhere.”
    â€œYes,” Sir Nathaniel Rankin, baronet, said as he split his stylish coattails and sat down beside his mother in a small anteroom located in Lady Hertford’s town mansion. “I imagine he’d order coaches to Bedlam for the pair of you. Blister it, Mama, Aunt Rowena’s a nice enough old tabby, but—”
    â€œMy sister is not a nice old tabby,” his mother interrupted.
    â€œGrandfather should have insisted she marry, Papa says. A husband and a gaggle of children may have settled her.”
    â€œI know, I know,” his mother said, sighing. “And Edmund was such a nice man, even with the squint. But Rowena would have none of him. She has always been much more enamored of her dogs.”
    Nate closed his startlingly blue eyes, pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I’m little more than an infant, Mama. Should I be hearing this?”
    His mother’s ivory-sticked fan smacked against his forearm even as the woman giggled. “You’re so naughty, Nate. Shame on you. Now, to be serious.”
    â€œDo we have to be?”
    â€œWe do, yes. I told you Rowena’s fears, but I didn’t tell you their foundation.”
    â€œNow that’s a thought I’ve never had. Aunt Rowena needs a reason?”
    â€œShe can be silly, I know. But this time? This time she may be right.”
    â€œSomeone wants the new queen dead. She read it inher tea cup, or Tarot cards, or maybe saw it in some clouds. I remember. You only said it the once, but I remember. Did her tea leaves also line up to spell out a list of suspected assassins? Only seems fair.”
    â€œNo, they—I mean, she did not, but the answer should be obvious,” his mother said, then leaned closer, to whisper into his ear. “The new king, of course. He loathes the poor thing.”
    â€œAlso not exactly mind-boggling news. He’s loathed her for decades. And done squat about it, may I remind you?”
    â€œBut she hasn’t been queen for decades, Nate. Think on it. He detests her, we all know that. The crowd jeers him, cheers her. Not to mention having to share the coronation with her, place the crown on her head? Why else do you think he has