The Adventurer Read Online Free PDF

the lofty ceilings.
    They arrived at the most magnificent chamber of them all, the Apollo Salon, which served as the king’s throne room. As she came through the doorway, Isabella found herself pausing to stare; it was impossible not to. What lay before her quite literally took her breath away.
    The walls were covered with gold and silver silk that shimmered beneath the lights of the chandeliers. Gilded candelabras in the figures of life-sized goddesses surrounded the room beneath the image of Apollo racing his chariot across the ceiling above them. A portrait of Louis XIV dressed in royal ermine regalia hung on one wall. Directly across hung another, similar portrait, with the subject wearing the same robes and striking much the same pose. It was the image of the boy-king, Louis XV, and it looked to have been painted some two decades earlier. The king couldn’t have been any older than nineteen, perhaps twenty.
    Several guards and ministers stood about the room, chatting quietly together and watching her entrance. The throne stood at the opposite end of the room, on a dais that was covered with a rich golden carpet beneath a large red and gold canopy.
    The captain who had shown her there stopped before the dais, bowed his head, and announced, “Lady Isabella Drayton and Lady Idonia Fenwycke of Drayton Hall in Northumbria, Your Majesty.”
    There was a pregnant moment before a voice finally summoned, “Come. Come forward, mademoiselle.”
    Isabella walked cautiously forward.
    She had heard tell amidst the drawing rooms in Paris that Louis was a handsome man, and indeed he was, from his perfectly coiffed and powdered wig to the high red heels of his jeweled and buckled shoes. His was a stately beauty, his mouth slightly pursed, and dark heavy eyes above a prominent Bourbon nose. He appeared to be of a middling height, yet somehow, even sitting, everyone else in the room seemed to shrink in comparison.
    Isabella stopped before the dais and swept into a low and graceful curtsy. Beside her, Idonia did the same though not so low and not so graceful.
    “It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty,” Isabella said upon rising. “My parents, the duke and duchess, send their warmest regards to you and Her Majesty, the queen.”
    The king regarded her with a pleasant smile, his fingers steepled before him. “We have been anticipating your arrival, mademoiselle.” He sat forward on the throne. “I understand from your father’s letter that you have been to Paris these many weeks?”
    “Yes, Your Majesty. This was my first visit to France.”
    “Tell us, did you find our fair city to your liking?”
    “Oh, indeed. I think it the most beautiful place I have ever been.”
    Her answer seemed to please the king. His smile deepened and he nodded in agreement. “Well, then, may this not be your last visit to us, eh?”
    Isabella looked down and noticed the gift box she’d set at her feet. She bent to retrieve it, holding up the round, brightly wrapped parcel. “May I present a token from my father?”
    The king moved to take the box from her. “This looks like a hatbox, mademoiselle? Tell me, does my friend the duke send me
un chapeau Anglais
to take the place of my French crown?”
    He chuckled as his own jest as he took hold of the box. Just then a sound came from inside of it, a highly pitched, mewling sort of noise that seemed doubly loud in the quiet of the room.
    “What is this?” Louis said, obviously puzzled. “A hat ... that whimpers?”
    He pulled the ribbon bow that held the lid in place and opened the box to reveal a small white kitten tucked away inside on a tasseled pillow. It was a rare angora Persian that had taken her father some trouble to acquire, and the kitten had spent the past weeks in Paris with Isabella, skulking about the town house. He would now have an entire palace to explore.
    The kitten lifted its sleepy head from the pillow, blinked at the king, and mewed.
    “La!
It isn’t a hatbox at all. It