The People's Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

hurts to ask for a bit more afterwards either.
    It will be fun. It will all be beautifully organised (because it's been organised by her). But the important thing in her mind is that, by the end of this week, Alice is determined she will have made the difficult Duke feel gratitude to her; she'll have made John of Gaunt her friend.
    Watching the heads, Alice's eyes light on Philippa Chaucer, somehow managing to bring grace even to the saltarello. When her heart does its usual nervous little leap at the sight of that lovely, and too familiar, back, it reminds her that she hasn't always been so phlegmatic about her position at court.
    Alice smoothes the red folds of her robe over her knees, remembering. She touches Edward's arm with a hand; she leaves it trailing there, against his sleeve, so he can see her fingers. They aren't particularly beautiful hands, hers - too square and strong for a lady. How mortified she was, back at the beginning (sitting very obediently at Queen Philippa's feet, sewing her tiniest stitches, carefully watching every courtly female in the room from under her lashes for fear of making a mistake), to realise that the two goddess-like demoiselles sitting on cushions beside her were whispering about her hands. 'Meat cleavers,' she made out, puzzling over the foreign words before she understood the sharp looks her way and sly hints of smiles. 'Wherryman's oars. Bear's paws. Don't you think?' Then, with dawning shame, 'Thick ankles, too...' She remembered her eyes widening as her insides turned over. One of them saw she was eavesdropping, and nudged the other, and they both quickly bent over their embroidery. Alice hadn't been there long enough at that stage to be sure which of the sisters was which. They were both blonde and long-limbed and apricot-skinned in that un-English Hainaulter way (Queen Philippa liked to surround herself with other people from the Low Countries). They were both self-assured with it, and so alike they might have been twins. Her first thought was to stick out her chin and make a fight of it with the pair of them. But she wasn't such a fool as that. She knew she didn't know how to fight here, yet. So she just sat on beside them, numb and prickling, fighting alternating desires to hide her shameful hands and to use them to give the smug, beautiful sisters a good slap round the face. She was burning with the slight. But she could feel herself absorbing it too. She thought: I'll bide my time, for now (though I'll get my own back later).
    She was wrong to want to hide her hands, at least. She's learned that since. Her hands might not be as white and slender and long-fingered as Katherine or Philippa de Roet's, but they're young. Firm. Fresh-skinned. That's what Edward likes about them. He often holds her hands, even nowadays. He doesn't just hold them. He holds them up, and looks at them with eyes whose pale, pale blue is beginning to go cloudy, and strokes the skin. Alice's hands make him nostalgic.
    But that isn't why she wants him to notice her hands tonight; why, next to him, she's fiddling and pleating so insistently at her robe or his sleeve. Or at least it's not the only reason. Perhaps the sight of Philippa de Roet's effortless beauty has made Alice feel insecure, and reminded her of the other small matter on her mind.
    Even though Alice's robe is the most splendid in this hall, and has no doubt cost dozens of seamstresses the best of their eyesight to be finished in time, her fingers and wrists are bare.
    She should have jewels all over her hands to match the thousands of seed pearls sewn in cloudy swirls all over the silk.
    There's nothing glittering at her neck, either. And no jewels dressing her hair, just a thin glitter of gold thread from the caul net holding the dark waves in place under her cap.
    It looks shocking to have nothing. Naked. Almost improper.
    When Edward doesn't immediately look down at her bare hand, she moves it to cover his. Blue veins; knobbles; big brown