Free Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland Page B

She insisted I tie her traces tight and I do what I’m told—except, you should know, I would not permit it for a growing girl, for it would deform the bones, which are soft until the fifteenth year. A training corset is another matter, however, for it would get her to sit straight—”
    “Mademoiselle Clorine is honest, a God-fearing girl,” the man interrupted uneasily. “She does not steal. She was schooled at a charity convent and knows manners, I assure you. She does not speak coarse, or stand close. I need not remind you that it is not easy to find a maid in these times. The daughter of the deceased has provided a reference.” A sheet of paper trembled in his hand.
    Françoise looked it over and quickly handed it back. “Very well. She has her belongings with her?”
    “I assure you,” the man said, bowing.
    C LORINE PUT DOWN her carpet haversack in Petite’s attic room. “They didn’t tell me that you have a limp.” She looked around, her hands on her hips.
    “It’s always warm,” Petite said. “You can use that trunk there, and that bed over there. The scullery girl used to sleep on it, but she ran away with a field hand.”
    “Is it true that your mother is to marry a marquis and that you will soon be moving to the château at Blois?”
    “Yes,” Petite said.
    “Well, then.” Clorine opened her haversack and transferred a nightcap, flannels, three aprons and small linens into the trunk. “It’s said even the servants eat with prongs at Blois.” She sat down on the bed, testing it. “I’ll have to do you in curl-papers every night,” she said.
    P ETITE SAT IN THE WOODEN chair in the sitting room, trying to read Wisdom’s Watch upon the Hours. The maid Clorine had persuaded her mother that it was time for her to wear a training corset, and it itched, breaking her concentration. Furthermore, they were expecting a caller: the Marquis, the man her mother was to marry. The man who was to be her new father.
    Her mother poked at the enormous log blazing on the hearth, then went into the room that used to be her father’s study, a sewing room now, and looked out the window that faced the courtyard. “Maybe he won’t be able to make it,” she said, returning to her chair by the fire. It had been raining for days.
    A horse whinnied, followed by the sound of carriage wheels. “That must be him now.” Françoise took the book from Petite’s hands and positioned her in front of the occasional chair. “Whatever you do, don’t move,” she said, “I haven’t told him about your…you know.” She glanced down at Petite’s leg. “Mademoiselle Clorine, are you there?”
    The maid, done up in a smock somewhat too small for her (the sleeves not reaching her stout wrists), poked her head from behind a door.
    A loud knocking sounded. A field hand, dressed in a worn butler’s jacket, darted into the entry. Petite heard the voice of an old man, followed by a belch. As the sitting room door creaked open, Françoise tugged down her bodice.
    “Madame de la Vallière, I am come through blustery weather and squall to pay a visit upon you,” the Marquis de Saint-Rémy announced, making a deep and ceremonious bow.
    Petite’s future stepfather was older than she’d expected. Under a powdered wig in the tightly curled style of Henry the Great, his face was a mass of wrinkles, the frown lines deep furrows between his blackened thin brows. He was short—about Petite’s height—with a belly as round as an inflated ox bladder. His boots were covered in muck up to the ankles.
    Françoise curtsied. “Monsieur le Marquis de Saint-Rémy, my waiting woman will take your sword and riding boots.” She signaled to Clorine. “She will polish them for you while you relax by the fire with a cup.”
    The Marquis lowered himself into the best chair, the one with the tapestry footstool, as Clorine knelt to remove his muddy boots, yanking them free.
    “I have noticed your fondness for vin sec and went to some