Free Courtesan by Diane Haeger

must agree not to flatter me so. It is not proper.”
    As though he had not heard her, Montgommery clutched her wrist and whirled her around to the tune played by the quartet. It was only after the dance was over, and he had bowed his thanks to her, that he answered her remonstrations. “Ah, Madame, I know that you have been away a long time, but you may as well learn early on how things have changed here. The moralist cuts a poor figure in King François’ Court.”
    Diane looked at him strangely, but he was no longer looking at her. She turned around to see what had averted his gaze. It was the King who was standing across the room, near Admiral Chabot. Although the Admiral was talking intensely to him, His Majesty appeared lost to the words, staring instead across the room at Diane. Anne d’Heilly, who was still clutching the King’s arm, watched His Majesty watch Diane. The forced smile which the
favourite
had worn earlier in the evening now faded as she nodded, pretending to be listening to the Admiral, but all the while, never breaking her gaze from Diane.
    Montgommery, standing across the room from the King, could see the scene from its full perspective. His smile became a sneer as he fingered his yellow moustache.
    “Well, well, well,” he muttered so only she could hear. “It appears that things are just beginning to get interesting around here.”
             
    B Y THE TIME D IANE slid between her heavy damask bedcovers, it was nearly dawn. Her feet ached from dancing and her head was spinning from the wine.
    There had been, in all, five interludes to the meal. Each time the lute player sounded a tune, the table was stripped of the meal. In place of the food, the tables became a stage and five different kinds of entertainment were enacted. There was a mystery play during which the guests were encouraged to guess the ending for the prize of a lock of His Majesty’s hair. Afterward, the food was returned and dancing recommenced. Another hour passed and the food was again cleared away. Four acrobats, dressed in multicolored costumes, leapt upon the tables to further entertain the guests. By the early hours of the morning, a young singer, whom the King had coaxed into asylum from Venice, took the stage.
    After the banquet Diane had gone a little reluctantly on the arm of Montgommery to the King’s private apartments. There, with a select group of the King’s closest friends, she watched and drank more wine as His Majesty and the Cardinal de Lorraine discussed Plato’s
Dialogues.
    As dawn washed the horizon with a blurred pink sunrise, Jacques de Montgommery offered to escort Diane back to her apartments. Once there, faced with her half-open chamber door and the flood of morning light from her windows, he had wasted no time in conveying his intentions.
    “I should like to share your bed,” he whispered. His words fell off into the folds of her gown as he swayed from the wine.
    “Monsieur, you insult me!” She pushed him away and poised her hand to slap his face. As she raised her arm, he caught it; the strength of his conviction returned.
    “You still have not figured it out have you, my pretty one? Do you think any of those people in the King’s apartment tonight have gone to bed alone? Even the good Cardinal is at this very moment likely burrowing beneath his bedcovers with one of Mademoiselle d’Heilly’s willing ladies. It is simply how things are, and you are far better off if you learn to accept it.”
    “Stop! I will not hear this!”
    He still had a firm grip on her arm and she struggled to free herself. “Do not play the virgin with me! Everyone knows you bedded the King, and with your husband’s blessing; all to barter for your father’s life!”
    There. He had said it; said what everyone had thought. Said what all the others in their little groups had mumbled when they saw the King take her out to do a Pavane. She had felt their stares. She knew their envy. She had waited until her