Free The Spider's Touch by Patricia Wynn Page B

pageantry, their carriage pulled up at the Palace gate. Hester awaited her turn to descend before she was handed out by Will, her favourite footman. A fair, hulking lad, he had the impudence to grimace behind Mrs. Mayfield’s back after catching sight of her startlingly dark hair. She had rinsed it with the famous Italian water, which was guaranteed to keep one’s hair either brown or black, and while her hair was certainly one of those colours, it failed to resemble anything Nature had designed. As Hester gave Will a look of gentle reproof, he cocked a complimentary eyebrow in at her new court gown, and she found it impossible to stay out of charity with him.
     In the very next moment, she had been bustled through the gate, and she forgot about Will in the excitement of her surroundings. She was gently pushed along with the hundreds of courtiers making their way towards the stairs. The air was full of their perfume. Wafts of minced tobacco occasionally escaped from the gentlemen’s snuffboxes, producing sneezes from them as well as from those behind them. Nervous laughter echoed down the well of the Great Staircase as they entered it, and Mrs. Mayfield called to her daughter to guard her skirt from the gentlemen’s swords.
    Hester had not expected to be intoxicated by the sight of candles flickering from the sconces or the sound of silk skirts rustling, but she could not deny her excitement even to herself. Today a greater company than usual had come to Court, attracted not only by the promise of a ball and illuminations this evening, but by the certainty that a failure to appear at Court on the King’s birthday would be taken as a serious insult. This was true for any monarch in any year, but particularly now and for this king, for the number of riots protesting George’s reign had increased all month, and he was sure to take note of those who had chosen to absent themselves.
    As Hester raised a foot to the first stairstep, she heard the Palace clock strike one. The immediate boom of guns nearby made everyone jump. An eruption of titters and gasps ensued, before the courtiers recalled the scheduled salute to the King in Hyde Park, and they had hardly settled down by the time the three volleys were complete.
    A feeling of nervous anxiety seemed to have affected them all, but soon they resumed the murmurs and giggles that were more expected of the Court.
    The King’s drawing-room had been scheduled for one o’clock, but the crowds and the traffic had made it impossible for Hester’s party to arrive on time. They could only inch up the Great Staircase, which was truly not so great, Hester thought, as to have merited the name. The marble staircase at Hawkhurst House, with its pillared and arched entryway by Indigo Jones, was far more impressive, and Hester began to understand why so many complained that the English kings were not well housed. Parliament was unlikely to vote money to build a palace that would rival the Sun King’s any time soon, however.
    At the top of the cramped staircase she found herself in a chamber paneled from ceiling to floor, with hundreds of weapons hung in circles and other patterns on the walls. A few large windows provided the only light by which the yeomen of the guard had to examine every visitor to ensure that he had dressed with sufficient grandeur to enter the royal presence.
    Hester had no real fear of being refused—not in her splendid new gown, and accompanied by the Earl and Countess of Hawkhurst, even more magnificently garbed—but still she could not help feeling a moment of unease. She doubted the King would consider a waiting woman worthy of his notice, even if she was cousin to a countess. She could only hope that no mean-spirited person would inform his Majesty of the post she held in her cousin’s household.
    They waited impatiently while a number of people were turned away. It was expected that everyone purchase new clothes for the King’s birthday, and some, either