A Matter Of Delicacy

The Meeting

     I had always hated London. The cobbled streets made the carriage jerk and rumble, and I clutched my smallsword a little tighter. The smell of sewage and smoke and decay seeped through the doors and window, coming in waves off the herds of beggars that lined the street.
'We'll go straight there,' Lady Bruce had remained pristine throughout our ride, whereas I looked tired and bedraggled. My hair was falling out of its pins and I was hot and sticky from trying to stay awake all night.
     'We're not stopping?'
     'Do you need to?'
     I looked down at my clothes, 'I don't feel particularly well-dressed to meet a Princess.'
She looked me up and down with a critical eye and pursed lip, 'Yes, I see. Well, there is plenty of room at Montagu House for you to freshen up before your presentation. How many formal dresses did you bring?'
     'Three. They're from my previous missions. Do I need one now?' I decided against telling her that my ball gowns were the complete antithesis of 'courtly.' Any eye-catching detail had been removed so I could remain unseen in the background, and all were foreign designs at least a year old. Should I have had them replaced? I barely needed them at home, but this was London. Did Lady Bruce want me to have an elaborate set? I started to regret all the space I'd used in my trunk for my training clothes and fighting jacket.
     'We'll have to get you a completely new wardrobe. We can't have a lady in waiting walking around in French dresses three years old, it would be an embarrassment. I'll write to my tailor. As for now, a calling dress will do, we're not trying to turn heads.' She gave me a side-eye and took on a patronising tone, 'you do have one of those, I assume.'
     I gritted my teeth and we rode on in silence.
     Another ten minutes and we were rolling through the huge bath stone arches of a veritable palace. Montagu House was medium-sized when considering the other grand houses of the day, it was perhaps 50 rooms, no more. But it was impressive, nonetheless. It had tall cylindrical towers and a roof with turned-up edges that mimicked Japanese pagodas.
     I leant out of the window and stared at the beautiful gardens full of blooming flowers, the tall, spiked, fences that ringed the whole outskirts, and the ornate carvings on the stone walls. A couple of ladies walked daintily across the manicured grass. When they caught sight of our carriage they scattered inside, and Lady Bruce patted her hair, 'here we are.'
     We rolled across the gravelled courtyard and I stepped out of the carriage onto wobbly knees before the footman had had a chance to open our door.
     I gazed around me.
     So this was to be my new home.
     'Miss Wentworth,' Lady Bruce cleared her throat and I hurried after her into the house.

     'When you meet the Princess you must curtsey, but do not linger there as you would for the Queen,' Lady Bruce hustled me down the long, richly carpeted corridors towards the main assembly room. I had been given a chance to change, and a kind maid had left me a wash basin to freshen myself up with. Now I felt somewhat more presentable, in a pale pink dress with my hair neatly piled and pinned onto my head.
     'And address her as Your Highness,' Lady Bruce had changed into a less extravagant gown of rich chocolate silk. It was hardly appropriate for a morning meeting but I was beginning to suspect that Lady Bruce did nothing by halves. 'And don't stare at her. Answer her questions directly and truthfully. Don't mumble.'
     'I didn't know this was to be an interview,' I said, striding to keep up with her. 'I thought I was already hired.'
     'Oh no, Miss Wentworth, this is just your first trial' She stopped at we got to a pair of large wooden doors embellished with golden vines and leaves. Despite the small size of the house it had been decorated like a state palace, and all the gilt was making me dizzy.

     A footman opened the door for us and we strode into the assembly room.
     The first thing I noticed was the distance we would still have to walk to reach the dais where the Princess sat, perhaps fifty metres away. Within a house of this size this room seemed disorienting and out of place.
     Then I laughed to myself that she was sitting there at all, like an Empress surrounded by courtiers rather than a Princess estranged from her husband and left to rot in the outskirts of the city. She lounged on a chair draped in red velvet and surrounded by a herd of ladies, all talking quietly or sewing on chairs around their mistress or simply standing and waiting for us to approach. There must have been ten of them in total.
     'Lady Bruce,' Princess Caroline still had not completely dropped the German accent, despite moving to England eleven years ago. She was a lady of middling height, with soft features and ridiculous hair. Piled in elaborate twists and decorated with fake lemons and oranges, she looked like a fruit-seller's mad mother who had dropped a basket on her head.
     'Come here,' she said.
     Once we got to the foot of the dais Lady Bruce and I curtseyed low. The Princess got to her feet and came down towards us, examining me carefully. Her eyes were a watery grey, rather weak in a face that was washed out and comic-looking. Her cheeks were a bright red but her skin and hair and eyes were all varying hues of the same bland and dirty blonde. She was not a beauty.
I averted my eyes and fixed them on the back wall, mindful of Lady Bruce's instructions. The Princess took her time to speak, walking around me in a large circle and asking the silent opinion of every other lady in the room. Eventually she came back to me, her accent bleeding through on the occasional word, 'you are Miss Katherine Wentworth?'
     'I am, Your Highness.'
     'The one they call the Silver Sword?'
     'I cannot account for other people's knowledge of me, Madam, but I believe that is correct.'
     'Her eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch, 'and you believe you are qualified to protect me?'
     The corner of my mouth quirked, 'I know that you believe so, Your Highness, or why else would you have summoned me in the middle of the night from the other side of the country?'
     Lady Bruce inhaled sharply but the Princess only smiled at me, narrowing her eyes like she had landed herself top prize at a fair through trickery. She turned slightly away from me and beckoned to one of her ladies. The young woman was perhaps a year or so older than me, with fair hair and cornflower eyes, a slight body and long thin fingers. A true English rose if ever there was one.
     She smiled as she came forward and offered the Princess the bottle of smelling salts she was carrying. It was waved away. 'Sarah, this is Miss Wentworth. Miss Wentworth, Lady Sarah Lynton, one of my closest ladies.'
     Lady Sarah and I curtseyed to each other.
     'Should I hire you, Sarah shall be your guide until you have settled in, teaching you the ways of the house and indeed,' the Princess dragged her eyes up and down my body, 'the ways of society as a whole.'
     'With respect, Your Highness, my role is to be invisible,' I said, frowning at her. 'I do not need a governess.'
     'With respect, Miss Wentworth,' she raised her eyebrows, turned on her heel and started walking away from me. 'You do. Now, Sarah will show you to the gardens and you can exhibit your skills to us. Then, and only then, will I decide whether I want to hire you or not. You may be your own letter of commendation, but this is your trial period.'