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married a grasping knight, and she is now mother to the queen. You never know where luck and good placement will take you.” Her smile disappears in an instant. “Some of us are not so lucky. You should embrace it.”
    “Can you help me?” I ask suddenly. “I feel like a fraud. Especially when people call me ‘Your Grace.’ I have never had grace, and the very word sounds like a lie. Hal calls me ‘Your Gracelessness.’”
    Margaret laughs.
    “No wonder Madge Shelton appears to like him so much,” Margaret says, and I’m surprised by her perception. Or perhaps by the fact that Hal and Madge have been so indiscreet.
    She levels a hard look at me.
    “You have no choice,” she says. “Your life has changed. You are now a duchess, whether you like it or not. Perhaps just the wife of a bastard prince. An almost-prince. But everyone will be watching him—and you.”
    “But what if I make a mistake?”
    “You will make mistakes,” she says. “But you will also set precedents.”
    “I don’t know how to fit into this life, this family. I barely know where I fit into my own.”
    “
How
and
where
are different questions. The how is entirely up to you. The where depends entirely on the king.”
    “I just don’t understand the rules,” I say lamely.
    “Your Grace,” Margaret says, and places her hand over mine. “Mary.”
    I look up. She’s staring at me intently. Not with irritation. Not with condescension. With the look of someone who needs her words to be heard and understood.
    “Yes?”
    “The first thing you have to learn is this: in Queen Anne Boleyn’s court, there is only one rule.”
    “Only one?”
    The wickedness returns with her smile, backed by determination.
    “Yes. The only rule in your cousin’s court is that there are no rules. She doesn’t follow them. So why should we?”

“S O .” M ADGE WO N ’ T LOOK AT ME . “Y OU ’ R E FRIENDS WITH THE king’s niece now?”
    The queen has been ill—pregnancy doesn’t treat her well—and we are on our way to her apartments to entertain her. I glance back at Madge as we make our way up a spiral staircase. She doesn’t look very entertaining. She looks cross.
    “Margaret’s only just returned to court,” I say. “I thought she could use a friend.” I don’t want to divulge my true reason for befriending her.
    “Oh, so it’s
Margaret
now, not Lady Margaret. I told you you’d forget about me, Duchess.”
    “I haven’t forgotten you.”
    “You will when there are more important people around. Like Lady Margaret Douglas.”
    “I like her. I think you’d like her if you gave her a chance.”
    “She’s cold.” Madge frowns. “It’s like she thinks she’s better than everyone else.”
    She is
.
    “She’s
amiable
,” I retort. “Which is more than I can say about you right now.”
    “Did you tell her all your secrets?” Madge asks as we enter the queen’s watching chamber. “Did you tell her all of mine?”
    “No!” Irritation surges into my throat. “I don’t tell secrets.”
    “So how does she know about me and Hal?”
    I turn to face her. So close we’re almost nose to nose. “
I
don’t even know about you and Hal.”
    “Is it jealousy, Duchess? You want what I have?”
    “Don’t be disgusting, Madge; he’s my brother.”
    Suddenly, Madge’s narrowed eyes open wide and she laughs so loudly the rest of the room goes silent. She whips me into a quick, spinning hug and—just like that—our animosity is forgotten. As it always is when we argue.
    “So what
do
you want?” she asks, ignoring the crowd parting and bowing as we cross the room.
    Maybe I really do want what Madge has. Confidence. “I want him to notice me,” I say. “To look at me.”
    “Fitz.” She doesn’t have to ask; it’s a statement of fact. She stops at the door to the queen’s privy chamber and looks at me seriously. “But I think you want more than that.” The corners of her mouth tilt up with malicious glee.
    My skin gets