Read Brazen for Free Online Page B

hot and I drop my chin. Madge grabs it and lifts my head to she can see my face. Read me.
    “Are you blushing?”
    “No.” I twitch my chin out of her grip.
    “You are,” she says. “Your skin has gone all blotchy just above the lace of your bodice.”
    I slap a hand across the top of my chest, and her laughter is so contagious I have to join in.
    “I hear two little wrens giggling outside my rooms!”
    The door to the queen’s privy chamber has been opened for us to enter, and we find her sitting near the fire, listening to music. The lutenist is Mark Smeaton, a favorite of hers. He’s a rather smarmy Flemish man, but he can play, that I grant him.
    “Are you well, Your Majesty?” I curtsy. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
    “Your laughter has inspired me to grant you your freedom,” the queen says, her smile indulgent. “Drop your sewing. Have some fun. Find a tennis match to watch.”
    She pauses and glances from Madge to me and back again.
    “I believe young Surrey and the Duke of Richmond have challenged each other to a duel of sorts.”
    I look to Madge, and she wears the exact expression I can feel on my own face. Deliverance. And expectation.
    The queen laughs. “Go!” she cries. “I will stay here, indulging myself in all of Smeaton’s skills.”
    Smeaton’s fingers stutter on the strings, and she laughs again.
    “Your musical skills, Master Smeaton.”
    We retreat, and Madge grins when the door closes behind us.
    “She’s a wicked one, that Anne Boleyn,” she says, and looks at me with eager eyes. “And quite a matchmaker.”
    I grin back at her, suddenly feeling a little wicked myself. Ready for whatever might happen next. For whatever I can
make
happen. I grab Madge’s hand and practically run through the watching chamber.
    Madge keeps pace with me until we reach the stairs and she drops my hand, so she can place both hands on the walls. I skitter down and wait at the bottom, watching her take each step as if her life depends on it.
    “I hate heights,” she murmurs to her feet. “And I hate spiral staircases even more. When will we ever live in a bloody castle that is all on one level?”
    Impatience gets the better of me and I stamp my foot. I’ve decided to act and I want to act
now
, before I lose my courage.
    Madge frowns and I feel a rush of guilt at not being more sympathetic. I reach up to help her, but she swats my hand away. As soon as her feet hit the ground at the bottom, her expression changes and she’s Madge again. She lifts her nose like a pointer and sniffs the air.
    “I know where they are,” she says. “Follow me.”
    She strides across a courtyard into the shadow of the king’s privy gallery.
    “You can smell them?” I laugh.
    “Of course.” Madge stops so abruptly I almost run into her. She turns and looks at me expectantly. “Sweat, lust, and youthful energy. Can’t you?”
    She doesn’t wait for an answer, but continues on her quest, pausing before she crosses the road and then barrels into the courtyards and galleries of the park-side recreation buildings. Madge hesitates almost imperceptibly before charging up a set of stairs, her fingers making hardly a noise as she drags them along the walls.
    We look down into the largest of the tennis courts. The viewing platform is crowded with courtiers and the queen’s ladies making bets on the outcome. I slow, looking at them all, my breath coming tight and sharp. The only person not seeming to enjoy herself is Jane Seymour, hiding in the corner behind her brother.
    Madge whispers in my ear. “See that?” She nods her head in Jane’s direction. “That’s the way
not
to be. Boring. Colorless. Waiting for life to happen to you instead of going out to grab it by the horns.” She pauses. “She’s been at court
forever
and she’s
still
not married, despite her handsome siblings.”
    Thomas Seymour catches me staring and winks, but Madge has already turned away. She pulls me through the crowd by