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across the ground, then crashed into a waterfall of pink. It took me a moment to realize that I’d collided with a woman’s skirts. I arched my head back, the world still seeming to spin around me.
    “I ordered you to teach him to ride, not to kill him!” Buckingham’s voice roared. “If you have marred his face, I will take a whip to you myself!”
    The groom babbled apologies, but I heard gentler tones above me. “Are you hurt, child?”
    I did not have to correct the woman before me. Buckingham broke in, a trifle impatient.
    “That is no child, Kate. It is the creature I told you about.”
    I had caught glimpses of Catherine Villiers’s coach on occasion, but I had never seen her up close. Her crimson riding hat seemed to have sucked some of the richness from her brown hair. The features framed between shoulder-length curls were pretty enough. But everything around her—from the palatial stable to the husband at her side—conspired to overpower her.
    The duchess tucked her gloved hand into the crook of Buckingham’s arm, then nodded. “You are John Hudson’s son. Your father’s dogs have provided my husband with hours of sport. I am grateful for whatever gives His Grace rest from burdens of state.” She looked at Buckingham, love naked on her face. I thought of the masked woman I had encountered in the duke’s privy chamber—her sly smile, her dimpled cheek, her hand on this woman’s husband.
    “As you see, Jeffrey, my wife is concerned with my happiness rather than her own.” Buckingham patted his duchess’s hand, then scrutinized me. “This groom has not damaged you, Jeffrey. No bruise is going to mar your face.”
    It was not a question, as if he could order wounds to vanish. Parts of my body felt bludgeoned, but they would be hidden beneath my costume. I squared my shoulders. “I am fine, Your Grace.”
    “In your appearance, perhaps. I am less confident regarding your manners. We leave for London day after tomorrow. I have gone to a great deal of expense to launch you properly, and I begin to fear my coin wasted. You have not applied yourself as diligently as I had hoped. It would be difficult for you to repay me, should you fail. You cannot afford the price of one goblet. The cost of an entire royal banquet would be beyond your imagination.”
    “He will not be able to mind his lessons if you keep pricking at him,” the duchess chided.
    “Do you believe I am ‘pricking’ at you, Jeffrey? Or am I in earnest?”
    “A little of both, I think.”
    “Exactly. Unlike my wife, I was not born to wealth. My mother struggled to give me a gentleman’s education after my father’s death. I brought all my efforts to bear on those lessons. You must do the same. Look at what I gained—a dukedom—title once given only to princes of royal blood. I rule over vast lands and have the best wife in England.” He cut her the same kind of glance the butchers gave a prime haunch of beef. I felt sorry for Buckingham’s Kate, having a husband far more beautiful than she could ever be. A fortune is a great beautifier for an ambitious man, the wizard’s daughter from the privy chamber whispered in my head.
    What woman would ever love me with such devotion? I wondered as Buckingham led his wife away. I had watched John dance at the fair with girls, their breasts bobbing against the front of their dresses. I had dreamed of mapping the shape of them with my hand. But John was strong and tall. Girls looked at him in ways they would never look at me.
    I had only my strange size and a face some claimed looked like an angel’s. I decided I must make the best of my assets, as the duke had done.
    When I returned to the quarters I shared with the other servants that night, my bruises showed in patches. Clemmy insisted on sharing some salve his mother had sent for him. “Not easy, hauling heavy trays of food about the Great Hall. The other lads made the job even harder, taunting me about these ugly scales upon my