Read The Reluctant Queen for Free Online Page A

herself she should stifle her bruised pride and stop caring who her husband took to his bed. She should banish any hope of finding love in this marriage and be satisfied with friendship. It surely mattered only that these women didn’t cause trouble for her.
    Unfortunately, Xaintes created as many problems as did Rebours, constantly spreading gossip; some of which she acquired by spying on the correspondence Margot received from Guise and the French Court. This would not do at all. Above all things, Margot loathed having people about her that she could not trust.
    She began to wonder if perhaps she could find a girl as young and pretty and innocent as Dayelle to amuse the King; one who would also be compliant and obedient to his Queen. Having some control over whom he took for a mistress might be no bad thing. A great deal of mischief could be manufactured in the bed chamber.
    With all pleasure in Pau now gone, Margot dubbing it her Little Geneva as it was at least as Puritan, she suggested they leave and return to Nérac. Navarre agreed, and, more fortunate still, so far as Margot was concerned, Rebours was taken ill and obliged to stay behind until she was fully recovered.
    Henry no sooner lost sight of the woman than he forgot her entirely, largely because Margot had cleverly found a most suitable substitute.
    The girl was young, barely thirteen, beautiful, bright, cheerful and obligingly willing to do whatever Margot asked of her. She would sit on the King’s knee while he laughingly fed her sweetmeats and comfits, tease and play with her as he might a kitten. He would give her pretty gifts of earrings and ribbons, spoiling her as a father would his own daughter, except that Henry did not feel in the least paternal towards this girl. He had other things in mind for her, once she was old enough.
    ‘Does it not concern you that they might grow too friendly?’ Madame de Curton asked, ever fearful for her mistress.
    Margot laughed, hugging the old lady whom she still kept by her side out of love, although her duties had been reduced with respect for her great age. ‘Why should I, and what would it signify if they did? She is but a child, and knows her place. She keeps the King from dallying with other, less biddable ladies.’
    Pretty little Françoise de Montmorency, affectionately known as Fosseuse, seemed to be no threat at all.
     
    They reached a little town called Eause where, in the night, the King suddenly fell ill with a high fever and violent pains in his head. Margot was alarmed and for more than two weeks she nursed him, partly out of wifely duty and affection, but also because she was terrified of what would happen to herself should he die. Death was never far away in these dangerous times. Sickness, disease, poisonings, murder; with Catherine de Medici for a mother and Henri III for a brother, Margot had reason to fear. She certainly had no wish to return to Paris and be once more at the mercy of a brother she loathed.
    Margot never left her husband’s side, only allowing herself to snatch a few quiet moments of sleep in the chair by his bed. She never went to her own bed, nor even took off her clothes, guarding his bedchamber day and night from all-comers, save for the maid. Thankfully, he made a good recovery, and was deeply touched by her tenderness.
    ‘You protected and nursed me. I am most grateful.’
    ‘I did only what a good wife should,’ she said, as she urged him to sip some beef broth. ‘Who else would have done it? Not that silly girl Fosseuse, although I dare say she has other uses.’
    He laughed. ‘Were ever a husband and wife better suited?’ Their friendship, it seemed, had been strengthened as a result.
     
    Margot had visited Nérac only once as a young girl on her way back from Bayonne. She’d been thirteen at the time and fearful of being married off to Don Carlos, the mad son of King Philip II of Spain. She’d been vastly relieved when the match had come to nothing. But as