The Winter Queen

Then again, perhaps she was too hasty, she thought, studying his lean, handsome body sheathed in the fine velvet. She had not even yet spoken to him.

‘You are a good dancer, Lady Rosamund,’ the Queen said. ‘I see your lessons were not in vain. It was Master Geoffrey who went to Ramsay Castle, was it not?’

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ Rosamund answered, tearing her gaze from Anton to the Queen. Elizabeth’s stare was so steady, so bright, that Rosamund was quite sure she could read every tiny, hidden secret. ‘I enjoy dancing very much, though I fear I have much to learn.’

‘You are too modest, Lady Rosamund. Surely you have not so much to learn as some at Court.’ The Queen turned suddenly to Anton. ‘Master Gustavson here claims he cannot dance at all.’

‘Not at all, Your Grace?’ Rosamund remembered how he had looked on the ice, all fluid grace and power. ‘I cannot believe that to be so.’

‘Exactly, Lady Rosamund. It is quite unthinkable for anyone not to dance at my Court, especially with the most festive of seasons upon us.’

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I have never had the opportunity to learn, Your Grace. And I am a dismally clumsy oaf.’

Now, Rosamund knew that to be a falsehood! No one could possibly even have stood upright on the ice balanced on two thin, little blades, let alone spin about, if they’d been a ‘clumsy oaf’.

‘No one is entirely unable to learn to dance,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Perhaps they have not as much natural enjoyment of the exercise as I have, or as it seems Lady Rosamund has. But everyone can learn the steps and move in the correct direction in time to the music’

Anton bowed. ‘I fear I may prove the sad exception, Your Grace.’

The Queen’s gaze narrowed, and she tapped one slender, white finger on her chin. ‘Would you care to make a wager, Master Gustavson?’

He raised one dark brow, boldly meeting the Queen’s challenging stare. ‘What terms did Your Grace have in mind?’

‘Only this—I wager that anyone can dance, even a Swede, given the proper teacher. To prove it, you must try and a dance a volta for us on Twelfth Night. That will give you time for a goodly number of lessons, I think.’

‘But I fear I know of no teachers, Your Grace,’ Anton said, that musical northern accent of his thick with laughter. Why, Rosamund realised, he is actually enjoying this! He was enjoying the wager with the Queen, the challenge of it.

Rosamund envied that boldness.

‘There you are wrong, Master Gustavson.’ Queen Elizabeth spun round to Rosamund. ‘Lady Rosamund here has shown herself to be a most able dancer, and she has a patient and calm demeanour, which is quite rare here at Court. So, my lady, I give you your first task at my Court—teach Master Gustavson to dance.’

Rosamund went cold with sudden surprise. Teach him to dance, when in truth she barely knew the steps herself? She was quite certain she would not be able to focus on pavanes and complicated voltas when she had to stand close to Anton Gustavson, feel his hands at her waist, see his smile up-close. She was quite confused just looking at him—how would she ever speak? Her task for the Queen would surely end in disaster.

‘Your Grace,’ she finally dared to say, ‘I am sure there are far more skilled dancers who could—’

‘Nonsense,’ the Queen interrupted. ‘You will do the job admirably, Lady Rosamund. You shall have your first lesson after church on Christmas morning. The Waterside Gallery will be quiet then, I think. What say you, Master Gustavson?’

‘I say, Your Grace, that I wish to please you in all things,’ he answered with a bow.

‘And you are also never one to back away from a challenge, eh?’ the Queen said, her dark eyes sparkling with some mischief known only to her.

‘Your Grace is indeed wise,’ Anton answered.

‘Then the terms are these—if I win, and you can indeed dance, you must pay me six shillings as well as a boon to be decided later to Lady Rosamund.’

‘And if I win, Your Grace?’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘I am sure we will find a suitable prize for you among our coffers, Master Gustavson. Now come, Ambassador von Zwetkovich, I crave another dance.’

The Queen swept away once again, and Anne followed her to dance with Johan Ulfson. She tossed back a glance at Rosamund that promised a plethora of questions later.

Rosamund turned to Anton in the sudden quiet of their little corner. It felt as if they were enclosed in their own cloud, an instant of murky, blurry silence that shut out the bustle of the rest of the room.

‘I believe, Master Gustavson, that you are a sham,’ Rosamund hissed.

‘My lady!’ He pressed one hand to his heart, his eyes wide with feigned hurt, but Rosamund was sure she heard laughter lurking in his voice. ‘You do wound me. What have I done to cause such accusations?’

‘I saw you skating on that pond. You are no clumsy oaf.’

‘Skating and dancing are two different things.’

‘Not so very different, I should think. They both require balance, grace and coordination.’

‘Are you a skater yourself?’

‘Nay. It is not so cold here as in your homeland, except this winter. I seldom have the chance of a frozen pond or river.’

‘Then you cannot know if they are the same, ja?’ A servant passed by with a tray of wine goblets, and Anton claimed two. He handed one to Rosamund, his long fingers sliding warmly against hers as he slowly withdrew them.

Rosamund shivered at the friction of skin against skin, feeling foolish at her girlish reaction. It was not as if she had never touched a man before. She and Richard had touched behind the hedgerows last summer. But somehow even the brush of Anton Gustavson’s hand made her utterly flustered.

‘I am sure they are not dissimilar. If you can skate, you can dance,’ she said, taking a sip of wine to cover her confusion.

‘And vice versa? Very well, then, Lady Rosamund, I propose a wager of my own.’

Rosamund studied him suspiciously over the silver rim of her goblet. ‘What sort of wager, Master Gustavson?’

‘They say your Thames is near frozen through,’ he answered. ‘For every dancing lesson you give me, I shall give you a skating lesson. Then we will see if they are the same or no.’

Rosamund remembered with a pang the way he had flown over the ice. What would it be like to feel so very free, to drift like that, above all earthly bonds? She was quite tempted. But…‘I could never do what you did. I would fall right over!’

He laughed, a deep, warm sound that rubbed against her like fine silk-velvet. She longed to hear it again, to revel in that happy sound over and over. ‘You need not go into a spin, Lady Rosamund, merely stay upright and move forward.’

That alone sounded difficult enough. ‘On two thin little blades attached to my shoes.’

‘I vow it is not as hard as it sounds.’

‘And neither is dancing.’

‘Then shall we prove it to ourselves? Just a small, harmless wager, my lady.’

Rosamund frowned. She thought he surely did not have a ‘harmless’ bone in his handsome body! ‘I don’t have any money of my own yet.’

‘Nay, you have something far more precious.’

‘And what is that?’

‘A lock of your hair.’