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Eve paused, as if weighing her words. “When I first drew the design, I thought only of celebrating Christmas. At that time, I didn’t even know of this embroidery exhibition. But once I learned of it, after my acquaintance with Lord Cokesbury grew into something deeper, I did it in honor of love—my love for my fiancé and your love for the king. I have heard that the two of you have always been deeply in love.” She shot Noel a shy glance. “I only hope that our love lasts as long as yours has.”
Clearly, the queen liked that answer, for she smiled and patted Eve’s arm before she was hurried off by the ladies, who were eager to protect her from having too many other people accost her.
“Well done, Eve,” Noel’s mother said. “I couldn’t have given a better answer myself.”
As she walked off to speak to a friend she’d just spotted, Noel murmured, “That’s not the reason you gave me for doing it. You said you were doing it to win.”
“That is not what I said.” She smiled mischievously. “I said that your mother suggested I do it for that reason.”
With a frown, he thought back over their conversation and realized she was right. “So, you weren’t doing it to win?”
“Oh, I was,” she said lightly. “I was doing it to win you.”
“I should have known. Your campaign was quite effective.”
She suddenly looked anxious. “Does it bother you that I was so … determined?”
“Not one whit, dearling. You showed me that my plan for the future was decidedly flawed. Because it’s impossible to avoid turmoil in one’s life. And sometimes turmoil leads to changes that quite improve one’s chance of happiness.”
“Turmoil like our meeting each other in the street?”
“Exactly. Leading to changes like our falling in love.” He took her hand and kissed it, wishing they were alone. “Because of you, my life will now be full of changes … Jimmy gaining his title, you becoming the grand dame of embroidery, us having children together …”
“You becoming a little more grateful for the good things in your life?” she said softly.
“A lot more grateful. Especially when the best thing in my life is you.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Where is that mistletoe slipper when we need it?”
“We don’t need it.” He pointed overhead.
They were standing under a kissing bough.
“In that case …” Eve said with a delightful laugh, then stretched up to give him a kiss on the lips.
She was his Mistletoe Maiden at last.
Author’s Note
Although the queen’s competition was my own invention, Queen Charlotte was every bit the champion of women’s crafts that I depicted. Mrs. Pawsey’s School for Embroidering Females began as Mrs. Phoebe Wright’s Celebrated Establishment in 1772 after Queen Charlotte wanted to place some indigent girls in a situation where they could learn a useful skill. Since needlecraft was a particular love of hers, she turned to Mrs. Wright’s embroidery shop for that, and a school was born. Queen Charlotte subsidized the school to the tune of five hundred pounds a year from 1772 on. What’s more, she often went to the school to observe the girls and provide encouragement.
When Mrs. Wright died six years later, her niece Nancy Pawsey took over the business and the school and ran it until her own death in 1814, when her daughter, Harriet, took it over. But after the queen’s death in 1818, the annual subsidy ended, and the school did, too. So, while I did fudge things a bit by inventing the competition, all the rest of it already existed!
THE CINDERELLA CHALLENGE
MARY JO PUTNEY
CHAPTER 1
Chatham, Kent 1790
Fourteen Years Ago
On market days, sellers often stayed open late to serve workers leaving the nearby Chatham Royal Navy Dockyard. Shivering from hunger and the cold wind blowing off the nearby River Medway, Casey studied the people buying food at the stalls, looking for the best one to approach.
Dressed as a little boy and with a hat covering her raggedly short hair, no one suspected she was female. It was safer this way, especially since she preferred asking women, usually more sympathetic to scrawny children like her.
A middle-aged woman struggling with two bulging bags of food looked like she needed help. Casey approached and asked shyly, “Do you need a hand, ma’am?”
