Before she agreed to another’s ideas, however, she liked to appear coy. She needed to be convinced, romanced…seduced. It was a little game she liked to play with her servants. Though they all well knew their mistress’s imaginatively sensual proclivities, they understood the subtlety of her feminine needs, and all seemed to enjoy the mutual tease. They delighted in luring their young mistress into revealing her passions, making her beg for the unbounded bliss they longed to give her.
“Yes,” Katherine finally repeated at length. “Perhaps a ball might be…pleasant.” She hesitated. “But what about costumes?”
“Not to worry, mademoiselle,” Marie hastened to add. “Inge has been working most fabulously.” The saucy young chambermaids pulled a small trunk in from the hall.
Katherine opened the fra
