By the time the court was ready to go in for dinner, Jane’s shoulders were aching, but she was carried along by the lightness and cheer around her, and she found even her usually heavy soul lightened by the celebration, by the hoarse cries of the crowd outside the Palace of Westminster that continued outside, by the sounds of laughter and music as everyone filed in to the great hall. Precedence seemed to have been thrown to the wind, except for the royal family, and Jane smoothed down the deep blue of her dress and felt, for the first time in a while, like the fashionable, beautiful woman she had once been.
“Oh!” she gasped, despite herself, as they entered the hall and she saw the gold-and-silver draped walls. For a moment she was a girl of eleven again, being brought to her first court functions by her parents, the daughter of a Baron, not a Viscountess in her own right...speaking of which, where was George? She felt rather lost here without him, despite their differences, and it was while casting around for her husband that she, instead, alighted upon the Duchess of Somerset. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she found it remarkably easy to maintain her courtier’s mask. “Your Grace,” she said, and, despite how it hurt her, she dipped a perfect curtsey.
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