The Truth About Myths by Giovanna Siniscalchi EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Giovanna Siniscalchi
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical European Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Lisbon, twelve years later
“The excess of a virtue is a vice.” Greek Proverb
“Dear clock on the wall, if you don’t speed your turns, tonight you’ll
sleep without a cog,” Isabel muttered under her breath and tore her
gaze from the ornery Swiss piece. Facing her audience, she affected a
warrior pose, bracing her feet and inflating her chest. “Who am I?”
“I know!” Lady Philipa said, bouncing on the upholstered settee.
“Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt.”
There. This was fun. A quiet night with her maids of honor, tucked into
her private wing, playing games…Who needed her brother’s revelries?
“Close, but no,” Isabel said.
“Give us another hint.” Lady Anne Daun clapped her hands, a smile
lighting up her gentle blue eyes.
Isabel tapped her chin. What else could she say without spoiling the fun?
Before she could think of the next clue, discordant notes invaded their
privacy. It sounded suspiciously like an orchestra warming up. Not fair.
How could she compete with professional musicians? Clenching her hands,
Isabel raised her voice, hoping no one else had noticed it. “I lived in the
Middle Ages.”
Lady Dolores rose from the settee. “Ha! The hero of the Great
Navigations—Vasco da Gama.”
Isabel lifted her brows at her youngest maid-of-honor. “Dear, the game’s
name is Guess the Powerful Woman.”
Dolly pouted, patting her blond curls and fluttering her eyelids. “Oops.”
The orchestra turned louder. Her ladies talked in parallel, glancing at the
door. Isabel was losing their attention. No, she refused to forfeit this battle.
Frantically, she gazed at the drawing-room walls, searching for a
distraction. Light glinted off the ancient coat of armor. Thinking fast, Isabel
raided the steel knight for a breastplate.
Sorry, El Cid, but my brother has an orchestra.
Donning the rusty protection, she cleared her throat. The famous quote
came to her in a flash of memory. “They admonished me to adopt feminine
clothes. I refuse. As for other duties of women, there are plenty of other
women to perform them.”
Her ladies-in-waiting eyed her from their perches, their eyes round, their
murmured voices punctuated by the tick-tick of the Swiss clock. Lady
Dolores yawned.
As a last resort, Isabel went to the hearth and placed her foot inside. “Oh,
please don’t burn me. God sent me to make France independent from
English tyranny.”
“Joan of Arc,” Lady Anne Daun said.
Isabel laughed. “You are very right.”
Everyone clapped.
The music outside turned louder.
Philipa glanced at the door, her embroidery forgotten. “What do you
suppose they are doing tonight?”
Dancing, smoking, drinking, making illicit assignations… Who knew
what else? Her clique of maids of honor was the crème de la crème of
Portuguese society. With her guidance, they would set the standard for high
morals, and no group of carousing rakes would corrupt them. “Nothing
appropriate for unmarried ladies, I assure you.”
“I heard His Majesty invited Madam Gardenia to sing. She canceled her
nightly performance just to indulge him,” Dolly said in a stage whisper.
Ohs and Ahs burst from all around the room. Isabel hoped her brother’s
taste for music was all the virtuosa indulged.
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