“Are you suggesting that I should go to the ball?” he enquired.
“I may be wrong, Sire, but I have a – feeling you have been to – one already,” Zosina replied.
He stared at her, as if he was not quite certain how to take her reply. Then he said,
“You are trying to trap me. I am not going to answer that question.”
“Of course I am not trying to trap you,” Zosina answered. “If I was King, I would certainly go to a masked ball, if I had the chance.”
He did not reply and after a moment she added,
“Now I think of it, in history Kings have always gone about their countries in disguise. Francois I, for instance, used to go out every night, wandering round the town to mix with – his subjects.”
She was going to say, ‘to mix with beautiful women,’ which was what she remembered she had read in a
