An elderly woman with a stoop in her shoulders materialized at the edge of the room, rising from the bench of an organ where she’d evidently been accompanying the lesson at some point. The girls scattered, eager to be done with their schooling and to flee their instructor’s obvious intensity—Gwen could feel the force of the woman from here. Madame Dupont followed them to the door, allowing Mistress Hobbes only a little more leeway to make her exit, and then shut and locked the door with a sigh.

Then she turned, and her dark eyes fixed on Isobelle and Gwen. Evidently she hadn’t missed their arrival at all.

“Well,” she said, tucking her cane under her arm and striding toward them. “Is this she? Let’s have a look.”

Isobelle beamed at her and then leaned toward Gwen to whisper, “Don’t worry. She adores me. It’s just everyone else who’s terrified of her.” Then, more loudly, she said, “Be nice, madame. This is Gwen, and she’s doing me a great service.”

Madame Dupont snorted and came to a halt in front of them.

Gwen rose to her feet without fully registering the impulse to do so. Madame Dupont was a head shorter than she was, but somehow she seemed to loom as she inspected the new girl she was to teach. The silence stretched, giving Gwen an opportunity to inspect her in return.

Her broad face and angular features were dusted with black freckles against a dark brown backdrop, and she had her hair bound up, woven through with a colorful scarf of French-designed silk. Her eyes were shrewd and penetrating, and Gwen found herself longing to look away—but feared doing so would give Madame Dupont some kind of ammunition to use against her.

“So,” Dupont said eventually, “you are the girl who would be a knight, with our Isobelle’s favor pinned to your breast?”

“I am, madame.” Gwen found herself straightening, lifting her chin, feeling like one of the girls who had gone scurrying from the room. She’d assumed that stiff attention was something Dupont had taught them, but apparently that was just how one stood while being inspected by Madame Dupont. “And you are . . . a dancing instructor?”

She couldn’t quite hide the confusion in her voice. What could a dancer teach her about something as brutal as jousting?

Madame Dupont’s eyes were severe, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “Oui, Mademoiselle le Chevalier. You think I have nothing to teach you?”

“Um,” said Gwen, glancing over at Isobelle, who had no help to offer but a grin. If there’d been popcorn available, Isobelle would be leaning back in her chair and munching it while she watched. “I didn’t say that,” Gwen said, floundering.