“Yes, I agree,” Sara replied. “And she usually wears these sleeves.” The sleeves were a darker green and embroidered with a meandering stitch just like the ones her sewing machine could make, except of course these had been laboriously hand stitched.

“Not encrusted, Rose. No jewels on these sleeves.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But what, Rose?”

“I’m thinking a soft, draping wing-style sleeve like, uh . . . Princess Leia.”

“Who?”

“Oh . . . oh, just an obscure princess from some fairy story my mother once made up.”

“She made up her dresses too, along with the story?”

“Yes, yes, my mother was very imaginative.”

“Well, there’s this?” Sara said, pulling a set of white sleeves from a hook.

“Oh, that will work perfectly. See how they drape? That’s just the look.” Oh, what she wouldn’t do to give Elizabeth the Princess Leia hairstyle, what her mom had described as oversized twin bagels. But in truth, Elizabeth’s hair streaming over her shoulders like pale fire would be best.

“And a ruff?” Sara asked.

“A ruff?”

“A ruff like these.” She picked up one from a pile in a basket. “These are to be thrown out, actually. They’re quite dingy. We have some new ones that the seamstress just made.”

Rose immediately thought of the ruff the man in the locket wore. It was a signature Elizabethan piece of clothing. She hadn’t seen Elizabeth in one, but Princess Mary had worn one on her arrival at Hatfield.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the princess wearing one,” Rose said. Then she quickly realized this could constitute a slip. Shouldn’t she have witnessed this as the royal princess’s chambermaid?

“Well, Rose, you haven’t been here that long, and she wears them mostly for court appearances, not every day.”

That settled it. In keeping with this new strategy of simplicity, Elizabeth would not wear one.

“No tiaras in this closet?” Rose asked out of curiosity.

“Oh goodness no. All royal jewels are kept, for the most part, by the cofferer.”

“Cofferer?”

“Yes, Master Parry, the treasurer of the royal household. But you said simplicity, Rose. So no jewels. Right?”

“Of course. So no ruff either. Simplicity is key, I think.”

“You’re right, Rose. Princess Mary is going to look cheap, a positive hoyden.”

“Hoyden?”

“Yes, crude. Like ill-bred folks putting on airs.”

Well, thought Rose, let us release Princess Mary’s inner hoyden and Elizabeth’s inner queen.

Twenty minutes later, Princess Elizabeth stood in front of the large oval dressing mirror.

“Yes, yes.” She nodded. “Quite lovely. Princess Mary will look positively tawdry. But . . .” Rose peeked around the princess’s shoulders as she gazed at herself. “I think it needs just a touch of . . . of glimmer. Rose, what’s that around your neck?”

Rose’s heart lurched. She clapped her hand over the locket.

“It’s just a pendant, milady.”

The princess whirled around. “Take your hand away this instant.”

“What?”