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  ‘But what about …’ Patrick broke off. ‘You know, not crowding each other – a bit of privacy.’

  ‘I had a thought about that,’ Frederick said. ‘It struck me that Ruth might be thinking along these lines, and I was wondering about moving into your old bedroom, Patrick, at the end of the corridor. You two could have the master bedroom with the bathroom beside it, make a little suite for yourself in there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth said simply. ‘That’s what I thought too. I know an architect who can come and have a look at it, whenever we like. And we need to redecorate upstairs anyway; it really is getting rather shabby. We could do it all at once.’

  ‘Not more decorating,’ Patrick groaned in mock horror.

  Ruth did not even smile. ‘I know exactly what I want,’ she said. ‘I know exactly how I want everything done, and I have a box of the most beautiful curtain material just crying out to be used.’

  THE END

  About the Author

  Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical novels. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen’s Fool. The Other Boleyn Girl is now a major film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman and Eric Bana. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family.

  Also by the Author

  The Tudor Court Series

  THE CONSTANT PRINCESS

  THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

  THE BOLEYN INHERITANCE

  THE QUEEN’S FOOL

  THE VIRGIN’S LOVER

  THE OTHER QUEEN

  The Wideacre Trilogy

  WIDEACRE

  THE FAVOURED CHILD

  MERIDON

  Earthly Joys

  EARTHLY JOYS

  VIRGIN EARTH

  The Cousins’ War

  THE LADY OF THE RIVERS

  THE WHITE QUEEN

  THE RED QUEEN

  THE KINGMAKER’S DAUGHTER

  THE WHITE PRINCESS

  Standalones

  PERFECTLY CORRECT

  ALICE HARTLEY’S HAPPINESS

  A RESPECTABLE TRADE

  THE WISE WOMAN

  FALLEN SKIES

  THE LITTLE HOUSE

  ZELDA’S CUT

  Short Stories

  BREAD AND CHOCOLATE

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997

  Copyright © Philippa Gregory Ltd 1996

  Philippa Gregory asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

  Source ISBN: 9780007398546

  Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007383320

  Version: 2013–09–04

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