Maid of Deception (3 page)

The Queen drew herself up sharply, astute enough to
sense the shifting focus of the congregation, though I had done her no overt insult.

“It is unseemly for this wedding to proceed with such haste in the middle of the royal celebrations,” she pronounced, her hauteur firmly in place. “I am fatigued by the distraction and require you to attend me during these most auspicious events.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” I said promptly. My voice was as smooth as the silk with which I wanted to strangle her. She was the one who had given permission for the wedding to move forward, and she was the one who’d set the timing—after her first grand ball but before the revels that followed. The “auspicious events” she referenced were her interminable and ongoing birthday celebrations. The woman was only twenty-five years old! To think the Crown would be financing these celebrations for her entire reign. . . . England would be bankrupt before the harpy showed her first grey hair.

I said none of these things, of course. Instead I turned and curtsied to a shocked and wild-eyed Lord Cavanaugh, inclining my head to him as if we’d just completed a country dance. He barely returned my bow, so suffused with emotion was he, his lips thin, his face white, and his eyes filled with fire. If anything, his outrage made him even more handsome to me.
So he loves me this much, then!
It was a blessing and a marvel.

I turned away and walked down the long aisle, my shoulders straight, my head high. The Queen, well in advance of me, spun officiously and banged her ceremonial staff hard upon the chapel floor again, effectively stifling any further discussion.

But she couldn’t stop the shock and dismay that colored the features of the members of court, nor the shrewd-eyed calculation among the most seasoned of them. And she certainly couldn’t stop the pity.

I had sworn long ago that I would never be the object of that hateful sentiment, and anger and bile roiled within me. It was all I could do not to scream.

Then we gained the doorway, and someone did catch my eye just as I swept out of the chapel. A young man, broad-shouldered and long-limbed, his face alight with interest, stared at me unabashedly while everyone else in the room had the grace or wits to look away. Alasdair MacLeod would no doubt be laughing deep into his miserable Scottish ale after this debacle.

Well, he could go to the devil. They all could.

I exited the chapel and found myself surrounded by a gaggle of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. We marched behind Her Royal Insufferableness as if we had been summoned to her presence to discuss the latest dance steps out of France, but I was not fooled by Elizabeth’s carefree manner. Not when she started laughing again with her advisors, and not when she consulted with a bevy of servants to bring us refreshments. Instead I nodded serenely at the other ladies’ exclamations of how lucky I was to enjoy a precious few more weeks in Elizabeth’s court as an unmarried woman. I watched. And I waited.

“Lady Beatrice Knowles!” As if on cue, Gloriana’s broad tones rang out over the space. She did so love to hear herself shout.

I turned immediately and curtsied to her, every inch
the dutiful maid. “Your Grace?” I offered, in the excessively respectful tone I’d learned to affect in her presence.

“Attend me.” She glided into her Privy Chamber, and I followed, not at all surprised to see Cecil and Walsingham joining us, shutting the doors quietly to cut off the clutch of curious-eyed females we’d left behind.

The moment we were alone in the Privy Chamber, the Queen’s manner changed.

We had no need of disguises anymore. To all the court, I was with the Queen and her maids and ladies. To all the maids and ladies, the Queen was calling me in for a conciliatory chat. Elizabeth and I both knew better, however.

The Queen was my enemy.

She would always be my enemy.

I suppose we could be nothing else to each other.

When Elizabeth had come to power last fall upon the death of her sister, Mary Tudor, she had set immediately upon the idea that she would have a group of young women around her—unmarried, of course, that their loyalties be fixed solely on her; and young, that they might be overlooked more easily, or considered stupid.

She’d immediately named two girls to join this special corps of Maids of Honor: Marie Claire and me. Marie Claire had been the darling of court, a laughing, haughty flirt who’d been as adept as Meg at thieving, and far more knowledgeable than Meg about the ways of the nobility. But Marie had grown too careless, and she’d died because of it, in early spring. By then we’d added three other maids to our number—brilliant Anna, moody Sophia, and murderous
Jane. And then there was me, the Maid of hidden truths.

Secrets were my treasure—and had been since I’d been very young, a bright, pretty girl of noble blood shipped off by my father to serve as an elevated companion to young women in other royal houses. Whether he’d done this to protect me from the darkness of my own home or simply because he hadn’t been able to stand the sight of me, I never knew. But the result was the same. In my half servant, half elite role, I’d quickly realized that knowledge was power. In no time at all I’d developed a mental ledger of information on every noble I’d met . . . dozens of them; hundreds, even.

I’d learned a great deal in those great houses. And in one of those houses, I’d met Elizabeth.

And oh, to her everlasting horror, what I’d learned about her.

She’d been only fourteen when I had met her at Sudeley Castle, and I a mere seven years of age. Elizabeth had lived with the King’s new widow, Katherine Parr, and the woman’s even newer husband, Thomas Seymour. Even at that tender age, the princess had been vain and self-serving, prideful and reckless. I’d been assigned as her child-companion, a fetching girl she liked to keep around as a sort of exalted slave.

However, all was not as it should have been in that household. Thomas Seymour had been a scoundrel and a schemer, and he’d liked the young Elizabeth far too much. She’d thought it was her beauty that entranced him; I thought otherwise. But either way, the scandal that erupted in Elizabeth’s young world nearly destroyed the princess when the details later came to light.

Who had been there to see it all happen? I had. Who had helped save Elizabeth’s misbegotten skin when the questioners had come? I had. She’d defended herself brilliantly . . . and I had defended her as well.

But there was the truth Elizabeth had told her questioners, and then there was the truth we alone both knew. She could never forgive me for knowing her secrets, nor ever overtly destroy me. For I was no fool. Even at a young age, I’d ensured that my secrets were not solely locked in my own head. And Elizabeth had no way of knowing what information might come out, were I to meet a bad end.

But that didn’t mean she had to treat me with kindness. She’d raised me to the highest position at her court that I could attain, true. And she made me pay for it daily.

So now we were squaring off yet again under the watchful and almost reproachful eyes of her advisors. The conservative, tight-lipped Sir William Cecil was the titular head of our small select group of spies, but the darker, more audacious Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, was never far from our midst. I suspected Sir Francis and Sir William rather hated our corps of maids, and we certainly held no affection for them. However, our group had not been assembled by them but by the Queen. And in this (as in many things), she brooked no opposition.

“You may approach!” At the Queen’s haughty command, I swept forward and dropped into a low curtsy, straightening only after she bade me rise. I’d learned to time my responses to a fine art, but I didn’t play such games when I was alone with the Queen. No need to stoke
the fire that was always banked low, waiting to flare to life.

Now Elizabeth looked at me, assessing, clearly trying to decide between the roles of benevolent dictator and horrible shrew. I could almost see when she landed just to the side of benevolence, and I let out the tiniest of sighs. She was still my Queen, and I was her pawn. As much as it grated, I dared not ever forget that.

“We are
most
distressed to command you to put off your wedded state, Beatrice, but the demands of the Crown know no season,” she said, her words almost pious. It was all I could do not to throw up.

“Of course, Your Grace,” I said, keeping my voice even. “How may I serve you?”

“Your betrothed, Lord Cavanaugh, will doubtless be . . . sorely distressed at the postponement of your wedding night.” Elizabeth went on as if I hadn’t spoken, and I stifled a groan. Apparently the Queen wasn’t quite ready to let my humiliation pass. “True enow, he is a well-regarded courtier, his family without compare. But he is still a man, and as such ever sensitive to the comments and knowing glances of the court around him. You must endeavor to set his mind at ease, to let him know that naught is amiss with your love of him.”

I nodded, forcing myself not to furrow a brow at the woman. What did she mean,
my
love? I was not the one who’d delayed the wedding.

“There is also the matter of his manly . . . requirements,” Elizabeth went on. And now I did furrow my brow. This area in particular was none of her concern. “You know I absolutely forbid any interaction between my maids and the men
of the court,” she said sternly. She looked at me as if awaiting a response.

“Of course not, Your Grace. Your court is devoted to reflecting your virtue.” I framed my words with a completely guileless tone, not missing her sharp look. Elizabeth’s court was a debauch, make no mistake. My fellow Maids of Honor and I were chaste, but that happy state did not fully extend to her entire retinue of maids and ladies-in-waiting. Still, one thing was certain: If Elizabeth caught out an indiscretion among any of her court, her wrath was swift and sure. Ladies were sent packing home, and gentlemen fell out of her favor, or were married off to the first plain-faced, simpering fool the Queen could find.

“Then you will note that I will not make an exception in your case,” the Queen continued repressively. “You are not yet married to Lord Cavanaugh, and you will conduct yourself in his presence with the ultimate care of a chaste and godly maiden. Do I make myself clear?”

“Completely,” I said, the word just shy of a snap. Beside me Cecil and Walsingham stirred restlessly, but the Queen did not seem to notice.

“Good.” She nodded, a small smile playing around her lips. Instantly I tensed. I’d thought with these intrusive comments on my personal life, she’d finished with the worst part of this conversation. But I knew that smile. The Queen was a conniving witch when she wanted to be, and her aspect of delicious anticipation never boded well.

I did not have to wait long to know what amused her so.

“I have a new assignment for you, as it happens. One
which, I’m sure you’ll see, requires you to be unmarried, undistracted, and in full command of your . . . charms. In this assignment, should you have a need to appear less than chaste, well—I would be more lenient.”

I could not avoid the flaring of my eyes. “An assignment?” I managed. The Queen noted my confusion and took ultimate delight in it, her eyes going even brighter.

“Yes,” she said triumphantly. “We are given to understand that the Scottish rebellion continues to gain ground against the hated French, and that outright conflict is not long off. And here, in our very midst, we have more than a dozen Scotsmen milling about. They beg for my intercession, but can I truly trust them? Their country is so steeped in Catholicism, how can I truly know their loyalties to a Protestant Queen?”

I frowned at her. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but the members of the Scottish delegation have already pledged their allegiance to you in bold and overlong manner.” To a man the Scots had been loud in their praise of the new English Queen. “They could hardly do otherwise if they wanted to gain your assistance, and they clearly want the French at their threshold even less than you do. I cannot see how they would be false in this.”

“Talk is meaningless with so much at stake. I would know their hearts.” The Queen was serious, I realized. She did want to know more about the Scots. I supposed it made sense, though I would rather not have been the one thrown at the delegation to learn their secrets. Still, I could be accommodating.

“Very well, Your Grace,” I said. “I am happy to associate more closely with the delegation—”

“No.” And now Elizabeth’s edge of malice returned, all the more alarming for its swiftness. “It is not the
delegation
as a whole that concerns me but one member in particular of their group. There is just something about him that I find . . . intriguing.”

“One member—” I frowned at her, bemused, and then the reality of what she was asking smote me so hard in the face that even I lost my composure. “Oh, Your Grace, you cannot mean it!”

“And yet I do.” She trilled off the words, exultant that she had made me flinch. “You will attach yourself quite completely to the young Alasdair MacLeod, draw him out in that way I have seen you draw out men of the court since you were barely seven years old, and gain the secrets of his holding and his people. MacLeod plays to our perceptions that he is an inconsequential part of that rabble, but the others clearly look to him for guidance. We can use that to our advantage.”

“But—” I swallowed my own words. MacLeod did have the ear of his men, but of course he would. He was the biggest. And the loudest. That did not mean he was the smartest.

“I wish to know what confidences his men are sharing with him,” Elizabeth continued. “I wish to know how much truth there is in the Scots’ assurances of fidelity to the English cause.”

I gave a pointed glare at Walsingham, who surely had
better men than me to carry out this simple task of spying. “But why do I—”

“Because he fancies you, you stupid girl!” The Queen’s words struck out, as sharp as knives in the quiet room. I took a step back at her sudden, vicious anger. “Do you think me blind? He watches you whenever you enter a room and takes note of when you leave it. If I’m going to have a tool fashioned so prettily for my use, do you not imagine that I would wield it ever and always when I have need? Fie, the work should be easy enough for one such as you. Simper and pout and distract the boy, and learn what there is to be learned.” The Queen lifted her chin, curling her lip disdainfully. “This conversation bores me. You may go. But I will expect your report within the fortnight, on the truth of Alasdair MacLeod.”