Maid of Deception (13 page)

I allowed myself a small shiver of relief at that. I’d worried that she would still tie me to Cavanaugh, but it appeared that—for the moment—I had some reprieve. Sadly, my respite did not last long. “I shall have to create an entirely new focus for the court, however, so the furor of Cavanaugh’s disgrace can diminish and he can reinsert himself into my favor.”

She mulled over that, tapping the fan against her chin, her eyes as flat and lifeless as a snake’s. “Hmmm,” she muttered. “I may have just the thing.”

That . . . didn’t sound good.

But I had no way of knowing what the Queen’s plans were. She dismissed me summarily, and I had hardly made it back to the maids’ chambers when another summons came round, announcing a court-wide audience in the Presence Chamber at ten o’clock yet that morning.

“What could this be now?” Jane grumbled. “I canna bear another dance, I will tell you plain.”

“It seems unlikely that she’d schedule another frolic,” Anna said. “The castle staff are all but dead on their feet.” Still she frowned too, looking up from the three opened manuscripts she was perusing, no doubt trying to catch out the translations in some fatal flaw. “What happened with her, Beatrice?”

“She said that she had to create a distraction,” I said dully. I was suddenly tired. So, so tired. I could no longer care about queens and their distress. I frowned, however, to see my fellow maids staring at me. “What did you expect?” I asked irritably. “She holds me to blame for the court
learning
of Cavanaugh’s indiscretion, not him for actually
being
indiscreet. If anything, I’m an infant for even assuming I could
have attracted the attentions of a man who would love me for me alone.” I put my hands to my face, willing the world away for just one precious moment. “She’s probably right.”

I felt the wave of surprise slide through the room—not at the bitterness of my words but at the fact that I would share my feelings so openly. Bare honesty wasn’t my usual practice or inclination. Not even among them. This truly had been a night and a day for revelations.

“Well,” Anna broke in firmly, as ever at my side, though I did nothing to deserve her loyalty. “She is right in thinking this will distract the court, as long as the announcement does not have anything to do with Cavanaugh directly. I heard he was quite unwilling to leave his apartments after his shaming last night.”

“Tell me you’re not serious.” I raised my head, then rolled my eyes at her serious expression. “Oh, leave off!” I scoffed. “It’s not like the man was stoned at the stocks. He was interrupted in the midst of kissing someone other than his betrothed at a ball. He will survive it.”

“He’s still a man,” Sophia said, her gaze shifted to the right, as if she could see something in the walls that was hidden from the rest of us. “If this weren’t all for the best, I would be far more concerned for you, Beatrice. Lord Cavanaugh is more dangerous in his disgrace than he ever was in his pride. You should have a care around him.”

I frowned at her, a tremor of unease resettling itself in my bones. Alasdair had said much the same thing when he’d thought Cavanaugh still had some contractual hold over me. “Sophia, I never know if you’re speaking from
knowledge gained in this world or out of it.”

She blushed, looking impossibly beautiful, even in her simple brown frock. “Then you know exactly how I feel. But I do believe I speak the truth, Beatrice, no matter how I know it to be true. Cavanaugh does not wish you well.”

“Well, I cannot say I wish him well either, so we are matched in that.”

“But he has the power still,” Meg mused. Her opinions on marriage were already well known in our small group—the further away she could get from that vaunted state, the happier she would be. “If he wanted to maintain your betrothal, and was thwarted in that, he is dangerous. If he is glad to have the betrothal severed, but is nevertheless affronted by the turn of events, he is still dangerous. And if he seeks to regain you as his bride, he is perhaps the most dangerous of all.”

“And since when have you become an expert on men?” I asked archly, but there was far less sting in my words than there used to be. If I was losing my taste for sparring with Meg, then perhaps there
was
reason to worry.

Meg, for her part, shook her head. “Men, not much at all. But the roles men played in the Golden Rose, I know well. There seemed to be no end to the outrage they would express over quite the most minor of slights—and if it was the woman whom they’d set upon to claim as their own who was doing the slighting, well. Heaven and earth could not stand in their way until they’d meted out punishment.”

That pronouncement caught us all up a little short. It was Jane who broke the silence. “I can, ah, see why you might not
be interested in marriage, Meg,” she observed dryly.

Sophia’s laugh was a tinkle of amusement, but it jarred us anew just the same. “Meg, she will marry, and she’ll have us all to apologize to.” Then she blinked, the color rising swiftly in her cheeks. “Oh!” she said. “That thought just came to me, Meg. I’ve no way of knowing, truly—”

“Be at peace, be at peace,” Meg said, raising her hands to forestall Sophia’s continued apologies. “I cannot marry while I’m serving the Queen, and I have easily another year of that before Cecil or Walsingham will set me loose. Whole lives can change in that time. We can talk of marriage another day.”

The clock struck nine bells then, and we hastened to get into our court finery. Though an assembly was nowhere near as stiff as a formal event, there still were protocols to be followed and laces to be drawn. It seemed we spent most of our days tying up our gowns or unlacing them, and our sleeves and collars and skirts besides. Ordinarily I found the process relaxing, but not this day. I doubt I’d felt a moment’s peace since I’d stepped foot inside Saint George’s Chapel mere days before, prepared to become a bride.

Within the hour we were at our appointed places in the Queen’s retinue, looking on with fervent interest at anything Her Royal Drama felt inclined to do. The Queen was circulating among her cherished nobles, being fawned over and flattered, and thanked ever and anon for her gracious feasting of the three nights past. The whole of the court swelled the Presence Chamber, it seemed, though I knew better. Lord Cavanaugh had not made an appearance.

I’d received my share of idle looks and not so idle speculation as well. Still, I remained fairly certain that my unmasking of Cavanaugh and his skirt had not been judged to be mine own doing. I too had spies throughout the castle, and they’d reported to me that I was mostly pitied and occasionally the recipient of someone’s knowing nod about how brazen girls never got their man. But both of these reactions were preferable to having the court know the truth.

A steward rang a bell, and the Queen turned, her eyes alight with mischief. For just a moment they rested upon me before sliding away, and I felt every muscle in my body tense, every nerve go as taut as a bowstring. That look had spoken volumes in its brief touch.
I told you I was stronger than you
, it seemed to say.
And now you will pay for your impertinence.

Elizabeth mounted the few short steps that led to her dais, and then caused a brief flurry of laughter when she spun around, glistening in her gown of sunshine yellow, which was shot through with amber embroidery and ribbons the color of cinnamon. “What, ho, but we have had a merry time of it, have we not these past few weeks?” she declared, her voice overloud in the crowded space, as if anyone dared whisper in her presence.

A smattering of cheers broke out, and she put her fists into her skirts, playfully tilting her head beneath her diamond-studded crown. “I say, but have we not?” she challenged again. This time the crowd responded far better, giving out lusty “huzzah”s and applauding Elizabeth wildly.

“But!” she cried, and raised her hand to further command the attention of the room. “I am here to tell you that our
delight is not at an end. We have yet another surprise for your delectation, which I am exceedingly happy to share.”

Beside me Jane’s groan was so heartfelt that I could practically hear it vibrating the rushes, but the Queen was not yet finished.

“We—the whole of the court, whoever can ride or be carried, shall depart the confines of Windsor for a very special progress! Now, what do you think of that!”

The cheers came again, but some were more forced now, though the applause was loud and long. I could understand the hesitation of some of the savvier members of court. The Queen went on progress several times a year to allow her castles’ armies of servants to turn her royal residences upside down, ridding their halls of fouled rushes, the scraps of feasts, stained tapestries, and every manner of garbage that was constantly piling up in corners and cabinets and undercrofts. But while her castle was getting cleaned, some poor soul of a nobleman was forced to feed and entertain Her Royal Exactitude in the manner to which she had quickly become accustomed.

I immediately began making lists in my head. She doubtless expected her Maids of Honor to go with her, which meant traveling clothes and lesser gowns that could be worn in various ways to cut down on the packing. Meg and Jane were barely civilized as it was, so I’d need to offer them additional castoffs in time for them to try them on and resew as needed. Travel always was a bother, but at least it wasn’t wintertide. We could still get by with only a few trunks of clothing for the lot of us.

“Where? Where, do you say?” The Queen trilled in
triumph, laughing at the palpable excitement of her court. I wonder if she had any idea how devastating her progresses could be upon the households on whom she descended. The great cloud of dust that accompanied a Queen’s progress was as fell as the harbinger of doom. I glanced idly up then, my mind still working, and was transfixed to see the Queen’s gaze upon me once more.

No!
I thought, but a scream was already starting within me, dancing along my blood, battering my bones.
No, no, no, no, NO!

“We shall go to the home of my dearest of maids, Lady Beatrice Knowles!” the Queen shouted out in counterpoint to my unspoken wail, as all of the blood in my body rushed to my ears.
She can’t do this. She won’t do this!
She had to know that my homestead was a falling-down relic of a castle, and a heavy day’s ride—or more likely two, all the way to Northampton. She had to know that we had barely enough coin to fill our own tables with food, both for ourselves and our retainers. She had to know that the harvest was just now upon us and the servants would need to be working the fields and orchards, not playing host to a brawl of overstuffed courtiers and spoon-pinching ladies. She had to know!

But the Queen only stared at me, her smile broad and damning.

Oh, she knew, all right.

“Make ready, one and all of you,” she cried. “We depart in two days’ time for Marion Hall!”

CHAPTER TWELVE

And it would have been only one long, hard, miserable day of travel too, once we’d finally gotten on the road. Except for the rain. Which made it two.

After a truly remarkable run of sunshine and warm breezes at summer’s end in Windsor, we seemed to race toward the chill grey censure of winter the closer to Marion Hall we rode.

The two days Elizabeth had originally predicted it would take the court to assemble its collective self for the great lurch north had mercifully turned into five. And as I had sent both my father and a brace of riders galloping off within three hours of her pronouncement, I had relatively high hopes that my ancestral home would at least be swept out by the time the Queen arrived.

Father, for his part, had seemed blithely unconcerned about the progress, until I’d shown him the household accounts that I’d received just two weeks past from our manager. Then he’d understood. The Queen would be bringing fully fifty people with her, including servants, ladies,
courtiers, and guards. All fifty had to be fed. All fifty had to be housed. All fifty had to be given free run of our stores of ale and spirits. Father had blustered, then ranted, then eventually had come round to the same realization that I’d had there in the Presence Chamber, as Elizabeth had sung out her gloating command: There was nothing we could do but open our coffers for the Queen.

After that, he’d left without another word.

Now we five Maids of Honor plodded on in the pouring rain atop steaming, bedraggled steeds, having gained Elizabeth’s permission to range ahead of the court proper to ensure the hall was presentable for her. At first she’d seemed against this idea, but after several hours of steady rain she’d seen the right of it. Better to be certain that there would be a warm fire and a full table of food at the end of your journey than to needle your fellow travelers. Elizabeth herself would have preferred to race ahead with us, I was certain. For all her legions of flaws, the woman did love fast horses.

I lifted my head, peering out from beneath the rim of my cloak. “Anna, except for the smell”—
which was deadly
—“these cloaks are a work of genius.”