Maid of Deception (41 page)

“Of course, Your Grace,” I said, my words clear and light in the tight space between us. She had caught me—briefly—in my grief. But I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction again.

“Excellent,” the Queen said, then yawned behind her hand. “This has been a most satisfying day, wouldn’t you agree? Attend me back to my rooms. I find I am fatigued.”

And thus it happened that I spent another two hours preparing the Queen for her bed, bringing her wine, brushing her hair, and listening to her chatter with her ladies of the bedchamber. Not so long ago I would have given much to be in such rarified company. Now I catalogued the gossip with rote disinterest, wishing once again that I was not Beatrice the court insider, but Meg with her fabulous memory and quick hands; Sophia with her powerful gifts; Anna with her intelligence; or Jane with her cruel knives.

I finally was set free well after midnight, the Queen realizing that I was not, in fact, one of her indentured servants, and sending me along to my bed. But I could not return yet to the maids’ quarters. There was no room in Windsor that
could hold me this night, and I fled to the North Terrace, then stepped out into the chill wind that somehow did not cut through the rising tide of misery that flushed through me, thick and hot.

I moved all the way to the small balcony that overlooked the wide grassy plain leading to the Thames. And quite without expecting it, I found myself on my knees.

I was not a religious person, I tell you plain. I believed in God, of course, though the dictates as to the worship of that God I left to my monarchs to decide. But the tears that rose up within me and spilled out of my eyes were not a lamentation to the heavens. The heavens had no care for me. The tears were not even a cry to my family or my fellow maids, for whom I would sacrifice much and much again, and who had come to my aid when I’d needed them most. I did not cry to these; they would not heed my tears.

I cried to myself. And for myself.

For the little girl who’d stared adoringly at the father destined to leave for court and kings, and who’d stood by in fear and confusion as her mother had withdrawn inch by painful inch into a world hazed with drugs and despair. For the young innocent at court who’d learned too quickly how not to trust. For the bold and hopeful insider whose manipulations had landed her the most coveted role in the land—bride-to-be of the splendid Lord Cavanaugh.

And for the stupid, foolish girl who—whom no one loved at all.

But
I
loved. I loved with a strength and fervor that filled my very bones and blood. I loved so much, I could not
breathe. I loved Alasdair MacLeod. And it was too late.

It was wasteful and pointless to cry these tears, I knew that. There was no one to see them. I could not melt the hearts of my admirers or soften the opposition of my foes. I had nothing to gain and much to lose to be seen here in this state, my face a terror, my hair disheveled, my gown getting creased and ruined on the rough surface of the Terrace. And still I cried, and still I rocked. And held my own arms where no one would hold me.

I would be strong in the morning, when the eyes of the world were on me again. Tonight, lost and alone, I cried for the weakness I could never show.

A gift had been given to me, if only I’d had the eyes to see it, the heart to accept it. That day in the Presence Chamber, when Alasdair had walked before the crowd and singled me out with a grin and a wink, I’d been given a gift of connection, of love, of possibility. I had shunned that gift. I’d turned it aside with callous disregard. I could not even accept an honestly offered smile. I was so deeply broken that there would be no fixing me. I had been fashioned as a tool for one use—to survive in court. And survive I did. Survive I would. I was alone and would always be alone. I did not deserve Alasdair. I did not deserve anyone.

Except the one who hated me even as she needed me, desperately. The Queen and I deserved each other.

In that moment I remembered the old woman’s face who’d caught me up in her clutches in the heart of Salcey Forest, cackling at my distress but perhaps more at my disdain. She had warned me, and her words flowed back over
me like a bitter tonic.
You too shall know great loss and misery, such pain as you had never thought. On your knees in darkness, no one to save you then.

At the time, I had thought I would be threatened by some great treachery outside myself, someone who wished me harm. I had thought the Queen would betray me, or even one of my fellow maids, innocently or otherwise.

I never could have guessed that, in the end, my greatest enemy would be . . .

Myself.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I vaguely remember the tap on my shoulder, the strong arms lifting me, but the guard who deposited me at the maids’ chamber was gone before I could fully will myself back to consciousness.

Unsurprisingly, the maids were all awake, but this time they did not rush to me to remove my clothing and tuck me into bed. We stared at one another across a great chasm of understanding, and I’d never felt so old.

“What happened?” Sophia spoke first, and if she noticed the irony of her words, she gave no indication.

“You didn’t explain?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I did not understand the whole of it, only what I saw. And in any event, it was not my tale to tell.”

I shrugged and crossed to my pallet, beginning the process of undressing myself—no easy feat, but it occupied my hands and mind while my mouth took on the story. My fellow spies, sensing my need to not be touched, stayed where they were.

“It’s all undone,” I said, my voice curiously flat. “Cavanaugh
will not be bothering me again, to start.” I glanced over to Sophia. “Did I thank you for that? I do not know if I did.”

“You did,” she said, and I nodded. Sophia had been the one to send my father to me, even as Cavanaugh had been landing his coup de grace. All the maids would have known what was happening. “Your father came to see us, after. He assured us that you would be unharmed by Cavanaugh, but enjoined us all to tell him were we ever troubled by him again.”

“I don’t think we will be.” I paused then, wondering what Cavanaugh was thinking this dark night. To have every belief you’ve ever held about yourself upended and destroyed—that would be a challenging thing. Would it be worse than having every belief about yourself proven true? That I didn’t know.

I stripped off my sleeves, and then Meg did move, slipping up behind me to unlace the back of my bodice as if it were yet another costume to pack away. True enough, I supposed.

“Then I managed to get to the Queen and share with her what I knew of the MacLeods’ battle plans.” I grimaced. “I thought I was being so clever and safe, sharing only part of what I knew, the part that would not, I hoped, bring harm to Alasdair or his men.” I spoke his name mechanically, ignoring the hard knock of my heart at its sound. “But it was all for naught. He came but moments later and shared, I am sure, far more with the Queen. They went to Cecil’s chambers and apparently executed some sort of agreement between the clans and the English, the Scots pledging support if—or I should say, when—Elizabeth decides to march upon the French.”

“And what did the Scots get in exchange for this?” Anna put in, her finger pressed against her lip as she focused fiercely on my words. “Alasdair must have had sought some boon, and it’s not as though Elizabeth could repay him in gold or goods. The Queen’s coffers are all but bare.”

I let my gaze slide past her to the wall, and pushed on. “I couldn’t say. But once those agreements were struck, Alasdair presented the Queen with a relic of the Fairy Flag—a relic that has been in his family for centuries. I didn’t even realize he’d known of the Queen’s interest in the thing!”

If I’d thought that proclamation would surprise them, I’d been sorely mistaken. I narrowed my eyes at their sudden muteness. “I don’t suppose any of you had anything to do with that, did you?”

Anna and Meg shared a glance; Sophia looked at her hands. But it was Jane who finally chuckled. “A scrap of cloth is what you’re talking about, you know. Barely a stitch. Not good for covering even an inch of skin. If I heard about the treasure from one of the Scottish guards and dropped a word in passing that the Queen would set great store by a gift of such a prized treasure, what was the harm in that?” She pulled out a blade and was eyeing it in the darkness. “Seemed an easy trade for a Queen’s favor.”

“But it was a relic!” Anna protested.

“Well, yes—if it was even a piece of the real flag,” Meg scoffed. “Which I’d wager it wasn’t, given Alasdair’s easy offering of it.”

I frowned. “Well, he seemed quite sincere. . . .”

Now it was Jane’s turn to scoff again. “He would.”

“But enough of the trinket, Beatrice,” interrupted Anna. “What happened then?”

“Elizabeth was well pleased.” I returned to my tale, my voice still mild, as if I were recounting the events of a distant cousin’s birthday. “And so, to thank Alasdair properly, she canceled my betrothal. That would have been the last of what you saw, I think, Sophia?”

Sophia nodded. “You stood as pure as ice in the wake of her announcement, betraying no emotion. You were magnificent, Beatrice. I do not think I would have been able to stand so strong.”

I quirked my lips at her loyalty. “I doubt you’ll ever need to do so,” I said. “But I confess I was not fully paying attention, after her first words registered. She dismissed you all?”

“Yes. You smiled your acquiescence, and she clapped her hands and dismissed everyone, saying that she wished to speak with you alone.”

I raised my brows at this. How had I missed such a command?

“Alasdair went first,” Sophia said. “But by the time I reached the corridor, he was gone, and only Cecil and Walsingham were walking away, their heads together, discussing something I could not hear. I rather thought it was the relic, and not the agreement with the MacLeods, but I have no proof of that. I waited, briefly, to see if Alasdair would return, but the guards were eyeing me strangely, and I did not wish to appear to be eavesdropping.”

I nodded. “That was wise of you.” Sophia had enough issues without drawing the attention of the Queen’s guard.

I shook myself, realizing that I now stood in my thin shift, and settled down upon my pallet. “And that’s really the whole of it. The Queen proceeded to tell me, once we were alone, that she was well pleased with the day’s events, that I had done well, and that she would find a proper match for me after the story had fled the tongues of her courtiers. Probably in Londontown, when we return there for the winter.”

Meg snorted, a decidedly unladylike noise. “What is her fascination with seeing you wed?” she asked. “I should think you would be done with men and marriage for at least another few years.”

I smiled, but of course Meg did not know the whole of my requirements. Despite my father’s assertion to Lord Cavanaugh that our family had more gold than we could ever want, I knew the truth. Marion Hall still needed money more than I needed a respite from the machinations of court. We needed a stable marriage to someone with a title and land of his own, far away from Northampton. With the security of a decent marriage, my family would remain safe, my servants would not starve, and my secrets would be kept.

Even freed from Cavanaugh, I was not free.

“But what of Alasdair?” It was Sophia who spoke now, her voice strange in the darkness, like that of an ephemeral sprite. “Surely I did not imagine his affection for you. It was plain in his eyes from the moment he set foot in the Presence Chamber all those weeks ago!”

I laughed, but not unkindly. Sophia, for all her odd ways, had always been treated as special. She was beautiful, of course, but I suspected that even before her gifts had begun to
manifest, there’d been a fantastical nature about her, a sense of a being who was not entirely of this world. The glances cast at her would at times be cruel and at times simply curious, but there was also a wonder to them, and even a hope, that something so lovely and mysterious could be living among us ordinary people.

I held no illusions about the glances I received. “My reputation, if it hadn’t proceeded me, was shown off to best effect that day, Sophia,” I said. “I had done everything I could to make myself beautiful, and I flirted with every nobleman who walked through the Queen’s door.” Just as I’d been ordered to do.

“You need not work very hard to make yourself beautiful,” Meg said staunchly. “I was there as well, and I know how terrible I looked, no matter how I tried.”

“Well, you were stuffed into that monstrous dress, Meg. What choice did you have?” I gazed at her with genuine affection. Meg had endured the gown I had lent her—a gift from an aunt who clearly despised me—with her usual pluck and wit. No wonder Rafe de Martine was so taken with her, even if he was a Spaniard. She acted without overthinking everything, knowing that no matter where her feet landed, she’d be able to run if nothing else.

Whereas I took no step without considering every path that might emerge. It made me tired just thinking on it.

“But it’s of no account. Alasdair saw what he wanted to see.”
What I was.
“A maiden ripe for flirtation. And his time in the English court has been the more pleasurable for his chase of me. But it was a chase, nothing more.”