Maid of Deception (43 page)

“We must,” Jane said emphatically. With as smug as James was looking, I would not have been surprised if he’d stolen a few kisses along their walk. I’d have to ask Jane about it later. From a safe distance.

We had barely cleared the marketplace when Jane cleared her throat. “Did you leave me with him on purpose?”

“On purpose?” I asked innocently. “Well, we could not have allowed James to follow us all the way to Maude’s stall, now, could we?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” she grumbled. “Still, what did you find there?”

“A potion to render you . . . unappealing to men,” I said. “Here, I figured you would like it.”

“Beatrice!” Sophia blurted, clearly shocked.

“Good,” Jane said. She opened the stopper, wrinkling her nose at the scent. “Are you supposed to drink it or throw it
on people? This reeks.” But she didn’t drop the bottle, and looked at it intently as we strode along.

“Just rub a little on your skin,” I said. “But not here. I don’t want to cause a riot.”

Jane snorted, and stowed the little bottle in one of her own pouches. “So you learned something from Maude?”

“She has a house well outside of town, where she keeps her herbs and bottles, drugs and potions, and all manner of tinctures,” Sophia said, her voice clear and low. “She—would be what could be described as a witch, but that’s not exactly true. She does not practice any arts but poison, but in that art she is well gifted.” She glanced at me. “We have to tell Walsingham.”

“Is she a threat?” I asked.

Jane shrugged. “I guess that depends on who she’s poisoning.”

We digested that as we made our way back to Windsor Castle, and had only just crossed through the King’s Gate when I saw a most unusual sight: my father, at a stall.

Buying ribbons.

“I’ll, um, catch up with you,” I muttered, and left Sophia and Jane staring after me.

Father brightened as soon as I approached. “Beatrice!” he said, beaming down at me. “Just the girl I wanted to most see.”

“Who is she, Father?” I asked tiredly.
Does the man have no morals at all?

At his confused stare, I pointed dourly to the ribbons. “Those. I cannot imagine you’re purchasing them for Mother.
And clearly you no longer have to be on your best behavior, since not one but two of my betrothals have been cast aside in the past few weeks. But I should think you would have a care not to sully our name any further.”

In response Father tipped back his head and laughed. He gave the bunch of ribbons to me, and I took them with a frown, now possessing two sets. “I cannot think you bought these for me, either, Father,” I grumbled.

“I suspect you’ll have more of a use for them than I, my dear.” He tucked my hand into his arm, and we strolled along the carts for the castle’s own market day. It was every bit as boisterous as the one we’d left in town, but the goods were pricier here, and better made. Even the pies smelled richer.

“You’ve comported yourself well, Beatrice,” Father said. “But you are taking too much on. I think you should give yourself permission to live the life of the young lady you so admirably appear to be.”

“A young lady?” I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What are you talking about? Have you not been present the last few days—few weeks—the last eighteen years of my life? Everything I’ve been doing has been to keep up the illusion that I am worthy of my noble blood. And for what? I have been thwarted at every turn, a disappointment to one and all.” I frowned, disgusted at myself for even caring. “I couldn’t even hold a man’s heart when he offered it to me without hesitation, for the love of God. I have failed at every step.”

“Have you, now?” Father asked. He gazed up at the sky, which was just now darkening into twilight, and I rolled my
eyes. Idly I focused on the second set of ribbons in my hands, weaving them back and forth so they became a sort of wild fairy braid. “You are a young, intelligent, beautiful woman, with all the world before you. Your failures, as you call them, have been merely to bow without ceasing to every whim of the Queen. Do you really want to spend your life as I have, with the yoke of the court around your neck?”

“I need to marry well for the family,” I said stiffly, not glancing back to him. “You of all people know this.”

“You need to marry well, yes,” Father said. “But for yourself, and not for us.”

“Oh, Father, leave
off
.” I could not forestall the bitterness in my words. “Of course I must marry for us. Who else will refill our coffers? Who else will keep the family from starvation?”

He quirked a brow at me. “The Queen did not do so much damage with her progress as that, Beatrice, for all that I complained.”

“Of course she did!” I spluttered. “We are bankrupt now. Don’t you see that? We have nothing in the household accounts!”

“Beatrice, sweetheart, I keep the accounts short and our own house ramshackle to discourage our dear monarchs from knowing our true financial position. I thought you knew that.” At my blank look, he sighed. “Very well, I will sell more gold. ’Tis all the same to me, though it is quite pretty at that.”

“Gold!” I snapped. “What is this about gold? We have no gold at Marion Hall.”

Now it was my father’s turn to look at me, amazed.
“Beatrice, are you daft? Of course we do. The well is filled to the brim with it!”

“What well?” His shocked countenance merely served to infuriate me, and I racked my brain for ideas. The one that surfaced, however, made no sense. “The well in the labyrinth?”

At his grin, I shook my head, lifting a hand to cut him off. “No. That well
poisoned
Mother, and then you shut down the labyrinth in full. There is nothing in that well but death and sorrow!”

Father’s face had dropped during my tirade, and his stare made me uncomfortable now. Uncomfortable and confused. “You saw her dance. Dance and laugh. I remember that,” he said, his words coming more slowly now.

“Then everything turned to darkness!” I snapped. “As well you know. She was never the same!”

“And I sent you away.” Father’s face was ashen now. “That you might find friendship in other houses.” He shook his head, glancing away. “You were so sad, Beatrice. So sweet but so sad, and your mother—well, her mind had left us by then.” He frowned, then drew in a deep breath before looking at me directly.

“Ah, Beatrice. Your mother’s ills did not come from a hole in the ground. They came from a hole inside her. She was given to dark times even as a girl, but I cared for her anyway. Even when she went away in mind and refused to allow me to touch her, I wanted to protect her—and so I did. But the well in the heart of the labyrinth wasn’t filled with poison. It was filled with pale gold.”

He took my puzzled stare as an excuse to keep talking. “Marion Hall was built on a pathway used by the druids since time immemorial. The Gold Road, they called it, because it was used to transfer uniquely colored gold that had been mined in Ireland, carried to Wales, then transferred through England on its way to the Continent. As it happened, the druids had a lovely habit of giving thanks to their gods by submerging their gold in water along the path of their journey. I knew all of this but never gave it a moment’s thought, and there was never any written record of any such a sacred site at Marion Hall. Still, there was that damned enormous labyrinth. There had to be some reason it’d been built.” He smiled then, the light back in his eyes. “The Marion Hall labyrinth is centered on one of these devotional wellsprings, but there were no records at all about gold being there—just that the mad baron had been driven to build the thing. When the hedgerows went up, the gold had long been covered over, I suspect, but in the course of our work to clear the labyrinth, we found the old well, and I thought I’d clear out some of the stones that I could see at its base. Rock after rock came out, and—well—”

“You found a well filled with pale gold,” I said.
All of those years . . . all of my fears. For nothing.
“And you never told anyone.”

Father grinned at me. “Secrets held can be more profitable than secrets shared,” he said simply. “And in truth, somewhere along the line I convinced myself you knew. You never had any problem buying a new dress or pair of shoes, after all.” He raised a hand to ward off my quick retort. “But
what this means is that you need to think about your own future now, not merely the family’s. I married to protect your mother, but also for the money, prestige, and position such a marriage brought me. I have well benefited from all of those. But I want more for you, my dear. Security, yes, but more than anything else, love. That is what I wish for you.”

I thought of what lay ahead for me, in Londontown, as my father rambled on and we made our way across the Lower Ward and into the Middle Ward. Another betrothal to another lying courtier. “I think perhaps you wish too much.”

“Do I?” he asked idly. He stopped. “Ah, here we are.”

I looked up. We’d made our way to the Hundred Steps, but that was not what had my heart stopping midbeat.

Alasdair MacLeod stood tall against the northern sky, his face unreadable in the gloom, but his eyes fire bright.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“A walk with you, my lady?”

I stood there, transfixed, as my father seemed to melt away into the background. Then I took Alasdair’s arm after hastily transferring my knotted ribbons to my left hand. Alasdair turned and escorted me down the Hundred Steps of Windsor Castle. It was a lovely setting in the full day, dropping down over a wooded hill and ending at the Castle Gate. From there the land flowed out and away from Windsor, until gradually reaching the Thames. But the evening seemed to become too heavy all of a sudden, and I wondered at Alasdair’s silence even as we stepped quickly and quietly down. He breathed more easily only after we passed the gate at the base of the steps.

“Did you—wish to speak with me?” I finally managed, and his responding laugh was low and sure.

“It would be a start, I suppose.” He stopped me then, in the lee of the castle, where some brave soul had erected a stone bench for visitors to take their leave next to a babbling brook. There was a curious silence to the wood, and I did not want to break it. But Alasdair began to speak anew.

“Our betrothal is broken,” he said, and I felt the clamor of darkness rise up once more within me, my father’s words chased away.
I cannot be embarrassed over this yet again!
It was not to be borne.

“I am aware of that,” I said in a rush, cutting him off. “I do not fault you for it. My actions were inexcusable, and you have responded in a way that was right and just and perfectly understandable. And I wish you great—happiness, back in Scotland, truly I do. I would prefer that you would leave off discussing the whole business, however, and—”

“Beatrice.” Alasdair raised a hand in supplication. “I love you deeply, but please be still. For once.”

I blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”

“You think so far ahead that you cannot ever remain properly in the moment,” he said, touching his finger to my chin. “Whereas, when I am with you, I hope only that this moment will never end.”

“But—” I began, and his finger drifted up, to rest upon my lips, effectively silencing me.

“I have loved you since the moment I first laid eyes upon you, Beatrice, that day in the Presence Chamber when you were presented so beautifully to us, an English jewel for all to covet. The light broke over you like it was afraid to share your brightness, and you captured my heart so completely with your practiced smile and laughing eyes, it was all I could do to keep breathing.”

“But you were mocking everything—all of us!—and especially the French,” I protested. “You barely glanced my way.”

“Well, the French provide much reason for mockery,”
Alasdair said. “But don’t ever mistake my laughter for disinterest, my lady. I decided immediately that you would be mine, and I have never swerved in that resolve.” He smiled at my bewilderment. “It is tough to move a Scotsman who lives upon solid rock.”

“Until you saw me with Cavanaugh but a few days past,” I said, unable to stop the hurt in my voice, though I was the one who’d done everything I could to push Alasdair from me. “Then you had no problems walking away.”

Alasdair shook his head. “Och, my lady. Cavanaugh would have been a dead man before he’d ever gotten a chance to ruin you.” He said the words quietly, but that did not dampen their steel. “You pride yourself on your lies, but I have seen the heart of you. I have seen your family, the children of your household. And I have heard their tales. To them you are not merely the fierce lady of the court. To them you are humble and loyal and true. You would do anything for your family, even sacrifice your own life.” I made to protest, but the look in his eyes stopped me. “I know every line of you, Beatrice, every glance and whisper, every movement. I have made you my life’s work in the short time that I have been a guest of your mighty Queen. You could no more lie to me than you could stop your heart from beating. You must know that.”

I pulled away from him, sudden anger pricking the joy that I so wanted to set free within me. “And yet you stood there laughing with the Queen—whom you must know hates me—at the mere possibility of ridding yourself of me? What am I supposed to think about that? Is your love not sufficient for you to remain betrothed to me? If not, then what sort of love is this?”