Maid of Deception (21 page)

As a backup distraction Meg would also pocket one of the Queen’s jeweled cuffs or pins or brooches—something she had worn the night before at the revel, large enough to
be immediately missed. Of course my own staff of servants would be blamed, and the house would be in an uproar for hours over the questioning and the outrage of it all. Then the piece would be found in some little cubby where it would have been perfectly reasonable for the Queen to dally. The Queen would not be able to say with certainty that she had not lost it there, and there would be ample forgiveness all around. The whole folly would take up a half dozen hours if executed well, and then it would be nightfall and hopefully Sophia would have been recovered.

It was indeed a sensible plan. Pity it all went to ruin almost immediately.

We knew that something was amiss the moment we reached the upper landing. Cecil was standing there alongside Walsingham, looking as fell as a winter’s storm.

“Where is Sophia?” he demanded, and I rolled my eyes.

“Sick again, my lord. Wherever else did you expect her to be? I swear I had to spend most of the day apologizing to Lord Farley of Hampton Mews for her spewing her dinner on him in such a violent manner.”

He blinked at me. “Who?”

“Lord Farley,” I said, continuing to walk resolutely toward the Queen’s chambers. “You don’t know him. He’s of the local gentry, but the man has a mouth on him like a braying mule. It would be best for him to not noise about that the Queen’s company is infected with a virulent ague, I should think. Meg herself developed a cough and I’ve done nothing but ply her with spirits since she awoke this morning.” Beside me Meg grinned toothily at Cecil, then sniffled, and I could see him
flinch back in revulsion. God love the man, he did truly hate to be sick. I patted him on the arm. “If we can’t beat this thing, we’ll simply have to drown it out, don’t you think?”

“This is
nonsense
,” Cecil blustered, but he hastened ahead of Meg, Jane, and Anna into the Queen’s quarters, and I heard them all acknowledge her royal presence. I had picked up my skirts to join them, when Walsingham laid a hand on my arm. It was all I could do not to jump out of my skin.

“A moment, if you would, Lady Beatrice?” Walsingham’s words were silken with intensity. I paused, and looked up at him, not bothering to hide my surprise.

“But the Queen?”

“The Queen can make do with the rest of her maids. She wanted Sophia, but any of you would have done, as long as all of you came trotting along.” He sniffed. “She has become obsessed with the idea that Cecil and I are not being fully forthcoming with her about the activities surrounding the Scottish rebellion. We have already given her our report, of course, but she insists that somehow you might be able to add to our findings, whether by skill or, in Sophia’s case, by Sight. It’s quite—charming, in its way, how much she’s come to depend on you in such a short time.” He tilted his head. “Or at least upon the idea of you.”

Staring at him, I was caught by the strange subtlety of the man. Here was the Queen’s most trusted spymaster, but what did we know of Walsingham, truly? Did his loyalty remain with the Queen, or with England? Surely those were one and the same, were they not?

“Exactly as you say, Sir Francis,” I said demurely, though
my heart had begun to beat again in a strange, erratic rhythm. “How may I serve you?”

He gestured for me to walk with him. “You did not appear to be overly distraught at the destruction of your carefully laid plans for your wedding to Lord Cavanaugh,” he said, slanting a glance at me. But if he was going to talk of court, then this was ground I knew well. I’d been trained from the cradle in the art of dissembling, and the rapid change of subject merited no more than a half lift of my brows. He would have to do better than that to trip me up.

“I was certain that the Queen acted for the good of the Crown, Sir Francis, when she postponed my wedding. When I later observed that Lord Cavanaugh’s affections lay elsewhere, I was grateful that I’d learned of it in time. He is a good man, and will make someone a good husband, even if it is not my fortune to be wedded to him.”

“It could still be, you know,” Walsingham said idly. Our long strides were taking us to where the eastern and western wings joined in a narrow gallery, but he showed no sign of stopping. “The Queen could yet decide to marry you off to Lord Cavanaugh, or really any other man of her choosing.”

“That is true enough, Sir Francis,” I said, smiling easily. “My fate has always been in her hands; and verily if it would serve her needs, I would not argue to being affianced anew to Lord Cavanaugh.” This of course was a patent lie. I would argue through every means possible, and call in every marker I’d ever granted throughout the whole of the court, to avoid such a marriage. I suspected Walsingham knew this as well, and as we approached the western wing, I felt him gathering
himself round to the true meat of this conversation.

“You know she does not like you,” he observed, and I granted him a quick grin.

“I do so know it, yes.”

“And yet, of all her well-placed noble ladies, she chose you to be her spy. Do you not find that odd?”

Walsingham did not know what I had done to earn the Queen’s grudging patronage. He knew only that she hated me, yet still kept me close. He may have suspected where our unholy alliance had begun, of course. But I alone knew what had transpired between the fourteen-year-old Elizabeth and the doomed Thomas Seymour, all those years ago at Sudeley Castle. Something more than what she’d admitted, certainly—and something less than what her detractors had suspected. But I had not spilled my secrets in the face of questioning, even as a frightened seven-year-old girl. I certainly was not going to spill them now.

“The Queen, though she has no reason to do so, considers me a sort of lesser rival.” I shrugged. “She thinks to keeps her friends close, and her enemies closer.”

He nodded, but his eyes glittered in the half-light. “That is part of it, true enough. She also, however, seeks full dominion over you as a woman, not just as your Queen. Or have you not noticed how sharp her tone has turned when she addresses you, and how pointed her stare?”

Uneasiness threaded through me. Walsingham could not question me without the Queen’s presence, but that did not mean he could not fill my ears with lies. Or, perhaps worse, truths.

“I am afraid I do not understand your meaning, Sir Francis,” I said as we turned the final corner on the western corridor. “The Queen has ever treated me with grace.”

“Oh, come now. Now that the Cavanaugh alliance has been broken, she means to stick you in some hole in the middle of nowhere, Lady Beatrice. You know it as well as I do,” Walsingham said. “She merely has not yet found one sufficiently deep.”

I did not know how to respond to this, so I opted for light indifference, though I was chilled to my bones at how right and true his words struck me. “Think you so?”

“I do indeed.” He slanted me a glance. “You have been spending much time in the company of Alasdair MacLeod,” he observed, and I instantly tensed. I had to keep up the game of our coy repartee, but it felt wrong to me. The words I had to speak felt like chalk in my mouth.

“If you are here to tell me my need to entertain Alasdair MacLeod is at an end, then I well thank you for it,” I said with a shrug. “The Queen’s request that I shadow him has been educational but not terribly informative. He and his family side with Scotland against any who trample against it—especially if they’re French. The question of religion is not as strong a call to arms as is the question of their independence from French rule. They will defend their island rock against any who would take their freedom away.”

“The MacLeods do not hold sway only in Skye,” Walsingham said. “They’ve cousins to the south throughout England, staunch Catholics, I am told. And yet they would fight for the Protestant cause?”

I fluttered a hand. “And what family does not have divisions as such, particularly across borders?” I smiled a little wryly. “Though, I cannot imagine that their English cousins’ faith remains as strong during Elizabeth’s reign as perhaps it was before; or at least as public.”

“True enough,” Walsingham agreed. “But MacLeod and his extended family are well positioned to aid in a
Catholic
plot, not a Protestant one; and we must be ever vigilant that any dissenters to the Queen’s rule do not gain a foothold, no matter how slight.” He stepped into the western drawing room, with its great area open to the sky. Thankfully, there was neither child nor intoxicated mother in sight. Praise heaven for small favors. Walsingham glanced around the room, then turned back to me, satisfied that we were alone. “We need more from you, Beatrice, and I think you know it,” he said, his words deceptively mild.

I looked at him now, even more tense. Unaccountably, I felt the need to protect Alasdair from this schemer. To reduce his importance as a potential pawn. There was one sure way to do that, and I sighed deeply, affecting a weariness like to drag down my bones. “You want me to keep making eyes at the Scot, don’t you,” I groaned, not bothering to match my low tones to his. “Say you are not serious.”

“I heard reports of the Volta from last night’s revel,” Walsingham said levelly. “You do not find his presence a comfort?”

“I find his presence a chore, Sir Francis,” I snapped. Perhaps the only thing worse than the Queen’s meddling in my affairs was Walsingham lending his clumsy hand to the
stew. “I will entertain him for the sake of the Queen, but make no mistake, I take no joy in it.”

“There are those who saw you walking with him again, earlier today. You did not seem affronted by his company then, either, though the Queen herself was still abed.”

“The Queen’s command knows no slumber,” I retorted archly. Even in this I could not speak plainly, but I could at least set Walsingham’s mind at ease regarding my feelings for Alasdair MacLeod.

He was a distraction to me. A diversion. Nothing more.

Truly.

And so I sallied forth. “MacLeod is a Scotsman, Sir Francis, and as such he shall not capture my heart, my mind, nor even my interest except as it pleases my Queen. I am willing to lend him my wide eyes and batted lashes to keep him enjoying his stay in her court.”
And to strip him of every ounce of knowledge he has, to feed your voracious appetites.
“But make no mistake, I will be the happiest of girls to see him depart for his rock of a fortress to the north.”

Walsingham stared at me, hard, then seemed to come to some decision. “Your devotion to your Queen knows no bounds, it would seem,” he said, but his words were not entirely flattering.

I chose to respond to them as if they were, however, and sank into a curtsy. “I do what I can for England,” I said.

Disconcertingly, he was still staring at me as I rose. And it was not a good stare, but one born of plots and secrets that I could only guess at.
What is his game?
I wondered.
What is his real intent here?

“You’ll do it for longer than most, I wager.” Walsingham bowed prettily back to me. “But, enough. I daresay the others’ audience with the Queen is already at an end. I will make your excuses, if you do not wish to share her company.”

I didn’t bother to point out that he was the one who’d swept me from the Queen’s company in the first place, but I merely thanked him. Something seemed suddenly wrong in the air around me, some tension I’d not noticed before. Walsingham left me, and I stood for a moment longer in the reflected daylight of the western drawing room.

And then I heard it.

A long, lusty sigh—as if a slumbering bear had just roused itself from its winter nap—sounded from one of the great broad-backed chairs not ten feet away from me in this room I had thought empty. I knew that sigh. Just as I knew the young man who’d uttered it, who even now unfolded his tall, magnificent body from the chair and stood up to stretch his arms toward the ceiling, his back to me for just a moment more.

Alasdair MacLeod.

Walsingham, you insufferable ass!
He had brought me here for his questioning, and then, once finished, had deliberately tried to undo all the work I had done with Alasdair. But why? It made no sense. But maybe—maybe Alasdair had not heard everything. Maybe everything was not lost, maybe—maybe—

“That,” Alasdair MacLeod said into the silence, as if he were addressing the very sky and forest beyond the open balcony, and not me at all, “was certainly diverting.”

The blood drained from my face, my hands, my heart. It would have pooled in a widening stain on the stone at my
feet if it had had any way to do so. With only the greatest of efforts, I kept my face an arch mask of feminine defiance as Alasdair turned and favored me with a hard smile. He took three long steps toward me, still staying carefully away, and made a courtly bow. The air between us shimmered with intensity.

A thousand apologies sprang to my lips, but I could not force myself to utter them, all the coquetry of my past long years at court failing me when I needed it most. “Al—” I finally managed, but he lifted a lazy hand.

“You will find, for our many flaws, we Scots are a proud and discerning lot,” he drawled, his hard gaze raking over my face with a heat that belied his calm words. “A proud man would leave you to your lies, my lady, you and your entire court of deceivers.”

Then he leaned closer to me, his breath warm and sweet as it feathered against my ear. “But a discerning man would not give up until he’d discovered just what rests beneath all of those layers of lies you’ve been telling for all these many years . . . and especially these last few weeks.” He paused a moment more as if he could not help himself, then bent forward to press his lips against my ear. “And perhaps most of all, these last few moments.”

I could barely hear his next words, so hard was my heart pounding, so heavy was my blood rushing in my veins.

“I look forward to that, my lady,” he said.

Then he was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE