Maid of Deception (36 page)

“I’m doing very well,” he said, his voice razor sharp. “You, though, my dear, will not be doing very well shortly, unless we come to some understanding.”

I had heard courtly posturing before, from men as well as women. I had heard idle threats cast about. Cavanaugh did not have the air of a man who was playing games. Or rather, he did not have the air of a man whose game was played for sport. I needed to proceed with care.

“Very well,” I said, nodding as I allowed a worried frown to crease my brow. Cavanaugh knew me fairly well. He would be more difficult than most to dupe, but not impossible. “What is it that you mean?”

“To start, I mean that you are going to get the Queen to restore me with grace to the court, to recognize my position and grant me her full blessing.”

“I’m going to what?” Despite my decision to play this with skill and grace, this request was outside of enough. “Are you
mad
? I cannot sway the Queen in such a way.” And I surely wouldn’t be troubling myself to aid his cause.

“You have ruined me!” Cavanaugh spit, and his words carried a heavier sheen of hysteria now. “You, and your stupid ploy to reveal me, have made me a laughingstock at court. My family is one of the noblest in all of England, and you dared to bring me low!”

“My lord Cavanaugh, it was not I who chose a very public ball to embrace my ladylove. Where is she now?” I asked archly, casting a glance about. “I do hope you don’t have her hiding in the tapestries. They are very dusty this time of year.” I beat the nearest one. “Are you in there, dear?”

“She is gone from Windsor,” Cavanaugh said darkly. I immediately left off my game, now troubled. What had he done with the woman? She’d appeared capable and sturdy, but she’d been employed by the Queen. Forget about Cavanaugh’s hurt feelings. Had I ruined her life in truth by bringing her into the focus of the court?

“Gone from Windsor
where
?” I asked, playing the flounce. “It is not she who wished to be on that dance floor.” I opened my eyes wide, part terrified little girl, part chattering court gossip. “Please do not say you killed her!”

“No!” Cavanaugh drew back as if he’d been slapped. “She is the least of your concerns, so do not think you can start
more false rumors about her. She is more woman than you will ever be.”

That stung more than I cared to admit. “So you are still seeing her,” I said.

“And that has
never
been your concern,” Cavanaugh snapped dismissively. “But if it soothes your sensibilities, no. I have broken off our liaison and settled her with enough funds and recommendations to find good work in the town. She will not starve.”

There was a lie in his words, but I could not quite place it. Cavanaugh was not by nature a generous man, though he knew the sense of buying off a woman’s silence—especially a woman as level-seeming as this one. Precisely because she had not been born to court intrigue, she’d take his money and hold her tongue. Far more likely that he’d set her up with money and still expected her to share his bed, just not within the walls of Windsor. Still, there was no way I could discern here which of his words were true and which were false. So I opted for a bridge comment. “Then I am glad to hear it.”

“As I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear this.” Cavanaugh’s tone was scornful. “You will convince the Queen to change her mind about me, to reinstate me in the court with full grace . . .”

I waited for the remainder of his request, that he also be reinstated as my betrothed. But as the moment drew out, I felt the tiniest bit of dread creep into my stomach. Cavanaugh, unlike his mistress,
was
a court insider. His plans, perforce, were more diabolical.

Finally I couldn’t stand the waiting. “Or—what, Lord
Cavanaugh? Surely there must be a price to my rejecting your request.”

“My request is not quite through, my lovely Beatrice.” His lips twisted on the words, but he reached into his doublet and pulled out a letter. “But come. You’ll want to read this, I’m sure.”

I rather doubted that, but I pushed my feet forward. I joined him under one of the few lit sconces in the room. Cavanaugh had a formal piece of parchment—a letter—heavily inked with a slashing script. He showed it to me, then pressed it into my hands. “Go ahead. You can have this copy,” he said smugly. “I have had three more made.”

That . . . couldn’t be good.

I took the pages with a steady hand, then held them up to the light. I read carefully and thoroughly, with my eyebrows arched in indifference. As if I were reading any court letter, from king or countryman. What was on these pages, however, was much more damning than any casual letter.

Cavanaugh could sense my sharpening focus, even if I betrayed no other reaction. “Yes, my lady Beatrice. With the Queen refusing to grant me leave to join her at your rather-more-humble home than I’d realized, I had to take extra measures. I sent three of my associates along with Elizabeth’s courtiers, who quite enjoyed eating your food and draining your casks of ale while noting that, it seems, your mother is quite mad.”

With what I considered to be extraordinary patience, I forced myself not to tear the man’s eyes out. I’d learned how to perform that gruesome act earlier in the summer, and it
seemed like a wonderful time to put the lesson to use. “I am grateful for the diagnosis of your friends, Lord Cavanaugh, but—”

“Keep reading,” he said, gloating.

And then I saw it.

It appears that the good owners of Marion Hall have not adequately instructed their servants in the proper treatment of foreigners, namely dark Egyptians, who have stained their forest within a quarter hour’s ride of the manor house. These Travelers squat upon the land, which is the Knowleses’ property, taking food and water and livelihood from the surrounding villages and farms. Worse, the staff of Marion Hall fully admit to stocking the home’s larders with potions and trinkets from the traveling troupe currently residing without censure on its land, and were not immediately aware that such interaction between them and the filthy Travelers was a crime against the Crown, punishable by death. They spoke openly of the “care” and “consideration” the household has long shown to unmentionable types, even during “previous persecutions” of same. Clearly a decades-long history of treason is demonstrated, which I leave to your careful handling. Rather than give the alert to the servants, who might then warn the rabble, we departed without further word.

As I read, my heart seemed to shrivel and die within me. Who in the world would have told strangers about the Travelers? Old Mary in the chicken yard? The ancient groom, Tom? We had so many servants and pensioners at Marion Hall that it was impossible to keep track of them all without instituting strict rules and regulations that would have made
everyone’s life sheer misery. But we clearly had gotten lax on the important topics. And now we were in Cavanaugh’s noose.

“I do not think I need to explain to you how dire this information is, Beatrice,” he said, his words silky with threat. “It goes beyond your family being ruined, although that will certainly result. Your father and your mother will be held accountable, and they will be executed for their troubles. You yourself might lose your pretty, conniving head. Your servants and staff will almost certainly be turned out by the new lord and lady of your ancestral home, for fear that the servants’ friendships with unmentionables might taint the family fortunes. They will likely starve.”

I found my breathing was not working correctly, the air coming into my lungs in swift bursts and starts. Cavanaugh was now impossibly close to me, his breath smelling of ale and overcooked meat, his entire body quivering with excitement. For my part, my mind should have been racing through alternatives, contingency plans, fresh perspectives. But all I could see was my mother, as pale as a ghost, surrounded by the group of roistering children who represented the large family she had longed for, before she had been sent down a path to sadness and dark days.

“You cannot prove this,” I finally managed. Cavanaugh just laughed.

“Of course I can,” he said. “And I should take great delight in doing so. I could likely regain my prestige within the court based on that service alone, without any great effort. But that’s not of interest to me, dear Beatrice. Would you like to know what is?”

I swallowed, trying to force my voice to remain haughty, though all the world was spinning around me. “You want me to have the Queen reinstate our betrothal?” I asked. It was a reasonable thought, but even as I gave it voice, I knew how gravely I’d blundered. Cavanaugh leaped upon my words like a cat playing with its dinner, his long rolling chuckle rippling through the room.

“Our betrothal! Rest assured, I have now seen the folly of that course. Though I had thought you could be managed with sufficient forcefulness, I have since come to realize that the cost would be too great—it would take too much time and effort to bring you to heel. Oh no, Beatrice. Do not imagine for a moment I still want to be tied to you in wedded bliss. Your cunning mind would not rest until it tore to shreds any man so sorry to be your husband—just for something to keep you occupied in between dress fittings. Your shrewish mouth was not made for kissing but for harping, and your eyes would find only fault in any man you’d choose. I would no sooner wed you than I would rip out my own throat, now that I have seen you for who you truly are.”

“Then—what?” I asked, confused. Cavanaugh had already made a great demonstration of his discovery of my family’s financial straits. I could not offer him prestige in court. Only the Queen could do that. There was nothing at all I could offer him, in fact, other than—

Lord Cavanaugh saw my face the moment the realization struck me, and his grin turned harder, more malicious. “Ah, yes, my Beatrice,” he purred. “You do have something I want. I want to ruin you, as you clearly tried to ruin me. But unlike
your childish reveal of a kiss, there will be no question within the minds of even the lowest servant of the castle exactly how far you’ve given yourself to me. You will be known as my lover and as my castoff, in lurid, scintillating detail, and there will be no one in all of London who won’t know of your disgrace.”

He settled back on his heels, his smile broadening as he saw the reality of my position crashing down upon me. “I am not without mercy, of course. I will keep my word, as a man of honor. When you are well and truly ruined, I will keep my pledge to ensure that no one ever hears a word about your family’s treasonous activities. They will be protected.” He cast an appraising glance over me. “But you will
never
have the noble marriage that you so crave. By the time I’m done with you, not even a farmer would take you to wife.”

He paused then, and cocked an aristocratic brow at me. “So what shall it be, Beatrice?”

When I didn’t respond right away, he grabbed my chin and forced my head up, chuckling at whatever he saw in my eyes. “No longer the proud bitch, are you?” He grinned. “I would like to reveal our new relationship at tomorrow’s performance, I think. That should do nicely. Do we have a pact?”

“Please,” I said, forcing myself not to pull away. “Give me a few hours to prepare myself to come to this decision, I beg of you.”

Cavanaugh shrugged, lifting his thumb to drag it hard across my lips in an act of conscious brutality. “You cannot escape me now, Beatrice,” he sneered. “But do not try my patience. Secrets such as your family’s are too good to keep for long.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I got through the rest of the night and into the next morning with no one suspecting a thing. Or at least not the whole of the thing. My mind refused to focus too long on any one topic. It sheared around Cavanaugh’s threats like they were impassable rocks on the shoreline when all I wanted was the safety of the beach beyond.

I dimly realized that people were talking to me, trying to draw me out. Anna first, with her glance taking me in like a puzzle she needed to solve, and then Sophia, her eyes so luminous with pain that it broke my heart to look at her. To their credit, my fellow maids did not try to intrude upon my misery after I delivered them a few sharp words. I let them think that I was despondent over my betrothal, that I was nervous at the thought of marriage. I let them think whatever they wanted.

God knew I was going to be giving the whole of the court plenty to think on soon enough.

I stood now in the Queen’s Privy Garden, mercifully alone. The night was drawing down, and we soon would be
gathering in the Presence Chamber for a feast and then the choral performance that Cavanaugh was doubtless looking forward to with great relish. I’d seen him, of course, throughout the day. He’d made a point of staying within my eyesight, looking at me far too intently, a secret smile playing about his lips.

If any of the court had been watching, they would have been able to draw their own conclusions after the farce of the evening played out to their delighted eyes and viperous minds. But if something were to happen to me in the meantime, like perhaps I should drown myself in the Thames, then they would think nothing of it. Cavanaugh was playing his cards exactly right.