The Virgin's Spy (34 page)

And if he helped keep his brother, Kit, out of England as well? All the better.

Maisie Sinclair had never been to Yorkshire before. Indeed, she had never been in England at all until a week ago. Despite her birth and childhood in Edinburgh, so close to the border that there always seemed to be alarms about whether the English were coming, Maisie's travels had taken her seemingly everywhere save her nearest neighbor. After her short-lived Irish marriage, she had turned to the Continent. Since 1582 she had spent time in Antwerp, Bruges, Germany, Italy, and France. Now, at last, she was on her way home. Three and a half years after sailing from Scotland as the fifteen-year-old bride of an Irishman she'd never met, Maisie was prepared to make her play in Edinburgh.

But first, this visit to Yorkshire. Amidst her voluminous business correspondents was the household treasurer for Her Royal Highness Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales. Maisie's small but successful business interests had profited the princess in her investments, and the treasurer had issued an invitation to meet with him in person in the cathedral city of York. She had considered for ten seconds—six seconds longer than it usually took her to make a decision—before agreeing to sail to Hull and riding the remainder of the way north.

She had not anticipated feeling nervous.
We are Sinclairs
, her grandfather had often drummed into her.
We do not grovel before anyone.
But when Maisie approached the Treasurer's House in the shadow of York Minster and saw the royal banner of the Princess of Wales flying from the roofline, she very nearly turned on her heel and ran away. She had not been told that the princess herself would be here.

But her training held—all of her training, from her grandfather's hardheaded business principles to the nuns' strict codes of conduct—and probably no one noted the slight stutter in her step. One advantage of enormous skirts. She had with her a Flemish secretary she had hired in Bruges on the recommendation of one of her bankers and who had proven himself a hundred times over to be both astute and loyal. His name was Pieter Andries, and though she thought of him as a boy, he was a good ten years older than her. But where Maisie viewed the world without illusions and with the cynicism of a Scots business owner, Pieter had a boundless faith in humanity and a wide-eyed joy in the world that made her watch out for him as though he were a naïve spaniel.

Pieter looked up at the banner and grinned. “This should be interesting.”

All right, so maybe he had learned her trick of cynical understatement during their time together.

They were met by pages and a soft-spoken, black-haired woman who introduced herself as Madalena Arias. She had the faintest of Spanish accents. “Mistress Sinclair,” she said, for Maisie had insisted on returning to her maiden name after her brief marriage, “if you will follow me, Matthew Harrington is waiting for you in the reception hall. I hope you do not mind if Her Highness joins the meeting?”

It was a disingenuous question, but Maisie thought it well-mannered to pretend to ask. “It will be an honour,” she replied truthfully.

Pieter trailed behind her, looking suitably clerkly, and Maisie was glad she had dressed with care. The blue-green of her gown was a unique dye done in the Low Countries, trimmed in lace as fine as a spider's web at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was coiled in a pearled snood attached to a small velvet cap, and her earrings were tiny matching pearls. Perfectly correct and suitable for a wealthy merchant's granddaughter.

When they entered the two-story hall with its black and white checkered floor, Maisie's eyes went directly to the red-haired princess. She was unmistakable, not only from her well-known coloring and elaborate gown, but from the indefinable air of power draped around her. She was taller than Maisie—most everyone was—and beautiful beyond merely the trappings of her dress and position. If she had been a maid, she would still have been ravishing. But combined with her position, Anne Tudor would always command the breathless attention of all who met her.

And she was as charming as she was gorgeous. “Maisie—may I call you Maisie?—I hope you don't mind me sitting in. Matthew sings your praises to such a degree that I simply had to meet you myself.”

Maisie made a serviceable curtsey. “It is a great pleasure, Your Highness.”

An exceptionally tall man took a step forward. “Matthew Harrington,” he said unnecessarily. “It is good of you to go out of your way to come to York.”

He spoke as he wrote, with economy and quiet strength. He had the build to support his height, with brown hair and dark brown eyes that assessed her steadily.

“And this,” Princess Anne said, drawing forward the other woman present, “is someone most eager to meet you for herself. Philippa—”

“Courtenay,” Maisie interrupted, then flushed. “I apologize, Your Highness. But she is very like her brother.”

“Stephen?” Philippa Courtenay asked quizzically.

“I meant your twin, Christopher. I met him once in Ireland, on the way to my wedding. But yes, you do have something of Stephen about you as well.”

The allure,
she meant, but would never say.
The trick of looking at me with such focus that the rest of the world fades around the edges.
Anne Tudor might be the center of her world, but the Courtenays took self-possession to an entirely new level.

“I had hoped,” Philippa Courtenay continued, “to have some talk with you of Stephen later. When you are finished with the business of high finance. He writes to you, I understand.”

“He does.”

“Why?”

This was not a woman to be parried with a soft answer. “Why me and not you, do you mean? Because I was in Ireland. Those who have passed through trials together can understand one another in a manner others cannot.”

To her surprise, Philippa smiled, genuine and open. “True. You will not mind if I ask you about my brother later on?”

“No, my lady.”

Princess Anne had managed to subtly hold herself in the background, a trick Maisie imagined she didn't often employ, but now firmly took back the authority. “Let us sit and discuss my money. And when we are finished, I shall turn Pippa loose on you. If you are as wise with your words as you are with finance, it will be quite the conversation.”

Maisie drew a slightly shaky breath and took the seat Matthew offered her. Discussing money was simple. It was the thought of discussing Stephen that made her pulse flutter.

The hour that followed was more exhilarating than any Maisie had spent in a long time. Despite her polite protestations, the Princess of Wales had an astute business mind. She and Matthew Harrington between them grilled her thoroughly and by the end of the hour they had several new investments planned.

And then, with apparently artless ease, the princess took Matthew with her and left Maisie and Philippa Courtenay alone.

“Lady Philippa,” Maisie said warily.

“Call me Pippa. Everyone does.”

Since she couldn't quite bring herself to do that, Maisie simply nodded as though in agreement while silently vowing not to call her anything. And waited to be asked uncomfortable questions.

“Is Stephen ever going to recover from loving his Irish woman?”

Well, that was rather more uncomfortable than even she had bargained for. “It depends on how you define recovery.”

A flash of amused respect from Lady Philippa. “I define it as not needing to turn to hard drink or easy women to salve his pain.”

“Surely your twin can give you more accurate information than I can, seeing as how they are together in France.”

“But Kit never met Ailis Kavanaugh. You were there. You watched it all happen. And before you tell me that you were far too simple and innocent to understand what was going on…don't bother. Your pose of childlike blandness does not fool me in the slightest.”

It had been a long time since Maisie had met an adult who bothered to look behind the masks she wore. Stephen had been the last, and that only briefly and in flashes between his obsession with Ailis. It was something of a relief to shrug her shoulders and answer bluntly. “Stephen is not a man to be broken by anything save his own conscience. He loved Ailis very much. But any chance they might have had vanished the moment her daughter was murdered. It wasn't his lies or their different religions or political aims that ruined them—it was Stephen himself. He will never forgive himself for Liadan's death. I think he believed that walking away from Ailis was his penance.”

“That doesn't precisely answer my question.”

“He will not take refuge in alcohol.” She didn't dare think about women. What did she know of how men eased their pain in that way? “He will not retreat from the path he has laid before himself—to serve where he can to the best of his ability. It is your queen's loss if it is not to be in England.”

“That sounds rather cold.”

“You asked for honesty, not comfort.”

Lady Philippa smiled, but there was something sad to it. And piercing. She seemed to be looking deep into Maisie's own cold comforts as she said, “You are not wrong, but I do not think you see the whole of my brother. There is more to Stephen than duty, and a heart with room for more than one love. I do not think passion has finished with him quite yet.”

Rudely, Maisie stood up first. She had no experience with passion and no desire to discuss it with this self-possessed woman who also happened to be Stephen's sister. “My business is with numbers,” she said with finality. “I shall leave passion and penance to those better equipped to recognize it.”

Lady Philippa rose with a grace Maisie envied, and her smile grew mischievous. “Thank you for your honesty, Mistress Sinclair. I will not forget it. Or you.”

Maisie couldn't decide if that were a promise or a threat.