Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  None more so than the Queen’s, whose position in the dance had been timed perfectly, as I had known it would be.

  She now stood directly in front of them.

  The moment stretched out, long and taut. I turned, as if I could not understand the reason for the sudden hush that had come over the room, and saw Lord Cavanaugh set aside his lady fair with a thrusting shove. Dutifully I put my hands up to my cheeks, as if I were shocked—shocked—at what my eyes did plainly see. Cavanaugh’s mistress, for her part, looked more startled than embarrassed, but she sank down into a curtsy, then slipped nimbly away, disappearing into a side door with the quickness of a cat. She was not to blame, after all. She was not a noble.

  Lord Cavanaugh was.

  “My good Lord Cavanaugh,” the Queen said coolly, her tone brooking no question but that everyone in the room would hear and know her wrath. “While it does our heart good to see you quite recovered from the disappointment of your postponed nuptials, it is perhaps a step too far you have taken? Do you not respect the virtue of this court?”

  Cavanaugh died a thousand deaths in that moment. There was really no explaining his actions, and he was a shrewd enough courtier to know it. “Forgive me, Your Grace and one and all,” he said instead. How thin his voice sounded, I realized suddenly, even at its loudest pitch. How reedy and slight, like the man’s own character. “I was caught up in the joyous celebration, and did not mean to offend.”

  “Well. Offend you have. You may retire for this evening, as the celebration has quite undone you.” The Queen’s eyes swept the room, finding me with my hands now clasped tightly at my waist. “ ’Tis not the only apology that must be made this night, and reparations given.”

  The tiniest thread of alarm skated through me. To the gathered crowd, the Queen implied that Cavanaugh had me to apologize to as well, as indeed he should. If he’d not fallen in love with a woman other than his betrothed, none of this would have happened!

  But I knew Elizabeth better than nearly anyone else in the room. The flame-haired shrew laid this disruption at my feet.

  And reparations would be given.

  CHAPTER TEN

  At the Queen’s command the music started up again, and I turned away from Cavanaugh’s outraged face as Meg rushed up to me, Sophia at her side.

  “Well! That was more excitement than I was expecting this night,” Meg said, drawing my arm into hers. To my surprise Sophia pulled my left arm into her embrace as well, though she was a good deal shorter than me. The two walked me off the dance floor as if I might be attacked.

  “Your heart is so heavy and dark, Beatrice.” Sophia sighed, her eyes seeming to search the room without seeing anyone. “Would that I could ease your pain, but I have seen your path. There’s no way out but through.”

  I exchanged a startled glance with Meg. Then by common accord we stopped and gave our attention to Sophia. “Are you feeling well, Sophia?” I asked.

  “Is your, ah, betrothed here?” Meg’s words trailed mine by only a heartbeat.

  Sophia, for her part, merely beamed at us. “I am well, and Lord Brighton is well. We danced the opening set, and then he retired. He thinks I do not know of his plan to protect me. He does not realize I have always known, though even I refused to admit it.” She sighed happily. “Now I am only glad that I do not hold this secret alone. It paints it all in a different hue.”

  That was all well and good, but it wasn’t Sophia that I was most concerned about at the moment. “Um, Sophia,” I began, leaning in close. “What exactly do you mean about ‘There is no way out but—’ ”

  “My lady.” The booming voice broke over us, and I was startled as a hand suddenly gripped my arm. I looked up into Alasdair’s face, which looked grimmer than I’d ever seen it. “A dance, my lady,” he said. It was not a request.

  I slanted a glance back to the floor. Another country dance was in the offing, a Trenchmore. And I’d had my fill of dancing. “I must decline, good sir,” I said sweetly. “I find I am quite fatigued.”

  If anything his face grew darker. “Then a walk to revive you,” he said firmly, and pulled my hand over his arm as if he possessed me, body and soul. I was about to object, when he looked at me with such intensity that I would have stepped back if I could have reclaimed my own arm. “Don’t,” he bit out.

  “I would be honored,” I replied archly, drawing myself up to my haughtiest. He barely nodded to a bemused Meg and a now radiant Sophia before he tugged me off to stalk his way down the long chamber, a crowd of onlookers scattering out of our way.

  We’d gone for nearly a hundred paces like that, not speaking, when finally I’d had enough. “Did you want my time for a purpose, sir, or do you simply wish to ensure I have my exercise?”

  “Oh, I think you’ve done enough exercising for one night,” Alasdair growled. He’d found the one area of the Presence Chamber that was not choked with people, the open space near the great hall’s entrance, where the guards now milled around. He positioned me against the wall, well away from him for propriety’s sake, and planted his fists on his hips. “Now explain to me why all of that was necessary. The ways of you English make my head hurt.”

  “Why all of what was necessary?” I asked in return. Did the whole of the court know that I’d staged Cavanaugh’s downfall?

  “Always scheming, aren’t you?” Alasdair’s words were mocking. He leaned closer to me. “I watch you, my lady. The moment you step into a room and the second you leave it. I watch you laugh and smile, and I watch you frown and calculate. So, aye, I saw you lift that curtain away to expose your betrothed to the Queen. What I want to know is, why did she order you to do it?”

  “Wha—what?” I stammered, staring at him, wide-eyed, as a roil of emotions rushed through me. First the idea that he should be watching me, then the realization that he’d caught me out, and then the confusion over why he thought the Queen would ever order a disruption in her own hall. “How can you ask such a thing?”

  It was a stall, and he knew it, but even I was surprised at his curse as he looked away. He folded his powerful arms over his chest, and I could not help but think of those same arms around me. “You do everything she says, don’t you?” he asked irritably. “Even when it makes no sense.”

  My cheeks burned, but I could not bring myself to admit the truth—that the Queen had not ordered the public chastisement of Lord Cavanaugh; that in fact she was likely incensed with me more than with any cheating nobleman. It was humiliating enough to know that Cavanaugh preferred to hold someone else in his arms, that he didn’t love me—that he had likely never loved me. I’d been fooled—deeply and unutterably tricked. And I should have known better. I was Beatrice Knowles, the darling of the court. The schemer and plotter, the keeper of secrets. I was the one who was supposed to have the upper hand in all things—but mostly, especially, in my own marital negotiations. Cavanaugh was supposed to love me. To be entranced by me. To want nothing more than for me to be his bride. It had all been perfectly planned from the moment I’d met the arrogant nobleman four years earlier, when he’d still been but a boy and I a dutiful member of Queen Mary’s court. I’d seen him and I’d chosen him.

  And I’d just assumed he’d chosen me, too.

  Opposite me, Alasdair sighed. “I should not expect more of you,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. That brought me up short—how dare he judge me at all! He was from Scotland, for the love of heaven. “You are in service to your Queen.”

  I paused with my response, ever careful of my words. “I am in service to her, but she is a monarch who should best be judged by her politics, which are ever for the good,” I said, trying to work my way away from my personal issues and back to where our conversation rightly belonged, on the foibles of nations and their royal caretakers. “My Queen wants only what is best for England, and what is good for Scotland, too.”

  He gazed down at me then, his eyes now taken with a light not unlike the fervency I’d seen in Sophia’s stare. �
�And what about what is good for Beatrice Elizabeth Catherine Knowles?” he asked. “Does the Queen want what’s best for her?”

  Not until a cold day dawns in hell. “Of course,” I said smoothly. “As it serves the good of her people, she is stalwart in her care and protection. Do you not follow the direction of your chieftain, knowing that he wishes most to protect his own?”

  That caused Alasdair to laugh roughly. “You’ve clearly not met my chieftain,” he said, but at least he was smiling again. “Still not right, though. The Queen’s command has put you at risk, which makes it rash and not terribly smart. Your wispy English lord looked like he did not take well to public attack. I’d stay well clear of him till his temper cools. It’s always the little ones you have to watch out for.”

  “As I suspect he’s no longer my betrothed, I doubt I’ll be much in his company,” I observed coolly, trying not to laugh myself at Alasdair’s characterization.

  The words caught him up short. “Not your betrothed?” he asked, slanting me a glance. “In truth? That bit of nonsense would undo a marriage contract?”

  “That bit of nonsense—yes! Yes, it would!” I said fiercely. Or at least it should. I remembered again my father squabbling with Cavanaugh over that very document. Well, they could both sit and stew. I’d find another man to secure my position in court; hopefully one who was not so easily led astray by rounded curves and fluttering lashes.

  “Then I take back all my harsh words against your Queen, my lady.” Alasdair’s lips parted fully into a wolfish leer, and he reached out for my hand, drew it to his lips—effectively pulling me closer to him as he did so. I tried not to hitch my breath as his lips brushed against the sensitive skin of my fingers, my heart positively stopping in surprise. “I rather like this turn of events.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dawn had barely broken the next morning when I was summoned into the Queen’s Privy Chamber. Seeing the Queen at any hour was never a thrill, but being hastened into her presence early was a particular chore. Worse, I felt a pounding dread with every step I took. None of the other Maids of Honor had been summoned.

  Had I really upset her that greatly with my revelation of Cavanaugh’s duplicity? Did she truly care that much that I had been driven to lay bare his lies—and that I had chosen not to lie myself, to protect his good name?

  My doubts tasted like ash in my mouth.

  I passed the stone-faced guards at the doorway, unsurprised to see both Cecil and Walsingham flanking the Queen. Whenever she wanted to throw her weight around, she preferred to have those two dancing in attendance. They both bolstered her power and needed to be reminded that she was the one making the final decisions—in my life, as well as her own.

  I swept into a low curtsy, preparing for the long count. The Queen didn’t disappoint. She allowed me to stay in obeisance while she began her tirade.

  “Who do you think you are?” she asked into the air above my head. “You, with your petty sense of what is right and what is suitable, with your infantile quest for justice to your wounded sensibilities. You chose the grandest stage of all to unmask Cavanaugh’s indiscretion, leaving me no recourse at all but to chastise him. Do you have any idea of the damage you have caused to your own fortunes, let alone mine own?”

  Whatever I had expected the Queen to say, this was not it. I was staring at the rushes, scrambling for thoughts, when Elizabeth suddenly realized that my brain was probably working. “Rise!” she commanded. “Face me!”

  I stood up promptly, settling my legs beneath my skirts in a vain attempt to speed the blood returning to my feet, lest she ask me to walk anytime soon. I knew better than to directly oppose her words, but she still was seeking validation of her suspicions. She did not have me yet.

  “Your Grace,” I said deferentially. “While I cannot deny a certain . . . satisfaction in seeing Cavanaugh so publicly set down, I assure you my hands were not involved in his unmasking, verily I swear.” And this was true enough. Only one of my hands had been involved in that merry trick. Not both.

  “That’s not possible,” she snapped back at me. “It was too neatly done. You cannot deceive me, Beatrice. I’ve known you too long. Always, always you want more.” The Queen punctuated her words by rapping a folded fan against the edge of her throne. “You could not be satisfied with just any man at court. You set your cap for one of the oldest and richest families in the realm. You could not wait for a seemly time to push for a betrothal. You choose August, when I had to find something to take the court’s minds off the disruptions of the castle. And when your marriage had been rightly delayed to keep those same minds on me, where they should be, you somehow found out about Cavanaugh’s mistress and reacted like a petulant child.”

  I couldn’t help my eyes from widening. “You—” I swallowed. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew, you imbecile!” Elizabeth leaned forward in her throne, her eyes shooting daggers. “I know everything that takes place in this castle that might impact my plans, and quite a fair amount more than that, as well you should know.” That little line was meant more for her advisors, but I took the blow as if it had been intended for me. “Lord Cavanaugh had decided to buy my graces with his coin, and I had decided to let him, which was the only reason why this marriage was going forward. That, and he promised to rid me of your presence the moment I decided I no longer needed you.”

  Anger and outrage welled up within me, and it was all I could do not to spit fire. Instead I curtsied. Meg was clearly onto something with this. “Your Grace,” I murmured as I did so.

  The move seemed to mollify her, and as I rose back up, her face had lost some of its mottled fury. “But now you’ve made a mess of it, as you are wont to do. I have had to cancel your betrothal altogether.”

  I allowed myself a small shiver of relief at that. I’d worried that she would still tie me to Cavanaugh, but it appeared that—for the moment—I had some reprieve. Sadly, my respite did not last long. “I shall have to create an entirely new focus for the court, however, so the furor of Cavanaugh’s disgrace can diminish and he can reinsert himself into my favor.”

  She mulled over that, tapping the fan against her chin, her eyes as flat and lifeless as a snake’s. “Hmmm,” she muttered. “I may have just the thing.”

  That . . . didn’t sound good.

  But I had no way of knowing what the Queen’s plans were. She dismissed me summarily, and I had hardly made it back to the maids’ chambers when another summons came round, announcing a court-wide audience in the Presence Chamber at ten o’clock yet that morning.

  “What could this be now?” Jane grumbled. “I canna bear another dance, I will tell you plain.”

  “It seems unlikely that she’d schedule another frolic,” Anna said. “The castle staff are all but dead on their feet.” Still she frowned too, looking up from the three opened manuscripts she was perusing, no doubt trying to catch out the translations in some fatal flaw. “What happened with her, Beatrice?”

  “She said that she had to create a distraction,” I said dully. I was suddenly tired. So, so tired. I could no longer care about queens and their distress. I frowned, however, to see my fellow maids staring at me. “What did you expect?” I asked irritably. “She holds me to blame for the court learning of Cavanaugh’s indiscretion, not him for actually being indiscreet. If anything, I’m an infant for even assuming I could have attracted the attentions of a man who would love me for me alone.” I put my hands to my face, willing the world away for just one precious moment. “She’s probably right.”

  I felt the wave of surprise slide through the room—not at the bitterness of my words but at the fact that I would share my feelings so openly. Bare honesty wasn’t my usual practice or inclination. Not even among them. This truly had been a night and a day for revelations.

  “Well,” Anna broke in firmly, as ever at my side, though I did nothing to deserve her loyalty. “She is right in thinking this will distract the court, as long as the announcement
does not have anything to do with Cavanaugh directly. I heard he was quite unwilling to leave his apartments after his shaming last night.”

  “Tell me you’re not serious.” I raised my head, then rolled my eyes at her serious expression. “Oh, leave off!” I scoffed. “It’s not like the man was stoned at the stocks. He was interrupted in the midst of kissing someone other than his betrothed at a ball. He will survive it.”

  “He’s still a man,” Sophia said, her gaze shifted to the right, as if she could see something in the walls that was hidden from the rest of us. “If this weren’t all for the best, I would be far more concerned for you, Beatrice. Lord Cavanaugh is more dangerous in his disgrace than he ever was in his pride. You should have a care around him.”

  I frowned at her, a tremor of unease resettling itself in my bones. Alasdair had said much the same thing when he’d thought Cavanaugh still had some contractual hold over me. “Sophia, I never know if you’re speaking from knowledge gained in this world or out of it.”

  She blushed, looking impossibly beautiful, even in her simple brown frock. “Then you know exactly how I feel. But I do believe I speak the truth, Beatrice, no matter how I know it to be true. Cavanaugh does not wish you well.”

  “Well, I cannot say I wish him well either, so we are matched in that.”

  “But he has the power still,” Meg mused. Her opinions on marriage were already well known in our small group—the further away she could get from that vaunted state, the happier she would be. “If he wanted to maintain your betrothal, and was thwarted in that, he is dangerous. If he is glad to have the betrothal severed, but is nevertheless affronted by the turn of events, he is still dangerous. And if he seeks to regain you as his bride, he is perhaps the most dangerous of all.”