Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  “Welcome to my home,” I sighed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I didn’t wait to discuss the chaos I saw before us, but rode toward it in a madcap fury equal to what was already taking place at Marion Hall. I feared the worst, especially when we raced up to the stables to find them completely empty of man or beast.

  Alasdair had swung down from his horse almost before it had stopped, and helped me out of my sidesaddle. “Don’t look so distressed, Beatrice. Jeremy is a good lad. He had the idea to send all the horses out to line the great road up to Marion Hall, a horse and rider at every quarter mile. Gathered up many of the horsemen in the village too, to make a proper welcome.”

  “Jeremy?” I stared at Alasdair. “But who is watching him?” I imagined the twelve-year-old imp I’d left behind at Marion Hall late the previous year. I’d returned to my home after Queen Mary’s death, deep in mourning, as had been the rest of the court. But we had barely begun preparations for the coming Christmas when the summons to return to court had arrived. The new young Queen had need of me, I’d been told. I must return to London at once to serve her.

  My father had been in alt; my mother had not grasped the significance. And neither of them—nor I—had realized exactly what service I would be asked to perform.

  But Jeremy at Christmastime had not only been the oldest of the fostered children at Marion Hall; he’d also been one of the wildest. “Surely you have not left him alone?”

  “He seems used to it.” Alasdair shrugged. “And from all indications is doing a fine job.”

  The other maids had dismounted now and were seeing to their own horses. Jane took my mare’s long reins. “Off with you now. You’ll want to see to whatever the shouting is in the house.” She grinned. “I plan to remain in the stables as long as humanly possible.”

  “Beatrice, this place is a wonder!” Anna burbled, standing up on a mounting stool the better to see across the courtyard to the main house. “It’s a veritable medieval castle!”

  “And every bit as damp,” I warned. But I was already bustling out of the stables, Alasdair at my heels. “You don’t need to escort me in my own home,” I assured him, but he merely laughed and kept beside me.

  “I’ll escort you to the end of my days, my lady. And I confess I’m also curious as to the screaming.”

  I entered the wide-flung doors, servants carrying sloshing buckets and armfuls of fresh-cut rushes. “Lady Beatrice!” the first one who recognized me cried, bobbing. The poor girl skidded to a stop and almost fell. “Begging your pardon, m’lady, but I’m afraid yer mum has taken a turn. She’d thought she could entertain the children in the west drawing room, but—”

  “My mother!” Well, that explained it. “Here.” I took the girl’s rushes out of her arms and thrust them at Alasdair. “Help her do whatever she’s doing, please.” I eyed the girl, her name finally coming to me in a flash of recognition. “You’re Sarah, no?” I asked, and was faintly peeved to see Alasdair’s surprise that I knew a servant’s name, even if it had taken me a moment. The girl’s eyes widened, and she blushed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, bobbing another nervous curtsy.

  “Sarah, put Alasdair to work, and any other visitor who is already here. There are four maids in the stables who would be happy to lend a hand. How close are we to being ready?”

  Sarah rubbed her forehead, leaving a streak of dust and sweat across it. I felt a renewed surge of irritation at the Queen. Really, could she not have picked another household to torment for a fortnight? It had to be mine? “With the rain finally ended, we have everything in place for guests, though they will be fair to bursting out of every window, beggin’ your pardon.”

  I waved off her apologies. The servants did not stand on ceremony at Marion Hall unless there was a formal event—which was about to start, admittedly, but hadn’t yet. “Well, that’s their own fault. The Queen knows what the hall will hold. That she brought a retinue of fifty courtiers and ladies, servants and hangers-on, is her own poor luck. Where are we putting her, the bridal suite?”

  “Aye, ’tis the prettiest room by far, with a view to the rising sun.” Sarah bit her lip again. “Your mum has not slept in it in an age.”

  As if on cue another wail went up from the west of the hall, and I stiffened, catching up my skirts. “Dinner this night—we’re prepared? They’ll be hungry but tired, praise God. The formal welcome will be put off a day at least.”

  “We’ve had—help . . . of a sort,” Sarah said, her gaze skittering from me to Alasdair and back. “We’re as ready as we can be.”

  Panic danced along my nerves. I knew the help Sarah meant, and help like that could get the Knowles family stripped of our estate, should anyone become the wiser. And here I was bringing the nosiest people in England to our threshold. But there was nothing for it. “Then that’s all we can do,” I said. I fled out of the room and down the long corridors, barely noticing the empty walls and austere, outdated furnishings. We’d sold most of the contents of Marion Hall during the lean years, and though we were finally back on our feet again—no thanks at all to my father but to the hall’s stern chamberlain, who’d finally stepped in to save us—no one would say we were living in luxury.

  The wild laughter and outcries of children assaulted me, the closer I got to the western drawing room. The name itself was a misnomer—the room was more a broad covered balcony, open to the wind and sky but protected from the harsher elements of snow and rain. Even today’s torrent would not have disturbed its occupants. The room was a favorite of guests and residents alike, and seemed to draw children like moths to a flame.

  And as I wheeled around the corner into a burst of sound, I was greeted by the one treasure Marion Hall still could boast proudly—fully a score of fostered children, who now appeared poised to engage in a battle to the death with wooden swords and thick cloth-wrapped staves.

  I searched in vain for my mother, but from what I could see there was no one in the room more than four feet tall.

  “Lady Beatrice!” A third of the contingent seemed to scream my name at once, and I was beset with an attack of my own, children pushing and shoving their way toward me, grabbing at my skirts, pulling at my arms, a dozen voices shouting at once even as the shyer or smaller children scampered out of the way.

  “Enough,” I cried. “Enough!” What had my mother been doing with these children, and where was she now? I had not expected her to keep up ably with the rabble, but she should at least have had a servant with her to manage them . . . or a well-armed guard.

  The one benefit of the onslaught of children—all of them clean, I saw, which at least was one boon—was that it cleared the rest of the room of their fury. And then I saw my mother.

  She half-sat, half-reclined on a long chaise that had clearly been carried to the room for this purpose. Although the rain had ended and the sun was now warming the open sitting area, she still had a heavy blanket drawn up all around her. A thick glass carafe sat next to her on a tiny table, with God-only-knew-what inside it. For her part, my mother drowsed in blissful repose, oblivious to the chaos around her.

  “Mother—ow!” I contorted my body backward as one of the scrabbling children latched on to my hair to gain a leg up onto my person, but no sooner had I divested myself of that climbing monkey than another two had grabbed my hands, a third at my elbow, urging me to join the fray. I looked into their faces and saw the eagerness of children too long ignored. My heart twisted, as it always did around happily romping children. I saw in them all that I had lost and could never get back, and I normally went to any lengths to preserve their precious childhood, away from the prying demands of life.

  These children at this moment, however, had gone outside of too far. Their manners were deplorable, and whatever they had done to my mother was not to be borne.

  “I said ‘Enough!’ ” I cried, using my loudest voice. I shoved the closest of the children away into their sprawling fellows, creating a space for me to brea
the. I knew the respite would hold for only a moment, so I pounced on it.

  “What manner of play is this? Have you exhausted Lady Anne so completely that she has collapsed on her chaise with none of you the wiser? Who started this?”

  There was stunned silence for a long moment, and then one of the taller boys stepped forward, Matthias Smith, whose mother had died five years past. “I did, Lady Beatrice. We were only going to show ’er what we’d learned from the guards. They’ve been teaching us to fight! . . .” His words trailed off as he turned to my mother, who shifted in her sleep but didn’t waken. “But she was . . . tired. She told us to carry on.”

  I tightened my lips. “And ‘carry on’ means a full-scale war in an open drawing room? On a day when we’re expecting the Queen herself to arrive?”

  Matthias opened his mouth, then shut it. He knew he was in the wrong. The other children, taking his cue, had the grace to look abashed. Jeremy had been their hero when I’d been here last December, but it now looked like it was Matthias whom I would need to manage.

  “So what are we to do?” I asked him seriously, clasping my hands over my skirts. “Are we to hide you all from the Queen, or put you on display?”

  I surveyed the wreck of children. Yes, they were clean, after a fashion. But their clothing was scuffed and torn, their hair was awry, their eyes still bright with energy. Queen Elizabeth was fond of many things, but children were generally not among them.

  “I shouldn’t think we should all meet the Queen this day,” Matthias said. He’d turned as well to survey the gang of children, stepping into his role as spokesman and leader more fully. “She will doubtless be—” He glanced at my mother, the only example of a noblewoman he’d ever known. “Tired.”

  “She will,” I said quite seriously, not bothering to correct his misunderstanding. “But perhaps you can decide on how you would like to see her—a formal presentation to the court? A musical event?” I had to work to keep myself from laughing at the looks of shock and dismay on their faces. “A demonstration of your fighting prowess, as her junior guard?”

  Matthias straightened, even as the children gasped with delight. “D’ye think we could, Beatrice?” he asked, forgetting the “lady.” “D’ye think we—”

  “The Queen would be honored to see the fervor of her youngest subjects,” I said, and it was true enough. The Queen was honored to see the fervor of any of her subjects, at any time. But children who adored her gave her a certain measure of additional joy, their unfettered enthusiasm heaped upon her without an agenda.

  “Lord Bart!”

  I glanced up, startled, to see my father and Alasdair standing in the doorway. My first thought was that I needed to fix my face, my hair—as it surely was standing on end from my tussle with the children. Then I remembered: This was Alasdair. I didn’t care what he thought.

  The children did, it seemed. They stood for a moment, stock-still, transfixed by the brawny Scot.

  My father jumped into the fray, immediately pressing his advantage. “Allow me to introduce another warrior who can put you through your paces: Sir Alasdair MacLeod.” Father waggled his brows. “He’s from Scotland.”

  That got him several appreciative “oooos,” and Father grinned at one of the youngest as she toddled up, reaching out. Ever the charmer, Father swooped the little girl up into his arms, as she gave a delighted giggle. “But now, I’m afraid Lady Beatrice is quite correct. We can’t have you imps interrupting the arrival of the Queen of England. She has traveled through deplorable conditions to reach us, and the last thing she needs is a houseful of screaming children to greet her.”

  Then again, maybe that would curtail her visit.

  I was about to suggest as much, when Father clapped his hands sharply, no mean feat, as he still had the toddler girl—a new one to our fold; I didn’t know her—in his arms. “For now, back to your rooms, and if you are found out of them, expect to be put to work. We’ve got a whole house to prepare for the Queen, and precious little time to do it. Go!”

  The children scampered off, one of the older girls obligingly peeling the little girl out of my father’s arms. But I was already turned and striding toward my mother, who’d seemed to waken at my father’s voice, as she was ever wont to do. Not for the first time, my heart twisted at the suffering he had brought her.

  Father reached her first, however, and was already dropping to his knees. “Anne, Anne,” he murmured, pushing back her hair. “How are you feeling, my sweet?”

  “Oh, B-Bartholomew,” she hiccuped. Her eyes were pale and glassy. I marveled at how far she’d slid, now that she was back in her own home. How had she been able to manage the trip to Windsor and even my wedding without anyone being the wiser to her ailments? “I’m so glad you’ve come home.”

  “We cannot have her see the Queen like this,” I said, and my mother turned her head, like some woodland bird hearing a familiar trill. My father grunted assent.

  “No, we cannot. We’ll say that she is abed with some ague or another. It has worked well enough in the past.” He made to lift her, but Alasdair beat him to it, picking up my mother in his strong arms as if he were asked to perform such a shocking service every day.

  “Oh!” my mother breathed, a bit of life coming back to her cheeks. Her gaze wandered up to Alasdair’s face. “Do I know you?”

  “I’ll lead the way,” my father said. He glanced to me as I picked up the wine carafe and gave it a surreptitious sniff. I winced.

  “What is it?” he asked tiredly, as if he weren’t the reason why my mother had chosen to loosen her grip on reality.

  I shot him a black look. Nine months ago, before I’d gone into service as the Queen’s spy, I hadn’t known precisely what was contained in the pungent mixture that now swirled inside my mother’s drink. Nine months ago I hadn’t yet begun my studies of poisons and potions. My mother was drinking a stiff concoction of sherry mixed with opium—or laudanum, as the drug was called in this watered-down state. No matter how sweet the sherry, it still was a pungent, bitter brew. “Where would she get opium?” I challenged him. “And how long has this been going on?”

  A look of pained resignation flitted across his face, and he nodded to a steady-eyed Alasdair to precede us out the door. “Since long before you were born, sweet Beatrice. Since long before you were born.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Things did not much improve after that.

  The Queen arrived wet and bedraggled, and was immediately swept into the great banquet chamber of Marion Hall. With the ale and wine flowing and a roaring fire in the grate, and dozens of courses of “simple country fare” to weigh her down, Elizabeth stayed in a modestly good mood for the balance of the day. Then my father brought the Queen and her retinue into the bridal suite, with me in deferential attendance, as my mother was still abed in her own rooms. He made a coy art of explaining to the Queen how a secret panel opened into a tiny room between the bride’s and the groom’s suite, a “relic of a bygone age.”

  No one would be housed in the groom’s suite, my father assured the instantly intrigued Queen; she would have complete privacy. This of course struck her as the silliest of plans, given the size of the house, and the two of them agreed that several of her guard should have that suite, including her Master of the Horse, who’d come along for this unofficial sojourn in the north. These stalwart men would not only protect her, she reasoned, but their shared quarters would give the household some relief. Marion Hall was already filled to bursting. My father would just need to keep the secret of the panel to himself; neither her guards nor any of the other guests needed to be aware of it.

  I stepped away from their conversation to allow my father the opportunity to respond with earnest-eyed gratitude and assurances that the Queen would always be safe in Marion Hall. Of course, I knew the whole truth, and I had to acknowledge mastery when I saw it. The duplicity of my father had never seemed so neatly done.

  Robert Dudley was the Queen’s Master of the Hors
e, and now he would be but a short passage away from the Queen herself. Of course, the Queen would be with her ladies, and Robert with a brace of guards, but when two people had a mind to meet, they would. And my father had just given the Queen the perfect opportunity to meet the man upon whom it was whispered she bestowed her highest favors.

  I wondered if my father planned to use this information to his benefit somehow. Opportunity did not equal action, and Elizabeth was shrewd. But still . . . it bore watching.

  * * *

  After the first night’s rest and an admirable break of the fast that must have completely exhausted our cooks, still reeling from the night before, our stablemen prepared to take the Queen out on a tour of the grounds. Even though she’d traveled two long days this week already, not all of that had been on horseback, due to the rain. She’d been stuck in a creaking carriage over rutted roads for far too long; the Queen was more than ready to gain some exercise in the open air.

  And so the next days ran one into the other. We spent a season’s fortune on feeding Elizabeth’s court and slaking their thirst, and I prayed nightly for some crisis of state to recall her back to Windsor or London. But nothing came of that—even Cecil and Walsingham seemed at their ease to roam Marion Hall and sequester themselves in corner rooms for hours on end, while the Queen took her amusement at the hunt or on horseback or in long, bracing walks through the more cultivated sections of our domain. She’d even found our overgrown hedgerow labyrinth, and it was only with the greatest of pressures that she was convinced it was too dangerous to venture within; we’d not trimmed that monstrosity in a generation, and there was no telling what creatures made their home within its borders. She’d met the villagers and even a finally sober version of my mother, and declared herself entranced by the forest that hemmed in the “quaint” Marion Hall.

  The Maids of Honor equally took their rest, though they were far less of a drain on our larder and alehouse than was the rest of the Queen’s retinue. And even I fell into an easy pattern. My days were filled with management of the estate, and my evenings . . . with Alasdair. He accompanied me on my rounds, he found me after every meal for a stroll and conversation, he helped me with the children—all without being asked.