Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  I arched a brow. “Since when have I had sway over your schedule, my lord?” Though in truth, Alasdair had barely left me alone for a moment since we’d arrived at Marion Hall. What had changed? What was happening? With a deceptively casual toss of my head, I rushed to learn more, taking the easiest gambit first. “Pray, tell me no one else has caught your eye?”

  Heat seared me as his gaze raked over my face. “No, my lady. You of anyone canna think that—”

  “Lady Beatrice!” squeaked someone at my side, and the moment was lost almost before it had begun. “Lady Beatrice, the ale has all been tapped!”

  “What?” I whirled away from Alasdair, and then I saw it. The Queen at the close of the Volta had ordered every last keg opened, demanding that her court not leave the room until the last of the ale flowed. The rich scent of barley and hops almost fouled the air with its thickness, and the Queen herself stumbled to the side, only to be caught up again by Dudley, laughing and cheering, urging her on.

  And that was when I noticed something else.

  I wasn’t the only one who made this realization either. Across the room four other young women caught the sudden sense of wrongness in the air, looking up from their cups and conversations to take note of the one thing that was clearly lacking in this room.

  Not the Queen and her rabble of courtiers. That was a constant. Not my father and my servants. They were desperately scrabbling to keep up the flow of food and drink to the ever-rowdier crowd. Not even one Alasdair MacLeod, who’d caught my sudden shift of mood but did not remark upon it, hovering only at my side should I need protection. None of those worthy souls were missing.

  But Sir William Cecil and Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s staunchest and most trusted advisors, who were normally no more than three steps away from Elizabeth wherever she should be?

  Tonight they had vanished.

  I turned back to Alasdair, and stopped, startled by the suddenly empty space.

  Now he had vanished too.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Unfortunately, I had no time to search for the Queen’s advisors—or Alasdair, for that matter. Just as I realized that all of these worthies were missing, the Queen declared another dance and demanded that all her maids attend her. We were caught in the roiling snake of lords and ladies for another two long hours.

  I sent most of the servants to bed for a bit after Her Drunkenness finally took her leave, and the five of us maids then got to work trying to keep Marion Hall from being set on fire by ale-soaked courtiers. Not even my father remained in the end, spiriting away to some corner or another for whatever respite he could find. I couldn’t blame him, this one time. The situation was challenging enough for me to face in the grim light of dawn.

  The morning after the revel dawned bright and clear, and anyone looking at Marion Hall from the outside would have thought it to be the most idyllic of medieval castles, pristine and newly awakened in the fresh morning light.

  Inside it was a ruin.

  Now I stood gape-mouthed at the destruction of the Great Hall, shoulder to shoulder with my fellow maids, clearly the only people not related to me by blood or fealty who’d stayed sober the night before. But the servants were up again and bending to their task, so I set to work as well, beginning by salvaging any unbroken flagon or trencher. I first dispatched the servants to remove the tapped casks and fling wide any window we had access to in the manor house. All of the lovely sweet rushes that had been carried into Marion Hall naught but a few days before were now being hauled out by servants struggling not to gag on the reek of them.

  Elizabeth had already sent down word that she would be dining in her rooms for at least part of the day, along with her ladies. I sent up some of my mother’s laudanum-soaked sherry to her, with strict instructions that she should not overdo it. With any luck the accursed woman would ignore me as usual and sleep the day away.

  A buzz of excited voices broke out on the far side of the room, and I straightened, my apron full of reclaimed utensils, to see Alasdair arrive on the scene. He strode in like he hadn’t abandoned me the night before, and was now commandeering the children to assist the servants with the easier tasks of clearing away the rubble. I frowned at him across the space, and he winked at me broadly. Irritation spiked my already exhausted nerves. I didn’t know what I thought of him, precisely, but the thoughts I did have were decidedly not charitable.

  “He’s an interesting young man, isn’t he?” It was Anna who spoke beside me, and I turned to her, glad of any distraction to pull my attention away from Alasdair’s hearty laughter. She was stacking scraped plates according to their size and type and sorting recovered spoons, and I tumbled my own collection beside her. “Come all this way from the Isle of Skye with a brace of his men, without any real purpose? Seems a bit odd.”

  “What do you mean?” I frowned down at her, then lifted a plate to set it on her growing pile. “He wants the Queen’s money, and her promise of arms. Just like all the Scots do.”

  “Mmm,” Anna said, signaling for a servant to come and take the tallest of the stacks away. “But the timing of his arrival is of interest, is it not?”

  “The timing?” I tried to recall when Alasdair and the Scots had made their presence known to the Queen. “It was late summer, yes? They were part of the grand presentation of delegations. We had foreigners falling out of windows that week.”

  “It was directly after the Queen had returned from London, a trip that certainly swayed our participation in the Scottish rebellion, since it marked our delivery of the Earl of Arran safely back into his father’s arms. Then, poof, a swale of Scots arrives at our door, Alasdair at their head and at your heels. And here we are, just weeks later, that much closer to Scotland ourselves, and Alasdair here with us once again. We seem to be awash in all things Scottish.”

  I groaned, rubbing my back as I bent over to retrieve a slightly bent silver fork from among a scatter of overturned benches. “Anna, if you’re trying to suggest that there’s more to Alasdair than it seems, you’d best come out and say it. I’m too tired for subtlety today.”

  Anna laughed grimly. “I’m trying to suggest that there’s more to Alasdair than it seems,” she said. “Meg and Jane think that there was a secret meeting last night in the middle of all of this.” She waved vaguely around. “And you said he vanished last eve just as Elizabeth made her final run at your ale stores. Do you know where he was off to?”

  “I don’t,” I said ruefully. I wanted to ask Alasdair about it straight out, but direct communication wasn’t my stock in trade. And I wasn’t certain I had it in me to dissemble this morning.

  “Nor do any of us. But consider this: No sooner did the Lords of the Congregation arrive at Windsor than we upped and headed north. Curious timing, don’t you think?”

  “But not all the way to Scotland,” I protested. “That is another several days’ hard ride. And the Lords of the Congregation didn’t travel with us.”

  “Didn’t they?” Anna returned. “How closely did any of us watch who came and who stayed behind? And why leave the good Lords in Windsor, while the Queen makes an example of you by bankrupting your estate? Smarter by far to bring the Lords along with the Queen’s retinue and finalize their negotiations under your roof.”

  Anna’s voice was uncharacteristically firm, and I frowned at her self-assurance. “Don’t you, too, get smart with me, Anna Burgher,” I groused. “I’ve enough on my hands with Sophia coming into her own.”

  Anna shook her head. “Still, I think we should have an accounting of your complete guest list. It would not be all that difficult to see if certain of the Lords are here, whether they’re hiding or no.”

  “They aren’t,” I said firmly. I would know by now, even if I hadn’t at first. “They may have left Windsor with the Queen’s progress, but they could have easily departed our company along the way. And you know yourself that we ranged ahead.”

  “Ah, I suppose that is true enough.” Anna blew out a breath
, considering, then turned to our second topic at hand. “It is interesting to watch Sophia, isn’t it? I swear we needed only to get her out from under Windsor’s shadow for her to really blossom. Her headaches are concerning, but I rather think it must be like using a muscle that’s not been tested before. It’s rather fascinating, all in. I have been researching every book I can spirit out of John Dee’s library at Mortlake, but there’s nothing in any of them quite like what we’re seeing with her. Surely Dee knows what he has in Sophia, don’t you think? Given that he quite clearly came by the girl by less than savory methods?”

  I gaped at the girl, momentarily taken away from my own worries, which may well have been why she shared this little bit of news. “How exactly have you ‘spirited out’ John Dee’s books?” I demanded. “Tell me you have not gone all the way to Mortlake and broken into his library!”

  Anna’s eyes fairly sparkled, and she possessed the air of a woman well contented that someone finally knew her secret. “Mortlake is only twenty-odd miles away from Windsor, and I know how to ride a horse, Beatrice. Getting in and out was simple once I convinced Dee’s staff that I was there on the man’s behalf.”

  “And you did that—how?”

  “Forgery.” Anna grinned. “You get to the point where you recognize someone’s handwriting so well, ’tis only a matter of time before you can replicate it.”

  I shook my head. “Help me understand. You wouldn’t so much as smile back to a boy who was eyeing you at court, but you’ll risk arrest and imprisonment to read a few books?”

  “Well, talking to boys isn’t what I’m good at,” Anna said, shrugging. “Solving mysteries is. It only makes sense that I’d focus on where my talents lie.”

  We talked on then about what Anna had learned in John Dee’s books, and I saw her come alive with excitement as she spoke, fairly crackling with knowledge and passion for what she’d read in books so old, their very pages had begun to crumble. Most of all, however, I saw her staunch support for the strange sprite we found in our midst, Miss Sophia Dee.

  We returned with zeal to our cleaning, and only then I realized it was full noon and the manor finally resembled the home of my birth. After a simple lunch of bread and soup, I wandered out onto the open lawns of Marion Hall, eager for a respite from the smell of sour ale.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Alasdair waiting for me.

  I wiped my hands on my apron before removing the garment, nervously reaching up to smooth my hair. Alasdair took the apron away from me and set it aside, then batted my hands back down. He tucked my right hand into the crook of his left arm. “Your hair looks lovely, my lady, as it always does,” he said. “You also look like a maiden in need of a walk. Where shall we off to?”

  “Wherever,” I said, glad for any distraction to keep my mind off everything changing all around me so quickly. Both Sophia and Anna were transforming into people I wasn’t quite ready for them to be. Why couldn’t I change so quickly and so well?

  “On an estate this large, ‘wherever’ could mean halfway back to Windsor.” Alasdair laughed, breaking into my thoughts. “But let’s make it an unofficial survey of your holding. The Hall itself you know too well of late, but I think she’ll make a full recovery.”

  “No thanks to the Queen,” I grumbled, and Alasdair tightened his arm on mine. “And where did you disappear to, before even the last of the ale was tapped?”

  He shrugged. “We both saw the ale, and what comes of ale being tapped is invariably theft and disruption. I knew I had to notify your guards—and mine—to redouble their watch.”

  I arched a brow, regarding him sidelong. “That surely was not your responsibility.”

  “And yet it was my pleasure nonetheless,” he said mildly. “Your father asked me to have a care should the revel grow too overloud or long, and it was quickly becoming both.”

  “Then I should thank you, I daresay,” I said stiffly, though something still rankled in his words.

  He chuckled and patted my arm. “Never that, my lady. Never that.”

  We walked in silence then to the stables, where the children were helping the groomsmen care for the dozens of mounts our guests had ridden to Marion Hall. Alasdair lifted a finger to his lips, and even in my annoyance I could not forestall a smile. It had not taken the Scot long to realize that the adulation of the children was exhausting. We slipped past the stables and down the lane, coming around to the back of the castle. I thought about the Queen’s irritation at the poorly kept back lawns of Marion Hall, and my humor dwindled again. “Elizabeth seems honor bound to make my life miserable,” I muttered.

  “You do have a knack for upsetting her,” he said. “Though Sophia told me what set the woman off in truth.”

  I raised my brows at that. “Sophia talked to you?”

  “Aye. She’s a tiny slip of a girl, isn’t she—but she sought me out at last night’s debauch, lest I think your distraction was the result of any ill will toward me.”

  That did have me turning around. “She did what?” Why on earth?

  “She seemed quite adamant, so I let her tell her tale.” He waggled his brows at me. “And indeed, when I did have the chance to dance with you, I did not find you distracted at all.”

  “Indeed.” I turned and faced forward again, ruing my fair complexion for the flush that now stained my cheeks. I moved ahead, and Alasdair grasped my hand lightly, letting me set the pace. We no sooner rounded the last bend of the mansion, however, than his steps slowed, and I glanced back at him, irritated anew as he planted himself and stared in wonder at what now lay before us. I tugged on him again. “Oh, come on. You cannot be serious.”

  “Can’t I, now?” Before us stood circle upon circle of the Marion Hall labyrinth, its ragged hedges a legacy from the same batty baron who’d also erected the hulk of stone behind us. Like everything else about my ancestral home, the labyrinth was a wreck and a ruin.

  Alasdair, however, would not look away. “What fell secrets shall we find here, I wonder?” he asked, and tightened his hand on mine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I say, leave off,” I protested. “The only secrets that place holds are rotting branches and dead creatures.”

  I tried to tug him back to our walk, but Alasdair was steadfast.

  “You mean to tell me no one ventures back here?” he asked, rooted in place and staring at the labyrinth as if it held the secret entrance to the fairy realm. “Not even the children? It would be the first place I would go, were I still a child.” He chuckled ruefully. “I’ve been sorely pressed not to enter it myself, and I’ve been here but a few days.”

  “If you were a foster child here, you would not enter it, no. Not if you wanted to stay at Marion Hall,” I said levelly. “We’ve made the rules quite clear. No one but the servants are allowed back here, on pain of being removed from the house entirely. If there were a few additional stories planted about children being spirited away in the night from ghosts awakened in the labyrinth, well—there’s naught I can do about that.” I grimaced, thinking of the same stories that my father had told to frighten me. “That’s not to say that a few of the hardier children haven’t breached the outermost rows of the labyrinth, but in truth they honor my father’s wishes for the most part. He has no interest in seeing them hurt, and the servants keep a sharp eye as well.” I shook my head, staring at unruly hedges. “It always gives newcomers a bit of a turn when they first see it, I will tell you that.”

  “It is an impressive bit of gardening,” Alasdair said dryly. “You have never kept it flourishing? It does not look so abandoned as that.”

  “You’re seeing only the outside,” I said. “We make an attempt to keep that trimmed. And when I was little, my father staged a campaign to improve the entire maze, inviting the whole of the countryside to take part in opening up its pathways and clearing it of brush and leaves. They found a perfect open space in the center, clear but for a small, marble-lined hole in the ground. A spring burbled up
from below that, and it fairly glistened in the sunlight. He would delight me with its tales, but then he said it was cursed.”

  “Cursed!” Alasdair’s eyes flared wide. “You canna be serious. I wouldn’t think your father given over to such imagination—or you.”

  “Yes, well . . .” I looked away. “I was a child. I believed a lot of things back then.”

  Alasdair had the grace to stop staring at me—though it took him several long seconds to find that grace. When he did, he returned his gaze to the monstrosity of the labyrinth. “Well, it couldn’t have been that cursed. Your father didn’t tear it down, now, did he?”

  “No, he did not,” I said bitterly. “But he also did not dispute the story that the center of the labyrinth was a place to be avoided at all costs. He and the villagers have talked over the years of returning the grounds to open lawns, but really, the cost would be extraordinary. And with a house the size of Marion Hall, you learn to conserve your pennies.”

  “Aye,” Alasdair said, turning back to take in the Hall’s rose granite walls, glowing like a promise in the bright sun. “She is a beauty.”

  “A beauty!” I scoffed, surveying the hulk with a more critical eye. “You must live in a frightening place indeed, then.”

  He grinned. “In a manner of speaking, aye. My family has worked to make our castle a fortress, in any event. It has been home to a long line of chieftains before me, including my own father—and, God willing, a long line of chieftains after. And before you ask, no. I am not the firstborn. I would hardly be allowed to take men to England and dance pretty dances with foreign ladies if I were supposed to carry on the great banner of the MacLeods.”

  “Mm,” I said, wondering at his words. So not only a son of a barbarian but a second or third son at that. Not that it should bother me, of course. I was not going to be this man’s bride, but still. I found myself unaccountably depressed. “How many do you have in your family?”