Maid of Deception

by Jennifer McGowan

  “Oh, come now. Now that the Cavanaugh alliance has been broken, she means to stick you in some hole in the middle of nowhere, Lady Beatrice. You know it as well as I do,” Walsingham said. “She merely has not yet found one sufficiently deep.”

  I did not know how to respond to this, so I opted for light indifference, though I was chilled to my bones at how right and true his words struck me. “Think you so?”

  “I do indeed.” He slanted me a glance. “You have been spending much time in the company of Alasdair MacLeod,” he observed, and I instantly tensed. I had to keep up the game of our coy repartee, but it felt wrong to me. The words I had to speak felt like chalk in my mouth.

  “If you are here to tell me my need to entertain Alasdair MacLeod is at an end, then I well thank you for it,” I said with a shrug. “The Queen’s request that I shadow him has been educational but not terribly informative. He and his family side with Scotland against any who trample against it—especially if they’re French. The question of religion is not as strong a call to arms as is the question of their independence from French rule. They will defend their island rock against any who would take their freedom away.”

  “The MacLeods do not hold sway only in Skye,” Walsingham said. “They’ve cousins to the south throughout England, staunch Catholics, I am told. And yet they would fight for the Protestant cause?”

  I fluttered a hand. “And what family does not have divisions as such, particularly across borders?” I smiled a little wryly. “Though, I cannot imagine that their English cousins’ faith remains as strong during Elizabeth’s reign as perhaps it was before; or at least as public.”

  “True enough,” Walsingham agreed. “But MacLeod and his extended family are well positioned to aid in a Catholic plot, not a Protestant one; and we must be ever vigilant that any dissenters to the Queen’s rule do not gain a foothold, no matter how slight.” He stepped into the western drawing room, with its great area open to the sky. Thankfully, there was neither child nor intoxicated mother in sight. Praise heaven for small favors. Walsingham glanced around the room, then turned back to me, satisfied that we were alone. “We need more from you, Beatrice, and I think you know it,” he said, his words deceptively mild.

  I looked at him now, even more tense. Unaccountably, I felt the need to protect Alasdair from this schemer. To reduce his importance as a potential pawn. There was one sure way to do that, and I sighed deeply, affecting a weariness like to drag down my bones. “You want me to keep making eyes at the Scot, don’t you,” I groaned, not bothering to match my low tones to his. “Say you are not serious.”

  “I heard reports of the Volta from last night’s revel,” Walsingham said levelly. “You do not find his presence a comfort?”

  “I find his presence a chore, Sir Francis,” I snapped. Perhaps the only thing worse than the Queen’s meddling in my affairs was Walsingham lending his clumsy hand to the stew. “I will entertain him for the sake of the Queen, but make no mistake, I take no joy in it.”

  “There are those who saw you walking with him again, earlier today. You did not seem affronted by his company then, either, though the Queen herself was still abed.”

  “The Queen’s command knows no slumber,” I retorted archly. Even in this I could not speak plainly, but I could at least set Walsingham’s mind at ease regarding my feelings for Alasdair MacLeod.

  He was a distraction to me. A diversion. Nothing more.

  Truly.

  And so I sallied forth. “MacLeod is a Scotsman, Sir Francis, and as such he shall not capture my heart, my mind, nor even my interest except as it pleases my Queen. I am willing to lend him my wide eyes and batted lashes to keep him enjoying his stay in her court.” And to strip him of every ounce of knowledge he has, to feed your voracious appetites. “But make no mistake, I will be the happiest of girls to see him depart for his rock of a fortress to the north.”

  Walsingham stared at me, hard, then seemed to come to some decision. “Your devotion to your Queen knows no bounds, it would seem,” he said, but his words were not entirely flattering.

  I chose to respond to them as if they were, however, and sank into a curtsy. “I do what I can for England,” I said.

  Disconcertingly, he was still staring at me as I rose. And it was not a good stare, but one born of plots and secrets that I could only guess at. What is his game? I wondered. What is his real intent here?

  “You’ll do it for longer than most, I wager.” Walsingham bowed prettily back to me. “But, enough. I daresay the others’ audience with the Queen is already at an end. I will make your excuses, if you do not wish to share her company.”

  I didn’t bother to point out that he was the one who’d swept me from the Queen’s company in the first place, but I merely thanked him. Something seemed suddenly wrong in the air around me, some tension I’d not noticed before. Walsingham left me, and I stood for a moment longer in the reflected daylight of the western drawing room.

  And then I heard it.

  A long, lusty sigh—as if a slumbering bear had just roused itself from its winter nap—sounded from one of the great broad-backed chairs not ten feet away from me in this room I had thought empty. I knew that sigh. Just as I knew the young man who’d uttered it, who even now unfolded his tall, magnificent body from the chair and stood up to stretch his arms toward the ceiling, his back to me for just a moment more.

  Alasdair MacLeod.

  Walsingham, you insufferable ass! He had brought me here for his questioning, and then, once finished, had deliberately tried to undo all the work I had done with Alasdair. But why? It made no sense. But maybe—maybe Alasdair had not heard everything. Maybe everything was not lost, maybe—maybe—

  “That,” Alasdair MacLeod said into the silence, as if he were addressing the very sky and forest beyond the open balcony, and not me at all, “was certainly diverting.”

  The blood drained from my face, my hands, my heart. It would have pooled in a widening stain on the stone at my feet if it had had any way to do so. With only the greatest of efforts, I kept my face an arch mask of feminine defiance as Alasdair turned and favored me with a hard smile. He took three long steps toward me, still staying carefully away, and made a courtly bow. The air between us shimmered with intensity.

  A thousand apologies sprang to my lips, but I could not force myself to utter them, all the coquetry of my past long years at court failing me when I needed it most. “Al—” I finally managed, but he lifted a lazy hand.

  “You will find, for our many flaws, we Scots are a proud and discerning lot,” he drawled, his hard gaze raking over my face with a heat that belied his calm words. “A proud man would leave you to your lies, my lady, you and your entire court of deceivers.”

  Then he leaned closer to me, his breath warm and sweet as it feathered against my ear. “But a discerning man would not give up until he’d discovered just what rests beneath all of those layers of lies you’ve been telling for all these many years . . . and especially these last few weeks.” He paused a moment more as if he could not help himself, then bent forward to press his lips against my ear. “And perhaps most of all, these last few moments.”

  I could barely hear his next words, so hard was my heart pounding, so heavy was my blood rushing in my veins.

  “I look forward to that, my lady,” he said.

  Then he was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I made it through the rest of the day without collapsing from mortification—either from Alasdair’s reproach or the fact of the still-missing Sophia—but it was a close thing. My reactions to every word or gesture in my direction seemed completely disproportionate, and I had to school myself to remember who Beatrice Knowles was, and what she stood for, at least thirty times.

  Alasdair was mercifully absent but for occasional reports to one of the maids or another about the fact that Sophia had not been found. Our covering story had been spread throughout the castle, and with half the court still abed with headache an
d upset stomach brought on by eating me out of hearth and home the night before, no one missed Sophia much. Cecil and Walsingham closeted themselves in their rooms as well, which was all the same to me.

  The conversation the maids had shared with the Queen had been fruitless, with Cecil giving a dull accounting of the progress of the Lords of the Congregation in their battle against the French—and the Queen demanding if Anna, Meg, and Jane knew anything different from Cecil’s accounting. Of course, they did not.

  Currently the Protestants were marauding their way through every Catholic church they could find in Scotland, Cecil had advised, destroying priceless artwork and statuary. The violence of the rebellion was beginning to sway the common folk into believing that such force was necessary to turn away the French, and now dozens of pamphlets decrying French rule were being circulated to aid the cause. The Reverend John Knox was still beating the drum against the French as well, but no mention was made of his desperate letter to the English court, where he tried to masquerade as the good Protestant John Sinclair.

  Why did the Queen keep her knowledge of John Knox’s duplicity to herself? we wondered. Was she trying to trip up her advisors? Or did she not believe what we had told her?

  Now the sun was setting quickly in the western sky, and we had gathered in our rooms after a blessedly subdued evening meal that had not included Her Peevishness. The Queen was still overset and holding court in her apartments. Meg’s convincing sniffles had cleared us all of entertaining her for this night, and for that I could have wept with relief.

  A sharp knock roused us from our stupor, and we turned to see Alasdair standing at the open doorway. “My lady Beatrice, ladies.” He swept me a short bow, then nodded to the other maids, the perfect gentleman.

  “You’ve found her?” I asked quickly, allowing myself a few short steps in his direction.

  Alasdair’s hand forestalled me. “We have not. But I wish to share with you that Marion Hall has apparently received additional guests this evening, under the cover of darkening sky.”

  I frowned. “Additional guests?” Had the Queen sent for reinforcements? “Who? From where?”

  “That I have not ascertained.” Alasdair gave a wry grimace. “A few of your foundlings were hiding in the hayloft when the men came in on horseback, heavily cloaked. The newcomers enjoined your guards to keep their peace about their arrival—to not share the information with anyone. No threats were made, but it was clear they expected their orders to be obeyed.”

  I frowned. “And our guards went along with it?”

  Alasdair shifted slightly. “Your father was escorting the men, it appears,” he said. “He took everyone into the house as well, still cloaked and silent. The children couldn’t see where they went after that.”

  I stared at him. My father?

  Jane had ambled up to us, taking an extra step toward Alasdair where I could not. “How many men? Did they say?”

  “Eight—two of them dressed as guards,” Alasdair said, and Jane nodded.

  “So the Lords of the Congregation have arrived at last,” she said.

  “But why here, and why now?” Meg mused, her voice startling me. I had not heard her draw close. “And what does your father have to do with them?”

  Alasdair shrugged, but I beat him to the most likely explanation. “ ’Twould have been nothing for Cecil to ask my father to ensure the Lords’ safe passage,” I said. “He or Walsingham could have made the request without sharing who the men were. And with the Queen’s seal of approval, my father would let in the devil himself.”

  “I think you have the right of it,” Alasdair agreed. “They must be making their exodus back north.”

  “Beatrice? Could you, ah, come here?” Anna alone had not joined us at the doorway for Alasdair’s news, and was instead peering through an odd contraption of glass and metal that she’d also apparently lifted from John Dee’s study at Mortlake. She’d discovered that she could look through the crude device and see far things as if they were nearer, but the blurriness of the images gave me a headache. Now she looked up from the hunk of glass and squinted into the gathering night.

  “Well,” she humphed as we drew close. “This thing is completely useless if my own eyes can see more clearly.” Even Alasdair chose to accompany us to the window, though he stood well away from me. I tried to convince myself not to care about that. “Do you see that there?” Anna pointed. “In the heart of the forest? What on earth could they be? They almost look like lanterns.”

  I peered out over the darkened patch of forest, and there, far deep in the thicket, I could see what Anna had picked out. My heart dropped to my feet.

  “I see them,” I said with a sigh. “And they are lanterns. Made of strips of fabric draped over a frame of wire.”

  Meg turned to eye me with surprise. Of all of the maids, she was the most well traveled, her Golden Rose acting troupe having tromped their way across most of England. She knew who’d made those lanterns, and she knew why I hesitated to explain.

  I felt Alasdair’s glance upon me as well as I struggled to continue. Why had my father not watched for the return of these accursed people? Why did they choose now to squat upon our lands? “They are the Traveling People,” I said.

  Anna put her hand to her mouth, though Jane, Meg, and Alasdair did not seem to value the weight of this statement as much. Anna may not have been born of a top-tier family, but even those in the lower gentry knew the rules regarding Traveling People. They were to be turned out of your lands the moment they were discovered, and given no safe harbor.

  “Oh, Beatrice,” she moaned. “Not this. Not when you have already suffered so much from this progress.”

  “Well, what of it?” Jane asked, slanting us both a confused glance. “So there are Travelers in your forest. They aren’t troubling anyone out there. What harm could they be?”

  “They’re Egyptians; that’s harm enough.” I shook my head. “If this lot is the same one that has traveled our land in years past, they are fortune-tellers and rogues, but not a bad sort. They help with the harvest, and with trade. You could often find herbs in their caravans that no one else could procure, and they doled out potions along with their portents that actually cured many an ill. We have never had any trouble with them, but they are still strangers to this land, and as such they are the first to be blamed for aught that is wrong.”

  “That’s where the kitchen got those possets,” Anna guessed. “I knew those herbs were not culled from any back garden. And Lord knows that the reaction Sophia had to them couldn’t have been normal. Cook thought she’d just sleep and clear her head.” Anna’s gaze went back to the dancing lights in the wood. “But there is nothing for it, no matter what benefits they bring. There isn’t enough work for the regular folk, ’tis said, so the Travelers must be expelled. Elizabeth’s not the first of her family to do the expelling, either,” Anna said. “Her father deported them, and the Queen’s sister, Mary, as well.”

  “Mary was far worse,” I said. “In this as in all things. After the Egyptians Act, everything was turned upside down.”

  “Egyptians Act?” Alasdair asked. “We have no such thing in Scotland.”

  “Well, you are barbarians,” Anna said reasonably. “Of course you don’t. And you’ve Travelers of your own kind, just not from Egypt. Those people out there, though”—she nodded to the deep forest—“they might be killed just for being Egyptians, no other crime than that. And your family, Beatrice.” She said the last words as a whisper. “If you are found in the fellowship or company of Travelers, or even having benefited through trade with them, which surely you did to pull off feeding so many people . . . you could be killed as well.”

  “Killed!” Alasdair’s shock was plain. “And we’re the barbarians?”

  “I . . .” I swallowed, but the words had to be spoken. “I understand if you cannot keep this secret for me. It is a crime, as Anna says.”

  “Oh, pish.”

  “Oh, hush yourself!”


  “Oh, Beatrice, you cannot be serious—” The words tumbled over one another, each of the girls lining up beside me to assure me of her solidarity, even as Alasdair frowned at me. I didn’t know my fellow spies all that well, for all that we’d lived several months in one another’s company. I certainly didn’t trust them. But what was done was done. I had implored my father to urge the Travelers on their way, to suggest they depart for Scotland, since Alasdair’s words were true enough. Egyptians might still be shunned in the northern climes, and even deported back to the Continent. But they would not be killed there. We civilized Englishers reserved that right.

  “In any event,” Anna said staunchly, recovering first, “we cannot think on that now. I would be willing to bet that’s a celebration going on in the deep wood. And what better cause would the Travelers have for celebration, with their myths and mystery and magic, than finding a seer in their midst?”

  Jane cursed under her breath. “She’s safer with a band of rogues than in the clutches of wild animals, or broken somewhere in a ditch . . . but not by much.”

  “We have to go get her,” I said resolutely, even as Alasdair started to protest.

  “Aye,” Jane said. “That we do.”

  Our plan was made in haste, and executed under the same dark cloak of night that had brought the Lords of the Congregation to Marion Hall. Though Alasdair seemed completely put out at our insistence to handle this search ourselves, he refused to let us travel alone. He finally relented with adding just two outriders to our company—himself and one of the older grooms. All of Marion Hall’s staff knew of the Travelers in our midst, of course, the whole of them now at risk of the Queen’s displeasure should the forest celebration come to light.

  For once I did hope Cecil and Walsingham were still closeted away with their precious Scottish Lords, ideally somewhere without windows.

  We set off due north and entered the forest just past the edge of the labyrinth, its hulking hedgerows hiding secrets of their own. I felt Alasdair’s gaze upon me as we passed it, but I kept my face carefully forward, glad that the moonless night hid the blush that climbed my cheeks at the memory of his completely inappropriate and troubling kiss.