Not aired the possibility! I looked at the Queen with a face wiped dead of any emotion, my practiced, poised smile upon my lips. As if she could tell me I was set next for the executioner’s block or the latest country dance, and it was all the same to me. But she well knew how much her “decision” would cost me.
First, I’d failed to hold the interest of the scum-dragging Cavanaugh. Now not even a Scotsman would have me. I’d have to spend much of the next year proving my worth to possible suitors young and old, or come up with some new spin upon the age-old story of the jilted bride, before the court’s tongues would wag about my possibilities again, instead of my problems.
The rational part of my brain was processing this, even as Alasdair and the Queen chatted and gibed as if I were not even in the room. But the not-so-terribly-rational part of my brain had gone silent and shocked. And my heart . . . well, my heart was another thing entirely.
“And I propose you one better, in truth,” the Queen continued, her voice carrying a girlish lilt that was more affected than any other I’d heard. She’d have to take acting lessons from Meg before much longer if she wanted to play the part of the blushing maid. The throne was aging her with every passing day. “You have a man of your company who has quite captured the heart of a lady of the court.”
“I do indeed?” asked Alasdair, his grin now broadening. “We Scots do have a way of catching the eye, I’ll tell you plain. Who is the man?”
“Niall— Oh, what was his last name?” The Queen turned to me. “Beatrice?”
“Niall Garrett, Your Grace,” I said, forcing my voice to sound light and engaged.
“Ah, yes.” The Queen clapped her hands. “And the young Lady Catherine is quite in love with him. Do you know if he has a mind to marry?”
Alasdair shrugged and spread his hands. “I can but ask, Your Majesty.”
“Do that, then.” She nodded firmly. “We may have an alliance yet.” The two of them laughed and agreed that yes, this would be a brilliant thing, and I found my mind returning to the churn of my own darkness.
“What say you, Beatrice?” the Queen demanded now, her voice suddenly loud, like she was talking to a simpleton. “Shall we set the good MacLeod free of his marriage contract to you, that he may go and find another bride more suited to his strength?”
If Alasdair was startled by the Queen’s direct slap of me, he did not betray it, and I certainly was not going to. Everything I’d done—had tried to do—was turning to ashes around me. But she clearly expected me to speak here, and so speak I would.
“I live ever to serve you, my Queen,” I said. “You and England. If it serves you better to not betroth me to Alasdair MacLeod, then of course I bow to your wisdom.”
I refused to look at Alasdair, though once again I felt his gaze upon me as I was giving my pretty little speech. Well, he could look his fill and then be gone to his desolate isle in the middle of nowhere. I’d already told him to find someone who suited him better than I did. Apparently, he’d agreed. So now he could choose a woman of his own country to be his bride. He could choose six, for all I cared. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let this little scene break me. For my family, I would be strong and proud. For my family, I’d remain unruffled by the Queen’s cruel words. For my family, I would tilt my chin just so, slant my gaze thus, and smile as if my reputation had not just been dragged through the mire.
“Then it is done.” Elizabeth clapped her hands again. “I will summon Lord Knowles to discuss the particulars, but we have agreed in principle, and you, my young man, are free of a Queen’s desire to meddle in the hearts of her people.”
Alasdair’s grin didn’t slip; his manner didn’t shift. He cast me off with no more concern than he would doff his tunic. He bowed first to the Queen, and then to me. I didn’t even hear him depart, with the roaring in my ears, but as I made my own curtsy to leave, the Queen’s next words drew me up short.
“So, then—you have served me well, Beatrice, and now I have repaid you.”
I looked up, startled, and caught the malicious look of triumph in the Queen’s eyes. Had she known that in the end, I had done the one thing I’d sworn I would not—could not—do? Had she known I’d fallen for Alasdair? I looked around and saw that Sophia was no longer in the room, nor the Queen’s advisors. So I was left alone with the vicious shrew.
“Repaid me?” I managed. Her smile, if anything, grew broader.
“Of course! You made your lack of interest in Alasdair clear, and now he is no longer to be a bother to you.”
“Ah! Of course, Your Majesty.” In that moment I did not know if the Queen was baiting me or if she truly believed she’d done me a service. Not that it mattered, of course. Alasdair hadn’t seen fit to fight for me; nor should he have. I had betrayed him at every turn.
“Even better,” she continued on, “Cecil and Walsingham now know better than to keep information from me. I will just learn it anyway,” she said. “The question of the Scots has been solved in a way far better than I could have imagined, and we are in a position of power whenever we choose to strike. The Lords of the Congregation will prevail, and the French will be beaten back. All these things are assured this day.”
She tilted her head, all satisfaction and guile. “So where should we go from here?” she asked, drawing out the question with a long pause. Idly I wondered if she knew about the MacLeods’ interest in treasure collecting. It did not seem so, and the thought was one tiny bit of joy amidst the pain I knew was still to come.
I was not mistaken.
“Indeed, yes,” the Queen proclaimed suddenly, having clearly come to some private resolution. “I need to announce some new husband for you, else all the world will know you have been twice jilted in my care. But I think—I think we should wait a bit. See how the court settles out after our guests depart for their home and we prepare for the move back to London—yes.” She tapped her fingers on her lips, as if she were settling a grand question of state. Or the dinner menu. “Yes. London would be a suitable location to get you settled, once and for all.”
“Of course, Your Grace,” I said, my words clear and light in the tight space between us. She had caught me—briefly—in my grief. But I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction again.
“Excellent,” the Queen said, then yawned behind her hand. “This has been a most satisfying day, wouldn’t you agree? Attend me back to my rooms. I find I am fatigued.”
And thus it happened that I spent another two hours preparing the Queen for her bed, bringing her wine, brushing her hair, and listening to her chatter with her ladies of the bedchamber. Not so long ago I would have given much to be in such rarified company. Now I catalogued the gossip with rote disinterest, wishing once again that I was not Beatrice the court insider, but Meg with her fabulous memory and quick hands; Sophia with her powerful gifts; Anna with her intelligence; or Jane with her cruel knives.
I finally was set free well after midnight, the Queen realizing that I was not, in fact, one of her indentured servants, and sending me along to my bed. But I could not return yet to the maids’ quarters. There was no room in Windsor that could hold me this night, and I fled to the North Terrace, then stepped out into the chill wind that somehow did not cut through the rising tide of misery that flushed through me, thick and hot.
I moved all the way to the small balcony that overlooked the wide grassy plain leading to the Thames. And quite without expecting it, I found myself on my knees.
I was not a religious person, I tell you plain. I believed in God, of course, though the dictates as to the worship of that God I left to my monarchs to decide. But the tears that rose up within me and spilled out of my eyes were not a lamentation to the heavens. The heavens had no care for me. The tears were not even a cry to my family or my fellow maids, for whom I would sacrifice much and much again, and who had come to my aid when I’d needed them most. I did not cry to these; they would not heed my tears.
I cried to myself. And for myself.
&nb
sp; For the little girl who’d stared adoringly at the father destined to leave for court and kings, and who’d stood by in fear and confusion as her mother had withdrawn inch by painful inch into a world hazed with drugs and despair. For the young innocent at court who’d learned too quickly how not to trust. For the bold and hopeful insider whose manipulations had landed her the most coveted role in the land—bride-to-be of the splendid Lord Cavanaugh.
And for the stupid, foolish girl who—whom no one loved at all.
But I loved. I loved with a strength and fervor that filled my very bones and blood. I loved so much, I could not breathe. I loved Alasdair MacLeod. And it was too late.
It was wasteful and pointless to cry these tears, I knew that. There was no one to see them. I could not melt the hearts of my admirers or soften the opposition of my foes. I had nothing to gain and much to lose to be seen here in this state, my face a terror, my hair disheveled, my gown getting creased and ruined on the rough surface of the Terrace. And still I cried, and still I rocked. And held my own arms where no one would hold me.
I would be strong in the morning, when the eyes of the world were on me again. Tonight, lost and alone, I cried for the weakness I could never show.
A gift had been given to me, if only I’d had the eyes to see it, the heart to accept it. That day in the Presence Chamber, when Alasdair had walked before the crowd and singled me out with a grin and a wink, I’d been given a gift of connection, of love, of possibility. I had shunned that gift. I’d turned it aside with callous disregard. I could not even accept an honestly offered smile. I was so deeply broken that there would be no fixing me. I had been fashioned as a tool for one use—to survive in court. And survive I did. Survive I would. I was alone and would always be alone. I did not deserve Alasdair. I did not deserve anyone.
Except the one who hated me even as she needed me, desperately. The Queen and I deserved each other.
In that moment I remembered the old woman’s face who’d caught me up in her clutches in the heart of Salcey Forest, cackling at my distress but perhaps more at my disdain. She had warned me, and her words flowed back over me like a bitter tonic. You too shall know great loss and misery, such pain as you had never thought. On your knees in darkness, no one to save you then.
At the time, I had thought I would be threatened by some great treachery outside myself, someone who wished me harm. I had thought the Queen would betray me, or even one of my fellow maids, innocently or otherwise.
I never could have guessed that, in the end, my greatest enemy would be . . .
Myself.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I vaguely remember the tap on my shoulder, the strong arms lifting me, but the guard who deposited me at the maids’ chamber was gone before I could fully will myself back to consciousness.
Unsurprisingly, the maids were all awake, but this time they did not rush to me to remove my clothing and tuck me into bed. We stared at one another across a great chasm of understanding, and I’d never felt so old.
“What happened?” Sophia spoke first, and if she noticed the irony of her words, she gave no indication.
“You didn’t explain?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I did not understand the whole of it, only what I saw. And in any event, it was not my tale to tell.”
I shrugged and crossed to my pallet, beginning the process of undressing myself—no easy feat, but it occupied my hands and mind while my mouth took on the story. My fellow spies, sensing my need to not be touched, stayed where they were.
“It’s all undone,” I said, my voice curiously flat. “Cavanaugh will not be bothering me again, to start.” I glanced over to Sophia. “Did I thank you for that? I do not know if I did.”
“You did,” she said, and I nodded. Sophia had been the one to send my father to me, even as Cavanaugh had been landing his coup de grace. All the maids would have known what was happening. “Your father came to see us, after. He assured us that you would be unharmed by Cavanaugh, but enjoined us all to tell him were we ever troubled by him again.”
“I don’t think we will be.” I paused then, wondering what Cavanaugh was thinking this dark night. To have every belief you’ve ever held about yourself upended and destroyed—that would be a challenging thing. Would it be worse than having every belief about yourself proven true? That I didn’t know.
I stripped off my sleeves, and then Meg did move, slipping up behind me to unlace the back of my bodice as if it were yet another costume to pack away. True enough, I supposed.
“Then I managed to get to the Queen and share with her what I knew of the MacLeods’ battle plans.” I grimaced. “I thought I was being so clever and safe, sharing only part of what I knew, the part that would not, I hoped, bring harm to Alasdair or his men.” I spoke his name mechanically, ignoring the hard knock of my heart at its sound. “But it was all for naught. He came but moments later and shared, I am sure, far more with the Queen. They went to Cecil’s chambers and apparently executed some sort of agreement between the clans and the English, the Scots pledging support if—or I should say, when—Elizabeth decides to march upon the French.”
“And what did the Scots get in exchange for this?” Anna put in, her finger pressed against her lip as she focused fiercely on my words. “Alasdair must have had sought some boon, and it’s not as though Elizabeth could repay him in gold or goods. The Queen’s coffers are all but bare.”
I let my gaze slide past her to the wall, and pushed on. “I couldn’t say. But once those agreements were struck, Alasdair presented the Queen with a relic of the Fairy Flag—a relic that has been in his family for centuries. I didn’t even realize he’d known of the Queen’s interest in the thing!”
If I’d thought that proclamation would surprise them, I’d been sorely mistaken. I narrowed my eyes at their sudden muteness. “I don’t suppose any of you had anything to do with that, did you?”
Anna and Meg shared a glance; Sophia looked at her hands. But it was Jane who finally chuckled. “A scrap of cloth is what you’re talking about, you know. Barely a stitch. Not good for covering even an inch of skin. If I heard about the treasure from one of the Scottish guards and dropped a word in passing that the Queen would set great store by a gift of such a prized treasure, what was the harm in that?” She pulled out a blade and was eyeing it in the darkness. “Seemed an easy trade for a Queen’s favor.”
“But it was a relic!” Anna protested.
“Well, yes—if it was even a piece of the real flag,” Meg scoffed. “Which I’d wager it wasn’t, given Alasdair’s easy offering of it.”
I frowned. “Well, he seemed quite sincere. . . .”
Now it was Jane’s turn to scoff again. “He would.”
“But enough of the trinket, Beatrice,” interrupted Anna. “What happened then?”
“Elizabeth was well pleased.” I returned to my tale, my voice still mild, as if I were recounting the events of a distant cousin’s birthday. “And so, to thank Alasdair properly, she canceled my betrothal. That would have been the last of what you saw, I think, Sophia?”
Sophia nodded. “You stood as pure as ice in the wake of her announcement, betraying no emotion. You were magnificent, Beatrice. I do not think I would have been able to stand so strong.”
I quirked my lips at her loyalty. “I doubt you’ll ever need to do so,” I said. “But I confess I was not fully paying attention, after her first words registered. She dismissed you all?”
“Yes. You smiled your acquiescence, and she clapped her hands and dismissed everyone, saying that she wished to speak with you alone.”
I raised my brows at this. How had I missed such a command?
“Alasdair went first,” Sophia said. “But by the time I reached the corridor, he was gone, and only Cecil and Walsingham were walking away, their heads together, discussing something I could not hear. I rather thought it was the relic, and not the agreement with the MacLeods, but I have no proof of that. I waited, briefly, to see if Al
asdair would return, but the guards were eyeing me strangely, and I did not wish to appear to be eavesdropping.”
I nodded. “That was wise of you.” Sophia had enough issues without drawing the attention of the Queen’s guard.
I shook myself, realizing that I now stood in my thin shift, and settled down upon my pallet. “And that’s really the whole of it. The Queen proceeded to tell me, once we were alone, that she was well pleased with the day’s events, that I had done well, and that she would find a proper match for me after the story had fled the tongues of her courtiers. Probably in Londontown, when we return there for the winter.”
Meg snorted, a decidedly unladylike noise. “What is her fascination with seeing you wed?” she asked. “I should think you would be done with men and marriage for at least another few years.”
I smiled, but of course Meg did not know the whole of my requirements. Despite my father’s assertion to Lord Cavanaugh that our family had more gold than we could ever want, I knew the truth. Marion Hall still needed money more than I needed a respite from the machinations of court. We needed a stable marriage to someone with a title and land of his own, far away from Northampton. With the security of a decent marriage, my family would remain safe, my servants would not starve, and my secrets would be kept.
Even freed from Cavanaugh, I was not free.
“But what of Alasdair?” It was Sophia who spoke now, her voice strange in the darkness, like that of an ephemeral sprite. “Surely I did not imagine his affection for you. It was plain in his eyes from the moment he set foot in the Presence Chamber all those weeks ago!”
I laughed, but not unkindly. Sophia, for all her odd ways, had always been treated as special. She was beautiful, of course, but I suspected that even before her gifts had begun to manifest, there’d been a fantastical nature about her, a sense of a being who was not entirely of this world. The glances cast at her would at times be cruel and at times simply curious, but there was also a wonder to them, and even a hope, that something so lovely and mysterious could be living among us ordinary people.
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