Maid of Secrets

by Jennifer McGowan

  I frowned. “What is your meaning, sir?”

  He patted my hand again, like I was a favored pet. “Well, in orchestrating your downfall, I can take down others of your station as well. Sophia Dee, for example. She defied her orders this eve. Again.”

  I glanced up at him, wary. “But she is ill!”

  “Sophia is ill every night that she might be presented to her betrothed,” Walsingham said dryly. “Or hadn’t you noticed the correlation?”

  I drew back as far as I could with his arm locked on mine. “I know little of her betrothed.”

  “Lord Brighton is a good man, a favorite of the Queen’s, and he would solve the dilemma of John Dee’s perplexing niece quite neatly. If Sophia’s abilities manifest into something palatable, such as astrology like her uncle, or something useful like keen intuition, her place near the Queen is assured for the balance of her life. If her abilities do not manifest at all, then marriage to a Queen’s man is her only chance for a secure future.”

  “But Lord Brighton is old enough to be Sophia’s father!”

  “Lord Brighton has rich lands in Bristol, and coffers of gold, and a willingness to share his bounty with the Queen. That matters more.” He cocked his gaze at me. “Remember, Miss Fellowes, it’s considered the Queen’s duty to marry off her maids of honor in good faith. You should recall that your own marriage question will someday need to be settled.”

  I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that line of conversation made me ill. My own marriage question had already been answered. With a resounding no. “Pray do not trouble yourself on my account,” I said through my teeth.

  “I assure you, it is no trouble.” He patted my hand again, letting me stew in my own indignation for another moment. Sophia would become my personal crusade, I decided. She should not be forced to marry anyone she did not wish. “I do say, though, Miss Fellowes, you are taking a rather narrow view of these proceedings.”

  “I rather think that being asked to do atrocious things or to allow harm to come to those I care about is sufficient cause for narrow-mindedness. You’ve made my situation plain.”

  “Too plain, it appears,” Walsingham observed. “As tonight’s events show. We cannot have you thinking that the best course of action for you is flight. That wouldn’t serve any of our interests.”

  “I assure you,” I said grimly, “you will not catch me attempting to leave this place.”

  Walsingham chuckled at my deliberate choice of words. “But you see, I have no wish to spend my time trying to catch you at all, Miss Fellowes. Rather, allow me to give you a better reason to stay.”

  “You do not need to threaten me further—”

  “No, no, not a threat.” Walsingham’s words were quiet, soothing. “There is a value to the work you do. The Queen herself would not gainsay it. Depending on what you bring her, she would return that boon to you several times over.”

  I frowned even as my treacherous ears pricked up, the promise of freedom sweet on the air. “A boon?”

  He nodded. “Riches enough to set you up in quiet comfort, in some small town far from London.”

  “You cannot make such a promise.”

  “Oh, but I can. And I will, for the right level of service, Miss Fellowes. The Queen is already your champion. Swaying her further in that direction would be easily done. What say you to that—a lifetime pension, enough to purchase a small cottage and see you safely settled if you guard your coins? Never having to thieve again? Or is the act of thieving so much a part of you that—”

  “No,” I said hurriedly. “No, it is not, Sir Francis. But how— I mean, who is to say what is worth such a pension? How would I know you were sincere in this offer?”

  He glanced at me. “Do you wish a contract?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. My grasp of written text was improving, yes, but no matter how much I studied, I would never be able to understand the kind of subtle wording that I suspected Walsingham and Cecil could employ without a moment’s thought. I’d likely be trading away my life for a brace of chickens, were I to sign any contract of his. “Only your pledge as a man of honor.”

  Sir Francis nodded in admiration, seeing through my ploy while acknowledging its worth. He was a proud man, if nothing else, and I had challenged his sense of nobility. He would keep his word.

  “I do so pledge to pension you off, Miss Fellowes . . . if your work saves the Queen’s life, her throne—or her reputation.”

  I winced. He had to know of Cecil’s request of me, and now he’d given me incentive to complete that horrid charge. There had to be another way.

  We were now walking back along the North Terrace, and my eyes strayed to the terrace doors, tightly shut against the night. Had I shut them? How had Walsingham known I would flee—and down the Hundred Steps? I hadn’t known myself until my humiliation in the Blue Room.

  Suddenly everything came together for me.

  “You were there, weren’t you?” I said. “In the Blue Room.”

  “I assure you, I took no joy in that task,” Walsingham returned, another flicker of humanity in his words. “But as you’d occupied Cecil for the moment, I thought it would be more fruitful to keep tabs on the boy. I’d no idea he’d spend his time behind the tapestries with Miss Knowles.”

  My cheeks burned, but my mind leaped forward as I thought about Rafe and his impending conversation with Count de Feria. There was another way I could serve, I thought. I did not have to betray the Queen.

  “I saw Count de Martine with letters,” I said, delicately treading around the transcript of my report. “He flashed them to the ambassador, but they did not get a chance to make an exchange. I suspect they will tonight, though.”

  Walsingham had stopped, eyeing me with interest. “Did de Martine say where they would make the exchange?”

  The snake was testing me; he knew I could not understand Spanish without assistance, and he doubtless knew Cecil wouldn’t have told me. “I . . . I don’t know,” I said, letting just enough frustration shine through. “I could not understand their words. But if we could read the letters now, before de Martine and the ambassador have a chance to exchange them, would that not be of service?”

  Walsingham looked down at me. “And how would you propose to come by those letters?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I am first and foremost a thief, Sir Francis. The pocket in which Rafe de Martine carries the packet is not so well hidden that it cannot be picked.”

  The smile that creased Walsingham’s face curled into a deeply contented grin. “You can lift—and return—these letters?”

  “Of course,” I said. I might not have been able to understand the Spaniard, but I could certainly pick his pocket.

  The Queen’s spymaster stared at me a moment more. Then he nodded. “Then so you shall. But first,” he said officiously, and he reached into his doublet and took out a modest—but barely crumpled—ruff, shaking out the narrow linen folds. My hand flew to my neck.

  “How did you—”

  “I saw the lout take it from you and sent a servant to fetch another. Turn around.” He slipped the new ruff around my neck and tightened it so firmly, my eyes watered. “You should be more careful, Miss Fellowes,” he said, his words clipped.

  “I’m sure the count will return it—”

  “And I am sure he will do no such thing, at least not in a way that won’t cause terrible embarrassment to the Queen. Now this removes the temptation for him. Let me look at you.”

  I turned to face him, my chin held high, and he considered me closely. “You can do this?” he asked, his words unexpectedly gentle.

  “Yes, Sir Francis, I can,” I said, confident in my restored costume. What a difference the right clothes could make.

  “Good. Then let us begin.” Sir Francis Walsingham smiled genuinely at me then, his teeth gleaming in the torchlight. “We’ll make a spy of you yet.”

  “He is there, to the right of the grand table,” Walsingham murmu
red as we paused in the shadows before the Presence Chamber’s huge double doors. I caught sight of Rafe, resting easily against a table, looking smug. What had he done with Beatrice, I wondered. And why had he chosen her? A stupid question, I supposed. Beatrice was beautiful. And noble. And rich. Everything I was not.

  Walsingham lifted a hand, and a page scuttled up to him, the boy wide-eyed and sweating in his miniature doublet and breeches of red velvet. Stooping slightly, Walsingham delivered his orders, and the servant rushed off.

  A terrible thought struck me. “What if Rafe has already handed off the letters to de Feria?” I asked, even as I scanned the room for the Spanish ambassador. The Count de Feria was looking a bit shakier than when I’d seen him last, his eyes sunken and his skin unnaturally pale. I grimaced as I watched him set down his goblet. Had Jane spiked his wine as well?

  “Cecil will advise me if so, but I do not think so. I’m not sure how long the young count chose to dally with Miss Knowles, but I suspect he has only just returned. It would not be seemly for him to rush off again so quickly, even for a Spaniard.”

  The music changed, with more players joining the fray.

  “Go dance with him,” Walsingham said, but I shook my head, eyeing the musicians.

  “They are playing an Almain, and that doesn’t serve me,” I said. “Wait for the music to announce a Trenchmore. Where will you be?”

  He nodded, following the logic in my choice of dances. “By the second column near the head of the line.”

  I followed his gaze. It would do. “Very well,” I said. “You’ll have exactly the length of one rotation to read the letters. Is it enough?”

  “It will be enough.”

  “You’ll have to break the seal on the packet,” I mused, even as I straightened my gown. I felt the familiar pull of excitement, the same I felt when plunging into any crowd, seeking the day’s marks. Rafe Luis Medina was a dandy; he would not hide a packet of letters in his close-fitting doublet. They would be in the side slash pockets of the flamboyantly puffed slops that flared out over his silk-clad legs. His very well-muscled silk-clad legs, I noticed again. “He’ll know they’ve been read.”

  “Or think that the packet had been jostled open in the midst of his revelry,” Walsingham countered. “In any event, it is not your concern. Just get the packet to me.”

  I walked out into the ballroom, slipping between two couples engaged in conversations so intimate, it made my ears burn. How could the nobility be so loose with words and deeds? Ale flowed freely, and the food was now all but forgotten, heaped in great piles on the wide tables of the Presence Chamber. The revel had taken on the aspect of a barely controlled bacchanal, the Queen nowhere in sight.

  I surveyed the crowd, picking out the faces that I knew. If I was to become the Queen’s spy as well as Walsingham’s, I’d need to begin recognizing faces better, knowing names. I pursed my lips at the thought. In a court such as this, it would be no easy task. The nobility all looked alike in their overstuffed doublets and vividly colored capes, with their sly smiles and yearning eyes. But I would need to learn.

  I positioned myself where I knew that Rafe de Martine would see me, and clasped my hands in front of me as I went up on my toes. The mere act of it made me cringe, but I was here to look like a young woman in desperate need of a dance. He’d seemed willing enough to flirt with me while dallying with Beatrice, so I just needed to show the proper amount of interest. I’d seen the hopeful gazes cast at the men by the women at court. I knew how to mimic them, to tilt my chin just so, to widen my eyes, and to sigh with abject longing.

  Still, it galled me to play the fool in front of him, of all people. Which was ridiculous. He was a Spaniard and my assignment, nothing more.

  The Almain finished, and a Measure started up next, with the music—and dancers—growing more relaxed with every turn. I added a not-too-subtle sway to my movement, keeping my hands held high, the epitome of the country girl gone to her first ball. If Troupe Master James saw me now, he’d double over in laughter, I thought grimly. The image of Master James made me suddenly sad, however. Would he be plotting the next triumphant run of the Golden Rose this night?

  And did he ever think of me?

  Shoving that thought away, I kept my pose through an interminably long refrain, even edging closer to the dancers in excitement.

  Then the music shifted subtly, and I swallowed, glancing over to where I’d last seen Rafe. He was still there. Only now he wasn’t dancing, or even talking to anyone else, but held a goblet in one hand, a lazy grin on his face.

  And he was staring directly at me.

  I did not have to feign the rush of color that came to my cheeks, but surely he could see my reaction to catching his glance. And just in case he didn’t, I brought my hands up to my cheeks, like a milkmaid caught dreamy-eyed.

  It did the trick. Rafe raised his brows, set his cup down on the table, and straightened.

  Then he started walking toward me.

  And I . . . froze like a rabbit.

  Now, I could tell you that I froze because it was all part of my carefully scripted plan. That the play had been blocked to proceed as so: I catch the eye of the gallant mark and appear completely entranced, the gallant mark asks me to dance, and I divest the gallant mark of all his worldly goods.

  But in truth, as I watched Rafe Luis Medina approach me, I could not have moved even if Walsingham himself had been bellowing in my ear for me to run.

  For his part, Rafe never took his eyes from mine the whole of his brief saunter across the floor. His smile was easy and teasing, his skin burnished bronze and lustrous. He looked like a dancer. He moved like a dancer, and I allowed myself a silly grin. Which was all part of the role, of course.

  Finally, the reality of what I was doing struck me.

  I was about to do something that could very well spell disaster.

  Not the thieving; that part I knew how to do. But—dancing?

  Then Rafe was in front of me, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. He bowed in perfect deference. “You’ve returned to me, fair maid, complete with a new ruff, I see.”

  I lifted my hand self-consciously to my neck. “Ah . . . Yes. I couldn’t very well reenter the Presence Chamber without one.”

  “And that is to my advantage. I’ll be rather glad to keep yours.” He grinned, and held out one elegant hand. “Shall we dance?”

  And there it was. I was going to dance the Trenchmore with the Count de Martine.

  I curtsied (why stop now?) and lifted my hand to his. Heat blazed between us at the touch, but if the young count noticed, he gave no indication. He raised me out of the curtsy and folded my arm into his as if we’d been dancing together for years, and moved us into place on the floor as a couplet facing each other.

  “I confess I do not know this dance well,” he said as he took my hands to perform an elegant Honor, the step-and-bow flourish favored before every courtly dance. “Is it challenging?”

  “I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty, Count de Martine,” I said, surprised at the strength of my own voice. The play had begun now, and I scanned his clothing. He was right-handed, and I expected the letters would be in the right-hand slash pocket of his heavily embroidered slops.

  We moved up two steps and back two steps, and then cast off, walking down the length of the long line of dancers before meeting up again at the bottom of our row. I saw Walsingham position himself in the shadows of the column he’d specified, but Cecil was not with him. Instead, Walsingham was apparently having a conversation with a bland-faced man, who seemed to turn away just as I glanced at him. Another of his spies? I wondered. What other secrets did Walsingham keep?

  As I took my place opposite Rafe, I did finally catch sight of Cecil—in earnest and back-slapping conversation with the increasingly ill-looking Count de Feria, both of them turned away from the dancers. Walsingham must have told Cecil to keep the ambassador occupied.

  The second verse began, and more complicated s
teps with it. I held hands with the women alongside me, and we faced the men across the patch of floor. We all took a step toward our partners, and suddenly Rafe’s face was before me, his eyes merry and his lips curled into a soft and knowing grin. I realized with a start that I was nearly close enough to Rafe to kiss him.

  Where had that thought come from?

  Just as quickly we stepped back again, and Rafe and I joined hands. The heat of the dance must have been getting to me, because I suddenly felt flushed, almost dizzy. Focus!

  This portion of the dance required couples to make arches with their arms while other couples went beneath, and then the first couple would similarly duck through another couple’s arches. It was a fast-paced process, involving tight turns and a fair amount of laughter, and it presented the chance I was looking for. As Rafe and I pressed up together to slip beneath the arms of a very short couple—no easy feat, that—I sidled my hand along his ornate slops, and slipped it into his slashed pocket.

  My fingers instantly found what they were looking for, a tight packet of papers with a rough wax seal. I slipped the packet out adroitly and—

  Nearly stopped dead.

  I was not wearing my own familiar thieving gown, riddled as it was with enough custom-sewn pockets to store half the ball’s finery. Instead I was wearing a very proper costume befitting a maid of honor, nary a slash pocket to my name. And my waistband was already full of stolen jewels. Only my bodice allowed me any room at all, as it had originally been sized for a much more well-endowed maid.

  We turned again, and I palmed the letters, whirling with a grand flourish. There was nothing for it, and as I lifted my hands above my head, I quickly shoved the letters down the front of my bodice, before turning again to clasp Rafe’s light fingertips in mine.

  “You’re flushed, fair maid. Is everything well?” Rafe asked.

  “Oh, yes!” I responded with perhaps a touch too much intensity, my gaze darting to his. Did Rafe suspect? But no, there was nothing but laughing amusement in his eyes. His thumb flicked along the palm of my hand as we allowed another couple to move beneath the arch of our arms, and I glanced at him nervously. Had he caught me out? “Count—” I began.