Maid of Secrets
Seventeen-year-old Meg Fellowes is a wry, resourceful thief forced to join an elite group of female spies in Queen Elizabeth’s Court. There she must solve a murder, save the Crown, and resist the one thing that will become her greatest freedom–and her deadliest peril.
For Meg and her fellow spies are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer who stalks Windsor Castle.
A young, mysterious Spanish courtier, Count Rafe de Martine, appears at every turn in the dark and scandal-filled corridors of the Queen’s summer palace. And though secrets and danger are Meg’s stock-in-trade, she’s never bargained on falling in love…
Read an Excerpt
Chapter one
April, 1559
London, England
Mule-brained Tommy Freeman would ruin everything.
To my credit, I didn’t even flinch as I caught sight of his white-blonde hair bouncing through the crowd. I’d been trained better than that. But the fat purse I’d just lifted from an unsuspecting lord now felt too heavy in my hand, and I shoved it deep into the folds of my overskirt with perhaps a bit more force than necessary.
Stepping away from my mark, I smiled easily and strolled forward a few lazy paces along the crowd’s edge; just another young English lady, out enjoying the day’s spectacle.
No one so much as glanced at me.
I ducked under a faded coronation banner that still whipped proudly above a milliner’s storefront, and paused to scan the knot of Londoners clumped together in the inn’s courtyard. Tommy wasn’t hard to spot.
Where was the pie-eyed little bit going? And what fool had thought he was safe to go a-roaming?
The youngest—and by far the most hopeless—thief of The Golden Rose acting troupe could barely pick the pocket of the simplest of villagers, but this was Londontown. With his mutton hands and clumsy feet and a mouth that galloped well ahead of his brain, Tommy would be branded a thief before he’d bobbed his first lord. And then he’d be branded in fire, a white-hot poker pressed into the soft skin of his hand, forever announcing him a criminal.
My mouth tightened into a grim line. No child deserved that. No matter how pea-brained.
I threaded my way through the gawkers, steadying my nerves by snipping off another loose bauble from a slashed velvet sleeve as I passed. Then, the tuft of white hair abruptly changed course in the crowd, and panic squeezed my heart.
For Tommy, who couldn’t tie his own breeches without getting his fingers trapped, crowds were a disaster. The boy somehow always went after the one mark in the mob who’d never be taken in by his sweet-faced charm and big blue eyes.
Show Tommy a hundred people to fleece, and he’d always choose the worst.
It was almost a gift.
Truly. I’d seen the boy target magistrates and nuns.
Now, judging from the purposeful stride of his small, pumping body, Tommy had already picked out his next unlikely victim. I followed the child’s line of sight. And then I did flinch.
Tommy was heading straight for the Queen’s court.
More specifically, toward a hawk-faced scowler dressed all in black, including a thick wool cape and heavy trunkhose despite the balmy spring afternoon. I’d heard the man called Sir William, even as I’d brushed by him naught but an hour earlier. He looked like he was perpetually in a bad mood, as pale and sour as spoiled milk. The type of man who expected bad things to happen.
I’d been happy to oblige him.
But that explained Tommy’s interest, now, didn’t it. Sir William had been making a fine art out of flashing a temptingly round money pouch, loosely attached to his belt. He’d displayed the heavy bag no less than a dozen times with a toss of his cape. It was a folly, of course, meant to draw the eye and the errant hands of a thief, whom Sir William could then catch in the act and punish publicly. It would all make a very fine statement on the Queen’s policies on thievery.
Sir William’s smaller purse, discreetly tucked against his side, was the real prize. Or it had been. As it happened, I’d already nicked that purse without the good lord realizing it… which meant that Tommy still had a gift for picking the wrong mark.
Figure it out, Tommy….
A sudden spill of people jostled in front of me, blocking my view. For the first time ever, I wished a teeming crowd had not turned out to watch our company’s afternoon performance.
The Golden Rose acting troupe had taken London by its short straps—and not a moment too soon. Grandfather, God rest his soul, had always forbidden us to perform in any of the larger cities. But young James McDonald was the Troupe Master now, and he’d seen the truth of things quickly enough: with the crowning of a new, triumphant Queen, no one much cared for traveling actors anymore. The village folk were giving all their time – and their money – to bards with stories of London and its new royal court. All eyes had turned to the capital city. To survive, that’s where we had to be as well.
And without question, we’d never had larger crowds for our shows than here in Londontown, or riper pickings. Surely, Grandfather would understand.
Just today, in truth, as we performed in the sprawling courtyard of the White Lion Inn, we’d won the ultimate boon. The dazzling Queen Elizabeth and her court of fools had taken it into their heads to walk the city’s streets and mingle with the common folk. Even now, they tarried to watch our company shout our way through the second act of our most popular play, “The Beggared Lord.”
We’d felt the court’s royal presence before we could even see it, like the quickening breeze of a sea-borne storm. Gap-toothed urchins, worn-faced merchant’s wives, even sharp-eyed hucksters had all tensed with expectation, eager to see the new young Queen. I confess I stared as well. She was nothing short of awe-inspiring, our Elizabeth. Young and powerful. Radiant. Gloriously free to do whatever she wanted.
With her arrival, however, the crowd had swelled to bursting, to include my favorite kind of mark: smug-lipped lords who’d have never stopped to watch a gaggle of traveling actors, but who couldn’t help but gawk slack-jawed at royalty. I’d caught the knowing nod from Master James and had set to work among them. In no time at all, I’d secreted away a fortnight’s worth of their coin beneath my skirt’s heavy cloth.
Master James would be proud. I smiled just thinking on that.
But if Tommy picked the wrong pocket and was detained today, the blessing of the Queen’s presence would become our curse. Even if the boy didn’t come away with Sir William’s purse successfully, he would be detained for trying. Searched.
And though Tommy wouldn’t have Sir William’s money on him, he’d probably managed to lift someone’s silver this day. Which would be aught that was needed to doom us all.
Once the thread of suspicion began to be pulled, The Golden Rose acting troupe would quickly be unraveled. There would be twenty branded thumbs before the day’s end—the punishment of choice for first-time offenders.
And that was if we were lucky. If the Queen wasn’t feeling indulgent, our plights could be far, far worse. Gibbets. The stocks. The whistle of whip leather cutting into flesh.
My stomach clenched as a space cleared in front of me and I plunged forward, locating Tommy anew when he stepped deliberately into the outermost ranks of royal courtiers. With a nonchalance I’d perfected over long years, I moved ever closer to him, my steps meandering and my manner harmless. This was an act I knew all too well.
Because I was female, I was forbidden to play a true role as a Golden Rose actor before the crowd. Instead, I’d honed my theatre craft in the crowd.
I was a fine and laughing lady, a guileless merchant’s daughter, a wasp-mouthed fishmonger’s wife. I mimicked those around me with grace and ease—be they farmers, freemen or fools. To a one, I smiled, nodded… then picked their pockets.
By all accounts, you could say I stole the show.
The Maids of Honor
