Maid of Secrets Read Free Page B

came from Wales, from her accent, and she sounded younger than I would have expected, for hands so strong and cruel. Perhaps eighteen, but no older.
    “Who are you?” I gasped, my body tensing to flee at the first opportunity. Could I bribe the woman? Somehow break away? Would Master James find me in time?
    She grunted as she positioned her knee more squarely into my back. “They’ll be angry enough that you gave them the slip, especially one Sir William Cecil. I don’t need him mad at me, too. You would have made it, though, if I hadn’t been watching.” She sighed, a soft whisper of regret in the sound. “I didn’t have the sense to run when they came for me.”
    “Let me go!” I tried again, but the girl just clamped harder on my neck, cutting off my breath.
    “I canna do that,” she said, reasonably enough, as my sight dimmed to a pinprick. “You sealed your own fate when you lifted Cecil’s purse a fortnight past. He might not want anything to do with you, but the Queen does. And she’s what counts.” She hesitated, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded like linen washed too often over the rocks: thin, cold, and resolute. “And I’m Jane, by theway. Beggin’ your pardon again, but this is the only way.”
    I heard the whoosh of something slicing through the air, ending in a curiously loud thunk! against my temple.
    And then there was nothing.

THREE MONTHS LATER
    WINDSOR CASTLE, WINDSOR, ENGLAND
    I’d never hated words before I’d been brought to Windsor Castle.
    Here, they’d become a plague.
    “Again, Miss Fellowes,” Sir William Cecil snapped, his voice striking out at all angles into the cramped room. He shoved the book at me, and I leaned over it dutifully, dread balling in my stomach. Bahrrrr . . . barrruuss . . .
    I’d never really hated Mondays before Windsor Castle either.
    On Mondays, the most loathsome day of the week, we studied and translated texts in Latin, French, Dutch, and Spanish. Tuesday, the subject was politics. Wednesday, social graces. Thursday, observation skills.
    On Fridays, we learned about poisons. Strangleholds. And less dignified ways to die.
    It seemed like a lifetime had passed since I’d first been hauled to the Tower and charged with stealing royal gold. That first day, I still thought I could escape. That first day, I’d been astonished, then furious with myself at my own stupidity for being captured in the first place.
    Sir William had marked me with ridiculous ease, as it turned out. Using a trick so old and tired that I’d stopped looking for it in any village with more than two goats to its name.
    Apparently assuming that his riches would be lifted the moment he stepped outside, Sir William had etched a secret symbol into his coins before leaving the safety of the castle. He was a skulking coward, I’d decided, a panic-stricken fool.
    Well . . . perhaps not a complete fool. Because before night had fallen on that accursed day, Sir William had found me out. After waiting the shortest of whiles, he had sent men to follow Tommy, and they’d trailed the boy to the pasty stand. After that, it had been a simple thing to ask the stand’s keeper to hand over the coin Tommy had just used to buy his treat. The shilling had borne Sir William’s mark, of course.
    I secretly prided myself that it had taken the Crown nearly a full fortnight to lay hands on me after that, and in the end they’d needed two maids to achieve it.
    Or had they? Was that a lie too? In the long days of my captivity, I’d had ample time to learn the depths of Sir William’s cunning. After three wretched months in his questionable care, my life with the Golden Rose was naught but memory, a freedom I feared I would never fully grasp again.
    Gone were the days of shouting lines back and forth over the morning fires, of sewing late into the night to stitch back together costumes that had become more thread than cloth. Gone was the unfettered joy of sleeping under the summer stars, or