Maid of Secrets Read Online Free

bundled together in pitch tents while a child exclaimed over the first snowfall. Gone was little towheaded Tommy Farrow.
    Gone was Master James.
    Acting, thievery, and deception, however, were still very much a part of my life.
    I’d carried nothing with me to the Tower but the much-mended clothes on my back and my two precious gifts from my grandfather, hidden in my shift. On his deathbed, sick and pale with fever, my grandfather had given me a slim book of verse and a set of golden picklocks—without ever explaining why. For luck, I’d sewn those gifts into my shift just hours before I’d been arrested. And as luck would have it, they now were the only possessions I still owned in the world.
    That first day, as I’d woken up in my cell deep in the bowels of the Tower with a lump on my temple and my ears still ringing with pain, I’d prayed they wouldn’t take my clothes from me. But I’d been prepared for it.
    In fact, I’d thought I was prepared for anything. As a first-time offender and a woman, I knew I would not be killed or visibly maimed. But I’d expected their questioning to be painful—perhaps involving thumbscrews or white-hot tongs. And when they’d yanked me from my cell and marched me into to the foul-smelling heart of the Tower of London, my hands and feet bound with chains, I’d fully believed I would be humiliated, reviled, and left heartily wishing I was dead.
    What they’d actually done was much worse.
    In a dank and barren corner of the Queen’s dungeon, they’d . . . sat me at a table. Served me spiced wine. And explained my new life to me in clear and simple terms.
    If I did not do exactly what they told me to do, exactly how they told me to do it, it would not be merely me who suffered.
    True, I’d be imprisoned for the rest of my life. But more to the point, Master James and the other principal actors of the Golden Rose would be hunted down with whips and blades, paraded through the city as thieves, and then left trapped in the stocks for five whole days, at the mercy of any Londoner with a stone to throw.
    The news of their arrest would be spread throughout England as fast as a horse could ride. The troupe would be ruined.
    They would all starve.
    Alternatively, if I performed my duties well and honorably, if I completed my assignments and served the Queen as a loyal subject and spy, then perhaps—just perhaps—I would be allowed to go free, eventually. I could return to the Golden Rose to live out my days, with a small purse of coin besides, a token of the Queen’s thanks. So my options were these: imprisonment, ruin, and the starvation of my troupe . . . or service to my Queen as a spy.
    I knew I was missing some hidden deception in their words, but what choice did I have? After that miserable morning, I’d done everything they’d asked.
    I’d learned to eat with silver utensils without palming (nearly) a single one. To laugh at every courtier’s joke. To find the Queen’s bracelet in the far corners of Saint George’s Hall and slip it back into her hand with no one the wiser. Just three months in, and I also already knew how to kill a person six different ways. Which, despite my colorful upbringing, was six more ways than I ever planned to use. I would never kill anyone. I would never even cut anyone. I was a thief, not a common thug.
    As it happened, the art of thuggery was the specialty of another maid in our less-than-merry troupe: the plain-voiced girl from Wales who’d walloped me with her dagger hilt the day I’d been caught. Jane wasn’t stuck in the room with us this day, at least. Cecil had sent her away on some errand. Now, she was probably out somewhere sharpening her knives. I’d nicknamed her “the Blade.”
    “Miss Fellowes,” Sir William prompted. “Repeat the passage Miss Knowles just completed. Only with better form.”
    I sighed and looked down dejectedly at the book before me. Despite all my newfound abilities, there was one skill that I could