The Hidden Evil Read online

  Sheena did not know what to say. She had never expected that the Queen would confide in her and she felt that any words of consolation would sound inadequate or impertinent.

  The Queen gave a deep sigh.

  “I try not to talk of my unhappiness,” she said. “I must try to bear my own burdens and not lay them on other shoulders. But you? You will think of me with kindness?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Sheena said eagerly. “And if I could help you I would.”

  “You would?”

  The Queen’s eyes suddenly brightened. And there was a look of excitement in them.

  “Yes, of course, I would,” Sheena repeated.

  She did not know why but she wished suddenly that she had not given such a promise.

  “I will remember that. You are my friend, my dear kind friend,” the Queen murmured.

  She held out her hand and Sheena, realising what was expected of her, dropped on one knee to kiss it.

  It was at that moment that the door was flung open and a footman announced,

  “His Majesty the King, Your Majesty.”

  The Queen rose to her feet.

  “Oh, Sire, you have come!” she exclaimed.

  The King then walked into the room. He was, Sheena noticed, wearing his characteristic expression of moroseness and gloom. He seldom looked anything else unless the Duchesse was with him. It was hard to believe that he was not much older than his thirty-eight years.

  “Well, what is it?” he asked uncompromisingly.

  He stood in the centre of the room looking at the Queen in a manner that Sheena felt had something hostile about it. And then, as she did not speak, he added,

  “You sent for me. I understood it is important.”

  “It is indeed,” the Queen responded. “But first, do have you no word of greeting for Mistress Sheena McCraggan?”

  The King seemed to notice Sheena for the first time.

  “Oh, indeed. Our visitor from Scotland,” he exclaimed. “I hope, mam’selle, that you are enjoying yourself here.”

  “I am glad of the opportunity to serve my own Queen, Sire,” Sheena answered.

  “Our cousin and future daughter-in-law, Mary Stuart, is a beautiful and charming child and we love her dearly. Is that not so?” he questioned, turning to his wife.

  The Queen nodded.

  “Mary Stuart has won all our hearts,” she smiled. “And especially yours, Sire. There is something attractive about these girls from Scotland that draws all men to them like magnets. Look at Mistress McCraggan. I have been telling her that with that perfect skin, as clear as a mountain stream, and hair that seems to imprison sunbeams, she will have to be very careful to keep the young gallants of your Court at arm’s length.”

  Sheena stared at the Queen in astonishment. Her Majesty had said none of these things and she could not imagine why she should wish to invent such lies. She looked back at the King and found that he was watching her with a faint smile on his lips.

  “She is beautiful, is she not?” the Queen asked.

  As the King did not answer, she turned to Sheena and added, as if in explanation,

  “His Majesty has a great eye for beauty. Many of our Court painters ask him to choose a model for them rather than trust their own judgment.”

  Sheena dropped her eyes so that the Queen should not see the expression in them. She was aware that whenever the King commissioned a picture, a sculpture or a piece of enamel, the model was always the same, the Duchesse de Valentinois.

  “We must make Mistress McCraggan happy, as she has come such a long way to be our guest,” the Queen continued. “Perhaps Your Majesty would dance with her one evening. See how tiny her feet are. She should move like a feather across the floor.”

  “We must see, we must see,” the King replied. “And now, my dear, if we could discuss the reason why you have sent for me I should be obliged. I have three gentlemen waiting for me on the tennis court.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the Queen said.

  She glanced at the Lady-in-Waiting, who made a gesture which Sheena understood and they both sank to the ground in a deep curtsey and backed towards the door.

  “Such youth! Such grace!” Sheena heard the Queen breathe as the door closed behind them.

  Outside, the Lady-in-Waiting gave Sheena a sour look.

  “You can go now,” she said and turned away abruptly.

  Sheena hurried down the long Gallery feeling like a child only just released from school. It was only when she reached the other end of The Palace that she realised she had hurried unnecessarily quickly and that her cheeks were flushed.

  She rounded a corner and found a bevy of people advancing towards her. In the centre of them was Mary Stuart with the Dauphin by her side, saying something in a gay excited voice that brought a ripple of laughter from the dozen or so young of the same age who escorted them. Behind came the Duchesse de Valentinois and the Duc de Salvoire.

  “Sheena, we have been looking for you! “ Mary Stuart cried out. “Where have you been hiding yourself?”

  “I am sorry if you should have wanted me, ma’am,” Sheena replied, curtseying.

  “Of course I have wanted you,” Mary Stuart answered. “I could not think where you had hidden yourself. I even imagined you might have been kidnapped.”

  “I am quite safe and sound, I assure you,” Sheena smiled.

  “Then come along with us at once,” Mary Stuart commanded. “We are going to see a new juggler who has just arrived from Italy. They say he is phenomenal and can keep twenty balls in the air at the same time.”

  Laughing and arguing whether such a thing was possible, they hurried on. When they reached one of the narrow staircases that led to the ground floor of The Palace, Sheena found herself at the back of the party and stood aside to let the Duchesse de Valentinois go first.

  She smiled at Sheena, thanked her and moved on down the stairs talking animatedly to a small dark man who Sheena recognised as the Ambassador from Portugal.

  Then, with a sudden little thump of her heart, she realised that the Duc was at her side looking down at her with an expression that she was certain was one of disapproval.

  “Where have you been?”

  Only she could hear the question. Just for a moment she was frightened and then some of her Scottish pride came to her rescue and she asked herself what business it was of his?

  “Why should you be interested?” she enquired, looking up at him defiantly.

  She thought that his eyes were more cynical than ever as he replied,

  “I have my reasons for asking.”

  “Perhaps I have my reasons for refusing to tell you,” she countered.

  “I don’t believe that it was an assignation if that is what you are trying to pretend,” he said. “Gustave de Cloude, at any rate, had no idea where you might be.”

  If he was intending to annoy her, he succeeded.

  Sheena tossed her head.

  “What has the Comte got to do with it?” she laughed.

  “I think only you can answer that question,” the Duc replied.

  They went down a few more steps before he spoke again.

  “Are you not going to tell me?” he demanded.

  “Why should I?”

  Quite unexpectedly his hand came out and she felt his fingers on her arm.

  “Don’t be a little fool,” he said. “What you are doing is dangerous.”

  Just for a moment Sheena felt unable to move.

  Then impatiently she shook herself free of his hand.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I am not doing anything dangerous or otherwise. I just do not see why I should be questioned and cross-examined.”

  “Perhaps I am trying to help you,” the Duc suggested.

  “I doubt it,” Sheena replied. “I don’t believe you would help anyone without an ulterior motive.”

  Even as she spoke, she knew that she was being rude and would have bitten back the words because they were un
dignified and childish.

  Why, she now asked herself, did this man always have the effect of making her feel on the defensive and of making her want to fight him? It had been war the first moment they met and now it was war again.

  She threw all caution to the winds.

  “Leave me alone,” she said angrily. “I don’t want to be embroiled in intrigues, yours or anyone else’s.”

  It seemed to her that there was surprisingly an expression of relief on his face.

  “I wish I could be sure of that,” he said quietly.

  “Well, you can be,” Sheena snapped. “All I want to do is to serve my Queen.”

  “And you can do that best,” the Duc said, “by not becoming embroiled in other factions of the Court.”

  Angrily Sheena stamped her foot.

  “I am not becoming embroiled,” she cried. “Why do you talk as if I were?”

  “Because I don’t think you know what you are doing,” he answered.

  Exasperatedly Sheena replied,

  “I am doing nothing. Cannot you understand that? Nothing at all.”

  “Then where were you just now?”

  “Not anywhere that you might imagine,” Sheena answered hastily, feeling as if he had set a trap for her and she had somehow fallen into it.

  “Then, if you are not ashamed of it, tell me where you were.”

  “I was with the Queen,” she admitted defiantly. “Is there anything wrong in that?”

  “Alone?”

  The question was shot at her like an arrow from a bow.

  “Not the whole of the time.”

  “Then who else?”

  They had reached the bottom of the stairs and Sheena looked up into his eyes, intending to defy him or perhaps tease him further.

  Then, suddenly compelled by the authority she saw there, she was forced into telling him the truth.

  “The King came in.”

  She felt the Duc’s sudden tension.

  She saw his lips part as if he was about to say something, but before he could speak, before she could know whether he was surprised or affected in any way by what she had said, the Duchesse de Valentinois turned round and her voice interrupted them,

  “Do hurry, Your Grace, or there will be no time for the performance,” she pleaded. “The King will have finished his game of tennis and I shall be prevented from seeing the marvels of this new entertainer.”

  The Duc stepped from Sheena’s side.

  “I will go ahead,” he replied respectfully to the Duchesse, “and see that everything is in readiness.”

  “Please do that,” the Duchesse replied with a smile. “You know I cannot keep the King waiting.”

  The Duc moved away and the Duchesse, still with a smile on her lips, turned to Sheena.

  “I don’t think, Mistress McCraggan, that you have met Señor Vermellio.”

  The Ambassador bowed. Sheena curtseyed and then they were moving down the corridor and the Duc was already out of sight.

  While the others applauded, laughed and praised the juggler, Sheena found it difficult to concentrate on anything but her own thoughts.

  ‘What had the Duc meant?’ she wondered. ‘What was all this about danger? Why had he questioned her as to who else was with the Queen? Had he suspected that she had not told the truth or was there someone else whom he thought she might meet there?’

  It was all so puzzling and, because such thoughts worried her, she was almost glad when Comte Gustave de Cloude crossed the room to sit by her side.

  They had long ago made up their differences of that first morning when Sheena had gone to talk with him in the gardens and had run away because he frightened her.

  She realised now how stupid she had been, first in accepting his invitation, which had been given light-heartedly with an expectation that she would refuse and secondly in being frightened or upset by his expressions of devotion. She knew by now that every woman in The Palace expected a man to make love to her if they were alone for even a few moments – and even when they were not.

  Love, of one sort or another, was the whole conversation in the French Court and Sheena often longed for a strong wind from the North Sea to blow about them and make them think of something less emotional.

  “You are looking serious,” the Comte enquired now. “What is troubling you?”

  “Nothing,” Sheena answered. “And please don’t ask me questions. I am tired of being questioned. I just want to creep into a hole and hope that no one will notice me.”

  “That is impossible,” Gustave de Cloude said and Sheena held up her hand in warning.

  “Don’t say it,” she said. “You promised, no compliments.”

  “What a strange girl you are,” he said. “I just cannot think of any woman, young or old, who does not want to be told regularly that she is lovely, attractive and desirable, especially when she is overwhelmingly all three.”

  “That is a fine!” Sheena exclaimed. “You have broken our pact.”

  He laughed and fished in his purse for a gold coin.

  “Here you are, then, the fine is almost worth it.”

  Sheena took the coin from him. After he had apologised for his behaviour in the garden they had come to an arrangement that if he paid her compliments he should be fined for them and the money would go to the Little Sisters of the Poor who worked in the worst parts of Paris. Already Sheena had been able to send them a considerable sum of money and now, as she took the gold coin from him, she said somewhat dubiously,

  “You can afford this, can you not?”

  “I assure you I am a very rich and very eligible young man.”

  “Then why do you not get married?”

  “Because until now I have never seen anyone who really attracted me,” he answered.

  Again she held up a warning finger, knowing just as she did so that he was, in actual fact, falling in love with her.

  ‘It is only because I keep him at a distance,’ she told herself.

  At the same time she could not help liking, with something nearly akin to affection, the gay impulsive young gallant who came from one of the best families in France and who she had discovered, underneath all the fashionable affectations, was kind and understanding and unexpectedly considerate.

  “All right, I will not tease you,” he said now. “But you looked so very serious that I was worried and that is why I came to sit beside you. Is there anything I can do?”

  It was like him, Sheena thought, to offer his services. She turned to smile at him warmly and as she did so saw the Duc’s eyes fixed on her. She felt herself shiver almost as if, as the saying was, a ghost had walked over her grave.

  “What is it?” Gustave asked. “You must let me help.”

  “I don’t know. It is nothing that I can put into words,” Sheena said. “It is only an instinct, something that is happening that I don’t understand.”

  “Tell me about it,” he suggested.

  “There is nothing to tell,” Sheena answered. “When there is – ”

  He interrupted.

  “Promise that you will let me help, promise.”

  “I promise,” Sheena sighed. “I do know I can trust you.”

  “Do you mean that?” He turned towards her eagerly. “Sheena, I must say it. Let me say it now. Let me say it whatever it may cost me in charity. I love you! I love you really with my whole heart. Will you marry me?”

  She shook her head and as she did so she glanced sideways and saw that the Duc was still watching her.

  “Danger! Danger!”

  She could still hear his voice saying it again and again and she felt a sudden panic sweep over her because she did not understand where the danger would be coming from

  CHAPTER SIX

  There came a discreet knock at the door. Maggie crossed the room and opened it.

  Sheena heard her mutter something and then she closed the door.

  “’Tis the messenger,” she said in a low voice.

  Sheena raise
d her head from her writing desk.

  “I have nearly finished,” she said dubiously and sat biting the end of her quill, her mind filled with indecision and worry.

  What could she say to her father now? She had been told that a messenger was leaving secretly for Scotland that night and that any letters she sent by his hand would be safe and not opened or spied on, as were all the other letters that left The Palace.

  If Sheena had not already suspected the presence of spies, who watched everything and everybody, Maggie would soon have enlightened her.

  “There’s them that spies for the Queen,” she said. “And them that spies for the Duchesse. And there’s the spies of the Church and the spies of the State. And besides all these there’s a whole host of people who, as far as I can understand, spies for themselves.”

  Maggie’s tone was full of scorn like all decent law-abiding folk she had a deep-rooted contempt for those who intrigued or approached a problem except in the most straightforward manner.

  Sheena had wondered uneasily what Maggie would say if she knew the instructions that she herself had received from her father before she left Scotland. How easy in theory it had seemed then to find out the things he wanted to know. Yet how absolutely impossible it was in practice.

  Her first letters had been guarded and deliberately without any information that might be construed not only as a criticism of the French Court but even as evidence that she was taking sides.

  Now, in this letter, she had told him many of the difficulties. And yet even to her father it was impossible to write all the truth. How could she hurt him by saying, our little Queen has almost forgotten Scotland and indeed has little interest in what goes on there?

  Perhaps because she was anxious to hide this, of all things, from him she became more verbose than she need have been about other people at the Court.

  “The Duc de Salvoire,” she wrote, “is always found in attendance on the Duchesse de Valentinois. He is a hard, cynical and rude man who likes people to fear him and who I feel would be utterly ruthless as an enemy.”

  That disposed of the Duc.

  She then described the kindness of the Queen in giving her beautiful clothes and went on,

  “The Queen is quiet and unobtrusive, she looks, as I heard one Courtier put it, as if she was ‘a hungry cat’. However I think that they all underestimate her and she seems to me far more like a sleeping panther who might one day awaken.”