Maid of Wonder by Jennifer McGowan

keep my place. “He is merely a member of Dee’s company.”
    â€œA member of Dee’s company who clearly believes you’re pretty,” she teases me, her grin wide. Then she relents. “Because of course you are, Sophia. You outshine everyone at court, I tell you plain. Even me, and that’s no small feat.” Her laughter lightens any sting her words might have. “But be careful not to have your head turned by idle words. They fall too easily from the lips of courtiers.”
    â€œWell, then, how do you tell flatterers and fools apart from men of worth?”
    â€œThat’s easy,” Beatrice answers. “They’re all flatterers and fools, even if they’re men of worth.”
    I consider this. “Because they fall in love so easily?”
    Beatrice laughs. “Because they’re men, Sophia. They do not think in terms of love, at least not at first. They think in terms of desire. Of possession. This is true from the finest man down to the meanest cur. Men don’t fall in love at first sight—they crave something at first sight. Something they must have for their own. For most of them, their emotions never plumb any greater depths than that.”
    â€œBut Alasdair MacLeod loves you,” I say, referring to the Scottish lord who even now is embroiled in the Northern Rebellion of the Scots against the French. Though Beatrice was assigned merely to spy upon Alasdair during his recent visit to Windsor Castle, their relationship has become far closer. “He doesn’t simply want you like a prized goat.”
    â€œWell, he did at first, I wager.” Beatrice shrugs. “At first I was a conquest, and then a challenge. It was only later that his desire gave way to something more refined. Though he would not thank me for calling him refined, in any case.”
    â€œAnd you could tell that, when?”
    â€œImmediately,” she says, winking at me. “Men are not that complicated, I’m sad to say. Chances are, your young Marcus is looking for kisses and not conversation. If he’s after your heart, it will be in his eyes. If he’s after your body, well—that proof is yet easier to discern.”
    â€œBeatrice!” Blood flares in my cheeks, and she starts giggling madly. I am spared any more of her teasing, however, as we are approaching Windsortown’s collection of stalls. The smell of savory pies and sweetmeats fills the air, mingling with the scents of horses and goats and kindling sparking to fire. To my great relief we find Maude working at her stall at the edge of the throng, cackling to her neighbor.
    â€œWhat ’o!” she cries out when she sees us, recognizing us as past customers to her stall—but thankfully, not seeming to recall me from a week ago in the Lower Ward. Perhaps my covering of dove feathers was an adequate disguise. “Maids from the castle, good day to you. Blessings to you both.” She waggles her brows at us. “You’ve tried my tonic, ’ey? ’As it worked well for you?”
    She refers to her love potion, of course, which is all she would give us when we first visited her stall a few weeks ago—claiming she had none of the truth tonic we truly sought. We accepted the love tea as a show of good faith, vowing to return with five shillings, and I sincerely hope Beatrice willnot tell her the true fate of that potion—that Jane has dumped the rest of it out in the chicken yard. “It’s worked surprisingly well,” Beatrice says. “We gifted it to a friend in need, and now she has all the male attention she could hope for.”
    â€œSo I tol’ you it would be! An’ yer back, since what Maude says, she means.”
    â€œExactly so.” Beatrice surveys Maude’s impressive stall. It is filled with bottles and possets, the offerings all wrapped in brightly colored ribbons. “But, oh! You have so many things here! More so even