Lady Merry's Dashing Champion by Jeane Westin Read Free Book Online

is more than I can say for the countess, who was caught spying for the Dutch because her arrogance made her stupidly careless."
    "Where do you keep her now?"
    "Secure in the Bowyer Tower, Your Majesty."
    "Secure, indeed, William, since those ancient walls have held many traitors. But we have yet to hear how you exposed her."
    "Lady Felice was observed entering a glover's shop of known Dutch sympathies. My agents later followed her and stopped her carriage on the Norfolk road late last night. She had coded messages on her person. The admiralty will soon decipher them, although the code is a strange one." He bowed again.
    "Then we place our realm in your hands and in the hands of our beautiful new countess, William." The king smiled again; indeed the smile indicated a long-practiced secret amusement at all schemers.
    Ah, Meriel thought, storing away another bit of knowledge, he is not ruled by others as so many in the palace and the commons think.
    The king stepped near to Meriel, and looked hard at her from his great height. "Are you willing to do your king and England a great service to the risk of your very life, m'lady?"
    Hey, well, what can I do but nod with some enthusiasm? How could she find other words in the chaos that was her brain, pleasing voice instead of a braying ass, or no?
    Then true words came to her. "Your Majesty, I can hardly do less than m'lord Giles and show him the honor all England owes its heroes."
    The king didn't hide his pleasure at her answer. "Ah, excellently spoken again!" The king looked to Chiffinch, who bowed. "Continue with our new Lady Felice and give us news of her progress and your plans as they unfold."
    The yeoman guards marched Meriel out, but not before she heard one final command from the king. "And William, see what you can discover about this young maiden's parentage. We think this remarkable likeness and delicacy of feature are only possible with a noble family connection, perhaps Lady Felice's own. Wasn't there some scandal..."
    Crossing the Tower green, Meriel lost the rest of the king's words, nor did she hear the lions' roar or the elephant's trumpet. She allowed her gown to brush the wet grass, while her fingers explored her face. For a moment, her mind raced with a question. She was certainly in a tower, so why couldn't she be a princess? Then she laughed aloud, to the amazement of the yeoman guards tramping beside her.

    Meriel's training began the next day with a formal dinner laid before her, including ivory-handled silver forks from Italy, now all the mode.
    "Your ladyship," Agnes prompted twice when Meriel forgot, "meat is no longer speared with the knife at Whitehall, but forked into the mouth in small pieces."
    Later, through a secret spy hole, Meriel observed Chiffinch closely as he endlessly questioned the real Lady Felice about her Dutch contacts, under threat of the headsman's ax if she did not cooperate. Meriel thought that the lady probably lied as often as she told the truth. And Felice most certainly lied when she tried to implicate Lord Giles in her spying schemes. It was obvious to anyone of any discernment that Felice was determined to destroy her husband, if not with her many lovers then with her false charges. It was said, and she happily repeated, that she led the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Rochester around by their cods, and had even bedded James, Duke of York, His Majesty's brother and head of the fleet.
    Meriel was amazed as the intricate tale of spying unfolded at the spymaster's masterful questioning, a mix of promises and threats. Felice had access not only to the Duke's person, but also to his plans to resupply the fleet and to the number and location of English vessels and garrisons guarding the Thames. She even had information about the number of cannonballs stored in the river forts, especially Sheerness, which was the first line of the Thames defenses. It seemed James had left naval plans on a table near his bed. When Felice had swived