The Virgin's Daughter (11 page)

Elizabeth gave a bark of laughter. “Luck? And here I thought I employed you for your skills. You are not usually so modest, Walsingham.”

“I am not usually so frightened, Your Majesty. With the dissolution of your marriage to Philip, the last protection you have from Catholics will be withdrawn. Pope Gregory will undoubtedly restate the terms of your excommunication of ten years ago. Your Catholic subjects will once more be absolved by the pope of any allegiance to you; indeed, he will declare not only your reign but your life forfeit in Catholic hands. That is what the conspirators in France are waiting for. To be given absolution for murder, so they might remove you from England’s throne.”

“And do what?” Elizabeth flung it at him like a challenge. “The Catholics are divided on who should succeed me. Mary Stuart might have the purest Catholic pedigree, but her only heir has been raised by violent Protestants.”

It was Burghley who stated the other choice. “Or Princess Anne, daughter of the King of Spain and who, should she prove willing to return to Catholicism and marry appropriately, might be mooted as Philip’s heir as well as yours.”

“Which means France and Spain will never come to agreement,” Elizabeth finished. “France will not allow Spain to take charge of England, and Spain will not permit France the same. They are united only in despising me—kill me, and their unity dissolves.”

“Small comfort to England if you are dead.”

“You underestimate my daughter. Anne will never allow herself to be used by our enemies. Which is why there will be several eligible young men of England in the court party to meet Philip. Scotland may or may not be the right match for my daughter, but I will not overlook the uses of English nobles.”

“Francis Hastings, son of the Earl of Huntingdon, and Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex.” Burghley supplied the names thoughtfully.

“Of course.”

“Have you considered bringing the Earl of Somerset to court as well for the duration of the Spanish visit? He is heir to the wealthiest duke in the kingdom.”

She shook her head at once. “Stephen Courtenay is needed at Tutbury.” And also, she thought, it is a bad idea to pair Minuette’s son with a Tudor royal, even in play. There is far too much of pain and history there.

Burghley understood what she did not say and accepted her refusal. Then Elizabeth added one name to his list, knowing it would raise eyebrows not only among her advisors but in England at large. “And Brandon Dudley.”

After a delicate pause, Burghley said, “Your Majesty, he holds no title, and his unfortunate relationship to the late Duke of Norfolk—”

“Norfolk was his stepfather in name only. Brandon was raised by his uncle, the Earl of Warwick, and all his allegiance by birth and blood is to the Protestants. As for titles, I intend to invest him before we leave for Portsmouth, and so you may let leak to the Spanish ambassador.”

“What title will you give him?”

“The Earl of Leicester.” Elizabeth stared down her chief advisor, daring him to say what he thought, that this was nothing more than a sentimental gesture on the queen’s part to a young man who reminded her of the only man she’d ever loved. Robert Dudley had been dead for twenty-two years, executed for nothing more than serving Elizabeth.

She would not be scolded for making his nephew an earl. Small enough repayment for the loss of Robert.

—

They were three days on the road to Blanclair. The second night was spent at an inn in Pithiviers, the LeClerc men once again sharing a chamber. Julien stumbled up late, but Nicolas wagered he’d been doing nothing more than drink to try and take his mind off Lucette Courtenay. Nevertheless, they were all up just after dawn, eager to finish their journey.

The Englishwoman traveled well, Nicolas admitted. He’d been prepared for a pampered girl, as she should be in her position, but she seemed unspoiled and refreshingly direct compared to the French. And she had wide-ranging interests. As he’d listened to her talk with knowledgeable enthusiasm on such disparate topics as the plague treatments of Nostradamus and the heliocentric model of the universe, Nicolas recalled a report from a recent German visitor to England: after praising their beauty, he had noted that “the womenfolk in England wish to be in at everything.”

Julien had been in something of a daze since the night he’d laid eyes on her at the Pearces’ reception. Nicolas found it amusing how hard his brother worked to turn his usual charm on Lucette, hampered as he clearly was by actual feelings. Amusing…and something else. Something darker.

Why should Julien have everything his own way?

Nicolas might have wanted Lucette in France for a very specific purpose, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate her virtues. Clever but innocent, highborn but generous, wary but willing to be won…he should have guessed that the honourable, romantic Julien would be smitten. Well, he didn’t mind opposing his brother for principle’s sake. Charlotte thought she had lured her friend here to capture a LeClerc son; for all anyone knew, it could just as easily be Nicolas.

So Nicolas didn’t mind when Julien maneuvered his horse to ride next to Lucette shortly after leaving Pithiviers. Letting him
have his pleasure while he could would make it all the more sweet when it ended.

Renaud took the opportunity to ride by Nicolas. Through the turmoil of the last years—especially Nicole’s death—Renaud and Nicolas had maintained the relationship they had settled into early in Nicolas’s adolescence: his father rarely correcting him, Nicolas keeping up appearances as a respectful eldest son. Julien and Renaud had often argued long and loudly, but Nicolas knew what was expected of him, and was careful to keep up the image of those expectations. He knew people said he and Renaud were alike, but that only proved how good he was at manipulating responses.

The one thing he had never been able to completely hide from his father was his bitterness.

“She is a very lovely girl,” Renaud said in an offhand manner that didn’t deceive Nicolas. “Of course she would be, being who she is. But I confess I did not expect both my sons to be intrigued by her. You and Julien are usually so different.”

“Meaning I married dutifully at twenty-two and produced a son? Or that only Julien could be expected to still find a lovely girl…desirable?”

Renaud was not a man to be ruffled. “Meaning that I wonder at my wisdom in allowing her to visit. It is one thing to welcome a girl born in our house—it is another to set my sons at odds.”

“How can we be at odds? I will never marry again, and Julien knows it.”

He let the bitterness leak into his words, for it would help blind his father to his true interest in Lucette. That she was lovely was a pleasant surprise—but what he wanted from her, he would take if she were covered in pockmarks or had lost all her teeth.

And if his interest tormented Julien, so much the better.

—

It was just as well, Julien decided, that he had Lucette Courtenay’s presence to distract him on the road to Blanclair, or he might have
been driven mad by memories and bolted back to Paris. He had not been south since his mother’s death, keeping his clandestine activities confined to areas well away from Orléans and St. Benoit sur Loire. During the last hour of their ride, it was as though every tree, every bend of the road, every vista called to him body and soul.
Welcome home
, they said—and, beneath that, the accusatory hint of:
You should not have stayed away so long
.

But Julien was adept at suppressing accusatory voices, so he shoved these reactions below the more immediate tension of keeping an eye on Lucette and wondering how the hell he was supposed to pull information from her. In just the relatively short time of travel, it was abundantly clear that she was no simpering girl to prattle away English royal secrets to the first man who paid her any attention. Julien knew how to work with those girls. He also knew how to work with women as suspicious as he was, who would trade information for information and whose morals stretched only as far as their self-interest. But Lucette was not that sort of creature, either.

Indeed, he thought there would be only one way to approach Lucette: honestly. Or at least as honestly as possible. Which meant letting his initial immediate attraction guide him, to approach her as, in another world, he might have: as a woman who intrigued and attracted him in equal measures. And that would be no easy task, particularly when she still seemed as smitten by Nicolas as when she was ten years old.

Julien at first did not recognize the grip of displeasure that took hold when Nicolas rode beside her to her obvious pleasure. When he did recognize it as jealousy, he had to repress a groan at the predicament. What a mess! His Catholic contacts wanted information from a woman his sister had enticed to France to marry either her dissolute, wanton brother, or her damaged and solitary brother. And now it seemed both brothers were actually amenable to her charms.

So really, by the time they all clattered into the courtyard of Blanclair,
Julien was in such a welter of emotions that he nearly turned his horse around and made straight back for Paris. But there was one person at Blanclair Julien would never ride away from, and that person stood waiting on the steps.

“Uncle Julien!” Felix cried, and launched himself down the steps so quickly that Julien barely managed to dismount before the boy was upon him. He was absurdly pleased at being greeted before anyone else and swept the boy off the ground and into an embrace that turned into a spin.

“How tall you’ve grown,
mon petit
!” Julien exclaimed when the seven-year-old was once more on firm ground. “Soon you will have to be the one to lift me.”

Felix turned pink with pride and stood straighter in an attempt to come near his uncle’s height. He was tall for his age, with hints of the gangly years to come when a boy was all arms and legs and had no idea how to coordinate them. He had his dead mother’s brown hair and eyes, but his smile was all Charlotte’s sweetness untinged by either his uncle’s mockery or his father’s resignation.

“Felix,” said Renaud, and the boy instantly turned to his grandfather. “It is polite to greet a guest first.”

“Of course,
Grandpère
.” Felix made a charming bow to Lucette. “
Pardon, mademoiselle
. I hope your journey was without trouble. Welcome to Blanclair.”

“Thank you.” In just those two words, Lucette met Felix on the ground he was so eager to establish—that of a contemporary. From her tone, one would never know she spoke to a child and Julien unwillingly added that to the things he liked about her. “I hope,
monsieur
, that you will show me your home.”

“You do not remember it?” Felix asked unguardedly.

“No, for I was not even a year old when I returned to England. Perhaps you will help me remember.”

“Certainement, mademoiselle.”
Felix glowed with her approval, and Julien thought resignedly that one more LeClerc male seemed all too
eager to fall for Lucette Courtenay. The thought made him snort and sent him moving toward the house, the horses relinquished into the effacing but well-trained hands of Blanclair’s grooms.

He felt his father’s disapproving eyes at his ungracious retreat, but so be it. He needed to be alone to settle his head. And heart.

But Blanclair had too many memories for Julien to find a clear head. Everywhere, he felt his mother, as though Nicole would step around a corner or appear on a landing at any moment. This is why I haven’t come home, Julien thought with gritted teeth. I don’t like ghosts.

There were only two ways he knew to keep ghosts at bay—well, all right, three ways, but he wasn’t about to take any of his father’s maids to bed. So it was either drink heavily or work.

He supposed there wasn’t really a choice. Renaud did not tolerate drunkenness in his home, and his Paris masters had demanded information. Time to get to work on Lucette Courtenay.

—

Though Lucette had no memories of Blanclair, only stories told by her mother and Carrie of their time here, she found herself unexpectedly moved as she settled into the beautiful chateau. Compared to Tiverton and Wynfield Mote, both medieval—in design if not actual age—Blanclair was distinctly modern and French. Built by Renaud’s father in a horseshoe pattern, the three symmetrical wings of white stone rose to steeply sloping slate roofs. There were arcades and mullioned windows, the family coat-of-arms in plaster surrounds, and gardens that Lucette found frankly astonishing in their elegance and design.

The engaging young Felix, taking his task seriously, appointed himself her guide and was solicitous that she see every corner of the house and every vista in the gardens and courtyards. The afternoon after her arrival, they spent several hours together. Though the chateau itself was pleasingly lovely, it was the gardens that were the real star.

Linden trees formed the avenues separating four terraced gardens. They began at the bottom, with two acres of decorative vegetable gardens, plants carefully arranged in geometric shapes. Then came the Garden of Love (instructed Felix), its box hedges and yew trees the structure within which colours ran riot in embroidery-like symbols. Then the water garden and, at the top, the Sun Garden. From there one could look down on each of the terraces below, giving a spectacular overview of the symmetry and geometry that contained without stifling the boisterous abundance of plant life.

Once released by Felix, it was a relief to escape to the guest chamber set aside for her use. She was glad she had not brought a maid with her from England, for it gave her more solitude. Renaud had provided an attendant from his household, but with no woman currently residing at Blanclair, the girl was unused to tending a lady and unlikely to press her way into Lucette’s business without direct orders. So Lucette was able to tidy her face and hair, breathe deeply, and focus.

First things first. Whenever she was about to embark on a new course of study, Dr. Dee had taught her how to make a space for the information in her mind so that it was readily accessible whenever she might need it.
Books are not always available
, he’d lectured,
nor other tangible sources of information. You must learn to store it all in your memory
.