The Virgin's Daughter (26 page)

“St. Bartholomew’s Day happened. I told you this. A girl I cared for was butchered, not to mention tens of thousands of others in the weeks that followed. Whatever the Catholics say, it was no carefully targeted assassination of political rebels. It was a massacre of innocents. And whatever you may think of me and my working for Walsingham, I do not care to see my countrymen wallow in the blood of their neighbors.”

“I meant…” She bit her bottom lip and her eyebrows drew together in concentration. “I meant more specifically—what happened to the girl? And to Nicolas?”

“What do you mean about Nicolas?”

“He told me he was severely injured during the riots. Did that have anything to do with you?”

No, and no again. He didn’t care how appealing Lucette Courtenay was, how she made his knees want to buckle into her and hold himself up on her soft shoulders, how the sight of her furrowed brow made him want to smooth it away with kisses…It didn’t matter. No one was going to get him to talk about Nicolas and Léonore
and Paris. Not even his brother or Renaud—the only two living beings besides him who knew the truth—ever spoke of it. Only occasionally, and pardonably, did Nicolas allude to it. And if that cut Julien to the heart, so be it. He knew he deserved much more.

But he suspected he wasn’t going to be very good at lying to Lucette.

So he did what he always did when cornered. He attacked. “If you’re so interested in my brother, why did you ask me to kiss you? The sake of curiosity? Or perhaps for comparison. Tell me, do I kiss as expertly as Nicolas?”

She never could control her colour. A flush swept her cheeks and neck and she willingly attacked right back. “I wouldn’t know. Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me. Although I cannot imagine why you care.”

“Surely you are not that innocent, Lucie. You know perfectly well why I care. Do you think I kiss every woman like that?”

“Only the ones who ask you.” But her voice was not as confident as her words, and suddenly Julien wondered if she’d wanted him to come after her. “Which must be a great many, considering the stories I’ve heard about you and women’s beds.”

He laughed aloud. “Since when does a hardheaded thinker like yourself accept stories at face value? I assure you, Lucette, if I spent half as much time in women’s beds as I’m credited with, I would not be able to walk straight.”

Flustered, as he’d intended, she dropped her gaze to the ground. What a mess! Walsingham and England and France and dead men and apparently plots even he knew nothing about…

And all he wanted was to be the sort of man who could tell her how he felt and see what happened next.

But even in honesty, Lucette was quicker than he was. “The Nightingale Plot might seem like a game to you, but Walsingham is not a man to jump at mere shadows. If he is worried for my queen’s life, then so am I. I don’t know exactly what your politics are—and
frankly, I don’t care. As long as those politics don’t include an attempt to destroy my own government.”

“I can’t prove a negative, Lucie. I have nothing to do with any Nightingale Plot, and that includes hearing about it from the Catholics who think I work for them. Either it’s been kept deliberately close to avoid leaks, or possibly I am suspect among the Catholics I’ve been lying to. Either way, I’m afraid I’m of little use to you in political matters. Though I am very interested in why Walsingham did not tell you about me when he sent you. Perhaps the English no longer trust me, either, which rather leaves me out of a job.”

“Are you sure there is nothing you have heard?”

He had been carrying it around with him for days. Now he drew out the flimsy metal badge he’d found in the dead man’s pocket. He handed her the rough image of a nightingale and said, “This was on the body. It argues that he, at least, knew of the plot. But if so, he said not a word to me. I would like to know why. If the Catholics have discovered I’m a traitor…well, their reach is much closer than Walsingham’s just now.”

She’d drawn in her breath in almost a hiss, and he could practically see the wheels in her mind turning. What he wouldn’t give to turn that mind off for a few moments. But then, he suspected, she would not be herself.

“I don’t suppose it’s any use telling you to quit prying,” he said resignedly.

“If you know nothing of Nightingale, then there’s no danger in my prying.”

He threw up his hands in frustration. “Fine. Ask your questions. Turn over your conclusions. Follow your suspicions to your heart’s content. Soon you’ll be on your way back to England and can tell Walsingham whatever you wish.”

And then, no matter how rude it was, he turned his back and walked away. If he didn’t, he might very well find himself spilling out words he couldn’t afford to say. She had come to Blanclair as a spy,
not a woman. If she left here with his heart, it was certainly far more than she’d intended. No need to burden her with it.

—

Lucette retired early that night, unwilling to sit through a family meal with all that turmoil of emotions beneath the surface. Her previous illness was a convenient excuse to retreat whenever she wished, and even Charlotte tactfully left her alone. If her friend was curious about what had occurred between Lucette and Julien after the training bout, for once she did not press.

Unable to sleep and unwilling to think deeply, Lucette spent an hour creating algebra equations. Not for ciphering purposes, since Dr. Dee would be with her very soon, but simply to give her overwrought mind something straightforward to think about. It worked, too—when a knock sounded on her door, Lucette jerked as though she’d been dozing.

It was a maid she’d never seen before, dressed for the kitchens or perhaps scullery. She looked highly nervous, as though afraid to be caught in the more elegant areas of the chateau, but also determined.

“Forgive me,
mademoiselle
. I am sorry to disturb.”

“It’s no disturbance. What can I do for you?”

The girl thrust something at Lucette, which turned out to be a tightly folded paper with an unmarked seal of wax keeping it closed. There was no covering address.

Perplexed, Lucette asked, “For me?”

“A boy brought it today, all the way from Orléans. Said it was for the English lady Courtenay.” She slightly mangled the name, but went stubbornly on. “He said I were to give it to you direct and no one should know.”

How very odd. “Thank you,” Lucette managed, and the maid scurried away as though she couldn’t get back to the kitchens fast enough.

The intricate folds, when undone, disclosed a fragment of a second
page. Lucette looked at the covering letter first, written in a careful but inexperienced hand.

I beg you to remember me, mademoiselle, as Anise who served you as best I knew. But my soul will not let me rest now I am gone from Blanclair and so I write to confess I sometimes reported on you to Monsieur Julien. There seemed no harm in his questions, but now I think I may have been wrong
.

When he sent me away, in my anger I returned to his chamber when it was empty and pulled this out of the fire. It had fallen to the hearth, and though I cannot read it, I saw your name
.

You were never anything but kind to me, and I am sorry for any harm I did. I am well enough now, serving in a fine house in Orléans, and there’s a gardener’s boy who will deliver this for me. Take care, mademoiselle
.

Shivering with anticipation and that singing sense beneath her skin that the puzzle was nearly shaken into a whole, Lucette studied the enclosed half page. It was written in Spanish.

…must be certain you can get into England without undue notice. Lucette, as you say, is the safest way. To travel as her intended would be for the best as it would attract the least notice. The window for action is narrow and the nightingale grows impatient
.

Spanish correspondents. Anise and at least one other reporting her movements. A fragment fished out of a fire. If this were a mathematical equation, all logic would point to one simple answer: Julien LeClerc was running Nightingale.

And he planned to use her to get himself to England.

Against the logic was only this—that the answer felt wrong. In her bones, Lucette could not make Julien fit into that answer.
Trust your instincts
, she’d been counseled. Well, her instincts told her that the answer was too convenient. Too perfect. She distrusted it.

And yet, she also distrusted herself. How could she, who had never made anything but a mess of her relationships, believe that Julien was innocent simply because she wanted him to be innocent?

On the other hand, the convenient, perfect answer might have been deliberately constructed to appear so. If, say, Julien were being framed. By a brother who hated him.

Nicolas and Julien. Everything came back to the brothers—and not just as individuals, but because they were brothers. She needed them both to unravel the truth. The fragment of the Spanish letter seemed real enough. Which meant that, in the few days left her at Blanclair, one of the brothers would move to persuade her to invite him to England.

And she would allow herself to be persuaded.

FIFTEEN

J
ust thirteen days into the Spanish visit, London erupted in violence. Burghley and Walsingham brought Elizabeth the news after she rose that morning. There was rioting in the city, apparently indiscriminate violence that upon closer examination had a pattern.

“Attacks on foreigners,” Burghley said as his fingers worried at a ring on his left hand. When the imperturbable Burghley fidgeted, it meant his nerves were pitched to an extreme. “Shops were looted and burned, apprentices beaten, women pelted with rotten vegetables and even some stones. The French Huguenots in particular were harried by both English and Spanish.”

“Do we have it in hand?” She hated sending troops into such volatile situations, but she could hardly afford to let London burn.

“I’d call it an uneasy truce at the moment,” Walsingham answered. “It needs but a spark to flame into greater violence. Such as the Spanish making statements about their wish to have Princess Anne matched to the Duc d’Anjou.”

“That’s been spoken of in London?” Elizabeth asked sharply.

“Not by us. I think you should ask His Majesty about the looseness of his men’s tongues.”

“Why would the Spanish leak gossip?”

“Perhaps merely for the pleasure of watching your kingdom turn upon itself.”

Elizabeth snapped her fingers at a lady hovering at the door. “Send word to Philip that I will see him in my privy chamber in one hour.”

No one played games with her people’s lives.

Having spent the hour being dressed and coiffed for battle, Elizabeth swept into her privy chamber, where Philip met her on his feet. They neither of them wasted time in pleasantries.

“Do you really think stirring unrest in London will gain you points with your daughter?” Elizabeth demanded of the Spanish king.

“One would say that your people live on the edge of unrest, and it hardly needs stirring for it to erupt.”

“What do you want, Philip?”

He hovered on the edge of an offhand retort, then his face darkened and she knew she was going to hear the truth. “What I want is a wife and daughter who are not determined to throw away their souls for the sake of pride. I loved you, Elizabeth, for yourself and not just your position, and well you know it. And Anne is my own flesh and blood. But you will not see reason. And thus I must tear out my affections to do what is right. England cannot hold out against the Church forever. Truth always wins, Elizabeth. I would not like to see you crushed in the coming fight, but that does not mean I will not wage it.”

“You are finished here.” Her voice was like a lash. “There is no point in further discussion. We both knew when we started how it would end: you will divorce me with the blessing of the pope and wed a faithful Catholic girl who will give you sons. And Anabel will follow me on the throne of England and hold firm against the threats
of petty religious demagogues. England is not to be bartered over. It is mine and my daughter’s after me, and there is no place for you here.”

“I am sorry for it. I indulged myself in a dream these twenty years because I loved you and because I hoped persuasion would be of greater influence than force. I should have known you better.”

“If it is force you want, Philip, do your worst. England will never bend to Spain.”

With his dark eyes full of memories and melancholy, Philip bowed to her one last time. “Farewell,
mi corazón
.”

My heart
. He had called her that on their wedding night, and on the day of Anabel’s birth. Elizabeth allowed herself one moment of private regret before resuming her mask as queen.

—

With very little fanfare, the Spanish left Hampton Court. They rode to Portsmouth under the courtesy guards of Elizabeth’s personal household, but there were almost no nobles to bid them farewell this time. Save the Princess of Wales, who’d had a flaming row with her mother and was finally permitted to spend the last days with her father before he sailed away for good.