The Virgin's War (11 page)

She knew she was hurting Julien. The fact that he allowed her to do so without protest only increased her need to lash out. Just as well they separated, before her wish to hurt could do permanent damage.

Thinking the worst encounter behind her, Lucette forgot that there was another man in her house at the moment who knew all too well her instinct to push everyone away when she was hurting. As she made up lists for the smooth running of Compton Wynyates while she was gone—though her staff could very well have run the entire estate without direction—she was interrupted by her father.

“Walk with me,” Dominic half asked, half ordered.

With a sigh, Lucette agreed. Better to have this conversation away from the house. Not that she was sure what he wanted to talk about. Her failings, probably, being that they were so very obvious just now.

But he had a habit of neatly surprising her. Instead of asking about her health or Julien or the obvious tension in their home, her father mused, “Did you know there was a time that I left your mother? I don't mean the short separations of travel or of business necessity—I mean I left your mother and very nearly never went back.”

She could not have been more stunned if he'd struck her in the head. “What?”

They skirted the perimeter of the formal garden and strolled silently across the turf edged with wildflowers before her father answered. “It was after Stephen's birth. He was meant to be born at Tiverton, but like you, he was in a hurry to get here. We were still at Wynfield Mote when he came. Once Christmas had passed and your mother was on her feet again and doing well, I traveled to Tiverton to ensure the estate and its people were not suffering from the deep cold.

“Or at least,” he continued, “that was what I told myself. I may even have believed it—but your mother did not. I think she knew from the first.”

“Knew what?”

“How very much Stephen's birth had shaken me.”

“Stephen? But he was undoubtedly…I mean, there could be no question…”

“That he was my son?” Dominic asked with irony. “Of course. It was not logical. I understood that at the time. If I were going to be hurt by any child, it should have been you.” He slid his gaze sideways to her. “I trust I no longer need to assure you that was never the case. From the first moment I laid eyes on you—all plump and fierce at a year old—I not only loved you absolutely but had not the slightest misgivings about my ability to do so.”

Lucette shook her head. “I think Mother must be right. You think too much.”

“Yes, well—I went to Tiverton in January and kept making excuses why I could not return to Wynfield. The weather, the servants, the state of the tenants' holdings…I exploited every single thing I could. Your mother did not press me. She continued to write, and I continued to reply in increasingly fewer words. Stephen's birth, it seemed, had opened every wound I'd accumulated for years. I had spent most of that time blaming no one but myself. And I was not wrong to do so. But that meant I had neglected to face the fact that I was also angry with others. With the king, of course, but also with Elizabeth for not restraining Will, and most painful of all, I was angry with your mother.”

Lucette wasn't sure she wanted to hear any more. What use was it to discover that her parents' marriage had almost shipwrecked on the shoals of pain? If two such nearly perfect people could barely make things work, what chance had she and Julien?

Her father seemed to know precisely what to share and what to gloss over. “After six months, the cracks in our marriage began to be obvious to others. I knew I could not wallow any longer. I must learn to forgive…everyone. I just didn't know how to do it. And then I spent an afternoon helping a farmer repair the roof of his barn. He was an old man—seventy if he was a day—but still insisted on clambering up and down ladders and scampering at heights that made me uncomfortable. And he liked to talk.”

He drew a breath and let it out, then smiled at Lucette. “For all my reputation, I seem to be talking quite a lot myself at the moment. I'll try to get to the point. The farmer had lost his wife the year before and he talked mostly about her. Not all of it complimentary, but with deep affection. And then he said something that made me pause. ‘The young are too apt to confuse love and worship. God and saints and angels are meant for worshipping—people are meant for loving. In the good and the bad, so the Church tells us. But I think it matters more in the bad.' ”

After that remarkable quote, her father fell silent and they walked together for a further ten minutes while her own mind fell surprisingly quiet. For no apparent reason, as she still didn't know how to reconcile love and grief and passion and fear.

Maybe she wasn't supposed to know. Maybe she was simply supposed to muddle through.

“Thank you,” she said finally, and slipped her hand into her father's.

“Don't thank me,” he said calmly. “Thank the farmer. Well, he's dead now, of course. But I made certain I would have cause every day to remember him.”

“How?”

“His name was Christopher Wheeler.”

“Ah,” she said in a burst of amused understanding. “So that's where Kit's name came from.”

“Yes.” He tightened his fingers around her hand. “The only way to have a life without pain, my darling girl, is to also have a life without love. And that is no life at all.”

By the time Maisie made her official bid to lead her grandfather's company, she was fairly certain that the entire city of Edinburgh knew what she intended. And half the ports of Europe as well. When a merchant and banking concern as large and wealthy as the Sinclair Company made a move to reorganize its leadership, people noticed. The board came together in full strength the second week of May to vote on whether to retain or dismiss Robert Sinclair as company head; at this point possibly the only person surprised by the entire affair was Robert himself.

Her brother shouted abuse at her for a while, until Stephen Courtenay took it upon himself to escort Robert out of the reception chamber of the Canongate house where she paced. Stomping feet and slamming doors followed in the wake of his departure.

“Thank you,” Maisie said distractedly.

“If he weren't your brother, I would have silenced him in a more straightforward manner.”

“Don't hold back for my sake.” But her retorts were mechanical, for every beat of her heart was locked fast in the council room three streets away.

She was as sure as she could be that they would vote in her favour—which was not as sure as she would like. Her plans and presentations had been flawless. The company had steadily lost money and influence since her grandfather's death five years ago. Left to Robert, the Sinclair Company might well cease to exist within another ten years. Maisie knew she could change that. And if the board members allowed themselves to decide based on logic and sound business sense, then she would prevail. If, however, they allowed their conservative natures to dictate that a woman—particularly a young and unmarried woman—could not possibly run a concern of this size…

She had made her gamble. All that waited now was the fall of the dice.

“Mariota.”

Stephen stepped into her path, putting a hand out to stop her restless pacing before she walked straight into him.

She blinked and looked up at him. Such a long ways she always had to look—it never failed to disconcert her. Then she smiled. “Am I making you uncomfortable? I apologize.”

“No need.”

“Stephen,” she said, and impulsively reached for his hand. “Distract me. Tell me a story.” Holding his hand, she pulled him to the carved wooden settle built into the wall next to the fireplace.

“What sort of story?” he asked warily.

“Tell me about growing up in a noble household. What was it like being raised as the son of the Duke of Exeter?”

“Those are two different requests,” he said. “For I believe my family is not wholly representative of nobility.”

“Do you miss it? Not your family, of course you miss them—your title, I meant. Do you miss being Lord Somerset, with all its position and responsibilities?”

“Sometimes. The responsibilities more than the position…or maybe that is simply what I want to believe of myself. All my life I knew who I was and where I belonged. Now?” He shrugged.

“Your title did not make you who you are, Stephen Courtenay. And you could belong wherever you cared to try.”

“Like Scotland?” he half teased. “If so, one can only hope I make a better job of it than I did in Ireland.”

His immediate future, as much as Maisie's, rested upon the board's decision. Stephen had promised her that if she were named head of her grandfather's company, he would take command of her mercenary force. If not, then he would go to the Netherlands.

At the thought of losing Stephen as well as her grandfather's company, Maisie jumped again to pace. This time he stopped her by encircling one of her wrists with his fingers. Keeping her thus lightly caught, he said nothing. He just looked at her.

She had seen that sort of focused look before, in Ireland. It had never been turned on her. It had always been the gorgeous, sensuous Ailis Kavanaugh who had captured Stephen's attention to such an intense degree.

Instantly, Maisie corrected herself.
This is not the same look at all. It's simply that I'm susceptible to any man who manages to actually see me.

Well, perhaps not just any man.

“Mariota,” he said softly. “If there were any justice in this world, you would not only be running the Sinclair Company already, but the whole of Scotland as well. I have never met a woman with the force of character to equal you—except perhaps Queen Elizabeth.”

“Being the good Scot that I am, I'm not sure I take that as a compliment.”

Stephen Courtenay had the most beautiful smile—perhaps because he so rarely bothered to produce it. Maisie's head spun a little and she remembered that she hadn't eaten today. Where his hand touched her wrist, she felt her skin burn. His hazel eyes didn't waver from hers.

Just when Maisie knew she couldn't stand another second of that charged silence, the door to the corridor was flung open. She snatched her hand away the moment Stephen released her. Maisie whirled round, expecting to see Robert returning to throw more tantrums.

It was not her brother. It was Andrew Boyd, and Maisie's heart began to flutter in an entirely different manner. Good heavens, she thought crossly. I'm turning into the epitome of feminine weakness.

There was no clue in Boyd's reticent Scots face. Maisie faced him, feeling Stephen rise to stand just behind her shoulder, and waited.

Still with that inscrutable air, Boyd said calmly, “Congratulations, Mistress Sinclair. The board of the Sinclair Company has agreed to pension off your brother, Robert, and to give his voting shares to yourself. Welcome to the business, Maisie lass.” That last was said with genuine pleasure, and then Boyd had taken her hands in his and kissed her on the cheek as though she were his own granddaughter.

She could hardly breathe. Who knew that achieving what one wanted was almost as terrifying as failure?

“Well done, Mariota,” Stephen said softly behind her.

Perhaps it was the relief, or the light-headedness from hunger, or sheer recklessness—in any case, Maisie turned and threw her arms around Stephen in a hug. It could have been exceedingly awkward, for he was so tall, but he bent to accommodate her and, her arms clasped around his neck, lifted her by the waist and twirled her in a triumphant embrace.

“I did it.”

Maisie hardly knew she'd spoken aloud until Stephen replied, “I never doubted you for a moment. Whatever you want, you will find a way of having.”

“And I want you next,” she said recklessly, then blinked and cleared her throat. “To lead my soldiers, I mean. That was our agreement, was it not?”

“That was our agreement. I will not fail to keep my word.” Stephen twisted his mouth in a wry smile. “And I shall thank the angels above that I don't have to go to the Netherlands. I don't speak Flemish at all well.”

On May 14 the town of York shone brightly beneath a benign sun that seemed to promise only excellent things for the history-making day ahead. It began with a service at York Minster, which had been carefully designed to balance Catholic sensibilities with the Anglican service. The music was composed by William Byrd, well-known for his Catholic sentiments, and even Tomás Navarro unbent enough to compliment Anabel on that, though he declined to attend. She was in little doubt that the reports to her father on this day would be favorable.

After the service, Anabel processed from the Minster through the streets, taking a roundabout route to the Treasurer's House to allow the gathered citizens to see and cheer her. She admitted that it pleased her royal vanity to revel in the joy expressed at her appearance. One did not grow up Elizabeth Tudor's daughter without knowing how to exploit one's appearance for symbolism's sake. Today, Anabel had dressed in white to emphasize her youth and purity. As pearls had become in many ways her mother's emblem, Anabel had taken to adorning herself with diamonds. Restrained, and never vulgar, today they were in the ribbons that held her hair back from her forehead and sewn around the high neckline of her gown. At her throat was the enameled green panther Kit had given her, and on her hands she wore only the locket ring from her mother.

Her hair, which had grown back as thick and red as it had been before the scarlatina, fell loose to nearly her waist. A banner, her mother had always called their shared colouring—the banner of their royal Tudor blood.

The largest space in the Treasurer's House had been transformed into a royal council chamber. Anabel had a throne almost to rival her mother's—perfectly judged, as had been every other detail of this day—with the gorgeously embroidered colours of the Princess of Wales on the canopy above. She took her seat and rested her hands on the gilded and jeweled arms of her chair and coolly regarded the men and women offering obeisance.