The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(101)
It is a nasty wound he has—stomach wounds are always dangerous. Carrie and I have treated him as best we can and sent Harrington for the nearest physician. Lucette will not leave him, not even long enough to tell us what happened. Explanations will have to wait until Julien recovers.
If he recovers.
—
Lucette had never been a chatterbox, but alone in her chamber with Julien, she could not stop talking. She didn’t even know half of what she said—some of it was family history and some of it chess problems and some of it algebra—but she kept up a flow of words as though if she stopped talking, Julien would stop breathing.
He wasn’t unconscious, the physician said. And the wound had been cleaned and stitched, and as far as anyone could tell Nic’s dagger had missed anything vital. (The “as far as anyone could tell” was the significant part—there were any number of things they couldn’t tell that might yet prove fatal.) Carrie herself did most of the nursing, with Lucette’s stubborn and inexpert assistance.
But Julien remained out of reach. His eyes would open from time to time, and he swallowed the liquids forced upon him, but all with the greatest disinterest, as though his body responded instinctively while his mind remained firmly shut to the outside world.
For two days, Lucette did not leave his side. She slept in the chair, head resting on her arms on her bed.
“Lucie mine.” His voice was rough and soft, as though it hurt to speak.
She jerked awake, afraid for a second that she dreamed, but his eyes were open and he was not just looking at her, but seeing her.
“Julien!”
He blinked once, painfully, then in a single word asked everything he needed to know. “Nicolas?”
She nodded.
“I killed him.” It was not a question.
She didn’t know if she was glad or sorry that he remembered. “He tried to kill you. In more ways than one, and for far longer than just here in England.”
Did that make it any better? She didn’t think so, but she was desperate for him not to slip away from her again. “Julien, I need you. Don’t go away just because it’s easier. I know this world hurts, but I need you in it.”
She had never dreamed he could look so vulnerable. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough to live.”
“Then I shall be brave for the both of us,” she promised firmly.
—
Anne must have been watching for the royal banners, because she met Elizabeth and Walsingham half a mile outside the manor. Elizabeth almost remonstrated, in spite of the fact that Dominic and Kit had her surrounded by a dozen men, but when her daughter flew into her arms, she let herself be nothing more for a few moments than a grateful mother.
It could not last. Dominic had eleven men under arrest—and Elizabeth insisted on seeing Nicolas LeClerc’s body for herself. He and his second-in-command lay in the icehouse, the August heat already working on their remains.
“Put them in the ground,” she said abruptly. “Wherever you want. Unmarked. I don’t want anyone to make martyrs of these criminals.”
She stayed only one night at Wynfield Mote, for she needed to be back in London before the news of Mary Stuart’s escape broke. Burghley would need her to settle the nerves of the populace, and they had to decide how much information to release.
Also, Elizabeth could not but feel she was not entirely welcome. Dominic had an air of wanting to tell her to get out and take her royal daughter with her so his family might not be caught in a dangerous political cross fire again. She respected the emotion, but could not afford to indulge him.
In fact, she spent an hour that evening trying to persuade Minuette to persuade her husband into greater service. “He is needed,” she insisted to her friend. “Dominic is respected on all sides of the religious divide, and there is no man more likely to give me disinterested advice.”
“A man who is honest when he should not be?” Minuette shook her head. “He will not play that role again, Elizabeth. And it is selfish to ask him to.”
“I am queen. I am expected to be selfish.”
Minuette merely fixed her with a look that made Elizabeth feel as though the last twenty-five years had never happened and they were both young and reckless and free.
In a gesture of surrender, Elizabeth shrugged. “I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, your Stephen did good work at Tutbury. He is a natural leader, and good at gaining confidences. Am I forbidden to speak to him as well about future service to the crown?”
“Stephen is old enough to know his own mind. And speaking of children grown old enough, I think it would be a mistake to send Anabel back into seclusion. She is always going to be a target, Elizabeth, and she proved herself every bit your daughter during her ordeal. Use her—and perhaps you will find you enjoy her for her own sake.”
Just because she had four children to Elizabeth’s one didn’t mean Minuette was so much wiser. The sting of it made Elizabeth ask tartly, “And what of Lucette? I should like to speak to her before I leave. She owes me a report.”
And there between them was the last twenty-five years—the secrets that had made Elizabeth queen and Minuette subtle in defiance and conspiracy. “My daughter owes you nothing. I will not have her disturbed for your convenience.”
They left it at that for the evening. Elizabeth spent a little time alone with Anabel before bed, and promised her daughter that she could come to court in September when the news of Mary Stuart had been absorbed. “We will see what she does next, and decide our next move from there,” Elizabeth concluded.