The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(11)
Everyone had always assumed Julien was the libertine, because he was younger and lighthearted, with a ready tongue and open heart that won him friends everywhere. But when it came down to it, Julien was a romantic. He believed in things like true love and honour—sometimes Nicolas thought his brother should have been born three hundred years earlier. He was not hardheaded enough for the modern world.
Nicolas, however, knew how to appreciate what was in the world around him, not colour it with what he’d like it to be. And in the real world, he was wealthy, he was handsome, and he’d had girls flocking to his bed from the time he was fourteen. Take, for instance, their visit to England a dozen years ago. He had found plenty of pretty girls willing to welcome the two exotic Frenchmen, but Julien had spent the entire time mooning over the Duchess of Exeter. Not that Nicolas could fault his brother’s taste, for she was a truly beautiful woman. But Julien had as much chance of a kiss from Minuette Courtenay as he had of becoming pope—and why waste time dreaming over a woman with a husband as forbidding as Minuette’s when there were plenty of girls willing to help you forget?
Nicolas returned to the LeClerc town house on the banks of the Seine in a much more salubrious neighborhood than Julien’s. Another example of his brother’s mystifying rectitude—he preferred to provide for himself in the gutter rather than make use of their own home. All because he felt guilty: for what he’d done to Nicolas, for the lies he’d told his family these last eight years, for not being at Blanclair when their mother died.
He’d shown up in time for Nicole LeClerc’s funeral mass, making no excuses. Nicolas knew where he’d been and what he’d been doing, but he had let Julien hug his guilt to himself. Nicolas had a better use for that information than confronting his brother.
As he had very good use for Lucette Courtenay’s impending visit.
Before going to bed he wrote two letters at the mother-of-pearl inlaid desk that had belonged to his mother. The first was to Charlotte, assuring his sister that Julien would come home this summer.
The second was addressed to a man whose name was most certainly not the one by which Nicolas called him. She is coming, was all it said.
He smiled to himself. Lucette Courtenay had no idea what she was walking into.
—
The English court took up residence at Greenwich in mid-May, and it was there that Elizabeth received her onetime closest friends, Dominic and Minuette Courtenay. The Duke and Duchess of Exeter, despite their exalted titles and position, spent very little time at court, and Elizabeth had not tried too hard to change that over the years. It wasn’t always comfortable to be around those one had known quite so well in the days before one became queen.
She knew they would come this spring, however, for they had agreed to their daughter’s visit to France, and Lucette would depart from Greenwich with Dr. Dee, bound for Dover. Elizabeth braced herself for Minuette’s suspicious eyes and wary questions about her daughter’s trip, but in the event it was Dominic who asked to speak with the queen. Alone.
When he bowed to her in her privy chamber, Elizabeth felt a moment’s déjà vu rush upon her and remembered how William had always been caught between admiration and resentment of his friend. She quite understood her brother’s feelings now, for Dominic had a way of looking at you as though he knew every flaw in your character.
But he was, at heart, a gentleman and a loyal subject. “Your Majesty,” he said, “you are looking very well.”
“Let us hope my husband thinks the same later this summer. I mean to at least make Philip regret the necessity of divorcing me.”
“You will not protest?”
“I protest only when there is a reasonable chance of success. I’m afraid Philip and I have reached the end of our mutual usefulness to each other.”
“I am sorry for it,” Dominic said, and sounded genuinely as though he was sorry for Elizabeth herself, and not just because the ruler of England was losing the partnership of the ruler of Spain.
Disconcerted, Elizabeth said sharply, “Why are you here, Dominic? You never trouble yourself to come to my court unless it is to scold me about something.”
“I’m afraid that’s the only role I’m familiar with as far as royalty is concerned.” There was a shadow to his voice, and Elizabeth knew he was also seeing her brother, William, before him, young and eager and needing Dominic’s restraining hand.
Elizabeth refused to follow that painful path. “If you’re here to complain about Dr. Dee taking Lucette to France, I’m afraid you’ve left it rather late. They leave for Dover tomorrow.”
“I know. I will ride with them.”
Of course you will, she thought. “But you will not cross the sea with Lucette?” That would rather complicate matters, for Dominic’s sharp eyes and suspicious mind would be hard for Lucette to blind.
“She does not want me.” He said it plainly, almost disinterestedly. “No, I only wanted your personal assurance that Lucette will be well guarded to and from Renaud LeClerc’s hands. There is mischief abroad in Europe these days and some men have long memories. I would not have her hurt merely because she bears my name and the queen’s friendship.”
Not once in seven years had Dominic spoken to Elizabeth of the revelation she had forced upon his family, never openly acknowledged the eruption that must have followed in his own heart. But confronted with his stern, familiar face, Elizabeth felt something she so rarely did that it took her a moment to identify the emotion: guilt.