The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(2)
ONE
Nonsuch Palace rang with merriment and music on this long winter night, for 21 February 1580 marked the birth of Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales and Queen Elizabeth’s sole heir to the English throne. This year was a particularly grand celebration, for Anabel, as she was known to her intimates, had reached the age of eighteen. The courtyards, ballrooms, and corridors of Henry VIII’s delicately wrought Nonsuch Palace bubbled with not only celebration, but speculation. Elizabeth had always kept her daughter closely guarded and at one remove from her court. But now that Anabel was eighteen, surely the queen must begin to give serious thought to her daughter’s future consort.
Lucette Courtenay had wished Anabel well earlier in the day and did not feel compelled to fight her way through tonight’s flatterers simply to lay particular claim to her childhood friend. Anyway, Pippa and Kit were both at her side. Lucette’s twin siblings would be eighteen themselves within the week and they had always taken Anabel as one of their own, a trio adept at going their own way and charming themselves out of trouble when necessary. At twenty-two, Lucette felt herself much more than four years their elder.
Her brother Stephen caught her eye as she turned away. “Leaving already?” he asked, his deep voice so much like Dominic’s that it always startled her.
“You know I’m not interested in festivities as such. Besides, I’ve been summoned.”
“A private assignation?” He might have been teasing. “Should I follow at a discreet distance to guard your honour?”
“I’m quite capable of guarding my own honour,” she retorted. “Not that Dr. Dee is likely to threaten it.”
He laughed softly as she left.
Slipping through palace corridors that became decreasingly populated the farther she moved away from England’s royals, Lucette did not bother to wonder why Dr. Dee had sent for her. John Dee had been her tutor and mentor since she was fourteen, and Lucette was accustomed to his unusual demands. He might have anything to say to her tonight: from a debate on whether “algeber” or “algebar” was the correct term for that field of mathematics to a request to sight the stars with him. She hoped it wasn’t the latter. It was really very cold outdoors, and not that much warmer in the tower room up the four flights of spiral stairs that she climbed now. She was resigned to nearly anything.
But when Lucette knocked and was told to come in, she found herself very surprised indeed. Dr. Dee awaited her, as expected, but so did another man, one who stood with his back to the fire so that his figure was outlined in hazy light. She knew that figure, as did everyone at England’s court and many outside it: Francis Walsingham. Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary and intelligencer.
Severe in his black clothing and somewhat devilish with his pointed beard, Walsingham said, “Welcome, Lady Lucette. And thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t come for you,” she replied, only realizing her rudeness as she spoke. She pressed her lips tightly together, determined not to be shaken.
Amusement ghosted through Walsingham’s eyes as John Dee said mildly, “Don’t let’s stand on ceremony, my dear. Be seated, and hear Sir Francis out.”
What else could she do? One did not flout the requests of Francis Walsingham. Besides, she trusted Dr. Dee, as much as she trusted anyone, and knew he would not be involved in subterfuge if he did not think it necessary.
Lucette let her amber-coloured skirts bell around her as she sat. She was accustomed to simpler gowns and adornments, but one could not grow up Minuette Courtenay’s daughter without learning how to use even fabric to one’s advantage. Not that she had ever acquired her mother’s instinctive grace.
“What may I do for you, Master Secretary?” she asked coolly.
“You do not consider that perhaps I may be interested in doing something for you?”
She tilted her head thoughtfully. “You do not engage with those who cannot be useful to you in some way. And as I have never yet done you any favours of which I am aware, then there is nothing that you could owe me.”
Walsingham inclined his head, again with that faint air of amusement that managed to highlight his intensity rather than diminish it. “You are your mother’s daughter,” he murmured.
There had been a time when that would have been the highest praise Lucette craved. But now she heard only the unspoken corollary: Your father’s daughter, on the other hand…
Before she had to ask again, Walsingham sat across from her and proceeded to business. “You have been invited to France by Charlotte Bertran. I would very much like you to accept her invitation.”
Now doubly surprised, Lucette said, “I have not even spoken of that at home yet. How did you know?” But the answer was evident. “Ah, because you have read my letters. Is that a long habit of yours?”
“No. But Charlotte Bertran is the daughter of Renaud LeClerc. And I am, shall we say, interested in anything from that quarter just now.”
“Why? Surely you do not expect to turn anyone in the LeClerc household to your service.”
“It is your service that interests me.”
Lucette’s gasp was half laugh, half shock. She looked from Walsingham to John Dee, inscrutable as always in the candlelight, then back. “You want me to turn intelligencer? I am a woman.”