The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(27)
“I should like that.”
Lucette glanced at Nicolas, wondering if she could invite him as well, but Julien said roughly, “If you’d rather go with my brother, of course…”
Nicolas rescued her. “I have estate business to do with Father tomorrow. Enjoy yourself, Lucette.”
She looked back to Julien, the same grey eyes as his brother, but inspiring quite different feelings. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough for all your attention.” She meant it to tease, but there was a catch in her voice that left her a little breathless.
Julien seemed to feel it as well, for his voice dropped to something confidential. “Then I shall have to be brave for the both of us.”
The tension was broken by Felix, who asked hopefully, “May I come, Uncle?”
“You, young sir, have lessons to do. If you work hard with your tutor tomorrow, I will spar with you in the afternoon. And perhaps Mademoiselle Lucette will favour us with her presence—she quite liked watching LeClerc boys spar when she was younger.”
Julien winked at her, and Lucette knew that the two of them were now engaged in sparring of quite another nature.
Before she slept that night, Lucette wrote to Dr. Dee. She could have encoded it to an algebraic equation, but chose the faster method of their key phrases. She told herself it was because she was tired, not because her mind kept stealing away to images of Julien—the grey eyes that seemed meant for seduction, the way his blond hair fell about his face until her fingers itched to push it away. Whatever the reason, she had a hard time keeping to mathematics.
Dear Dr. Dee,
The journey was uneventful. I have found Blanclair to be more moving than I expected, and the family has been nothing but welcoming.
You may report to my family that I am taking it all in to remember later. And yes, I am keeping up with my reading in German.
Lucette Courtenay
SEVEN
Julien whistled his way down the stairs next morning, jubilant at the thought of several hours alone with Lucette. Not even his brother’s troubled expression as they passed on the steps bothered him.
“Don’t worry, Nic, it’s just an hour or two of riding. Even I can manage to be polite for that length of time.”
“Rather more than polite,” Nicolas said slowly. “Julien, this is not one of your Paris society ladies. Don’t insult her—and don’t get either of your hopes up.”
That sobered Julien, for he knew Nicolas was right. Whatever Charlotte’s plans (and his own rebellious emotions), there were no marital options for Lucette, he thought as he strode out to the courtyard. Not here. How disappointed Charlotte would be when Lucette returned to England without a husband, leaving him to his dissolution and Nicolas to his solitude.
Lucette was already mounted in the Blanclair courtyard, atop a fine-boned chestnut mare that might have been chosen to highlight her appearance. She could not have looked more lovely if she were deliberately trying to snare him. Though they had shared the road for three days from Paris, today she wore a riding dress he hadn’t seen before. Rather than a ruff, an organza partlet rose from the square neckline to her throat in a maddening tease of sheerness; the dress itself was black embroidery on a white background. She might have been one of the ancient Greek deities condescending to visit mortals for her own pleasure: Aphrodite, perhaps, or the more elusive Athena.
Julien felt the hard truths of his life slip away and, with reckless abandon for either of their hearts, decided to revel in the pleasures of the moment.
As he took his reins from a groom and swung into his own saddle, he said lightly, “Good morning, Lucie. May I call you Lucie?”
At his request to address her so familiarly, she blushed but her voice was steady in reply. “I suppose since you’ve actually known me longer than my own siblings, you may as well.”
The two of them rode out of the courtyard unaccompanied. He carried two long daggers about him, and they would not go farther than the village. St. Benoit sur Loire was not Paris; there was little need to suspect violence at every moment. When they were well down the long, tree-lined road that led away from the chateau, Julien picked up the previous conversational thread. “What I recall of you as a baby is precious little, I’m afraid. I hardly paid any attention to my own little sister in those days.”
“And my mother? Did you pay her as much attention at Blanclair as you did when you came to Wynfield Mote?”
“Ah.” Julien fumbled for a moment, then remembered that honesty was his only hope. “Lady Exeter was an uncommonly kind woman to a small boy, though I do remember that she rarely smiled. Only at you, in point of fact.”
“You were…seven years old then?”
“Yes. I knew that your mother had lost her husband in England—at least, we all thought so at the time—and that the king was angry with her. Nicolas had a memory of Dominic visiting Blanclair years before that. I was too young to remember him, but Nic told me he was that rarest of creatures—an honest Englishman.” Julien paused. “Do you know, the first time I ever saw my father cry was the day he got the news that Dominic Courtenay was still alive.”
Lucette drew a breath that might have had a slight hitch to it. He had not thought to wonder what reactions might be called forth by her return to the place of her birth. But she did not linger on that point. “Then you all came to Wynfield that long ago summer. Where you were old enough to realize how very beautiful my mother is.”