The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(37)
It was only two miles to the inn, and Lucette passed the time not, as she should, in preparing for what lay ahead, but in uncomfortable dwelling on this afternoon. Uncomfortable because she had completely lost her head and her ready tongue the moment she’d seen Julien with a damp shirt clinging to his chest, hair tousled as though he’d just risen from his bed.
We have been swimming, Felix had announced, as though she could not see that perfectly well for herself. She had brothers—she knew men swam without any clothes—but having Julien stand so near her without the armor of doublet and stockings, brocade and silk, had given her far too vivid an impression of the body beneath the linen shirt and low-slung breeches. So she had flushed to her hairline, stuttered like a girl, and run away as soon as Felix unwittingly gave her a way out.
But once fled to her chamber, easy enough to put in motion the plan that had been swirling in her head for several days.
Before she knew it, the village appeared and the very first inn tavern that Lucette had ever entered alone. That did require a few deep breaths and a stern reminder that she knew what she was doing. (That latter phrase mostly thrown defiantly at Dominic’s imagined disapproval. Somehow, she thought her mother might understand and, if not approve, at least find it amusing.) The carved sign in the shape of a nightingale steadied her nerves, reminding her as it did of the seriousness of her purpose. As well as the likelihood of finding something provocative in a place that might well be the namesake of Walsingham’s suspected plot.
The difficulty in blending into the tavern crowd, Lucette quickly found, would be her voice. And her posture. And her white hands. She was a quick study, though, and after a half hour spent lurking in the shadowy corner, felt safe enough to drift around the room, ears open.
But it wasn’t her ears men were interested in. Lucette had thought herself prepared to be leered at, but she quickly learned that these sorts of men did not confine themselves to leering. They were free with both their hands and their comments, and she had to keep reminding herself that here she was neither the acknowledged daughter of the Duke of Exeter nor the unacknowledged niece of the Queen of England, and thus could not afford to be outraged at the liberties.
She had decided she didn’t dare pass as French, so Lucette made herself into Ellen, a half-English orphan trying to get back to her mother’s Catholic family in Provence. As long as she allowed a hand to wander every now and then, she found men willing to talk about the LeClerc family.
The general tenor of the community was respect for Renaud and a deep and genuine liking of his late wife. Lucette heard more than one reference to Nicole’s kindness, her care for individuals regardless of position or—interesting in this valley—religion. There had been violence in the area (Lucette had seen that for herself at Fleury) and death, but not the wholesale slaughter seen in other communities. “Blanclair wouldn’t stand for it,” was a phrase she heard more than once.
As for the younger members of the family, Julien was spoken of fondly as a youth, more outgoing and easy in his camaraderie than his older brother. Nicolas, for all that he’d spent the last eight years at the chateau, was spoken of more warily. Respect, she supposed, but not as instinctive as that given Renaud. There was a general sense that he’d shut himself up since his wife’s death, and the same wondering Lucette had: why had he not remarried?
One of the traveling men pronounced, half-drunkenly, “Could be taking a single wife for honour’s sake was enough. Mayhap he prefers boys.”
There was a burst of laughter at that. “No, no.” One of the villagers slapped him on the back. “Nicolas LeClerc was wild for the girls since he was a lad. In and out of more beds in the area than any six men combined. No, if he’s not married again, it’s for a damn good reason. Maybe there’s a fortune says he has to remain widowed to lay his hands on it.”
“Maybe he loved his wife,” Lucette ventured. This did not draw the same outburst of loud laughter, but she had the definite sense of amusement at her na?veté.
As the night tipped toward the witching hours, Lucette began to grow dizzy. No doubt a result of the fug of smoke and the ale and no food and trying to keep her head and speak like someone who didn’t personally know the Queen of England. She had just decided to escape back to the chateau and hopefully clear her head on the way when Julien walked in.
Lucette froze. Had he learned of her absence, tracked her down? But she realized almost at once that Julien had no idea she was here. She assumed he must have looked the room over, but she had her head tucked down so far her chin was on her chest. When she dared peek, she saw that he had settled himself at a private table that no one interrupted until a most disreputable man confidently sat down across from him.
She was torn between sneaking out and watching the encounter. Surely this was evidence—for what legitimate purpose could Julien LeClerc be meeting with a man like that in a tavern? Finally she decided to wait for Julien to leave and then tackle the unsavory man herself.
She never got the chance. On her next quick peek to the corner, Julien was looking straight at her, horror writ large on his face.
She stepped away from the table so hurriedly that she upset her chair. Julien reached her in five strides and gripped her arm above the elbow.
“Hey, now!” One of the merchants she’d been talking to protested. “Hands off, she was ours first.”
Julien glared down at him, eyes blazing, and, through the haze of drink, the man recognized the lord of the manor. Julien’s cultured voice didn’t hurt, either. “I think I’ll exercise my droit de seigneur,” he said cuttingly, and pulled Lucette after him out the tavern door into the inn yard.