The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(38)
“What do you think you’re doing?” She jerked her arm away and turned on him, half furious and half humiliated.
“You’re welcome,” Julien retorted with elaborate insult. “Those men do not care who your father is. All they saw was a likely wench who was in way over her head.”
With her arm free, Lucette reached behind her back and had her bodice dagger out of its concealment beneath her waistband and in Julien’s face before he could insult her further. “I know what I’m doing,” she said, hating that she felt so fuzzy. “I was not over my head.”
He eyed the tip of the dagger, eyes nearly crossed, then smiled that seductive, mocking grin of his youth that she’d hated. “Where, Lucie mine, did you learn to wield a dagger so handily?”
Lucie mine. He had spoken the endearment in English.
Without moving it away, she said, “My father does not trust men with his daughters. He required us to be able to defend ourselves.” From somewhere below the fuzziness of her brain and the sinking hollow of her stomach, she realized she’d used the word father.
“A wise man,” Julien said.
“A dangerous man.” Finally she let the dagger drop, her hand feeling suddenly too heavy to hold up. “And don’t worry about the tavern, those men didn’t know me, they thought I was…” She hesitated over the description.
He smiled grimly. “You think you can disguise your nature with a little paint and none-too-clean skirts? Not in a thousand lifetimes could you ever pass for a…” It was his turn to hesitate, unsure how to proceed, which Lucette found amusing considering his Paris reputation.
“A whore.” She said it for him. “Men will say things around a whore that they won’t around a lady.”
“Damn right they will, and not a word of it do you want to hear. If my father finds out where you were—”
“He’d be angry.”
“He’d be furious! But if your father knew? Your extremely dangerous father who makes his daughters carry daggers? If Dominic Courtenay hears of this, he will hunt me the length and breadth of Europe and string me up like a dog!”
“This is nothing to do with you.” But isn’t it? For the most useful thing she’d learned all night was that Julien was meeting unlikely men in out-of-the-way places. Suggestive, at the least.
“Fine. If you’re so determined to play the whore, then allow me to give you some advice.”
Julien stepped into her space and Lucette refused to back away, though she was very conscious of his nearness. And even more conscious of the bristle of beard on his chin, the sharp plane of his collarbone, the solidity of his arms and chest. He extended a hand and laid it on her cheek. It took all her control not to flinch.
“Whores are cold creatures, Lucette. They’re in business, and though they may play the wanton, the only emotion that is ever truly roused is greed. You have no pretense in you. You are too warm and too honest and too…”
Her cheeks burned with the words and with the way he looked at her. He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Whores do not blush.” His hand stroked down her cheek to her throat, which fluttered with each catch of her breath. “Their breathing is always even…” His hand dipped farther, resting on the swell of her breast above her neckline. “…and their hearts do not beat faster with desire.”
Why was she so dizzy? Certainly not because of Julien. Not at all. She stepped away from his hand, so much more intimate than the strangers who had touched her tonight, and tried to think of something dignified to say. But the dizziness was growing worse, her ears were ringing and her head would not stay up and…
Down she went.
There followed a terribly long time of alternating dizziness and blackness and, most humiliating of all, vomiting. Or she would have been humiliated if she hadn’t been consumed by how awful she felt. She didn’t really become aware of her surroundings until she felt Julien going up steps, with her in his arms, and realized they were back at Blanclair.
Instinctively she squirmed to break free, but Julien said, “Don’t be stupid, Lucie. I’m taking you to bed.”
“But I’m too sick for that.” Only dimly did she realize what she’d said when she heard Julien choke back a laugh.
“I may not be gentleman enough not to take advantage of a beautiful woman, but I do like my women to be conscious. You’re safe with me.”
Yes, she thought, as the blackness slithered back for her, Julien will keep me safe.
TEN
“So, Philip and the Spanish are in Portsmouth,” Mary Stuart mused to her confessor, who had brought the news from the south. “And by the time they sail away, my dear cousin will no longer have a husband.”
She felt an exultation she worked hard to conceal. It would not do to let slip her excitement at what the coming weeks would bring. By summer’s end, there would be more changes in Europe’s royal landscape than simply the Queen of England’s divorce. As long as everyone kept their word and their heads, the game would be shaken into a completely new form. Mary could hardly wait.
Her confessor said, “It will be useful to hear other perspectives on the Spanish visit than our own. No doubt the young Lord Somerset will receive letters from his family. His younger siblings are exceptionally close to Princess Anne, and his parents have a long history with Elizabeth.”