The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(48)
Elizabeth laughed. “That is Anne being mischievous. And no doubt young Kit was all too ready to play the game with her. The two of them have always been irrepressible.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. But there were definite concerns paid last night. I would say King Philip did not look particularly pleased at his daughter’s rather…affectionate behavior.”
“If King Philip knew his daughter better, he would not be concerned. Kit is merely a convenient piece for Anne to use. If it unsettles her father, all the better for England.”
Elizabeth could not deny, however, that Walsingham’s report left her slightly unsettled as well. Surely Anne was only playing. But when royals played with hearts—particularly Tudor royals—disaster tended to follow.
TWELVE
When Lucette woke the morning following Julien’s surprising revelation, her body luxuriated in remembered pleasure. Desire danced along her skin as she remembered the softness of his lips mixed with the roughness of his not-quite-shaven cheeks and chin. His hands were every bit as strong and steady as she’d guessed, and her own had gone from the solidity of his shoulders to where his hair curled slightly against his neck.
But marching along with those memories, her mind demanded that she pay attention to what he’d told her before those kisses. She was inclined to believe Julien about his working for Walsingham, but that didn’t mean she thought he’d told her anything approaching all of it. And nor had she in return.
And then there was the a priori puzzle: why had Walsingham sent her to Blanclair without all the necessary information? As she’d said to Julien, that might imply that Walsingham had cause to doubt Julien’s current loyalty. Or it might simply mean that he’d told her only what he thought she should know.
But of one thing she was certain: Nightingale was a true Catholic plot, with ties between Spain and France, aimed at depriving Elizabeth of her throne and setting Mary Stuart free. And she was also certain that Blanclair was part of that plot. Not because Walsingham had sent her here, but because of what she’d felt since her arrival. Things were not entirely as they seemed at the chateau, and she had that sense she got when she was on the verge of solving a puzzle: that all or nearly all the pieces were in her hand, and waited only for the last bit of information to tilt everything into its proper place.
Lucette spent the morning alone in her chamber, telling Charlotte she wanted to make sure she was strong enough for the upcoming ball but instead reviewing everything she’d gathered into the ledgers of her Memory Chamber. The time had come to sift out the important from the trivial, a process that she could not have explained if she tried. It was simply instinct, honed by Dr. Dee’s training in puzzles and logic and mathematics and even history. With little effort, the essential information appeared to her from among the rest.
She began with the servants.
The maids—five of them now, including Anise—who’d left Blanclair with little or no notice paid, were particularly troubling. Why would a young woman with few options for work leave a situation as stable as Blanclair? There could be a man involved, of course, a sudden elopement without wanting family to know, or a determination to seek out opportunities in a larger city. Orléans was only twelve miles off, or even Paris, which must exert the same kind of pull on French country girls as London did on English ones.
Lucette might more easily have believed any or all of those reasons if there had only been two or three maids vanishing—five was somewhat alarming. Had they come too close to a knowledge they should not have? But Nightingale was a relatively recent plot, according to Walsingham. What other secrets might be harbored here? Whatever they were, she was certain a connection to Nightingale existed.
Then there was the surly groom who apparently answered only to Nicolas and who was noted for coming and going at odd times and with no one else the wiser. What did Nicolas use him for? And last (or first) among the servants: Felix’s tutor, Richard Laurent. He of the impeccable Catholic credentials and thinly veiled contempt for everything English. Including her. On her second Sunday at Blanclair, she had thoroughly searched Laurent’s belongings while everyone was once again at Mass and found only what would be expected of a man both religious and scholarly.
The only item that had given her pause was a religious tract written in Spanish. The contents were no different from those in Latin or French or even the English ones scattered through London, but written in Spanish? Lucette remembered that narrow, nebulous thread she’d seen in Walsingham’s notes connecting France and Spain. Other than that, she admitted that she simply did not like Laurent and the open hostility with which he treated her.
Thus far, everything mysterious at Blanclair tied itself more to Nicolas than Julien. The tutor, the groom…and even the maids. Julien might have dallied with several of them, but the last three had gone away after Nicole LeClerc’s death, and he had not been anywhere near Blanclair in that time.
Turning the mental page of her ledger, Lucette confronted the family members. Felix was out, and so was Charlotte. (Charlotte not so much for lack of opportunities at Blanclair as because her entire being was open and outward. She would make the worst spy in the world.) Neither Andry, Charlotte’s husband, nor Renaud had been absolutely ruled out of Lucette’s calculations, but she considered them highly unlikely. She did not know Andry well, but nothing about him suggested duplicity or fanaticism. Besides, would he have the power at Blanclair to make housemaids disappear? As for Renaud—well, she could as easily believe that Renaud would resort to secrecy and plots as she could believe it of Dominic. Both men were painfully honest. Whatever they did, they would do openly.