The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(61)

—

Lucette retired early that night, unwilling to sit through a family meal with all that turmoil of emotions beneath the surface. Her previous illness was a convenient excuse to retreat whenever she wished, and even Charlotte tactfully left her alone. If her friend was curious about what had occurred between Lucette and Julien after the training bout, for once she did not press.

Unable to sleep and unwilling to think deeply, Lucette spent an hour creating algebra equations. Not for ciphering purposes, since Dr. Dee would be with her very soon, but simply to give her overwrought mind something straightforward to think about. It worked, too—when a knock sounded on her door, Lucette jerked as though she’d been dozing.

It was a maid she’d never seen before, dressed for the kitchens or perhaps scullery. She looked highly nervous, as though afraid to be caught in the more elegant areas of the chateau, but also determined.

“Forgive me, mademoiselle. I am sorry to disturb.”

“It’s no disturbance. What can I do for you?”

The girl thrust something at Lucette, which turned out to be a tightly folded paper with an unmarked seal of wax keeping it closed. There was no covering address.

Perplexed, Lucette asked, “For me?”

“A boy brought it today, all the way from Orléans. Said it was for the English lady Courtenay.” She slightly mangled the name, but went stubbornly on. “He said I were to give it to you direct and no one should know.”

How very odd. “Thank you,” Lucette managed, and the maid scurried away as though she couldn’t get back to the kitchens fast enough.

The intricate folds, when undone, disclosed a fragment of a second page. Lucette looked at the covering letter first, written in a careful but inexperienced hand.

I beg you to remember me, mademoiselle, as Anise who served you as best I knew. But my soul will not let me rest now I am gone from Blanclair and so I write to confess I sometimes reported on you to Monsieur Julien. There seemed no harm in his questions, but now I think I may have been wrong.

When he sent me away, in my anger I returned to his chamber when it was empty and pulled this out of the fire. It had fallen to the hearth, and though I cannot read it, I saw your name.

You were never anything but kind to me, and I am sorry for any harm I did. I am well enough now, serving in a fine house in Orléans, and there’s a gardener’s boy who will deliver this for me. Take care, mademoiselle.

Shivering with anticipation and that singing sense beneath her skin that the puzzle was nearly shaken into a whole, Lucette studied the enclosed half page. It was written in Spanish.

…must be certain you can get into England without undue notice. Lucette, as you say, is the safest way. To travel as her intended would be for the best as it would attract the least notice. The window for action is narrow and the nightingale grows impatient.

Spanish correspondents. Anise and at least one other reporting her movements. A fragment fished out of a fire. If this were a mathematical equation, all logic would point to one simple answer: Julien LeClerc was running Nightingale.

And he planned to use her to get himself to England.

Against the logic was only this—that the answer felt wrong. In her bones, Lucette could not make Julien fit into that answer. Trust your instincts, she’d been counseled. Well, her instincts told her that the answer was too convenient. Too perfect. She distrusted it.

And yet, she also distrusted herself. How could she, who had never made anything but a mess of her relationships, believe that Julien was innocent simply because she wanted him to be innocent?

On the other hand, the convenient, perfect answer might have been deliberately constructed to appear so. If, say, Julien were being framed. By a brother who hated him.

Nicolas and Julien. Everything came back to the brothers—and not just as individuals, but because they were brothers. She needed them both to unravel the truth. The fragment of the Spanish letter seemed real enough. Which meant that, in the few days left her at Blanclair, one of the brothers would move to persuade her to invite him to England.

And she would allow herself to be persuaded.





FIFTEEN




Just thirteen days into the Spanish visit, London erupted in violence. Burghley and Walsingham brought Elizabeth the news after she rose that morning. There was rioting in the city, apparently indiscriminate violence that upon closer examination had a pattern.

“Attacks on foreigners,” Burghley said as his fingers worried at a ring on his left hand. When the imperturbable Burghley fidgeted, it meant his nerves were pitched to an extreme. “Shops were looted and burned, apprentices beaten, women pelted with rotten vegetables and even some stones. The French Huguenots in particular were harried by both English and Spanish.”

“Do we have it in hand?” She hated sending troops into such volatile situations, but she could hardly afford to let London burn.

“I’d call it an uneasy truce at the moment,” Walsingham answered. “It needs but a spark to flame into greater violence. Such as the Spanish making statements about their wish to have Princess Anne matched to the Duc d’Anjou.”

“That’s been spoken of in London?” Elizabeth asked sharply.

“Not by us. I think you should ask His Majesty about the looseness of his men’s tongues.”

“Why would the Spanish leak gossip?”