The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(64)

This is my puzzle to solve, and my heart that is at risk in the solving of it.

He answered her readily enough. “The dead man appears to have been a certain English Catholic, exiled these ten years to France. No one of consequence, made his living doing the nastier sorts of work for various cardinals and conspirators.”

She stood up, suddenly as anxious to get away from Dr. Dee as she had before been eager to see him. He rose more slowly, watching her keenly. His eyes, which always looked into a distance Lucette could not fathom, were troubled—by her lies?—and she suddenly couldn’t bear the familiarity of his sober black attire and precisely pointed beard.

“I shall let you be, Lucette,” he said. “I am afraid this has been more difficult on you than you anticipated.”

“Did you anticipate it?” Did you see how my heart would be conflicted? she meant. How I cannot trust my mind when my feelings are so wrapped up in my conclusions?

But, like Pippa, John Dee never told her what she wanted to hear. “Don’t mistrust yourself,” was all he said. “Your instincts are as sound as your logic.”

When he left her, Lucette fled her chamber. She would have gone to the gardens, but they were filled with visitors in loud ecstasies of praise at their beauty. Instead she took the river path down to the point where that mysterious body had lain.

She was not the only one who’d fled the house and gardens. Sitting on a flat-topped rock overlooking the river was Nicolas.

Hesitating, unsure whether to disturb him or if she felt up to conversation, Lucette had the decision made for her when he half turned and smiled.

“Looking for a hiding place?” he asked drily.

“Clearly I’m not the only one.”

“I confess, I find the crowds…wearying,” he said. “Strange to think how I once thrived in large circles. Now I prefer my own company and that of one or two special people.”

“Like Felix?”

“Felix is growing up into a very interesting character. I look forward to seeing him develop. Of course, it would be so much better for him to have a woman in the household.”

“You’re starting to sound like your sister,” Lucette warned, but with a hint of unease beneath her teasing.

Nicolas had a very engaging way of half smiling, his eyes never flickering from her face. “It never seemed quite so important when my mother was alive, for who could be more loving and gentle than she? But having you here these weeks…yes, it has made me consider how much I would like to give Felix a mother.”

“You are interested only for Felix’s sake?” Beneath her dry tone, Lucette’s mind sharpened. If Nicolas was prepared to offer for her, it was not for his son’s sake. And surely not for her own. Beneath all his charm and careful words, she would have bet everything she owned that Nicolas was no more in love with her than she was with him.

His smile vanished, and he looked at her with an appeal that was strangely vulnerable. “Lucette, I think you will not be entirely surprised if I say that I have grown quite fond of you.” He made an impatient gesture with his hands, as though angry with himself, and said, “No, that is too weak. You know that I did not love my wife, beyond a surface affection. I thought it was simply because we did not have the time to develop that sort of love. But since I have met you, I have discovered that it is not time alone that determines love.”

“Nicolas…”

She was glad when he spoke over her, for she did not know what to follow that with. If it were Julien offering up his love…

She still wouldn’t know what to say.

“Before I speak of my feelings too closely, Lucette, there is something I must tell you. Something that no woman living knows. It’s about my injuries in Paris eight years ago.”

“I’m listening.”

“The mobs—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mob. I pray not. They are vicious and mindless. They strike without thought and move on, leaving destruction in their wake. On the eve of St. Bartholomew’s Day, when the assassinations began, they quickly spilled into explosive rage against anyone and anything in their way. I got caught in the middle between Huguenot and Catholic and I suppose I am lucky not to have been killed. Not that I didn’t wish it for years afterward.”

“What did they do to you?” She catalogued what she knew of him: his face was untouched, and his limbs—although he did have a slight hesitation to his gait. He must have been beaten, but so badly that he’d wanted to die?

“My father would be very angry at my telling you this.” He gave a harsh bark of laughter. “And I don’t suppose your father or brothers would be any too pleased, either. It’s not a fit subject for a lady. But there is more I would say to you that I cannot say if you do not know the whole of what I could offer.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” It seemed that one of them would have to get to the point sooner or later.

“I would very much like to ask you that, but I cannot until you know how I was crippled.”

“Crippled?”

He grimaced, then looked at her straight on and said, “Unmanned, more like. When the Catholics got hold of me trying to save a Huguenot girl, they thought I had dishonoured myself with a heretic whore. So they killed the girl—and castrated me.”