The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(69)

“I wish,” Renaud said softly, “that you had spoken to me first, Nicolas. Now you have put the lady in an extraordinarily awkward position when she is forced to decline. As she must.”

“Why must I?” Lucette asked.

“Nicolas knows why. I don’t know what he was thinking—”

“He told me,” Lucette interrupted bluntly. Might as well get that awkwardness over with at once.

She heard Julien’s breath hiss between his teeth. Renaud’s expression flickered, and she knew he was shocked. “Told you what?”

“What happened to him in Paris. I know the nature of his injuries. And why you believe him unsuited for another marriage.”

“It is not a matter of belief,” Julien said through tight throat. “He cannot marry again. The Church would never allow it.”

“I am not Catholic, and who says your Church has to know about it?” Lucette shot back without looking at Julien. It was Renaud she needed to have on her side. “I believe the matter of marriage lies primarily between the man and woman concerned.”

Renaud lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Surely the daughter of Minuette Courtenay knows better than to believe that.”

She flushed, but did not waver. “As her daughter, I also know that she will be well persuaded by my own wishes in the matter.”

“But Nicolas is my son, and I am not persuaded by the wishes of a girl too young to know what she would be giving up. Surely you must want children.”

“Father,” Nicolas broke in. “I have discussed the implications with her.”

Julien let out a choked laugh and shoved himself off the wall behind them and into Lucette’s sight. “That must have been an interesting conversation. How detailed did you get, brother?”

“That’s enough.” Renaud’s tone was familiar—that of a man used to command.

Julien choked back whatever else he’d wanted to say. Renaud kept his eyes fixed on Lucette. She stared back, willing him to be reasonable, knowing that if he did not make some concession, she would have ruined things with Julien for no reason at all.

Finally, Renaud sighed. “As I stand in France in lieu of your parents, mademoiselle, then I cannot give consent. I should send you back to England, away from my sons, and give thanks to see the last of you.”

“But…” Lucette prompted into the space he left at the end of that speech.

“But frankly, I fear the impulsive lengths to which you might go if I issued a flat refusal. Only one man can give consent to this marriage, and that is Dominic Courtenay. Nicolas, if you are convinced of the merits of your argument, then you may make them yourself to Lord Exeter. I will send you to England with Lucette and Dr. Dee. Whatever Dominic decides I will abide by.”

Because you know there’s no chance Dominic will agree, Lucette thought cynically. Fine. All she needed was to get Nicolas to England and see what followed. There was only one more piece to the Nightingale puzzle, and she would bet her soul that Nicolas would solve it for her.

She had memorized the words of the Spanish letter sent to her by Anise: 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.

Nicolas had made his play for her, and she must see it through to the end. Julien might hate her now, but how much more would he hate her if he knew she intended to deliver his brother to Walsingham? No, best to let him despise her for a foolish girl who had finally landed the brother she’d wanted since she was ten years old.

“I’ll go with them as well,” Julien said abruptly. “If Nicolas does not object?”

“I insist upon it,” Nicolas replied. “Who else would I rather have by my side in this than my brother?”

Renaud shook his head, as though recognizing the disaster that could only ensue. But he did not object.

She escaped to her chamber, glad to get away from all of them, and Charlotte’s efficient Parisian maid had her out of her ballgown and into her nightdress and robe in short order. She took the pins out of Lucette’s hair, but then Lucette dismissed her. Unplaiting and brushing her hair would give her something to focus on. Something she could cope with.

Two hours later she still sat before the table. She had tried working in her Memory Chamber, but the ledgers in her mind kept dissolving into images of Julien; laughing at her at Wynfield when she was little, insulting her in Paris, surprise writ all over his expression when she’d asked him to kiss her. I shall be brave for the both of us.

She could have used some of his bravery now.

There came a single knock on her door, then it was pushed open even as she got to her feet. The moment she saw Julien, Lucette knew that he was very, very drunk. It must have been instinct, or something in his eyes, because he moved into her chamber with the same arrogant grace, and when he spoke, his words were perfectly distinct.

“Why so shocked, Lucie?” he asked with that mocking tone that had made her hate him when she was ten years old. “Never had a man in your bedchamber before?”

Though she knew she coloured, she would not cower. “I do have brothers.”

He laughed, and that did sound a bit slurred. “And that statement proves your entire innocence. But of course you are innocent, or you would not possibly be entertaining my brother’s insane proposal.”