The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(81)
To you: why did it matter so much more that his care was for her opinion? That even if he’d been so inclined, he would not have moved to assassinate Queen Elizabeth because of what hurt that might cause Lucette?
But she did not have time for self-indulgence. Beneath her terror for Julien, her mind had been nagging at her, wanting her to focus. So she did what she always did: closed her eyes, entered the library in her mind, and opened the ledger relating to Nightingale.
She turned to a blank page and waited, fingertips resting on the paper so that she could almost fancy she felt its smoothness. Her mind was like a separate entity, whirring away below her focus. Don’t force it, don’t coax it, don’t pay it the slightest attention and then, like magic, it resolved.
From the beginning this case had vibrated with much more than simple conspiracy or fanaticism. There had been a venom to it, a corrosive hatred that had contaminated nearly every piece of circumstantial evidence. If Walsingham had arrested Julien, she believed it was because of evidence, hard evidence. The kind of evidence manufactured and planted. And there was only one person in all of this who hated Julien.
Nicolas was the Nightingale mastermind. She had believed it before—now she knew it for fact. She might not have every piece—motive, beyond that of screwing his brother, was still out of her grasp—but it didn’t matter. Like mathematics, it was the only answer. The elegant answer.
And no one but her would believe it.
She’d been half expecting Walsingham to drag her back to his office for close questioning, but when the summons came, Lucette instead followed the guards directly to the queen’s privy chamber.
“You may go.” When the queen dismissed the guards, it was only Elizabeth and Lucette, facing each other across five feet of polished marble floor that might as well have a been a fathomless chasm for how far apart they were.
At last, after a deliberately uncomfortable minute of waiting, Lucette curtsied to her queen.
Elizabeth tipped her head in challenge. Her eyes glittered. “Do you have nothing to say about this attack?”
“You are clearly unharmed.” Where was she getting the nerve to be rude? Perhaps, she thought, I am finally reacting to Elizabeth’s forced intimacy. If she wants me to be family, then she’ll have to deal with all my flaws.
“My taster is not unharmed. She is dead.”
Lucette blinked away her instinctive sympathy for the unknown woman. “And what do you want with me?”
“An apology perhaps. You have delivered a killer straight into the heart of my court.”
Lucette knew she had to walk a very careful path. “Nicolas was with me, as you well know.”
“Julien was not.”
“Is that the only reason for Julien’s arrest—because he wasn’t fortunate enough to have someone vouch for his whereabouts?”
“Walsingham has evidence. And no doubt more will be forthcoming once Julien is properly questioned in the Tower.”
Lucette shoved away her too-vivid imagination of what such questioning might entail, for she could not help Julien if she collapsed into a puddle of tears.
“Has Nicolas been told of his brother’s arrest?”
“His chamber was searched along with Julien’s. I imagine he is well aware of what has happened.”
“And will you—or Walsingham—require Nicolas’s continuing presence at court for now?”
“You would send him away?”
Lucette raised a cool, interrogatory eyebrow, hoping she did it as well as Elizabeth. “We are expected at Wynfield Mote in four days.”
She managed to surprise Elizabeth to the extent that the queen laughed in astonishment. “What a cool head you have! One brother arrested, and you seek to introduce the other to your family? Not to mention my daughter, who is currently at Wynfield.”
“Do you have any reason to suspect Nicolas? No doubt Walsingham would have thrown him in the Tower if he had the slightest misgivings.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “How hardhearted you are, Lucette. I will take it under advisement. You may go for now. No doubt Walsingham will wish to speak with you at further length.”
She didn’t say no. Lucette clung to that, instinctively knowing that the only way to get to the end of this muddle was to convince Nicolas he was safe. Best to get him away from Elizabeth, too—but Lucette admitted that her primary motive was to do whatever she had to do to discover the truth of Nicolas’s treachery. Lie to her queen, lie to her family, seduce Nicolas (or allow him to seduce her in whatever manner he had perfected since his injuries)—she would do whatever was necessary.
She would bring Nicolas down to set Julien free.
3 August 1580
To Her Royal Highness Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and France:
The nightingale’s song will soon wake you from your long slumber. Be prepared to fly free.
The rush of being so near to freedom drove Mary to restless action and imprudent conversation. She knew she was dancing on the edge of disaster, but then she had always felt most alive at such moments. Stephen Courtenay was a willing partner to her reckless mood, indulging her without open encouragement. But she could see that her rising passion sparked something in him in return.
Summoned to her presence chamber on a rainy afternoon that closed in around Tutbury as though enforcing her hated imprisonment, Stephen joined her in circling the large room. As always she chose the subject of conversation. “So your sister is to bring one of her Frenchmen home. How lovely for your family to host such an illustrious guest at the same time as the Princess of Wales. Do you not regret not being with them all?” Did he know how lucky he was to be teased by Mary Stuart? Few men had had the privilege.