The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(86)

TWENTY-ONE




Anabel read the note Kit had carried her from her mother with impatient disbelief.

You will leave Wynfield Mote tomorrow and journey to Ashridge. I have sent instructions to Lord Exeter to make it so. I will send for you from Ashridge when I have need of you.

HRH Elizabeth R

She had hardly time for the outrage to sink in before Pippa burst into her chamber and announced, “We are leaving Wynfield.”

Sometimes Pippa was positively eerie. Anabel looked from her mother’s note, still in her hand, to her friend and said, “How did you know that?”

But almost at once, reason asserted itself and Anabel sighed. “Of course, Kit told you. Or perhaps your father. I don’t know what my mother’s about—”

“This is nothing to do with your mother,” Pippa broke in, with a bluntness that made Anabel blink twice. “It is yourself. We must get you away from Wynfield.”

Unsettled, Anabel tried to make light of it as she tossed her mother’s note on the bed. “Why, what is wrong? Are they afraid I’m going to steal Nicolas LeClerc away from Lucette?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong, not precisely.”

“Don’t the stars tell you?” Anabel teased. “Or no, not stars. Is it other symbols for you, Pippa? Do you read the flowers? The pattern of silver set for a meal?”

Pippa had gone very still and very white. “Is that what you think of me—a fool who jests for your amusement? Do you think it is a play, the things I know? It is a terrible gift, Your Highness, and one I think you could not bear without running mad.”

“Philippa, I am—”

“I do not know the details of what will come, but I know its shadow in my bones. There is danger here, Anabel. We must get you away.”

Her faith in Pippa was greater than her irritation with her mother at being moved about like an inconvenient parcel. “Ask Kit to come with us. I’ll speak to your father.” She looked outside, where the sun was setting low and gold across the fields. “Must we go in the dark?” It was only half a jest.

Pippa was not as comforting as Anabel would have liked her to be. “I suppose it will have to be morning. But I do not like it.”

“If I promise to keep to the chamber tonight and let no one but you in, will that make you easier?”

After a hesitation, Pippa managed to smile. “I suppose I’m unlikely to hurt you now if I haven’t in the last eighteen years.”

“Pippa, is it Nicolas LeClerc?” It seemed the only likely answer. The Frenchman was the anomaly at Wynfield. But what interest would he have in her? “And if so, are you certain it is not Lucette that is shadowed by whatever you see?”

Pippa’s expression both sharpened and faded, as though her focus were on something not in this chamber, nor perhaps even in this world. “I think,” she whispered, “that Lucie knows exactly what she’s doing.”

It gave Anabel chills. Suddenly she was almost glad at the thought of leaving Wynfield if it would shake Pippa free of whatever haunted her mind.

—

When Pippa serenely announced at dinner that Anabel had retired early preparatory to the two of them leaving for Ashridge the next day, Lucette blinked away surprise. That had not been part of any plan she’d known about. Though to be fair, the only plan she was interested in was her own just now. It was a pity to lose her sister, but probably safer for everyone to stay away while she brought down Nicolas.

After dinner she and Nicolas played chess in the hall. She didn’t go so far as to let him win, but did dampen her normal play—chess was just puzzles and patterns and she’d been beating her mother since she was six—and Nicolas’s flirtation just approached the edge of propriety. Words only, for Dominic and Kit both sat in the hall as well and would have marked any caresses between them.

But words could be just as laden, and Lucette had to bend all her wits to parrying Nicolas’s strokes and casting her own back.

“I am surprised,” he admitted as he moved a bishop. “I did not think you would be able to dismiss Julien’s fate so easily from your mind. You have a tender heart, and I know how charming my brother can be when he wants something.”

“As he wanted to find a way to get to England through me?” She shrugged. “Julien knew what he was about playing games with Walsingham. He should have known better than to put himself within reach of the man.”

“Perhaps the mission was more important to him than the risk.”

“Do you think so?” Lucette’s tone was polite disbelief, her skin crawling with the duplicity of this conversation. She felt like offering a silent apology to the maligned Julien, though surely he had larger worries at the moment in the Tower.

Nicolas lifted a shoulder. “Or perhaps he merely thought he could never be caught. Arrogance rather runs in my family.”

“Felix is not arrogant.”

“Felix is a child still. He will learn it as he grows.”

I hope not, Lucette thought fervently. But then she had to stop thinking, because Felix was a real worry to her, intending as she did to destroy his father.

After three matches that Nicolas conceded gracefully to her superior skill, they bid each other goodnight, Dominic carefully positioned so no liberties would be taken. He had requested a private conversation with Nicolas the next day, and Lucette wondered just how far she would have to go in deceiving her family. She did not especially look forward to explaining Nicolas’s condition to her parents. Some things were simply too awkward to be borne.