The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(93)

Mary’s smile was frost and glass. “And now it is necessary to let me go.”

Elizabeth’s smile was ice and daggers. “You set violent men on my daughter. I will not forget.”

“I did not know what means would be used. Your daughter will be unharmed, and after all, if only you had been reasonable, it would never have come to this.”

“If you found me unreasonable before, you will not like what follows today. It is as well that you are leaving England, for I could sign your death warrant this instant without regret.”

“If you had it in you, you would have seen me dead years ago. For all your vaunted hardness, you avoid the difficult choices, cousin. And that is why I win—because I made them.”

Surprisingly, it was not Walsingham who interrupted, but Stephen Courtenay. “What is the phrase we take back to your men?” he demanded of Mary. Elizabeth noted the fierceness in his voice and the lack of title he gave her. Interesting—she would not have taken Stephen for a man of any kind of passion.

But then, he was Dominic Courtenay’s son. And though it might be strictly controlled, Dominic was a man of deep and dangerous passions.

Mary eyed him slantwise. “When I am in the skiff and sure of not being seized, I will tell you.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Stephen demanded. “Although if my queen asked it of me, I’m quite certain I could get the phrase from you here and now.”

Elizabeth sketched a dismissal at Stephen. “I will not take that risk. Go, then,” she told Mary. “If ever we cross paths again, your life will be forfeit for your treachery.”

“Ah, cousin, how I once longed to be friends. It is you who has made us enemies. Remember that.”

Mary and her woman and confessor were helped into the skiff, the ladies’ voluminous skirts crushed against each other. From her seat, Mary looked at Stephen with a certain resentment that spoke more of the woman’s feelings than the queen’s. “The phrase you need to set your princess free is this: ‘The nightingale sings her freedom.’?”

“My queen and her council value Anne’s life sufficiently,” retorted Stephen. “But as for myself, it is my sister’s life I hold against you. I will see you paid for it one day.”

Mary set her chin and looked away. Elizabeth watched motionless from shore until the skiff had crossed the choppy waves and the occupants brought on board the waiting French ship. She stayed until it had passed from sight over the eastern horizon.

Long before that, Stephen and Kit Courtenay had ridden west for Wynfield Mote. They carried with them the Great Seal of England with Walsingham’s affidavit of their authority, and the phrase from Mary Stuart that would see Anabel freed.

Elizabeth would not draw a deep breath until her daughter was in her hands once more.





TWENTY-THREE




Julien had been camped outside Wynfield Mote for four days before anything of import happened. He had thought himself a patient person—or at least one able to entertain himself while waiting—but he truly thought he might run mad within sight of Wynfield Mote and unable to do a thing but wait.

It was a small encampment—Dominic and Minuette Courtenay, their youngest daughter, Pippa, and a dozen retainers, all armed. If Julien had been afraid of his reception by the family, he need not have worried. He had known Minuette to be beautiful when he was younger—but in his youth he had overlooked her great warmth and generosity. And perhaps Dominic had said a word or two in her ear about his suspicions of Julien’s feelings. Heaven knows he’d said little enough himself, but the Duke of Exeter seemed to know how to read the quality of his silences.

In any case, he was welcomed as an ally, though Julien had no illusions: if it were between him and Lucette, they would cheerfully throw him to the wolves. At least in that, their intentions aligned perfectly.

For days now, Julien had done little but ponder his brother’s astonishing betrayal. He still wasn’t sure of Nicolas’s motivations. Nicolas hardly spoke of politics at all—when had he come to care so much about Mary Stuart and England? Julien had thought he’d been the one keeping all the secrets these eight years. Once again, his self-absorption had blinded him.

An hour or two after sunset on the fourth day since reaching Wynfield, Dominic and his man Harrington received the scout’s report of riders coming fast. Julien recognized Kit Courtenay on horseback and guessed the second rider was the other brother, Stephen.

“We’ve got it,” Kit called as he swung off his horse, both man and beast looking utterly exhausted and soaked through from long hours of hard riding. “Stephen’s got the Lord Chancellor’s seal and we have the phrase from Mary.”

“She is gone?” Minuette asked her oldest son. He looked like his father, but Julien thought there might be a streak of his mother’s temper running through him.

“Mary Stuart?” Stephen said with contempt. “She’s gone, sailed off to whoever wants her. France, I suppose. It was a French ship.”

“Let me have the seal,” Dominic said, and Stephen handed the velvet bag containing the symbol of England’s most powerful office to his father.

“I want to go in,” Kit announced.

Dominic shook his head. “You’re worn-out and that’s my home and my daughter.”