The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(98)
The second time had been just over a week ago, when Dominic Courtenay told him what Nicolas had done.
The first time was the moment he’d found Léonore dead and Nicolas castrated and bleeding out.
Julien had changed everything in his life—sacrificed his family, lied to his fellow countrymen, missed his mother’s deathbed—because of what he believed had happened that day. He knew that, should he get out of this house alive, he would have to deal with a crushing weight of guilt, much worse than the false guilt he’d been carrying for years.
But first he had to get out. Or, at the least, get Lucette out.
For she was the only fixed point in his world at this moment when all else hurtled into a chaos of lies and deception. She stood there staring at him, as if her gaze could keep him anchored to the world. And it did.
Julien asked simply, “How long?”
“Just the once,” Nicolas answered, correctly surmising his brother’s intent. “I thought for certain you’d already had her, but she was a virgin, sure enough. Your loss. But then, you always have been the romantic one. The one for whom honour is more valuable than life.”
Julien blinked, and twitched his head as though shaking off a fly. He could not afford to get lost in memories just now. Focus, instead, on Laurent at his back and Nicolas facing him. Focus, also, on the quality of Lucette’s gaze, and the way she flicked her eyes downward to her hands, crossed demurely below her waist.
But not just crossed—her fingertips disappeared beneath the fabric of her split-front skirt. Back in France, outside the Nightingale Inn, Lucette had produced a dagger from somewhere about her women’s clothing. Could it be she had hiding places in this dress, as well?
As though she could read his mind Lucette said tentatively, “Nicolas, I’m feeling a little faint. Might I sit down?”
He cupped his hand on her cheek. “Of course. Laurent,” he called over his shoulder, “place a stool for Lucette next to you.”
Perfect. Laurent thudded a low-backed stool in front of the door, with just enough room for him to stand behind her. Leaving himself in easy reach of a woman he wasn’t much afraid of.
His mistake.
As long as Lord Exeter’s men were quick and quiet in their execution, then Nicolas would never know when his men outside were taken down and he and Laurent remained alone. Dominic had told Julien he preferred not to storm the house and risk injury to Lucette. If only they could take out Laurent and better the odds, then Julien would force her to run.
It was interesting how his mind could operate cold-bloodedly on such details while his gut roiled with bile and betrayal. But as much as he hated Nic at this moment, when he looked at his brother, he could not help seeing Felix as well. And Charlotte. And their father. And even Nicole, who might be watching her sons from Heaven.
Nicolas stopped the threat of drowning misery in its tracks. “So, brother, how would you like to share a woman in truth? Everyone keeps making such a fuss about Lucette deserving to have children of her own. Why should she not have LeClerc children?”
“You must be mad,” Julien said flatly.
“To imagine she would welcome you into her bed? Not mad, brother—just perceptive. She’s fond enough of me, and I’m not too proud to trade on that fondness and even pity—but it is you she wants. From the moment she laid eyes on you in Paris, it is you she has wanted to claim her.”
Julien was glad that he could not clearly see Lucette.
“If you hate me so much, why offer what I want most in the world?”
“Because it is not what you want most! You want all of her. I know you, Julien. You want the priest and vows, the loyalty and the love, the days as well as the nights. You are too honourable for your own good, and that is why you lose. I am willing to throw you scraps of my wife, if only to keep you in perpetual torment.”
Julien had to close his eyes against his brother’s venom. When he opened them, he had himself under control. “You might read me well enough, Nic, but I’m afraid you’ve completely misread Lucette. She had quite other plans in coming to France, and marriage was not among them. Haven’t you worked it out yet? Didn’t she tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Walsingham sent her to spy out Nightingale. Before she left Blanclair, she knew it was one of us running it. She would have done whatever was necessary to get us both to England. She accepted your proposal because she knew I would come with you, putting whichever of us was guilty into Walsingham’s reach. She would have accepted me with the same calculation. Everything she’s done has been bent to her purpose.”
He had shaken Nicolas; there was a sheen to his brother’s face as though finally the heat of the closed-up hall was getting to him. “If you believe that, you know nothing about women. She was lost the moment she loved you. And you’re too much a fool to have seen it.
“Besides,” Nicolas gestured to her sitting before Laurent, “she has failed spectacularly. She followed the false trail, thinking it was Elizabeth’s death we wanted. And in the end she brought me exactly where I needed to be—within reach of the heretic’s daughter. So calculating or not, I must thank her for her service.”
Nicolas sketched a mocking bow in Lucette’s direction, breaking eye contact with his brother. Without turning his head, Julien could just see the moment when Lucie rose and turned in one smooth movement. The daggers she’d pulled from their hiding place had blades barely longer than her palms, but light gleamed sharp on their edges. In the same moment that Nicolas straightened, Julien tackled him and prayed that Lucie’s blades met their mark.