The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(49)
On this particular day, she was studying the ledger detailing various tapestries, trying to decide on a theme for her updated privy chamber. With her was Lucette Courtenay—no, Lucette LeClerc now—who had agreed to come to Syon House and continue on to court with Anabel during the French and Scots visits. The queen had encouraged Anabel’s request, since Lucette’s husband was French and might prove useful with the Duc d’Anjou. Though Julien had spent eight years secretly spying for Walsingham on his own countrymen, that fact was not widely known. Most people assumed that his move to England had been entirely for the love of Lucette—as indeed it had. Both Julien and Lucette had since declined further offers from Walsingham to aid in his intelligence work.
But Lucette had been Anabel’s friend long before she was anything official at court, and with Pippa and Kit absent in Spain, she seemed to accept Anabel’s need to have someone familiar about her.
“What do you think?” Anabel mused aloud. “The Labors of Hercules? Or Persephone and Demeter?”
“The myth of the Queen of the Underworld and her mother? That could set quite the tone for visitors to your privy chamber.” Lucette had the trick of her mother and Kit, to infuse her words with an innocent mischief that inspired laughter.
“As my father already thinks of England as on our way to hell, I might as well claim my place as queen forthwith. Persephone it is.” She shut the ledger decisively. “What next? We have Syon House’s reconstruction well under way—what is the program for reconstructing me to impress the Duc d’Anjou and Esmé Stewart?”
“I am the wrong woman to ask about impressing men.”
“With a husband that every single female in my household cannot stop talking about? I’d tell you to keep a close watch on him if it weren’t so obvious that he has eyes for no woman but you. If I thought all Frenchmen were built like Julien, I’d say yes to Francis right now.”
Lucette rolled her eyes. “You are the least sentimental person I know, Anabel. And that includes your mother. You will never have your head turned by a handsome face.”
Was that true? Perhaps. For all her sharp wits and cynical outlook, Elizabeth had her one great love in Robert Dudley. Not that her mother talked about him. But Minuette would, if you asked her, though Anabel had always wondered how accurate her image was. After all, Robert had died in the cause of helping to save Minuette’s life from the last king.
But Elizabeth had not been born to be a queen; not like Anabel. She’d had a little room for implausible dreams. Anabel did not.
Except…
As though she could read her wayward thoughts, Lucette asked, “What did Kit have to say in his last letter?”
“He wrote to you as well.”
“Three lines, scrawled in a hurry, that told me nothing except he likes the sunshine and the food. Kit is not one for writing—at least not to his older sister.”
“He wrote little more than that to me,” Anabel said. “A bit more expansive about the quality of the wine, though.”
Why did she lie to Lucette? In truth, Kit’s letter had been…what? Not intimate, for he wrote nothing that could not have been openly read by anyone. But it had felt intimate. It felt as though they were in Spain together, and that he was merely commenting on things as they went along, as though he were always engaged in conversation with her, whether she happened to be with him or not. It was how she often felt herself.
“Well,” Anabel continued brightly, “they have their tasks in Spain, and I have mine here. If only I were certain which country my mother wants me to snare, I would have no qualms about the coming visits. But trying to balance France and Scotland without giving either one false hope? That will be a trick.”
“But a trick these men will be prepared for. They know, Anabel, that the decisions will not be made by the two of you alone. If there is danger there, at least it is not personal.”
Her words were flavoured with the faintest hint of bitterness and guilt, in a way that made Anabel vividly recall the days she and Lucette had spent imprisoned together in Wynfield Mote. Their captor had been Julien’s older brother, Nicolas, who for all his apparent political motivation had been obviously captivated by Lucette. And who had hated both her and his brother for ruining any hopes he might have had.
Their eyes met, and Anabel could see that Lucette was thinking the same thing. Tenderly, Anabel touched the back of her friend’s hand and said, “You are quite right. Whatever happens, there will be no real harm done.”
Except to England if I choose wrong, she thought. And to Kit.
—
“He’s in?” Elizabeth asked Walsingham. Two days before Anabel’s arrival at court—four days before that of the Duc d’Anjou—and they had just had the first word about Stephen in Ireland. The queen and her spymaster spoke alone in one of Greenwich’s old-fashioned chambers, essentially untouched since the early days of her father’s reign. The box-beamed ceiling was punctuated by whitewashed plaster, and the mullioned windows let in far less light than in the newer palaces.
“According to my source,” Walsingham said, “Stephen was admitted to the Kavanaugh household in Cahir three weeks ago. You understand that we will not receive regular updates. Stephen himself will maintain silence for as long as he deems fit. And my source is not always with the Kavanaughs. He travels, which makes it possible for him to send messages.”