The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(39)
If someone had designed an event specifically to undo Lucette’s tightly wound control, they could have done no better than dropping Stephen in front of her without warning. She almost accused Pippa, standing next to her, but her sister’s indrawn breath and blinding expression of joy eloquently assured Lucette that she had not known, either. It must have been Anabel, then.
It took all her years of control and inbred dignity to stand quietly through the ensuing hour of formal pageantry and welcome. She could feel her brother watching from where he stood below the viewing stand. As much as she had missed him, she was also terrified. If anyone could get to the heart of her troubles, it would be Stephen.
She had done the same for him, once, during a long winter at Farleigh Hungerford after Stephen’s first foray into Ireland. He had come back from that broken, and she’d had to steel herself against emotion and set about putting him back together.
Turn about is fair play, a little voice whispered.
When the royals vanished inside for a meal with only Christopher Hatton and James’s secretary, John Maitland, for company, Lucette was swept into reunion. Pippa, so extravagantly happy about her coming marriage with Matthew Harrington, threw her arms around Stephen and fired questions at him without pausing for breath. How does it feel to be back in England? Are you making the men of the mercenary company properly afraid of you? When was the last time you ate and slept?
Pippa’s final question was directed to the quiet girl standing just outside their circle. “And how is your business proceeding, Maisie Sinclair?”
“Very well indeed. I am looking forward to speaking to Her Highness’s treasurer now that I have greater assets at my command.”
Her Highness’s treasurer himself stood only a few paces off—Matthew having hardly been away from Pippa’s side the last two days save for sleeping at night. And was that a smile when he bowed to the Sinclair girl? Who, despite her age and appearance, must be the shrewd businesswoman Lucette had heard so much about.
“At your convenience, Mistress Sinclair,” Matthew said—with, indeed, a smile on his usually grave face.
“And you were right, I must confess,” Pippa declared, linking her arm with Maisie’s, “when we spoke in York last autumn. Here is my brother serving dutifully as you predicted he would in our last conversation. I am glad it is in Scotland, and under your command.”
Lucette, despite her nerves, looked curiously from Pippa to Maisie to Stephen, who looked a little flushed—and not just from the heat of noonday.
“Come with me,” Pippa said, encompassing Maisie, Kit, and Matthew effortlessly. “We’ll take refreshment and talk about Scotland. Because, of course, I was also right in that conversation, Maisie Sinclair. Do you remember what I said to you?”
The little group passed out of earshot, and Lucette was left wondering what Pippa had said to the girl that could leave the air so charged between them months later.
Then Stephen stepped in front of her and she was forced to look at him. His eyes, those shifting green-gold hazel eyes of their mother, searched far too deeply. “I am sorry, Lucie,” he said. “I know I said it in letters, but I am more sorry than you can know about your losses.”
Not my losses, she silently corrected. My babies. Three she had failed now, failed to carry any longer than four months at the most.
He was wise enough not to say more on that subject. “I am also sorry that Felix was dropped so abruptly into your life again. Renaud had wanted him to come to England for a visit, but it should have been planned and prepared for, not spurred by further death and trauma.”
“Felix hates me now,” she found herself saying, and realized that here was an additional pain she had not yet acknowledged.
“He does not know what he feels. Surely you can understand the terror and confusion of having your world turned upside down in an instant.”
With the Tudor rose necklace given you by the queen, she knew he meant. The necklace that had spurred the revelation of her shaky paternal heritage, kept from her far too long by her parents. In the wake of that trauma, Lucette had cut herself off emotionally from both her parents—but from her father most of all. Only when she had gone to France and met Julien had she been able to understand her parents’ choices.
“Let us hope that Felix does not take as long to forgive as I did.” She almost smiled when she said it.
“Will you spend the winter with the princess? It must be hard for Julien to be separated from you.”
This time she did smile. The practiced court smile that would not fool her brother for an instant, but put an effective end to his prying. “Why worry about winter when we have so few days at present to enjoy one another’s company? Come along, and you can tell me about Scotland and how on earth you came to be commanding a mercenary company belonging to a girl younger than even Kit and Pippa.”
She managed to keep herself bright and attentive and closed off for the rest of the day. But when she escaped to the chamber she shared with Pippa (thankfully alone just now, for Pippa continued to circle between Anabel and Matthew every waking hour), she found a letter from her husband waiting for her.
Lucie mine,
Am I permitted to call you that with the barrier of two hundred miles between us? I am sure you will let me know if not.
Help, Lucie. I need you. Felix needs you—or at least, he needs someone or something other than me. I do not know what to do for him. He is angry and confused and does not seem certain of who he is anymore. You and I have both had to come to terms with having our pasts shaken up and rearranged into a new picture—but you did it when you were much nearer Felix’s age. I was already an adult when I had to face the past…and I had you to help me.