The Virgin's Daughter (18 page)

—

Lucette felt desperately ill for two days. After a solid eighteen hours of vomiting and other stomach distress, she was so weak and dizzy that she was fairly certain she would never be able to leave her bed again, let alone go outside Blanclair’s walls or return to England. She had been remarkably healthy in her life, suffering only a handful of fevers in twenty-two years and the time she’d injured her ankle out hawking with her brothers. So when she woke late in the morning of the third day, Lucette was somewhat astonished at how clearheaded she felt, if rather limp.

Charlotte was there, regarding her with high good humour along with a touch of concern. “Trust a household of men to not even be
able to keep you well! I should not have left you alone with them all so long.”

“Hello, Charlotte,” she said. “How was your journey?”

She pushed herself up, but Charlotte was having none of it. “You stay right where you are,” she commanded. “You may be looking better than when I got here yesterday, but you are still weak and I will not risk a relapse. Not with the
bal masqué
less than two weeks off.”

There was a thought—if she stayed ill, they would have to cancel Charlotte’s elaborately festive plans. But Lucette knew she wouldn’t do that to her friend.

“All you need is rest and soft foods,” Charlotte pronounced. “I’ll have you on your feet in no time. My girls very much want to meet you, and Felix has taken to hovering in the corridor outside your chamber like a frightened lover. If only he were ten years older, I wouldn’t have to try at all to get you matched to a LeClerc!”

“You shouldn’t be trying to match me with anyone, Charlotte,” Lucette retorted. “How can you possibly know what kind of wife I would make?”

“No one knows before you’re actually married what kind of partner one will make. We learn by doing, Lucette. What I do know is that I would very much like to make you my sister. I have no wish to leave the matter in my brothers’ hands, for who knows what sort of woman they might bring home?”

“They haven’t pressed the issue thus far.”

“Not since Célie, no. She was well enough, quiet and submissive.”

“If that’s what Nicolas prefers, then he’s hardly likely to want me.” Lucette didn’t know why she was speaking so openly. It must be the lingering weakness of her illness; she must take care not to reveal too much. Embarrassing herself was one thing—jeopardizing Walsingham’s investigation was something else.

“Well, Julien likes you very well. He’s haunted this sickroom corridor nearly as much as Felix. And that has not gone unnoticed by
Nic. Whatever catches Julien’s attention so firmly will make Nicolas think it’s something worth investigating.”

Lucette laughed a little. “I’ve seen that in my brothers,” she admitted. “Why are men so competitive?”

“You think it is only men? Women are every bit as competitive—we just have different methods. And we don’t always show that we’re competing, or what it is we’re working toward.”

That was coming uncomfortably close to Lucette’s secret, so she closed her eyes and let a grimace of exhaustion twist her mouth. There was no immediate reaction from Charlotte. After a minute she opened her eyes.

Her friend was studying her with an intensity that tightened lines around her brown eyes. “You’re keeping secrets, Lucette,” she said finally. “You and Julien between you. I know when my brother is lying, and he’s definitely lying about what happened the night you fell ill.”

So Julien had lied for her. Lucette supposed she’d have wondered that before but illness had clouded her usually quick mind. Since she didn’t know what particulars his lie had involved, she simply made a noncommittal sound and kept looking at Charlotte. She would not give her further reason to suspect evasion by looking away.

Charlotte’s sudden smile was all mischief and hope. “I’ve never known Julien to lie over a woman before. I think Nicolas had better move quickly if he doesn’t want to be outmaneuvered by his own brother.”

If Charlotte was determined to plot and plan, then Lucette could give her a convenient—and less dangerous—outlet. “Charlotte,” she said winsomely, “can you help me with my costume for the masked ball? I’ve spent much too long wavering about what to wear and I shall need help with the sewing.”

She almost felt guilty at how her friend’s face lit up with pleasure. “I know the most wonderful seamstress in St. Benoit! I’ll have her here tomorrow. Have you decided, or shall I have to make that choice for you as well as find you a husband?”

Lucette smiled, determined to cause mischief if nothing else. “I shall need feathers on the gown,” she announced. “Lots and lots of feathers.”

—

Nicolas rarely acted in haste. He waited, pondering on the perfect course of action, until Lucette had emerged from the worst of her sickness, until Charlotte and her quiet husband and boisterous daughters arrived. Then he went to the kitchens and sent a maid up to Lucette’s chamber to relieve Anise and send her to him in the small study closet off his bedchamber.

The maid curtsied, but her smile was much more familiar than that of maid and master. Seated behind his desk, Nicolas jerked his chin at her. “How sick was she truly?”

“You think she was pretending?” Anise shook her head. “You can make yourself retch, but you cannot make yourself that clammy and green. She was right ill enough. But she’ll do now.”

“Where did she go that night?”

Anise fidgeted, hands twined in her skirt front. Nicolas already knew where Lucette had been—and Julien also—and he wondered if the maid would bother lying for her.

In the end, Anise knew whose side she needed to be on. “She wanted to visit the Nightingale. See how people live, she said. Harmless enough, surely.”

Nicolas simply kept watching her, waiting for her to say more. Which she did. “You didn’t tell me I had to report everything on her. What’s it to you if she wants to go slumming a bit?”

“If a guest of my father, a lady well-connected to the highest of English nobility, who counts royalty among her friends…if such a lady wishes to leave my father’s house at night, alone and without anyone to aid her should something go wrong…you did not think I would want to know that?”

Anise bit her lower lip, clearly struggling between appeal and dumb resentment. Appeal won. “My lord, you know I would do
whatever you ask. She is still weak, and in her illness will be easier to press. Shall I ask her what she was doing?”

“Let her be. We’ll speak again later.”

But not to your advantage, he thought as she curtsied and left. Any dalliance of his had an end date from the very first—if Anise had reached hers a bit earlier than he’d planned, no matter. Better to get her out of the way before things got messy. With Charlotte and her family in noisy residence, the maid’s departure would hardly excite much comment.

But first, best to deal with the scruffy courier from Paris, who was no doubt increasingly impatient as he waited at the Nightingale Inn for a report Julien didn’t seem likely to provide.

Nicolas had plans for that courier.

—

It was another three days before Lucette emerged from her bedchamber. She had considered claiming a relapse out of pure cowardice, but as her body healed, her mind reawakened, and she knew why Julien had been haunting the corridors. As soon as he could, he meant to question her closely about what she had seen and guessed about his contact that night at the inn. He could only be highly suspicious, and she decided she might as well confront him on her own terms.

Though Charlotte spent several hours each day with her, Lucette had most of her time free to close her eyes and work inside her Memory Chamber. She had quite a bit of new information to add to the ledger—not least of which was Anise’s sudden departure from Blanclair. She’d simply been there one evening and gone the next morning, leaving Lucette in the hands of a younger—and much more nervous—girl from the kitchens. Charlotte had assured Lucette she’d share her own maid with her for dressing and hair, but that was the least of her worries. In her mind, Lucette turned the ledger page to a previous entry and added Anise to the list of Blanclair
maids who had left in the last five years without giving more than cursory notice.

The personal information gathered at the tavern about the family was written on a separate ledger page. Then there was the item she had avoided thinking about too closely since coming back to herself: the man with the mustache and long scar to whom Julien had been talking with such fierce concentration that night that he had not seen her straightaway.

Julien…a stranger…a meeting at the Nightingale Inn…this was the kind of information Walsingham wanted. He would want a description of the man, the details of the time and place, and then probably he would have other agents who could track down his identity.
You are not the only asset
, Dr. Dee had consoled her.
It is not on your word alone that any man will be condemned
.

She didn’t find that so reassuring now. For Julien LeClerc, despite her efforts at disinterest, was not just any man. And in the end she trusted herself before she trusted Walsingham.

It had been the twenty-fourth of June when she fell ill—it was the twenty-eighth, a Tuesday of fitful sunshine that peeked in and out from behind high, fast-moving wisps of cloud, that Lucette finally dressed in a lightweight gown of green and white stripes and warily left her chamber.

It was Felix, as Charlotte had predicted, who met her first. The boy had apparently set up camp in a small antechamber at the end of her corridor, with books and papers, where he’d been studying. He had the company of his two little cousins, Charlotte’s daughters, who had all their mother’s confidence and greeted Lucette as though they had always known her. Indeed, the younger, just two years old, came straight to Lucette demanding to be picked up. Somewhat awkwardly, Lucette complied. The weight of such a small girl was a little surprising, and she didn’t know what to do with her once she was up.

Which was how Julien found her, perplexed and overwhelmed by
three young voices all speaking rapid-fire and colloquial French, overlapping one another on apparently three completely different subjects.

“Like casting a Christian to the lions, isn’t it?” he observed, plucking the child out of Lucette’s arms and tossing her once in the air. He caught her, to a delighted shriek, then set her down. “Leave the English lady be,” he commanded. “You don’t want her to sicken again and retreat behind closed doors.”

Felix instantly obeyed, shushing the girls and corralling them back to a game. “Thank you, Felix,” Lucette said, and was rewarded with a blinding smile.

Since it was either remain awkwardly with the children or walk downstairs with Julien, she chose the latter. It was Julien who spoke first, while she was still wondering how to broach the subject of their uncomfortable encounter at the inn. “You have smitten that poor boy until he can’t see straight. I’m afraid you’ve ruined him for life. He’ll never find another woman as entrancing as you.”

“Like you’ve never found a woman more entrancing than my mother?”

He barked a laugh. “You’re never going to forgive me that, are you? I promise, Lucie, I have not remained unattached simply because Lady Exeter is unavailable.”

“Why
have
you remained unattached?” This was not at all the conversation they should be having.

“I’ve been busy.”

That was as good an opening as any. “Busy with what? Meeting questionable men in questionable places for a no doubt questionable purpose?”

“A lot less questionable than your own presence in such a place,” Julien retorted, and there was a grimness to his tone that reminded Lucette of his size. Somehow, he had directed her to a part of the chateau from which nothing could be heard, and she wondered fleetingly if she should have secreted the dagger about her before leaving her chamber.

“If I said I was following you, would you believe me?” She didn’t think there was much point pretending any longer. At least not about the undeniable things. Her purpose could always be obscured, if not her actions.

“I might, but you weren’t. I saw the look in your eyes when you realized I was there. The look of a hart about to be slaughtered. Not only did you not follow me, you had no plans to be discovered. I’ve had a lot of time to wonder why.”

“And your conclusions?”

“First option, that you are a libertine in search of experiences—and men—you cannot hope to meet under the watchful eyes of your parents and the English queen. I do think there is a stubbornly adventurous streak to you.”

Damn it, why could he make her blush so easily? “And another option?”

“That you’re not in France for the scenery—or the company. At least, not in the way you want us to think. How close am I to the truth?”

“As close as I am to guessing that your purpose in meeting with that shady man in the inn had to do with clandestine activities of your own.”

He stilled, watching her beneath hooded eyes, and in that stillness was a promise of crushing strength and violence when necessary. “
Merde
. Ribault was right. You’re working for Walsingham.”

She kept her countenance blank. “Why would you think that? I am a woman.”

“All the better for deception, Lucie—and very adept you are. The question is, why didn’t I know this before?”

“I may not know much about intelligencers, but surely the first requirement is secrecy. The enemy is hardly likely to let you know you’re under suspicion.”

A blank pause, then, to her astonishment, Julien threw his head back and laughed. “
You’re
letting me know,” he pointed out, amusement colouring his voice. “As no doubt Walsingham knew you would
eventually. Lucie mine, you really aren’t a natural to the shadow world of spies if you just believed everything Francis Walsingham told you without question.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he set you on me in particular?”

She picked her way through what she could say without revealing too much. “No. It was Blanclair in general he was concerned with.”

“A fishing expedition, damn the man.”