The Virgin's Daughter (5 page)

I look forward to your visit, scarcely able to believe that it has been five years since the last time we saw each other. You will find your
cielita
much grown since then, but hopefully just as pleasing to you
.

The queen has not seen fit to keep me permanently at court yet, but I trust your visit will effect more than one change in my daily habits. I am not certain I am prepared for any but minor changes, however. Eighteen is rather young when one has spent those years in such confined circumstances
.

Your loving daughter
,          

HRH Anne Isabella
     

Anne, Princess of Wales, was not one to throw tantrums for no reason. Temper was a weapon, and she never wasted her weapons. It had been six weeks now since her household took up residence at Pontefract, and Anabel had channeled her irritation into impeccable studies and furious management of her finances. And all the while she plotted how to get around her mother’s plans and weighed how useful her father might be in that endeavour.

The trick being to ensure that Anabel didn’t simply trade the Queen of England’s suffocating control for that of the King of Spain.

As April drew softly toward May, Lord Burghley paid Anabel a visit. She received the Lord High Treasurer with genuine warmth, but also a hint of calculation as they settled into conversation. She wagered Burghley would only be astonished if she didn’t bother to calculate. How else would he be certain she was Elizabeth’s daughter?

“You have made the castle most cheerful, Your Highness.” Burghley nodded at the tapestries and newly painted paneling in her privy chamber. “I am glad of it.”

“You have been here before?” She was surprised, for Pontefract was well off the royal circuit. But then she remembered, and nodded. “Ah, you would naturally have come during the king’s last illness.”

It was here that King Henry IX—called William by his sister and friends—had died just before his twenty-second birthday. Burghley had been her uncle’s Lord Chancellor. Of course he would have come to the king’s bedside.

“It is time this castle had some happy memories and bright faces associated with it. How are you finding your days here?”

Long
, she wanted to say,
and boring
. But she knew better than to complain. “It is well suited to gathering all my wits and nerves for my father’s coming visit. I assume that is why the queen has sent you?”

“The queen is ever mindful of your comfort and care. She wished a firsthand report of how you are faring.”

Then why didn’t she come herself? Anabel thought. But would never say. “I would fare better if I were certain of the points of discussion between my parents this summer. I assume my future husband will be second in discussion only to the dissolving of their own marriage.”

Burghley shook his head, but with a wry look of affection. “Certain it is that you are not afraid to speak your mind, Your Highness.”

“Not to you.” Anabel smiled with all the charm she had learned at Minuette Courtenay’s knee.

“Yes, the topic of your marriage will be foremost in the minds of both Their Majesties. Although not likely to be of the same mind, are they?”

“I don’t suppose either of them is interested in my thoughts on the matter?”

“Indeed, the queen would very much like it if you would write to His Majesty, King James of Scotland. On your own account, you understand, as simply another young royal on this island of ours. No need for promises yet.”

“Not that I am in a position to make promises, am I? That will be a matter for the queen and her council.”

Burghley said gravely, “Yes, Your Highness.”

Anabel stood abruptly, hardly noticing as Burghley of necessity did likewise. She stalked to the window and forced herself to linger there as though studying the view, rather than display the full range of her discontent by continued movement. “What does one write to a child, do you think? James may be king, but he has had even less autonomy than I, thanks to his inflexible councilors.”

“King James is nearly fourteen, Your Highness, and the protectorship ended this winter. Not so much a child.”

Anabel counted to twenty, as Pippa had taught her to do when she longed to lose her temper. Then, with a forced smile of acquiescence, she faced Burghley. “Of course I shall be glad to write to my cousin James. If nothing else, we can commiserate on being surrounded by those determined to live our lives for us.”

Burghley might be fond of her, but he was a committed queen’s man. And he was far too old—almost sixty—to appreciate how difficult it was to be young and vibrant and yet have every moment of every day decided by someone else. He looked rather like a stern grandfather when he said, “Princess Anne, every man—and woman—is born where God wishes them to be. We have no say in that matter, only in how we adorn the position to which we are
called. Do not be so quick to dismiss the responsibilities of your life, for they march in hand with your privileges.”

No one other than Burghley could make her feel ashamed…except perhaps the Duke of Exeter. Anabel sighed, then said sincerely, “I thank you for your kind counsel.”

But don’t think I don’t resent it at the same time, she thought. For what royal appreciated being told she was wrong?

THREE

J
ulien LeClerc threw open the door to his Paris chambers well after midnight, smelling of alcohol and unsavory neighborhoods, and swore once at the sight of the lit candle and the figure sitting calmly in the chamber’s only chair.

“Did I startle you?” Nicolas, in the best tradition of older brothers everywhere, managed to look both amused and disapproving.

“Not remotely.” And it was mostly true, for Julien had been expecting something of the sort since Charlotte’s last letter. He’d known someone would come to try and guilt him personally. He’d even more or less resigned himself to it being Nicolas, for his brother could effortlessly manipulate his guilt to get whatever he wanted.

He had not expected Nicolas to get to his feet and put his hands on Julien’s shoulders, studying his unshaven face intently.

“What are you doing?” Julien wrenched away.

“Assessing how drunk you are. I don’t want to have this conversation twice.”

“How about we don’t have this conversation even once?”

With that pitying smile, Nicolas said, “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“Don’t I?” Julien retorted. Then, altering his voice to sound more like his brother’s, he parodied savagely, “ ‘Please come home, Julien, Charlotte’s begging your presence and it’s been two years now, long enough for Father to pretend to have forgiven you for not being there when Mother died and how am I to be the saint when I haven’t a sinner in residence to play off against?’ ”

In the stark silence that followed, Nicolas didn’t falter. He only said, after a moment too long, “If you’re aiming to sound like me, you’ll have to pitch your voice somewhat higher.”

And just like that, Julien was humbled. “I’m sorry, Nic. I am. It appears I am just drunk enough to be offensive but not drunk enough to be incoherent.”

“Well, since you’ve covered my essential arguments for coming home, there is only one point I can add.”

“And that is?”

“We miss you.”

Julien heaved a sigh and threw himself onto the bed. Nicolas returned to the chair and they stared at one another for a long minute until Julien had to laugh. “You always were more patient than me.”

“Which is why I always get my way. Well, nearly always.”

“I suppose if I don’t agree, then my next visitor will be Charlotte?”

Nicolas looked around the chamber, at the unmade bed and clothing dropped in heaps and several unwashed piles of crockery. “If Charlotte sees the way you’re living, she’ll hector you into far more than just one visit home. So if you don’t want to be harassed every day for the next year about living somewhere more decent, then come to Blanclair this summer and make everyone happy.”

“Everyone?”

“Felix cannot wait to see his uncle again. He has not let go of the short sword you sent him for Christmas. He thinks you are something of a cross between a Crusader and an avenging angel.”

“Pity to disappoint him with my presence, then,” Julien said, but it was halfhearted. He did want to see his nephew, who was almost eight years old now. “And Father?” he asked, because Nicolas was waiting for him to ask.

“He’s lonely. Of course he wants to see you.”

Julien scrubbed his hands across his face, feeling the grime that he never seemed able to sluice off entirely in Paris. He thought of Blanclair and its fields and woods and the chateau itself, imbued with childhood and warmth. He rarely let himself think of home because it hurt too much. But maybe Nicolas was right. Maybe it was time.

He ran his hands through his hair and narrowed his eyes at his brother. “What about Charlotte’s plan to marry one of us off to the Courtenay girl?” Charlotte thought she was so subtle, but no one knew her better than her brothers. They could sniff out her matchmaking plots in a second.

“Hardly a girl any longer,” Nicolas pointed out mildly. “Lucette is twenty-two.”

“You know what I mean. You’ll not marry again and I’m hardly suitable marriage material. I hope Charlotte hasn’t got the girl all in a romantic twitter about one or both of us. Well, you, really. You haven’t forgotten how she trailed you around all the weeks we spent in England?”

“Nor have I forgotten how much she disliked you. If Lucette has half as much spirit now as she did when she was ten years old, I think this could be quite an exciting summer.”

“Just so she knows from the first that she won’t be leaving France with a husband. At least not one from Blanclair.”

“No,” Nicolas agreed, and there was a note of wistful longing that made Julien want to swear. Or hit someone. “Try to be polite, Julien. Father is quite fond of her, what with her having been born at Blanclair.”

Julien’s head ached, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. “I’ve said that I’ll come, Nic. I’ll play the penitent nicely for Charlotte’s sake, and
for Felix. I will endeavour to be the soul of civility to Lucette Courtenay. Just don’t ask me to be other than I am.”

“A dissolute drunkard possessed of a wicked reputation with women?” Nicolas stood and reached for his cloak. “That’s just a part you play, Julien. I know who you really are.”

Julien shut his eyes and heard Nicolas walk out and close the door. His brother had no idea who he really was—and all the better for him.

—

Nicolas LeClerc hadn’t been to Paris for years, and he found to his surprise that he rather enjoyed the city. He’d stayed away so long under the assumption that there would be too many painful memories of his youth. For all Julien’s behavior now, it had been Nicolas who had been on the path to being—if not a dissolute drunkard—at least well and truly wicked with women.

Everyone had always assumed Julien was the libertine, because he was younger and lighthearted, with a ready tongue and open heart that won him friends everywhere. But when it came down to it, Julien was a romantic. He believed in things like true love and honour—sometimes Nicolas thought his brother should have been born three hundred years earlier. He was not hardheaded enough for the modern world.

Nicolas, however, knew how to appreciate what was in the world around him, not colour it with what he’d like it to be. And in the real world, he was wealthy, he was handsome, and he’d had girls flocking to his bed from the time he was fourteen. Take, for instance, their visit to England a dozen years ago. He had found plenty of pretty girls willing to welcome the two exotic Frenchmen, but Julien had spent the entire time mooning over the Duchess of Exeter. Not that Nicolas could fault his brother’s taste, for she was a truly beautiful woman. But Julien had as much chance of a kiss from Minuette Courtenay as he had of becoming pope—and why waste time dreaming
over a woman with a husband as forbidding as Minuette’s when there were plenty of girls willing to help you forget?

Nicolas returned to the LeClerc town house on the banks of the Seine in a much more salubrious neighborhood than Julien’s. Another example of his brother’s mystifying rectitude—he preferred to provide for himself in the gutter rather than make use of their own home. All because he felt guilty: for what he’d done to Nicolas, for the lies he’d told his family these last eight years, for not being at Blanclair when their mother died.

He’d shown up in time for Nicole LeClerc’s funeral mass, making no excuses. Nicolas knew where he’d been and what he’d been doing, but he had let Julien hug his guilt to himself. Nicolas had a better use for that information than confronting his brother.

As he had very good use for Lucette Courtenay’s impending visit.

Before going to bed he wrote two letters at the mother-of-pearl inlaid desk that had belonged to his mother. The first was to Charlotte, assuring his sister that Julien would come home this summer.

The second was addressed to a man whose name was most certainly not the one by which Nicolas called him.
She is coming
, was all it said.