Twilight of a Queen Read online

  “You are not by any chance kin to the glaziers who had their workshop in Cheapside?”

  Jambe beamed, puffing out his chest with pride. “Indeed I am, milady, although I never had any talent for the trade myself. But my great-grandfather was a most skilled artisan and helped fit the stained glass for many of the city churches. My father always said it broke the old man’s heart when the reformists smashed much of his beautiful work, calling it idolatry.”

  “So your family is Catholic?” Jane asked softly.

  “We were until the old King Henry outlawed it. Then we were members of the king’s church, but we almost had to become Protestors under his son. Then came Bloody Mary and back we went to the Popish ways again. Now under Elizabeth, we follow old Henry’s ways again, taking care to stay away from the Puritans because good Queen Bess don’t like them any more than she does Papists.”

  “Mind your tongue, Jambe,” Xavier warned. “Lady Danvers is a Catholic, although she certainly has paid a heavy price for remaining true to her faith.”

  When Jambe regarded her questioningly Jane explained, “I have been exiled from England, partly because I sought to smuggle a priest into my house to say the mass.”

  That was a part of her history she had never even confided to Xavier. He twisted in his chair to scowl at her. “What in heaven’s name were you thinking, Jane? To risk everything, your home, your life for such a trifle.”

  “I suppose it was heaven I was thinking of,” she replied with a sad smile. “The rituals of our faith were not trifling to me or the members of my household.

  “Of course, I had no idea the priest that I found was involved in a plot to assassinate the queen. That I would never condone. But even though it nearly cost me everything, including my life, I do not regret defying English law to secure the comforts of our religion for my people. Because—”

  “I know.” Xavier vented a long-suffering sigh. “Because it was the right thing to do.”

  Jane smiled ruefully. To her surprise, it was Pietro who appeared to be the most understanding. He nodded in quiet approval while Jambe scratched his head.

  “Beg pardon, your ladyship. Perhaps these matters of faith be more clear to one of your birth and education. But it gets fair confusing for the more common people like me. Sometimes it seems safest to be a heathen like friend Pietro here.”

  “Unless the Spanish Inquisition ever lays hold of you,” Xavier drawled.

  “Damned devils.” Jambe clapped his hand to his mouth. “Sorry, milady.”

  “You must forgive my friend,” Pietro said. “While we were in St. Malo, we heard tidings of the Spanish that angered Jambe greatly.”

  “What tidings?”

  Xavier leaned forward and fixed Jambe with a warning glare. “I don’t think her ladyship needs to hear any idle reports you chanced to pick up.”

  “Yes, I do,” Jane cried. “Please.”

  Jambe cast an uncertain glance from her back to his captain. Xavier scowled, but then he shrugged and leaned back. Taking that for assent, Jambe said, “It is considered fair certain the armada will set sail this month. If France does nothing to intervene, those Spanish dogs could be swarming up our coast.”

  Jane felt herself pale, her grip tightening on the edge of the table. Jambe’s eyes glistened fiercely as he added, “If that happens, Captain, I am going home.

  “I don’t know how much use an old man with one leg will be against all those Spanish swords and muskets, but I’ll give every last drop of my blood afore I ever see Philip of Spain on the throne at Whitehall instead of our grand old Bess.”

  Pietro placed his large hand on the little man’s shoulder. “I am with you, my friend. I am pleased to fight the Spanish anytime, anywhere.” He turned to Xavier. “That would be the best course for all of us, Captain, to seek out Sir Francis Drake. He said if we ever required employment, he would be pleased to take us on again.”

  “Aye,” Jambe put in eagerly. “And you know Sir Francis. Even in the midst of a bloody war, Drake will manage to take a few prizes. We could come away with our pockets well lined with gold.”

  “Bah, is that all you ever think about?” Pietro asked. “My people, the Cimmarones, used to raid the Spanish mule teams and take their gold all the time. We buried it in the hills never to be found, just to annoy the Spanish.”

  “Don’t speak of it, lad,” Jambe groaned. “It makes me ill just to think of such waste. All that lovely gold.”

  “Gold is of no importance. Now iron, that is a useful metal. With iron you can make fine weapons and cooking pots.”

  “Humph. If you have enough gold, you can buy all the weapons and pots that you want.”

  The two fell into an amiable bickering that might have amused Jane under other circumstances. But talk of the armada filled her with anxiety. She looked to Xavier for reassurance, but found none in the grim cast of his countenance.

  Xavier sipped his wine and frowned. “I have no wish to distress you, my dear. But I fear England’s best hope for victory lies with the French. From what I have heard, King Henry and his mignons already have a great admiration for Drake and his exploits. One of those painted fops actually wears a miniature portrait of Sir Francis. That could well inspire the king to come to Elizabeth’s aid. It is not impossible.”

  “But not damn likely.” Jambe snorted. “Especially since the real power in this country seems to be that duc de Guise and his Catholic league.”

  “Jambe speaks true, Captain,” Pietro said. “Didn’t that letter you deciphered say that de Guise has made some sort of devil’s bargain with the Spanish?”

  “Letter?” Jane asked, glancing questioningly toward Xavier. He explained about the missive he had intercepted when he had captured the Spanish ship last spring.

  “It was in code but the message implied that the Spanish king has paid de Guise to prevent the French from allying with the English by causing some sort of diversion.”

  “What kind of diversion?” Jane asked anxiously.

  “I have no idea. I am not even sure that I translated the letter correctly.” Xavier shrugged. “In any case, the duke never received the letter, so he has done nothing.”

  “But surely by this time the Spanish will have found some other way to contact the duke,” Pietro said.

  “Likely they have.” Xavier took a sip of wine. “As I told the pair of you before, I have no objections to seeking a place with Drake. But I must conclude my business with Queen Catherine this afternoon.”

  Jane sucked in a deep breath. If talk of the armada made her fearful, Xavier’s intention to seek another audience with Catherine had the power to tighten her stomach into a hard knot.

  “Captain, I know you want to protect that young girl by convincing the queen to leave her alone, but have you not already accomplished that?” Pietro demanded.

  “No, I need to be sure.”

  “But this game of yours has always been too dangerous.”

  “Ah, but this time, I intend to win.”

  Xavier cut off any further argument by getting to his feet. “The rain appears to have stopped. My Lady Danvers must get back to her cousin’s and I have a rendezvous with a queen.”

  He tossed some coins to Jambe to settle the reckoning and then extended his hand to Jane to escort her from the inn.

  Jane rose slowly gathering up her basket. Xavier had left her with the impression that his purpose in charming the queen was to secure himself another ship. But clearly once again Jane had misjudged him and Xavier in his pride had allowed her to do so.

  As they emerged from the inn, Jane pressed his arm. “Xavier, please, may I have a word alone with you?”

  “That sounds ominous. What have I done now?” he jested. He led her away to a quieter corner of the yard, out of the path of a troop of mounted traveling merchants. Smiling down at her, he tripped over a stray board that had fallen from a stack of haphazardly piled lumber.

  Smothering an oath, he caught himself, clutching at a barrel a
nd dislodging the lid. As Xavier was replacing it, an angry voice shouted out, “You there! What do you think you are doing?”

  Xavier glanced around, his brows lifting in haughty surprise. “Nothing that need concern you.”

  The man that had shouted strode toward them. One of the inn’s ostlers, he had an unpleasant countenance, his complexion the hue of raw meat. He bore down upon them in such a menacing fashion that Xavier stepped in front of Jane.

  “Get away from there!” the man roared. “We will tolerate no spies here.”

  “Spying? Upon what?” Xavier asked, looking nonplussed.

  The ostler flushed, his chest heaving with indignation. “Upon the establishment of an honest Catholic citizen, that’s what you Huguenots do, isn’t it?”

  “Do I look to you like the sort of man who sings psalms? This is my only religion.” Xavier shifted his cloak, his hand coming to rest upon the hilt of his sword.

  The gesture filled Jane with more apprehension than their antagonist. Not yielding an inch, the ostler doubled his hands into fists.

  “Maybe you aren’t a Protestor, but I’d wager your lady there is. She’s English, I heard her accent.”

  “You have no business remarking upon my lady at all.”

  Jane’s heart raced with alarm that this incident could escalate out of control owing to sheer masculine pride and belligerence.

  Slipping from behind Xavier, she addressed the angry ostler in her most reasonable and earnest tone. “Pray, sir, you have nothing to fear from me. I am English, but I am a Catholic exile and I have no interest in spying upon anyone. Whatever we have done to alarm or offend you, it was most unwitting.”

  Gazing down at Jane, the ostler’s face softened, his hard expression waxing a trifle sheepish. “Pardon. My mistake,” he muttered. “These are tense days here in Paris, my lady. It is not a good time to be prying into what does not belong to you.”

  “We have no interest in your damn barrels,” Xavier snapped.

  Jane tugged on Xavier’s arm, managing to draw him away. She did not feel easy until she saw the ostler disappear inside the stable.

  But now Xavier was the one who was frowning with suspicion. “What the devil was that all about?”

  “I daresay that man was hiding something of an illegal nature in his barrel,” Jane conjectured. “Perhaps from the king’s revenue officers.”

  “That barrel held nothing but rocks, Jane.” Xavier’s brow furrowed. “It is strange, but now that I think upon it, I have noticed such refuse heaped up near the other inn where we stayed. Stray boards, barrels, crates, piles of rubble almost as though people were preparing.”

  “Preparing for what?”

  “I don’t know.” Xavier shook his head. “It would make more sense if they were gathering up weapons. There should not be anything alarming about a few barrels and old boards, and yet it renders me damned uneasy.”

  He seized Jane’s hands in a firm grip. “I want you out of this city. Go back to Faire Isle and take your wretched cousin with you.”

  “Abby would never consent to go to Faire Isle.”

  “Then knock her over the head. It is too dangerous for you to remain here.”

  “How can you talk to me of danger when you insist upon going back to that witch?”

  “If Catherine is a witch, then this city is a seething cauldron. Paris seemed bad enough to me when I was here last autumn and that was before the king banned the duc de Guise from coming to the city. The duke is practically a patron saint to the people of Paris. If he should defy the king’s order, you could find yourself in the middle of a revolution.”

  “I don’t care anything about dukes or revolutions,” Jane said. She laid her hand alongside his cheek. “All I care about is you. I beg you, Xavier. Don’t return to the queen. I am sorry if I ever doubted you. Your bluster about hoping to acquire a ship was all nonsense. You are doing this because of Meg, aren’t you?”

  Xavier’s pursed his lips as though he was seeking a way to deny it. Finally he sighed. “The girl trusted me and I disappointed her as well as my sisters. And you. Maybe I would like to prove to you all that I am not such a worthless rogue.”

  “You have nothing to prove to anyone.”

  “Perhaps I need to prove something to myself. For most of my life I have been motivated by pure self-interest. I have always had a gift for chicanery and deception. This time I can put my talents to good use and convince the queen to leave Meg in peace forever. Just one more trance is all it will take.”

  He caught her hand and pressed a kiss against her palm, cajoling her with his eyes. “I have always been a scoundrel. Let me play the hero for once, Jane. I swear I won’t make a habit of it.”

  Xavier untied his purse from his belt. “If anything should go wrong, I want you to take this and use it to leave Paris.”

  Jane backed away, shaking her head vehemently. “N-no, it would be like saying you won’t come back.”

  “Then take it just to keep it safe for me,” Xavier insisted, forcing it into her hands. “I swear I will come to claim it in a few hours.”

  He brushed a kiss upon her cheek. “Although it wouldn’t hurt if you said a prayer for me. I haven’t had much trade with the Almighty for years. But I am sure he would listen if the prayer came from you.”

  Jane nodded, her throat too thick with tears to speak. What a fool she had been to think she could guard her heart from this man. She had not been able to stop loving him and never would. She ought to find the courage to tell him so.

  But Xavier was already striding away entrusting her to Jambe and Pietro, bidding them to see her safely back to her cousin’s.

  Jane would far rather the two men accompanied Xavier, but it was clear he had resolved to go alone. Jane stood on tiptoe, straining for a last glimpse of Xavier. Almost as though—Jane could scarce acknowledge the fear—almost as though she would never see him again.

  As he disappeared from view, she could not still the dark shiver of apprehension that coursed through her.

  Jambe patted her shoulder. “There, now, my lady. The captain will be all right. I think the man is a bit of a magician. I never saw him land in any scrape he could not get out of.”

  “Indeed,” Jane rallied, attempting to smile. “I should not let him worry or tease me so. He—he is a very wicked man.”

  “Or at least he tries hard to be,” Pietro added softly.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  XAVIER KNELT IN THE CENTER OF THE PENTAGRAM drawn on the salon floor. He would have preferred feigning his trance up in the astrological tower, alone with Catherine as he had done before.

  His performance did not seem as effective to him in the sunlit salon. But the queen had declared that she was not well enough to mount the tower stairs. She had sagged down in her chair, the woman appearing as though she scarcely possessed the stamina to hold her head upright.

  Her advancing years appeared to be telling upon her to a marked degree. Her life did not look as though it could be of much longer duration.

  Xavier knew this would be his last audience. All he needed to accomplish was to see that she forgot Meg for all time.

  Xavier closed his eyes and extended his arms. Without Pietro to play the drum, Xavier was forced to focus on the rhythm of his own heart. To fake his trance, he recalled the sensations of what it had been like to fall into a real one. What it had been like when his magic elixir had seized hold of his mind. He pictured the bursts of colors behind his eyes, the sensation of soaring, his body transforming itself.

  He chanted softly, feeling the power surge through him. He became the jaguar, sleek, swift, and cunning. Flinging back his head, he emitted a low growl. He fixed his gaze in a glazed expression as though he no longer saw the room, but peered into some hidden realm.

  In truth he was fully aware of Catherine. The queen’s head bobbed forward, her chin all but resting on her chest. For one outraged moment, Xavier felt that she had fallen asleep, during what was surely the best p
erformance of his life.

  “You may ask your questions now,” he intoned.

  When no response came from her, he had to repeat his command a little louder. Catherine’s head snapped up. She dragged her hand across her face as though willing herself to be more alert.

  She said, “Tell me my future. What does the next year hold for me?”

  “I see wealth and prosperity, a new zest for life as your ships sail the ocean to harvest for you all the riches and mystery of the New World.”

  “And who do you see leading this expedition?”

  For a moment, Xavier experienced the old temptation, to use his influence over Catherine to advance his own interests. But he had already come too close once to selling his soul to this woman.

  “That part of the vision is not clear to me,” he said.

  “Indeed?” the queen murmured. “And what does the future hold for my young enemy, Megaera?”

  Xavier furrowed his brow as though lost in deep consideration. He closed his eyes. “She—she will perish of pneumonia. All memory of her will fade, her legend forgotten.”

  Xavier was a little startled. Where had that prediction come from? In his mind, it was not Meg that he saw vanishing into the grave, but Catherine.

  Silence descended after this prophecy as Xavier awaited the queen’s next question. She asked, “What is your greatest fear?”

  The question surprised Xavier into opening his eyes. He was further startled to find the queen standing over him. Far from appearing weak, her eyes blazed into his.

  “What is your greatest fear?” she repeated.

  Xavier felt her gaze pierce his mind like a burning brand. Before he could prevent it, the old images flashed through his mind, being abandoned by his father, taken prisoner by the Spanish, the endless days chained to the oars of the galley.

  He closed off the memories, steeling his expression, struggling not to betray himself.

  “I don’t understand the question,” he said.

  Catherine cocked her head to one side, regarding him with a smile. “How strange. That is what your mother always used to say when seeking to evade my questions. It never worked for her either.”