Free The Flower Reader by Elizabeth Loupas Page A

aid?
    “Your ladies are still in the back of the church,” the man said. His voice was familiar. “I mean you no harm; I swear it. We have met before, although you may not remember me—I am Nicolas deClerac, and I was in Mary of Guise’s household as one of her French secretaries. I have come back to Scotland with her daughter to serve in a similar capacity.”
    “I remember you,” I said. I remembered also that I had associated him with nightshade, beautiful to the eye but deadly. “I did not like you or trust you then. What do you want with me now?”
    He smiled, just a little. “I see one does not have to guess to know your true feelings,” he said. “I want nothing from you, madame, other than to know you are safe, and to offer you my
condoléances
. I went to the room where you had been lying in, and found it empty.”
    I remembered him from the night of the old queen’s death, yes, but there was something more. Not just his voice and his hair and his face with its hard bones and austere features—yes, austere, for all the Frenchified cosmetics. Something more immediate. His clothes—black, like all the queen’s household, but particularly elegant, shoes of fine soft and polished leather, his long legs in silk stockings gartered with silver—
    Monsieur Nicolas de Clerac carried you here—he was passing by in the High Street when you fell, and rescued you from the crowds.
    “It was you,” I said. “In the street. When—” I choked on the words.
    He inclined his head. “It was my good fortune to be in the street for the celebrations at just that moment. I wish I could have been there soon enough to save your husband’s life.”
    “Did you see?” I reached out and grasped his doublet. I would wrinkle the pristine black figured silk. I did not care.
“Did you see who killed him?”
    He took my hand. I think he meant to hold me up if I fainted. Or perhaps he was just concerned for the line of his fine clothing.
    “No,” he said gently. “He was dressed in dark clothes and a hooded cloak, but so were a hundred others. It happened very quickly. He may have meant to kill you, too, madame. He made no attempt to steal your husband’s purse or dagger, so I do not believe his motive was simple thievery.”
    Lady Margaret Erskine had said the same thing.
Your Alexander died because of that silver casket
.
    “What, then?” I said.
    He looked away for a moment, into the half-ruined choir behind the crossing. Did he see the ghosts of long-dead Augustinian canons there? I thought I heard a rustling sound, soft footfalls, as if the monks were pacing in procession. For all his elegant and elaborate clothing and cosmetics there was a contradictory sense of asceticism about Nicolas de Clerac; I could just as easily see him in a habit and cowl.
    He said, “I do not know. But if you will allow me, I will make an effort to find out.”
    I was beginning to feel dizzy and I was not quite sure I had heard him correctly. I pulled my hand away from his. “Why would you do that?”
    “Perhaps because I was so close by when it happened,” he said. “Perhaps because I believe it is in the queen’s interest to discover the truth.”
    “I will learn the truth for myself.”
    “Madame, you may still be in danger. Come, let me escort you back to your chamber. Your husband is safe here, and your place is with your child.”
    That made me angry. It was not for Monsieur Nicolas de Clerac to tell me where my place was. Nor did he have any legitimate reason to offer to help me. My legs were shaking and I was beginning to feel that too-light feeling again, but I had enough of my wits about me to pretend to accept his offer. Better to keep the devil at the door, as Jennet would say, than to turn him out of the house. I would keep Monsieur de Clerac at my door until I could find out what his motives were.
    “If you wish to help me, look at this,” I said. “Whoever washed and dressed him and laid him here did not pay