“Oh?” Jane asked anxiously. She could not tell from Xavier’s expression if that was good or bad.
“It seems that the chevalier was rather distraught after the Spanish raid on the French settlement. If Miri should ever receive his journals, he wanted her to know how much he loved her and her sisters, but he could never come back until he found his—his son.”
“Oh, Xavier!”
“Yes, well, that was it. Just that one mention of me, just those two words. My son.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “But somehow, it is enough.”
Jane could only imagine how much that revelation meant to Xavier. His eyes had misted, but he was clearly embarrassed and behaving so gruffly about it, Jane allowed him to change the subject back to Jambe.
“The old pirate is in fine fettle. Not only does he have his bird and his gold, but he will be able to boast forever that he was one of the men who stood with Drake against the mighty Spanish armada.”
Jane thought she detected a note of wistfulness in Xavier’s voice. “Do you regret that you did not leave Paris to sail with Drake instead of remaining to defend Meg against the Dark Queen?”
Xavier shook his head. “I only regret that I was fool enough to let myself be trapped by that witch. I should have protected you better.”
“I am stronger than you think, Xavier.”
“I never underestimated your strength or courage, Jane. Like most of these women on Faire Isle, I sometimes doubt if you have need of me or any man,” he joked, but there was no mistaking the wistfulness in his eyes this time. “I hear that you have received another letter.”
“Yes.”
“From that miserable cousin of yours, I suppose?”
“No, strangely enough this one came from an old friend that I had nearly forgotten. During the attack of the armada, Philip expected the English Catholics to turn against their queen. But very few of them did. This has left Elizabeth disposed to be generous toward her Catholic subjects, even the exiled ones. Her Majesty has offered me a pardon.”
“I see.” Xavier’s hand fell away from her waist. “And of course, you wish to accept it and return home.”
“Once that is all I would have desired. I was devastated to be branded as a traitor and witch. I am neither. But I have come to realize three things. One, that I am a daughter of the earth after all. Two, that I don’t belong in England anymore.”
“And the third thing, Jane?”
She draped her arms about his neck. “That my home is wherever you are.”
It touched her heart to see how moved Xavier was by her words, and how much, despite all his bravado and bluster, this man needed her reassurance.
“You know I don’t have much to offer you. But Ariane’s husband might be willing to invest in a small ship. I appear to have intrigued him with all my tales of the New World.”
Xavier drew her closer, teasing as he always did to cover his deeper emotions. “So Jane, would you be willing to set sail with me and become a pirate?”
She smiled up at him. “Of all the prospects I considered for my future, I confess that is one I never thought of.”
“Why not? Your time on Faire Isle must have taught you that women are capable of anything. Have you never heard of Grace O’Malley, the Irish pirate queen?”
“Yes, but she was bred to the sea from her earliest years. I have a tendency to become unwell when the waves get too rough and I fear that every time you managed to steal another ship’s cargo, I would be begging you to return it.”
“My beautiful conscience,” Xavier said, his eyes gleaming with tender amusement as he kissed her.
She drew back, regarding him seriously. “Whatever the future holds, Xavier, I never want to be the one who denies you your dreams, who holds you back from all those wondrous new lands and uncharted seas you dreamed of sailing.”
“Foolish woman, you still don’t understand, do you?” he said huskily as he kissed her again.
“I have already found my far horizons in your eyes.”
About the Author
SUSAN CARROLL is an award-winning romance novelist. Some of her most recent titles include, The Huntress, The Silver Rose, The Courtesan, and The Dark Queen. She lives in Rock Island, Illinois.
Twilight of a Queen is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2009 by Susan Carroll
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carroll, Susan.
Twilight of a queen : a novel / Susan Carroll.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51504-9
1. Catherine de Médici, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France,
1519–1589—Fiction. 2. France—History—Henry II, 1547–1559—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3553.A7654T86 2009
813′.54—dc22
2009021024
www.ballantinebooks.com
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Twilight of a Queen Page 37
