The Boleyn King (37 page)

But she could not. She could not rejoice, she could not rest, she could not breathe.

She could not stop thinking of Dominic.

She closed her eyes and let everything else fade away—everything but Dominic, staring at her from across the courtyard this morning. As she pictured him—dark hair, dark gaze, dark clothes—she felt herself relax, serenity stealing its way through every part of her body and mind. She had known from the moment she’d seen him what she wanted.

Dominic was peace. Dominic was rest. Dominic was the thread of her happiness.

She stood and wrapped the heavy silk shawl tighter round her shoulders.

If Dominic wouldn’t come to her, she would go to him.

Dominic was just drifting into a hazy, alcohol-tinged doze when the light knock at his door snapped his eyes open.

“All right, I’m coming,” he muttered, pausing to throw on a loose linen shirt over the breeches he’d gone to bed in and rubbing his hands through his hair.

He wrenched the door open, prepared to stare down whoever had interrupted his attempt at sleep, Harrington or Rochford or even—maybe especially—William. Heaven help Will if he’d come to rhapsodize about Minuette again.

It was Minuette herself.

“May I come in?”

After a brief hesitation, he stepped back and let her enter. The brush of her velvet skirt against his leg sent shivers through his whole body. She was dressed tonight in shades of green, from the winter-rich hue of evergreens to the paler colour of spring grass. She must have been wearing at least ten yards of fabric, but he couldn’t look at her without imagining the outlines of her body beneath the elaborate dress. The hollow at her throat would be echoed where the hipbones met her stomach …

He forced himself to speak the hardest words he had ever uttered. “May I be the first to offer my congratulations to our future queen?”

There was a long pause in which he avoided her eyes. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps William had pulled her away tonight merely to discuss what she was wearing, or to play a game of chess. Perhaps she would deny any knowledge of what he was talking about.

She did not deny it. “He is not serious. It is the desire of a moment, and it will pass.”

Dominic shook his head slowly. “If you believe that, you know him less well than you should. He walked away from Mary Stuart for you. He will not go back.”

His head was pounding with drink and his eyes ached and every muscle in his body was held tight trying to keep from pulling her against him and letting her feel all his love and hurt and desire. All Dominic could think right now was how much he hated William.

“You are in his blood now, and he will never be free of you.” He could not stop the reckless words, no longer certain if he was describing William or himself.

“Dominic …”

“He has been half in love with you all his life. And you … you will be queen, Minuette. What more could you wish? William is everything you could ever want.”

He turned his back on her and squeezed his eyes shut. He must get himself under control. He must look at her and wish her joy and mean it.

“He isn’t you,” she whispered.

He couldn’t make himself move. He did not even seem to be breathing.

Carefully, as if the words were spun glass and might shatter under the pressure of too much feeling, Minuette said, “I love you, Dominic. And I thought that …”

He felt her come up behind him, so near that her skirts pressed against his legs. She did not touch him, but said softly into his ear, “Was I wrong? Do you not love me?”

He spun around then, unable to bear the devastating simplicity that was her most appealing quality. He put his hands gently on her shoulders and, finally, looked straight into her eyes. He had told himself that, with one look, he would know.

He did know. She loved him.

He blinked, and in that brief darkness there rose before him a dream or vision or imagining, so vivid that the back of his neck prickled. He was standing at a window, looking down at Minuette. She was walking away from him, and Dominic felt a strange mingling of despair and pride as he watched her go. And all the while, someone whispered malevolent words behind him.

Minuette moved slightly, breaking his paralysis. He wanted to move his hands from her shoulders, to feel the skin of her throat, and trace the swell of her breasts above her bodice. And not just for his own relief—more than anything Dominic wanted to make her tremble, shiver, and close her eyes as she gave herself up to him. But something in her expression held him fixed.

With those hazel eyes wide open, she leaned forward and touched her lips to one cheek and then, achingly slow, to the other. Then she drew back and examined his face, first with her eyes and then with her fingertips. She traced his eyebrows and his jaw, and drew her fingers across his lips. He opened his mouth just enough to kiss her fingertips and she did shiver then. And that was the end of his control. Dominic slid his hands along her neck into her hair and kissed her.

He had told himself once that he would wait until she came to him willingly. But he had never dreamed of just how sweet it would be. For a piercing instant he thought of her in William’s arms, but that was quickly buried beneath the taste of her mouth. He wrapped his arms around her and let the lines of her body against his erase everything that had come before.

14 November 1554
Whitehall Palace

If I were to die tonight, I would die happy
.

But I hope I don’t die
.

“Are you certain William is coming?” Elizabeth asked, for the third time in as many minutes.

Minuette’s eyes followed Dominic as he paced the king’s privy chamber and gave Elizabeth the same reply he had twice before. “I’m certain.”

“He’s an hour late.”

“Blame that on your uncle. He had something urgent to discuss with Will.” For a breathtaking instant Dominic’s eyes met Minuette’s, and she wanted to leap to him and feel his strong, familiar arms wrap around her and kiss him as she had last night, kiss him until she was dizzy …

Wanton, indeed. She dropped her gaze to her hands, linked neatly in her lap, and focused on keeping her body still and her mind tranquil so that Elizabeth might not grow suspicious. Perhaps she should count in Greek, or do six-figure sums in her head, or compose silent missives to—

“Damn it!” William swung into the room, slammed the door behind him, and dropped into the chair next to Minuette before any of them could react.

It was, naturally, Dominic who chided him. “There are ladies present, Will,” he said drily.

“Sorry. But it is truly aggravating. Just when I finally get my hands on the man, he up and dies on me.”

“Who?” Elizabeth perched in a window seat, facing William.

“Norfolk, late this afternoon. That’s what Rochford had to report.”

“How did he die?” Minuette asked, surprised. The duke had been an old man, yes, but also tough and sturdy, and she couldn’t believe arrest alone would have killed him. As she blinked, Minuette remembered the spurt of blood, her crimson-soaked hand in the lady chapel at Framlingham. She shook her head. No, Norfolk’s death, at least, could not be laid to her account.

William shrugged and said, “His heart stopped. I wouldn’t put it past him to have died simply to spite me. Without him a case will be devilishly difficult to make.”

Elizabeth narrowed her gaze. “You have others under arrest.”

“But we have almost nothing in the way of hard evidence. The Spanish are denying everything, including naval involvement, and Rochford cannot seem to lay hands on the spies who brought the reports from the Continent. Perhaps Norfolk paid them to give us false information and draw us out. Frankly, it doesn’t matter much at this point. The plot is finished, whatever minor points remain unresolved.”

“And what,” Elizabeth said intently, “will you do with Mary?”

“Mary will remain under guard at Richmond indefinitely.”

Minuette nearly shook her head, as she knew exactly what Elizabeth thought but did not say:
Too soft, William. She should be in the Tower. One of these days that chivalry will cost you
.

Dominic, who had not been still for the entire last hour, finally leaned against a wall, though Minuette noticed that he kept one foot tapping. “Now what?” he asked. “You’ve won a war, broken a rebellion—”

“Claimed the fair maiden.” William touched Minuette’s cheek, then lazily drew his hand down her neck to where she wore the filigree star pendant Dominic had given her last year. Fingering the star, William said, “What we do now is celebrate. There’s dancing in the hall, and I’ve ordered fireworks for midnight.”

He sat straighter and took Minuette’s hands in both of his. “Part of me wishes I never had to leave this room. Everything I want—” He looked at Elizabeth, then at Dominic, and back to her. “Everything I’ve ever wanted is right here.”

He leaned in, and Minuette thought desperately,
Not in front of Dominic
, but William merely pressed his lips to her forehead. Even that was enough to tumble her feelings, so that happiness whirled next to guilt and confusion danced with pleasure.

It will be all right
, she’d told Dominic last night. He had been all for going to William straightaway and confessing the truth. But Minuette knew William in a way no one else did—because she knew herself.
Give him time to come to his senses
, she’d urged Dominic.
I will make it easy for him. You know that I have always been able to bend Will to whatever I want
.

And I want you
.

William stood and pulled Minuette up with him. “We will dance and drink and, because the French ambassador is present, we will be discreet. Dominic will keep an eye on you when I cannot. Won’t you, Dom?”

Dominic had at last gone still, but there was such a sense of suppressed energy to him that it was hard to tell. William did not wait for an answer, but handed Minuette off to Dominic, then gave Elizabeth his arm. Before he opened the door, he smiled at all of them and said, “One last secret for us to keep together—the most joyous secret of all.”

As Minuette slipped her hand into Dominic’s arm, she shivered and looked up. Dominic’s grave stare mirrored her own memory, with a sting to it she had not anticipated.

There is always another secret
.

INTERLUDE

November 18, 1554
ROBERT DUDLEY PROWLED through a labyrinth of corridors beneath Whitehall Palace that few knew existed and even fewer could navigate. Beneath his carefully cultivated air of nonchalance, he was furious—enough so that he had the nerve to make it known tonight. Of course, that nerve was bolstered by a copious amount of alcohol, but as long as he got the confrontation over within the next hour he should be fine.

The door at the end of this particular malodourous corridor had been left ajar, as always. Robert thrust his way into the room, planted his feet in front of the plain table, and said, “What the hell are you playing at?”

With great deliberation, Lord Rochford eyed him through the hesitant candlelight. “How is your wife, Lord Robert? Have you gotten her with child yet?”

How he hated the man—but admired him, too, in the twisted way of wanting to exercise that sort of power. Robert gave over his temper for irritation and dropped into the chair that faced the table. “Norfolk’s dead,” he observed.

“Hmmm.”

“The Penitent’s Confession is destroyed.”

“As I knew it would be—as long as you took care to plant it where Mistress Wyatt would be sure to find it.” Rochford flicked a smile his way. “You did well at Framlingham.”

“Norfolk and Giles Howard dead—no hard evidence—no formal charges laid,” Robert mused aloud, tipping back in his chair. “How exactly is that well done?”

“You see through a glass darkly,” Rochford said. “You are not required to know all.”

“No, just to go where you tell me and deliver what you give me and threaten where you direct me … and for what? I am no nearer a divorce now than I was two years ago, and Elizabeth—”

“Remains single,” Rochford said sharply.

“But for how long? You promised that you would promote our marriage.”

“I promised an opportunity. That opportunity still exists, though I could destroy it in a heartbeat with a single name.” In the flickering light, Rochford looked positively demonic. “The name Alyce de Clare.”

“That was an accident,” Robert said through gritted teeth.

“The girl was found at the bottom of a staircase with a broken neck. Pregnant with your child. How far do you think Elizabeth would trust to an accident?”

Robert shoved himself out of the chair, his head pounding with the need to get even drunker. Now.

But Rochford stopped him with an unexpected question. “What really happened to Giles Howard in the lady chapel at Framlingham?”

Robert narrowed his eyes. “I told you I wasn’t there. Surely it’s as Dominic reported. Giles Howard had threatened violence to Minuette before—this time Dominic didn’t bother to warn him off. Why?”

With a hooded expression, Rochford said simply, “I think the young lady bears watching.”