The Boleyn Reckoning (16 page)

“You’ve told me before that, where kings are concerned, love will always be weighted on one side. Does it not seem to you that Minuette’s love may not be as highly weighted as William’s?”

“Say what you mean, Robert.” And why do you care? she wondered. Perhaps because Robert thought his own love weightier than hers, and in a roundabout manner was asking for a reassurance she would never give.

“England has seen this behavior before—a king so in love he defied everyone to have his bride. I know you often wondered about the depth of your mother’s love in return. Do you ever worry about Minuette’s?”

It was true that Minuette had become far more reticent in the last year or two, much less likely to share her mind with Elizabeth. But surely that was normal when a man became more important than a friend. Surely it only meant Minuette was growing up.

“We are going to Hatfield next week for a respite before King Philip’s arrival in August. I will talk to her then. If there is anything for me to worry about, I will know it when we are alone and far away from court.”

“Be discreet, Elizabeth. Navigating between two people in love can be a delicate business.”

For the first time since Dudley Castle, Robert touched her. His fingertips were light as a summer breeze on her cheek, and Elizabeth
crossly noted that her trembling was out of all proportion. Robert’s instincts were always pitch-perfect, and gently he curved his hand to her throat and tipped her chin up with his thumb. His kiss was both apology and promise, and Elizabeth let all thoughts of Minuette and William and King Philip slip away.

When William told him of the ceremony planned for Minuette’s birthday gift, Dominic was struck well and truly speechless. I should have seen this coming, he thought frantically. But he hadn’t, and now he had to cope with only an hour’s warning.

“With Rochford temporarily banished from court, you and Norfolk are the only dukes at my disposal,” William said. “I need you both standing by me to lend weight and seriousness. No one must be in doubt as to my purpose in making Minuette a marquess.”

Genevieve Antoinette Wyatt, Marquess of Somerset—how could anyone be in doubt of William’s purpose? Only one woman in England’s history had been granted that title in her own right: Anne Boleyn, just months before her secret marriage to Henry. Anne’s title of Marquess of Pembroke had been granted her because of the king’s upcoming visit with the French king, for which he had wanted Anne with him. Without a royal divorce, Anne’s position had been a fragile one to take part in such a formidable state visit, so Henry had granted her a title and lands that made her the equal of many English nobles.

“I would have liked to give Minuette my mother’s same title,” William went on blithely, unaware of Dominic’s clenched-tight jaw and furious nerves. “But we made William Herbert the Earl of Pembroke five years ago. And the Somerset title will tie in neatly
with yours, Dom, for the bulk of Minuette’s lands will stretch north of the Exeter estates.”

Very neat indeed
, Dominic wanted to say,
granting a husband and wife adjoining lands
. He ignored the tiny, cynical voice that whispered those combined lands in the traditionally volatile west country would make a good power base from which to resist the Crown.

It would never come to that. He wouldn’t let it.

“It’s only fitting,” William continued. “With King Philip’s visit, I want Minuette to have the position she deserves. I will not have Europe say that she is not worthy of riches and power.”

“How did she take the news?” Dominic managed to ask. He was finding it harder to speak Minuette’s name in William’s presence.

The king’s grin was a painful reminder of years of uncomplicated friendship. “It’s a surprise. I told her what to wear and to be ready for an escort just before noon. I can’t wait to see the look on her face.”

Neither could Dominic. He was not one of those sent to escort her—that duty fell to several women of the nobility, including the Countess of Pembroke and, with obvious reluctance and distaste, the Duchess of Suffolk—but Dominic stood to the side of William’s throne when she entered the Great Hall of Hampton Court and had a perfect view of his wife’s pale, composed face. She looked neither surprised nor delighted. Numb, rather.

Obviously Minuette had known what was coming, if only for the few minutes it had taken to walk from her chambers to the Great Hall, for the Countess of Pembroke carried a red robe of estate in her arms and a page in William’s own royal livery bore a pillow on which rested a marquess’s coronet. There were rustles and the hint of whispers as those in attendance bowed and curtsied as Minuette walked past them to the dais upon which William
waited on his throne. The king, Dominic, and the Duke of Norfolk all wore heavy velvet robes of estate capped with creamy ermine fur and their own coronets—William his favorite crown set with diamonds and rubies, the two dukes with the eight stylized strawberry leaves circling the ever-present red velvet.

Minuette looked at no one as she took the last few steps to the dais and then sank into the most graceful of kneeling positions. Dominic’s heart wanted to break at the beauty and poignancy of her figure, all alone with the skirt of her vivid gown pooled around her.
Like blood
, his mind whispered—for in memory he could see the red of Alyce de Clare’s gown around her broken body three years ago.

Archbishop Cranmer, beginning to look old in the last few months, unrolled the patent he held and read aloud.
“To all and singular, as well nobles and gentles as others to whom these shall come: it is the king’s pleasure by this patent to confer on the lady Genevieve Antoinette Wyatt, in her own right and on her offspring, the noble title Marquess of Somerset. And also by this patent to grant her lands worth one thousand five hundred pounds per year for the maintaining of her dignity.”

There was silence, more profound than any gasps, at the amount of property William had granted her. There could be only a handful of men in the kingdom as wealthy as Minuette now was—and of women, only Elizabeth could equal her.

William knew all the practiced moves of royalty and effected them with unusual grace today. He flung back his robe to stand and stepped off the dais to take both Minuette’s hands in his. She looked at the king then—how could she not?—and allowed him to raise her up. Dominic could hardly breathe for tension, as William took the coronet of a marquess—similar to the dukes, but decorated with four strawberry leaves and four silver balls—and placed it on Minuette’s gloriously golden hair. The king stepped
behind her then in order to relieve the Countess of Pembroke of the robe of estate, and with great care placed it around Minuette’s shoulders himself. Dominic thought he was not the only one holding his breath as William’s hands lingered on her shoulders and then, so everyone could be sure to mark the gesture, he kissed her on the nape of her neck.

Dominic had to close his eyes then. He forced himself to breathe deeply and waited until he heard William’s voice. “Your patent of nobility, my lady.”

He opened his eyes to see William hand her the patent, and Minuette said tremulously, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Anyone else would have thought her tremulous because of the great honour and her awareness of what it meant to her future. Perhaps those watching thought her overcome by triumph or awed by what a king’s love had set in motion.

But Dominic knew better. Minuette shot one look at him from over William’s shoulder and in that instant he saw the tears held deep and the terror that things were so much worse than they had counted on, and how were they ever to extricate themselves from the ties of property and nobility and gratitude?

The Duke of Norfolk laid a cautionary hand on Dominic’s arm. “Not happy about this, either?” Norfolk hissed under his breath as the herald announced, “His Majesty, the king, and the Lady Genevieve Wyatt, Marquess of Somerset.”

As the king and Minuette processed out of the Great Hall, Dominic set his jaw and looked at Norfolk. “What?”

“He’s moving into deep waters,” Norfolk continued, obviously guessing he had an ally, although he couldn’t possibly guess Dominic’s true motive. “I’m not sure marrying his sister to Spain will undo the damage the king has done today.”

Dominic stepped abruptly away. He was sick of politics and
everyone at court who saw Minuette solely as a pawn in their games or an obstacle to their plans. Could they not see how troubled she was?

His sudden movement took him into Elizabeth’s path, in deep conversation with Lord Burghley, the new Lord Chancellor. The Princess of Wales looked troubled herself, and that impression deepened when she met Dominic’s eyes. There was a depth and intensity to the way she searched his face that made Dominic afraid of what he might be showing.

As he escaped the Great Hall, his firm stride and forbidding expression keeping everyone well away, Dominic thought how pathetic it was that once again he was jealous at how William had trumped him in giving Minuette a birthday gift. But William would always trump him, wouldn’t he? Dominic had said as much to Minuette once:
You will be queen, Minuette … William is everything you could ever want
.

He isn’t you
, she’d answered. But that had been ages ago, when they had both believed all they need do was want something to make it happen.

If the price for their happiness was the destruction of William himself … was that a price Minuette was still willing to pay?

Robert Dudley met with Walsingham in the latter’s small chamber at Hampton Court. It was square and plain and devoid of personality, as though the man who rested there took care not to leave any imprint of himself behind. It was the impression Walsingham always seemed to give off—a man of power, but so carefully veiled and manipulated that he could almost be forgotten when not present.

At least he was easier to deal with than Lord Rochford. Robert leaned back in his chair and said, “How much longer do I need to distract the French ambassador with wine and women? It’s not as
though he isn’t aware of our plans with the Spanish. For that matter, what is he still doing in England? Does he want to be taken into custody when the French launch against us at last?”

“You tell me, Lord Robert,” Walsingham said without looking up from the papers he was studying. Though Robert’s father was dead and the Northumberland title gone, he’d been allowed to retain his courtesy “lord,” if only because it was how everyone was accustomed to addressing him. His oldest brother, John, was still nominally Earl of Warwick, but Robert knew how precarious their positions remained. It was why he didn’t push Walsingham too far, despite the man’s familiar tone.

“All right,” Robert responded. “Why is the French ambassador still in England? Perhaps he merely likes our women and wine … though that would be more believable in any man not French. In practical terms, he is still here because the possibility of learning something useful continues to outweigh the awkwardness of the situation. King Henri no doubt has his spies in England, but none so near the heart of the court as his own ambassador. Anger with William does not trump the need for information.”

“Very good, Lord Robert. And what information have you gleaned in your evenings with the ambassador?”

Robert wondered if Elizabeth knew precisely to what use Walsingham was putting him. Working for her intelligencer was one thing—he didn’t think her imagination had stretched to Robert drinking heavily with a man who liked his women pretty and loose. “Nothing practical. He deplores William’s new betrothal on political grounds, though he has no objection to Mistress Wyatt’s—pardon me, Lady Somerset’s—personal charms. Like all the French, he thinks William prudish in not simply making her his permanent mistress, much along the lines of Diane de Poitiers at King Henri’s court. And he thinks we are all fools for looking to the Spanish for, as he says, ‘an English princess is not an equal balance to their
armies and gold.’ But that last is mostly bluster. I would say the French are deeply worried about an English-Spanish alliance.”